103 days? Really? Really?
From Reason TV:
According to that reason video I posted below, Americans work an average of 103 days a year just to pay their taxes. If you had to work 365 days a year to pay your taxes, that would be a kind of slavery or indentured servitude, because all of your productive labor would be going to the government. You would have no resources of your own to provide for the life you wanted. Instead the government would provide you not with what you want, but what the government decides you need.
That sounds like a kind of tyranny to me.
And, I think if we had to work 364 days a year it would still be a kind of serfdom (after all, serfs were allowed a little plot of their own). Ditto 363 days, 362 days, 361 days etc. Now, at some point the difference of degree becomes a difference in kind; working one day a year to pay for the government doesn’t sound oppressive to me. But it seems to me that it’s hardly absurd to think that 103 days a year is too much, or to believe that if that number goes even higher, we’re losing something important.
I would also add that it’s sort of crazy for liberals to equate government hand-outs (positive liberty, FDR’s economic bill of rights and all that) with “freedom” but to equate the desire to keep more of the money you make yourself with greed and oppression of some kind. Money does make all sorts of liberties possible (you have to pay for your megaphone and all that). But government money only pays for the “liberties” the government thinks you should have, and therefore it can determine how you exercise them. That turns liberties into privileges dispensed at the whim of the state.
Sadly — or should I say frighteningly — turning liberties into privileges dispensed at the whim of the state has become less and less controversial as the idea appeals more and more to those who have found they are able to vote themselves some of what others earn as a hedge against having to compete at all.
And it would be engaging in willful blindness to ignore how the deconstruction of competition (be it in sports or schools) and the elevation of the self-esteem culture has effectively created a modern version of “self-reliance” that appeals to collectivism and the beneficence of the state.
I’m rather stunned that it’s only 103 days.
And, again, I have no objection to paying for government. I object to money being taken from my pockets and put into someone else’s, whether that someone is a corrupt contractor or an able-bodied person who simply prefers to live off the dole than work.
And, according to the Tax Foundation, the Deficit Adjusted day is about May 28th. Yay O!
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/24529.html
WSJ had a little post/article/whathaveyou about some people citing Geithner’s…uhh…problems paying his taxes as a reason they shouldn’t have to do theirs. Guess they are leading by example, afterall.
Dang it. I had some really clever remark about reinstituting the corvee but I can’t get the comment to post. My link-fu is so weak…
Honestly, even more offensive have been the lectures I’ve heard over the last few days how we should basically just pay our taxes and STFU. Honestly, it’s as patriotic as joining the military.
And into it this meme (from huffpo, repeated by libs elsewhere as if it were their own original thought):
Of course it’s ideologically impossible to be both, in the same way it’s impossible to be both informed and a FOX & Friends host, but then again I’m expecting too much logic and message coherence from people who spent all of Wednesday protesting against socialism and wealth redistribution while gathered in publicly funded — dare I say “socialized” — parks and town squares.
OH, they hypocrisy of the right for daring to speak out against taxes on PUBLICLY FUNDED land.
You know, I bet 100% of those who pay no income taxes are perfectly ok with our tax rates. Since that is prolly upwards of 70% of Obama’s base …
Anyone have a figure on that? I would love to be able to back that up.
If religion is the opiate of the masses per Marx, government has become the new religion. And the government manufactures some high grade shit.
I’m not sure where the 103 day figure comes from, but in 1993 Kurt Hauser discovered that, at least since WWII, there’s been a constant relationship between taxes and GDP of about 19.5%. This “tax yield” is independent of the tax schedule itself, or how “progressive” it happens to be. (See You Can’t Soak the Right (PDF link)) Given that, you’d probably save a lot of administrative costs if you simply instituted a 20% across-the-board flat tax, and since such an uncomplicated tax schedule would spur entrepreneurship and raise GDP you’d end up collecting more taxes while spending less on collection. BTW, 20% of 365 is 73 days. The other 30 days is probably just wasted effort, by both the state and its citizens.
Excuse me, the name of the article is “You Can’t Soak the Rich.” My fat little fingers got tangled up creating the link.
Today, wanting someone else’s money is called need, wanting to keep your own money is called greed, and compassion is when liberal politicians arrange the transfer.
-Anon
Keith Hennessey has been posting on Tax history and policy recently. Here is his presentation/analysis of Taxes since WWII.
Sadly — or should I say frighteningly — turning liberties into privileges dispensed at the whim of the state has become less and less controversial
Note how the CNN reporter interrupted her interviewee’s reasoning about government taking money from citizens to point out how much money the Illinois state government was getting from Porkulus, as if that somehow made up for the crushing debt his 2-year-old child would have to endure to finance the alleged benefit.
“And the government manufactures some high grade shit.”
And we all know lefties are receptive to the idea that government creates shit, whether it be AIDS or monies.
And . . . and . . . and they probably drove to those protests on publicly funded roads and . . . there were all kinds of like cops there and who pays for them . . . they used Porta Potties that get pumped into publicly funded sewage systems . . . man, they’re like wicked hypocrites and shit.
Thanks. Hennessey comes up with a federal tax yield that’s lower than Hauser’s, but given the year of Hauser’s work (1993) the assumption that a flat tax of around 20% would cut the mustard, even if you have a relatively “progressive” redistributional formula, is probably accurate. The other side of this proposal is James Buchanan’s “generality principle” whereby you couple the flat tax with a constant-amount demogrant. But he also shows, in Politics by Principal, Not Interest, that even if you progressive-ize the demogrant structure to a significant degree the economy still comes out way ahead.
“OH, they hypocrisy of the right for daring to speak out against taxes on PUBLICLY FUNDED land.”
Yeah, this one is wholly stupid. As if we were opposing trillions in debt for monkey bars. They always pretend you’re against the things that they’re quick to de-fund when left to their own devices, like the police cops, fire engines, roads, the military, and the criminal justice system – you know, things that people generally can’t do for themselves. It’s a bit of rhetorical masturbation, but they seem to believe it anymore.
At one point in time I stunned the folks at grad school by being a single issue Forbes backer.
Oh, the Humanities!
“OH, they hypocrisy of the right for daring to speak out against taxes on PUBLICLY FUNDED land.â€
Had a buddy try to argue that I was being a hypocrite because I didn’t have a problem with the police and firemen, but I did have a problem with welfare and nationalization of businesses. I had to point out that firemen and the police are part of keeping the social fabric intact, while welfare is just stealing my money for government controlled “charity.”
I wonder if these people actually are aware of the crap that spews from their pieholes. Are they unconscious ALL the time?
“Had a buddy try to argue that I was being a hypocrite because I didn’t have a problem with the police and firemen, but I did have a problem with welfare and nationalization of businesses.”
You should have fucked his wife and called him a hypocrite when he got all bothered. Why does he have to be so damned greedy and selfish?
Slavery wasn’t practiced only in the form of keeping people illiterate and working in the field. In the 1800s, literate slaves were hired out to employers to work for wages. Usually as bookkeepers or clerks.
They were allowed to keep part of their incomes, and they were paid a percentage to their masters. The legal principle here was that the master owned 100% of the slave’s income. But as a practical matter, the master let the slave keep a portion of it for himself, to pay for his own room and board and clothing. They wouldn’t be productive otherwise.
This happened primarily in places like New Orleans and Maryland, which had relatively large free black populations (and thus an existing market for black literate employees) that co-existed alongside legalized slavery.
The income tax is the same thing — it is based on the proposition that someone else owns your income. Of course, the master may let you keep a portion of it, out of a sense of grace, forbearance, largess and generosity. But make no mistake, the master fucking owns your money, baby.
Ace, you moron, this video is old. Older than dirt. Get with the program.
A favorite example of this — hiring out a skilled slave — was brought to my attention by the Librarian. Robert Smalls was “hired” to pilot a Confederate transport. A few months later he took the transport, his family, and twelve other slaves to the Union forces. He also brought a Confederate code book and information on troop positions around Charleston.
Less than a year later, Smalls was piloting the same ship when it came under fire. The ship’s captain retreated below decks; Smalls took command and brought the ship in. The captain was cashiered for cowardice and Smalls was made captain.
Less than two years from bondage to commanding officer.
(He also helped form the Republican party in South Carolina, served in the state’s constitutional convention, and was elected to the US Congress for five terms.)
Maybe we could convince Marcotte to grant the government approximately 1/3 of her uterus for a forced birth?
Seems a fair exchange.
So you work every weekend to pay for for the poor, middle class, french, high speed rail companies. So what, some people have to get to Atlantic City as fast as possible, not you, you’re working weekends, but important people, like the Treasury secretary, who doesn’t pay taxes.
At one point in time I stunned the folks at grad school by being a single issue Forbes backer.
Oh, the Humanities!
Flat tax? Several years ago, a good friend of mine – a smart, pretty well-read guy, told me he had the impression that the flat tax proposal stipulated that everyone would pay the same absolute amount of tax. Which, given the media coverage of the issue, I wasn’t remotely surprised he’d acquired this misperception. When I told him it was a flat percentage, not a flat amount, he said, “Hell, I’d go for that. In fact, that’s exactly how I think it should be.” Of course, by that time, it had been several years since Forbes’s flat-tax proposal had come and gone.
103 work days or calendar days?
“They were allowed to keep part of their incomes, and they were paid a percentage to their masters. The legal principle here was that the master owned 100% of the slave’s income. But as a practical matter, the master let the slave keep a portion of it for himself, to pay for his own room and board and clothing. They wouldn’t be productive otherwise. ”
Did the master consider taxes he payed to be ‘slavery.’?
Sidereal days, meya.
Don’t bother looking it up. You don’t give a shit how many days it takes, do you?
That number is not nearly high enough for the lying fascista meya.
103 sounds low. It’s a brute averaging, I guess.
Libertarians used to be very good at pointing out that if you (try to) account for those whose livings are dependent on the state’s being as extraConstitutionally monstrous as it is (lawyers and lobbyists and […]), and the enclosure of markets via regulation and licensure, and etc., the numbers look much, much worse — for all but those so dependent, whose corresponding numbers are deeply negative.
They stopped talking like that in the ’90s, to appeal to the persuadable. Who’d be offput by such zany outlawry.
And that totally worked. It opened up slots for token fake libertarians at The Atlantic and The Nation, and it got a few fake libertarian technocratic “thinktanks” corporately funded.
We are all libertarians now.
Kresh @#17: They ARE unconcious all the time. That’s the only solid reason for using public transportation. At least when in S.F. or N.Y.
If religion is the opiate of the masses…
…then Marxism is the opiate of graduate schools.
See how cleverly that works?
Sigh. The shift toward support for higher taxes coincides with Bush’s tax cuts. For all the demonizing the left did about teh rich getting all the benefit, millions of lower-middle-class people were removed from the tax roles. It crossed the tipping point politically – now we have more people collecting than paying, so it’s no surprise there’s plenty of political support for higher taxes. On other people, of course.
This is how the Left thinks though. It’s justified to steal from the Treasury and future generations, since the Right gets to steal too!
When I was kid, my parents used to tell me stealing was wrong.
Your parents were clearly right wing extremists, Phil.
My sympathies.
You are spot on. I’ve had several otherwise intelligent colleagues of mine claim I was silly for complaining about future taxes going up since they were only going up on “the rich”.
To which I responded that if they think the top 2% can close annual multi trillion dollar deficits, I have several bridges I’d like to sell them. They’re announced tax increases and then there will be unannounced tax increases.
The rubes get the unannounced ones. They got fooled, big time. But they can learn. That’s where we come in. Like I said, we ARE the moderates and we don’t have to budge a fucking inch. The “moderates” we’re told we need to win over by the Pragmatic Conservatives will meet us in the middle by running over to where we’re standing right now.
In due time of course.
they’re = there are
Neal Boortz has been trying to revive the flat tax for a while now.
The best way to drive home to people how much they pay would be to eliminate withholding; let people write one honker of a check on April 15th.
Boortz has been promoting the FairTax, a national retail sales tax.
The problem with a flat tax is you still have the IRS, and you still have to determine what someones income is.
Yes, the FairTax is the best system I’ve seen.
Not that we’ll ever get it.
http://www.fairtax.org/
Huh… Huckabee is a supporter. Still not voting for him under any circumstances, but it’s good to know he’s on the right side of this one.
“The problem with a flat tax is you still have the IRS, and you still have to determine what someones income is.”
Another problem is that if it involves raising taxes on anyone, you won’t get many republican votes because they’ve all taken a pledge to Norquist to not raise any taxes.
Another problem is that if it involves raising taxes on anyone
Good thing the FairTax involves nothing of the sort, huh, SFAG?
It’s revenue-neutral by design.
I kinda prefer a VAT, myself.
A VAT scheme certainly has its merits (somewhat easier to enforce, e.g., although the FairTax guys have some ideas on that), but has the disadvantage of being a “hidden” tax.
The FairTax lets people see how much they’re paying right at the point of purchase.
Been awhile since the Norquist boogey man has been around.
He’s got quite a story. I like the cut of his jib. This is a thing of beauty:
Quite true, SBP. Maybe some proper signage by the cash register?
My ultimate fear with any retail tax is possibly giving organized crime billions of dollars a year.
How much are we giving organized crime now? Drug dealers, whores, pimps, none of these pay any income tax now. Under a national sales tax they would pay on most every dollar they spend.
Good point, B Moe. Both the Fair and VAT would capture some of that revenue.
And I agree with the general idea of taxing consumption rather than production.
I’d just prefer having the consumption tax broken up into a few different steps so a black market couldn’t capture an easy 15% at the final retail stage without even having something fall off a truck.
Speaking of tax on purchase, I’ve got to find a nearby Indian res where (I hope) I can buy smokes unburdened by this new S-chip tax. I’m thinking Immokalee has a casino/res that’ll serve.
sdferr, have you considered making your own cigarettes? S-chip has raised those taxes as well but it’s still far cheaper.
I’ve quit recently but it’s fun to make your own with high quality tobacco when it costs less then generic.
The FairTax lets people see how much they’re paying right at the point of purchase.
Two words: Black market
FairTax is way too easy to circumvent. I don’t think we could convert all those unemployed CPAs into black marketeer hunters.
Two words: Black market
Have you read their material, dicentra?
Phinn gets it.Congress doesn’t sit around arguing how much of your money they’re gonna take. They determine how much they’re gonna let you keep. We’ve got to change that attitude.
Its revenue neutral…and nobodys taxes would go up… would anyone’s taxes go down?
It changes the way taxes are collected, which limits the governments ability to influence behavior through taxation, and makes the cost to the consumer more obvious. You do understand that all taxes are ultimately paid by the consumer?
Meya sees “corporations” as magical money machines, B Moe. It’s not surprising — she views the “the government” the same way.
It’s somewhat akin to the way that a savage worships an idol, or the situation where a small child just doesn’t understand why he can’t have an XBox when his parent technically has enough money in the checking account to pay for it.
I have suggested in the past that instead of marketing the FairTax as a retail sales tax, they should call it a gross income tax on retail business. For ever dollar a business takes in, they pay a 23% tax. Exact same thing, just sounds better to the leftards.
“It changes the way taxes are collected, which limits the governments ability to influence behavior through taxation, and makes the cost to the consumer more obvious.”
So everyone will pay the exact same that they do now…But the cost isn’t obvious enough when its taken from their paychecks every week. However, I’d say the government will have quite a targeted ability to influence behavior. It can now just pick and choose which products will get taxed at which rate and quite directly encourage or discourage certain products.
How do you account for people who have saved money? Presumably, they’ve payed taxes on that money when they earned it as income. But now you want to tax them at 23 or 30 % when the go and consume with it?
“You do understand that all taxes are ultimately paid by the consumer?”
You understand we’re all consumers? Typically, when one’s costs go up, you can’t just pass that on to your buyer. Whether it is the buyer of your labor or your money or your ford focus. You’re going to allocate that increase between your suppliers, your owners, your workers, and your consumers. It will depend on relative market power. But true, all those people are, eventually, consumers.
“For ever dollar a business takes in, they pay a 23% tax. Exact same thing, just sounds better to the leftards.”
But then you lose the transparency that spies is touting.
So everyone will pay the exact same that they do now…But the cost isn’t obvious enough when its taken from their paychecks every week. However, I’d say the government will have quite a targeted ability to influence behavior. It can now just pick and choose which products will get taxed at which rate and quite directly encourage or discourage certain products.
You’re funny.
Governments dont want to discourage smoking. They want revenue. if they wanted to discourage smoking theyed discourage the growers, not subsidize them. The Law of Unintended Consequences is ironclad. Chicago wanted to increase revenue from its parking meters, so it doubled the cost of parking downtown. The result is widespread parking meter vandalism.(No ticket if the meter is broken) I don’t think that was the targeted behavior. Government has become an obstical to progress. Just sayin.
Did the master consider taxes he payed to be ’slavery.’?
There were no income taxes in the US before the Civil War, you fucking dolt.
Unless, of course, you count the masters’ cut of the earnings of hired-out slaves, as I described. Which is the same system of slavery we have now, only now it’s called “progressivism.”
<i.“For ever dollar a business takes in, they pay a 23% tax. Exact same thing, just sounds better to the leftards.â€
But then you lose the transparency that spies is touting.
Seems pretty clear to me. Especially compared to this:
Whether it is the buyer of your labor or your money or your ford focus. You’re going to allocate that increase between your suppliers, your owners, your workers, and your consumers. It will depend on relative market power.
Those are called embedded taxes, its the taxes you pay without realizing it every time you buy something.
Typically, when one’s costs go up, you can’t just pass that on to your buyer.
Who they hell else is going to pay it?
So everyone will pay the exact same that they do now…But the cost isn’t obvious enough when its taken from their paychecks every week. However, I’d say the government will have quite a targeted ability to influence behavior. It can now just pick and choose which products will get taxed at which rate and quite directly encourage or discourage certain products.
That isn’t the point I was trying to make, I was referring to deductions, which influence much larger behavior patterns than how much you smoke or drink.
The problem with income taxes is you have to define income, which leads to encyclopedias of rules and regulations of the IRS. The FairTax takes a cut off the top, clean and simple with no arguing about expenses and deductions while trying to determine the net.
“There were no income taxes in the US before the Civil War, you fucking dolt. ”
But there were taxes.
Thanks for clarifying b moe. Can someone take on this question:
“How do you account for people who have saved money? Presumably, they’ve payed taxes on that money when they earned it as income. But now you want to tax them at 23 or 30 % when the go and consume with it?”
Until this one is cleared up, I think that people who have stored the value of their past income ( as wealth) aren’t going to be too happy with this tax.
“Who they hell else is going to pay it?”
You take a cut from your profit, from your workers, from your other suppliers, anyone else you deal with can feel the pinch.
“How do you account for people who have saved money? Presumably, they’ve payed taxes on that money when they earned it as income. But now you want to tax them at 23 or 30 % when the go and consume with it?â€
Until this one is cleared up, I think that people who have stored the value of their past income ( as wealth) aren’t going to be too happy with this tax.
I don’t know all the details of how the transition would work, there may be no plan to address this. No one is arguing the FairTax would be perfect, just that it is better than what we have now. And you are correct that some folks with a lot of accumulated wealth and investments aren’t going to like this, because it is easy for them to avoid income taxes now. I would think you would consider this a feature.
You take a cut from your profit, from your workers, from your other suppliers, anyone else you deal with can feel the pinch.
All of those, your profits, your employee costs, your material costs, all are ultimately paid by the consumer. If all your operating costs are paid by the consumer, you can’t turn a profit and can’t stay in business. Unless you operate under thor’s magic economy.
You take a cut from your profit, from your workers, from your other suppliers
Or you simply say “fuck it” and shut down.
Only in SFAG’s fantasy world is there an infinite amount of money to take from “profits”. Cutting the pay of workers doesn’t exactly do much to foster a happy and productive workforce, SFAG. Of course, since you have the slave-driver outlook on things, you wouldn’t understand that.
How do you account for people who have saved money?
Funny, I could’ve sworn I had to pay taxes on savings and investment income just a few days ago, SFAG.
Of course, under the Fair Tax my savings and investments wouldn’t be taxed until I, like, you know, spent the money, thus giving me a strong incentive to, like, you know, keep the money in savings and investments.
But I don’t have your brilliant financial acumen, so what do I know?
[…] sorts of ideas? Game theory and taxation. Proposed tests for political classification. Modified […]
You know the difference between income and stock right?
You know the difference between being taxed on interest every year and not being taxed on it until you spend it, right?
Moron.
spend it outside the US
Yeah, everyone will start driving to Mexico to go to McDonalds, I’m sure. Maybe they’ll start flying to Europe to buy a new pair of jeans, or go to TimbukMotherfuckingTu to buy their electricity and water.
Moron.
who’s talking about ‘infinite’ here?
You, apparently.
You’ve got this idee fixe that people will work for nothing.
It doesn’t happen, SFAG, and won’t unless we wind up with the kind of communist slave state that makes you get wet.
I wouldn’t be quite so sure that you’re going to be the one who winds up holding the whip, though, SFAG. History indicates otherwise.
not just that, but this plan taxes away 23 or 30% of their wealth in one fell swoop. That is, if they spend this wealth in the US. They could just take it abroad.
You keep assuming that rich folks are going to suddenly sell all their stock and spend all of their money all at once. I really don’t see this happening, and even if it did why would I want to base a taxation policy around it?
Considering that all of their other income would be tax free, including all interest or dividends on those savings, I think it would probably be a wash for these folks anyway.
What happens when you sell the house now, meya? You get to keep that money tax free? Or are you going to have to pay income and/or cap gains tax on it?
Under the FairTax, if you sell your house and put the money in savings, or buy another used house, you will pay no tax at all.