6 ms·

Could not agree more. Our society is based on the foundation that everybody does her/his own fair share, if the leaders of the world think it is not the way the

Could not agree more. Our society is based on the foundation that everybody does her/his own fair share, if the leaders of the world think it is not the way then lets just stop paying taxes and see how fast things change. One funny thing about humanity, we used to pay 1/10 of our income that was enough for the "state", I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income to the sate right now and it is not enough, I have to pay VAT on everything on the top of that so that the government can spend it the most ridiculous inefficient way on projects that are at least questionable, yet many of the politicians just avoid paying taxes through these offshore tax havens. Do they know something we should too? :)

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
Where do you live that has a >65% top income tax rate? Because I quite like the sound of it. Or are you conflating other taxes and presenting an overall figure?
- vsl 11y ago
  He isn’t “conflating”, he clearly said this is the total paid to the government — i.e. all sorts of taxes. That you like the sound of it is, frankly, horrible.
  - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    It's horrible that I like the sound of a high-ish top rate of income tax? We haven't even stated the terms of what income level that tax rate is applied at, so your finding it horrible is either a total misunderstanding, or you object to the progressive nature of variable income tax outright. I hope it's the former, because I find the latter truly objectionable.
    - etherael 11y ago
      I find the idea of people dressing up simple theft as something other than it is, and in the ill-fitting trappings of a global social good, despite the fact that the institutions being financed by this form of theft were the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century truly objectionable, too. Letalone moving onto a particularly egregious sort of theft involved in modern taxation rackets where the burden approaches three quarters of the total earnings of any given individual. If you're cool with this how about I extort you for 75% of your income and then use it to finance a private mercenary company that runs around the globe destroying lives and property for ill-defined "geopolitical objectives"? But I guess "I find x truly objectionable" is somewhat of a content free statement, unless we're just trying to farm moral outrage from our respective in-groups.
      - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
        Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. "75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure"; I have no problem with basic levels of income being absolutely tax-free. I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy. After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough?
        etherael 11y ago
        > Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. The difference between charging for goods and services vs taxation is that you are unable to choose not to patronise the state. A mugger charging you 75% of your income for the privilege of leaving his dark alley with your throat unslit is providing the same choice to you as the state is with regards to taxation. You are not free to refuse to be a customer of the state, any more than you are free to refuse to be a customer of said mugger. The only factual mathematically definable difference between theft and taxation is that taxation is legal, and hey presto, it's the agency that writes the laws which defines this difference. Nice trick if you can find idiots naive enough to fall for it, and they are fortunately not in short supply. If taxation is not theft, then the holocaust, or any killing by any state in all of history, is by definition not murder, because the difference between the murder and state sanctioned killing is the same as the difference between theft and taxation, one is technically illegal, and that is all. > 75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure" It is indeed, and you appear to not have grasped what OP actually says, so let's put it here so you can reconsider your position; >> I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income to the sate (sic) right now Not "I touch the 65% tax bracket at the top of the progressive income tax schedule which the state I am resident in has declared", but "I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income" period. So yes, it is nearly three quarters of this person's income, being taken against their will, to support an institution which is not just incompetent, but actually hugely, enormously viciously destructive and damaging to the world at large, to the extent that it is the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century. > I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. And worse yet, you actually know just how terrible the actions of the state are, to the extent that you have taken to the street protesting it, and yet you still feel the need to speak up in a public forum about how the idea that these parasites forcibly rob people of nearly three quarters of their earnings makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside? Think long and hard about this. > That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy. Even if you granted that "everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing" (and frankly, that's an enormous can of worms right there that I'm not even going to dip a toe into at this point in time) that is an end, not a means. Conflating the end of social welfare with the means of theft does not necessarily follow at all. > After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough? After theft, without theft avoidance, my income is about 25% of the original also. Could I do more and live a better life with the other 75% that is instead being stolen from me to finance demonstrably ineffective local social programs coupled with heinously disgusting foreign policy objectives? Is that what you mean by "Is it not enough?" Because if so, no, it's not enough. Frankly, I'd give up almost all of the rest of it to avoid having given any of it to those parasites to begin with, and this is a constant drain on my motivation for economic activity in general, knowing how much of my earnings will go to finance activities that make me violently ill if I think too hard about them.
- StreamBright 11y ago
  Depending on your definition of income tax you check 2 numbers: - the lower number that you as a person pay (strictly the personal income tax) - the higher number, combining what the company pays + what you pay after your income. I am a contractor so I get a breakdown how much was spent on taxes and if get 100 EUR from a company the tax deduction is 65 EUR. (Obviously, the % depends on your actual income). Combine this with VAT and you see that your actual contribution to the government is in the 70%-80% range. You can check out the rates here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates I still remember how bad I felt for the peasants in primary school when we learned that they had to give 1/10th of their income to the state, and later another 1/10th to the church.
  - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. Are you taking into account the lower rates, though? For example, where I am, there's a personal allowance meaning one can earn £10,000 and not pay a single penny in income tax. The basic rate (which ends at a value substantially above the average salary) is only 20%. I'm guessing you're not in the UK, so it's going to be harder for me to compare situations. I don't think it's fair to combine income tax with VAT since that (mostly) applies on goods you choose to buy, rather than a percentage of your earnings.
    - StreamBright 11y ago
      You can go to different countries for having lower tax rates, in my experience it is never going to be less than 35 - 50% for the amount of money I make. I am not sure how is it not fair to combine VAT + income tax to understand how much you are actually paying to the government. Goods I "choose" to buy includes: food and clothing, I am not sure how much it is a choice or just a necessity. Buying a flashy car is a choice, buying bread or a medicine is not so much.
      - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
        That's why I added the "(mostly)"; where I live, most food is exempt from VAT, which is as it should be. I agree that clothing is a necessity, so should also be exempt, but only up to a reasonable limit - and then things get a bit too complicated. VAT is definitely a problematic tax because it tends to hit the poorer harder, but that doesn't affect the fact that it would be possible to pay almost none of your income as VAT, or you could pay millions in VAT; it's very different from actual income tax.
- gd1 11y ago
  In the UK where you are from, the top marginal rate is 13.8% employer NI (make no mistake, that money comes out of your pocket), 2% employee NI, and 45% income tax. Grand total = 60.8%. So you're not far off.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Usually it'll go something like: sell product, pay VAT (easily 20% in many countries), take EBT and pay some form of corporate income taxes, then take those profits and pay them out as dividends and pay dividend taxes, or retain earnings and pay for cap gains tax. Or alternatively skip the first step and say you're paying VAT taxes which raises the costs of all your consumption. The end result can be quite high on paper. But then, there's lots of other factors that have nothing to do with Panamanian shady tax loopholes, that create a different reality from the top 'tax rate tables' people like to quote from wikipedia. Anyway, for actual rates paid, just look at the tax revenues in a country in a given year, then look at GDP and take its percentage. It'll give you a pretty decent proxy for average effective tax rates, iirc in the US it's a little under 30%, on average. That's nothing to complain about. Of course some people pay more, and we call those people rich and some people filthy rich. Frankly, I couldn't care less about that but that's me.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

oneeyedpigeon 11y ago

Where do you live that has a >65% top income tax rate? Because I quite like the sound of it. Or are you conflating other taxes and presenting an overall figure?

vsl 11y ago
He isn’t “conflating”, he clearly said this is the total paid to the government — i.e. all sorts of taxes. That you like the sound of it is, frankly, horrible.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  It's horrible that I like the sound of a high-ish top rate of income tax? We haven't even stated the terms of what income level that tax rate is applied at, so your finding it horrible is either a total misunderstanding, or you object to the progressive nature of variable income tax outright. I hope it's the former, because I find the latter truly objectionable.
  - etherael 11y ago
    I find the idea of people dressing up simple theft as something other than it is, and in the ill-fitting trappings of a global social good, despite the fact that the institutions being financed by this form of theft were the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century truly objectionable, too. Letalone moving onto a particularly egregious sort of theft involved in modern taxation rackets where the burden approaches three quarters of the total earnings of any given individual. If you're cool with this how about I extort you for 75% of your income and then use it to finance a private mercenary company that runs around the globe destroying lives and property for ill-defined "geopolitical objectives"? But I guess "I find x truly objectionable" is somewhat of a content free statement, unless we're just trying to farm moral outrage from our respective in-groups.
    - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
      Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. "75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure"; I have no problem with basic levels of income being absolutely tax-free. I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy. After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough?
      - etherael 11y ago
        > Taxation is obviously not theft, any more than charging for goods is. The difference between charging for goods and services vs taxation is that you are unable to choose not to patronise the state. A mugger charging you 75% of your income for the privilege of leaving his dark alley with your throat unslit is providing the same choice to you as the state is with regards to taxation. You are not free to refuse to be a customer of the state, any more than you are free to refuse to be a customer of said mugger. The only factual mathematically definable difference between theft and taxation is that taxation is legal, and hey presto, it's the agency that writes the laws which defines this difference. Nice trick if you can find idiots naive enough to fall for it, and they are fortunately not in short supply. If taxation is not theft, then the holocaust, or any killing by any state in all of history, is by definition not murder, because the difference between the murder and state sanctioned killing is the same as the difference between theft and taxation, one is technically illegal, and that is all. > 75% of your income" is a very different thing than "75% of your income beyond a certain figure" It is indeed, and you appear to not have grasped what OP actually says, so let's put it here so you can reconsider your position; >> I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income to the sate (sic) right now Not "I touch the 65% tax bracket at the top of the progressive income tax schedule which the state I am resident in has declared", but "I am paying 65% (that is right) of my income" period. So yes, it is nearly three quarters of this person's income, being taken against their will, to support an institution which is not just incompetent, but actually hugely, enormously viciously destructive and damaging to the world at large, to the extent that it is the largest non natural cause of death in the preceding century. > I don't agree with many actions undertaken by my government, including launching illegal wars which I have protested on the street against. And worse yet, you actually know just how terrible the actions of the state are, to the extent that you have taken to the street protesting it, and yet you still feel the need to speak up in a public forum about how the idea that these parasites forcibly rob people of nearly three quarters of their earnings makes you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside? Think long and hard about this. > That doesn't mean I don't think everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing, paid for by the general economy. Even if you granted that "everyone is entitled to a certain level of wellbeing" (and frankly, that's an enormous can of worms right there that I'm not even going to dip a toe into at this point in time) that is an end, not a means. Conflating the end of social welfare with the means of theft does not necessarily follow at all. > After taxation, what is your actual income? Is it not enough? After theft, without theft avoidance, my income is about 25% of the original also. Could I do more and live a better life with the other 75% that is instead being stolen from me to finance demonstrably ineffective local social programs coupled with heinously disgusting foreign policy objectives? Is that what you mean by "Is it not enough?" Because if so, no, it's not enough. Frankly, I'd give up almost all of the rest of it to avoid having given any of it to those parasites to begin with, and this is a constant drain on my motivation for economic activity in general, knowing how much of my earnings will go to finance activities that make me violently ill if I think too hard about them.
StreamBright 11y ago
Depending on your definition of income tax you check 2 numbers: - the lower number that you as a person pay (strictly the personal income tax) - the higher number, combining what the company pays + what you pay after your income. I am a contractor so I get a breakdown how much was spent on taxes and if get 100 EUR from a company the tax deduction is 65 EUR. (Obviously, the % depends on your actual income). Combine this with VAT and you see that your actual contribution to the government is in the 70%-80% range. You can check out the rates here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates I still remember how bad I felt for the peasants in primary school when we learned that they had to give 1/10th of their income to the state, and later another 1/10th to the church.
- oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. Are you taking into account the lower rates, though? For example, where I am, there's a personal allowance meaning one can earn £10,000 and not pay a single penny in income tax. The basic rate (which ends at a value substantially above the average salary) is only 20%. I'm guessing you're not in the UK, so it's going to be harder for me to compare situations. I don't think it's fair to combine income tax with VAT since that (mostly) applies on goods you choose to buy, rather than a percentage of your earnings.
  - StreamBright 11y ago
    You can go to different countries for having lower tax rates, in my experience it is never going to be less than 35 - 50% for the amount of money I make. I am not sure how is it not fair to combine VAT + income tax to understand how much you are actually paying to the government. Goods I "choose" to buy includes: food and clothing, I am not sure how much it is a choice or just a necessity. Buying a flashy car is a choice, buying bread or a medicine is not so much.
    - oneeyedpigeon 11y ago
      That's why I added the "(mostly)"; where I live, most food is exempt from VAT, which is as it should be. I agree that clothing is a necessity, so should also be exempt, but only up to a reasonable limit - and then things get a bit too complicated. VAT is definitely a problematic tax because it tends to hit the poorer harder, but that doesn't affect the fact that it would be possible to pay almost none of your income as VAT, or you could pay millions in VAT; it's very different from actual income tax.
gd1 11y ago
In the UK where you are from, the top marginal rate is 13.8% employer NI (make no mistake, that money comes out of your pocket), 2% employee NI, and 45% income tax. Grand total = 60.8%. So you're not far off.
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Usually it'll go something like: sell product, pay VAT (easily 20% in many countries), take EBT and pay some form of corporate income taxes, then take those profits and pay them out as dividends and pay dividend taxes, or retain earnings and pay for cap gains tax. Or alternatively skip the first step and say you're paying VAT taxes which raises the costs of all your consumption. The end result can be quite high on paper. But then, there's lots of other factors that have nothing to do with Panamanian shady tax loopholes, that create a different reality from the top 'tax rate tables' people like to quote from wikipedia. Anyway, for actual rates paid, just look at the tax revenues in a country in a given year, then look at GDP and take its percentage. It'll give you a pretty decent proxy for average effective tax rates, iirc in the US it's a little under 30%, on average. That's nothing to complain about. Of course some people pay more, and we call those people rich and some people filthy rich. Frankly, I couldn't care less about that but that's me.