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> As for your anti-tax rant... if you want nice things (roads, schools, universities, clean air, judges, police, hospitals, child protective services, efficient

by chasing 11y ago

> As for your anti-tax rant... if you want nice things (roads, schools, universities, clean air, judges, police, hospitals, child protective services, efficient postal mail, etc), someone has to pay for them. Charity is no substitute for our collective choice to pay for things. Upvoting to support the idea that taxes as a concept aren't the problem, here. The problem is this obnoxious system of taxing things which likely have no value.

georgemcbay 11y ago
One of my huge annoyances with American politics is how few people seem to mind when large complicated concepts are conflated (often on purpose by people with vested interests in keeping the ideas confused). It sucks that giant multinational corporations can pay effectively zero taxes (or negative taxes thanks to rebate programs and such) and much of the population will support this simply because they don't like that a significant percentage of their income goes to taxes. Instead of "let's have corporations pay a fair share and me pay less" the message ends up "taxes are bad, let's not have any taxes!" (ignoring the rather obvious issue that without any sort of public funding the country would literally fall apart).
- rdancer 11y ago
  > giant multinational corporations can pay effectively zero taxes That's not even remotely true. They may have zero or negative rate for some taxes, most often corporate income tax, but that's to be expected, when you have a rate of 35%(!). There are many other kinds of taxes, though, and the effective rate for any given corporation, or any sector, no matter how you slice the economy, is not going to be zero.
- digbyloftus 11y ago
  Corporations are just collections of humans, which do pay taxes. The idea that they're a separate entity that is pulling one over us silly humans is ridiculous.
avn2109 11y ago
>> "...police, hospitals, child protective services,..." Wait, are hospitals taxpayer funded in America? If so, why do they charge my insurance such vast amounts of money for tiny services?
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Some are, some aren't. Some are run by charities and churches, some by private companies. Many of these, especially ones in smaller, more rural communities, will receive government funds to help provide services.
- zrail 11y ago
  Some hospitals are taxpayer funded. 2/3 of hospitals in the US are non-profit corporations. The rest are either public (run by the county or state) or are for-profit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_hospital#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_hospital#United_States

by chasing 11y ago

georgemcbay 11y ago

One of my huge annoyances with American politics is how few people seem to mind when large complicated concepts are conflated (often on purpose by people with vested interests in keeping the ideas confused). It sucks that giant multinational corporations can pay effectively zero taxes (or negative taxes thanks to rebate programs and such) and much of the population will support this simply because they don't like that a significant percentage of their income goes to taxes. Instead of "let's have corporations pay a fair share and me pay less" the message ends up "taxes are bad, let's not have any taxes!" (ignoring the rather obvious issue that without any sort of public funding the country would literally fall apart).

rdancer 11y ago
> giant multinational corporations can pay effectively zero taxes That's not even remotely true. They may have zero or negative rate for some taxes, most often corporate income tax, but that's to be expected, when you have a rate of 35%(!). There are many other kinds of taxes, though, and the effective rate for any given corporation, or any sector, no matter how you slice the economy, is not going to be zero.
digbyloftus 11y ago
Corporations are just collections of humans, which do pay taxes. The idea that they're a separate entity that is pulling one over us silly humans is ridiculous.

avn2109 11y ago

>> "...police, hospitals, child protective services,..." Wait, are hospitals taxpayer funded in America? If so, why do they charge my insurance such vast amounts of money for tiny services?

s73v3r 11y ago
Some are, some aren't. Some are run by charities and churches, some by private companies. Many of these, especially ones in smaller, more rural communities, will receive government funds to help provide services.
zrail 11y ago
Some hospitals are taxpayer funded. 2/3 of hospitals in the US are non-profit corporations. The rest are either public (run by the county or state) or are for-profit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_hospital#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_hospital#United_States