Straight-Talk Express embraces Voodoo Economics

[Asher]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I actually could be argued towards a flat tax which was something like that Plato.

0% for the first 40k
30% for everything afterwards

while I would prefer that the very well off (100k+) payed more, I actually think that a flat tax sort of thing would cause them to pay more because currently they are getting a lot off through loopholes

JM

This is how Alberta's provincial tax works. Compared to other provinces there's a much higher "non-taxable portion", then a flat tax after. It's much simpler for everyone.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I actually could be argued towards a flat tax which was something like that Plato.

0% for the first 40k
30% for everything afterwards

while I would prefer that the very well off (100k+) payed more, I actually think that a flat tax sort of thing would cause them to pay more because currently they are getting a lot off through loopholes

JM

Why not make the first $100K totally exempt then and hit 40% of everything above that?

Now that would stimulate the economy!!

Ben, when you say you got the money back but had to wait a year, then it really is only a problem for the very first year, correct?

That does not really lower your disposable income over time. A sales tax has an immediate effect on disposable income.

Further, the sales tax indiscriminately has a large impact on the poor than the rich and therefore becomes an impediment to building wealth. Sales tax perpetuates the economic class structure making more difficult to move from one class to another and therefore becomes a drag on economic growth.

Poorer people will increase consumption with more disposable income whereas rich people will not. Elimination of a sales tax will therefore cause heighted economic growth and opportunity.

[Ramo]

GST is 5 percent. God ****ing damnit, Ben, GET SOMETHING RIGHT. ANYTHING.

BC also has a 7% sales tax.

[Ben Kenobi]

And if you reduce Canada's budget by an order of magnitude or two to deal with the decreased revenues, I'm sure the poor would be just fantastic.

Sure, with the immediate increase in real earnings, our standard of living would jump immediately.

[Ramo]

Yeah, that's exactly how it works. The poor weren't using that health care and roads and schools anyways.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, when you say you got the money back but had to wait a year, then it really is only a problem for the very first year, correct?

Assuming my income remains stable over that period. A year later I would get the money back, but if I'm making much more by then, I'm still nowhere near where I would be without withholding. When you are just starting out, withholding is brutal.

That does not really lower your disposable income over time.

You're lecturing to me? Gee thanks. I appreciate that. It had a significant impact until I decided I wouldn't work for any employer who withheld. Since then I get paid what I ought to be paid, and it's been much better.

A sales tax has an immediate effect on disposable income.

Withholding is taking a 30 percent cut out of your paycheque, before you can make use of the goods that you buy. So not only is it immediate, it prevents you from getting any good in exchange for what you've earned. It is far harsher on your disposable income.

Further, the sales tax indiscriminately has a large impact on the poor than the rich and therefore becomes an impediment to building wealth.

Care to continue parroting that garbage? Sales tax has a disproportionate impact on the rich, in that they pay more. Yes you can say that the poor pay a higher percentage of their income, but it is more egalitarian in that everyone only pays for what they buy. They do not get charged for the income that they generate, only for what they spend.

Sales tax perpetuates the economic class structure making more difficult to move from one class to another and therefore becomes a drag on economic growth.

How so? It makes it easier to make up the ladder when you aren't having a chunk taken out of your paycheque. You can choose what you wish to spend on, and when, and how much a bite it takes out. It has bupkis impact on savings. Income taxes take it out before it gets to your savings account.

Poorer people will increase consumption with more disposable income whereas rich people will not.

As a percentage of their income? I'd challenge that statement. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Either a tax is regressive, or it perpetuates class divisions. A tax system that increases the burdens the more you make, is a system that makes it more difficult to save up and climb up the ladder. A system that does the opposite promotes upward mobility.

Elimination of a sales tax will therefore cause heighted economic growth and opportunity.

Oh true, but a sales tax on consumption is much better then an income tax.

[Ramo]

Playing around with Kontiki's income calculator, to get to a 30% average income tax rate, Ben needs to be making $130,000 (assuming he's from BC).

[Asher]

Originally posted by Ramo
Playing around with Kontiki's income calculator, to get to a 30% average income tax rate, Ben needs to be making $130,000 (assuming he's from BC).

And Alberta maxes out at ~26%.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, that's exactly how it works. The poor weren't using that health care and roads and schools anyways

You couldn't run Canada on a hundred billion a year? Half of revenues come from the GST.

If you pegged it at 8 percent you could eliminate all income taxes for everybody and still run a surplus.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Sure, with the immediate increase in real earnings, our standard of living would jump immediately.

Or as Lloyd Benson put it in 1988:

"If you let me write $300,000,000,000.00 of hot checks a year I too could give you an illusion of prosperity."

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


You couldn't run Canada on a hundred billion a year? Half of revenues come from the GST.

Except, of course, total GST collected in 2004/2005 was $34 billion which was 16% of government revenue. That's close to half in Ben-mathland, right?

[Ramo]

You couldn't run Canada on a hundred billion a year? Half of revenues come from the GST.

WTFBen

Fiscally, the GST has accounted for 15% to 17% of total federal tax revenues each year since 1999. This is slightly greater than the annual amount of the Canada Health and Social Transfer itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goods_and_Services_Tax_(Canada)

And that's not accounting for provincial income taxes, which, presumably, do some good.

[Ramo]

I suppose this is a minor point in the scale of Ben's wholescale massacre of arithmetic and logic, but Canada's federal revenues for 2007-2008 were $244.5 billion. Half of that is $122.25 billion, not $100 billion.

http://www.budget.gc.ca/2008/plan/chap1-eng.asp

[Ben Kenobi]

Gee, wikipedia is sooo accurate.

Nice change from million to billion dude.

I've added a 'citation needed' tag, maybe I should append one to your post too.

[Asher]

Really, Ben? You want to take that approach?