Top 3% of Taxpayers paid majority of income taxes in 2016.

Bottom line, dems don't want to pay taxes, they are dead beats....they want the other person to pay taxes, and a lot of it.

 

Better to just get rid of the loopholes to simply it all. Changing it to an entirely different system doesn't really fix anything. Just moves around the numbers to come to basically the same result. Its not like we can figure out a way to make people who don't pay anything now, pay even less=) All you can do is make them pay more, which they certainly aren't going to like. Dems won't support it.

 

Too bad the middle class no longer pays the lion's share. But this is an indication of what has happened to the middle, as the income began to concentrate itself at the top, which does not create nor sustain large middle classes.

So, you tax the money where it is going, and it once went more to the middle. Used to be hard to get a significant middle class tax cut because that was where taxes were extracted from.

Reverse what sent the income to the top and the rich would no longer pay most of the lion's share. Big picture views are important for that tells the whole story instead of just a slice of a story.

 

So dividends, investments, inheritance, and capital gains would be counted as earned - correct?

What percent of earnings do you believe is a fair amount to tax?

Furthermore how do we account for the tremendous loss of tax revenue once the super wealthy (who account for 90% of all income) have their taxes slashed?

 

Remember, the rich will simply leave and go where they can pay less, if you try to cease their money by force. Guess what happens if THAT occurs? Venezuela.

Its basically like how studios shop around where to shoot the next TV show or movie. They see who gives them the biggest break. They don't care where they shoot, they just care where its cheapest. The rich aren't stupid. They have the resources to simply pick up and go. Less and less are we seeing people who are truly loyal to a country. Can you blame them?

 

Dividends and capital gains yes

Inheritance has already been taxed once

but the tax rate would be so low now I think the heirs could handle it

 

What percent of earnings do you believe is a fair amount to tax?

Furthermore how do we account for the tremendous loss of tax revenue once the super wealthy (who account for 90% of all income) have their taxes slashed?

 

I’m not sure what the best percentage would be

How about a starting bid of 5%?

 

The rich will still pay their fair share since no income will be exempt

 

So exactly WHO would calculate what percentage of full, complete income should be taxed for a "Flat Tax"...? The same Republicans AND Democrats who continue to pay little or nothing in taxation because of the current U. S. Tax Code and all its exemptions, deductions, shelters, and loopholes...?!

. Fox in the hen house.

 

Ok, total income was around 16.01 trillion U.S. dollars in 2016 so that would put us taxing about 800 billion. $1.37 trillion in individual income taxes was paid. Your plan would have put 2016 at a 1.1 trillion dollar deficit assuming all other taxes stayed the same. Unless you remove social security, Medicare, ect - then the deficit balloons to 2 trillion plus.

Are we also going to do a flat tax on goods and state taxes as well? Or are those left up to the individual states? Or removed altogether?

How do we expect the average family of four making about 60 grand to come up with an additional 6 grand to the government?

It works out great for the billionaires but not so much for anyone else.

Why not just have people pay their share of income taken as a percentage?

 

You demand that I give you the exact percentage needed when its really a group decision

What tax rate are you willing to pay?

 

A flat or sales tax would fix a lot. It would be fair, incentivize economic growth on personal and national level, and significantly reduce the bureaucracy of the IRS.

I know those who don’t pay income tax now won’t like having to pay, but I don’t particularly care. I care more about what’s morally right than people’s feelings. On average I may pay more tax on a consumption or flat tax plan than today. Again, I’m more about what’s morally correct than my pocketbook or feelings.

If we’re going to steal let’s at least steal from everyone. This country was not founded on wealth redistribution and it shouldn’t be that way today. Why people want to throw the success this country has had based on free markets and merit based success to go down the proven road of destruction of socialism I can’t fathom. Maybe it’s a virus and I was inoculated against infection by seeing firsthand the collapse of the economy of the USSR.

 

All I know is that every time the Republicans do tax reform it benefits the rich. Trump campaigned as a different kind of Republican who would raise taxes on the rich so much that it was going to “cost” him “a fortune.” Does anyone remember that campaign pledge? So, of course, he endorsed a plan that gave a near-exclusive tax cut to the wealthy investors who came out way ahead on his last tax plan and he’d said he would even bypass Congress to do it if he had to. Nothing says populism like giving billionaires a tax cut by executive fiat that has no expiration date on it.

Your quote is intentionally misleading. "The top 1% paid more than the bottom 90%." This is true but the figures should come with a caveat. The disparity in the numbers simply illustrates the fact that there's a tremendous imbalance of wealth in the world, not just in this country. I don't think it's even possible to wrap our minds around the fact if we gather together the world's wealthiest people, they could all fly together in a single medium-sized jet airplane, that's how few there is. We're talking about maybe 40 people in the world that have 99.9% of the wealth. If you earn more, you pay more. But that's changing with the new tax incentives for the rich.

It's all good news for those billionaires, filing 2017 tax returns will go much easier on them. The tax rate for the incredibly wealthy was 39.6% tax rate on ordinary income, but as a nice present to you by Trump, the new tax rate for the top earners will be significantly reduced which will also reduce revenue by $5.1 trillion. Sixty-five percent of the savings have gone to the richest fifth of Americans, with 22 percent of them going exclusively to the top 1 percent. Keep in mind that these numbers don’t reflect the fact that many lower-income individuals have Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld from their wages or pay these taxes through the self-employment tax, which the wealthy do not pay.

 

I am not a lib but - it is not hard to explain. If you have a society where the top 1% controls more than 50% of the wealth then it is only logical that they pay more than 50% of the taxes.

 

That's still a very significant number.

 

Beat you by 8 minutes
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/are-income-tax-rates-progressive-enough.543720/

 

If they have all these tax breaks then how come

• The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent).
• The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of total individual income taxes.
• • In other words, the bottom 50 percent paid 3 percent. Which small percentile of tax payers also paid 3 percent or more? You might have guessed it. It is the top 0.001%, or about 1,400 taxpayers. That group alone paid 3.25 percent of all income taxes. In 2001, the bottom 50 percent paid nearly 5 percent whereas the top 0.001 percent of filers paid 2.3 percent of income taxes.

 

I am guessing most people on this forum are not in the 1%. Probably very few are in the other 9%. So is your thinking you pay too little taxes and should be paying more? How much more would you like to pay?

 

You apparently think the economy is a zero sum game. It is not.

 

Why just the middle class and how do you propose to do that through the federal tax system? This is NOT the 1950's and 1960's. The economy is not the same, the ability to create and do so rather swiftly VERY successful companies which can produce HUGE revenues with the global economy and internet business is way beyond what the economy of the 1950's and 1960's. And the middle class is MUCH better off. I look back at my middle class upbringing compared to what is middle class today and it is apples and oranges.

And you have said on the one hand the tax system should not be used to adjust incomes and then on the other it should be. Which is it?

 

I know, right? Stone age boredom for everyone.

 

But you want to increase taxes on the 80% because of petty jealousy of the 20%?

 

We don't tax wealth and the highest income earners of a given year are not necessarily the wealthiest and vice versa. It's no business to the government or anyone else how much wealth a person has unless it is being obtained illegally.

 

I think the goal is to strip the wealthy of all of their money and then redistribute to the masses, making everyone poor in the process. No matter how many times you explain economics to people, they fail to grasp just how important it is to have wealthy people and a very strong Middle Class.