[ChristianRight]

Look, you have to be fairly naive to think that a high tax rate is good. Who has political access and power? Is it you? No, it's large corporations like GE, or BAC, or C, etc., it's organized labor, etc. Now when these huge taxes go up who do you think pays them? Not those companies. Not those organizations. I don't mean they get passed to the consumer...I mean there become tax shelters and fudgey laws built by political interest groups paid for by these massive companies. What happens is these companies, with access to the government, are able to protect themselves from taxation, while destroying their enemies namely the new-guy entrepreneurs, the small businessmen, through excessive taxation. This abuse of the tax code is inevitable, and historically verifiable it is exactly what happened since the 1913 income tax.

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

Last time I checked it was the liberals who were screaming the loudest about the need to close tax loopholes, not the conservatives.

The reason that many liberals support at least somewhat higher taxes is because at least in the United States, the word "liberal" has become synonymous with a stronger welfare state than has traditionally existed here. Although not all liberals want to go as far with the welfare state as Denmark or Sweden; I would stop at a level comparable to that of Canada or Britain, not go as far as Scandinavia or continental Europe. By French or German standards I would probably be considered centrist or slightly conservative, but in the United States I'm solidly within the liberal core of the Democratic Party.

[ChristianRight]

You don't seem to understand how it actually works. Last time I checked the "liberals" screamed that Iraq needed to end immediately, that Guantanamo needed to be closed, and that no new taxes would be levied on people earning less than $250,000...and yet Iraq goes on, Guantanamo stays open, and the poorest people now have 33% increase in their tax on their smoking. Not to mention that Obama continues to wire tap people just like Bush did.

Just because they are saying "we are closing tax loopholes" doesn't mean that's true. If they wanted to close tax loopholes why a 70,000 paged tax code? Why a progressive and not a flat tax rate that ensures everyone has one easy calculation that is hard to dodge? Why is it that tax shelters such as the LLC corporate structure are not even on the chopping block, at all?

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Why a progressive and not a flat tax rate that ensures everyone has one easy calculation that is hard to dodge?

Tax dodging has nothing to to with progressive v. flat tax rates. Dodging is about allowances, deductions, reliefs, rebates and so on.

If you work out how much taxable income someone has, then applying progressive tax rates to it is simple. There's no way it can be dodged.

The only way a flat tax rate wins is in terms of collecting the tax at source. If you know all income will be taxed at rate X%, then you can collect it at that rate from the employers, banks paying interest, pensions, stock dividends etc., without waiting for them to declare their total income for the year. But that doesn't allow for how to collect from self-employed people (including landlords etc.), nor for any form of tax-free allowance (you can have one, but the mechanism for it will become more like completing a tax return anyway - saying which source of income the allowance should be applied to, making sure it isn't claimed mor than once per taxpayer etc.).

[ChristianRight]

Tax dodging does have to do with complexity, you may be shocked but the IRS estimates only 80-90% of the revenue by law to be collected actually gets collected because people under-report earnings. It is also well known that easier tax structures encourage favorable reporting, people by nature are not going to "tax dodge" any more than they are going to steal from a sleeping grandma whose purse is on the chair next to her. There is a strategy to incentivizing a desire to do what is "right" and a simple tax structure as proven in other countries is the surest way.

So you're just not looking far enough to see what I'm talking about. But you can try...look past simplicity the real world gets complex.

[Prosthetic Conscience]

Tax dodging does have to do with complexity

Yes, and progressive tax rates are not complex. They can be fully specified in a few lines, eg

Tax on income in band $1-$20,000: 10%
Tax on income in band $20,001-$40,000: 20%
Tax on income in band $40,001 upwards: 40%

If the code reads:

Tax on all income: 40%

people will try to dodge it, by under-reporting income, just as much.

The pages of complexity in tax codes are all about special deductions, reliefs, allowances and so on.

[perpetuum]

You don't seem to understand how it actually works. Last time I checked the "liberals" screamed that Iraq needed to end immediately, that Guantanamo needed to be closed, and that no new taxes would be levied on people earning less than $250,000...and yet Iraq goes on, Guantanamo stays open, and the poorest people now have 33% increase in their tax on their smoking. Not to mention that Obama continues to wire tap people just like Bush did.

Just because they are saying "we are closing tax loopholes" doesn't mean that's true. If they wanted to close tax loopholes why a 70,000 paged tax code? Why a progressive and not a flat tax rate that ensures everyone has one easy calculation that is hard to dodge? Why is it that tax shelters such as the LLC corporate structure are not even on the chopping block, at all?

And here shows your ignorance, thinking that Obama is liberal and all of the liberals are 100% behind him. I am not even talking about tax loopholes being a liberal thing. Just because you dubbed it "liberal" doesn't mean it is.

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

You want the tax system to be simple, but not too simple to the point where it can't include a sense of fairness. And I want to be able to use tax policy to craft Pigovian-style incentives, which means that there have to be tax credits, penalties, and subsidies for certain kinds of economic behavior that are deemed to be beneficial or harmful to the social good.

[Infidelis]

You don't seem to understand how it actually works. Last time I checked the "liberals" screamed that Iraq needed to end immediately, that Guantanamo needed to be closed, and that no new taxes would be levied on people earning less than $250,000...and yet Iraq goes on, Guantanamo stays open, and the poorest people now have 33% increase in their tax on their smoking. Not to mention that Obama continues to wire tap people just like Bush did.

Just because they are saying "we are closing tax loopholes" doesn't mean that's true. If they wanted to close tax loopholes why a 70,000 paged tax code? Why a progressive and not a flat tax rate that ensures everyone has one easy calculation that is hard to dodge? Why is it that tax shelters such as the LLC corporate structure are not even on the chopping block, at all?

You're painting "liberals" with not a wide brush, but rather a paint roller. I consider myself "liberal" by American standards and I, along with most other Dems and other liberals, would rather see a coordinated exit strategy from Iraq. I agree that Guantanamo should be shut down and the President agrees. With the logistics involved, it'll take a year, but rather it takes a year or today, you'd bitch anyhow. Lastly, smoking tax?! Fucking seriously? It's a dollar a pack...thirty to fifty dollars a month, if you go through a carton. It's easy not to pay that tax, stop smoking. Buy patches and counseling. Those are tax-free.

I concede your point on wire tapping. That'd make you 1/5 on your points...wait, what was your point?

[Zyx]

I think that Christian Right's point was that he was against taxing loopholes like the rest of us liberals.

[Kasu]

Christian Right is pretty much outlining the same criticism on liberals as the socialists. He's absolutely right, there's nothing "progressive" about liberalism. Socialism is the only true progressive solution.

[Dave]

What solution do you advocate for those of us who are not progressive?

[Kasu]

Isolate yourselves from the rest of society.

[Dave]

Why?

[Zyx]

So that we can know where to build a gas chamber.

No, I've no idea what Kasu is trying to say.

[Infidelis]

Why?

So you don't interfere with the "revolution," of course!

[Zerogouki]

LOL @ socialist revolution

Don't you realize that it's the conservatives who have all the guns?

[kummi90]

Higher taxes do work. It is the allocation of the taxes that is flawed. War on Drugs my ass...

In Norway we have a very high tax rate on all the people, and Norway is a welfare nation. The Norwegian welfare system is somewhat flawed, but it seems to be working darn well.

[canadiancapitalist]

Taxes are a shell game, it's spending you have to keep your eye on. I prefer the honesty of liberals in this area to the lies of conservatives. Liberals say "lets tax more and spend more". Conservatives say "let's tax less and spend more, lol!!!". And people believe them! What a bunch of idiots the public can be sometimes.

[Zerogouki]

Conservatives say "let's tax less and spend more, lol!!!"

Not true. They advocate taxing less and spending less, but then once elected, they tax less and spend more.

Big difference, eh?