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Originally Posted by MattyC
What I mean is that, just because they pay a more percentage tax (and those that are in low income brackets pay little to no) does not mean that the society overall wouldn't benefit greatly from them being taxed more heavily.
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Okay, but what does "more heavily" mean?
And how do you determine who, and under what circumstances, someone should be taxed "more heavily"?
If we are all in this together, why shouldn't everyone be taxed in the same proportion? In this regard, Sanders does have a proposal that I like quite a bit: as I understand it, he wants Family Leave to be paid for by a flat 0.2% tax on everyone, reasoning that everyone will benefit from the law.
Or should those who receive greater governmental benefits be taxed "more heavily" than those who receive fewer governmental benefits (in which case, perhaps the higher-earners should actually pay less tax, proportionally, than lower-earners)?
The problem, as I see it, is that I worked very hard to obtain an education that allowed me to get a good paying job, and all the government sees is a "rich" person who needs to pay his "fair share" to, among other things, support those in society who don't pay any federal income taxes now and who seem not to be terribly interested in advancing their lot in life. To say that I need to pay more federal income taxes is ridiculous; my federal income tax bill is already tens of thousands dollars more than my annual living costs are. Which is to say, it costs me more to support the federal government than it does to support my own family.
And it isn't just me. There are many Americans who have worked hard and tried to advance themselves, and one "reward" for doing so is simply more taxes to be paid. And I think it is going to be very difficult to convince these people that they should pay even more in federal income taxes to benefit those who either don't pay anything already or to pay for additional government programs (however well-intentioned they may be) that simply are not cost-sustainable.
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Originally Posted by MattyC
A problem for me is taxing people bringing in billions the same as people making $300K/year.
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Well, when you get to billions of dollars of income each year, you likely aren't in the wage-earning class anymore, but rather in the capital class.
Which is why I argue for a federal tax code that is not based on income, but rather on wealth, since income can be "lumpy" and income is not, in my view, a good measure of whether someone is "rich" or "wealthy" or not.
Of course, how you measure "wealth" can be problematic too, but it might do a better job of truly taxing the wealthy as opposed to just the high-earners.
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Originally Posted by MattyC
Warren Buffett, who increased his total wealth by a factor of $9 f***ing billion dollars last year, is well cited as paying less individual income tax than his secretary. That is rigoddamndiculous. And he's the first one to tell you that.
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Yes, I suppose he is, but I don't think that he has made any donations to the US Treasury to rectify the disparity either.
In fact, isn't he trying to give away a lot of his wealth, and in so doing, depriving the federal government of tax revenue that it might otherwise receive?