[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by CoachKandSportsguy

However, if the productive find ways to eliminate labor, both by offshoring or by automation, where will the customer growth come from? How do the customers make a living to buy the products offered?

The end game of capitalizm is monopoly with minimal costs and maximum margin. . if the offering is a product, it is all materials and minimal labor. If the offering is a service, it is minimally qualified and minimally paid labor . .

As technology productivity improved with automation, and more jobs are lost, how does the economy sustain itself? This dilemma has no acceptable answer as the individual corporation has its mandate to its shareholders, and the theoretical answer is that there are always jobs available. . but the answer doesn't always work when there are job skillset mismatched due to the recently unemployed not having the skillset of the open jobs of other skillsets. .

This scenario will just slowly worsen until there is a major event which reset the entire economy from excess to deficits everywhere. . or the corporations are taxed to support UBI to create customers for the products the corporations with minimal domestic employees want to sell. .

FYI, this view is very long term, slowly progressing view of the US economy as technology continues being advanced.

Welcome to capitalism a terrible, horrible system but strangely enough there has been no better system created.

People have been worried about jobs being lost since the beginning of the industrial revolution and strangely enough larger middle class than ever before.

Do believe that many and better paying jobs will be created as industrialization continues.

[huge-pigeons]

Who says that somebody should be able to live off of $500,000 a year? What makes somebody declare what is a good living wage? Throughout your life, we all increased our salary each year and most of us changed our lifestyles for the better to correspond to our increase in pay. Nothing wrong with this, you get rewarded for your success. Nobody should tell me what I can make or what I can spend.
Everybody should pay taxes, no matter if you make $20k a yr or you make $1B a yr. Each person should pay a flat tax of 10% and not some higher amount just because you make more. I think Musk paid $6B in taxes a couple years ago and a politician said he needs to pay more: really?
If a millionaire/billionaire pay no taxes because they follow the tax rules, good for them. Everybody has to follow the tax laws and if they find loopholes, then the government needs to plug those loopholes.

[mickey100]

Originally Posted by dougawhite

No business pays taxes. Their customers pay whatever taxes the business passes through from state or federal authorities. Increase how much a business is 'taxed' just increases how much more their customers have to pay for the product or service. Don't fool yourself that business taxes is ever a solution to increasing government revenues without impacting you and me.

According to economists, the cost of corporate taxes are usually split between the companies and the customers, so after a tax increase there will be a modest product price increase. You might think that a company can still try to raise prices to totally cover the tax increase , but it won't work. If they do that, their competitors will sell at the true market price, undercutting them and gaining all the customers.This is assuming the company does not have a monopoly. And it also depends on the product. If consumers decide they can't afford the product, they just won't buy it. But studies have shown the opposite is not true. Did consumer prices drop after the 2017 corporate tax rate cut. NO!

[Silver Streak]

The "parasites" several people have referred to DO pay taxes, usually quite a lot of taxes. Just not Federal Income Tax. They pay payroll taxes, if employed. (That FICA thing that comes out of paychecks--and it's substantial--is on top of regular income tax. It funds Social Security and Medicare.) They pay sales tax every time they buy something (which benefits the state they live in). If they own property (even a car), they pay property taxes. They pay gas taxes. Those in lower income brackets actually pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy do. It's just not Federal Income Tax. There's a reason those in higher tax brackets have money to sock away in savings and investments (with lower tax rates). Those in lower tax brackets often have nothing left over to sock away, even if they're working two full-time (but low-paying) jobs. Are the people mowing your lawn or serving your food or checking you out at the grocery store "parasites"? I don't think so.

[cjrjck]

Originally Posted by Haggar

This "fair tax" isn't so fair. The wealthy who make a lot of income put most of their income into investments and the bank. Therefore they would only pay tax on what they "spent" and pay no tax on their investments. This is a scheme to help the rich!

As to the gas tax - this is going to be a problem in the future. With the push towards electric vehicles, hybrids and just more fuel efficient vehicles gas consumption is going to go way down and taxes along with it. Toll roads would partially work to alleviate the problem - so roads like I-95 would need to be converted to a toll road.

All roads supported with the gas taxes would have to be converted - not very practical!

And if payroll taxes go away where are the funds going to come from for medicare and social security?

Your points would be relevant if not for the fact that the federal government and many states operate in the red every year. And would continue to do so if the scenarios you mention come to fruition. Nothing would change except debt will continue to grow and grow and grow.

[SHIBUMI]

You are exactly correct..........The graduated tax is based on ability to pay and it works. The problem is that the rich overtime convinced congress to create tax loopholes for them so that system doesn't work. The fault is in the system. Its simple as I said, once you make 1 million you pay on the gross 33%, all deductions go away. And you won't need 87,000 workers and you could employ 6th graders to check returns. It works, but the rich control the system and the politicians.

[manaboutown]

"The average income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 25.99 percent average rate, more than eight times higher than the 3.1 percent average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers.
The top 1 percent’s income share rose from 20.1 percent in 2019 to 22.2 percent in 2020 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 38.8 percent to 42.3 percent.
The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent."

From: Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data | Tax Foundation.

[bumpa]

Originally Posted by Stu from NYC

We should all pay at least something. Sad that the tax code has written that so many have no care about taxes since they do not pay.

Infuriating that sharpton got away with being a tax cheat.

He did not "get away with being a tax cheat". This story goes back 10-15 years and most all the money due has been paid back. Sharpton has a net worth of just 500K, well below what most of us are worth.

[justjim]

You can “spin” numbers around and around until you get the answer you think that you want on the subject of more IRS agents. The facts are that more agents would more than pay for the salaries/benefits of any that would be hired.

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by Silver Streak

The "parasites" several people have referred to DO pay taxes, usually quite a lot of taxes. Just not Federal Income Tax. They pay payroll taxes, if employed. (That FICA thing that comes out of paychecks--and it's substantial--is on top of regular income tax. It funds Social Security and Medicare.) They pay sales tax every time they buy something (which benefits the state they live in). If they own property (even a car), they pay property taxes. They pay gas taxes. Those in lower income brackets actually pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy do. It's just not Federal Income Tax. There's a reason those in higher tax brackets have money to sock away in savings and investments (with lower tax rates). Those in lower tax brackets often have nothing left over to sock away, even if they're working two full-time (but low-paying) jobs. Are the people mowing your lawn or serving your food or checking you out at the grocery store "parasites"? I don't think so.

FICA taxes is not a good example. Lower income earners pay FICA taxes, but when they receive the Social Security and Medicare benefits, it is the high income earners who actually fund the benefits because the low income earners receive a much higher benefit relative to what they pay in taxes. The Social Security income payout schedule greatly favors low income workers in terms of how much they receive in proportion to what they paid in. And, Medicare premiums are based on income, so high income individuals pay much higher premiums for the exact same benefit. They also pay in more during their working years.

The bottom line is that, if you eliminated FICA taxes for everyone, the wealthy would become wealthier, and the poor would become poorer.

[huge-pigeons]

There is no proof of the new irs agents will find more than the billions of $$$ it’s going to cost to hire them. That was a heresy political push to get them on board. There are not 85000 billionaires in this country and I’m not sure how many thousands of people who have hundreds of millions of $$$ for these 85000 agents to go after. Bottom line, they will be going after each of us, not just the super wealthy

[manaboutown]

Originally Posted by Silver Streak

Are the people mowing your lawn or serving your food or checking you out at the grocery store "parasites"? I don't think so.

Many independent yard care and house cleaners work for cash and pay no taxes on income. Based on their very low reported incomes they frequently receive other subsidies, food stamps (now known as Electronic Benefits Transfer - EBT) Section 8 housing, Obamacare, Medicaid, and so on. Many are quite smart and expert on how to obtain the greatest amount of welfare (which is what subsidies are) from federal, state and municipal government entities. Some are multigenerational in working welfare systems. It is their lifestyle choice, just as it is with many if not most of the homeless.

Most grocery store workers are union I imagine as when I went to work part time at age 14 in 1956 bagging groceries I was forced to join the union and pay it a percentage of my fraction of a dollar hourly wage. Might have been 35 cents per hour. I cannot recall.

[bumpa]

Originally Posted by huge-pigeons

There is no proof of the new irs agents will find more than the billions of $$$ it’s going to cost to hire them. That was a heresy political push to get them on board. There are not 85000 billionaires in this country and I’m not sure how many thousands of people who have hundreds of millions of $$$ for these 85000 agents to go after. Bottom line, they will be going after each of us, not just the super wealthy

I'm not worried because I'm not guilty. Are you?

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by bumpa

He did not "get away with being a tax cheat". This story goes back 10-15 years and most all the money due has been paid back. Sharpton has a net worth of just 500K, well below what most of us are worth.

Google tawana brawley and let me know what kind of person he is.

Never heard that he did pay it back but most people who did what he did would find themselves behind bars for a few years.

[SHIBUMI]

85% of the wealth is owned by 15% of the population..........time to tax them more........just get rid of their deductions.....too simple for all the thinkers