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Technology Stocks : All About Sun Microsystems -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: steve harris who wrote (59481)	3/12/2004 1:36:39 PM
From: Ira Player	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 64865

It's not just the IRA deduction. It's no contributions to a Roth IRA if your income is above $150000. Why? Don't those people retire also? It's Schedule A deductions start to be eliminated above $139500 in income. It's a $58000 Alternative Minimum Tax exclusion that starts to go away at a 25% rate as income goes above $150000. that makes the marginal tax rate for AMT 35% for people above $170000, when the "regular" tax rate would have been "only" 33%. Why is the marginal rate higher for the tax plan that is supposed to catch high income 'players' higher than the standard rates. Hint: phaseouts... Our tax code would be 50% reduced in complexity if they would just make deductions the same for everyone, exemptions the same for everyone and increase the tax rates to make the elimination of the phase outs revenue neutral. It is fundamentally unfair to have people that earn less to be paying a marginal tax rate that is higher than those that make more. These non-linearities in the tax code cause excess complexity and place too much burden on the middle class. I believe in progressive tax rates. I believe in basic exemptions. For example, I do not understand a system of government that calculates a value for "poverty level", anyone below which is living in poverty, and has a tax code that makes those people pay anything to the federal government. It's crazy to place further financial strain on them. So having exemptions that correlate directly to this basic "poverty" level make sense. Code it that way. If inflation causes the poverty level to rise, the basic exemptions rise with it. No action by congress required. And the fact that someone making $1000000 also got a larger exemption shouldn't even be an issue. Compared to the tax he / she is paying, the exemption is a small portion. Just my simple opinion. Ira