AP POLL: How to pay for health overhaul? Tax the rich

[DontSayBanana]

Putting it this way is misleading. The rich pay a higher percentage in income tax than the poor and then they still have to pay things like sales taxes (surprise, rich people still buy goods...and they tend to buy more expensive ones!).  End of the day, the rich are getting hosed for a rather large percentage of their income.

They don't have to buy the more expensive goods.  You're just never going to be able to please all the people, particularly the middle bracket, who get screwed either way.  You use a flat tax, the poor pay a higher percentage.  You use a progressive tax, the rich pay a higher percentage.

A better question of how to pay for things would be how to drop the level of zero-tax-liability filers; approximately 38% in 2009: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=1973&DocTypeID=7

[garbon]

They don't have to buy the more expensive goods.  You're just never going to be able to please all the people, particularly the middle bracket, who get screwed either way.  You use a flat tax, the poor pay a higher percentage.  You use a progressive tax, the rich pay a higher percentage.

So increasing the inequality is good because?

[Iormlund]

The rich will have much, much more money left after paying gas, buying food and paying rent. So there is a lot more room to tax their incomes. It's common sense.
It is also convenient. It is much better to "spread the wealth around" than needing armed men to watch over your family or having to bribe half the country to get a permit for your business or lacking access to educated workforce, a strong market or roads, ports or trains to make your factory work. It's a trade off.
You guys want to know what a capitalist paradise where the rich are rich and the poor are poor looks like? Take a peek at your neighbors down South.


On the original topic, though, the US pays more than enough for healthcare as it is. The rest of the developed world manages with a lot less. What US healthcare needs is not more money, but a complete revamp of the system.

[DontSayBanana]

Sigh.  Once again, you miss the point.  I'm not arguing in favor of increasing the inequality.  I'm suggesting that Congress would be barking up the wrong tree by taxing the rich further.  This past year, over 60,000 tax filers reporting income of over 200,000 dollars paid no income taxes.  That kind of lost tax revenue, combined with the massive amount of zero-liability reporting between incomes of 30,000 and 75,000 dollars, would certainly go some way toward paying off some of our debts.

[Fate]

Sigh.  Once again, you miss the point.  I'm not arguing in favor of increasing the inequality.  I'm suggesting that Congress would be barking up the wrong tree by taxing the rich further.  This past year, over 60,000 tax filers reporting income of over 200,000 dollars paid no income taxes.  That kind of lost tax revenue, combined with the massive amount of zero-liability reporting between incomes of 30,000 and 75,000 dollars, would certainly go some way toward paying off some of our debts.

No, the rich are not taxed sufficiently. On the whole they have too much cash and with nothing substantive to do with it. The government has better uses for that money such as funding two wars, social programs, and paying down our debt. The rich will do just fine with a 45% income tax bracket at $1,000,000 or greater and a 35% capital gains tax.

[Eddie Teach]

Seems to me that higher taxes is an acceptable trade off for higher income. You still end up with more stuff.

[Grey Fox]

You crazy Canadian with your upper tier at around 15%

Quebec chart :

0  38 385 $  16 % 
38 385 $  76 770 $  20 % 
76 770 $  +   24 %

[garbon]

The rich will have much, much more money left after paying gas, buying food and paying rent. So there is a lot more room to tax their incomes. It's common sense.
It is also convenient. It is much better to "spread the wealth around"

Well of course the rich end up with more money. That's what it means to be rich.

Indeed, individuals should always be forced to give up money they worked for to those who did not earn it. And they should be forced to give a lot of money.

[Monoriu]

In Hong Kong, nobody pays more than 15% 

[alfred russel]

Putting it this way is misleading. The rich pay a higher percentage in income tax than the poor and then they still have to pay things like sales taxes (surprise, rich people still buy goods...and they tend to buy more expensive ones!).  End of the day, the rich are getting hosed for a much greater percentage of their income than the poor. And that's the situation already. Now its going to increase in order to pay for the healthcare plan...

Maybe. If you are a middle class individual making $80k a year, I wouldn't be surprised if you pay 40% or so in taxes depending on the state you live (inclusive of sales tax, property tax, payroll tax (especially if you include your employer's portion), federal income tax, state income tax, ad valorem taxes, and any other taxes I'm leaving out.

If you have $100 million or so and are living off investment income, you will pay 15% on much of your income, nothing on some of it, and you don't have to pay payroll taxes.For those people, their average tax rate is almost certainly going to be less than many in the middle class.

[grumbler]

Actually the US only taxes the rich.  The bottom 47% pay no taxes at all.  Since income for the rich tends to be highly volatile, so is our tax system.

I've read that statistic before.  It's absolutely ridiculous.

83% of the statistics cited on internet discussion boards are made up.

[DGuller]

I've read that statistic before.  It's absolutely ridiculous.

83% of the statistics cited on internet discussion boards are made up.

And 16% of the remaining statistics are highly misleading.

[derspiess]

The rich will do just fine with a 45% income tax bracket at $1,000,000 or greater and a 35% capital gains tax.

[KRonn]

Actually the US only taxes the rich.  The bottom 47% pay no taxes at all.  Since income for the rich tends to be highly volatile, so is our tax system.

I've read that statistic before.  It's absolutely ridiculous.

83% of the statistics cited on internet discussion boards are made up.

[Josephus]

What changes is simply the composition of taxes different brackets are subjected to. Rich will pay most in income and investment taxes, poor in sales tax or gas tax and so on.

Putting it this way is misleading. The rich pay a higher percentage in income tax than the poor and then they still have to pay things like sales taxes (surprise, rich people still buy goods...and they tend to buy more expensive ones!).  End of the day, the rich are getting hosed for a much greater percentage of their income than the poor. And that's the situation already. Now its going to increase in order to pay for the healthcare plan...

Give the poor more tax breaks, and they'll be able to spend more, thus contributing more via sales taxes.