Open Letter: The House that George built.

how can the dems actually make bush's life hell? i dont see bush caving on much.

One word "Investigations"

my cynicism stands corrected, and i'm thrilled.

I guess I called it

Any questions you would like me to ask during the Q&A?

ask him how he can take money for speeches after killing so many people.

Well, it wouldn't be appropriate, but given the events of the past 24 hours, I'd wonder if his butt hurts.

Just thank him for his service and wish him a good retirement.

He's had his hopes up for a long time. :)

Oh good. I thought I missed a year...

Shawn, would you agree to ensuring that the richest 2 percent of the population pay their fair share?

And what exactly is there fair share. The top 10% pay like 60% of the taxes the government takes in. Just remember it's the rich people that give the rest of us jobs.

lv,

it's the rich people that give the rest of us jobs

That is just wrong. It is time for you to be deprogrammed.

A large portion of the top 10% in this country pay little if no taxes. I think paying a percentage at least comparable to a high middle class earner is warranted.

Don't you?

So your saying your boss is not richer then you.

A large portion of the top 10% in this country pay little if no taxes

References, please.

In reality, the top 10% of wage earners in the USA pay about 65% of all tax revenue. Here are some IRS stats.

I found a better reference here on the IRS site itself.

In the last tax year for which they have published statistics (2004), the total individual income tax revenue was $831,890,000,000. The top 10% of wage earners paid $567,273,000,000 in taxes. That is 68.19%. The average tax rate for that group is 18.60% compared to an average rate of 13.51% for the top 50 percent.

what percent of income do those same 10% earn?

The average tax rate for that group is 18.60%

Before deductions and shelters. Quoting marginal rates is unhelpful as the Congress has larded the tax code with obscure provisions and loopholes that only someone who can afford a full time tax attorney can take advantage of. I'm guessing that if all of those loopholes were eliminated and the top 10% were forced to actually pay 18.6% the amount of revenue generated from that groups would be much, much higher.

One small example, for several years in the 1990's the Microsoft Corporation paid zero in Federal Income Tax. Please do not argue that they aren't individuals, in the eyes of the law a corporation is a person and has all of the rights and responsibilities of a person. If corps shouldn't pay income tax, then they shouldn't have unlimited First Amendment protections, either.

No. That is the actual average tax rate.

Read through some of those reports.

Rate does not include deductions. Deductions hit the total taxable amount, so you pay 18.5% on $100,000,000 instead of 18.5% on $250,000,000. All the reports I see are on 1040 forms which report AGI, which is income after IRAs, 401(k), FSA and other pre-tax deductions and shelters.

The tax code is a mess. A flat-tax would put a lot of lobbyists, accountants, and tax lawyers out of business. It would also kill the consumer banking/home construction subsidy of the interest deduction.

But, it would create a far more fair situation. Impose a single tax rate on all income above some minimum (say $30,000).

At the end of the year corporations take like Microsoft take there profits and give it to the employees as bonuses so they don't have to pay those taxes. But those bonuses are taxed just like a regular paycheck.

If I take a substantial amount of my income and give it away as gifts to my dependents, I am still required to pay tax on it above a certain amount and the recipient is required to pay as well. It's an income tax. Each time a dollar becomes someone's income it should be taxed. Since the courts have ruled that corporations are persons under the law, their income should be treated no differently. Either that, or we should recognize that corporations aren't persons, and treat them accordingly.

The fiat decision of the Supreme Court that established the personhood of the limited liability corporation was the greatest blow to individual liberty prior to the PATRIOT Act. It in effect created immortal persons who have all of the rights of a citizen and none of the responsibilities as the corporation cannot be incarcerated and only rarely executed. It seems only reasonable under the social contract model that if an entity is granted exceptions from responsibilities, that its rights be equally restricted. The two go hand in hand.

Take the above example. Microsoft sells about $45 billion in goods and services every year. How would you tax them?

18.5% of $45 billion, just as if an individual made that much in salary. I'd give 'em the standard deduction though. If Microsoft is a "person" in eyes of the law, why should it be any different?

Businesses are very different tax entities.

You cannot tax a business on gross revenue. You can only tax them on value-added. You have to deduct the cost of labor, the cost of raw materials, the manufacturing costs, distribution costs, etc. Otherwise, you would put almost every business in the country in the red by over taxing them.

There are other reasons that you would want to keep the tax burden low. First, the USA is competing against other countries for businesses. If the USA changed its tax laws to what you suggest, companies like Toyota, Honda, BMW, Mercedes, etc, would certainly not operate plants here. Other companies headquartered here would leave for friendlier environs. That leads to the second reason. Companies keep people employed. If these companies flee the USA because of punitive tax laws, what happens to all of those employed. Many would become a welfare burden on the countries taxpayers.

Cannot? Why the hell not? We treat their "speech" as if it were coming from a US citizen, so treat their income likewise. That or simply repeal the polite fiction that corporations are persons and start banning lobbyists and all corporate campaign contributions.

To answer Pef's question - yes I do. However, further discussion would be done elsewhere... there is more to my yes, so I guess, a qualified yes.. but I'll have to brush up on money matters before I get into expressing my own assertions to make them a bit more clear.

An amount above zero.