ti_84_plus t1_is3pq75 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:54 AM

Kinda sad cars are necessary in the majority of NA :(( but in my neck of the woods food, clothes, utilities, tickets, newspapers, landlines, mailing, personal+ professional services, agriculture crap and equipment for manufacturers (among other things that don't apply to ordinary people) are exempt from sales tax. Thought you might find this interesting!

CablePicker t1_is3rc8x wrote on October 13, 2022 at 2:06 AM

Newspapers and landlines? What about fax machines? What about prepared food?

zorggalacticus t1_is3jsok wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:11 AM

I'm for abolishing income tax altogether, and establishing a federal sales tax instead. We'd probably actually get more taxes from the rich as there'd be no more tax loopholes or tax havens. All that money they spend would be taxed. And the average consumer would come out way ahead on that deal.

XavvenFayne t1_is3kfs6 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:15 AM

At the risk of getting further off topic, sales tax tends to be regressive because lower income people have to spend all or almost all of their money on necessities, while rich people don't actually spend a significant % of their wealth at all. I'm in favor of the wealth tax that Elizabeth Warren has been advocating for. If wealth inequality is the problem then you tax wealth.

zorggalacticus t1_is3l6dc wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:21 AM

The still spend way more. Sales tax on a yacht is more than most people will pay in a year. Same for a Lamborghini, or a multimillion dollar home. Or that 500 dollar bottle of champagne. The amount of money they actually spend compared to the average American is more than enough to generate significant taxes. It's about actual amounts, not percentages. Dollars to dollars the uber rich will pay way more taxes than we will. Trying to rationalize taking more by percentages us just plain greedy.

rocketeerH t1_is3pp0z wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:54 AM

Wealthy people spend more, but they spend a lower percentage of their income.

Say you have a sales tax if of 7%. Someone making $1000/mo and spending 100% of it would owe $70 or 7% of their monthly income

Someone making $100,000/mo and spending $50,000 is living an extremely lavish lifestyle, no? They’d be paying $3,500 in taxes/mo. That’s 3.5% of their total income.

So while the rich person is paying a higher amount, they are paying a significantly lower percentage of their total income. The tax is a much higher burden on a person who must spend all of their money to survive than it is on someone who has a significant excess. This is why flat tax rates, like sales taxes, are called regressive - because they actively harm the poor.

The way to fix loopholes is to eliminate them from the tax code preexisting Progressive tax code, which taxes wealthy individuals at a higher rate, not change the code to something deliberately burdensome for the poor.

zorggalacticus t1_is3x54c wrote on October 13, 2022 at 2:51 AM

And nobody cares what percentage of their income they pay. They're still paying more. Much more. And yes, it is fair. Being wealthy does not equate to owing some sort of debt to society. Those with more money are obviously going to save more money. Percentages don't matter at all. They don't owe you or me anything. Being salty because they get to keep more money is stupid. There is not nor will there ever be income equality. Federal sales tax works because Uber rich constantly evade income tax by keeping money in offshore accounts, tax deductions, loopholes, etc. Federal sales tax would eliminate that because you can't evade sales tax. Nobody cares how much they have left over. They'll be paying the same percentage as everyone else, and that's fair. They don't owe us anything. Nobody owes you anything. If I spend a dollar and pay 10 cents on sales tax, and they spend a million dollars and spend 10,000 on sales tax, we've both paid the same percentage in taxes but they've spent 9,999 dollars more in taxes. Anything more than that is just robbery, because once again they don't owe us anything. Same percentage for everybody. Poor people will pay far less in taxes than the rich. It works for everyone. Some people seem to thing that it's cool to just take a much money as possible from the rich because fuck rich people. It's no less morally reprehensible to steal from the rich than it is to steal from the poor. Income equality doesn't exist. And abolishing income tax will benefit everybody, poor and rich alike. No income tax means your 401k is not taxable anymore. Sold a car? Cool. You can keep all that money and only pay taxes on what you actually spend. Remove sales taxes on food and medicine. Tax everything else instead. Stop focusing on rich people because "it's not fair. They have more money than me. " life isn't fair and it never will be. Suck it up buttercup. Focus on things that will actually improve the lives of average citizens, like things that will put more money in their pockets. The poor aren't harmed by someone else that is in no way affecting their daily life keeping more money than them. Flat tax rates keep more money in your pocket period. All those extra taxes aren't actually helping average Americans. 90% of it goes to government projects and stuff that doesn't even benefit us. It's just another way to pad the pockets of politicians and create more government pork. Better to just let the average person keep more of their own money and stop looking at the rich like some sort of vast untapped resource. That money doesn't belong to you.

[deleted] t1_is3za7a wrote on October 13, 2022 at 3:09 AM

[removed]

zorggalacticus t1_is3zwl2 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 3:14 AM

No it's not. The rich are not a resource. Keeping more of your own money is better. Always will be.

rocketeerH t1_is40puc wrote on October 13, 2022 at 3:21 AM

Do you know what labor and capital are? Labor is literally the primary resource of our current economy. Workers are by definition resources. Resources generate wealth. Owners and capitalists increase profits by reducing labor costs - by paying their workers less.

You don’t owe the rich your discounted labor. You deserve a bigger piece of the pie than some rich guy wants to give you. You’re worth it.

There are three non-violent ways to get it. You can make yourself perfectly indispensable to the point you can essentially blackmail your boss into paying fairly. You can unionize and force them to pay everyone fairly. Or you can tax them and use that income to build infrastructure and provide services - services that you would be able to afford if they were to pay your fairly in the first place

The Waltons are worth hundreds of billions of dollars, yet most of their employees need government assistance to survive. A flat tax would both increase the need for those programs - by burdening the poor more - and decrease the funds available by reducing taxes on the rich.

Oh, do you know about the standard deduction? That person making $1000/mo may have taxes withheld from their check, but at the end of the year they get it back because their tax burden is 0%

zorggalacticus t1_is428cs wrote on October 13, 2022 at 3:35 AM

Sales tax takes care of that. 10 cents on a dollar is going to be inconsequential to a poor person. But to the Uber rich it equates to millions of dollars per year in taxes. And they can't avoid paying out like the do income tax. If I make 40k a year, I'll have paid 76 dollars a week in taxes if I spend my entire paycheck. That's less that what I currently am paying in income tax right now, which helps me out. But a rich person who pulls in a million a year will pay 1,923 a week in taxes if they spent it all. One large purchase, like a luxury car or a boat, or even going out to high end restaurants will be exponentially more taxes than the average consumer will ever dream of paying. And I'd wager that you wouldn't collect any less taxes from the rich than from our current system full of tax breaks and loopholes. Tax accountants wouldn't be necessary. The IRS wouldn't have much to do. Those who don't work and are on welfare/food stamps are exempt from sales tax anyway. Sales tax isn't charged when you pay with welfare/ food stamp cards. So it really will only affect the working class (for the better) and the rich.

Stock_Rush2555 t1_is4qgaz wrote on October 13, 2022 at 8:24 AM

The point you're making about "don't tax the rich" completely negates the point youre making about "tax the rich with sales tax!"

I don't think you understand the point of taxes. Rich people benefit from taxes too, and all the services they provide. Income tax is a smart solution, because it proportionally charges everyone for a functioning government. Wealthy people are charged more because they hoard a larger share of the global wealth, and that charge should affect them the same as it does for poor people.

It's really just a case of altruism vs selfishness. And while the majority of people are for helping others, and expanding government services, rich people are often not because money corrupts, and privilege makes them ignorant to what people go through. The rich are a minority - a dominating minority that exploit the rest for profit. It's fair that the "rest" of us want them taxed more - they're profiting off our backs.

What you're saying is "tax the rich more via sales tax" but also "don't tax the rich more, poor rich people"

XavvenFayne t1_is5j47t wrote on October 13, 2022 at 1:36 PM

I agree with the premise of what you're saying here overall, on the contradiction you pointed out, and that sales tax is a regressive tax, and about the rich being a dominating minority etc.

One thing I'll add is that extremely wealthy individuals tend to have modest or even low income from wages, so relying on progressive income tax brackets alone still results in a tax system that is either flat, or not progressive enough. Progressive income tax is a smart choice but it doesn't go far enough IMO. Wealthy families gain an enormous amount of money from unrealized capital gains, dividends, and interest, all of which enjoy huge tax breaks.

zorggalacticus t1_is4v400 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 9:34 AM

No, what I'm saying is it's useless to add more income tax because they'll just find ways to avoid it. Sales tax works better because they can't avoid it. Abolishing income tax will help the average consumer, and we won't notice much difference in the actual amount of taxes we pay because it will equal out to about the same or less than we pay now with a 10 cents on a dollar federal sales tax instead of income tax. And the whole "don't tax the rich" was directed at the proposed "wealth tax". Can't charge people taxes twice on the same money just because they have more. It also sets a precedent towards other things being taxed that historically weren't taxed. Don't think if we allow them to tax the bank accounts of the rich just because it's there that they won't also begin to go after our own savings, retirement accounts, pensions, etc. Adding a "wealth tax" sets a dangerous precedent for the rest of us as well. It's like releasing a hungry lion on somebody and naively thinking it won't turn and destroy you when it's finished with them. We can't trust the government. That's been proven time and again. Passing a "wealth tax" will backfire massively on the rest of us because it opens up a whole can of worms that we don't want. Federal sales tax accomplishes the same thing without opening that can of worms. The average consumer won't notice much difference at all, but the rich will. And you can still keep state income tax, just abolish the federal.

[deleted] t1_is53pp9 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 11:23 AM