So, how many tax payers are there in the US anyway?

[Patroklos]

If I feed you more, will you continue to up the font size? Oh so entertaining, for everyone I am sure.

Or is your rotation smilie/font/bold/smilie/font bold repeat until people get tired of pointing out your flaws?

[Solly]

Originally posted by MOBIUS




But... but... Didn't you just say a few posts ago:




MAKE YOUR MIND UP, YOU ******!!!

Bit pointless that Mobe!

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Patroklos
If I feed you more, will you continue to up the font size? Oh so entertaining, for everyone I am sure.

Certainly entertaining for me to toy with the forum ******...

Or is your rotation smilie/font/bold/smilie/font bold repeat until people get tired of pointing out your flaws?

Says the slaphead who just contradicted himself in the space of about 3 posts...

[Zkribbler]

Mobius needs to take his medication.

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Doddler
Bit pointless that Mobe!

But it did get you to repeat my quote about Patroklos being a ******...

[Drogue]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
"Blah, blah, blah. My name is Patroklos and I am a ******. Blah, blah, blah..."

Originally posted by MOBIUS
evidently calling you a ****** was a gross underestimation on my own part...

While you can say all you wish about what someone posts, insulting the poster is not on. Stop it.

However I'll also extend this to Patroklos':

Originally posted by Patroklos
It is much more fun to be a dick, which is what everyone here recognizes you to be. Do you think anyone on this board takes you seriously, on anything?

This isn't on either. There's no need for posts like this, so don't do it.

Remember, insult the post, not the poster.

[Patroklos]

Says the slaphead who just contradicted himself in the space of about 3 posts...

Is that what you call a contrdiction in the land of 's bolds and OVERSIZED FONT s?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Patroklos
But for the grownups, does that not seem a little out of proportion, that 75% of the population contributes less than 15% of total tax revenue.

Not really. You wouldn't be able to finance a decent army, let alone any healthcare, welfare, emergency services, or other programmes if everyone contributed the same amount. Because the people at the bottom have somewhere near 0 that they can contribute, and thus everyone would have to contribute somewhere near 0.

People paying more the more they earn is inefficient, but like democracy, it's the worst form of taxation, except for every other that has been tried.

[Provost Harrison]

Actually that figure is more telling of a phenomenal rich-poor divide than anything to do with the nature of the tax system, which we know is certainly not as progressive as it is claimed to be...

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Patroklos
Is that what call a contrdiction in the land of 's bolds and OVERSIZED FONT s?

Drogue, that sentence is barely intelligible by any normal human standards...

Patroklos has consistently demonstrated episodes of subnormal intelligence on this thread - how is it insulting to call him what he is?

I will of course respect your wishes and refrain from using the 'r' word from now on - I will simply call him Patroklos instead...

[Patroklos]

People paying more the more they earn is inefficient, but like democracy, it's the worst form of taxation, except for every other that has been tried.

The "democratic" way of doing it is a flat tax. In either case, paying taxes is a form of civic responsibility. I can legitimately be concerned about what taxes are spent on because it is my money. But with the richest 15% suppling 75% of the money, it is not such a stretch to see why some of that group could care less what the other half (more actually!) think in that regard.

Thats why I bawk at the "exempt the poor from taxes" crowd, or allowing them to receive more than they pay from direct benefits, it reduces them to proles.

[Drogue]

Corporate taxes are partly paid by consumers, with the type of good denoting how much of it is, if you're refering to taxes on operations. For a good like oil, a necessity, almost the entirity is paid for by consumers, whereas for a luxury this is the exact opposite. As said, this relates only to per unit taxes corporate taxes, or taxes on operations. Taxes solely on profit (by which I mean actual profit, not operating profit) only affect the corporation and its shareholders. Who are also consumers. Which brings me onto:

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
That the socioeconomic profiles of those three categories are not necessarily the same.

But they're also not categorically different. Shareholders includes the millions of small business owners who pay corporate profit. It includes pension funds for normal workers. We don't know the make-up, income-wise, for these people.

Which is why I favour a simpler system of taxing gross income. Don't tax dividends seperately, just tax it as if it were earned income by that person. So high-earners pay the typical high rate of tax and lower earners the base rate. Afterall, it is income, like any other.

[Drogue]

Re: So, how many tax payers are there in the US anyway?

Originally posted by MOBIUS
Which makes me wonder what the true cost is to every taxpayer in the country?

Deficit spending. Yes it's a lot, but it's also management. The crime of the Iraq war, financially, is not the huge deficit, IMHO. It's the fact that running up that level of deficit could have provided universal healthcare and a sensible public school system. It's not so bad, economically, for the US to have a large debt. It just could have been spent so much better, IMO.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Oh, I agree...

But corp taxes are, today, an interesting margin note rather than a key element of the tax base.

30 years ago that was much less true.

I'm going off on a tangent...

....they are more interesting than the remaining 35% of tax revenues, which combined are a key element, and raised by sales taxes, fuel duties, duties on tobacco & alcohol and inheritance tax. They are raised because they can be quite easily, corp tax on the other hand has serious economic impacts on things like foreign investment.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Patroklos


The "democratic" way of doing it is a flat tax. In either case, paying taxes is a form of civic responsibility. I can legitimately be concerned about what taxes are spent on because it is my money. But with the richest 15% suppling 75% of the money, it is not such a stretch to see why some of that group could care less what the other half (more actually!) think in that regard.

Thats why I bawk at the "exempt the poor from taxes" crowd, or allowing them to receive more than they pay from direct benefits, it reduces them to proles.

Because those with the least have the least ability to pay - they are further from the poverty line. Due to the inbalance of wealth, even if we had a proportional taxation system in question here, the richest 15% are going to pay a higher proportion of money - we actually have a progressive taxation which means the proportional burden is going to be higher the richer the person gets - but still, the more money you earn, the more money you have!

How would you feel if you were impoverished - could you afford on minimum wage to pay a fixed wage when it may take most of your income not allowing you to feed your family, maybe not even yourself? Think deeply about what you are saying here...