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January 17, 2015 at 1:51 am #816546
villagegreenMemberJanuary 17, 2015 at 4:17 am #820987
JKBParticipantIf you start with the assumption that the wealthy should pay not just more but proportionally more, and you measure wealth by income, sure. It’s a classic device in articles like that: let a certain belief set be treated as a given, and then offer ‘grades’ based on conformance to the presented belief.
January 17, 2015 at 2:54 pm #820988
SmittyParticipantPlease the the word out. All I read about is how our State is bucking the national trend in hiring, economic development and wages.
Must be “despite” our tax system………
January 27, 2015 at 1:27 am #820989
nefermoreMemberEVERYONE should pay the same portion of their income. The problem is that there are all kinds of loopholes and exceptions that keep people from paying their fare share and they often spend some of that money influencing others to help them keep it that way.
January 27, 2015 at 1:31 am #820990
JoBParticipantthe trouble is that federal income taxes and most state taxes are designed to kick in after dollar figures tied to basic needs.
sale tax and the property taxes passed on to renters aren’t…
so poor people end up spending a much higher percentage of their income in taxes than those who are wealthier…
January 27, 2015 at 1:54 am #820991
JayDeeParticipantMy U.S. Government classes may have been long ago, but our tax system was supposed to be progressive. Not in political terms, but in terms that those who earn more pay more. Why? 1) They can afford to do so. 2) It is fairer that those with less pay less as a percentage of their income. 3) Redistribution of income was seen as a way of discouraging economic royalty who would use their economic influence to game the government due to their inherited or familial wealth.
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Makes sense to me: If you are richer than average, you benefit more by a more equitable and civil society that keeps crime rates low, offers people a leg up and a chance at equality so they don’t riot and destroy the society you should be counting on to earn a living. The 1950s and even 1960s are held up as a golden age of prosperity despite progressive taxation, at least at the federal level.
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Regressive taxation is much more likely to result in a have/have not society with little chance for upward mobility (not lip service to such, but an actual chance of doing so). Given the political influence of the finance sector (largely seen as a leech productivity and economically speaking–the fees they are paid get sucked out of the system with less in return than let’s say, a factory or distribution warehouse),and the now entrenched monied oligarchs that control our political proccess. R-Money is one of them, living the fiction that his “Carried Interest” is not income, and should not be taxed like income.
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Washington state’s taxes are the most regressive in the nation. And therefore unfair to those with lesser incomes. Just because we raid the poor to gift Boeing with tax breaks doesn’t justify the system. We should have a more progressive tax system, and taxing consumption would be a big step because rich people consume more on a per-capita basis than poor–witness the Audis, BMWs, Teslas, and exotic cars and there is the proof.
January 27, 2015 at 2:15 am #820992
rwParticipantAside from inequity, we suck at funding basic government functions such as education and infrastructure. We may be good right now at the functions that Smitty cites (job creation, etc.), but we won’t continue to achieve those kinds of results if we continue to inadequately fund those areas and continue to overburden the sales tax and taxes on small businesses.
January 27, 2015 at 3:22 am #820993January 27, 2015 at 3:46 am #820994
JayDeeParticipantFrom your own post:
“Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a liberal group, added that looking at just federal income taxes doesn’t give the whole picture.
When factoring in state and local taxes, the top 10% pay just under half the tab. And when calculating tax burden as a percent of income, the tax code is even less progressive. The top 10% paid an average of 30% of their income in local, state, and federal taxes in 2011, said McIntyre. That’s not much different than the 25% percent paid by the middle class.
“The system is a little progressive, but not much,” McIntyre said.
Still, the wealthy are paying more taxes on a federal level simply because they are making so much more money. The top 10% of taxpayers take home 45% of the nation’s income, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. Moreover, they seem to be getting richer all the time.
“The vast majority of income gains have gone to the people at the top,” he said.
And it’s this growing issue of income inequality that seems to anger people the most. Overall salaries and wages haven’t even kept pace with inflation over the past few years.”
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