What is "fair" when it comes to rich people and taxes?

[_cinepro]

When the subject of tax rates comes up, the phrase "fair share" is frequently used to describe an ideal for tax rates, especially when referring to what "rich" people pay.

Can someone explain what, exactly, is meant by "fair share"? And since tax rates are in the law books, what is the exact rate? How do we figure out this rate, and if people (especially lawmakers) disagree about the rate, is there an objective standard that can be used?

I can understand that if someone pays less than their "fair share", they are probably paying their "unfair share". But if someone pays more than their "fair share", is that also an "unfair share"?

[_ajax18]

Even if it were more than their fair share, liberals would still advocate taking more. All that matters is what they need. If you have something they need, in their minds, it's right to take it whenever and how much of it they want. We can't just stamp our feet and protest, "It's not fair." After all, life is not fair. Fairness only matters to most people when it works in their favor. In that case, fairness is worth protests and even war. But when you're talking about fairness to someone else, it's just the responsibility of the non favored party to endure it for their benefit. That's what they mean by fairness.

The entire argument is a political ploy designed to incite class warfare, not balance the budget. Increasing tax rates on the 1 percent to what they want would only run the government for 8 days at most. It just sounds nice to tax the rich more and it wins votes, even elections. But it never balances the budget. It just creates more debt.

[_SteelHead]

Flat consumption tax. No exemptions.

[_krose]

The quick and easy answer to your fairness question is that a person making many millions per year should never pay a lower rate than someone making $80K, which is what we have now. To fix that, we have to equalize the way capital gains and dividends are taxed. Taxing work income at a higher rate than investment income is absurd.

I do agree that the word "fair" probably has as many interpretations as there are people, in a discussion of taxes. And the emphasis is always going to be on how much is paid by other people at other income levels. That's how we get people advocating raising taxes only on upper incomes, while at the same time Romney and his wealthy donors complain that 47% of the country don't pay income taxes because their incomes are too low.

But one thing that's certain right now is that tax revenues are much too low for current spending levels. Either taxes have to be increased or spending cut, because there isn't enough money coming in to pay for everything we want to spend it on. And as long as we are unwilling to have a serious national debate about what our values are (what programs we want and are willing to pay for), it's going to continue to get worse.

In my opinion, we need to cut back drastically on bloated military spending and let all tax rates return to pre-Bush levels. The rates were not too high 15 years ago. They're too low now, across the board. Tax cuts don't create jobs. That's been made clear in the last decade. As for cutting social programs, I believe the majority of us want to keep them strong. We just need to make sure we're also willing to pay for them.

[Guest]

The quick and easy answer to your fairness question is that a person making many millions per year should never pay a lower rate than someone making $80K, which is what we have now. To fix that, we have to equalize the way capital gains and dividends are taxed. Taxing work income at a higher rate than investment income is absurd.

I agree. The income tax should be much lower.

If we want to encourage people (and companies) to save and invest, then we should be taxing consumption, not income or investment. It's not that hard to figure out.

But one thing that's certain right now is that tax revenues are much too low for current spending levels. Either taxes have to be increased or spending cut, because there isn't enough money coming in to pay for everything we want to spend it on. And as long as we are unwilling to have a serious national debate about what our values are (what programs we want and are willing to pay for), it's going to continue to get worse.

I agree. This is a huge problem. If only we had some sort of authoritative document that gave us guidance on what the federal government is actually supposed to do.

As for cutting social programs, I believe the majority of us want to keep them strong. We just need to make sure we're also willing to pay for them.

I don't know about the "majority", but I'd agree that at least 47% do.

The government has the power to take people's money by force and threat of prison. Whether or not we use this power to take someone's money to fund a "social program" (i.e. give it to someone else) should have a stricter criteria than whether or not the majority want to do it.

[_krose]

As for cutting social programs, I believe the majority of us want to keep them strong. We just need to make sure we're also willing to pay for them.

I don't know about the "majority", but I'd agree that at least 47% do.

I hope this is a joke. Hard to tell without inflection.

But if you're seriously making the same conflation error that Romney did, assuming that the working poor -- whose jobs don't pay well enough to get them into the lowest tax bracket -- are on the government dole, I'm disappointed. I would have expected you to be better informed.

And as evidence of the popularity of Medicare and Social Security, I point to the fact that both presidential candidates are accusing each other of cutting or planning to cut (or privatize) them.

[_subgenius]

Flat consumption tax. No exemptions.

absurd and unrealisitic (and eventually regressive).
almost impossible to transition to without at least one year of being taxed twice
also is unfair
why should a trucking company, which makes money from driving on roads, have a tax advantage over a person who use the roads otherwise? Obviously the trucking company's wear and tear on the road is an influence as well...

[_SteelHead]

Trucking company is going to spend much more on gasoline consumption tax. Where is the advantage?

Any time dollars are exchanged for goods or services, tax it at a flat rate.

[Tator]

It seems to me that taxing consumption would, you know, discourage consumption. I know that there's been an emphasis on the "supply" side of the equation for a while, but the "demand" part matters, too.

As far as what would be fair? I don't think "fair" is probably the most useful term, because what is useful to the economy as a whole varies depending on other economic factors. But I would say that given that the top 1% hold about 36% of all net worth, and 42% of all financial investments, maybe we could split the difference and say 39% - still quite a low rate given historical perspectives.

I'm actually open to different ideas about how the economy can best be stimulated. But one thing should be clear by now. Republicans aren't going to improve the deficit by reducing taxes.

[_Brackite]

When the subject of tax rates comes up, the phrase "fair share" is frequently used to describe an ideal for tax rates, especially when referring to what "rich" people pay.

Can someone explain what, exactly, is meant by "fair share"? And since tax rates are in the law books, what is the exact rate? How do we figure out this rate, and if people (especially lawmakers) disagree about the rate, is there an objective standard that can be used?

I can understand that if someone pays less than their "fair share", they are probably paying their "unfair share". But if someone pays more than their "fair share", is that also an "unfair share"?

California's Proposition 30???