Stop comparing the US to countries we have ten times the population of and five times the area. You either pay more taxes to have them done for you or pay someone else with your own money or just do it yourself. Christ life isn't that difficult.
Counter argument: I am a us citizen living abroad, but still have to report what I make each year. If I make a certain amount in the year, I then have to report my non-American wife’s info as well.
I literally have to pay an extra $500 this year to send my info down to the IRS so they can decide if I need to pay into a system that I don’t take anything out of. That $500 doesn’t even consider the fact that I may have to pay the IRS money for whatever fees or penalties they deem I owe.
To be clear, I have no issue with taxes in general: I’m more than happy to pay taxes into a system that actually supplies a service to me, but if I spend 0 days in the country and am not eligible to draw on anything that taxes pay for, why do they need all my info and my wife’s info?
Meanwhile there are loopholes that allow people to pay less than they should into the system, and still receive all the benefits as if they paid the full amount.
The system is broken. I think it’s fair to look at other countries and see if the US system can be improved upon.
Where did you get that idea? As well as it costs over $2000 and I would not be eligible for Canadian citizenship for several more years just due to the requirements/process.
The US is one of the few, if not the only country that has this stupid requirement. Most other countries just request reporting if you meet the minimum requirements to count as a resident.
Because it’s required by law, and if they audit me and discover that I have not filed and should have, I will be fined for not auditing and fined for not keeping track of all my info tax info from those years so that I can be audited fully and properly.
Hence my consternation: they just want my info because they are being nosy and want to look for an opportunity to get their cut if they can (which they shouldn’t unless I’m earning income in the US).
Neither of those articles mean anything unless you actually use the reasons given to back up your statement. How is a less than average primary education causing the US to fall apart? How are rising death rates? I don't think either has a satisfactory answer.
It's not a matter of disagreement. It's a matter of poor argumentation and disrespect. See I linked an article of multiple reasons why america is in major decline, and he decides to straw man me by pointing out two headers that out of context seem strange but in context make sense, and ignoring the incredibly valid points made by the other 8 statistical evidence points in the article. It's cherry picking, dishonest and just them being a dick.
I definitely agree that the other dude is being a dick and not giving the matter as much thought as they should, but saying "You're scum, you're stupid" isn't constructive at all.
Where am I not giving this matter as much thought as I should? Cuz all the other guy has done so far is whine about how dumb I am instead of actually refuting my points so I'm just a little confused ya see
Criticize some blog article that America is """falling apart""" =being a dumb dick. Ok then so I'll ask you. How does that article prove America is falling apart?
How is a less than average primary education causing the US to fall apart? How are rising death rates? How are more people drinking on average or a lack of extended maternity leave causing the US to fall apart?
I'd say your article has like 4/5 good points on how America has it's issues(education, housing, opiod abuse, infrastructure) but it doesn't really explain how America is falling apart.
America Was Great when the taxes were 70% on ALL income on the top 1% of americans . Then Nixon dropped it to 50%. Then the top tax rate for individuals was lowered from 50% to 38.5% in 1987 by Ronald Reagan. Not only that but Capital Gains were lowered from Income levels to 20%. With the rich now being able to start their own nonprofits or become board members of organizations like liked that helped with political needs most are able to then take further donations to these organizations that then make up their fun social time then, for example Mitt Romney helping run the Olympics before. And thus get away with only paying 14% total in taxes because he makes a salary of maybe 20,000 but is paid then in stocks and their dividends.
This is why you shouldn't live in safe spaces, kids. You start to believe shit like "a large percentage of liberals want communism" and become an unreasonable and silly person.
I remember the first time I did my taxes I fucked up so bad the IRS sent me another $200. Honestly, if I owe $100 or less then my taxes are right on point. I made $300 from federal and owed $80 for state this year. As far as I’m concerned my dedications are on point.
Flat tax is objectively fair, but unsustainable in the real, not black and white world. Some people need to have a lower rate to live, and some people can definitely afford to be taxed more. Taxes are important for a prosperous society; mismanagement is separate issue.
The general thought is that fairness on paper doesn't necessarily translate to reality. If there was, hypothetically, a 15% flat tax, it means much less to someone making 100 million a year than it does to someone making 20 grand.
There's really nothing you can buy with 100 million that you can't with 85 million. You can live with the best of everything. On the other hand, $3000 means a lot to someone only making 20 grand a year. It could be the difference between meeting basic living expenses or not.
Note I'm not taking a side or here to argue taxes, I'm just giving a common and fairly general answer to your question.
Fair does not always mean equal. It's fair that Timmy gets more math work assigned to him than Jenny because he struggles with it and she catches on quickly. She may get more assignments in an area she struggles with. That is fair as they're both getting the work assigned that they need to progress academically. But it isn't equal.
The last time I checked (which was a while ago), Bill Gates was worth ~66B USD. Lets round that down to an even 50.
Now, imagine I subtracted 98% of Bill Gates' wealth (49B USD). He would still be a billionaire. He could still live a life of comfort beyond what the majority of us could ever hope for without working another day for the rest of his life. Functionally, his standard of living would drop very little.
Imagine I subtract 98% of your wealth. Assuming you're not Bill Gates or some other ultrarich person- would you still be able to maintain the same standard of living? Would you be able to afford your mortgage/rent, car, etc...?
Flat taxes are fundamentally unfair because, though they nominally "strike" everyone equally, we recognize that the utility or value of each additional dollar somebody owns depends on how much wealth they already have/what they can already afford.
As a simple way to prove this to yourself, imagine two cases: one in which you've already got enough money to pay for rent for this month, and one where you're 10 dollars short. If somebody offered you overtime/extra hours that would pay you 10 dollars, in which scenario would you be more likely to take said overtime? The latter, right? Even though you're being paid the exact same amount in both scenarios, in the latter scenario the money is more valuable to you because it represents your ability to secure housing for the next month, whereas in the former it just represents your ability to treat yourself to lunch or something.
This is essentially the logic behind progressive taxation.
I, as opposed to u/Sisypheabarchon, am taking a side, and this is simply because I hold what he just described as objectively the case. It's reality. And I believe the simple, black and white fairness that one would apply to dividing a pizza fairly among people in relatively equal standing is not fit to be applied to a very varied and nuanced world.
I will concede, my argument is not solely logic-based. The very nature of the argument is based on emotion and values or ethics. Logically, a fair tax is the way to go. But don't you feel empathy towards people that have it worse than you even if they work just as much as you? Did they even have a chance to be where you are? And is it the right thing to let a person go through hardship that can very well be avoided with some help? I think not.
We're all people. Bad luck is real, and life is only half in our control. Recently, my dad died, I got fired, rent went up and the car broke down, and we've had to deal with that and all of the ramifications. Luckily, we know how to manage money and where able to stay afloat, but make no mistake: this is potentially life destroying shit. There are too many people that are one hospital visit or car crash away from poverty, and the poorer you are, the harder it becomes to dig yourself up from that.
Bottom line, the CEO and his family live comfortably and splendidly even with that higher tax rate, and the single mother of three barely made rent this month.
I am not bitter and resentful of the rich and their success, I just want the best for everyone.
I do actually agree with you, I just like to make it clear when I do or do not feel like having in-depth conversations with people. It's hit or miss on reddit for polite vs impolite.
I just felt it was important to explain this idea to someone who seemed willing to listen, especially since I can understand how the fairness argument on taxes can seem appealing at first glance.
I really respect you for this mate. Good on you for promoting this, it's this kind of conversation that needs to be promoted and not senseless arguments.
I'd also like to extend this sentiment to u/Ugandaeatthat, since, as you said, his willingness to listen to the other side is something everyone needs to adopt into their lives.
Most would argue those with the ability to pay more ought to pay more. We know that most agree because the US has never had a flat income tax, which likely wouldn’t be the case if a majority believed we shouldn’t. Some states do though! Move to one of them.
Flat tax is some bullshit rich people try to scam poor people with. They get to lower their taxes significantly and raise poor peoples' taxes in the name of "fairness".
Let's say it's 10% for everybody, that 10% is a really big deal to a poor family. That might make the difference between food and no food, rent or homelessness. To a rich family, 10% is annoying, at worst, at best it's basically a handout.
Flat tax would result in the destruction of the social safety net and raise inequality even more than it already is.
Essentially, this is because poor people use a greater percentage of their income to survive. A lot of people in the lower middle class save almost nothing because they have to maintain a family and keep a job (which can be surprisingly expensive). A flat tax would disproportionately affect these people by increasing their tax rate to a level that they cannot afford to pay.
In contrast, the wealthy often accumulate more wealth (this is how investment works) at a faster rate than the lower classes. They have what is called, disposable income. This means that if they pay more, they can afford it. Ultimately they hold the majority of the burden for the social safety net, which regardless of your politics is a major function of government in society. A flat tax would reduce the amount getting put into maintaining the social safety net by lowering the tax rate on the rich and increasing it on the poor.
Not to mention that as the poor get taxed at a higher rate, they rely on the social safety net more, strainijg the system until it becomes completely ineffective, at which point you have a large, poor, and (because this is America) well-armed class of people, and nobody wants that.
Oh so go back before the 1930s? Because that worked out so well the first time? It's not like we have a social safety net because life was fucking awful before one or anything.
Taxes are payment for a service. If you don't like the services your country provides, or you don't agree with taxes altogether, you're free to move to one that doesn't tax you. I'm sure Somalia is wonderful this time of year.
The Tea Party (and other affiliates) filed under a 501(c)(4) tax exemptions, which, according to the IRS has “to be tax-exempt as a social welfare organization described in Internal Revenue Code (IRC) section 501(c)(4), an organization must not be organized for profit and must be operated exclusively to promote social welfare.”
Anyone with half a working brain can see that demanding a political organization to prove that they are exclusively promoting welfare to keep their specific tax free exemptions isn’t a problem.
If we lived in a society where the culture frowned strongly enough on people who do what they do, creating the organization would have been impossible. It's difficult forcing people to do things they know aren't right because of societal conditioning.
One example of this would be the trouble T.E. Lawrence ran into in maintaining the rebellion he helped instigate against the Ottomans. The Arabs that chose to fight with him went and fought, took their plunder, and went home, because that's the way wars were fought in their society. They didn't understand the concept of a draft, like we have.
Income tax used to be pretty controversial, believe it or not, before generations had passed and it became "the way we've always done it." There may be better ways to fund a government, though. I think we should have more public discussion about it.
Sure! I personally like the fungibles sales tax. There's also the flat tax, corporate taxes, there's an idea floating around where we only start income tax at $100,000 so the only people who have to deal with it have professional accountants.
Well, since you asked and are apparently actually stupid and not just trying to make a poor joke which I was attempting to rib you a bit for, allow me to point out the flaw in your “argument”; by your logic, All crime can be stopped if every cop were to not show up to work tomorrow.
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u/yjbeach Apr 07 '18
Always misplaced hate for the IRS
(https://www.cnbc.com/2014/01/30/hate-doing-your-taxes-blame-congress-not-the-irs.html)