The french rich ask for a tax on...themselves

[DeistPaladin]

Someone please explain how a "flat tax" is somehow fair?

In theory, a flat tax is the same proportionate tax for everyone. Sounds fair, right?

In reality, no other part of our society operates that way. Those that own are the ones who pay to maintain.

Take condominium ownership as an analogous example. Those who own the condos own their living space and pay maintenance for the community space and community expenses. These maintenance fees pay for mowing the lawn, cleaning the halls, keeping up community amenities, etc. This maintenance is typically assessed according to the square footage of your unit. The more you own, the more you pay to maintain.

Let's say you lived in a unit half the size of mine. You would expect to pay half as much in maintenance as I do. If you found out I paid exactly the same amount, you'd feel like you were subsidizing my unit.

The top 1% of our society currently owns 42% of the wealth in this country. A fair assessment of their tax burden to maintain the portion of society that they own would have them pay 42% of the total revenue from taxes. I haven't seen the actual statistics but I'm guessing their share is considerably lower.

[The Grand Nudger]

Taxes ground my ass so hard that my wife (who has a degree in business finance) works as a secretary so we can grab health insurance and afford birthday presents (along with everything else that gets tight for us at certain points of the year). When you hear us "Middle Class Americans" complain about being eaten alive by the system we're not kidding, we're very serious. My wife and I joke about "losing" our jobs all the time, we'd end up with the same quality of life and have more time to spend with our kids. I can squeeze a dollar out of a rock, literally, so whats holding me back?

(Rhetorical, it's the un-fucking-believable amount of tax, and fees to be paid that is then distributed in subsidy and sweetheart deals to my multi-billion dollar competitors. All the while....they pay a lower rate on their income. Brilliant)

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Actually Deist, here, the top earners shoulder more of the tax burden. Of course they would, when you add it up, since you can't bleed a stone. The issue is this, when what is paid does not cover services, who should we lean on? Those whose wealth depends upon those services? Or those who cannot afford to even begin to avail themselves of all of those services?

[Minimalist]

Someone please explain how a "flat tax" is somehow fair?

Because it lowers taxes on rich fucks even more. Some people ( ahem...Adrian) think that is "fair."


Meanwhile, I have been over at FOX looking for this story with no luck. I imagine they are dumbstruck that rich motherfuckers would not act like greedy fucks and are asking for confirmation.

Now, as a consequence of looking at FOX I have to go take a shower.

[The Grand Nudger]

Be sparing with the water, you never know when the rich will claim it for themselves, especially in Arizona.

[Minimalist]

True dat.

[reverendjeremiah]

Someone please explain how a "flat tax" is somehow fair?

It isnt..unless, of course, the price of goods were based on the percentage of wealth you owned.

The price of milk doesnt change wether you are rich or poor..and THAT is why the rich push for flat tax rates. Its a win win situation, and ultimately places ALL of the burdon of our government on the middle and lower income earners.

I used to push for flat tax as well..that is...before I sat down and crunched the numbers. I came to the realization that people who push for flat taxes either suck at math or are greedy bastards.

[Tiberius]

In reality, no other part of our society operates that way. Those that own are the ones who pay to maintain.

Not over there maybe, but here in England we have VAT (Value Added Tax) on most purchasable items.

The tax is 20% of the item's sale value. So if something costs £1, the VAT would be 20p. The tax rate doesn't change if you are rich or poor, and isn't dependent on the amount of stuff you buy; it's always 20%.

There are quite a few different flat tax schemes; a lot of them involving a certain cut off point (i.e. incomes that are too low to be taxable). One interesting variation is "Negative income tax", which allows families living in the poorest circumstances to get money back from the government if their income is less than the amount of their deductions.

Read more here: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Flat_tax

[Minimalist]

http://www.sfbg.com/2011/04/12/failed-experiment

For three decades we have conducted a massive economic experiment, testing a theory known as supply-side economics. The theory goes like this: Lower tax rates will encourage more investment, which in turn will mean more jobs and greater prosperity — so much so that tax revenues will go up, despite lower rates.

The late Milton Friedman, the libertarian economist who wanted to shut down public parks because he considered them socialism, promoted this strategy. Ronald Reagan embraced Friedman's ideas and made them into policy when he was elected president in 1980.

For the past decade, we have doubled down on this theory of supply-side economics with the tax cuts sponsored by President George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003, which President Barack Obama has agreed to continue for two years.

You would think that whether this grand experiment worked would be settled after three decades. You would think the practitioners of the dismal science of economics would look at their demand curves and the data on incomes and taxes and pronounce a verdict, the way Galileo and Copernicus did when they showed that geocentrism was a fantasy because the Earth revolves around the sun (known as heliocentrism). But economics is not like that. It is not like physics with its laws and arithmetic with its absolute values.

Tax policy is something the framers of the Constitution left to politics. And in politics, the facts often matter less then who has the biggest bullhorn.

The Mad Men who once ran campaigns featuring doctors extolling the health benefits of smoking are now busy marketing the dogma that tax cuts mean broad prosperity, no matter what the facts show.

Long article....unfortunately this is not the type of issue that can be handled in a 10 second sound bite which is about all the republicolibertarianazis can handle.

[bozo]

An example of the mega rich cynically attempting, by way of a one-off gesture, to suggest that we are all ( the not mega rich and including the mega poor ) " in this together " .
How ironic that this excretia is coming from France! IN 1789 they cut off the heads of tossers like these fatcats.

[Minimalist]

An example of the mega rich cynically attempting, by way of a one-off gesture, to suggest that we are all ( the not mega rich and including the mega poor ) " in this together " .

Think of it this way.

The altar boy who is bent over a pew and the priest who is shoving his dick up the kid's ass are most definitely "in it together."