War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength. Tax Cuts Generate Revenue.

[signalmankenneth]

The political system may be different from Orwell's time, but the corruption and propaganda remain. We all have to "sacrifice" to balance the budget.

As Time Magazine wailed: "Do the nation's leaders have the courage to cut health entitlements or Social Security?" And the horses say, "We will work harder."

But the wealthiest individuals and corporations are not paying their taxes. They say they are. The richest Americans complain that they're paying most of the federal income taxes, and that's true. But since 1980 their AFTER-TAX share of America's income has TRIPLED. That's a trillion dollars a year in extra income for the wealthiest 1%. Their federal income tax rate has gone DOWN during that time, from 34% to 23%.

If they're paying most of the federal income tax it's because they make almost all the money.

The wealthiest 125 U.S. corporations, meanwhile, paid only 10% in U.S. income taxes last year. They claim that a lower tax rate will generate more tax revenue.

Here are the facts about corporate tax rates. Over the past 50 years the marginal rates for top corporations have steadily fallen, from over 50% to 35%. But according to the U.S. Office of Management, the corporate share of total tax revenue has dropped from about 20% in the 1960s to under 9% in 2010. Average Americans have made up most of the difference.

What the very rich won't admit is that they benefit the most from government-funded research, national security, infrastructure, property rights, and a financial industry tailored to their pleasure and profit. They insist that anyone can share in the prosperity, if only, like the horses, they keep working harder.

By PAUL BUCHHEIT

 

[Guns Guns Guns]

Big spending and the deficit only became issues for the GOP after January, 2009?

 

[Good Luck]

One more reason for a nice, simple flat tax.

Allow a standard personal deduction based on the poverty line and reasonable (say, 5K per annum max for each) incentive deductions for retirement accounts, education savings, and health care savings, as well as deductions for inheritance of agricultural lands or mom-pop type businesses. Also, considering how mobile our society has become, keep the current laws which allow people to sell a previous residence to buy a new residence elsewhere without paying capital gains - but only applicable to a single residence. If you own more than one residence (with the exception of a reasonable transition period in which one has contracted the purchase of their new home while still trying to sell their previous) then capital gains apply to any sales. So, we end up with 6 basic, easily defined and understood deductions, as opposed to the 5000+ pages of tax regulations we have now. That alone would save the U.S. government a few millions (tens of? hundreds of?) trying to track all their regulations.

Then place a flat rate on all personal income above the deductions - and I mean ALL income, regardless of source, regardless of type (yes, if you are given a car, it's value is personal income) and regardless of where in the world it is banked. No more tax shelters, no more off-shore banking tax evasions. Again, simplified regulations saves money.

At the same time, get rid of corporate taxes, which are simply passed onto the consumer anyway. (Watch what happens to gas prices if Obama and his anti-business cronies get their way with increasing taxes on oil corporations...)

Have corporations pay fees based on their usage of public infrastructure, as opposed to a tax based on profits. Corporate profits go to two places, when all is said and done. They either end up being invested in expansion, which creates jobs and thus it is good for the economy to keep those as high as possible. Or they end up in the hands of corporate leadership and investors (ie: individuals), where taxation of all individual income will have the net effect of taxing those corporate profits without diminishing the profits which are used for expansion and job creation, and without the miles of regulations, red tape, and corporate skulduggery of the current system. It also would address the problem of double-taxation which yielded the republican solution of not taxing dividend income. (Now THERE was a genuine giveaway to the uber rich - unlike the adjustment of the tax tables which, in actuality, benefited the lower-middle the most.)

Bottom line: a flat tax on personal income is fair, simple, and far less expensive to run. Revenues are more easily calculated, also. By leaving the wealth which actually stimulates the economy (ie: corporate profits put into expansion rather than peoples' pockets) out of the equation and sticking to personal income, there would be a lot less "well, if we tax these guys (more/less), it would do this, which would do that, which would (increase/decrease) total revenues."

 

[Liberty]

The political system may be different from Orwell's time, but the corruption and propaganda remain. We all have to "sacrifice" to balance the budget.

As Time Magazine wailed: "Do the nation's leaders have the courage to cut health entitlements or Social Security?" And the horses say, "We will work harder."

But the wealthiest individuals and corporations are not paying their taxes. They say they are. The richest Americans complain that they're paying most of the federal income taxes, and that's true. But since 1980 their AFTER-TAX share of America's income has TRIPLED. That's a trillion dollars a year in extra income for the wealthiest 1%. Their federal income tax rate has gone DOWN during that time, from 34% to 23%.

If they're paying most of the federal income tax it's because they make almost all the money.

The wealthiest 125 U.S. corporations, meanwhile, paid only 10% in U.S. income taxes last year. They claim that a lower tax rate will generate more tax revenue.

Here are the facts about corporate tax rates. Over the past 50 years the marginal rates for top corporations have steadily fallen, from over 50% to 35%. But according to the U.S. Office of Management, the corporate share of total tax revenue has dropped from about 20% in the 1960s to under 9% in 2010. Average Americans have made up most of the difference.

What the very rich won't admit is that they benefit the most from government-funded research, national security, infrastructure, property rights, and a financial industry tailored to their pleasure and profit. They insist that anyone can share in the prosperity, if only, like the horses, they keep working harder.

By PAUL BUCHHEIT

OK then.