4 ms·

Income tax centennial: 100 years of income tax code

29 points by yapcguy 13y ago

danboarder 13y ago
Speaking of income tax, can we get a discount for the days that the federal government is shut down? For example, if the government is offline for 18 days (5% of the year), I suggest that downtime should be applied as a 5% federal income tax discount.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- muzz 13y ago
  Except that the shutdown will actually cost money instead of save it. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0930/Federal-shutdown-won-t-save-taxpayers-money.-It-will-cost-them.-video http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0930/Federal-shutdown...
  - tomflack 13y ago
    OP's logic I presume, is that certain government services aren't available for that time so why is he being asked to pay for them?
    - do-it-good 13y ago
      Because police with big guns.
- FellowTraveler 13y ago
  > Speaking of income tax, can we get a discount for the days that the federal government is shut down? The income tax doesn't go to fund the government. Rather, debt spending is used to fund the government -- debt that your unborn children are saddled with -- and then the income tax revenues extracted from their labor is what's used to cover the interest payments on that debt. Interestingly, the Federal Reserve inflates about $85 billion per month, which works out to about a trillion dollars per year. (And that money is created as debt, which we owe back plus interest.) So if we were able to trim the fat and reduce the Federal Budget to that amount, then we could fund the entire Federal Government simply by continuing to print $85 billion per month. (Which would not require any new debt, and which would not require any income tax, and would not require saddling future generations with interest payments on their own money.) So instead of asking about getting a "discount" on our income tax, we should be asking about eliminating the income tax entirely, reducing government spending to sustainable levels, and eliminating creation of money through debt.
tjaerv 13y ago
Another perspective: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/income-tax-century-enough http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/income-tax-centu...

29 points by yapcguy 13y ago

Speaking of income tax, can we get a discount for the days that the federal government is shut down? For example, if the government is offline for 18 days (5% of the year), I suggest that downtime should be applied as a 5% federal income tax discount.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
muzz 13y ago
Except that the shutdown will actually cost money instead of save it. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0930/Federal-shutdown-won-t-save-taxpayers-money.-It-will-cost-them.-video http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2013/0930/Federal-shutdown...
- tomflack 13y ago
  OP's logic I presume, is that certain government services aren't available for that time so why is he being asked to pay for them?
  - do-it-good 13y ago
    Because police with big guns.
FellowTraveler 13y ago
> Speaking of income tax, can we get a discount for the days that the federal government is shut down? The income tax doesn't go to fund the government. Rather, debt spending is used to fund the government -- debt that your unborn children are saddled with -- and then the income tax revenues extracted from their labor is what's used to cover the interest payments on that debt. Interestingly, the Federal Reserve inflates about $85 billion per month, which works out to about a trillion dollars per year. (And that money is created as debt, which we owe back plus interest.) So if we were able to trim the fat and reduce the Federal Budget to that amount, then we could fund the entire Federal Government simply by continuing to print $85 billion per month. (Which would not require any new debt, and which would not require any income tax, and would not require saddling future generations with interest payments on their own money.) So instead of asking about getting a "discount" on our income tax, we should be asking about eliminating the income tax entirely, reducing government spending to sustainable levels, and eliminating creation of money through debt.

tjaerv 13y ago

Another perspective: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/income-tax-century-enough http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/income-tax-centu...