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Focusing on the percent of income paid in taxes is a trick to convince poor people to vote to raise taxes. Income = Rough approximation of your contribution to

Focusing on the percent of income paid in taxes is a trick to convince poor people to vote to raise taxes. Income = Rough approximation of your contribution to society. Income Taxes = Penalty for contributing, but also another contribution to society. Not only are poor people not contributing (by definition of being poor), they're also convinced their tax contribution is too high. Poor person: "My taxes are too high, I contributed a whole $20 to society through a 20% tax on my $100 income. That's not fair, the guy who contributed $100k through tax only gave 10%." If I'm being radical, I'd propose a flat tax amount (not flat rate). Everyone pays $20k/year. Don't have $20k? Take out a loan and get another job.

robertthull23 4y ago
Continued: Poor person: "I don't buy from McDonalds because it's unfair their prices as a percentage of income are higher for me than for rich people." That's how retarded it sounds to me hearing people talk about taxes as percent of income. Yet that's somehow the dominate narrative.
- unglaublich 4y ago
  Good point. Does the poor person have a choice not to eat? To not pay for health care? In your attempts at sarcasm you quite clearly indicate what's wrong in US society.
  - robertthull23 4y ago
    Yes, those are choices.
unglaublich 4y ago
This is one of the most short-sighted views on taxation I've ever read. Tax enabled the infrastructure and social structure that made your income possible in the first place. Tax is a fee that the government uses to invest in its country to stimulate economical ans social development. Paying tax will in the long term benefit your net. income. Effectively, the 'poor person' is netting $80,- for their time. The 'other guy' nets $90.000,- for their time. Those are the only figures that count, and they look very bad for the 'poor guy'. Some people think they are 'better' persons because they pay more taxes. I argue, they are persons who took home way more income: the tax is just a fee that they pay for being allowed to live and work in their country. The price for the opportunity that they received to earn $100k. If you feel "better than others" because you pay more taxes, you are a very sad individualistic person.
- robertthull23 4y ago
  Why do you frame work as a reward and not a chore? Yes, contributers are better than freeloaders. By your logic, a dog walker is equivalent to a doctor, and given only enough resources to save one of their lives, we should toss a coin.
automatic6131 4y ago
>Don't have $20k? Take out a loan and get another job. hahahah oh my god hahahaha. Nah I can't even argue with this, it's so backwards.
- robertthull23 4y ago
  ?woH
badpun 4y ago
Think of the percentages in terms of time instead. So, for example, a 20% tax means you work one day a week for the government and the remaining 4 days of the workweek for yourself. It doesn't matter how much you make during that time - it's a "best effort"-based system.
- robertthull23 4y ago
  That's an insightful way to think about it. I just realized we're operating under large scale Feudalism? Poor people work 1 day/week (or so inefficiently that it should be considered 1 day/week), and therefore should be paying a 100 tax. Exactly what I was saying.
imtringued 4y ago
>Not only are poor people not contributing (by definition of being poor), they're also convinced their tax contribution is too high. By this logic sending a job overseas to lower paid workers makes the exact same job contribute less to society. It also means all unpaid work contributes nothing to society. This is particularly absurd with opensource software that generates millions or billions for big corporations.
- robertthull23 4y ago
  Correct, once the labor pool is expanded to include those people, the value of the work is re-adjusted, since value is relative to all options available. I did mention income being a rough approximation, implicitly acknowledging unpaid work. Yes, I agree that open-source contributions should be counted as charity donations in regards to taxes.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

robertthull23 4y ago

Continued: Poor person: "I don't buy from McDonalds because it's unfair their prices as a percentage of income are higher for me than for rich people." That's how retarded it sounds to me hearing people talk about taxes as percent of income. Yet that's somehow the dominate narrative.

unglaublich 4y ago
Good point. Does the poor person have a choice not to eat? To not pay for health care? In your attempts at sarcasm you quite clearly indicate what's wrong in US society.
- robertthull23 4y ago
  Yes, those are choices.

unglaublich 4y ago

This is one of the most short-sighted views on taxation I've ever read. Tax enabled the infrastructure and social structure that made your income possible in the first place. Tax is a fee that the government uses to invest in its country to stimulate economical ans social development. Paying tax will in the long term benefit your net. income. Effectively, the 'poor person' is netting $80,- for their time. The 'other guy' nets $90.000,- for their time. Those are the only figures that count, and they look very bad for the 'poor guy'. Some people think they are 'better' persons because they pay more taxes. I argue, they are persons who took home way more income: the tax is just a fee that they pay for being allowed to live and work in their country. The price for the opportunity that they received to earn $100k. If you feel "better than others" because you pay more taxes, you are a very sad individualistic person.

robertthull23 4y ago
Why do you frame work as a reward and not a chore? Yes, contributers are better than freeloaders. By your logic, a dog walker is equivalent to a doctor, and given only enough resources to save one of their lives, we should toss a coin.

automatic6131 4y ago

>Don't have $20k? Take out a loan and get another job. hahahah oh my god hahahaha. Nah I can't even argue with this, it's so backwards.

robertthull23 4y ago
?woH

badpun 4y ago

Think of the percentages in terms of time instead. So, for example, a 20% tax means you work one day a week for the government and the remaining 4 days of the workweek for yourself. It doesn't matter how much you make during that time - it's a "best effort"-based system.

robertthull23 4y ago
That's an insightful way to think about it. I just realized we're operating under large scale Feudalism? Poor people work 1 day/week (or so inefficiently that it should be considered 1 day/week), and therefore should be paying a 100 tax. Exactly what I was saying.

imtringued 4y ago

>Not only are poor people not contributing (by definition of being poor), they're also convinced their tax contribution is too high. By this logic sending a job overseas to lower paid workers makes the exact same job contribute less to society. It also means all unpaid work contributes nothing to society. This is particularly absurd with opensource software that generates millions or billions for big corporations.

robertthull23 4y ago
Correct, once the labor pool is expanded to include those people, the value of the work is re-adjusted, since value is relative to all options available. I did mention income being a rough approximation, implicitly acknowledging unpaid work. Yes, I agree that open-source contributions should be counted as charity donations in regards to taxes.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]