The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

[busterman62]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

No, taxes weren't upped in 2012.

If I own a store that sells widgets for $X and I have a sale at Christmas and sell widgets for $X-1 I do not "raise" the price on December 26th - the sale ended. An increase would be if I set the price at X+1 on December 26.

Wrong on so many levels!

Your "logic" works fine for the store owner (i.e The Gov't) but not for the customer (taxpayer).
If I purchase your widget on 12/24 and you charge $X-1, I pay you A. ($X-1 = A)
Purchasing on 12/26 and you charge $X, I now pay A+1 ([$X-1] +1 = $X = A+1)
The cost (rate) I pay for said widget went up

Now, I assume you are trying to infer that because the rate was previously higher, lowered and then raised back to the same level that is equivalent to no increase. Kepler will probably point out that the rates are way down from the 90% rates so those paying the higher rates got a significant reduction. I'll reply by taking that "logic" one step further and say there has been a significant increase from the 1861 rates.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Kepler will probably point out that the rates are way down from the 90% rates so those paying the higher rates got a significant reduction. I'll reply by taking that "logic" one step further and say there has been a significant increase from the 1861 rates.

Taxes are only "higher" or "lower" in relation to something. I actually agree with the knucks that when you allow a tax cut to expire you are raising taxes -- relative to the prior year, the rate is higher, therefore it is raised. Of course, whoever signed the original deal with the sunset clause was also setting up that raise in taxes -- it is not exclusively the responsibility of the president who happens to be occupying the chair the day the rate changes as planned.

There is no absolute mark from which taxes can be declared "high" or "low" -- there's only the historical data. By historical data, federal taxes are now quite low when compared to the period during which the US was most prosperous and during which the American middle class was created. To me that is strong evidence that a return to an aggressively progressive tax structure would not only be positive in reducing wealth inequality and rebuilding the middle class, but would also lead to greater shared prosperity and a country that was stronger top to bottom.

 

[busterman62]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Taxes are only "higher" or "lower" in relation to something. I actually agree with the knucks that when you allow a tax cut to expire you are raising taxes -- relative to the prior year, the rate is higher, therefore it is raised. Of course, whoever signed the original deal with the sunset clause was also setting up that raise in taxes -- it is not exclusively the responsibility of the president who happens to be occupying the chair the day the rate changes as planned.

There is no absolute mark from which taxes can be declared "high" or "low" -- there's only the historical data. By historical data, federal taxes are now quite low when compared to the period during which the US was most prosperous and during which the American middle class was created. To me that is strong evidence that a return to an aggressively progressive tax structure would not only be positive in reducing wealth inequality and rebuilding the middle class, but would also lead to greater shared prosperity and a country that was stronger top to bottom.

Redistribution by any other name would smell as sweet?

 

[St. Clown]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Taxes are only "higher" or "lower" in relation to something. I actually agree with the knucks that when you allow a tax cut to expire you are raising taxes -- relative to the prior year, the rate is higher, therefore it is raised. Of course, whoever signed the original deal with the sunset clause was also setting up that raise in taxes -- it is not exclusively the responsibility of the president who happens to be occupying the chair the day the rate changes as planned.

There is no absolute mark from which taxes can be declared "high" or "low" -- there's only the historical data. By historical data, federal taxes are now quite low when compared to the period during which the US was most prosperous and during which the American middle class was created. To me that is strong evidence that a return to an aggressively progressive tax structure would not only be positive in reducing wealth inequality and rebuilding the middle class, but would also lead to greater shared prosperity and a country that was stronger top to bottom.

In terms of effective tax rates, what do you think is the percentage difference between those years and now, as a percentage of GDP? Remember, this is the effective rates, not the nominal rates.

 

[Rover]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Wrong on so many levels!

Your "logic" works fine for the store owner (i.e The Gov't) but not for the customer (taxpayer).
If I purchase your widget on 12/24 and you charge $X-1, I pay you A. ($X-1 = A)
Purchasing on 12/26 and you charge $X, I now pay A+1 ([$X-1] +1 = $X = A+1)
The cost (rate) I pay for said widget went up

Now, I assume you are trying to infer that because the rate was previously higher, lowered and then raised back to the same level that is equivalent to no increase. Kepler will probably point out that the rates are way down from the 90% rates so those paying the higher rates got a significant reduction. I'll reply by taking that "logic" one step further and say there has been a significant increase from the 1861 rates.

Again thank you for pointing this out. Its ridiculous to say that 'oh tax rates where higher 50 years ago, so raising taxes above what they were the last 10 years doesn't count'.

 

[busterman62]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Again thank you for pointing this out. Its ridiculous to say that 'oh tax rates where higher 50 years ago, so raising taxes above what they were the last 10 years doesn't count'.

I'm agreeing with Rover. I somehow feel dirty

 

[busterman62]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Taxes are only "higher" or "lower" in relation to something. I actually agree with the knucks that when you allow a tax cut to expire you are raising taxes -- relative to the prior year, the rate is higher, therefore it is raised. Of course, whoever signed the original deal with the sunset clause was also setting up that raise in taxes -- it is not exclusively the responsibility of the president who happens to be occupying the chair the day the rate changes as planned.

There is no absolute mark from which taxes can be declared "high" or "low" -- there's only the historical data. By historical data, federal taxes are now quite low when compared to the period during which the US was most prosperous and during which the American middle class was created. To me that is strong evidence that a return to an aggressively progressive tax structure would not only be positive in reducing wealth inequality and rebuilding the middle class, but would also lead to greater shared prosperity and a country that was stronger top to bottom.

Joking aside.

I've asked several times on this board why there should be a progressive tax rate in a country where "all men are created equal" I've never quite understood it. Kepler has been the only one with a reasonable explanation by stating something to the effect that it was a fee the wealthy had to pay to avoid an uprising. Social engineering via the tax code.

Seems to me the equitable method would be to declare any funds obtained by a person( be it interest, work earnings, stolen, given, bartered, whatever) as income. Set at level which below is not taxable then tax at a flat rate. All would be equal under the eyes of the IRS

 

[Priceless]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Wrong on so many levels!

Your "logic" works fine for the store owner (i.e The Gov't) but not for the customer (taxpayer).
If I purchase your widget on 12/24 and you charge $X-1, I pay you A. ($X-1 = A)
Purchasing on 12/26 and you charge $X, I now pay A+1 ([$X-1] +1 = $X = A+1)
The cost (rate) I pay for said widget went up

Now, I assume you are trying to infer that because the rate was previously higher, lowered and then raised back to the same level that is equivalent to no increase. Kepler will probably point out that the rates are way down from the 90% rates so those paying the higher rates got a significant reduction. I'll reply by taking that "logic" one step further and say there has been a significant increase from the 1861 rates.

It isn't a tax increase. Just like stores don't raise prices when sales end.'


ETA: If I own a store and I advertise widgets will be on sale from December 18-24 you know that you have to purchase your widget by the 24th or the sale will end and the price will return to its original level.
Likewise with these temporary tax cuts, there was a sunset provision. You knew that you had until they expired and then the tax rate would return to its original level.

 

[Priceless]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

In terms of effective tax rates, what do you think is the percentage difference between those years and now, as a percentage of GDP? Remember, this is the effective rates, not the nominal rates.

What period of time are we talking about? I happen the have the spreadsheets showing spending, revenue and surplus/deficit both in real dollars and %GDP.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Joking aside.

I've asked several times on this board why there should be a progressive tax rate in a country where "all men are created equal" I've never quite understood it. Kepler has been the only one with a reasonable explanation by stating something to the effect that it was a fee the wealthy had to pay to avoid an uprising. Social engineering via the tax code.

Seems to me the equitable method would be to declare any funds obtained by a person( be it interest, work earnings, stolen, given, bartered, whatever) as income. Set at level which below is not taxable then tax at a flat rate. All would be equal under the eyes of the IRS

It's all people that are equal, not all dollars.

Forestalling a revolution is only one reason for a progressive income tax. Another is simply a matter of the impact of taxation on a dollar. The less wealth someone has, the greater a tax dollar cuts into his or her basic needs. The rich can simply afford the greater burden. Ideally, we would eliminate all sales taxes as those are the most regressive taxes of all (as well as the ones that most directly injure business competitiveness) and augment income taxes with wealth taxes.

There is also the issue of the effort invested in money earned "by the sweat of one's brow" as distinct from the compounding of interest while you sleep. The secret to getting really rich is letting your money work for you. When faced with the choice of whom to tax -- a janitor or a banker -- I'll pick on the banker. I make no pretensions to this as anything more than a moral preference. But in a democratic society, moral preferences mediated by adversarial politics lay out the topology of our social and economic possibilities. There is nothing "natural" in the current topology which favor the wealthy. They forced those preferences by methodically bribing politicians and rigging the political system.

The rich don't get a special fast lane on the interstate highway system, and they shouldn't get the educational, professional, political, penal and medical fast lanes they currently do. At a bare minimum, wealth should not determine matters of life and death. In a system in which there is severe inequality, it does, so inequality is a moral wrong. Redistribution is essential to breaking down inequality, because in a laissez faire system money breeds money, regardless of effort or merit, and inequality deepens.

 

[unofan]

Joking aside.

I've asked several times on this board why there should be a progressive tax rate in a country where "all men are created equal" I've never quite understood it. Kepler has been the only one with a reasonable explanation by stating something to the effect that it was a fee the wealthy had to pay to avoid an uprising. Social engineering via the tax code.

"It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion" - Adam Smith, The Wealth Of Nations

 

[busterman62]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

It's all people that are equal, not all dollars.

Forestalling a revolution is only one reason for a progressive income tax. Another is simply a matter of the impact of taxation on a dollar. The less wealth someone has, the greater a tax dollar cuts into his or her basic needs. The rich can simply afford the greater burden. Ideally, we would eliminate all sales taxes as those are the most regressive taxes of all (as well as the ones that most directly injure business competitiveness) and augment income taxes with wealth taxes.

There is also the issue of the effort invested in money earned "by the sweat of one's brow" as distinct from the compounding of interest while you sleep. The secret to getting really rich is letting your money work for you. When faced with the choice of whom to tax -- a janitor or a banker -- I'll pick on the banker. I make no pretensions to this as anything more than a moral preference. But in a democratic society, moral preferences mediated by adversarial politics lay out the topology of our social and economic possibilities. There is nothing "natural" in the current topology which favor the wealthy. They forced those preferences by methodically bribing politicians and rigging the political system.

The rich don't get a special fast lane on the interstate highway system, and they shouldn't get the educational, professional, political, penal and medical fast lanes they currently do. At a bare minimum, wealth should not determine matters of life and death. In a system in which there is severe inequality, it does, so inequality is a moral wrong. Redistribution is essential to breaking down inequality, because in a laissez faire system money breeds money, regardless of effort or merit, and inequality deepens.

If I read this correctly, you're saying that the rich should pay a greater share because A. they can and B. because you think it's morally right. Reason A is true but it only explains how they can pay more but not why they should pay more. Reason B (when looked at without Reason A) in reality is just as arbitrary as me saying that Wolverine fans should be taxed at a higher rate. You (Congress really) have decided that one group should bear a greater burden in supporting society than others. Why not make it Gopher fans too?

Again my answer is simple. Make it all income. Set a level that anyone can live on and flat tax all the income above it. Then the janitor is contributing at the same rate as the banker. All would share the burden equally. We'd have to find another way to bone over B1G hockey fans but if there ever was an issue that both clown parties in congress could agree on, this would be it

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

If I read this correctly, you're saying that the rich should pay a greater share because A. they can and B. because you think it's morally right. Reason A is true but it only explains how they can pay more but not why they should pay more. Reason B (when looked at without Reason A) in reality is just as arbitrary as me saying that Wolverine fans should be taxed at a higher rate. You (Congress really) have decided that one group should bear a greater burden in supporting society than others. Why not make it Gopher fans too?

Again my answer is simple. Make it all income. Set a level that anyone can live on and flat tax all the income above it. Then the janitor is contributing at the same rate as the banker. All would share the burden equally. We'd have to find another way to bone over B1G hockey fans but if there ever was an issue that both clown parties in congress could agree on, this would be it

Paying the same rate is not sharing the burden equally, because taxation is costing the janitor his kids' college fund, but it's costing the banker the mortgage on his second vacation home.

I am all for a codicil to the tax code that triples the burden on BC and Minny fans.

 

[Priceless]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Paying the same rate is not sharing the burden equally, because taxation is costing the janitor his kids' college fund, but it's costing the banker the mortgage on his second vacation home.

I am all for a codicil to the tax code that triples the burden on BC and Minny fans.

Then the janitor's kids will just have to become janitors.

 

[burd]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Paying the same rate is not sharing the burden equally, because taxation is costing the janitor his kids' college fund, but it's costing the banker the mortgage on his second vacation home.

I am all for a codicil to the tax code that triples the burden on BC and Minny fans.

I will never question your wisdom ever again, Kep.

Of course, most Minny fans are janitors, but their kids usually attend trade schools like UMTC anyway.

 

[Handyman]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

I will never question your wisdom ever again, Kep.

Of course, most Minny fans are janitors, but their kids usually attend trade schools like UMTC anyway.

That is better than driving a plow like most North Dakota fans...the graduates of course mange to find steady work and the Kum and Go or working on the farms of NDSU grads

 

[busterman62]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

It isn't a tax increase. Just like stores don't raise prices when sales end.'


ETA: If I own a store and I advertise widgets will be on sale from December 18-24 you know that you have to purchase your widget by the 24th or the sale will end and the price will return to its original level.
Likewise with these temporary tax cuts, there was a sunset provision. You knew that you had until they expired and then the tax rate would return to its original level.

You're choosing an arbitrary point in time as your reference point to define a fixed widget price. Regardless of your arbitrary designation, I still pay more for it today then I did on 12/24. It costs me more of my $$. Again, your "logic" works fine for you the storekeeper but not for me the consumer.

However, since you persist to use said "logic", then I choose 1861 as the reference point for widget pricing. You know, when your store didn't charge anything for widgets. The widget price has increased infinitely.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

Income taxes in general are perverse, in the sense that we say we want people to better themselves, and then we proceed to provide an economic disincentive for them to do so. It is particularly the worse when someone goes from the earned income tax credit to the first taxable income level, since the marginal cost there is the most extreme. Yes, you can look it up, the highest [increase in the] marginal income tax burden is imposed on those near the bottom, but not at the bottom, of the income scale.

Wealth taxes are theoretically superior, but then they impose a serious hardship on people (a) whose wealth is mostly illiquid, and / or (b) who have little income (e.g. seniors who own their own homes). Also, the transition between theory and practice would be really gnarly.

Again, in theory, "use taxes" are the best of all: each person pays for the public resource to the extent that s/he uses said public resource. The problem there is how to allocate "use" of society-wide resources like clean air and national defense.

In theory, our tax system is totally upside down. The federal government takes way way way too much money compared to the incremental value it provides relative to states and municipalities.


Edit: bracketed phrase entered for clarity.

 

[Rover]

Re: The Power of the SCOTUS Part VI - Roberts rules disorder

I'm agreeing with Rover. I somehow feel dirty

I agree, this is getting weird.

My view on taxes is a lot less grandiose than some of you. There was a time, fairly recently, when the tax rates paid for govt operations and we had a balanced budget. That mix of taxes needs to be the template for current taxation, for if the politicians could balance the budget then, they should be able to with those rates now, no excuses.

Of course you can take that starting template and tweak it for the current times. The AMT for example, or the EIC as well. However, I'd basically go back to those rates with one exception. I would alter the gas tax, up or down, based on how much infrastructure spending the country wanted to do in any given year. Make it like Soc Security, a dedicated tax that funds the entire appropriation. One less unfunded item in the budget.

 

[Slap Shot]

I will never question your wisdom ever again, Kep.

Of course, most Minny fans are janitors, but their kids usually attend trade schools like UMTC anyway.

Were i a janitor it would still be a victory not being confused as a Whioux.