I have a modest proposal. Starting with the notion popularized by President-Elect Obama in the recent campaign, I wish to propose a plan that taxes people according to the ability to pay so that we can distribute the tax money according to need.
The plan would work as follows:
1. Each Zip Code would be assigned a cost of living index that establishes a baseline of cost of living including median home price, insurance cost, fuel and energy costs, state income and state and local sales taxes and cost of food. For instance, New York City would have a high index for cost of living and Flint, Michigan would have a low cost of living.
2. We would establish an index by age that recognizes that a young person needs less money and will have more years of earnings ahead of him/her whereas a person approaching retirement has higher costs and less years to earn.
3. The cost of living index would be cross-referenced to age and every person would have a tax rate based on where they live and how old they are.
When this is in place, we will know what people “need” and be able to determine what is excess to their need. Then we tax the excess amount at a higher tax rate. This tax would potentially include everyone including those earning more than $250,000.
Isn’t this the best way to disgorge excess income from people that are unfairly accumulating wealth at the expense of the poor and needy?
Why should people be excused from paying a high tax on their unneeded income just because it happens to fall below $250,000.
If you think it is not fair tax people on their excess, unneeded income, do you feel the same way about Obama’s tax plan which does the same thing in a less precise and efficient manner?
I will ask this again tonight for those who miss out.
What Do You Think Of This Tax Plan?
July 27th, 2009 by admin Leave a reply »
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There are much simpler ways to tax. I suggest a VAT paid on all items you buy. That’s it. You could exclude food and basic needs purchases. Everything outside of that is taxed at say 18%. So what happens is those who buy more crap pay more taxes. That’s it. We could eliminate the IRS and no one would pay tax on their income. No deductions or loopholes needed.
The Govt would be swimming in money.
It’s a nice idea, but not likely to gain support from the congress. The problem of wide popular support gets in the way. Socialism is a vulgar word in some parts of the US.
Those people believe that ill gotten gains are legitimate income and should remain in the hands of the thieves who stole from their fellow Americans. Taxation as social equalization isn’t going to be an easy sell.
How about a flat tax rate? The more you make the more you pay. That way no would could say it is unfair.
I do believe in deductions for children though.
Big problem with that right off – the wealthiest members of our society are the elderly.
Yet the greedy geezers still collect socialist security weather they need it or not!
Obama sucks!!!
Not a bad plan, if I were an obomba nut, but the one he’ll likely use is much simpler: Give up your money or go to jail! I’ll decide who needs your money!
I would prefer a Flat Tax or FairTax system
your 6th paragraph disqualifies this.
how can anyone define “excess income”?
and to just assume it is being accumulated “unfairly” is nothing more than opinion. and “at the expense of the poor and needy” is another opinion.
i have a better idea—lets put the government on the hook for the insanely large sums of money they already “waste”–that is MY opinion.
EDIT:just ditch that paragraph and it sounds better. i still think a tax increase is a horrible idea—reign in the government! responsible government isn’t too much to ask, is it?
All of the good points of your proposal can be addressed in the 133 pages of H.R. 25, The FairTax Act, instead of the 63,000 pages of the current code. Currently the income tax punishes production. Production = ( labor x capital) and the income taxes both.
For those who don’t know about the FairTax, a little background:
The FairTax Plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax on new items only, a rebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue replacement, and, through companion legislation, repeal of the 16th Amendment. This nonpartisan legislation (HR 25/S 25) abolishes all federal personal, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, self-employment, and corporate taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax – collected by existing state sales tax authorities. The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend, not on what we earn. It does not raise any more or less revenue; it is designed to be revenue neutral. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system. More details can be found at http://www.fairtax.org
The income tax equation is income- taxes-compliance dollars = spending
The Fair Tax equation is income = spending + taxes+ compliance dollars, so here we are taxed as we spend and keep the compliance costshttp://wethepeople.org/wpblog/?tag=the-f…
Quick Facts
Discussions with focus groups of Americans showed that what citizens want is a tax system that provides Fairness, Simplicity, and Visibility. The FairTax achieves these objectives through:
Simplicity — one rate for everyone; no tax filings
Fairness — is progressive, protecting the poor through a tax rebate on the necessities of life; no loopholes, therefore everyone pays the same rate on every purchase. The “rich” pay more as they spend more and can not hide.
Visibility — any change in the tax rate shows on every cash register receipt
And in addition, the FairTax produces the following:
It lets every worker keep their entire pay check — no payroll or income taxes
It allows those at/below the poverty level to have zero or negative taxes
It lets retirees keep their full pension or Social Security checks — untaxed
It lets everyone keep their capital gains and investment income — untaxed
It encourages savings and investment — creating greater national growth and productivity
It encourages repatriation of wealth from tax havens providing much needed capital to fuel
the growth of our own economy
It stimulates exports — leading to greater U.S. employment
It stimulates economic growth and job formation
It eliminates gift and inheritance taxes
It taxes spending of gifted and inherited wealth more fairly
It has a lower cost of enforcement
It makes the federal tax rate very visible, and therefore, politically risky to increase
It ends all personal and corporate income tax filings
It eliminates the IRS and frees $8 Billion
It frees the $250 Billion tax accounting/law industry for more productive employment
It eliminates tax loopholes — no filings, no exemptions, no loopholes
By removing all income and payroll taxes and compliance costs with the FairTax, we let young beginning workers get ahead faster. Overtime and second jobs are not taxed and they are able to get over that hump of sustenance to success.
I believe in a progressive tax plan but your idea just seems complicated. Even inside counties, people are very different. Some are putting a lot of money away, some are going further into debt every month. Some have children and have to live in a good-sized house, others can live simply in a studio apartment.
Ronald Reagan used to say: why should people have to pay more taxes if they want to work a little harder and make a little more money? He was talking about gazillionaires, of course, who don’t work -that- much harder than the rest of us, I mean nobody works hard enough to be worth 500 million a year when your normal college graduate working full time is worth maybe 40 or 50 thousand a year. And 75% of millionaires didn’t work for their money at all, they inherited it.
But at least in his words, I think he was right. I don’t begrudge people who make more than me, maybe twice or three times as much. I don’t feel bad that doctors and architects and judges and top-level engineers make more than I do. They -did- work hard for that money. They should pay a little more but they should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
People who make more than $250,000 are in a class above that. These are the people whose income doubles every few years, whose share of wealth in the US has doubled two or three times since Reagan came to power. Obama’s plan, at this point, is not really a detailed plan, just a concept. He feels income taxes should be a little more sharply progressive after this point.
Your idea, it just seems like it’s moving that point lower. I don’t think that might be necessary. A family making $100,000 these days, I wouldn’t call them rich. They may have a big mortgage and two or three kids in college.
I love it! It’s fun!
Oh no….you need a credit for minorities too–sort of like tax affirmative action.
Small businesses are included in this too, aren’t they? Or since they are so evil and greedy should they have a whole different (and higher) tax code?
I’m sure that you have planned out what to do with all of the excess that’s left over when someone dies, don’t you? All assets, including household goods should be passed to the government to give them to those who really need it.
Edited to add:
YAY Fair Tax! It’s nice to see so many that like it. I’m a fan of Boortz too. ***This tax plan is nothing like the fair tax.
Edited to add (again):
Oh goody—you’re going to tax those evil, greedy businesses. What do you think—65% federal tax? That should teach them to try to be successful in a global economy! You could also add a 10% tax for every time they go shopping for new machinery or technology.
You are assuming that the rich pay their taxes. When you can afford an accountant w/the knowledge of ALL the loopholes in our tax codes then the opportunity to shuffle the money into tax shelter accounts is easier. This then puts the burden on our government to allocate the funds collected from the working class to pay for our city/state projects, police, fire department, etc.
This is not solicitation. I have included these reports/articles to be informative and to give examples to the scam allowed by the rich.
Only 2.5% of Taxpayers Would Lose Some of the Bush Income Tax
Cuts Under Obama’s Tax Plan in 2009: State-by-State Figureshttp://www.ctj.org/pdf/obamathreshold.pd…
Extending the President’s tax cuts & AMT relief would cost $4.4 TRILLION through 2018http://www.cbpp.org/1-31-07tax.htm
We need to “disgorge excess income from people that are unfairly accumulating wealth at the expense of the poor and needy”? Where do I begin?
First, the economy isn’t a zero sum game. It’s actually possible to create new wealth, which is what happens in a healthy economy. Just because someone is earning a bigger slice of pie doesn’t mean that someone else is being deprived. It just means that a system that encourages people to work hard and invest, creates a bigger pie.
Secondly, who are you or anyone else to decide what anybody’s “excess” income is? Yes, we need a tax system, and the rich should pay more as a percentage, but that’s already happening. Again, the top 5% of income earners already pay 60% of the individual federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% of income earners pay only 3%.
The whole mindset that it’s “unfair” to accumulate wealth is destructive.
Edit: Yes, it’s what Obama wants to do, which is what the election was about and why I didn’t vote for him. I don’t accept your basic premise that the redistribution of wealth is a “done deal” and now we just have to work out the details. Your entire, underlying thought process is destructive, and frankly, wrong.
I disagree with the government deciding what I need and taking the rest. That is communism and the American people would revolt if anyone tried anything like this.
Edit: I do share my money by giving to charity. It is unamerican for the government to redistribute wealth. I worked my *** off to get it and I will do with it as I please.
Edit: Screw all you thumbs down *******. Let them eat cake.