My Progressive Tax Policy For a Globalized World

[BrentWil]

I was thinking about how I would structure taxes in our society. The question for me is how to maximize the benefit for the population as a whole and remain competitive in the modern world. Business in a globalized world can simply move. What is the best means to stop this? Moreover, anyone under the poverty line or close to it, should not pay taxes. And when I say that, I mean any taxes. The poor need to climb out of poverty, not have their income taken about by SS tax, etc. Here are my thoughts.

First, I would eliminate all forms of taxes on people besides for income tax. When you pay SS tax, it just goes into the general fund and is spent. It is a HOAX and is a regressive tax. All government expenditures should be paid from income tax and all income should be treated the same. All Americans would get the same deduction, 4 times the national poverty line for an individual. You as a person would never see that deduction decrees. If you get married, your household would have a deduction of 8 times the national poverty rate. For each dependent, you get their deduction too. This would ensure that the poor and most of the middle class would never pay a dime of federal taxes. The tax burden would be completely on the wealthy and upper middle class.

The other part of this is that I think we have to eliminate corporate tax. We are in a competitive world and corporate can move with great ease. This is something that countries such as Sweden understand, as they continue to cut their corporate tax. ( http://www.thelocal.se/14204/20080908/ ) As a structure, we want corporations and business to grow here. The way to deal with this problem is to tax the income they distribute under the same guidelines of any other income. In other words, if you are making more then 4 times the national poverty rate, the money that you gain from either a capital gain or a dividend should be taxed at the national rate. Moreover, foreign investors should get the same deduction, but would also get taxed once their investment income grew past the amount. This would ensure there would be less incentive for the wealthy to simply move.

Anyway, what are your thoughts?

[Warpy]

1. Social security is a little different. It's an old age insurance program

and should be restored to its original form, an insurance plan that is pay as you go and kept separate from the general fund. Putting it into the general fund was done to chip away at it and if it remains there, we will lose it--first to means testing and eventually to the inevitable inflation of fiat currency making that means testing ridiculously stringent.

We know this will happen because it happened that way to public assistance like Medicaid, originally supposed to be an insurance program for marginal workers but tied to fixed dollar amounts in the 1960s. Now only the destitute can qualify.

Two things we need to do to get our fiscal house in order are restoring the progressive income tax and cutting the Pentagon budget 10% per year until our military expenditures are in line with what the rest of the world spends. In the process, we will have to relinquish Empire.

As for globalization, with the elimination of Empire will come the destabilization of some trade routes. That will spur the redevelopment of industry within our borders. Peak oil will also contribute as shipping across the planet becomes much more expensive than paying people to produce goods and services closer to the point of consumption.

Globalization has been a failure for the US. Shifting wealth away from the workers to the plutocrats has been a hideous failure and if the misery at the bottom is not addressed, political instability is not far off. Putting social security at risk by putting it into the general fund to make it easier for Congress to rob has been a dismal failure.

Conservatism has failed this country on all fronts, but most notably on the financial front. It's time to abandon that type of thinking altogether.

[BrentWil]

2. IT is in the general fund now..

That is what you fail to understand. It is part of the general fund now. It is nothing but a regressive tax on the poor. Fund the payments out of the general fun. Another thing we could do is stop paying it out to the old mega rich.

You are wrong concerning globalization. The world is a smaller place because of technology. We have to deal with it. It isn't going away.

[Warpy]

3. Perhaps you need to reread my post

a little more slowly this time.

You've missed the point completely.

[BrentWil]

4. SS was never that..

That is my point. It is a program in which todays workers pay for older people. I said workers because that is who pays and always did. It is a regressive tax and one that I would prefer to see on the backs of the upper middle class and wealthy. As far as trade, there is no going back It is a global economy now.

[Warpy]

5. Perhaps you need to read how insurance works

You might also want to find out what the "I" in both FICA and OASDI stands for. It's the same in both.

People working now are paying for retired folks just the way your car insurance premiums are being paid out to people who have had accidents. Your day will probably come and other people will pay your insurance benefits.

You're so busy clinging to an erroneous point that you've neglected to read the background material necessary to make any point, at all.

[BrentWil]

6. It is government outlays...

It doesn't matter. Taxes into the government pay for it, wherever they come from. Lets get them off working Americans.

[Shadow Creature]

7. the problem

The biggest problem with the present tax structure is not enough people are paying taxes. We should get rid of payroll taxes and simply make every single person above the poverty line pay IN on April 15 or whenever. No refunds, no rebates, EVERYONE should pay something. Spreading the tax burden around to as many people as possible has a lot of benefits, including making people more aware of what they are paying and feeling they have a stake.

In Europe the taxes start at much lower incomes than it does here, I think in England the top rate kicks in at 50,000 pounds. Might be a bit of a stiff increase for us, but it could be done gradually.

[BrentWil]

8. So you want to under classes to give more to the Government?

Why not help them by not taking their money. Make it a simple system that people pay into once they reach a certain level of economic security

[Shadow Creature]

9. underclass?

I don't consider the middle class to be an underclass.

You can seize all the wealth of the top 10% and you could not fund this government for one yer with it, you will also have no tax revenue from those people the following year. The best and most sustainable idea is for the middle class to pay taxes in a way that makes them feel like stake holders. That will get them involved.

[BrentWil]

10. I think that is what I am saying...

Give EVERYONE a straight deduction and start taxes above that amount

[Shadow Creature]

11. yes

That would work I think.

[BrentWil]

12. I think so...

Any other takers on this?