Jus' sayin'...

[ceagle]

Finished my income taxes... at last!

Now, I paid about $3,000 for a)current use of the country b)future use of medicare and c)future use of social security. Looking at it that way, it doesn't seem like too much.

If anything, the taxes which seem too high are Property Taxes, Sales Taxes, and some other Excise taxes and such.
I'd prefer if it was about half the current rates. In fact I think Property Taxes are part of the major barriers to home ownership and part of the housing crisis.
And in Sales Tax, I wouldn't mind if it was sorta like Hawaii and Louisiana (4%) ... but floating around 10% seems a bit high for sales tax ... I remember when it *was* around 5% .. :/

Comments

[orv.livejournal.com]

The way we're doing it now isn't cheap, either. I once added up my total compensation and figured out what my tax rate would be if I counted my health insurance premiums as taxes. It came out to nearly 30%, and my effective income tax rate back then was only 15%. People just don't think of it that way because it doesn't have the "t-word" associated with it.

I'm not sure how I feel about a VAT. It would depend on how it was implemented. Realistically I don't think it's going to fly, though. Politically it's hard to do major changes to the tax system, so it's more likely we'll end up tinkering around the edges. Personally, one item that still sticks in my craw is the special 15% tax rate on capital gains; I think they should be taxed as regular income. I mean, why should someone who makes money by moving money around pay less in taxes than someone who does actual labor for a living?

[expandranon.livejournal.com]

I'm reminded of http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/19/AR2009091900112.html which states that a lot of what might have been wage increases over the last 30 years has been 'taxed' away to pay for health benefits.

I can understand the idea of giving people a lower tax rate on capital gains, since that encourages people to put their money to work. There is risk involved in investment, and the reasoning behind a lower capital gains rate is that high earners aren't as likely to take investment risk if they know they're going to lose 50% of their profits.

The down side to a low capital gains tax, as I see it, is that it also encourages speculation. I'd like to see a two-tiered capital gains tax, with one rate for speculative investment, another for entrepreneurial investment. I know that's not really feasible, given the hundreds of thousands of different kinds of investments, but it sounds good in pixels. :P

[orv.livejournal.com]

I think it's split long-term vs. short-term, which probably helps some, but I suspect there are plenty of ways to make speculative investments look like long term investments.

Looking at what happened over the last few years I'm not convinced investment as it's currently carried out by the big players is a net benefit to society. Investing in actual stocks and bonds I can see the social benefits of, but by the time you get to things like CDOs it's so far removed from reality that it's hard to see how it benefits anyone but the investment banks that dream these things up.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping they see it as an ongoing project that can be made *better* as they find out what works and what doesn't.