Taxes. economics and justice

While there is a lot of complaining in the world about various government, economic and social policy I almost never seen someone proposing something new/different.Those who don't like current capitalism seem to lean towards various forms of socialism or communism, sometimes even a state of anarchy is considered.

I believe that as humans we do need some government, and with some of the attitudes I see people putting forth about it being ok to lie, cheat and steal I don't see how we could get by for long without functioning police and court systems.
*note: most of tis based on current systems in USA since that is what I know best
So we need some government, and therefor some way to pay for it - hence taxes.
Personally I find the idea of 'income tax' offensive and here is why:
Lets pretend we are all farmers with 100 acres of land to work. Further to provide for our basic needs we only need to work 10 acres of that land. By working just 10 acres we balance our income with our 'out go' and have lots of 'free time' to pursue anything we like. If we work the whole 100 acres we have lots of 'extra' income but give up all that extra time. Of course now you must give a portion (in the usa an ever growing portion) of that income to support the government. Why would anyone do that? Taxing income in fact discourages work and production. Today in the USA the harder/better you work the more you pay - - do you get more government services for your effort?
Lets say not everyone had the land to work and since I only wanted to work 10 to stay even should I hire someone to work the rest? Or perhaps give/sell the rest to others that do want to work it? Well if I hire people I have to pay the government for that privilege too in the form of everything from required insurances to portions of their Social Security taxes. Selling the land = sales tax Giving= gift tax (depending on value of course)
Maybe I just let them use it and pretend I don't notice? I'm not sure if this is legal, but if many people tried it I bet they would find a way to tax it.
So how about a really flat tax system, divide the cost of running the government by the number of citizens and everybody pays the same? (ok yeah I know we would need some exceptions for people with disabilities and so forth).

Originally posted by Chett
While there is a lot of complaining in the world about various government, economic and social policy I almost never seen someone proposing something new/different.

Almost never eh....

Perhaps you should look a little harder.

*Also, it isn't necessary to line up a replacement before complaining about something. Lazy people use that excuse to put off doing something or tolerating some injustice.

Originally posted by Exuberant1

Almost never eh....

Perhaps you should look a little harder.

*Also, it isn't necessary to line up a replacement before complaining about something. Lazy people use that excuse to put off doing something or tolerating some injustice.

I didn't say people shouldn't complain, or even that they needed to solution proposals before complaining. I would just like to see more constructive ideas being tossed around.

Government and taxes are needed otherwise we would destroy ourselfs and there would be no infrastructure. Just look at any stupid riot after a big sports game. Humans have an ability to be very stupid and destructive for no reason at all. If it wasn't for laws and law enforcment things would be pretty ugly.

The problem however is way to much bloat. Taxes that are taken are not being spent well at all. There is very unreasonable tax brackets. In my opinion there should be a flat tax across the board. Everyone pays 10% to federal income tax. That way it is fair to everyone. Also the earned income credit needs to be revamped. I know many people that get more money back every year than they put in because of the number of kids they have. That just isn't right in my opinion. You should never get more money back than you put in. That means you are taking from someone else and you are not helping to pay for infrastructure and everything else taxes pay for.

Taxes are not evil they are just not used well. I think if the government used taxes properly and we all see the positive results a lot less people would be pissed about paying taxes. Everytime I see the government go on about how many billions they are giving to Pakistan and other countries I get rather annoyed especially being my local police department and fire department had to cut almost in half this year. Not to mention all the schools are cutting staff and broke. I payed almost $9,000USD in fedral taxes last year and only made $48K total. If that money was being spent well I would be fine with it, but when I see generational welfare families and people with so called disabilities taking it it bothers me. I hate going to my local stores and seeing a guy pull up in a new $50,000USD truck jacked up a foot and jumping in and out of it without issue yet he has a disabled tag and is in the disabled parking spot... If you can crawl in and out of that huge truck with out missing a beat you can work, and how it is you can afford a $50K truck plus another $10K in lifts, tires, wheels and other mods on disability? I can't afford that making $48K a year.

The system is just messed up and a lot of it has to do with all these bottom feeders that breed like rabbits raping all the social programs to death. They all seem to have medical issues that cram the ER's and clinics raising medical care for all of the rest of us.

It is sad for such an intelegant species we are the dumbest most self destructive things on the planet. To think we don't need taxes, laws and law enforment to maintain civility is asinine. But at the sametime they need to be a lot more fair than they are now.

reply to post by Chett

So how about a really flat tax system, divide the cost of running the government by the number of citizens and everybody pays the same?

The problem is the amount of taxes payed would have to be a fraction of the lowest common denominator of wages (otherwise some would pay all their income and still havent payed the cost). And that would be very low, not enough to run any government. Taxes should be tied to persons ability to pay (income).

I prefer flat income tax, even to sales or property tax, because it can be elegantly combined with NIT based welfare system into one single rule, which continually adressed the transition from no income to huge incomes. And it does not suffer from problems of the current welfare/tax systems at all - since welfare decreases continually with income, there is never a situation that someone earns more while only sitting on welfare than if he worked in addition to that. Incentive to work is greatly increased, while keeping the safety net benefits of welfare. In addition, minumum wage regulation is not needed anymore (NIT acts as a kind of "minimum wage"), so it can be abolished (which leads to creation of more jobs which are now forbidden).

While there is a lot of complaining in the world about various government, economic and social policy I almost never seen someone proposing something new/different.

Here it is:

en.wikipedia.org...

This is the basis of tax/welfare reform going to be implemented by libertarian party minister here in Slovakia.

reply to post by Maslo

hmm I should look at immigrations to slovakia Course stupid USA would still insist I pay.

BTW Fictitious persons like corporations should pay on same basis, including those 'not for profit' types - they use the same government services as the rest of us - police/courts/roads etc.

reply to post by Chett

BTW Fictitious persons like corporations should pay on same basis, including those 'not for profit' types - they use the same government services as the rest of us - police/courts/roads etc.

Yeah, thats another point of the reform - every income, regardless of how you acquire it (wage, interest, corporate profit share, renting appartments etc..) should taxed the same (basic social security tax too - which means we could greatly decrease SS tax percentage, since it would get spread out among more entities than just employers - effectively becoming another public service completely payed from taxes). But this point of the reform may not pass completely, because of the rentiers lobby, and because we are a small economy with small internal market, very dependent on foreign corporate investments, so corporate tax increase relative to our neighbours may demotivate investors.

Australia libertarians also want to implement similar system.

The problem with a flat tax is that it is actually regressive and so affects the poor disproportionately.

reply to post by UngoodWatermelon


How is it regressive?