Maryland Shrugs

Both him and you are wrong as usual.

Bock said: "Simplify the tax system - make *everyone* pay their equal, proportionate share."

YOU said: "I agree. But, not everyone here does. Some suggest one flat dollar amount regardless of that person's income."

No where in your statement is Uncle Albert's usage fee. A one flat dollar amount would mean the government coming to the people and saying: "All flat dollar amount for everyone. Everyone owes $10,000 a year per adult. Don't care how you get it but the money better be in our hands at the end of the year."

Uncle Albert: "If I don't get more cops and firetrucks when I dial 911, I shouldn't pay more in taxes. The services that individuals do use more or less of should be funded by usage fees. "Fair" is not contingent on your ability to pay, but on the direct benefit you receive."

So under Uncle Albert's plan a person pays a set amount of tax and then if they use something, say fire department, they have to pay a usage fee above and beyond the other tax.

That idea is not the same as one flat dollar amount for everyone. Your one flat dollar amount has no usage fees. His idea does which means his idea is not a one flat dollar amount idea.

As UA and I have had this discussion before - on this board in this forum - I didn't feel the need to spell it all out.

However, UA does did indicate that a flat dollar amount - period - should be taken out of each person's paycheck regardless of income to pay taxes.

Not a tax rate. a tax amount. regardless of the level of income.

I never said I agreed with him - in fact, stated that I did not agree with him.

Stop trying to make an argument where there isn't one.

Then you should have done a better job explaining yourself when you said some (in this case just one) people advocate a flat dollar amount per person.

Dude ... whatever.

Or you could choose not to leap immediately to the conclusion that lets you be the biggest possible ass.

I didn't leap. What she wrote doesn't match what you believe. Had she done a better job explaining it we wouldn't be here and I'd be having fun being the biggest possible ass in some other thread.

Now you're cheesing up to UA?

I know why I find him attractive - just didn't realize it was enough to make men turn gay.

That's one hell of a leap. But then again it is you and leaping without reading is something you're famous for on this board.

You're the one that put that big cheesy grin up there..

See. Leaping. And you complain I don't have a sense of humor.

Dude, if you're not laughing right now, you have no sense of humor.

Warren Buffet said his effective tax rate was 17.7% on $46 million. So the effective tax rate is nowhere near the nominal rate. You're proposing to make them almost identical. That his secretary was paying a greater percentage than him came down to payroll taxes, not the income tax.

If you mean to eliminate payroll taxes along with this, you damn well better say so explicitly.

I'm opposed to the income tax on a federal level entirely. The Feds should impose taxes on the states in proportion to their population, who should figure out their own ways to raise revenue, in addition to excises and revenue (not protectionist) tariffs; the 16th amendment was a serious mistake. This should keep the federal government to about the size I'd like it at. On the state level, I'd start with poll taxes (while I understand the historical background of the 24th amendment, absent the institutionalized discrimination, poll taxes are a valid way to pay for the functions of government) as they're an opt-out version of a head tax - don't want to participate in government? don't pay taxes. If that proves impractical (and I suspect it'd be harder to overturn the 24th than the 16th) then I'd prefer a single property tax to replace all the other state taxes. Local taxes could still exist, though I'd add in the ability for units as small as census tracts to choose their own, possibly non-local, jurisdiction, bearing in mind then that taxes may go up or services decline if a sufficiently far away jurisdiction is chosen. It would, unfortunately, mean the end of parts of Prop 13 (you could keep the limits on rate increases, but not on dollar increases), but I think it's a good tradeoff.

Barring the ability to make those sorts of changes, I'd start the flat tax at 5% above 24k with similar conditions to what you've mentioned - this explicitly does NOT remove the other payroll taxes, though I'd love to get rid of those and the programs behind them. From there, look at increasing the rate and lower bound as little as absolutely necessary.

I'd don't remember if you're one of them, PGT (and I don't have time to read the thread so I apologize if this has been covered), but it is interesting that something as simple as jacking up taxes on "the rich" and, the very next year, learning you suddenly have 33% less "rich" than you did before the tax increase, is "speculative" and doesn't have any "evidence" to support it, but that carbon dioxide (or whatever it is that Global Warmmongers are in a tizzy about) is concrete, unanimous proof that Mankind is causing Climate Change--even as the target is moved before our eyes.

That said, stupid Maryland should've been smart like Oregon's socialists: When they decided to jack up taxes on The Rich, they made the tax retroactive. Yes, they made it so, in 2010, they could come back to The Rich and say "Look, I know we said you owed us $123 dollars in taxes in 2009, but we've decided that wasn't enough. Your Fair Share for 2009 is now $231. You've got 90 days to send us a check. Or if you want to do an electronic transfer from your bank, that will work too.:hammmer: "

Ironically, even with a retroactive tax, revenues wound up going down instead of up--just like Maryland. And like Maryland, when it happened, all the press and Government went " Clearly something complex is going on her that we don't entirely understand and The Rich aren't voting with their feet."

Not ironically, but interestingly when the idea was being floated by legislators economists predicted that, if passed, the law would cost the state--which already has pretty high unemployment--something like 70,000 jobs a year. When it came time to vote on it, it looked like the law would go down in flames--until the returns from the People's Republic of Portland started coming in and the measure passed. Also interestingly, when the new law passed, states like Wyoming were taking out full page ads in Oregon business publications, saying "Come to our state! We won't fuck you!"

What, do you moonlight, working for Ms. Hilton or something? How do you know how hard she works? I suspect she's a lot smarter than you give her credit for and a lot harder working. There are plenty of families more wealthy than the Hiltons and you don't see their kids doing TV shows, commercials, and all the other projects Paris Hilton does to make money and maintain her brand. I wish I was half as smart and hard working as Paris Hilton.