Originally Posted by Vash02
Way to think of a way to stomp on the poor even more so than now.
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I don't think they want to realise that what is "fair" to them has nothing to do with good for the economy.
If you tax an equal percentage of all people, then you might take an equal share, but that's not really the effect on purchasing power.
Say you earn $15.000 each year, and 15% is taken away, then you are left with around $12.750 to spend on everything you need the entire year, or 365 days. Let's say that each person needs to spend money for housing, food, energy, food, fuel, maintenance, before being able to look at other commodities. Basically, the actual purchasing power of the consumer, would be reduced to a few hundred bucks a week including food, if that.
On large sums of money, say $80 million, taking away 12 million in taxes leaves $68 million to spend throughout the rest of the year. Or you can put it on the bank for a nice interest. Often the argument is they can invest more and create more jobs, but
there is no guarantee they will and once it's invested in huge Beverly Hills villas it's not like that's actually going to be true at all. So that's a rather moot point.
Either way, if you're rich, you're not even going to notice there's a tax, because you don't have to split dimes to get through the day.
So the 15% tax rate I mentioned earlier for people who make money with money, is ridiculously low and it's absolutely not fair that people that often work equaly hard or harder (physically/mentally), just with a different job that makes less money, get taxed the same way or even more and are left with not just less, not even a bit less, but so little they have to wonder about their family's wellbeing. If one works and especially if one works hard, one should be rewarded, correct?
And what if you can't work due to disabilities? It's easy to say "equal rate is fair", but that's oversimplifying things. Though that's not uncommon.
Note that I'm not at all in favour of extravagant handing out of money for unemployed people like some socialist parties want. However, I don't think it's a bad thing that you get some time to move on to the next job without immediately being financially rock bottom. Especially in the US where you can be fired instantly without notice (here, it's two months ahead unless contract breach occured and after you get around 70-80% of your past salary for a short period of time, so you don't immediately have to sell of your house, make an extra loss, etc, while looking for a new job). If you don't have a job after that period, then your state provided income is reduced much further, below minimal wages. This means you can still survive, but it's more attractive to get a job. Even at minimal wages.
And Malorn, haven't heard you respond to Warren Buffett's article yet.