Oh great, the Republicans want a FLAT TAX

[RGBVideo]

Question: In the US, corporate tax is under the income tax (it's now 5%, right?). Since there is no 'double taxation' on stocks anymore, isn't the tax system already 'regressive'?

[David Floyd]

Uh, capital gains taxes are still in place, AFAIK.

[JohnT]

Not too sure where you got your figures, VJ. Corporate tax rates in the US range from 15% to 35%.

Capital gain rates range from 5% to 15%. So the double taxation on dividends continues...

http://www.smbiz.com/sbrl001.html

[RGBVideo]

Uh, capital gains taxes are still in place, AFAIK

'k, thanks. I was pretty sure I had misunderstood some way, that's why I asked when a good opportunity came up.

Not too sure where you got your figures, VJ.

...there was a tax cut 2-3 weeks ago. My local newspaper (Helsingin Sanomat, biggest newspaper in Finland so I took it as an absolutely credible) had a small, few line newsreport made out of it. It said that Bush had signed a 110 billion euro corporate tax cut which would cut corporate taxes to a flat 5,3%.

That newspaper doesn't exactly have the brightest bulbs in the bunch taking care of their US news, so... I guess I'll take a more skeptic viewpoint next time I read it.

Thanks for the link. I'm sure it'll straighten things out a bit.

[Dr Strangelove]

Would this tax be sorta like the european Value Added Tax?

[DanS]

It said that Bush had signed a 110 billion euro corporate tax cut which would cut corporate taxes to a flat 5,3%.

No, that's not at all accurate.

[MrFun]

A flat tax is stupid -- one should be taxed progressively more, within reason, as one's income rises.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Originally posted by David Floyd
It'll be a step towards freedom

Freedom?! A flat tax is freedom?! It screws the poor and the middle class and you know it.

If there were a 20% tax, lets say, and you compare the person earning 17,000 a year to the person earning 170,000, you see how wrong it is. The person making 170,000 will have 34,000 taken, leaving them with 136,000 still to spend on food, clothing, and shelter. The person making 17,000 will only have 13,600 to provide a family with.

Any way you cut it, that's not how it should be. Those in poverty should be given at least a chance to make a good life with what they have, and not allow those at the top to take advantage of the situation. I fully hope to pay a larger amount of taxes when I get a job. If I make 150,000 a year, I will be more than happy to give to society what I am able. And even if I wasn't happy to, I most certainly should because I can.

[Patroklos]

If I make 150,000 a year, I will be more than happy to give to society what I am able. And even if I wasn't happy to, I most certainly should because I can.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sure you will

The flat tax is fair and right. All your justifications for your self-named "progressive" tax is simply that you want what isn't yours, and your okay with that. No need for you to mask it.

[AnnC]

I assume we're talking about this article, Big Tax Plans, Big Tax Risks:

Most flat-tax plans envision a rate of about 20 to 25 percent, meaning that some people who are now paying tax at a 10 or 15 percent rate would pay a higher rate, while wealthy people who are paying as much as 35 percent on some of their income would pay at a lower rate.

Republicans have been talking about this for a long time, and some conservatives think that shifting the tax burden to wage-earners is a good thing because it will (supposedly) make middle-class people hate "big government".

From the Washington Monthly article Party Down, which compares 1970s-era Democrats to present-day Republicans:

... budgetary reality had little effect on the movement conservatives who by 2001 dominated the Republican Party. Instead, they embraced the small-government/low taxes paradigm even more tightly, with a moralistic fervor not unlike that which moved liberals in the 1970s to a ferocious defense of big government and high taxes against all logic. Politically, cutting taxes provided for Republicans a unifying force similar to that which spending had provided the Democrats: It was the one policy that almost every part of the often-fractious GOP coalition--libertarians, cultural conservatives, multinationals, small business owners, investors in Wall Street, the energy sector--could agree on. And for the party's strategists, tax cuts were the route to a permanent GOP majority. The promise of a new rate reduction every year--first rate reductions, then dividend cuts, then corporate breaks--would keep K Street pliable. And eventually, a shift in the tax burden from the wealthy and corporations onto the backs of the middle class would (or so the theory held) cool voter demand for more government, thereby undermining the Democrats' reason for being.

If Republicans get the tax code they want, middle-class families with dependent children will be hit the hardest. If you're in that category and you voted for Bush, may you get what you deserve.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Patroklos


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sure you will

The flat tax is fair and right. All your justifications for your self-named "progressive" tax is simply that you want what isn't yours, and your okay with that. No need for you to mask it.

The lower class and middle class cannot AFFORD any flat tax policy.

[JohnT]

The person making $17,000 a year would pay $765 in income taxes under Steve Forbes'* old tax plan, not $3,400. Currently, using a standard deduction, they pay $1,215.

One thing about the flat tax (again, proposed by Forbes), is that the standard deductions are increased to $12,500 for individuals and $5,000 for dependent children, so that a family of four would have their first $35,000 of income tax free.

*Tax rate of 17%, deductions: $5,000 dependent, $12,500 single, $25,000 married.

[Japher]

That's the Armey-Shelby Flat Tax, JohnT

[JohnT]

Forbes!

[JohnT]

Imho, Forbes' rate of 17% was too low and should be raised to a more realistic 19-21%.