How you feel about taxes

[Evil Smurf]

I don't mind contributing, but when you contribute so much and hear how the country is still struggling it makes it feel useless.

In my honest opinion, lowering taxes would benefit the entire country. Lower taxes = lower prices = higher product demand = bigger workforces required to meet demand = more people paying taxes/not claiming jobseekers = more taxes to spend on police force = decreasiong drugs trade = less money being sent abroad = higher GDP = more money for construction = more people in work = more affordable housing = less people claiming housing benefits and so on

This is what I would like to see, but I don't think Mr Cameron undersrands that you can only wring a sponge out so much before you need to dip it in water again.

what can Mr Cameron understand?

 

[Matt King]

well, we kinda need to pay taxes it helps keep the country alive

 

[Smeatza]

I don't like taxes, I wish somone would come up with an alternative.

Well, hit me up when you find an alternative way for us to finance a modern society's needs.

I said someone, aka. not me.

 

[MammothBlade]

Taxes in concept are necessary for a functional government, but I really hate double taxes. You don't go taxing someone's income and then taxing their spending. That's just unfair, it nips at peoples' toes every step of the way. Council tax is unnecessary too. People shouldn't be charged for land ownership. Higher income taxes would be a fair tradeoff for the removal of VAT and council tax - taxes which hit the less well off the hardest.

 

[DANEgerous]

That more of them should go to Education and Science. I have a lot of issues with tax but if you took 50% of our military budget and out it into Education and Science the majority of my issues would be negated.

 

[Conza]

Hmm let's see how popular this opinion is (I bet some nerd will know who said it without looking for it). I challenge you to evaluate 'before' judging it, you may be surprised.

"The taxing power of government must be used to provide revenues for legitimate government purposes. It must not be used to regulate the the economy or bring about social change."

I like the idea of a progressive tax system, but I think this idea kind of makes sense, I don't want the government to change and suddenly we're being taxed more as a way to curb inflation, or vice-versa taxed less, just to make us spend more (even though individually we all love tax cuts).

 

[Reiper]

It seems intuitively wrong, but you have yet to establish why it's wrong. Why is it wrong to take more than half of what someone earns past the $250,000 mark? Especially when you consider that that 50% only applies to the money which is earned past the first few hundred thousand? It's not like they're losing over half of their total income; they're losing half of their income past a certain point. For someone to pay over half of their total income in taxes, they'd have to make enough to hit the marginal tax rates already, and blow way past them.

So why exactly should people who make more money pay more? Sure they can afford to pay more, but why exactly should they. They are already paying disproportionately much more for the same government services, which they are less likely to use than someone who makes less (welfare, EI, public health). The thing is, your example of $250,000 is not actually that much money. That person is not "rich" (at least in my mind) they are simply successful and well off. They likely worked hard to earn their wealth, and philosophically I dislike the idea of taxing success.

Also, I am not entirely against a progressive tax system, though in my mind, the top bracket should not exceed 35-40%.

Well, what would you propose as an alternative? No, seriously, let's hear it ? I'm all ears. Yeah, there need to be changes. There always need to be changes. But scrapping the system as a whole, or following the "starve the beast" republican mentality (boy, THAT ONE works out real well for the people not in the republican party, eh?) is simply not a reasonable option.

I don't know, perhaps if during elections people also voted for how much the government was allowed to tax them during that term. This way the government would understand its fiscal resources available going in, instead of going "Welp, we don't have enough money to implement bloated, bureaucratic, inefficient plan X, so lets just raise taxes", they would be forced to just not implement plan X unless they don't do it, or find a cheaper way to do it.

Or perhaps if there was a fourth arm of government (note: this might be a terrible idea and completely counter productive to what I am trying to achieve) that was tasked with monitoring all spending at all levels of government and identifying inefficiencies and wastes of money. Perhaps this arm could have simultaneous elections, so they report to the people, not the leading party, so the performance of this branch would actually be accountable. More than just monitoring though, if it actually controlled the treasury, and could deny funds to government projects deemed either wasteful or poorly planned.

Now of course like I said, this might be terrible since who knows what the cost of running this arm of government would be, but I am just spitballing.

Really? What's so anti-business? I'd be interested to know.

Well maybe not anti-business, but it feels like this forum characterizes business' and the rich as money grubbing, big nosed trolls who sit in their boardrooms counting their cash while thinking of ways to screw and hurt people for a marginally increased profit.

Hell, there are tons of businesses that aren't efficient. They fail and die.

Thats partially my point though, business' have an incentive to be efficient because if they are not, they usually die. Government is under no such obligation, because althoguh it may be accountable in elections, most people do not pay enough attention of care enough when the government wastes money here and there. Sure if you find out the government has been paying off its contractor friends or accepting kickbacks everyone gets outraged, but when they waste / mismanage money its not seen as a huge deal.

In my mind the government is just like a really big business that has its guaranteed incomes through its various monopolies IE services, taxes, coercion.

 

[Sean951]

It seems intuitively wrong, but you have yet to establish why it's wrong. Why is it wrong to take more than half of what someone earns past the $250,000 mark? Especially when you consider that that 50% only applies to the money which is earned past the first few hundred thousand? It's not like they're losing over half of their total income; they're losing half of their income past a certain point. For someone to pay over half of their total income in taxes, they'd have to make enough to hit the marginal tax rates already, and blow way past them.

So why exactly should people who make more money pay more? Sure they can afford to pay more, but why exactly should they. They are already paying disproportionately much more for the same government services, which they are less likely to use than someone who makes less (welfare, EI, public health). The thing is, your example of $250,000 is not actually that much money. That person is not "rich" (at least in my mind) they are simply successful and well off. They likely worked hard to earn their wealth, and philosophically I dislike the idea of taxing success.

Also, I am not entirely against a progressive tax system, though in my mind, the top bracket should not exceed 35-40%.

Well, what would you propose as an alternative? No, seriously, let's hear it ? I'm all ears. Yeah, there need to be changes. There always need to be changes. But scrapping the system as a whole, or following the "starve the beast" republican mentality (boy, THAT ONE works out real well for the people not in the republican party, eh?) is simply not a reasonable option.

I don't know, perhaps if during elections people also voted for how much the government was allowed to tax them during that term. This way the government would understand its fiscal resources available going in, instead of going "Welp, we don't have enough money to implement bloated, bureaucratic, inefficient plan X, so lets just raise taxes", they would be forced to just not implement plan X unless they don't do it, or find a cheaper way to do it.

Or perhaps if there was a fourth arm of government (note: this might be a terrible idea and completely counter productive to what I am trying to achieve) that was tasked with monitoring all spending at all levels of government and identifying inefficiencies and wastes of money. Perhaps this arm could have simultaneous elections, so they report to the people, not the leading party, so the performance of this branch would actually be accountable. More than just monitoring though, if it actually controlled the treasury, and could deny funds to government projects deemed either wasteful or poorly planned.

Now of course like I said, this might be terrible since who knows what the cost of running this arm of government would be, but I am just spitballing.

Really? What's so anti-business? I'd be interested to know.

Well maybe not anti-business, but it feels like this forum characterizes business' and the rich as money grubbing, big nosed trolls who sit in their boardrooms counting their cash while thinking of ways to screw and hurt people for a marginally increased profit.

Hell, there are tons of businesses that aren't efficient. They fail and die.

Thats partially my point though, business' have an incentive to be efficient because if they are not, they usually die. Government is under no such obligation, because althoguh it may be accountable in elections, most people do not pay enough attention of care enough when the government wastes money here and there. Sure if you find out the government has been paying off its contractor friends or accepting kickbacks everyone gets outraged, but when they waste / mismanage money its not seen as a huge deal.

In my mind the government is just like a really big business that has its guaranteed incomes through its various monopolies IE services, taxes, coercion.

I don't know where you live, but the highest tax rate in America is 36%, and the effective tax rate of the super rich is closer to 20% since they get most of their money from stocks, which are taxed by the Capital Gains tax of 15%.

People tend to be against the super wealthy because they can afford things like a $25,000 massage [http://www.77diamonds.com/news/Polished_diamond_massages_made_available_in_Hollywood_for_$1_million_(%C2%A3639,775)_8360.html] while most of the country was going broke. Then you have the bankers and venture capitalists who have done nothing to help the country and have hurt it in some cases, and you can see why rich people as a faceless entity aren't very well liked. Put on a face on them, and the story changes though. Well, so long as that face isn't someone like Dick Cheney.

 

[scar_47]

That their necessary, really theres no other way besides governmental funding that certain things we take for granted would get done ie police, firefighters, and roads. I don't much care for the US tax system especially as an accountant, it's ridiculously over complex and really needs to be rebuilt from the ground up with fundamental changes like taxing lower income families everyone uses services everyone should pay although at a lower rate and drastic changes as to how capital gains is taxed so that those whose primary income involves it is paying more than a lousy 15% while they should be included in the highest tax bracket based off of income.

 

[thisbymaster]

I am for taxes, but the rich must pay more in taxes then the poor.

 

[Krantos]

I like driving on Paved roads. Thus I pay taxes.

I like having the secretary of state send me a letter in the mail when I need to renew my license. Thus I pay taxes.

I like knowing I can call 911 in an emergency. Thus I pay taxes.

During college, the government helped my wife and I by giving us food stamps. Thus we're more than happy to pay roughly $20,000 a year in income tax.

People complain that the government debt is high, but in the same breath complain about taxes. People want the services the government provides, but don't want to pay for it.

It doesn't work that way.

Death and taxes, my friend. Death and taxes.

 

[Sean951]

That their necessary, really theres no other way besides governmental funding that certain things we take for granted would get done ie police, firefighters, and roads. I don't much care for the US tax system especially as an accountant, it's ridiculously over complex and really needs to be rebuilt from the ground up with fundamental changes like taxing lower income families everyone uses services everyone should pay although at a lower rate and drastic changes as to how capital gains is taxed so that those whose primary income involves it is paying more than a lousy 15% while they should be included in the highest tax bracket based off of income.

The lowest do pay, they just get their Federal and likely their State income taxes back since their net income deems they need it. They also still pay into Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and any sales and excise taxes on goods purchased.