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Personally I think making the rich pay higher taxes is unethical. Everyone should pay a flat income tax. Why do we pay taxes? We pay taxes so that government c

Personally I think making the rich pay higher taxes is unethical. Everyone should pay a flat income tax. Why do we pay taxes? We pay taxes so that government can be funded, and in exchange government provides certain public services. Services like firefighters, police, hospitals, etc. If you think about it, these are services that everybody should receive equally, thus they should be services that everyone pays for equally. Currently we have a system where the rich pay a disproportionate amount of the costs for these services, and intentional or otherwise, what has happened is that the rich gain a disproportionately better use of these services, like the police are more likely to protect the rich than the poor, etc. Bigger houses are more expensive to protect from fires than smaller houses, so real estate taxes should be proportional to the value of the property. Sales tax applies to everyone equally but those who consume more pay for more, which makes sense since those who consume more are making more use out of consumer protection agencies, like the FDA. Bigger companies are more expensive to regulate, so proportional corporate taxes make sense too. But a human life is a human life. When one person pays more taxes than another person, the implication is that person deserves a larger share of the same essential services we are paying for than those who paid less. That seems a perversion of justice to me.

krschultz 18y ago
That doesn't make sense at all. There is a certain level of spending everyone must be at - food, shelter, a bit of clothing, i.e. the poverty line. Sure the rich eat at Ruth Chris and the poor eat a McDonalds, but if you break it down to the normal level it is tough to spend more than $500 a month at the grocery store per person. It is also tough to spend less than $150 per person per month. When I'm making $75 an hour as a programmer today I remember when I was making $8 an hour at McDonalds 6 years ago. When 90% of your income is going towards food, rent, shelter and then the government comes in and takes 30% it would effectively leave you with zero. No money to save, no money to pay for education etc. But for me at $75 an hour, necessities are a small part. Now I'm saving and investing and have no debt and all this great stuff. So your saying it is a huge burden on me to pay 40% tax now so that people trying to get ahead like I was 5 years ago don't have to? Absolutely not. I still have plenty of money for everything I want. It is more unethical to subsidize your personal discretionary spending at the expensive of somebody's necessities because you are simply greedy. That's the reason why the tax code has always been and will always be progressive - even in schemes like the flat tax system there is a credit for the bare necessities.
- webwright 18y ago
  "It is more unethical to subsidize your personal discretionary spending at the expensive of somebody's necessities because you are simply greedy." Is that really the best language to use? Is it subsidizing people to NOT take their money? Given that you support increased taxation for the wealthy, can I ask why you aren't voluntarily sending extra money to the government? In any event-- governments are good at certain things that require huge scale to work-- national defense, highways, trips to the moon, etc. What they are really freakin' lousy at is redistributing wealth efficiently. For every taxed dollar, how much actually finds its way to deserving poor? How good is the government at deciding between those who deserves it and those who made a bunch or stupid decisions and should live with the consequences? On the other side of the coin, what does "rich" mean? What about a family that pulls down $300k a year but has fabulously expensive medical bills for a dying parent/grandparent? Or a sick kid? Or a big extended family that's actually pretty poor that they want to set up college funds for? I agree that we have a responsibility to help those who are deserving and in need. As someone who's on the high side of the scale by many standards, I'm happy to take that responsibility. But why, exactly, should I be forced to hand the responsibility (and then wealth I've generated) to a government who is horrible at distributing wealth and pretty bad at filtering out people who aren't really deserving? There are organizations that rate charities on how efficiently they distribute donated dollars. How do you think the US government would fare on this scale?
  - krschultz 18y ago
    My point is not at all that I support higher taxes for the wealthy (I'm actually quite libertarian on taxes) - my point is that flat taxes don't work because there is a minimum non-discretionary spending every person has regardless of income. If you have a flat tax as the OP proposes (in fact declares as the only "ethical" way) then some people get hammered more than others simply based on the fact that we all must eat and we all much live somewhere. The right solution to lowering taxes is cutting spending to match. But even if you did that and all we had were programs libertarians agreed on - you will still have progressive taxes. Even if the top bracket was 15% - the bottom bracket should be lower to be fair. To say that progressive taxes are unethical is to not understand what those at the bottom are fighting to get ahead.
nopinsight 18y ago
Another perspective: many people are born lucky. They may have great intelligence (most of self-made multimillionaires are above average in intelligence), rich parents (and therefore can afford better schools & tutors), some special talent and live in an environment that allows it to develop fully, or great looks, etc. These people end up with a lot of material wealth based on luck of birth. At the same time, they benefits from services provided by the less fortunate. Owners of large businesses can't be that rich if they don't have enough customers. (If you sell in a small country and don't export, you can never be nearly as rich as Bill Gates.) Is it fair that they should share some of that luck and wealth back to help the underprivileged and their customers/employees?
JimmyL 18y ago
You argument is based on the idea that taxation is really just another way of paying for services (public transport, policing, etc.). If you accept that premise, than being a flat-taxer makes some degree of sense, but you should also be in favor of huge user fees - if you don't use homelessness shelters or public pools, why should your tax dollars pay for them? Taxation, as I see it though, is more than that. Sure, you're paying for the fire department, but you're also paying for "civilization", for lack of a better word. You're paying for things like the food stamp program, which (if this question applies to you) you would be nowhere near. It's accepting that in order to have a somewhat decent society for all involved, we need more money than would come if everyone was charged at the same rate, and as such, you charge more to the people who can afford it.

krschultz 18y ago

That doesn't make sense at all. There is a certain level of spending everyone must be at - food, shelter, a bit of clothing, i.e. the poverty line. Sure the rich eat at Ruth Chris and the poor eat a McDonalds, but if you break it down to the normal level it is tough to spend more than $500 a month at the grocery store per person. It is also tough to spend less than $150 per person per month. When I'm making $75 an hour as a programmer today I remember when I was making $8 an hour at McDonalds 6 years ago. When 90% of your income is going towards food, rent, shelter and then the government comes in and takes 30% it would effectively leave you with zero. No money to save, no money to pay for education etc. But for me at $75 an hour, necessities are a small part. Now I'm saving and investing and have no debt and all this great stuff. So your saying it is a huge burden on me to pay 40% tax now so that people trying to get ahead like I was 5 years ago don't have to? Absolutely not. I still have plenty of money for everything I want. It is more unethical to subsidize your personal discretionary spending at the expensive of somebody's necessities because you are simply greedy. That's the reason why the tax code has always been and will always be progressive - even in schemes like the flat tax system there is a credit for the bare necessities.

webwright 18y ago
"It is more unethical to subsidize your personal discretionary spending at the expensive of somebody's necessities because you are simply greedy." Is that really the best language to use? Is it subsidizing people to NOT take their money? Given that you support increased taxation for the wealthy, can I ask why you aren't voluntarily sending extra money to the government? In any event-- governments are good at certain things that require huge scale to work-- national defense, highways, trips to the moon, etc. What they are really freakin' lousy at is redistributing wealth efficiently. For every taxed dollar, how much actually finds its way to deserving poor? How good is the government at deciding between those who deserves it and those who made a bunch or stupid decisions and should live with the consequences? On the other side of the coin, what does "rich" mean? What about a family that pulls down $300k a year but has fabulously expensive medical bills for a dying parent/grandparent? Or a sick kid? Or a big extended family that's actually pretty poor that they want to set up college funds for? I agree that we have a responsibility to help those who are deserving and in need. As someone who's on the high side of the scale by many standards, I'm happy to take that responsibility. But why, exactly, should I be forced to hand the responsibility (and then wealth I've generated) to a government who is horrible at distributing wealth and pretty bad at filtering out people who aren't really deserving? There are organizations that rate charities on how efficiently they distribute donated dollars. How do you think the US government would fare on this scale?
- krschultz 18y ago
  My point is not at all that I support higher taxes for the wealthy (I'm actually quite libertarian on taxes) - my point is that flat taxes don't work because there is a minimum non-discretionary spending every person has regardless of income. If you have a flat tax as the OP proposes (in fact declares as the only "ethical" way) then some people get hammered more than others simply based on the fact that we all must eat and we all much live somewhere. The right solution to lowering taxes is cutting spending to match. But even if you did that and all we had were programs libertarians agreed on - you will still have progressive taxes. Even if the top bracket was 15% - the bottom bracket should be lower to be fair. To say that progressive taxes are unethical is to not understand what those at the bottom are fighting to get ahead.

nopinsight 18y ago

Another perspective: many people are born lucky. They may have great intelligence (most of self-made multimillionaires are above average in intelligence), rich parents (and therefore can afford better schools & tutors), some special talent and live in an environment that allows it to develop fully, or great looks, etc. These people end up with a lot of material wealth based on luck of birth. At the same time, they benefits from services provided by the less fortunate. Owners of large businesses can't be that rich if they don't have enough customers. (If you sell in a small country and don't export, you can never be nearly as rich as Bill Gates.) Is it fair that they should share some of that luck and wealth back to help the underprivileged and their customers/employees?

JimmyL 18y ago

You argument is based on the idea that taxation is really just another way of paying for services (public transport, policing, etc.). If you accept that premise, than being a flat-taxer makes some degree of sense, but you should also be in favor of huge user fees - if you don't use homelessness shelters or public pools, why should your tax dollars pay for them? Taxation, as I see it though, is more than that. Sure, you're paying for the fire department, but you're also paying for "civilization", for lack of a better word. You're paying for things like the food stamp program, which (if this question applies to you) you would be nowhere near. It's accepting that in order to have a somewhat decent society for all involved, we need more money than would come if everyone was charged at the same rate, and as such, you charge more to the people who can afford it.