TheAgitator.com
Obligatory But Belated Tax Day Reminder
Saturday, April 17th, 2004From the Small Business Survival Committee:
…new data from the Congressional Budget Office shows that the top 20 percent of households (by earnings) pay more than four-fifths of all federal income taxes, but earn less than half of all income. Conversely, the bottom 40 percent of earners pay a small percentage or no income taxes, âor even receive money in the form of refundable tax credits â while higher earners pay a rapidly rising share of their income in taxes.â
So yes, all tax cuts disproportionately benefit the rich. Because the rich pay most of the taxes. Yes, we say it over and over. But it needs to be said over and over.
[sarcasm]
But, they can afford it!
[/sarcasm]
Something else that needs to be said, over and over …
The ability of that bottom 40% to cast an informed vote for any federal office is seriously compromised, because they are not significantly impacted, on a personal level by the costs of what we are asking our government to do.
No representation without taxation.
Who was it that said: “..when a segment of society reaches the point where they can vote benefits to themselves, to be paid for by other’s, it’s the end of the democracy”?
Our tax code is the root of nearly all evil in government. Want campaign finance reform? Kill the tax code! ditto: class warfare.
meek
Meek — it was Professor Alexander Tyler of Scotland, in the late 18th century, writing on the fall of Athenian democracy:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can
only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves
largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from
the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over
loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.”
Gold stars for Rich.
Another thing that needs to be said. “Tax freedom day” came 21 days earlier this year than last year. Another one of Bush’s dastardly plots. Him and the E-V-I-L Karl Rove.
Corquando — actually, gold stars for Google.
Oh, to think of how I could have impressed my teachers in high school, had I been able to Google things … of course, nearly all the teachers back then actually sought to educate you, so they would have made things proportionally harder.
Rocketman — and they say that the Bush tax cuts only affect the wealthiest 1% …
… just think of William Wallace, and shout FREEDOM!
Rich-
LOL. And commiserations from a pertner in crime . . .
Actually, it wasn’t Tyler. Some attribute it to d’Tocqueville, too.
But it appears in neither’s writing. I’ve yet to see where it actually came from.
Still a great quote, though.
Did some more searching — looks like the proper name for the author is actually Alexander Fraser Tytler
I’ll dig into it a little more, later.
The progression he describes is one of the reasons I think that democracy alone is not enough.
Which is, of course, the reason we were constituted a Republic. You ever want to see beforehand if the barstool debate you’re about to embark upon is worth it? Ask your prospective opponent if he knows which the US is - democracy or republic, and what the difference is.
If the answers are not satisfactory, don’t waste your time. You usually wind up trying to teach a pig to sing . . .
Good stuff about all that:
http://www.nhinet.org/hoebeke.htm
The quote is Tytler, “Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic.”
The quote is Tytler, “Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic.”
Oops, the first post has a wrong URL tag - the second one has the right one.
Regardless of author, the god(ess) of all knowledge (Google) finds endless quotes on the subject of taxation. In the interim, we need to figure out how to put a sword through the heart of our obscene tax code!!
Meek
According to Money Magazine, about 125,000,000 tax returns are filed every year.
I wonder, and this is simple curiosity and not an incitement to criminal action, what would happen if only 1%, say about 1,250,000 people, just didn’t file.
Would it be called a revolt? Maybe if only 2%, 2.5 million, just said “F&%k it, I ain’t filin’,” would it be considered an insurrection?
What could the gubmint do?
As well, I wonder how it would be possible to mount such an effort, should somebody want to risk the undoubtedly harsh criminl penalties for such abetting, which is why this isn’t that but simple questions involving hypothetical situations. Really.
corquando, the usual number bounced around for non-filers who would otherwise pay is 15%. No idea how accurate it is, though. The IRS guy on the news the other day estimated that the amount underpaid or not paid is pushing a half-trillion.
In related news, I see that Jesse Ventura is contemplating an unaffilitated run for president in 2008. One of his top priorities would be throwing out the income tax in favor of a national sales tax. (He would also rival Clinton for being on the receiving end of the most late night talk show jokes.
“Taxation without Representation” was a lament that begat, to some extent, this country.
I think that it is fair that those 40% who don’t pay taxes or actually get $$$ should not be allowed to vote.
I’d heard that Tytler quote for years, but when I learned of its dubious nature, I did some research. I wrote up my results in a piece you can read here. It still needs some final tweaking, but it gets the idea across.
Here’s what Snopes has to say on the quote (much of which Loren already brings up):
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp
Man, talk about a subject we can all agree on …. if I here one more Democrat say ‘tax cuts for the rich’ …. bear with me, but this is a list of the taxes we have now that didn’t exist 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world:
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines - (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax - (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax - (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax Interest expense - (tax on the money)
Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges - (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties - (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Taxes - (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax - (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone State and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Toll Bridge Taxes
Toll Tunnel Taxes
Traffic Fines - (indirect taxation)
Trailer registration tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Scary ….
First, the bit quoted above is just factually wrong according to the statistics there cited. The CBO numbers have the top quintile of households making slightly more than half the income, before taxes.
Second, it’s misleading to focus on the individual federal income tax, which is quite progressive. If you look (again, in the CBO data) at *all* federal taxes, it looks much less uneven, and when you factor in state and local taxes, the net result is practically a flat tax.
The reason that considering *all* federal taxes is faulty is because of the way payroll taxes (SS & Medicare) are handled. Of course they’re a flat tax, but since there’s a maximum income that SS applies to, incomes above that level pay a lower overall percentage in payroll taxes.
But SS and Medicare taxes are not like any other taxes collected by the federal gov’t. This is most readily evidenced by the entire ‘lockbox’ mentality, that SS and Medicare taxes should only go to fund SS and Medicare. These systems are supposed to be self-sufficient, and at least with SS, the returns one receives are calculated by the amount that one was taxed.
The result is that by their very nature, these taxes cannot be progressive. Medicare is a flat tax, and already is plundering high income-earners who could not possibly reap enough medical bills to exceed their Medicare taxes. And with SS, every step that is taken towards raising the taxable maximum or making the tax progressive is to turn a purpotedly old-age insurance plan into a straightforward rich-to-poor income redistribution scheme.
If you want to argue that sin taxes and the like should be taken into consideration along with income taxes, fine. But payroll taxes are a whole different creature, and have no business being lumped with other taxes for the sake of tax burden comparisons.
Tax should be a four letter word…probably is in some language.
Actually, taxes aren’t bad, it’s the people that spend them like they are a bottomless resource.
Frank, I agree. Taxes aren’t that bad except that some people don’t realize that it’s not an open checkbook. It doesn’t just come from this big tax tree called the U.S. Treasury where they can continue to spend. It comes out of the pocketbooks of all “working” Americans - working as in “getting an income” vs whatever spin doctors call it. Those who do not work and get a check from the government should not benefit from tax cuts and instead should have their checks taken away to incent them to work.
The worst part, Frank, is that Democrats have convinced a couple generations of people that anyone who has ‘broken out’ of the poor/middle class doesn’t deserve their money and therefore ‘owes’ it to the government to give back to social programs, etc. Robin Hood mentality ….
James, didn’t Robin Hood take from the Tax-man (Sheriff & company) and give back to the tax-payer?
I think that over the last few years, the whole Robin Hood legend has been bastardized to glorify a protection racket called ‘tax the rich, feed the poor’.
‘Tax’em all and buy their votes’ is probably closer to reality seeing as any taxes (income, property, whatever) levied on corporations are passed on to the consumers, no matter how little they earn, in the form of higher consumer-goods prices.
Its just laws of physics at work - corporation don’t print money, they have to collect it from their customers to pay those taxes.
Naturally, taxing those big, mean, heartless, greedy corporations is more palatable than extracting exactly the same amount of dollars from Joe Shmuck, who is trying to pay for his Dodge.
I don’t disagree at all Joker, I was just saying that the ‘Robin Hood’ mentality is what lets Democrats get away with ‘tax the rich, feed the poor’ statements. In reality we all know it only goes back to hurt them in the end.
I’m no Democrat, James, but I don’t think we can really just blanket blame that party for our tax troubles anymore. It seems like both parties are taxing us all to hell and just arguing over how they should spend the money at this point.
Sounds like we’re inching closer to a UK mentality every second, if we’re not there already. Their “conservative” party is hilarious to listen to. Conservative? Ha!
taxed-poor, my impression of what James was saying is not that both parties are not to blame but that the Dems exploit the Robin-hood theory in order to get themselves more votes.
Yeah, what she said.
The Tytler quote is a phony.
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