Economy death watch

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I ain't looking them up but logic says all those property taxes, sales taxes, and local fees (effectively taxes for government services) add up to a pretty penny.

Nobody denies that they "add up," but you were suggesting that state & local tax burdens were so regressive as to make the total tax burden even significantly less progressive than the federal tax scale. That's what we were calling bull**** on, and you conveniently cop out now.

After all, I'm guessing the well-off own more realty, buy more non-exempt goods, and engage in more activities entailing fees than the poor do...

[snoopy369]

Most numbers I've seen show that the average Joe pays about 33% of his income in various taxes (look up the tax freedom day, that has a good explanation); according to the tax foundation, about 33% of taxes (or 11% of income) go to federal income tax, 25% to 'social insurance' (FICA/Medicaid/etc.), 12% to sales tax, 10% to property tax, 10% to corporate income tax (one of those average things I guess), and a few % to other things like estate taxes.

So basically 58% go to federal taxes, and if you dump the corporate income line which makes no sense, it's more like 65%.

[Jon Miller]

Considering all the benefits the government does to support corporations, they should be being taxed more, not less.

JM

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Darius871


Nobody denies that they "add up," but you were suggesting that state & local tax burdens were so regressive as to make the total tax burden even significantly less progressive than the federal tax scale. That's what we were calling bull**** on, and you conveniently cop out now.

After all, I'm guessing the well-off own more realty, buy more non-exempt goods, and engage in more activities entailing fees than the poor do...

It most certainly is much less progressive than the federal tax scale; it is not 100% regressive, by any means, but sales taxes in particular are somewhat regressive, and capital gains taxes are essentially regressive (in that they are significantly lower than income tax rates for LTCG, and are primarily relevant to higher income taxpayers).

While a rich person clearly spends more money on sales tax than a poor person, typically except at the very lowest income levels it is a much smaller portion of his/her income. For example, look at the following list:

Income / Purchases / Sales Tax (assume 1% food sales tax 8% other sales tax) (All numbers rounded)

$20k / $7k (4k food 3k other) / 280 (about 1.4%)
$50k / $25k (6k food 19k other) / 2k (4%)
$80k / $37k (7k food 30k other ) / 3.1k (3.9%)
$120k / $50k (8k food 42k other) / 4.2k (3.5%)
Etc.

The point is that you don't just spend all of your disposable income above a certain level; you start investing it, saving it, etc., and that means less sales tax. Once you get above a certain point, where food is a large part of your spending (around $30k for a single person, probably), the sales tax becomes basically flat, and once you get above the point where you spend all of your income each year, it becomes regressive. (This assumes a lower food tax; this is not always true. )

[Kidlicious]

It doesn't matter. The rich stay rich, unfortunately.

[Kidlicious]

Back to the economy. The Fed is keeping investor confidence up, but the added liquidity to the economy is making oil prices increase. That's going to start eating away at peoples disposable income and affecting consumer confidence pretty seriously soon. It will be interesting to see how far they go with it.

PS. gas is over $5/gallon one part of CA now.

[Aeson]

The reason for the pretty much flat day (gap down, rally, slide into the close) is probably that the Fed is meeting tomorrow. Wait and see...

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by snoopy369


It most certainly is much less progressive than the federal tax scale; it is not 100% regressive, by any means, but sales taxes in particular are somewhat regressive, and capital gains taxes are essentially regressive (in that they are significantly lower than income tax rates for LTCG, and are primarily relevant to higher income taxpayers).

While a rich person clearly spends more money on sales tax than a poor person, typically except at the very lowest income levels it is a much smaller portion of his/her income. For example, look at the following list:

Income / Purchases / Sales Tax (assume 1% food sales tax 8% other sales tax) (All numbers rounded)

$20k / $7k (4k food 3k other) / 280 (about 1.4%)
$50k / $25k (6k food 19k other) / 2k (4%)
$80k / $37k (7k food 30k other ) / 3.1k (3.9%)
$120k / $50k (8k food 42k other) / 4.2k (3.5%)
Etc.

The point is that you don't just spend all of your disposable income above a certain level; you start investing it, saving it, etc., and that means less sales tax. Once you get above a certain point, where food is a large part of your spending (around $30k for a single person, probably), the sales tax becomes basically flat, and once you get above the point where you spend all of your income each year, it becomes regressive. (This assumes a lower food tax; this is not always true. )

Your arguments is about percentage from a person's perspective. That is an entirely different to who picks up the tax tab (the point of contention here).

The corollary of the rich paying the most in taxes is that any tax cut for them is more expensive to the budget than a tax cut for the poor. It's cheaper and easier to cut the effective tax burden of 1,000 $50,000 households by 1% than it is to cut the tax burden of 100 $1,000,000 households by 1%.

[Patroklos]

Still on his record.

Oerdin gets me through the day

[Dinner]

It happened on his watch so it falls on his record. That's the way it has always worked even if you want to whine about it.

[Patroklos]

That's the way it has always worked even if you want to whine about it.

No, its not. People of intelligence, or without axes to grind, put it on the record of who was actually responsible for it. Which explains why you do not.

Another thing that people of intelligence do is recognize how little of an impact a president has on the economy in the grand scheme of things.

[snoopy369]

That it happened is irrelevant to Bush's record. How it was dealt with, and how quickly we recovered, is on his record.

So, how do you think Bush handled the 2001 recession, and how quickly do you think we recovered from it, compared to other recessions in recent decades?

[Arrian]

How it was dealt with...

By racking up a ****load of debt. Which, at some point, we're going to have to repay.

Cutting taxes to spur growth to get us out of a recession is fine by me, provided you also cut spending (probably not right away, but once things have improved) and repay the debt you incurred. But noooo. That NEVER ****ing happens.

The Republican party had control of the Presidency and Congress for a good chunk of Bush's time in office. Though I disagree with the Republican party on many things, one thing I thought they might be good for was fiscal restraint. But no. They ****ed me there too.

Dems = tax and spend
Republicans = borrow and spend
Us = ****ed.

That is all.

-Arrian

[chequita guevara]

Revolutions make debts go away.

[Whoha]

We can switch to the blueback after inflating the crap out of the greenback without a revolution.