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If Elected I Promise ;) Part II TAXES
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)
Posted by: laborat
Well here we are again and the Candidate Laborat has the smoking gun to support the notion of a FLAT TAX on individuals and Corporations. Or do I?
Looking into this FLAT TAX thingy the only thing that has me nervous is that it is Republicans that are pressing for it and if they want it, it means the rest of us are going to be screwed even more.
So what is a flat tax? Well it means everyone pays the same rate on income. If you are poor and make $6000 a year on welfare then you would pay the same rate as if you were rich and made $6 million.
“A Flat Tax actually would benefit the rich more than the middle class or the poor.” -- some obscure tax watchdog.
If We want to make the Rich nervous we should start talking about removing Tax Loopholes and Deductions in addition to a Flat tax.
Why? Well, at the moment actual income is defined as your net earnings after you deduct things like your mortgage interest, educational expenses and job training, Children, losses, -- Whatever H&R Block or your favorite bookie, I mean accountant can find in the current tax code. It might take years to know them all, there are so many exemptions in there no one knows for sure what is and what isn’t deductible, even the IRS. There are even deductions that are classified under national security for corporations that do top level security work for the government.
A far as a flat taxes goes, I can’t say I am for it. I sort of like the way things are now and if we simplified things, accountants, CPAs, IRS agents, and attorneys would all lose their jobs. The problem has never been the tax laws but rather the tax loopholes and benefits that have surreptitiously found their way into the tax code.
On a related note, you ever notice that if you play the lottery, you don’t ever get the amount they say you are winning? The latest power ball winner won 205 million, but if he took the cash would only get the actual amount of money needed to invest to accumulate 205 million over 25 years. You add taxes to that and … well, anyways I think it is all deceptive advertising. But back to what I was saying….
If you are rich enough you can get your congressmen and senators to tailor make a specific tax deduction just for you or your favorite special interest group for just the cost of a campaign contribution, a promise of high paying jobs for the politicians idiot nephews, and the occasional ticket to a Yankees game or the Superbowl. That is not even the biggest ripoff…that falls under Mega-Corporations. There is nothing democratic about Capitalism.
This article appeared in Reuters and I haven’t a clue how it got by the Big Bad Corporate Boys who want no publicity like this in an election year about how they are bilking the American Public out of Trillions of dollars.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most firms operating in the United States paid no U.S. income tax at all in the years 1996 to 2000, according to a study by the U.S. Government Accounting Office released on Friday.
The GAO found that 71 percent of foreign-owned companies paid no tax on profits from their U.S. operations, while 61 percent of U.S. companies paid no tax.
Of the foreign corporations that did pay tax, their tax bills were lower than those of U.S. companies.
Among the largest 1 percent of companies, those with over $250 million in assets, more U.S.-owned companies than foreign-owned paid no tax, the nonpartisan congressional watchdog agency said.
The study was requested by Democratic senators Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Carl Levin of Michigan as a follow-up to one done in 1999 and confirmed the earlier findings.
Dorgan said the results showed Congress needed to make major changes in U.S. tax laws to close "gaping loopholes," that allowed foreign-owned companies "to move billions of dollars in profit overseas, on income generated in the United States."
"They don't pay their fair share, and the net result is that average taxpayers -- working families -- wind up paying more to make up that difference," Dorgan said.
President Bush's budget forecasts corporations will pay $168.7 billion in income taxes in 2004 compared with $765.4 billion paid by individuals.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
So anyways, what the candidate Laborat would propose TAXWISE is that the Federal Government should get into the stockholder business. IN A BIG WAY! I thinking we should split the voting and non-voting stocks down the middle take half for US and claim the voting privileges of an actual shareholder based on the amount of stock we hold.
We should as a country be bold enough to ask for half of each corporations stated yearly earnings (after all loopholes are closed taxwise) who would do business in the US or claim to be a US corporation, that would normally go to stockholders as dividends.
We (as the collective US) are, after all, in the business of protecting corporate interests world wide, regulating their abilities to screw the public on matters of health, safety, and environmental damage, bailing them and their pension funds out when they go bankrupt or threaten to, and passing sweetheart laws to aid them and their collective industries in reeking further profiteering.
We should apply this money toward our federal deficit until it is paid down and then afterwards disperse the rest of it back to (voting) taxpayers in the form of a national corporate dividend. None of this money should ever be used for anything else other than reducing the deficit, and rewarding those who actually pay taxes and participate in our democratic process.
A few brief words on the National Deficit…so what is it really? The National Deficit is an imaginary number signifying nothing. That’s my point of view and I could go further and say the deficit numbers represent the futility of our determination to make the world into a miniature US with ATMs on every river bank..
It could be argued that it is: a symptom of future inflationary pressures, caused by a lack of common sense, no trade tariffs, and economists who like to see their name in print, and/or highly complex currency scams being employed among US traders vs. the World.
Since we make up our own money and we define it’s worth against the worth of any other country’s money, it’s another way of saying hey!, we aren’t making enough money and are actually losing money, it’s time to raise prices, impose tariffs, bail out an industry or two, and maybe invade a country to start down the road to recovery.
Regan had huge deficits. Clinton had hardly any. Bush is on the way to a TRILLION dollars in debt. So? Well, that’s my point. At any point in the money game, we could and have (obscure fact) just come out and say there is NO deficit and start over. This means of course defaulting on a lot of treasury notes and securities but hey, it’s not like we invented the notion of deadbeat countries who never repay their loans.
Okay let’s see if I can recap the above into an acceptable sound bite suitable for television.
“Flat Tax gives me gas, Corporations give it to citizens in the A**. If you can’t beat them cheat them. If you can’t tax them, join them.” -- presidential candidate Laborat
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