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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Srexley who wrote (565790)	4/16/2004 7:35:08 PM
From: Steve Dietrich	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

<<It's kind of funny, I guess. My real position has been based in opposition to those like yourself that harp about how easy the wealthy get off on taxes and that our code is "regressive". It ain't that unfair as it is. Just pisses me off when people lie about wealthy Americans getting a free ride when they pay the majority of taxes.>> Yes i'm familiar with this rant of yours. Actually this whole thing started for me when you asked if the top 1% of earners paying 36% of income taxes was fair. I said it depended on how much of the total national income they were taking in. You said someone said 43%, let's use that number. So if 43% of the federal income is generating 36% of the income tax, no that's not fair, it's too low. You also said that the bottom pay no taxes, which of course is a lie often trumpeted by Republicans. <<Wealth is taxed in the form of income tax before it becomes wealth. The idea of coming up with a system even more complicated than we have now is ludicrous. And once you tax someone's "wealth", what happens the next year? Do you keep taxing it until it disappears?>> A wealth tax would replace the income tax. There would be zero income tax. And yes you'd pay every year, just like you do with property tax. My very rough calculations tell me the flat wealth tax rate would be about 6%. I'd assume if anyone were ever serious about an idea like this, there'd have to be an exemption at the bottom (like your first 50k of wealth is exempt) and the tax would have to go down or disappear as you got older so the retired wouldn't be taxed too much (or at all) when they're no longer working. So there you have it, everyone would send around 6% of their net worth to the federal government every year. The more you're worth, the more you send. A true flat tax. And remember there's no income tax and no payroll tax, none, no other federal taxes. Unless you want to keep the Excise taxes then you could lower the rate a little. Steve Dietrich