Motivating people to pay their income taxes.

[Old and In the Way]

Instead of just having people compute their taxes, why not really give the taxpayer a say in where they taxes are spent?

Once you figure out the taxbill, the last step should be:

How do do you want to allocate your taxes?

Obviously, payment on the debt, medicare, and medicaid are off limits. But why can't the taxpayers have input into the % of their taxes going to discretionary components of the budget:



Some may choose more defense at the expense of social services....but why can't we decide what % of our tax dollars go to to what slice of the budget? Seems that's the ultimate democratic say and this should motivate everyone that is obligated to pay taxes.

[Eric J in MN]

1. Congress wants to decide how much to spend on stuff,

...not let each citizen have that power.

[Old and In the Way]

3. True...but maybe they are afraid to change the budget.

If people said, I want 30% of my taxes to go to defense, they'd have the cover to make real changes in our priorities. If I were the Democrats in 2009, I'd promote a fundamental change where the taxpayers have a macro interest in where their tax dollars are spent.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Yah! And why don't we let The People decide what trade agreements to make?

And why don't we let The People decide everything?

Think how motivating that would be!

:rofl:

[Jackpine Radical]

4. If I'm gonna pay for part of a tank, I want my part painted purple.

[BlooInBloo]

7. NO! Green!!!

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Purple. If you don't like it, buy your own share of a tank.

[BlooInBloo]

13. Oh well. So much for the fucking idiotic OP idea.

[Old and In the Way]

6. I guess you don't agree.

Lets keep doing the same old shit, right BlooInBloo? Lets not motivate the taxpayer to pay their taxes by giving them actual input as to where their taxes should be applied. Their probably too stupid to figure that out, right?

[BlooInBloo]

8. Yes - those are the only possible options: your jackass stupid idea...

or else exactly the way it is now. No other possibilities.

:rofl:

[Old and In the Way]

14. "my jackass stupid idea"

:rofl:

counter my idea with something intelligent.

:rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

15. I don't have to know the right answer to reject a fucking stupid answer....

Funny that you seem to think that *is* required, however.

[Old and In the Way]

17. Ok...you're an asshole

Thanks for you're non-answer

[Selatius]

5. I think that might require a constitutional amendment to keep politicians from weaseling out of it.

When the American system was set up, the point was to keep people out of direct decision-making. In those days, it was felt that people as a whole are a brutish, ignorant lot and that such decisions should be left up to the leaders, not the ignorant masses. Now, if you want a good working example where people, as an entity, could check what the legislature does, then Switzerland is one.

In Switzerland, people are given three powers: 1) The ability to recall a sitting legislator/leader, 2) the ability to challenge an act of parliament by calling a referendum on a particular bill, and 3) the ability to pass a law through a ballot initiative. The legislature is free to do as it pleases so long as it does so within allowances by the people. Anything else and the people can invoke its own check on legislative power.

[Jackpine Radical]

11. So--considering that enough of them voted for Bush to permit him to

steal 2 elections, what part of "brutish" and "ignorant" are you having trouble with?

[Selatius]

19. The part that made them dumber when the public education system was defunded.

That's probably the biggest difference between Swiss voters and American voters. It'll likely take a constitutional amendment, one that will likely never pass in a single lifetime barring a violent revolution.

[Jackpine Radical]

20. Oh, yes, there was undoubtedly a great dumbing-down of the populace

due to the efforts of people like Reagan. Liberal education was replaced with high-class vocational training. Broad, integrated knowledge about the human condition. from history and literature to the hard sciences, was replaced by tax accounting.

In my day, business majors were few and despised among liberal arts majors. I recall a lot of late-night, boozy discussions about Keynesian economics and Freudian theory, but I don't recall people actually talking about the differential incomes associated with different majors. As best I recall, we really didn't think about that stuff. Most of us were headed for academic careers, knowing that our chosen profession would give us a middle-class income with enough money for a reasonable supply of books, pot and beer, and beyond that, we measured our anticipated successes in terms of publications, reputations, and attainment of tenure.

[Old and In the Way]

12. I have no interest in setting the micro priorities

and that would be totally impractical. But I can't understand why the people who pay taxes can't set a framework from which our elected representatives work.

If we are sophisticated enough to have a federal income tax system that can detail every dollar of our individual income that is owed, surely we can can decide how those tax dollars can be spent. Some may choose 100% of their taxes go to defense...others may choose 100% towards non-defense. The majority will probably choose a combination. Regardless, the will of the people can easily be understood by the aggregated calculations of their tax returns.

[tammywammy]

10. They made it "motivating" when they instituted withholding

Instead of everyone writing a check once a year.

[Old and In the Way]

16. % is %

Whether it gets withheld once or over 52 weeks, it still can be calculated at the federal level.

[tammywammy]

22. Yes, but this way most people don't realize how much in income tax they're really paying

Ask people around April 15 how much they paid and they'll tell you how much their refund was or that particular check was. The vast majority of people don't even think about how much is withheld each pay period.

[Rancid Crabtree]

18. or pay for your vote...

...or sumpin...say you support capital punishment...you pay for insurance to cover the expense of executing an innocent...say you're against c.p....you pay for the upkeep of those punished...wonder where I can find info on capital gains taxes...all the articles are archived...Will the c.gains tax be raised to 28% if Obama wins?...wouldn't look forward to that...have a house for sale and I'd rather pay a 15% c.g. tax on it than 28%...but I thought I read that he doesn't want to have a c.g. tax on small business...?...and in a sense, the house I'm trying to sell if business-related....we also need more representation...anyone who can muster 50,000 people behind him/her ought to be able to travel to where they gather and represent the 50,000...and if that person can't maintain 50,000, someone else steps in...

[ColbertWatcher]

21. How would that be implemented?

What happens in the case of a national emergency like Katrina?

[Romulox]

23. Most of us in Blue State are NET TAX CONTRIBUTORS

That means our taxes are used to support people in other (primarily Red) states.

If we got to decide how are taxes are spent, do you think that Michigan taxpayers would choose to subsidize those in Arizona or Iowa?