Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
<SNIP>
To american horse, salient points, but again the story isn't complete there. Oftentimes the underlying issues (unsound economic fundamentals, recessions, economic security dilemmas between members) are what caused EU members to raise the VAT rate, not the other way around.
For instance, i know norway has one of the highest rates if i remember right and they have more GDP per capita than us and have for quite some time. Add to the fact that they also benefit from health care and free public education and I'd have to disagree that a vat tax MUST be negative.
Also, it's not always true they get raised. I'm thinking about Luxembourg specifically, which also has a higher GDP per capita than us and maintains a pretty low VAT tax.
greece's issues aren't just its vat taxes, most of the European's economic policy issues aren't just taxation, they are just a part of it. It's always dangerous to try to blame ONE issue on such a comprehensive problem, because then it causes us to lose focus or possibly exclude other more important factors.
We could have more tax payers, as Bill Clinton suggests, if we somehow got that 49% of the population who pays no taxes to begin to pay taxes. Who knows, if that same 49% of the population that pays no taxes began to pay taxes, maybe, just maybe, our taxes could actually go down or because Washington would suddenly have more money than they could spend they would be forced to begin to payback some of that money we owe China.
Both the national sales tax and the flat tax, which are both conservative favs, would raise taxes on lower income Americans.
A little irony there, eh?
have you considered, fox, that progressive tax has economic virtues which outshine the political ones?
what economic principals is your 'good thing' flat-tax based on?
have you considered, fox, that progressive tax has economic virtues which outshine the political ones?
what economic principals is your 'good thing' flat-tax based on?
It is based on the principle of fairness and equitable treatment of all citizens. It is without reward or punishment making it impossible for politicians to use to manipulate the system and is without corrupting influence on the people. It does not punish success nor put unreasonable burden on the less successful while opening doors for many more Americans to be successful. It is sufficiently simple that any literate person can understand it and would reduce the bureacracy by monumental proportions.
Finally it provides huge incentive for our elected leaders to implement policy that punishes no one and spurs vigorous economic growth for that is the only way they can increase their own power, prestige, and personal fortune.
have you considered, fox, that progressive tax has economic virtues which outshine the political ones?
what economic principals is your 'good thing' flat-tax based on?
It is based on the principle of fairness and equitable treatment of all citizens. It is without reward or punishment making it impossible for politicians to use to manipulate the system and is without corrupting influence on the people. It does not punish success nor put unreasonable burden on the less successful while opening doors for many more Americans to be successful. It is sufficiently simple that any literate person can understand it and would reduce the bureacracy by monumental proportions.
Finally it provides huge incentive for our elected leaders to implement policy that punishes no one and spurs vigorous economic growth for that is the only way they can increase their own power, prestige, and personal fortune.
so no economic principals at all?
leninism counts itself among attempts to displace economic principals with idealistic ones. that didn't work out or produce the intended result.
what do you say to the contention that we should deal with economic principals when we deal with issues like tax?
i feel fairness has marginal relevance in this issue, but how about looking at fairness in terms of the percentage of disposable income or above poverty income burdened by tax which a flat rate would distort in deference to high earners?
That it is mute on progressive direct taxes on the productive speaks volumes, for those who aren't ideologically tin-eared.the constitution has nothing to input with respect to progressive taxation.
fox, it just seems that your arguments are based entirely on ideologies regarding fairness, and pay no heed to scholars or observations of how taxes effect economics. lenin felt ideology superseded economics, although clearly the application is different.
the constitution has nothing to input with respect to progressive taxation. where do you derive that judgment?
i think there are some distinct disadvantages to flat tax for the economy altogether. a flat rate delivers a greater disadvantage to those who earn income closer to the poverty line, removing them from economic participation which our economy currently benefits from, and pressing them closer to poverty. on the other end of the spectrum, flat taxes, particularly those which eliminate expensibility, would deliver a greater advantage to those with many times more income, relieving them from motivation to invest in our economy in ways from which it currently benefits.
Raise taxes... I'm all for it... you raise what the little entitlement junkies and mass Obamabots pay in income taxes to the same % as I pay... we'll see how much they keep with their support of the tax rate and huge government spending after that
You're just supporting what I've been saying ever since this little nugget of how many Americans pay no federal income taxes came out. The conservative call for lower taxes isn't quite what it appeared to be.
I am not for 'lower taxes' in the way that many people chant...
I am for equal treatment in taxation... I am for equal % payed on every dollar earned by every citizen... in combination of severely reduced government spending.... I am in no way in support of the Robin Hood IRS and government we have and have had
You're just supporting what I've been saying ever since this little nugget of how many Americans pay no federal income taxes came out. The conservative call for lower taxes isn't quite what it appeared to be.
I am not for 'lower taxes' in the way that many people chant...
I am for equal treatment in taxation... I am for equal % payed on every dollar earned by every citizen... in combination of severely reduced government spending.... I am in no way in support of the Robin Hood IRS and government we have and have had
That toothpaste isn't going back in the tube. Neither party is going to run on a platform that the lower income working families in America are undertaxed relative to their higher income counterparts.
This is the trap Republicans have fallen into. In their neverending quest to get lower taxes for the upper half of the income spectrum, they have had to include meaningful tax cuts for the lower half. This has led to the lower half being down around zero income taxes.
Makes one wonder what tax cutting agenda the Republican are running on or will be running on.
I am not for 'lower taxes' in the way that many people chant...
I am for equal treatment in taxation... I am for equal % payed on every dollar earned by every citizen... in combination of severely reduced government spending.... I am in no way in support of the Robin Hood IRS and government we have and have had
That toothpaste isn't going back in the tube. Neither party is going to run on a platform that the lower income working families in America are undertaxed relative to their higher income counterparts.
This is the trap Republicans have fallen into. In their neverending quest to get lower taxes for the upper half of the income spectrum, they have had to include meaningful tax cuts for the lower half. This has led to the lower half being down around zero income taxes.
Makes one wonder what tax cutting agenda the Republican are running on or will be running on.
And this is the trap the lefties have fallen in to... selective equality being justified by greed and jealousy...
Hell... then don't lower my taxes... bring everyone else up to my tax rate....
You guys love to have no stake in the game, while wanting something from the game
The WSJ has an interesting column today regarding the "stickiness" of federal tax receipts at around 19% of GDP. The author calls is Hauser's Law":
U.S. fiscal policy has been going in the wrong direction for a very long time. But this year the U.S. government declined to lay out any plan to balance its budget ever again. Based on President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates a deficit that starts at 10.3% of GDP in 2010. It is projected to narrow as the economy recovers but will still be 5.6% in 2020. As a result the net national debt (debt held by the public) will more than double to 90% by 2020 from 40% in 2008. The current Greek deficit is now thought to be 13.6% of a far smaller GDP. Unlike ours, the Greek insolvency is not too large for an international rescue.
As sobering as the U.S. debt estimates are, they are incomplete and optimistic. They do not include deficit spending resulting from the new health-insurance legislation. The revenue numbers rely on increased tax rates beginning next year resulting from the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts. And, as usual, they ignore the unfunded liabilities of social insurance programs, even though these benefits are officially recognized as "mandatory spending" when the time comes to pay them out.
The feds assume a relationship between the economy and tax revenue that is divorced from reality. Six decades of history have established one far-reaching fact that needs to be built into fiscal calculations: Increases in federal tax rates, particularly if targeted at the higher brackets, produce no additional revenue. For politicians this is truly an inconvenient truth.
The nearby chart shows how tax revenue has grown over the past eight decades along with the size of the economy. It illustrates the empirical relationship first introduced on this page 20 years ago by the Hoover Institution's W. Kurt Hausera close proportionality between revenue and GDP since World War II, despite big changes in marginal tax rates in both directions. "Hauser's Law," as I call this formula, reveals a kind of capacity ceiling for federal tax receipts at about 19% of GDP.
What's the origin of this limit beyond which it is impossible to extract any more revenue from tax payers? The tax base is not something that the government can kick around at will. It represents a living economic system that makes its own collective choices. In a tax code of 70,000 pages there are innumerable ways for high-income earners to seek out and use ambiguities and loopholes. The more they are incentivized to make an effort to game the system, the less the federal government will get to collect. That would explain why, as Mr. Hauser has shown, conventional methods of forecasting tax receipts from increases in future tax rates are prone to over-predict revenue.
For budget planning it's wiser and safer to assume that tax receipts will remain at a historically realistic ratio to GDP no matter how tax rates are manipulated. That leads me to conclude that current projections of federal revenue are, once again, unrealistically high....
David Ranson: The Revenue Limits of Tax and Spend - WSJ.com
Implementing a VAT in order to expand the size of the Federal Government is doomed to failure. All it will lead to is more aggressive tax cheating and avoidance, and increasing deficits and debt as the overly optimistic tax receipt projections are used to justify budgetary spending increases.
Tax receipts were below forecasts in 2009, and are abysmal this year - one of the reasons why Congress is avoiding preparing a budget. They don't want to face having to cut spending in the face of lower tax receipts.
VAT will not plug the gap.
You're just supporting what I've been saying ever since this little nugget of how many Americans pay no federal income taxes came out. The conservative call for lower taxes isn't quite what it appeared to be.
I am not for 'lower taxes' in the way that many people chant...
I am for equal treatment in taxation... I am for equal % payed on every dollar earned by every citizen... in combination of severely reduced government spending.... I am in no way in support of the Robin Hood IRS and government we have and have had
That toothpaste isn't going back in the tube. Neither party is going to run on a platform that the lower income working families in America are undertaxed relative to their higher income counterparts.
This is the trap Republicans have fallen into. In their neverending quest to get lower taxes for the upper half of the income spectrum, they have had to include meaningful tax cuts for the lower half. This has led to the lower half being down around zero income taxes.
Makes one wonder what tax cutting agenda the Republican are running on or will be running on.
fox, it just seems that your arguments are based entirely on ideologies regarding fairness, and pay no heed to scholars or observations of how taxes effect economics. lenin felt ideology superseded economics, although clearly the application is different.
the constitution has nothing to input with respect to progressive taxation. where do you derive that judgment?
i think there are some distinct disadvantages to flat tax for the economy altogether. a flat rate delivers a greater disadvantage to those who earn income closer to the poverty line, removing them from economic participation which our economy currently benefits from, and pressing them closer to poverty. on the other end of the spectrum, flat taxes, particularly those which eliminate expensibility, would deliver a greater advantage to those with many times more income, relieving them from motivation to invest in our economy in ways from which it currently benefits.
Fairness and observations of how taxes affect economics are two separate subjects and neither are based on ideology, so you really can leave Lenin out of it for now.
When I say 'fairness', I mean equal treatment under the law for everybody, not equality of effect or outcome for everybody. And I did not address whether or not the Constitution has anything to do with progressive taxation. (It doesn't actually--the 16th amendment gives Congress authority to tax income and does not address a progressive income tax.)
It is not healthy for any of the people when 50% of the population pays little or no income taxes and bears no direct consequences for whatever for whatever taxes are imposed on the other half.
I do believe however, according to the chapter in Economics 101 that you may have missed, increasing the disposable income of the wealthy, along with incentive to spend or invest it, will almost invariably result in increased opportunity for that bottom half.
That it is mute on progressive direct taxes on the productive speaks volumes, for those who aren't ideologically tin-eared.the constitution has nothing to input with respect to progressive taxation.
Your opinion as to which is or isn't better is irrelevant.That it is mute on progressive direct taxes on the productive speaks volumes, for those who aren't ideologically tin-eared.the constitution has nothing to input with respect to progressive taxation.
better than what preceded it, dude. are you tone-deaf to the economic implications, buddy?