If you want to rant about taxes get the facts straight.

[Mark]

...

Call me a borderline Socialist, but I believe that someone who is more well off has a societal responsibility to shoulder more of the burden of keeping the Government (including support for the Military, the Arts, Scientific Research in order for the US to keep its edge, and yes, even entitlement programs for the poor) than someone of lesser means. If that translates to someone who earns over $1 million per year paying, by percentage, 3% more than those "under" him, and those earning more than $5 million per year paying 5% more, and those earning over $10 million paying 10% more, well...will that materially affect their standard of living?

If you collect the tax burden of each income class, there is a vast middle that pays a significant majority of the taxes collected. This is because there are greater numbers in that class doing the paying. However, if you massage the same numbers by total value of income (fewer taxpayers in the "above $1 million" line, but those numbers add up to nearly as much as the entirety of the wages earns below that level) you will see that, by total earnings, those fewer richest people pay a lot less per dollar earned than their lower-earning "brothers." Equalize the burden based on that formula, and you will approach a fair distribution of the tax burden. Pipedream. Remember what I said about the rich running the country?
If you haven't seen "any such plan" that threatens to essentially toss indigents off the welfare rolls, then you haven't read the papers during the debate phase.

...

Disclaimer:  These comments are related solely to the United States personal income tax.

Link: Summary of Latest Federal Individual Income Tax Data

Most people with pre-conceived notions about how income tax burdens are distributed won't believe the information in these reports.

If you want to know who pays how much please check out the link but I will summarize here.  The "rich" pay the vast majority of the individual income tax burden in this country.  As shown in table 1, the top 10% of wage earners, those making more than $103,912 paid a bit more than %70 of the total individual income taxes in 2005, the latest year for which this data is available.  The top 1%, those making more than $364,657 paid in excess of 21% of the total income taxes in that same year.  The bottom 50% of wage earners paid only a little more than 3% of the overall taxes collected.

There is no clear definition of what the middle class is.  Two popular definitions are the middle quintile or 20% income bracket ($36,000 and $57,660 in 2005) and the three middle quintiles 21%-80% ($19,178 and $91,705 in 2005).  These are based on gross income while the IRS figures are adjusted gross so direct comparisons are not perfect.  If you choose to use the more restrictive definition of the middle class then it is clear that they are only shouldering a fraction of the %30 of the tax burden not part of that paid by the upper 25% of wage earners.  If, however, the more inclusive definition of middle class is used the proportion of the overall tax burden shouldered by the middle class is still much smaller than that of the upper class even though it does overlap with the Top 25% bracket in the IRS chart.

As for percentages and average tax rate from Table 1 in the above link:
Top 1%            23.13%
Top 2 - 5%       17.36%
Top 6 - 10%     12.37%
Top 11 - 25%     9.27%
Top 26 - 50%     6.93%

Not only do the rich pay a higher proportion of the overall tax burden but they also pay a much higher percentage of income as taxes.

Conclusion:  It is factually wrong to claim that the middle class pays the largest share of the personal income tax burden in this country.

[LucasJamison]

Given.

Now, what's wrong with that?

[GJSchaller]

People who misquote it, methinks was the point.

[LucasJamison]

People who misquote it, methinks was the point.

Wasn't sure if the thread was continuing here, or there, figurd I'd cover my bases.

[GJSchaller]

All your bases are... oh, bother.

[Mark]

Given.

Now, what's wrong with that?

Nothing or everything; it depends on your point of view I suppose.

[Frigemall]

Given.

Now, what's wrong with that?

Wellllllll, since most of those nasty rich people are those who employ the middle class, the more they pay in taxes carries over to those they employ, as in lay offs, lack of raises, cutting back on benefits, or even moving their companies overseas. Every aspect of the economy is connected. If you punish one fiscal level for daring to be rich, then you send ripples throughout the economy that eventually hit the middle class. When you lower corporate taxes and give buisinesses incentives to hire and raise wages and benefits, this positively impacts the middle class. When the middle class does well, they buy goods which increase profits, and allow the companies to expand. The problem is that politicians see rich people making money and think it to be a bad thing so they try to punish them and the spiral goes in reverse.

[LucasJamison]

Wellllllll, since most of those nasty rich people are those who employ the middle class, the more they pay in taxes carries over to those they employ, as in lay offs, lack of raises, cutting back on benefits, or even moving their companies overseas.

Granted that people will try to pass the buck, and recoup non-negotiable costs (like taxes) by raising prices or cutting costs in other areas where they have more control/flexibility. I will note that "OMG - 5% increase on corporate income tax? sell the Manhattan real estate, boys, we're a goin' to me-hee-co!" is neither a realistic, sensible, or even common reaction the part of large companies or their investors. There are a variety of other factors that influence these decisions on the part of corporations and privately owned businesses, and I would argue that in the case of many companies in the business of producing goods that can be produced about as well anywhere, the relatively cheap costs of transportation combined with the willingness of rich people in countries with large numbers of low-cost workers who have no access to legal remedies for labor, human rights, or environmental abuses on the part of said rich people, to exploit their countrymen (and immigrants from surrounding areas with even fewer rich people and even more impoverished populations) in order to win contracts to produce goods on behalf of even richer people in countries with greater protections and regulation, just might have played as great or a greater role in the decisions of US businesses to cut domestic operations and jobs in favor of moving overseas. Skipping out on the taxes is kind of a neat side effect, but they wouldn't have to pay payroll taxes for the labor of contract manufacturers in the US, either - they'd just get charged more by the manufacturers. Similarly, the overseas call center phenomenon, and the offshoring of IT and even biotech/pharma research and manufacturing.

Higher taxes have an impact, that is not in dispute. It's the degree of impact, and the actual causative relationships involved, that are, and I take issue with your characterization and oversimplification of the situation.

Regardless of the impression my statements may give, I'm not anti-rich, or necessarily anti-capitalism, but it's hard to be sympathetic toward the problems of the most wealthy individuals when, you know, they also have a greater share of wealth, power and privilege to help them DEAL with those problems than do people with problems who are not rich.

Every aspect of the economy is connected. If you punish one fiscal level for daring to be rich, then you send ripples throughout the economy that eventually hit the middle class.

Granted, the incredible interconnection and (supposed "unknowable", in the case of many financial industry analysts, execs, etc who've been on the news lately) complexity of US and global economic systems.

However, I think the rest of this is a terrible misrepresentation. You are not punishing one level for "daring to be rich", you are asking those MOST ABLE to bear the burden of the cost of shared services/resources to bear more of it.

Take the example of two friends on a beer run. They get 4 cases of beer. One of them is kinda on the wimpy side and has a bit of trouble carrying one case. The other is super buff and could probably stack all four up and would just need the other guy to play seeing eye dog. If the big guy demands the little guy to carrying two cases, because "fair is fair, I shouldn't have to do more than half the work", I think most of us could agree he was being a real dickhead. I think that's true even if the big guy is a teetotaler and the little guy ends up drinking a whole lot of that beer.

When you lower corporate taxes and give buisinesses incentives to hire and raise wages and benefits, this positively impacts the middle class.

This reads as if you see a link between lowered taxes and increased incentives for paying more to employees. I have seen a lot of efforts to the do the former, but very few to do the latter by the same people. When you both cut taxes AND cut wages and benefits, everyone suffers in the long run, AND in the short run some very few people get very rich very quickly, then say fuck-you-all, take their money, and go home.

When the middle class does well, they buy goods which increase profits, and allow the companies to expand.

We don't make many goods, though, we provide services. Buying services is more likely to directly impact your local and the US economy positively than buying goods. I will also note that the total focus of publicly traded companies seems to be on short term profitability, and that this focus on short term profitability over long term stability and sustainable growth leads to things like taking all your profits, cutting big checks to execs and stock holders, and THEN slashing jobs and other expenses - because the company is in the business of providing dividends to shareholders. All those goods and services? Just ways to make money to GIVE to shareholders (and shareholders let execs steal as much as they want to, out of what's left, as long as the get decent ROI).

It doesn't have to be that way. It isn't always that way. But it's that way often enough to cause big problems. I'm not saying tax cuts can't work, or can't be a good idea, but they're far from the panacea you seem to be prescribing them as.

The problem is that politicians see rich people making ,oney and think it to be a bad thing so they try to punish them and the spiral goes in reverse.

I'm sure there're a few extremist politicians who seethe at the very idea that someone might get rich. I can't think of who they are, but there are so many people in politics, I'm sure that any gross generalization of what "politicians do" will apply to some of them. So I'll throw one of my own back at you: I'd say, rather, that politicians tell everyone they can have anything they want: tax cuts for this, bail-outs for that, government contracts to do this or that, funding for aid programs and education, guaranteed streams of income in retirement, access to healthcare in old age. They then do what they can to come up with enough cash to keep most of their promises.

-------

A bit off from your specific comments, but addressing what I see as a central theme behind them (and if not in your case specifically, then in the case of others with similar arguments to make): boats may rise with tides, but the reverse isn't so, and I think a lot of the arguments that economic systems are driven most efficiently by letting the richest people make and keep more and more money, miss the point on that one.

[Bulova]

I've been looking very carefully at the linked data that Mark posted, and I have a few observations:

1: I'd like to see even further breakdowns within the "Top 1%" category. The AGI plateau there is about (and I see that a more-specific number is listed, I'm just into rounding) $350K, but I'd like to know which fractions of one percent generate plateaus at $1M, $5M and $10M as well.

2: It seems that, with just a little bit of tweaking (and re-distribution of the burden) that the entire bottom 50% could be relieved of any Federal tax liability whatsoever, and only about 3% of the current tax revenues would have to be recouped. Since the 50% plateau is at around $30K, and that's just about good enough to get by, I don't see this as a crisis. (The seeds of the "Birnbaum Tax Plan!)

3: Setting the plateau at $350K, that top 1% "earns" more than one-fifth of the entire aggregate AGI. Total conjecture here, but I wouldn't be surprised if those earning over $1M would be shown to earn most of that, as well. That's why I'd like to see those breakdowns.

4: Expanding to the rest of the top 5%, the 2-5% group (four times larger in scope than the top 1%) earns less than one-seventh of the aggregate. No one would argue that people earning $150K-350K aren't well off, but obviously even all of them together aren't as as well off as those earning $350K+. And there are (as I said) four times as many of them. Clearly the disparity is great, even between the 2-5%-ers and the 1%-ers. And it only gets wider as we move further down the list.

5: Anecdotally, I know of many people even in the $100K-150K range who are struggling to get by. It's not that they're in danger of being evicted from a rental apartment...but with the current mortgage credit crunch, their ARMs are creeping in the opposite direction from the Fed's Prime Rate adjustments. They have kids who they're trying to put through good schools and college educations to plan and pay for. And the rising price of oil and gas and the dollar's precipitous drop against the world market is making even their income go less far than it used to.

6: I'm glad that the rich, as it happens, do pay the lion's share of the Federal tax burden. I still suspect that, proportionately to "disposable income" it may still be not enough. The disparity in income level is just so great, and the disparity in tax responsibility so small in comparison. A ten, or even twenty-five to thirty percent tweak in tax responsibility (I'm not talking about 30% more of their income, but 30% more tax than the current tax bill) at that level would obviously generate so many more aggregate dollars (for the Federal government to waste ) without hardly creating a dent in the wallets or bank accounts of these super-rich less-than-1%.

7: The idea that a higher tax burden "punishes" the rich is repugnant to me. Since when is fulfilling a responsibility to be considered a punishment?

8: The linked report doesn't even consider various State and Municipality tax burdens.

9: I'm glad that others have taken up the debate. I'm glad it's in a new topic.

10: LucasJamison, you and I are going on a beer run!

[Bulova]

2: It seems that, with just a little bit of tweaking (and re-distribution of the burden) that the entire bottom 50% could be relieved of any Federal tax liability whatsoever, and only about 3% of the current tax revenues would have to be recouped. Since the 50% plateau is at around $30K, and that's just about good enough to get by, I don't see this as a crisis. (The seeds of the "Birnbaum Tax Plan!)

Actually, upon further reflection, it's a bit more complicated than this. Say we *do* relieve the bottom 50% of any tax liability. We could NOT just eliminate the various tax credits and other perks in the Tax Code afforded to this class. So what would result is a net negative liability (where families would be receiving tax "rebates" even though they had no tax liability). So maybe it would take more than "a little bit of tweaking."

6: I'm glad that the rich, as it happens, do pay the lion's share of the Federal tax burden. I still suspect that, proportionately to "disposable income" it may still be not enough. The disparity in income level is just so great, and the disparity in tax responsibility so small in comparison. A ten, or even twenty-five to thirty percent tweak in tax responsibility (I'm not talking about 30% more of their income, but 30% more tax than the current tax bill) at that level would obviously generate so many more aggregate dollars without hardly creating a dent in the wallets or bank accounts of these super-rich less-than-1%.

I'm not sure how to actually generate a 30% higher tax bill. Say the nominal tax rate for the highest bracket is 28%. Just raising it 30% (to about 36.4%) won't actually raise the tax bill by 30%, because of all the adjustments and deductions after the AGI is calculated. So the actual "tweaks" would require a lot of study and actuarial figuring before being implemented.

Truth be told, I wouldn't want any true tax reform to be strictly revenue-neutral, anyway. There are so many Federally-mandated, yet unfunded requirements of States and Municipalities, that the Feds ought to collect a little bit more in order to fund them, at least on a token basis. That will allow local taxes to be adjusted or at least the revenues to be reallocated to other programs and services provided at the local level.

I'm actually assuming that the posted data is figuring percentages based on actual tax paid against AGI. So that any deductions and adjustments are already accounted for (suggesting that the percentage would be even higher if there were no deductions for charitable contributions, hiding stock profits in offshore corporations, and other ways of camouflaging income not available to the "average" wage earner). But a real question is whether AGI can be counted on to reflect the true individual wealth accumulated by people in the highest 1% category.

But no one said it would be easy to figure out a truly equitable (which does NOT mean "equal") tax structure at any level. This data does point out to me that any "flat tax" proposal is a couched way to distribute the tax burden away from the upper class!

[Mack Ravensline]

Higher taxes have an impact, that is not in dispute. It's the degree of impact, and the actual causative relationships involved, that are, and I take issue with your characterization and oversimplification of the situation.

It is true that there are other factors involved. Michigan is a prime example of what happens when Labor costs skyrocket, taxes go way up and crime becomes rampant. Their economy is in the dumps because the auto companies determined it would be easier and cheaper to make their cars elsewhere. This is not corporate greed, it is good buisiness. If they had to stay in Detroit, they would not be able to compete with the Japanese and others who do not have the high labor, benefit costs, and high taxes, and would have gone under. They are barely surviving as it is.

Regardless of the impression my statements may give, I'm not anti-rich, or necessarily anti-capitalism, but it's hard to be sympathetic toward the problems of the most wealthy individuals when, you know, they also have a greater share of wealth, power and privilege to help them DEAL with those problems than do people with problems who are not rich.

Mostly the reason people become rich is because they take on great amounts of risk, or had a parent who did so. They sacrifice and work very hard to earn their fortunes. When it pays off big, they should be able to enjoy a good living without everyone who did not take those risks, work that hard or catch the breaks they did trying to take it from them, and calling them selfish and evil. As long as they are not breaking laws they and their families should be able to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Take the example of two friends on a beer run. They get 4 cases of beer. One of them is kinda on the wimpy side and has a bit of trouble carrying one case. The other is super buff and could probably stack all four up and would just need the other guy to play seeing eye dog. If the big guy demands the little guy to carrying two cases, because "fair is fair, I shouldn't have to do more than half the work", I think most of us could agree he was being a real dickhead. I think that's true even if the big guy is a teetotaler and the little guy ends up drinking a whole lot of that beer.

The problem with this example is that it does not apply. The super buff guy who is 3 times stronger than the wimpy guy would naturally be carrying 3 cases. If he chose to help the wimpy guy carry the other case, it should be his choice, but he should not be expected to carry it all especially if the guy carrying the lesser amount was going to be drinking the greater majority.

This reads as if you see a link between lowered taxes and increased incentives for paying more to employees. I have seen a lot of efforts to the do the former, but very few to do the latter by the same people. When you both cut taxes AND cut wages and benefits, everyone suffers in the long run, AND in the short run some very few people get very rich very quickly, then say fuck-you-all, take their money, and go home.

Sometimes this happens, however if there are lower taxes across the board, the company that raises wages and benefits usually attracts the better employees. For the long term health of the company, the company offering the best work package usually does better. It takes time, and a government that for the most part stays out of it, (unless they do something illegal) but usually the companies that take care of their workers end up the healthiest, and make the most profit. If they try to cut corners, eventually their company will suffer.

We don't make many goods, though, we provide services. Buying services is more likely to directly impact your local and the US economy positively than buying goods. I will also note that the total focus of publicly traded companies seems to be on short term profitability, and that this focus on short term profitability over long term stability and sustainable growth leads to things like taking all your profits, cutting big checks to execs and stock holders, and THEN slashing jobs and other expenses - because the company is in the business of providing dividends to shareholders. All those goods and services? Just ways to make money to GIVE to shareholders (and shareholders let execs steal as much as they want to, out of what's left, as long as the get decent ROI).

It doesn't have to be that way. It isn't always that way. But it's that way often enough to cause big problems. I'm not saying tax cuts can't work, or can't be a good idea, but they're far from the panacea you seem to be prescribing them as.

I admit that there are companies like this. The unfortunate thing is that companies are rarley allowed to fail. The government props them up and gives them bail outs. This should also not happen. If a company does things that are unhealthy to their bottom line for long term stability they should fail.

I'm sure there're a few extremist politicians who seethe at the very idea that someone might get rich. I can't think of who they are, but there are so many people in politics, I'm sure that any gross generalization of what "politicians do" will apply to some of them. So I'll throw one of my own back at you: I'd say, rather, that politicians tell everyone they can have anything they want: tax cuts for this, bail-outs for that, government contracts to do this or that, funding for aid programs and education, guaranteed streams of income in retirement, access to healthcare in old age. They then do what they can to come up with enough cash to keep most of their promises.

I do not like government bail-outs, or over inflated government contracts for buisinesses. A company should either succeed or fail on their merits. Just so we are clear on that part of the statement. I want less government involvement, not more.
As far as you not seeing politicians who go after buisinesses, all you have to do is listen to what Hillary and Barack want to do to confiscate oil company profits to see examples of this. I know people believe that the oil companies are gouging us and that this is justice, but where do we stop when we start redistributing wealth. There are many reasons for high oil prices that have little to do with the oil companies themselves, yet because these companies are not popular today you have two candidates talking about seizing a companies profits.

 It seems that, with just a little bit of tweaking (and re-distribution of the burden) that the entire bottom 50% could be relieved of any Federal tax liability whatsoever, and only about 3% of the current tax revenues would have to be recouped. Since the 50% plateau is at around $30K, and that's just about good enough to get by, I don't see this as a crisis. (The seeds of the "Birnbaum Tax Plan!)

Actually I think that is more like socialism, not really an original idea.

Anecdotally, I know of many people even in the $100K-150K range who are struggling to get by. It's not that they're in danger of being evicted from a rental apartment...but with the current mortgage credit crunch, their ARMs are creeping in the opposite direction from the Fed's Prime Rate adjustments. They have kids who they're trying to put through good schools and college educations to plan and pay for. And the rising price of oil and gas and the dollar's precipitous drop against the world market is making even their income go less far than it used to.

This is the difficulty in assigning any specific group as the starting point for rich. The lower end of that scale that just got their tax burden increased will suffer.

I'm glad that the rich, as it happens, do pay the lion's share of the Federal tax burden. I still suspect that, proportionately to "disposable income" it may still be not enough. The disparity in income level is just so great, and the disparity in tax responsibility so small in comparison. A ten, or even twenty-five to thirty percent tweak in tax responsibility (I'm not talking about 30% more of their income, but 30% more tax than the current tax bill) at that level would obviously generate so many more aggregate dollars (for the Federal government to waste ) without hardly creating a dent in the wallets or bank accounts of these super-rich less-than-1%.
 The idea that a higher tax burden "punishes" the rich is repugnant to me. Since when is fulfilling a responsibility to be considered a punishment?

This is part of the problem. People look at whatever they define to be rich and say "Look at them. They are doing so well that they should have to bear more responsibility." If the tax rate was a set percentage, say 20% and all tax breaks and things were removed, each tax bracket would pay a fair share. 20% of $1,000,000 is $200,000, while 20% of $30,000 would be $6,000. The larger income would still be paying the lions share but it would be proportional to their income. The highest wage earners at this point pay out almost 50% - 60% of their income at this point. Naturally they look for ways around this and find all kinds of loopholes in our current tax system because it is so complex. I say keep it simple and fair. The key to this is getting rid of the huge loopholes. Since many politicians are lawyers, this probably will not happen since they are sensitive to things that will take away the jobs of a bunch of corporate lawyers, but I can dream.
By the way, thanks for keeping this civil guys, we may not agree, but a good discussion only happens when we aren't calling each other names and stuff. I enjoy these things even if I feel people I like are a bit off the mark, no pun intended.

[SigmaCaine]

all you have to do is listen to what Hillary and Barack

Just out of curiosity, when did it stop being impolite to refer to presidential candidates by their first names? Would it kill people to say "Obama" or "Clinton"? If it's really that confusing, try "Ms. Clinton". Or are they not worthy of respect to you because they're not white men?

Anyway, back to this ridiculous idea of a flat tax rate. Hello, middle ages! Does our current system have too many loopholes, is it too bloated? Yeah. Does that mean everyone should pay exactly the same amount of money based solely on their paycheck stub, regardless of factors such as, oh, children? That's kind of silly. Math and statistical analysis work! Keep your silly politics out of my math and I'll keep my math out of your politics (you political types like to bend my math over your knee and abuse it to work for you like some kind of depraved sex slave). When i rule the world, the first thing I'm instituting will be a ban on using math for political purposes, since everyone just likes to twist numbers to support their own opinion. What did the poor numbers ever do to you? Leave them out of this, you cruel masters of inflated ego!

There's some dumb politician here (it's a famous one!) talking about cutting taxes for the rich and what it will do to help America, blah blah, and I can't help but think of this guy whenever these kinds of threads pop up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0.

[Bulova]

Just out of curiosity, when did it stop being impolite to refer to presidential candidates by their first names? Would it kill people to say "Obama" or "Clinton"? If it's really that confusing, try "Ms. Clinton". Or are they not worthy of respect to you because they're not white men?

I understand your point. I don't think any of us, upon seeing either of the Democratic contenders, would wave at them and go "Hi, Hillary!" or "Hi, Barack!" because to do so would be showing less respect than their office deserves.

number and tax cut screed snipped. Especially the youtube link.

The problem I have with this is that it detracts from your argument.

[Bulova]

As far as you not seeing politicians who go after buisinesses, all you have to do is listen to what Hillary and Barack want to do to confiscate oil company profits to see examples of this. I know people believe that the oil companies are gouging us and that this is justice, but where do we stop when we start redistributing wealth. There are many reasons for high oil prices that have little to do with the oil companies themselves, yet because these companies are not popular today you have two candidates talking about seizing a companies profits.

I think oil companies are "not popular" because in a market where the price of oil (and oil futures) has nearly doubled, they are recording record-high profits while the consumer is suffering the inflated price. If anything, Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama want to "confiscate" windfall profits. I know all about "what the market will bear" and all that, but the fact is, the Oil Companies have most American consumers over the proverbial barrel. And in this market, it should not be Oil Companies profiteering and their Directors and Shareholders benefiting while consumers and other industries dependent upon energy are, in essence, victimized. Airlines, food production and commercial shipping are just the highest profile industries among those victims.

And if Oil Companies *are* allowed to reap windfall profits, then should be impelled even more staunchly to pay when they are responsible for some stupid shit that results in an environmental disaster. Exxon's total payments related to the Valdez accident came nowhere near the actual cost of the damage caused nor the expense of the cleanup, and they fought having to pay for it through the courts. That is just one high-profile example of such a disaster. Simply put, if you want to be in the business of transporting and selling a product, it should be 100% YOUR responsibility when something goes wrong in its transit, storage or sale.

Actually I think that is more like socialism, not really an original idea.

You talkin' to me? You should re-examine the quote from one of my posts that Mark used to START this thread.

This is the difficulty in assigning any specific group as the starting point for rich. The lower end of that scale that just got their tax burden increased will suffer.

"Suffer" is a funny word to use. It's hard to think of someone who makes 500K or 1M as suffering when their tax bill is increased from 140K to 182K or from 280K to 364K, respectively. And I am told that if the tax rate on the rich is increased, then they merely find ways to shelter more of their income. So the key is to eliminate tax sheltering without changing the nominal tax rate. Because *that* will affect the real percentage paid in taxes.

This is part of the problem. People look at whatever they define to be rich and say "Look at them. They are doing so well that they should have to bear more responsibility." If the tax rate was a set percentage, say 20% and all tax breaks and things were removed, each tax bracket would pay a fair share. 20% of $1,000,000 is $200,000, while 20% of $30,000 would be $6,000.

Oooh...you're *really* asking for it here. Or did you miss what I said about a "flat tax" system?

The larger income would still be paying the lions share but it would be proportional to their income. The highest wage earners at this point pay out almost 50% - 60% of their income at this point.

Here, again, I have to assume that you just haven't been paying attention. The data that Mark presented shows that the highest wage earners are paying about 23%. How do you translate that to 50-60%?

I ate a relatively large piece of crow as I looked over the facts, digested the information, and replied to Mark. I had to abandon my position that the middle class pays the lion's share of tax in this country. It just isn't the case. Luckily, the rest of my arguments did not rest foundationally on that premise, so I was able to concede the point, and lost little credibility for the rest of my positions.

Naturally they look for ways around this and find all kinds of loopholes in our current tax system because it is so complex. I say keep it simple and fair. The key to this is getting rid of the huge loopholes. Since many politicians are lawyers, this probably will not happen since they are sensitive to things that will take away the jobs of a bunch of corporate lawyers, but I can dream.

Oh, this is some kettle of fish. The "loopholes," for the most part, are by design. The complexity came from classifying certain things as exempt from tax, while other things are taxable, and still others tax-deferred, etc. Making charitable-giving tax deductible is a good thing. Creating a mechanism for millions of dollars of income to be hidden outside of the country in various tax shelters while still being a liquid asset is not. Not counting other millions of dollars of share-based bonuses for corporate executives as income is also not. Those are the kinds of loopholes that need to be closed.

Your timing is interesting, though, because the topic was briefly touched in a question in the "Ask Marilyn" column in today's Parade insert:

Q: Why is the Internal Revenue tax code so complicated? -- David Feigenbaum, Fair Lawn, NJ

A: Blame Congress, not the IRS, which only collects taxes and administers the tax code. Over the decades, lawmakers have found innumerable reasons to modify the original code, which was simple. These changes have proliferated to the extent that tax simplification--because it would alter many items at once--is difficult, mainly for political reasons.
A tax code that applies to all of us will always seem 1) unfair where it is simple and 2) complex where it is fairer. Consider the simplest tax possible: a set amount per person. Babies would pay the same as billionaires. Is that fair? On the road to fairness, every "fix" introduces a rule, and every new rule adds a complication.

Anyway, it is not to protect the jobs of corporate lawyers that the tax code is left complicated, it is essentially that tax simplicity isn't that simple.

By the way, thanks for keeping this civil guys, we may not agree, but a good discussion only happens when we aren't calling each other names and stuff. I enjoy these things even if I feel people I like are a bit off the mark, no pun intended.

I do, too, and have to agree. From people with positions clearly from diverse ends of the political and economic spectrums have come very little that could be described as ad hominem.

[SigmaCaine]

The problem I have with this is that it detracts from your argument.

I had an argument? I thought I just had an interesting visual of math being spanked like a naughty little boy.