Are you part of the 53%?

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Shame on me? What for?

I have a sarcastic sense about me. It don't translate in text well, my apologies.
Displaying common sense in a world of smoke and mirrors. It has to be a sin!
Remember wizard of OZ? Ignore the little feeble old man behind the curtain. You see through the curtain and see common sense without partisan nonsense.

Rich, poor, pay your share. We all benefit. I had the firefighters put out my garage before it torched my house where my family was. I had police recover my truck when it was stolen. (I live near a gang infested craphole)

I am happy to pay taxes. We all should.

Does that mean I can't support the OWS movement anymore? This thread seems more of an anti OWS than anything else.

[tater]

The subject is if they pay INCOME TAX. So payroll taxes are off-subject. As are sales taxes. We all pay those. Anyone not paying net income taxes doesn't have any ground to stand on to complain about anything.

In addition, those that don't pay income tax get a far better return on their payroll taxes than those that subsidize them do since the income levels that don't pay taxes have higher SS rates of return. They also use more government services, whereas I use virtually none aimed just at me (only roads, defense, etc—heck, we don't even use the school system, my kids go to private school).

For SS, the net benefit to taxes paid ratio gets pretty ugly at the point you make enough to pay real income tax (any lifetime average income much over 35k and your net is negative).

So FICA is a good investment for the poor, and a redistributive tax for anyone else.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by tater

The subject is if they pay INCOME TAX.

So when people say that they don't pay taxes, you just keep narrowing the definition of "taxes" until you're right.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

That's fine, but where in that article do they say that these people don't pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, property taxes, etc?

The whole "47%" number is intentionally misleading.

How so? The article states

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009.

End of thought. It's fine they pay all the other taxes however they get the free pass on Federal income tax. Fair tax is everyone pays into every taxable area. No loophole or free rides for whatever reason that can drummed up.

[Penguin]

Can you guys elaborate to us Non-Americans how many percent of an average paycheck gets soaked up by payroll taxes and how much gets snatched by income taxes? For simplicity without considering deductions.

For employees here, the income tax (wage tax) is directly withheld from your monthly pay, for other sources of income you do a yearly tax declaration, like in the US.

[tater]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

So when people say that they don't pay taxes, you just keep narrowing the definition of "taxes" until you're right.

When I say that, I mean exactly what I say, they pay no income taxes. This is true. In many cases they pay NEGATIVE income taxes.

Payroll taxes are kept separate so they can talk about them differently, when in fact they should just be lumped. heck, the very notion of an "employer contribution" is BS for the credulous so they think they pay less, and they are "sticking it to the boss."

It still doesn't matter. My effective rate with FICA and income tax is still way higher than someone that pays no income tax. In return I will lose money on SS instead of coming out ahead. That's straight cash in vs cash out, that does not count opportunity costs for what that money could have made.

The people who pay no income tax pay no income tax. They don't pay a fair share of anything. They don't pull even their own weight. Their entitlement receipts are entirely subsidized, as is every government service they get. They are a net drain on the federal government, regardless of what they pay in payroll/sales taxes.

The only people that actually deserve a say in how government money is spent are those that at least pull their own weight, or even those that pay more in than they personally get out (over a lifetime).

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by JU_88

It's not a new situation, lobbying has been around forever, but it's gotten worse and its gone too far.

Well that's a good opinion, but do we have any facts that back that up? We have a lot more oversight and laws than we did in the 19th century. Again, not saying that things are great now. Not at all. But to say they are worse than then in the past has not been demonstrated.

These guys have more control over legislation than the American people do, that's not how American/western democracy is supposed to work.

Well, actually in a representative system the citizens really shouldn't have much control over legislation. That's actually the whole point about representative governments vice democratic governments. I do agree that both the citizens and corporations need to have limited control over legislation. To allow one (Corporations) while denying the other (Citizens) is unacceptable.

Could you imagine how screwed up our country would be if we were truly democratic in nature?

It is depressing, I will agree. But until someone comes up with a better solution that is actually workable, our governmental system is probably still the best crappiest system out there

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winny C.

One could substitute representative in the place of democratic as I believe ole Winny actually intended.

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Could you imagine how screwed up our country would be if we were truly democratic in nature?

I isolated this because it reminds me of my cousin. He moved to Cali after he got out the Marines, and he makes comments on how, "we have to vote to approve the sun to rise here"

True democracy would break most Americans brains, as it would require you to pay attention, and make a free will decision. Free will and thinking are not an American strong suit anymore.