VOTE DEMOCRAT IT IS EASIER THAN THINKING

[Dom182]

Originally Posted by 32AATopIPEandDub

Maybe Robert will change his mind when he gets injured or seriously sick. I'm not for universal health care not because I don't think the system works. It would definitely work for America if they're just willing to not let the rich profit off of the poor so much and just pay a little higher taxes instead of screwing the lower and middle classes over. I don't like universal health care because then the lazy unemployed are then getting health care from our tax dollars. I'd much rather go with Obama's plan over Hillary's, but the problem is that it is not single-payer. To be honest with you all, I think Dennis Kucinich would be by far the best president for the people of America.

But of course, I'm sure Robert would disagree, even though he's in debt and doesn't get any benefits from Republicans in office.

How much of their income do you think the wealthy should pay. Also what percentage of the tax burden do you think they should pay

[Robert]

Originally Posted by 32AATopIPEandDub

Maybe Robert will change his mind when he gets injured or seriously sick. I'm not for universal health care not because I don't think the system works. It would definitely work for America if they're just willing to not let the rich profit off of the poor so much and just pay a little higher taxes instead of screwing the lower and middle classes over. I don't like universal health care because then the lazy unemployed are then getting health care from our tax dollars. I'd much rather go with Obama's plan over Hillary's, but the problem is that it is not single-payer. To be honest with you all, I think Dennis Kucinich would be by far the best president for the people of America.

But of course, I'm sure Robert would disagree, even though he's in debt and doesn't get any benefits from Republicans in office.

Where's your proof?

[32AATopIPEandDub]

Originally Posted by Dom182

How much of their income do you think the wealthy should pay. Also what percentage of the tax burden do you think they should pay

I can't give you an exact number because I'm not an expert when it comes to that. But I do believe it needs to be enough to were Capitalistic America will not end up being a country of Feudalism. In the 60's, only 20% of the lower class that received an education remained in the lower class. Now over 60% of Americans remain in the lower class. Debt and inflation has enslaved everyone in the labor class, making the America the "Land of Opportunity" nothing but a myth now.

[Dom182]

Originally Posted by 32AATopIPEandDub

I can't give you an exact number because I'm not an expert when it comes to that. But I do believe it needs to be enough to were Capitalistic America will not end up being a country of Feudalism. In the 60's, only 20% of the lower class that received an education remained in the lower class. Now over 60% of Americans remain in the lower class. Debt and inflation has enslaved everyone in the labor class, making the America the "Land of Opportunity" nothing but a myth now.

Heres my point. Between my wife and I we paid $39,320 in taxes. I think that is enough. As for tax rates currently in the US the top 1% earns 15% of the income and pays 30% of the burden. The top 5% pay 50%. Top 10 63% The top 20% pay 80%. The middle 40% pay 8% The bottom 20% pay no taxes at all. As a matter of fact they pay -2% meaning they get money. That doesn't sound like enslavement to me

[Robert]

Real poverty is not having food. In America, it's not having a plasma TV or unlimited cell phone minutes. We need to be careful when we throw around terms like "poor" and "poverty". Even Americans on welfare are livin' large (See Hurricane Katrina)

[Dom182]

Originally Posted by Dom182

Heres my point. Between my wife and I we paid $39,320 in taxes. I think that is enough. As for tax rates currently in the US the top 1% earns 15% of the income and pays 30% of the burden. The top 5% pay 50%. Top 10 63% The top 20% pay 80%. The middle 40% pay 8% The bottom 20% pay no taxes at all. As a matter of fact they pay -2% meaning they get money. That doesn't sound like enslavement to me

I forgot to put in that the top 40% pay 94%

[32AATopIPEandDub]

Originally Posted by Dom182

Heres my point. Between my wife and I we paid $39,320 in taxes. I think that is enough. As for tax rates currently in the US the top 1% earns 15% of the income and pays 30% of the burden. The top 5% pay 50%. Top 10 63% The top 20% pay 80%. The middle 40% pay 8% The bottom 20% pay no taxes at all. As a matter of fact they pay -2% meaning they get money. That doesn't sound like enslavement to me

Here is the problem, Dom. You can't just look at the tax system on income. The wealthy 1% of the population don't really have any income from salary. The top 1% of America owns 40% of the wealth, whether it be real estate, stocks, etc... We have significantly lower taxes than every Western European country. And we have a much less progressive tax system than almost every Western European country. Thus, the rich in this country manage to retain a much higher share of their income than they do in other countries, and this enables them to accumulate a much higher amount of wealth than the rich in other countries.

Because the distribution of wealth is getting worse and worse as we speak, we need a tax on wealth. It's as simple as that. The top 5% in this country own over 60% of the wealth. That is incredibly uneven and no other developed industrialized country in the world comes even close.

[32AATopIPEandDub]

Originally Posted by Robert

Real poverty is not having food. In America, it's not having a plasma TV or unlimited cell phone minutes. We need to be careful when we throw around terms like "poor" and "poverty". Even Americans on welfare are livin' large (See Hurricane Katrina)

And welfare is mostly taken from the middle class to give to the poor while the wealthy evades the tax system and continue to get richer and richer.

[betteroffnow]

Only The Rich Pay Taxes

Top 50% of Wage Earners Pay 96.03% of Income Taxes

October 10, 2003

There is new data for 2001. The share of total income taxes paid by the top 1% fell to 33.89% from 37.42% in 2000. This is mainly because their income share (not just wages) fell from 20.81% to 17.53%. However, their average tax rate actually rose slightly from 27.45% to 27.50%.




*Data covers calendar year 2001, not fiscal year 2001 - and includes all income, not just wages, excluding Social Security


This proves that it was not the tax cut that caused revenues from the rich to fall, but the recession and the stock market crash. In other words, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. If you are going to benefit from the rich paying more taxes, due to progressivity, on the upside, you are going to lose more revenue from these people on the downside. This is a good argument for reducing progressivity.

Think of it this way: less than four dollars out of every $100 paid in income taxes in the United States is paid by someone in the bottom 50% of wage earners. Are the top half millionaires? Noooo, more like "thousandaires." The top 50% were those individuals or couples filing jointly who earned $26,000 and up in 1999. (The top 1% earned $293,000-plus.) Americans who want to are continuing to improve their lives - and those who don't want to, aren't. Here are the wage earners in each category and the percentages they pay:

Top 5% pay 53.25% of all income taxes (Down from 2000 figure: 56.47%). The top 10% pay 64.89% (Down from 2000 figure: 67.33%). The top 25% pay 82.9% (Down from 2000 figure: 84.01%). The top 50% pay 96.03% (Down from 2000 figure: 96.09%). The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.97% of all income taxes. The top 1% is paying more than ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%! And who earns what? The top 1% earns 17.53 (2000: 20.81%) of all income. The top 5% earns 31.99 (2000: 35.30%). The top 10% earns 43.11% (2000: 46.01%); the top 25% earns 65.23% (2000: 67.15%), and the top 50% earns 86.19% (2000: 87.01%) of all the income.

The Rich Earned Their Dough, They Didn't Inherit It (Except Ted Kennedy)



The bottom 50% is paying a tiny bit of the taxes, so you can't give them much of a tax cut by definition. Yet these are the people to whom the Democrats claim to want to give tax cuts. Remember this the next time you hear the "tax cuts for the rich" business. Understand that the so-called rich are about the only ones paying taxes anymore.

I had a conversation with a woman who identified herself as Misty on Wednesday. She claimed to be an accountant, yet she seemed unaware of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which now ensures that everyone pays some taxes. AP reports that the AMT, "designed in 1969 to ensure 155 wealthy people paid some tax," will hit "about 2.6 million of us this year and 36 million by 2010." That's because the tax isn't indexed for inflation! If your salary today would've made you mega-rich in '69, that's how you're taxed.

Misty tried the old line that all wealth is inherited. Not true. John Weicher, as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank, wrote in his February 13, 1997 Washington Post Op-Ed, "Most of the rich have earned their wealth... Looking at the Fortune 400, quite a few even of the very richest people came from a standing start, while others inherited a small business and turned it into a giant corporation." What's happening here is not that "the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer." The numbers prove it.

The rich pay more. You can thank me for educating you!

[32AATopIPEandDub]

I guess somebody didn't understand the point when I said that income taxes do not mean anything since the top 1% do not have an income of millions or billions of dollars a year where they have to pay half of it to the government. Their earnings from wealth are written off and invested back into their assets where it is TAX FREE.

You know, if you choose to stay blind and ignorant like the last poster, then that's fine. As long as you're happy.

If you think the U.S. only consists of doctors, lawyers, and the rest of the working class, then you're a fool. There are plenty of people that just own assets, invest, and continue to make more and more money with their assets with a very low tax penalty. They just live in total luxury at home, golf with their buddies, and travel around the world. Larry Ellison, who is worth 25 billion dollars, just received a 3 million tax cut to sell his Japanese styled mansion. 3 million dollars to him is like 300 dollars to us.

$3 million tax cut on Larry Ellison's estate