Why I think a flat rate income tax is bad.

[jackfaire]

I hear especially the Tea Party calling for this a lot and I have to wonder if any of the leadership of the Tea Party actually are the working poor or indeed any actual grassroots.

The reason I say this is simple if there is only one tax rate for everyone then when it is lowered to help the working poor it hurts everyone else because less taxes are being collected overall and suddenly budgets get slashed for necessary things like road maintenance.

If on the on the other hand taxes are raised to help increase necessary budgets this hurts the working poor because the flat rate is raised.

This is usually where I hear the argument, "Well since it is a percentage it's okay because they aren't actually paying the same just the same portion of their money."

Well let me point out what that is like. In the state of Washington you can be charged up to half of your income for child support. Now if you make 100,000 a year then this is not a big deal because you can easily live on 50,000 a year however if your income is only around 20,000 a year then suddenly your trying to survive on 20,000 a year.

What may be a reasonable percentage for you may be too low for people that make more than you and what is reasonable to collect from them may be too high for you.

This makes a flat tax rate unrealistic at best. If we were to set a flat tax rate it would have to be geared towards the lowest income brackets to make sure they are not overtaxed and as a result yes Government would get smaller, which seems to be the goal, but then many of the things the Government could no longer afford to do would be privatized and run by the corporations that the self same Tea Party says ran us into the ground.

[Jason]

This is the data for calendar year 2003 just released in October 2005 by the Internal Revenue Service. The share of total income taxes paid by the top 1% of wage earners rose to 34.27% from 33.71% in 2002. Their income share (not just wages) rose from 16.12% to 16.77%. However, their average tax rate actually dropped from 27.25% down to 24.31%

The top 1% pay over a third, 34.27% of all income taxes. (Up from 2003: 33.71%) The top 5% pay 54.36% of all income taxes (Up from 2002: 53.80%). The top 10% pay 65.84% (Up from 2002: 65.73%). The top 25% pay 83.88% (Down from 2002: 83.90%). The top 50% pay 96.54% (Up from 2002: 96.50%). The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.46% of all income taxes (Down from 2002: 3.50%). The top 1% is paying nearly ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%!

The top 1% earns 16.77% of all income (2002: 16.12%). The top 5% earns 31.18% of all the income (2002: 30.55%). The top 10% earns 42.36% of all the income (2002: 41.77%); the top 25% earns 64.86% of all the income (2002: 64.37%) , and the top 50% earns 86.01% (2002: 85.77%) of all the income.

[draggar]

The issue is that does anyone have any roof of what the federal income tax pays for?

Don't forget we also have property taxes which is what pays for local roads, public ground maintenance, fire, police, some hospitals, etc.

Tolls help pay for toll road maintenance.

(Allegedly) gas taxes help pay for federal and state roads.

Tariffs, corporate taxes, etc pay for many other programs that our government utilizes

Medicare / social security is pad out though a seperate deduction in our paychecks (take a good look at your paycheck!).

It is not easy to find out where our federal income tax dollars go to, what the IRS actually does to regulate it and where the federal reserve.

Sure, you can find all this information where our federal tax dollars go to but that includes all of the above, not just the "federal income tax".

I think before anything is done we need to really look at exactly what our federal income tax dollars go to support.

[jackfaire]

I agree with a lot of that I just think that tax brackets are a good thing so adjusting taxes doesn't penalize anyone unfairly or reward anyone unfairly either.

[Tanasi]

What about a flat tax for all that make more than $35K a year? Why punish those that have the ability to earn more?

[jackfaire]

What about a flat tax for all that make more than $35K a year? Why punish those that have the ability to earn more?

I could get behind something that where if you make under a certain amount you pay a different tax rate than those that make over that amount. I would be fine with that.

The issue I have is I rarely hear proposals like that it is always, "Everyone should pay the same tax" by groups that claim to be trying to look out for the little guy even though their policy fucks over the little guy.

I am a college dropout and god forbid I actually like what I do for a living. Right now that means making only 20,000 a year if I had to pay the same rate as a person making twice that it would break me; unless the rates were adjusted to not break me.

One thing the Tea Party forgets and anyone else that cries, "We should do things like the founding fathers," Is that the only citizens were White male landowners who all would have had similar levels of income. These days there is a wider range of incomes as their are a wider range of jobs.

[BlaqueKatt]

I am a college dropout and god forbid I actually like what I do for a living. Right now that means making only 20,000 a year if I had to pay the same rate as a person making twice that it would break me; unless the rates were adjusted to not break me.

sorry but I really can't figure out where you're getting your math from.

10% flat tax:
$20,000/year =$2,000.00 or $160/month-how much is taken out of your pay each month-they take over $300 out of mine and I make around $20,000.
$40,000/year=$4,000.00


I made $23,000 last year $3500 was taken out and I'm married so I pay less taxes-how is $2000 more than 3500-and we still owed over $2000 in taxes.


combined we made 60,000 we lost over $11,000-a flat tax of 10% would've been $6000, again how is paying $6000 more than paying $10,000?

ypur math is waaaay off somewhere....

[jackfaire]

sorry but I really can't figure out where you're getting your math from.

Where I am getting my math is nowhere.

If they gave a flat tax rate and they decided to raise taxes they would not necessarily take into account what those of us who are on the low end of the totem pole.

They would probably look at the mass income of America and set a rate by that. This rate then may be unfair to those of us making less money. But it's "fair" because we would then all be paying the same precentage.

It's like child support was my example in my state for child support no matter what your income they can order you to pay 50% of your income for child support. If you don't make a lot of money this could hurt you a lot and have you living in shack.

Right now I can pay taxes but right now when adjusting the taxes they only change bracket by bracket.

It's possible the flat tax would never be raised high enough to hurt me but it's also possible that it would and I doubt the people voting, you know the ones making tons of money to be in office, would necessarily think of or care about the people who a tax increase would hurt.





EDIT

It's not about how much the flat tax would be it's about ignoring that not everyone makes as much money. Right now I make enough to live well but if I were to have my tax rate mostly determined by what middle class and upper class can afford that may be more than I by myself can afford.

A flat tax means you raise everyone's taxes or you don't raise anyone's if taxes need to be raised they will be.

[Arcade Man D]

There are some propositions for an "almost-flat" tax. Essentially, you discount all income up to a certain point, then tax everything above that at X rate.

For example, if the (only) deduction is $2,500/person and the rate is 10%, a family of 5 with a household income of $15,000 would pay tax on $2,500, or $250 (note, deduction and rate pulled out of backside for ease of calculation), which is an effective rate of 1.7%. That same family's father gets a new job that pays $75,000/year, and they pay tax on $62,500, or $6,250, an effective tax rate of 8.3%. It can basically be set so you only pay tax on what you make above the subsistence level (poverty line).

[jackfaire]

Which I would be good with that. I just want taxes to take into account that using the average income to determine the tax rate which would be the most likely way a flat rate would be done would suck for those making less than average.

Most times when something is a "sliding scale" or everyone gets the same rate people look at average incomes and use them to figure out a good rate.

Psychologists in my area do it all the time their sliding scale is low end 60 dollars a session because the average income earner can afford that but that means the lower income people are SOL.

They can go for free counseling but that tends to mean psychology students and they cannot do things like psych evaluations for court or anything like that.

[Tanasi]

No deductions for anything, personal, kids, morage interest, nothing. All income past $35K is taxable at 10%. Your tax return calculation is:

FIT = ((Annual Income - $35K) * 10%)

sign it, write the check, mail it. 10 minutes at most go eat supper.


If taxes heck I'll say say when won't be raised by whole points but hundredths, thousandths maybe tenths.