Derec

Nope. Activity fee at my university is not a tax either but it is not voluntary either. "Payroll taxes" are much like those mandatory fees.

Quote:

My point was that it's regressive in the sense that poor people spend more as a percentage of their income on sales taxes than the rich.

a) That is not the definition of "regressive".
b) Your statement depends on the spending patterns of the individual (if both poor and rich spent the same % of their income on taxable goods and services than their sales tax taxation would be same as a percentage of their income) but on the average I think you are right. Still does not make it regressive.

UMoC

Derec

State income tax and state sales tax is double taxation but you need to take it up with your state government.
A federal sales tax would also be double taxation if federal income tax is kept.

UMoC

August Spies

this is stupid. Univesrities and other non-Govermental things do not TAX they have Fees. Goverments tax. They are forced out of the citizens. You choose to go to what university you go to, those fees are basically jsut a part of your tuition.

Loren Pechtel

A retiree with $270k in assets to support them isn't rich!

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Zar [
I really love hearing Bush cry double taxation is not fair! as his main rallying point here. I cannot describe how infuriating it is to hear this from him, and to hear it repeated verbatim here by people who think that is a good enough argument.

All else being equal, I would say that I'm not sure this is a double tax any more than a tax on individual income combined with a sales tax is a double tax. But of course, the rich people get their supposed double tax removed while everyone else slogs along as before. Bollocks!

In most all other forms of income tax is assessed exactly once. There's quite a few convoluted IRS laws to balance out odd situations even to make this happen.
Dividends are the *ONLY* case I'm aware of where a dollar of income is taxed twice.

See my earlier post about corporate raiders for why taxing dividends is a bad idea.

Loren Pechtel

SS is the biggest tax for the poor.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by Jimmy Higgins
Wait a second. Isn't tax on interest in a back account double taxation? I earned that money at work. Then I put it in the bank, and now they tax me for the interest! A dividend is interest on a stock, so to speak.

From *YOUR* viewpoint it's the same as the case with dividends. However, the bank did not pay tax on the money it paid you in interest--it's an expense of doing business to them.

However, if you went and bought a share of their stock and they paid you dividends, not only would you pay tax on that money but they would also have paid tax on it before giving it to you.

The really correct solution is to make dividends a normal corporate expense rather than taking them from the profit. However, that would end up lowering corporate tax rates considerably which would give the liberals even more ammo. Exempting dividens from the personal income tax has just about the same result but causes less squawk.

The difference can be *VERY* obvious if you have your own business. Register as an S-corp and you get taxed only once, as a C-corp and you get hit twice. Makes a big difference.

And what about the lottery? Everyone who gets a ticket, got their ticket from their pay check that was taxed. You get all that money together, someone wins it, and then all that is taxed!

Agreed--gambling winnings should not be taxed other than those who do it as a business.

While this may be technically true, cutting the dividend tax is not going to spur the economy any time soon. I don't anyone feels that's the case.

I don't know what people think but I do agree it won't make much difference in the economy. I think it should be done anyway, though.

Zar

Loren,

I think your points have some validity and are worth discussing if we take them out of the political climate and examine them theoretically. But I'm mainly miffed at how clear G. W. can be about the fairness of an issue like this, whereas he seems totally inconsiderate and unclear on so many other levels. He stammers, stutters and glazes over when he has to care about someone or give a good reason to bomb people to oblivion, but he has no trouble pointing out the "injustice" of taxes on dividends. My complaints are more political than economic, per se.

AnaniasNin

It seems as if W is of the belief that America has something to apologize to wealthy people for, some mistreatment in history that I must have missed. Since Democrats have been tarred as the 'tax and spend' party, let's christen the Republicans as the 'don't tax and spend' compassionate conservatives.

Its the same supply side crap his own father labeled 'voodoo economics', and it must be admitted that Reagan is W's true philosophical father. We'll slash the tax base from the top down, the economy will grow us out of the recession and the deficit will vanish, just like the 80's. Except it didn't. And it won't.

Bush's only hope is what floated Reagan, a drop in the price of oil in the neighborhood of 40% over eight years. Now if only we had an oilfield in the middle east...

Derec

You totally missed my point. I don't want to argue semantics.
Social Security and Medicare payments, even though called a "tax" are in reality fees (much like health insurance or garbage/sewer fees) that are paid for a certain service. People with income above $87,000 should have to pay social security "tax" iff (if and only if) the social security benefits are extended to them as well. Ditto loweing these payments. You can only do so if social security expenditures go down, that is, if you cut benefits.

Quote:

Goverments tax. They are forced out of the citizens.

Much like mandatory fees are forced out of student body. Now, student activity fees are paid for a particular service, much like SS "taxes". Now let's say certain students are not eligible for these services. Should they also pay the activity fee?

Quote:

You choose to go to what university you go to,

Much like a taxpayer is free to choose what tax jurisdiction to live in. Atlanta plans a huge property tax hike. I'd be damned if that does not cause some people to look into unincorporated Fulton and Dekalb counties to move to.

Quote:

those fees are basically jsut a part of your tuition.

No, they are distinct from the tuition.

UMoC