Flat/Fair Tax back on the discussion

Thank you Rand Paul.

 

He's not the only candidate, 100% positive Ben Carson has also brought up the flat tax.

 

Good on Carson too. This needs to be front and center, in my opinion.

 

Your crazy if you think there is a chance in hell of a flat tax coming to pass.

It wouldn't simplify anything anyway. As I've said before, the complexity of our tax system rests in what defines income.

 

It's not really fair if we all pay the same percentage. That's still a tax on the rich as they will pay astronomically more than most people.

So we have to have a flat real number. That number, to be beneficial to normal people at the national average of $30k a year must be lower than the 15% federal tax burden now.

Let's say 10% of the average earner gives us a beneficial tax rate of $3k a year for everyone. There's roughly 192m adults 18-65 in the US if every single one paid $3k a year the federal government would collect a revenue of $576b.

As it stands that is the entire annual non-defense budget excluding retirement. So if we cut all spending, including entitelments (ss and medicare), all police, all welfare, all research, all highway and infrastruce, all foreign aid, all NASA, all parks, all EIC, all rebates, all business expenses, all education, etc

and if every single adult had a job at all times, we would be left with a deficit of $34B spending on the DOD/military. ($610,000,000,000.00 annually)


http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-non-defense-discretionary-programs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

So given that everyone now has to pay for basic education alone that would be financially devastating to the vast majority of people. And business as most people would probably opt to be illiterate. Then you'd have to pay for private roads, private police, private fire departments, private trash, and your grandparents have to have eat, go to the doctor, and live with you on top of all that. Leaving almost everyone in the country a vastly higher bill than the 5% plus SS and medicare they saved on taxes.

 

So, we stick with what we have. Great!:up:

 

Police, fire, trash and roads are all local and state functions. School used to be and could and should be returned to local once again, but even now, most of the cost of schools is state and local.

 

True, but highways aren't. And states get alot of federal grants to make ends meet so their policians don't have to balance a budget. With no federal highway interstate commerce is severely handicapped.

local police departments wouldnt get help from federal agencies, no FBI data base, no federal courts, etc. leading to much increased state and local taxes.....unless you want to get rid of those as well and go to a total free market approach to civil functioning.

But we are nit-picking. We would still have to close the deficit at the DOD and have and keep 100% employment while the lower half of the country somehow don't go full crazed hobo when we have very limited law enforcement.

 

And where do the feds get the money?

 

Neither is fire. Roughly half the recent budgets of the USFS have been for fire.

 

From federal taxes collected by the IRS.

Here are the states that subside on the federal government

 

It we had some hard and fast rules on taxes we could have a much simpler tax system that would work. We could have standard deductions for families, tax breaks for three or four income levels, and maybe tax deductions for money given to approved charities, but stop all the complicated BS like having different deducts for all the various means of income. If it's income then it's frigging income and is taxed as all other income is taxed.

If an individual makes less than 25K then he/she is taxed at one rate. If that individual makes less than 50K then he/she would pay a slightly higher rate. This could go up to something like 18% rate for anyone making over 250K or so. Corporations are treated the same as individual taxpayers.

Anyone caught cheating will be immediately shot and buried under their own patio. Yep, I'm harsh.

 

Do I hear "Republic?"

 

And they say old men don't belong in office. :up:

 

Why are you punishing success? Why shouldn't the tax rate go DOWN the more you make?

 

How are you looking at these maps? According to what I've found Texas is not even on the top 10 list of money taken back from the Federal Government. In fact, Texas is second on the list of the most money sent to the Fed and not in the top 10 getting any back.

Ahh, looking it up again shows that Texas is in the group of Southern states with the smallest number of tax paying families. Over all we pay the second highest amount of taxes which is paid by the highest income people of the state.
You have to watch out for that pesky Democratic Underground bunch since they have a tendency to twist facts if they can.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

 

http://gawker.com/a-flat-tax-is-just-a-giveaway-to-the-rich-1712239624

thoughts?

 

We had no income tax before 1913. Lets go back to that. The individual income tax is unconstitutional. There was a proposed constitutional amendment to change that. It was never ratified by 2/3ds of the states, thus never passed.

 

The federal government doesn't get taxes from states. Not sure where you and R Acree get that wrong idea but the federal government collects taxes through what's know as the internal revenue service.

The map is from the tax foundation, not a webforum, and shows the highest percentage of people who have no tax liabilities.

Your link shows gross taxes collected by state. Giving the population of the state is pretty standard and expected. It doesn't show how much that state gets from the federal government to cover its expenditures. Given that texas leads in the highest amount of zero liability citizens, even though it breaks even in expenditures, it is a welfare state putting the burden on the rich to subsidize the poor. (by means of welfare programs such as EIC causing anyone claiming a dependant to actually profit from taxpayers)

Here is spending per dollar of federal taxes. States that spend over $1 are welfare states and are leeches on federal tax revenue.




http://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/#main-findings

 

I didn't say the feds got the money from the states. The feds get money from the same place state and local governments do, the people.