Seems pretty fair to me. If you make $40,000 per year, and were taxed $8000 to go to infrastructure, healthcare etc, then received a return or whatever it would make sense. It is a lot of money if you think about it, but the average person making that should be okay. Also, 20% of 1,000,000 would pump serious money into the government. As long as its fair Im for it. How idiotic is it that we have people who make more money paying less taxes? I refuse to believe the trickle down effect, because if the US dollar went to shit tomorrow, all these billioniares would just go somewhere else today.
There's a group of earners that I believe are unfairly in the crosshairs right now. Granted, there are those people pulling in a lot of money that through loop holes and low capital gains tax are gaming the system, but it's important not to confuse the two imo. That's what I like about a potential flat tax above the poverty line. If there were truly no loop holes and capital gains were also set at the same rate, it would be great. -I'm sure to any actual economist, this is la-la land stuff and has no shot in hell of ever coming to fruition.How idiotic is it that we have people who make more money paying less taxes?
-I think there is a popular misconception that all people that are higher earners are paying less taxes. There are a lot of people that fall in to that "over $250k" household bucket that pay 30 plus% of their income to taxes. This is because they are earning an actual income through salary etc and not through dividends or other investment/inheritance earnings. You find a lot of small business owners and other professionals in this space. Imagine you earned $100k a year and had to give $30k+ of it to a govt you thought was doing a piss poor job of managing it's finances? Now, imagine you had some people holding up signs and screaming about how your family was wealthy and needed to pay more.
While researching California's Paid Family Leave plan, I saw this on Wikipedia: This arrangement contributed to a budget crisis when capital gains tax income fell along with the stock market. The flat tax idea enjoys a lot of support, and is practiced more-or-less in a few places. It is still interesting to talk about, even if it is not likely to come into existence. I would be curious to know how close your 20% figure would come to generating the same amount of tax revenue.One potential problem is that a substantial portion of the state's income comes from income taxes on a small proportion of wealthy citizens. For example, it is estimated that in 2004 the richest 3% of state taxpayers (those with tax returns showing over $200,000 in yearly income) paid approximately 60% of state income taxes.
I would be curious to know how close your 20% figure would come to generating the same amount of tax revenue.
I would too, but I'll be damned if I have the time to find out. I assure you, it's not laziness. .....(walks away to take a nap).