vtsnowedin wrote:Hawkcreek wrote:I would like to see EVERYONE paying the same percentage rate in taxes. This would be computed after considering all taxes and fees being paid on a nationwide basis. For example, if a poor person pays .005 percent of his weekly pay to enter a national park, everyone else would have to pay the same percentage. Naturally, this would get rid of all incidental fees paid to the national and state governments.
Same for property tax. That tax would come out of the profits from corporations, rather than be passed on the consumer of their products.
It would take a few years to find the true amount of hidden taxes everyone is paying, but if everyone, including those people type entities called corporations, paid the same percentage, I would call it good. This would probably come out to 30 to 40 percent of all income going to taxes.
I'm sorry Hawkcreek but I don't follow your point about entering National parks. Going to a park is voluntary and has nothing to do with tax policy or rates.
Also local and state property taxes are a separate issue and only come into, play here if the Federal government mandates that government services be paid for out of property tax revenues. That is a very real thing and is worthy of a whole separate thread.
Going to a park is voluntary, but the funds to set aside, develop, and maintain the highways to that park are not voluntary. Effectively, the poor person spends a higher portion of his income to see that park than a rich person. Now that so many national park functions have been "leased" to corporations, this is even more evident. There is corporate profit in park maintenance.
That is one reason that fees have become so pervasive. Transfer of costs to the lower income people rather than true distribution of costs.
That is one reason I want to see it looked at from a standpoint of "effective tax rate", rather than just a re-jiggering of percentages. Fees are part of an "effective tax rate", which primarily targets the poor and middle class.
Everyone should pay the same rate. If you are poor, help would be given after the fact, not by complicating the tax code.
Right now, income producing properties are able to evade property taxes by shifting the burden to the consumer of their products, and then getting partial deductions from federal taxes through depreciation. Property taxes are already tied to federal taxes in a roundabout way.
The whole thing is a convoluted mess
through design, which is intended to hide the facts.
Our wage structures are based on dollars per hour. If you equate wages to profit for the sale of your time, then why not take a certain percentage of your
profit to pay for community and national services. This would work for corporations too, if they hadn't scammed the system and tax code so that no one knows what their true profit is.
Equal percentage on profits for all - no deductions.