Comment by Matt Coulthurst on September 28, 2010 at 6:51pm

The uber rich pay tax?

Comment by willailla on September 28, 2010 at 7:38pm

I laugh, I cry.

"This week Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington-based advocacy group that focuses on tax
policy, released a analyzing how Ryan's master plan would affect taxes for Americans -- and
compared it to Obama's budget proposals. These number-crunchers found that the top 1
percent -- people who make $460,700 or more a year -- would get a tax break of 15 percent
and on average pay $211,300 less than under the Obama plan. Everyone in the top 10
percent ($127,769 and above) would receive a break. Those in the bottom 80 percent
($88,658 and below) would pay more taxes -- on average $1700 more. People making less
than $20,063 would have to dole out $1605 in extra taxes.

These are pretty stark numbers. One reason low- and middle-income families would get
socked by Ryan's plan is that he proposes replacing the corporate income tax with an 8.5
percent "business consumption tax" -- essentially a sales tax. Citizens for Tax Justice
explains:

Low- and middle-income families spend most or all of their income on consumption, since
they have little or no money left to save after paying for basic necessities. High-income
families are able to save much more of their income. This means that if Congress enacts a
tax that applies only to consumption (like a VAT or national sales tax), it would eat up a
much larger percentage of total income for poor and middle-class families than for wealthy
families

The 8.5 percent VAT is (almost) the entire reason why the bottom 90 percent of taxpayers
would pay more under Congressman Ryan's plan than under President Obama's plan.
Moreover, Ryan's plan, this group says, would lead to the government collecting $183
billion less revenue in 2011 and more than $2 trillion less over a decade:

It's difficult to design a tax plan that will lose $2 trillion over a decade even while requiring
90 percent of taxpayers to pay more. But Congressman Ryan has met that daunting
challenge.

Ryan's plan has received attention mostly for of Medicare and Medicaid and pushing Social
Security toward privatization. But now there's another case against it: It will squeeze more
tax dollars out of low- and middle-income Americans to ease the burden on the wealthy."

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/03/10/a-same-old-gop-budget-rich-...
e-pays-more/

Comment by Matt Coulthurst on September 28, 2010 at 8:37pm

Hands up whoever thinks Congressman Ryan fits into the top 10%.

Comment by Gaytor on September 29, 2010 at 11:47am

"modest changes in the tax rate for wealthy taxpayers don't make much of a difference if the goal is to build new companies, drive technological development and stimulate new industries."

Modest! You're being generous sir! Over the last 30 years we've seen the highest tax rate go from 70 to 28% (16% average effective tax rate on the top) and are we better off for it? Are we largely back to one income households? Is the middle class now gaining on the rich? How about the poor on the middle class? I agree with everything you've got to say here, except for the one word/sentence tweak. - Even significant tax decreases are not effective as the Laffer Curve only works when the taxes are reduced on an already over-taxed population.

Comment by willailla on September 29, 2010 at 2:13pm

The Republican Heritage Foundations loves to bring out the Laffer Curve to prove that the
rich should never be subjected to high taxes. Complete bull shit, of course.

“There was a time that the ultra-rich were taxed 91%. That was back in the 50's, a time of
unprecedented prosperity. Does any reasoning human think that anybody paid 91%? No
way. They earned tax deductions by investing in their businesses. Even at much lower rates
in the 90's, the rich still had to invest their cash to earn deductions. It was because of that
investment that we had growth in the economy.

When the Bushies cuts it to the present rate, there was no need to work your money to earn
the lower rates. It was a gift from the Republicans to their patrons. It enabled them (along
with NAFTA) to ship our jobs overseas. What they saved, they pocketed. It contributed
absolutely nothing to our economy.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/GeoNorth/washington-state-wres...
98644.html

Comment by Kris Feenstra on September 29, 2010 at 3:39pm

Everything seems in balance to me. o_O

Comment