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To: chaz who wrote (9262)	10/31/1999 12:54:00 AM
From: Kayaker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Many complain of our unfair tax burden...they haven't lived or paid taxes in Canada, England, the Scandanavian countries...you get the point. Ain't that the truth. British Columbia, where I live/pay, top marginal rate on income is 53% and kicks in around 60-70k. Top capital gains rate around 43%. No long term capital gains rate. If you do a significant amount of stock trading you lose ability to claim capital gains and must claim as income @ 53%. Fourteen percent (7% provincial, 7% federal) sales tax rate. The federal is a "good and services" tax (GST) so applies to all services as well as goods. So, get your car tuned and pay 14% on parts plus 7% GST on labor. Get your hair cut, add in 7% GST. Buy a real estate lot from a developer, add on 7%. British Columbia -- highest taxed jurisdiction in North America.

To: chaz who wrote (9262)	10/31/1999 11:07:00 AM
From: red jinn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

chaz: re income taxes, etc. no question, like lou gerhig, we are blessed to have been born americans. but to say that we're lucky not to have to pay the taxes that canadians, english, or swedes do is irrelevant. if our taxes should be less - and that's the real question - the foreigners are just more wrong. morally there is no justification as far as i'm concerned for progressive tax rates. with a flat tax system, those w/ more income will pay more absolutely, which is fine, but it is not "just" to take a larger percentage of a successful man's (that's meant to be gender neutral) income. he has more to protect true, but he pays more absolutely. (fuller explanation offline and in "The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation" by Blum and Kelvin(sp?).) furthermore, the system encourages tinkering and hide-the-peanut-under-the-shell type games. certainly we waste tremendous resources when mobil oil, to take just one example, spends something like 300 man-years to figure out its income taxes every year. our system also means that poorer folks end up paying more b/c of regressive taxes on gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, and social security (which is another ponzi scheme i won't get into except to say that if we had been required to put 15% - remember you pay 7.5% and your employer matches - in the s&p 500, russel 1000, etc. and hold for 40 years, do you think we'd be talking about not raiding the social security surplus?). it also means tens of thousands of lobbyists, lawyers, accountants, etc. not only beseiging congress to write the rules differently but also wasting time trying to comply with them later, all to the detriment of real wealth creation, which is what the capitalist system you rightly praise is best at and should be allowed to continue to do unfettered as much as possible. finally, the biggest crime of theft occurs when people are moved into higher brackets simply because of inflation, which is essentially a government-created phenomenom. in the worst case, you may end up making less in real terms but owe more in taxes. don't mean to rant and i know i share your love of this country, but we don't always get it right. (apologies to all for the slightly lengthy OT remarks.) best, red jinn