AP: Tax fact check....

Originally posted by no1marauder
When right wingers complain about government spending, Social Security and Medicare are always prominently mentioned. But when they complain about how the rich are supposedly overtaxed, they always want to ignore the regressive payroll taxes which fund those programs.

Doesn't make good "spin" apparently.

Now we're prominently mentioning Solyndra.. as well as the other shell corporations that your boy Obama (unfortunately but correctly) pointed out are the future of the U.S. economy as long as Obama has something to say about it.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra

There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

How do they manage that? Sheesh, talk about loopholes...

The US has a complex tax code that is only understood completely by people who make a career out of studying it.

As a practical matter, the only reason to bother doing that is if someone with a lot at stake (e.g. the very rich) can pay you to spend that time. So the very rich support the tax industry -- accountants and lawyers who specialize in how to minimize the amount of tax one pays.

The result in a year when many of the rich lose money is that some of them won't pay any tax -- due to various deductions. Corporations do the same (e.g. GE a few years back.)

Personally, I think it is unconscionable that people are being required to obey laws that they have no chance of understanding. It is one one of those "obvious rights" that got left out of the Constitution -- that once a body of laws becomes such a mish-mash of exceptions and special cases that the average person no longer knows what he is supposed to do -- that condition itself could be challenged in court and declared unconstitutional.

Originally posted by normbenign
First, overtaxed or undertaxed is all a matter of opinion.

For the benefits received, relatively high wage earners are still being screwed even by the supposedly regressive payroll tax. What is the ceiling now, $90k?

If a taxpayer pays at that rate for say 40 years, and his employer matches, he doesn't qualify for a penny more than a guy that pays ...[text shortened]... r or better off. The money is displaced, and for the most part poorly used by government.

First, overtaxed or undertaxed is all a matter of opinion.

Yeah, that's what you want it to be, since you still refuse to go into specifics about what a government ought to achieve for its people. Of course there is no empirical justification for libertarianism, so it's very convenient to label the issue as a "matter of opinion".

Originally posted by normbenign
That's a small minority of all millionaires. The bottom 47% of taxpayers pay nothing in income taxes. That's probably 100 million people.

100% agree. If we want a fair tax system, either everyone pays income tax or we eliminate the tax completely. Until then it seems apparent that tax reform is not an argument about fairness, it is merely an attempt to make those who contribute the most contribute even more.

Payroll taxes are not unfair. As you make more, you pay more. Then the government stops caps you benefit (stops giving you benefits) and stops charging you for it.

Originally posted by quackquack
100% agree. If we want a fair tax system, either everyone pays income tax or we eliminate the tax completely. Until then it seems apparent that tax reform is not an argument about fairness, it is merely an attempt to make those who contribute the most contribute even more.

Payroll taxes are not unfair. As you make more, you pay more. Then the government stops caps you benefit (stops giving you benefits) and stops charging you for it.

Lol! Nice consistency there.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Lol! Nice consistency there.

Are you suggesting that bottom 47% should pay no payroll taxes so it can be consistent with the fact that they pay no income tax? Or are you suggesting that there would be more consistency if I just agreed with all the dumb arguments that the top 1% which pays 40% of taxes just does not pay enough?

Originally posted by quackquack
Are you suggesting that bottom 47% should pay no payroll taxes so it can be consistent with the fact that they pay no income tax? Or are you suggesting that there would be more consistency if I just agreed with all the dumb arguments that the top 1% which pays 40% of taxes just does not pay enough?

I'm suggesting that making a different kind of argument based on the name you give to a tax is, frankly, quite silly.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
I'm suggesting that making a different kind of argument based on the name you give to a tax is, frankly, quite silly.

I am not sure why you believe I am doing that.

Originally posted by quackquack
I am not sure why you believe I am doing that.

I don't know, perhaps because you literally said it.

Eliminating the cap on social security tax and applying (maybe a smaller) ss tax to capital gains would both make ss solvent for a century and eliminate the possibility of a high income person paying such a low percentage,

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
[b]First, overtaxed or undertaxed is all a matter of opinion.

Yeah, that's what you want it to be, since you still refuse to go into specifics about what a government ought to achieve for its people. Of course there is no empirical justification for libertarianism, so it's very convenient to label the issue as a "matter of opinion".[/b]

Why is it not a matter of opinion?

Taxing ought to be for a minimum amount of absolutely necessary services. Why? Because government is notoriously inefficient producer.

Of moneys spent on general welfare, 72% is eaten up by administrative costs, leaving 28% to help the poor.

Federal gasoline taxes, are generall "returned" to the States after the federals skim off about 30% in costs.

At best, if the government were totally and purely efficient, no additional money is available, so it is taken by force from one use, and dedicated to another, most often in a very wasteful manner.

Originally posted by quackquack
100% agree. If we want a fair tax system, either everyone pays income tax or we eliminate the tax completely. Until then it seems apparent that tax reform is not an argument about fairness, it is merely an attempt to make those who contribute the most contribute even more.

Payroll taxes are not unfair. As you make more, you pay more. Then the government stops caps you benefit (stops giving you benefits) and stops charging you for it.

We differ on the matter of payroll taxes, as the benefits cap a long ways before the tax stops being charged.

If SS and Medicare were so unanimously a good deal, then why aren't they voluntary? Why are Congress and the Railroad employees carved out as exceptions? Anything requiring mandatory membership can't be that good a deal.

Originally posted by normbenign
Why is it not a matter of opinion?

Taxing ought to be for a minimum amount of absolutely necessary services. Why? Because government is notoriously inefficient producer.

Of moneys spent on general welfare, 72% is eaten up by administrative costs, leaving 28% to help the poor.

Federal gasoline taxes, are generall "returned" to the States after t ...[text shortened]... s taken by force from one use, and dedicated to another, most often in a very wasteful manner.

I do wonder where you found these figures.

Originally posted by sh76
Eliminating the cap on social security tax and applying (maybe a smaller) ss tax to capital gains would both make ss solvent for a century and eliminate the possibility of a high income person paying such a low percentage,

Sometimes your ideas are good. This one is butt ugly aweful.

Social Security was fought at its inception on the basis that it was a second income tax. Lawers argued it was not, but rather an excise. Dumb me. It always looked, smelled and acted like an income tax.

The positive thing is that it kept the most expensive program out of the general fund budget, leaving it to be responsible and measurable for itself.

Blending funds from other taxes would make it totally impossible to even evaluate the solvency of the program. As with a lot of things, SS is a blend of things we see and things which we don't. It has paid out benefit checks for nearly 8 decades, but altered countless times, both to increase benefits, put in new beneficiary classes, and to increase the tax.

All the while, the underwriting and actuarials are either sloppy or non existent. Most of what we hear is the retirement benefit, but SSI, widows and orphans benefits, and disability payments are big ones that have been added to SS without any real concern for the long term viability of the program.

To me, it is absolutely essential to keep SS separated from the rest of government, if it is to have any semblence of responsibility and accountabilty.

Originally posted by normbenign
We differ on the matter of payroll taxes, as the benefits cap a long ways before the tax stops being charged.

If SS and Medicare were so unanimously a good deal, then why aren't they voluntary? Why are Congress and the Railroad employees carved out as exceptions? Anything requiring mandatory membership can't be that good a deal.

Your information is about 30 years out of date (which considering your political ideology is about 150 years out of date isn't that bad):

Under a law enacted in 1983, all members of Congress both contribute to and receive benefits from the Social Security system.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blcongress.htm