“People who complain about taxes can be divided into two classes: men and women.” — Unknown “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” — Albert Einstein "No government can exist without taxation. This money must necessarily be levied on the people; and the grand art consists of levying so as not to oppress.’’ — Frederick the Great, 18th Century Prussian king ---------- If you were to create a new tax system for the US or your country, what kind of rules would you create? I am not talking about complex plans, just concepts to throw around. ie I like the idea of zero to low income taxes and to tax higher on consumption, but tax higher on luxury items and unhealthy foods. thoughts?
^ I like your idea buddy, tax consumption. And tax the heck out of junk food and no tax on tofu, solves some problems on healthcase which I think becomes a circular thing and so you need to tax less. Also because I am not a ‘stuff person’ I like it x2.
i don’t like paying taxes at all
I’m not particularly well read on the subject, so feel free to educate me by trashing me, but I like the idea of a relatively low flat tax, combined with national sales tax on everything except food items and clothing under a certain price point ($100 maybe). The current system in the US is way too complicated with too many loopholes and results in way too much money being spent on accountants and lawyers to avoid paying taxes. They can find other more usefull jobs with a couple year’s notice of the change in tax structure if it were to actually happen. I’m conflicted on what to do about capital gains and investment income though.
philip.platt Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- >tax higher on luxury items and unhealthy foods. > Not disagreeing, but unhealthy foods is a tricky one. Who decides what’s unhealthy? A plain salad is pretty universally agreed to be healthy, but what about when you dump 1/2 a cup of creamy ranch dressing on top of it?
Just jump to the end result, tax fat people more. Weigh in, simple formula determins your tax.
I think letting insurance companies vary your premiums based on body fat percentage would be a more effective and easier to enforce model (premiums set for next year based on a body fat % test). It costs more to insure in a car in an urban because of the increased risk of crashing and theft. We have all seen studies on how obesity leads to higher risks of many diseases. Little off topic…
^I don’t agree with a body fat % test. I have single digit body fat so I would benefit from this type of test, but mere body fat % is not indicative of health for many people. A skinny smoker with a family history of cancer and other diseases may be very much less healthy than a normal plump person.
Yeah but we have 75% fatties and only 10% skinny smokers, tax the mass.
psn0706 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think letting insurance companies vary your > premiums based on body fat percentage would be a > more effective and easier to enforce model > (premiums set for next year based on a body fat % > test). It costs more to insure in a car in an > urban because of the increased risk of crashing > and theft. We have all seen studies on how > obesity leads to higher risks of many diseases. > > Little off topic… This is not already done? Really? Seems so obvious, considering all of the other risk factors those actuarial jerks put in their models 
^ revised estimate, I am a disgrace to the CFA institute. 25% non-fatties (not necessarily skinnies) x 25% smokers = 6.25% non-fatty smokers…hardly going to close the fiscal gap.
also, we already levy a large consumption (sin) tax on smokers. I know we might be starting over from scratch, but I would leave that in place.
my roommate and i discuss this quite often. for individuals, and at a high level, i like the idea of taxing only consumption. however, what seems more attractive to me is taxing corporations on revenue, opposed to profit. can anyone comment on why the government taxes me on my personal revenue and doesn’t care about my personal cost structure, while corporations, especially small businesses, find ways to (look like they) spend more money to avoid the tax man?
Place huge taxes on stuff I don’t use or like and no taxes on stuff I do.
^oh ok so tax vaginas…
dspapo Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > my roommate and i discuss this quite often. for > individuals, and at a high level, i like the idea > of taxing only consumption. > > however, what seems more attractive to me is > taxing corporations on revenue, opposed to profit. > can anyone comment on why the government taxes me > on my personal revenue and doesn’t care about my > personal cost structure, while corporations, > especially small businesses, find ways to (look > like they) spend more money to avoid the tax man? This would be horribly unfair. Low margin businesses (like grocery stores) would get screwed while high margin businesses (money managers) would make out.
Taxes on businesses have never made sense to me. All the money flows through to the personal level. I would go with a VAT. I value closely held private corporations and the level of tax avoidance and tax evasion is shocking.
Concepts I believe in: flat taxes with very few deductions. I very strongly oppose the progressive income tax as it has necessarily created a nation where half the people contribute virtually nothing to the fiscal pot. I also strongly oppose gov’t social engineering–the idea that the gov’t would set up a tax structure to encourage or discourage certain types of behavior seems un-American to me. The gov’t exists to take care of things the private sector either can’t or won’t take care of–national defense, immigration, infrastructure (power plants, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, water treatment, etc.), interstate regulation and/or normalization of commerce, emergency response, etc. We don’t need gov’t to tell us how much salt should be put in our food. I just want the government to stay out of my life. My opposition to gov’t social engineering is also why I don’t believe in retirement accounts (for myself–I don’t care what you do).
Flat tax sounds great, but flat tax on what? Calculating the tax is the easiest part of the return. The hard part is the taxable income. An individual income tax return with wages is a pretty simple return. But if you own a business, that is where it gets interesting (i.e. difficult), right? Surely you should allow deduction for cost of sales, right? How about other ordinary and necessary business expenses. What is ordianary? Would you allow depreciation, or should you be able to deduct the entire cost of equipment in year 1. Should the character of the income matter? That poses another set of issues. And how about partnership income. Should it be a flow through like it is now? How do you distribute the income? What about other forms of business. Should they all be taxed the same? Too many time people use the words “simple” and “fair” interchangably. Unforunately, for income taxes, in order to make it “fair,” it has to be quite complex.
goes to eleven Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Flat tax sounds great, but flat tax on what? > Calculating the tax is the easiest part of the > return. The hard part is the taxable income. An > individual income tax return with wages is a > pretty simple return. But if you own a business, > that is where it gets interesting (i.e. > difficult), right? > > Surely you should allow deduction for cost of > sales, right? How about other ordinary and > necessary business expenses. What is ordianary? > Would you allow depreciation, or should you be > able to deduct the entire cost of equipment in > year 1. Should the character of the income > matter? That poses another set of issues. > > And how about partnership income. Should it be a > flow through like it is now? How do you > distribute the income? What about other forms of > business. Should they all be taxed the same? > > Too many time people use the words “simple” and > “fair” interchangably. Unforunately, for income > taxes, in order to make it “fair,” it has to be > quite complex. A fair system for corporations would undoubtedly be more complex than it would be for individuals and I have no answers there. Corporate income taxes are a pretty small piece of the pie though. According to the CBO, only 12% of federal tax revenue is derived from corporate income taxes. In contrast, 45% is derived from individual income taxes and 36% from payroll taxes, meaning 81% of federal tax revenues are attributable to individuals. Payroll taxes, which pay for things like Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, etc. could easily be eliminated and these programs funded by the flat individual income tax.