OT: Poll : Economic situation

[BudW]

Too many taxes

I think our tax structure needs to change, to many loopholes for people to get out of paying taxes. Try this on for size. http://www.fairtax.org

I think there is too many loopholes for new taxes!! Ever time I turn around there is a new tax on a new item. I New York they are thinking about new taxes on Soda Pop, Cigars, long distance driving and on and on.

How about the goverment cutting back like we all do in the time of need. Not just dream up more ways to tax us to death.

 

[harryting]

RE: Mortgage fee.

If you got high quote for mortgage, try a different bank or broker.

some good choice are:

Citi
Penfed

and Wells Fargo.

I just got off the phone with WF, the fee is less than $1k for 30 years 5.01%.

 

[mellis]

1. Either lower taxes or impose a uniform tax where everyone pays the exact same amount. Say something like 3 percent.

I'd like simple taxes that anyone can figure out. Flat tax may be too simple. Put all the tax lawyers out of work, we'll never miss 'em. I have no problem with raising and lowering the rate as needed to meet the budget.

2. Go back and reassess all homes and property at a lower rate. This would make it more affordable to all and lower the taxes paid on the home.

This is how we do it now. Property taxes are a local tax, we already maintain a tax assesment value that is not tied directly to market value. At least that's how it is in my area. Point is, it's not federal.

3. Make severe and stiff penaties against companies that hire the illegals. Make it more lucrative to hire natural born or naturalized citizens.

Have you seen the paperwork required to get a job now? It's already much easier to hire a citizen.

Much simpler idea. Seriously prosecute criminal actions by companies. Period. Quit passing laws for political reasons that are unenforcable.

4. Dont allow illegals to draw off of the taxes paid by natural born and naturalized citizens.

Citizen is sufficient, "natural born and naturalized" is redundant. I agree that people in this country illegally should not be eligible for goverment supported benefits.

 

[STEVEBOT]

Small twopennuth worth.
Greed is without a doubt the root cause.
Oil and utility supply companies make Billions in profit but at the end of the day the Bosses still say increase profit by x% and are not satisfied with billions of profit just made. Cure human nature you might cure a problem.
Small winge on this side of the pond is that all our utilty companies and so called public transport systems were sold off so the Government can only see a proportion of that profit in tax rather tha the full amount.

 

[randyk]

Small twopennuth worth.
Greed is without a doubt the root cause.
Oil and utility supply companies make Billions in profit but at the end of the day the Bosses still say increase profit by x% and are not satisfied with billions of profit just made. Cure human nature you might cure a problem.
Small winge on this side of the pond is that all our utilty companies and so called public transport systems were sold off so the Government can only see a proportion of that profit in tax rather tha the full amount.

You have no clue, the oil companies pay billions in taxes also. I have no problem letting them make a profit. You pick on the oil and utility companies but there are other industries that make way more than them. Keep the government out of private business and we would be much better off.

 

[Ken M]

all our utilty companies ... were sold off so the Government can only see a portion of that profit in tax

Interestingly, one of them here in the UK is the exact opposite of the typical corporate utility. Welsh Water, who supply all the water services (clean and waste) in Wales, are owned by a not-for-profit organisation. Their web-site states -

Glas Cymru is a single purpose company formed to own, finance and manage Welsh Water. It is a ‘company limited by guarantee’ and because it has no shareholders, any financial surpluses are retained for the benefit of Welsh Water’s customers.

It sounds like it's approaching socialism from another angle.

But back to the general economoc debate ...

There has to be a major element of personal responsibility. The western world is suffering massively because of all these beautiful euphemisms which the U.S. seemed to specialise in - "sub-prime" loans and mortgages. Sub-prime? Just less than prime? I don't think so. Ain't-worth-a-**** would be more like it! Who on Earth borrowed tens of thousands of dollars from a bank and offered their crummy shack as security? Couldn't they really see there was something wrong with a bank if it's prepared to pay you for your own nose-pickings? And now we've got all these people who are 'suffering'? Just like the way I suffer if someone offers me too much free drink. There's no-one to blaim but me in that case.

About five years ago here in the UK a friend of mine was moving house to take up a new job as a University professor. One of the building societies offered him a loan calculated as a multiplier of his annual salary. They offered him 9x his salary. He was astounded. "I'm 55 years old", he said, "how long do you think I intend to continue working? How am I ever going to repay a loan 9x my annual earnings when I've only got 10 more of years of employment left? Are you people mad?" They just shrugged and said that's what he was entitled to according to their calculations. Entitled to? Who wrote that rule?

Of course he didn't take their offer, and settled for a smaller house and a smaller loan from another company. Oh, and both the loan companies are now bankrupt anyway thanks to the damn fools who did take the crazy loans in the sub-prime markets.

So the moral is, even if you do all the things right by your standards the majority of idiots will always win in the end.

Ken

 

[TimothyMoulder]

>>1. Either lower taxes or impose a uniform tax where everyone pays the exact same amount. Say something like 3 percent.<<

I like the idea of a flat tax, but it will only work if all income is included regardless of source, and without exemptions. The rich will pay more of their share, by virtue of basic math.

What will stick it is the oil company execs who get paid in stocks, but their salary is only $1 a year.

>>2. Go back and reassess all homes and property at a lower rate. This would make it more affordable to all and lower the taxes paid on the home.<<

This is finally starting to happen. The concept is that the home is reassessed, the balance of the mortgage is lowered to the assessed level (in my case, this would be $50k off the loan) and the bank and government split the loss.

This is what they should have done at the very beginning. The inception of this problem was the collapse of the mortgage market, yet it never occurred to Paulsen to help people with their mortages, which would in turn have helped the banks with continued inflows of cash and prevented devastating losses.

Instead, they passed out huge wads of free money to the banks, with no regulation on how, or even if, it would be used. So the banks are using it as capital to buy each other out and sitting on the money. Paulsen's plan was an utter bust that's done nothing to help real people.

>>3. Make severe and stiff penaties against companies that hire the illegals. Make it more lucrative to hire natural born or naturalized citizens.<<

Scape-goating. Illegal immigration is down to it's lowest levels in decades, and even reverse movement is being picked up - people are going home to Mexico because they can't find jobs here.

>>4. Dont allow illegals to draw off of the taxes paid by natural born and naturalized citizens.<<

Never let a baby be sick or go hungry just because it wasn't born here. Period. If you gotta feed and care for Mom and Dad to ensure that, do it. And remember - it wasn't a tomato picker making $2.00 an hour that caused this mess. Stop letting yourself be so easily distracted.

Sincerely, Merry Christmas, and God look after us all.

TM

 

[tacm]

***** it........whos economy is in good shape? Ill move. Canada? Austrailia? Somewhere where I can get by with only speaking english.....lol

 

[Mike Dyble]

The money men have been in charge too long, and the gambles that they took have come home to roost.

Everyone bought into this lunacy -

People who remortgaged to take advantage of 'increasing property prices'

People who believed you could consistently defy market trends and invested with Madoff

I could go on.

You cannot generate genuine wealth by shuffling bits of paper around.

In the developed world we need to get back to basics:

End the 'something for nothing culture'

Encourage innovation and manufacturing

If necessary use blunt instruments e.g. trade barriers or tarrifs to protect ourselves from undercutting by economies where child labour and other uncivilised practices allow them to flood our markets to our detriment.

Get back to a situation where the money men provide a service to a country or company, rather than running it. I think the average engineer would probably do a better job of running either the UK or the USA than a lot the current politicians, but would be unpopular with certain sections of society who currently have vested interests in the status quo.

 

[DRS]

Originally Posted by mrtweaver
1. Either lower taxes or impose a uniform tax where everyone pays the exact same amount. Say something like 3 percent.

IMO dump the income tax and replace it with a federal sales tax of say 10%, As is there are too many loopholes for the rich,offshore company's, drug dealers and yes the illegals for the income tax to be workable.

Tommy

 

[jshiepe]

Regarding taxes, I think the rich would welcome a flat tax because it would be less than they pay now. Take the time to read the article found here:

http://profutures.com/article.php/532/

The figures found in this article are based on actual data from the US Treasury. I think you would find that a flat tax would do the opposite of what you might think, i.e. raise taxes for the lower classes and cut taxes for the rich.

 

[surferb]

Anyone read about the "Fairtax"? Interesting idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairtax

 

[leitmotif]

Anyone read about the "Fairtax"? Interesting idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairtax

Nate
Boy if you want to start a fight bring that up in state of Washington. The biggest complaint with the sales tax is that it is regressive ie hits the poor harder than the rich.

What I would like to see is the total bill for running the country is figured out divided by population and there is your taxc bill. No exceptions no deductions etc etc. Downside what about all the tax lawyers, accountiants and all the IRS guys who are now unemployed??

Actually what I would like to see is all your taxes are paid to your city. They pay tax to the county who pays to state who pays to feds.
No more IRS
No more burokrats and overhead giving us back our money from our magnanimous federal govmt.
We the people have control since our tax bill starts at local level.
AND best of all no special interest groups.

I thought we fought a war where one of the slogans was no taxation without representation.

Dan Bentler

 

[surferb]

Oh.

To the extent that everything gets taxed (Internet/foreign purchases), I don't see differences in equity between taxing income versus consumption. The wealthy spend their money just like the poor. What am I missing?

I like your idea, but a flat tax seems like the least equitable of options (with low "deadweight loss", though).

Nate
Boy if you want to start a fight bring that up in state of Washington. The biggest complaint with the sales tax is that it is regressive ie hits the poor harder than the rich.

What I would like to see is the total bill for running the country is figured out divided by population and there is your taxc bill. No exceptions no deductions etc etc. Downside what about all the tax lawyers, accountiants and all the IRS guys who are now unemployed??

Actually what I would like to see is all your taxes are paid to your city. They pay tax to the county who pays to state who pays to feds.
No more IRS
No more burokrats and overhead giving us back our money from our magnanimous federal govmt.
We the people have control since our tax bill starts at local level.
AND best of all no special interest groups.

I thought we fought a war where one of the slogans was no taxation without representation.

Dan Bentler

 

[leitmotif]

Nate -- you said
I like your idea, but a flat tax seems like the least equitable of options (with low "deadweight loss", though).

Uhhh did you really mean to say most equitable?

The argument over sales tax being regressive is that the poor spend more of their takehome on non discretionary items (they finally got rid of taxing food) ie heat fuel, etc than do the rich.

Of course the rich on the other hand of the argument save their money invest in industry which makes for jobs.

What I think it comes down to is someone whining that someone is getting a better deal than them and that is discriminitory blah blah blah.

The only way you are going to please ALL taxpayers ALL the time is to eliminate taxes. Course there are a couple consequences to that action but let us not argue over trivial details such as national defense, etc etc that are for the common good.

Dan Bentler