A Mitt Romney fan, eh? You should probably read this article, which absolutely guts the myth that only half of income earners pay taxes.

As far as the top 1% paying 40% of the taxes, I agree that is atrocious--they are supposed to be paying almost ALL of it! See, when the income tax was introduced with the 16th Amendment, it was primarily meant to be a tax on the rich. The federal tax rate for middle-class people was meant to be around 1-2% whereas the tax rate on the rich was around 7%. You can see the original 1913 tax form here.

Of course, since literally the income tax's inception, the federal government has continuously been shafting the middle classes while reducing the tax burden of the wealthy. It's about as American as apple pie by this point!

The big problem is that the government relies more and more on income tax to fund federal projects. Take a look at the graph in the article I linked to at the start of this comment and note how corporate taxes keep going down while income and payroll taxes keep going up.

It doesn't help at all that most of America's biggest businesses have offshore tax havens where they can avoid paying taxes (think Ireland for Apple, Inc., though that hasn't worked out so well for them thanks to the EU being less corporate cock-sucking than the U.S. government).

So, to solve America's tax deficit problem, the solution is pretty clear--tax rich people more (as was intended), tax corporations more and cut off their tax havens, and maybe give a tax break to the people who actually need and deserve it--the middle and lower classes.

But of course all of that sounds suspiciously like socialism, which as we all know is the devil incarnate and about as un-American as naming your kid Stalin.

So you make up out of thin air the most depressing story of what this guy's life might eventually turn out to be, use words of divisiveness (look! he's scrounging off the taxpayer everyone!) and use that to justify pre-emptively killing mentally ill people who fit the definition of "dangerous" by your Dickensian outlook.

You want to talk about people scrounging off the taxpayer then let's talk about corporate welfare and dodgy tax havens, about how starbucks, google and amazon get away with paying no tax when we are taxed on our earnings. You call this ill man a scrounger, when george osbourne's family no less has a dodgy 6 million offshore tax deal to name but one of a million examples.

Or let's talk about this guy's parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters who paid into the social system, earning potentially millions for this country. In return they only ask that their son is cared for with respect and dignity in spite of the nature of his illness, and the social system would still have made a net surplus off their family.

How about we talk about the recovery he made as a counsellor for PTSD sufferers or other mentally ill people? Or how in ten years time he ends up as a lollipop man helping kids cross the street to school. What about all the tax he eventually paid on his subsequent and previous earnings, does that matter?

Your dim, dark prediction and understanding of mental illness AND socialism is fucking archaic. Were you frozen in Victorian Britain and thawed out last week or something? Go back to watching the idiot box, i'm sure the latest episode of benefits street will keep you distracted while cameron and his cronies swindle this country. I don't mean to make this overly political but this is EXACTLY what the politics of divide and rule is all about. The TV programs, the newspapers - with shows and stories about benefits and migrants - they all conspire to convince person A that they should blame person B, meanwhile person Z is laughing their way to the bank. And you lap it up and take it to the extreme of putting PEOPLE to sleep!?

In this country, we all contribute to the social system so that everyone can be looked after. It drives me potty hearing someone complain about taxpayer's money going to ill and unfortunate people when all it would take is one single bad day for that same person to suddenly need all that help and more.

The devil is in the details, isn't it?

For instance, what kind of guaranteed minimum income are we talking about?

The context they used (automatisation, labour supply) suggests to me something along the lines of an unconditional basic income. If that's the case, it cannot be compared to a minimum wage at all, since it has effects that go far beyond the labour market and the income situation. It's a massive reshaping of how we organise society. And it becomes a pain in the ass to even conceptualise properly once you talk about how to finance it...

A minimum wage, no matter how decent it is, doesn't even put a dent into the disparity between income from labour and income from capital. It makes life less horrible for those it applies to and it somewhat curtails the welfare queens among corporations who like their wage slaves being paid for by society. Yes, I'm looking at you, Walmart! Still, on its own, it does very little about income inequality, and nothing at all about wealth inequality.

How would I address income inequality?

In German, the words for taxes and steering are the same: "Steuern". If you want to steer the income towards a more equal distribution, taxation might be the easiest way to go about it. Treat all forms of income equally in terms of taxation. Or go one step further and treat wages preferentially to support employment.

However, redistribution will only get you so far. So why not address it at an earlier stage: distribution. Mondragon serves as a successful example of how a cooperative structure puts democratic checks and balances on the wage structure within a corporation. One person, one vote puts the lid on any attempts by higher-ups to rake in 300 times as much as the peasants on the factory floor.

Yet it doesn't do anything about the inequality between wages and capital income. Even a combination of progressive taxation and fixed income-ratios doesn't do much about it. Especially since non-wage income can evade taxation in a million different ways and most politicians in every country in the world seem more than eager to protect what loopholes they created over the decades.

So what's my suggestion? Well, progressive taxation of both income and wealth, living wage plus job guarantee, support of democratic structures at the workplace, international pressure on tax havens (which includes my own fecking country). Realistic? No. But neither was our welfare system until it was implemented.

There is a demonstrated bias towards equity investment domestically which is probably what Adam Smith was talking about, which is rather different to tax havens and global supply chains which would not have been as feasible back in the 18th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_bias_puzzle

Chomsky is also not really correct as Adam Smith does use it in the more general sense that it is referred to today in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. That it took me a couple of minutes to contradict this video with wikipedia does not bode well for the fact checking of TYT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand#Other_uses_of_the_phrase_by_Smith

I think it's also worth pointing out that Smith's position wasn't that of unrestrained market activity. The general principle of the invisible hand is sound if you accept that point. As far as his actual position on the role of government, it's open to interpretation. It's also worth pointing out that you can't expect a concept to not need some adjustment after 250 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith#As_a_symbol_of_free_market_economics

I am also not for blatant redistribution of wealth; however, I strong disagree with:

1) Corporate tax loopholes: Apple 9.8%, Google 11.9%, Yahoo 11.6%, Amazon 3.5% paid for Fiscal Year 2011 instead of advertised 35.5%
2) Off-shore tax havens
3) Privatizing profits and socializing bail outs
4) Subsidies to corporations and industries already drawing massive profits
5) And last but not least, the simple fact that not a single person went to jail after the 2008 crash due to cooked books in the financial sector

It is the responsibility of every citizen to give back to their community to promote a Quid Pro Quo society. Hopefully, many of these problems will be solved in our lifetime.

As Cornel West so eloquently stated earlier last year, and I paraphrase, the true test of every democracy is what to do with its weakest demographic. The fact that people are born in these social strata (i.e. success not always earned) is reason enough to put the pressure on the most fortunate, a group in which I happen to belong, to support those who never even get a chance.

Since most of what I say lands on Neo-Conservative deaf ears, I'll play their game and ask "What would Jesus do?"

Finally, QM, we always argue respectfully, and I want you to know that I do not favor any party. Both Democrats and Republicans put party ahead of nation and that's a disgrace.

So, the Romney idiots corner wants to close those tax haven loopholes that Romney uses. Hypocrites. These people dont care about America they only care about boosting the power of their corporat puppet masters. All of them, its a fixed agenda.

If Romney did not pay his taxes you can bet bottom dollar that the IRS would all up on him. He is not hiding anything. Its none of our business. The left just wants to get a hold of them to have field day lambasting Rommey. What about the house and senate? Why don't they show theirs? WE all know there is boatloads of corruption there. Surely this would shed some lite on the subject.

You can say all you want about Romney but there is no whores, Lewinsky, Marxists, Anarchists, or any other skeletons in his closet. All you have to his IRS to pick over.

Remember Timothy Geithner? When he was being selected The IRS issue bubbled up and he had to pay back taxes. If this was an issue it would have bubbled up back in the last election cycle.

Harry Reid lied. Once this settles there will be another whopper to distract true issue facing the election. Be fore this was his wife's horses.

What is facing America is JOBS. Who can deliver JOBS.

If you want to lose your job Vote Obama.
If you want to keep you job Vote Romney.


>> ^charliem:

>> ^bobknight33:
OBAMA only wishes he could be involved. But Obama is still a 1%er.>> ^charliem:
....Mitt Romney involved?


OBAMA isnt the one hiding more than 2 years of his tax returns....

>> ^bobknight33:

OBAMA only wishes he could be involved. But Obama is still a 1%er.>> ^charliem:
....Mitt Romney involved?



OBAMA isnt the one hiding more than 2 years of his tax returns....

OBAMA only wishes he could be involved. But Obama is still a 1%er.>> ^charliem:

....Mitt Romney involved?

From Wikipedia:

In June 2012, Carr's involvement in an alleged K2 tax avoidance scheme came to light after an investigation by The Times newspaper. The scheme is understood to involve UK earners "quitting" their job and signing new employment contracts with offshore shell companies based in the tax haven of Jersey.

Earlier in 2012 Carr had lampooned people who avoid tax during the second series of Channel 4's satirical news programme 10 O'Clock Live. A sketch from the show, in which he poked fun at the 1 per cent tax rate of Barclays Bank has now "come back to haunt him".

>> ^renatojj:

@.


Np, glad you liked them. I'm not saying there is only one account of what went down, I'm saying that it is fact that America was most prosperous when taxes were the highest. You don't need to be a historian or theorizer to use Google and check that for yourself.

Your quick Google search brung up an article that deals only in theory, and the argument they use is that people that are taxed 0% are more motivated than people that are taxed 100% - so that the imperitive becomes to cover Govt. expenses while keeping the taxes as low as possible to maintain motivation. That makes perfect logical sense and doesn't disagree with the facts I bought to the table, that America has been most prosperous during periods of high taxation, it simply proves that low is subjective. Taxing someone who earns $10,000 50% of their income means they take home a tiny amount of money, the same tax rate on a billionaire means they still take home five hundred million dollars, more than enough don't you think? If all income was related to productivity then my argument would be different, but quite simply it's not. Look at derivatives trading or inheritence funds as a couple of examples.

Fixing tax rates is also just the beginning, there needs to be a complete overhaul of your taxation system, there is plenty of information out there that details how dozens of your fortune 500 companies are paying no tax at all (e.g. GE and Boeing), Pepco Holdings Inc had a negative 57.6% tax rate for 2010 according to this article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-usa-tax-corporate-idUSTRE7A261C20111103

So not only are the tax rates poorly thought out, the tax system allows companies that rake in billions in profits ways by which to avoid paying any tax at all (and even get refunds).

The same goes for individuals as well, Mitt Romney, who made over twenty million in 2010, and has at least thirty million stashed in over 138 investment funds in the Caimans paid close to 15% tax in that same year. That's the same tax rate that someone earning $10,000 would have to pay.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/romney-parks-millions-offshore-tax-haven/story?id=15378566#.Tx-lKm_9PUd

Is he using this additional money he's making from not paying his taxes for productive purposes? It would appear not... His motive is profit, and to that end he's closed plants, cut employee wages, laid off American workers and outsourced their jobs to other countries, all while he and his partners have made tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, while the companies he's invested in have often ended up going bankrupt:
http://www.romneygekko.com/mitt/

So my point is that it's a pipedream to think that lower taxes on the rich has only one effect, to make them more productive, it also carries with it a myriad of negative consequences as I've illustrated, the worst one being lobbying, which is rampant in your country. In terms of Chile, you say that all education there is state funded? Have a look at this report and you will see that the total investment in tertiary education Chile makes is probably close to about half a percent of their GDP, which is indeed lower than any other country surveyed, they are also at the very bottom of the list when it comes to actual dollars invested in public education. Meanwhile the cost of education for students is the highest of any OECD country.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/48/37864432.pdf

The reasons for that come full circle back to your economic theories. Have you heard of Augusto Pinochet? America installed him as the dictator of Chile after the CIA organised a successful air strike on the palace of the existing democratically elected leader - Allende, which resulted in his death. It's well known that Pinochet relied on the Chicago boys for economic policy, who in turn were trained by Milton Friedman. Friedman was ... the major free-market economist of his time, and it's these exact same policies that still linger around today in the education system thanks to Patricio Aylwin and others. It's clear evidence that your model has flaws, and it's also clear who benefits the most from it.

What you're saying here is demonstrating the problem I was speaking about earlier. You bought the narrative of the story but failed to investigate the facts. Romney is paying the same tax on that money that he would if it were invested in the USA. He hasn't done anything illegal. The cayman island *used* to be a tax haven, which is why there is this stigma. It isn't anymore. The banks fully cooperate with the IRS. Romney could have the money there simply to attact foreign investors. Do you think that no one is allowed to invest their money anywhere but in the United States?

Here is a statement his campaign released..he doesn't even control the fund that invested that money:

"The Romneys' investments in funds established in the Cayman Islands are taxed in the very same way they would be if the Romneys held their shares of the fund investments directly in the US rather than through a Cayman fund.

Nothing is changed from four years ago in relation to these funds. Governor and Mrs. Romney's assets are managed on a blind basis. They do not control the investment of these assets. The assets are under the control and overall management of an independent trustee.

Furthermore, only the sponsor of the fund decides where it is established. That responsibility is totally outside the control of a passive investor like Gov. Romney or the trustee of this blind trust.

Also, in regards to the Unrelated Business Income Tax: Governor Romney’s IRA is tax deferred, just like the IRA’s of every other American. Its investments are in compliance with rules created to keep it tax deferred, just like it was intended to be."

I wouldn't vote for Romney but the story itself is deliberately portrayed as if Romney has done something illeagl, which he hasn't. They're counting on people not to investigate the facts, which is why I came to state what they are.


>> ^volumptuous:
The guy is running for President of The United States and yet he is evading taxation on the wealth he has generated in our country. (leaving aside the fact that a lot of it came from other people's misery)
Yes, I have an enormous fucking problem with that as do most people in this country.
He's not just your average rich fucker, he's the guy who is running for POTUS. How can you NOT have a problem with him doing this shit? He obviously doesn't give enough of a fuck about the citizens to pay his fair share. He's bilking this country, and firing scores of people his entire life. Fuck this guy in the face.

i'm cynical.
I expect Obama to pass free trade with Columbia, (which slaughters union members), Panama, which is a tax haven, and Korea (millions of skilled workers at low wages)

>> ^Lutonant:

Would an import tax solve the problem?


Yes.
Also, requiring companies doing business with the the US government to be based in the US--unless a needed service or product in not available here.

It's not just about paying more - it's about paying a fair share as well.

Those with low incomes pay exactly what they are supposed to because they have no choice.

Those in higher brackets have access to more and more tax write-offs and loopholes. The more you make, the more ways there are to get out of paying. The system is structured by the rich - for the rich. Not only are there more loopholes in the tax system for the rich, when they run out of loopholes, they start shifting money around looking for tax havens. And of course, it's really only the rich who can access those tax havens.

What needs to happen is the government needs to close all the loopholes and set up laws concerning havens. The problem is, only those in power can make those changes. The people with power are the higher wage earners and they aren't going to close the loopholes on themselves. Even if the government did step up to the plate and button down on all the loopholes, the lobbyists, the corporations, the wealthy-earners and so on won't just sit there and let it happen. They will fill the courts, bring in the lawyers and flood everything with red tape to the point that nothing gets accomplished.

So what do you do? We could raise taxes on the rich. It's not the right step but with so many rich people out there fighting to not pay anything, an increase in what they do pay may be a start.

>> ^pyloricvalve:

Why is it morally justified to impose a higher tax rate on the more highly paid? I'm already paying twenty people's worth.. Why should it be more?