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Yet another reason why I often wish I lived in Massachusettes
wraith808:
Amazon still will be. They've already tackled this in advance, especially for people like me that don't live in the city. To go anywhere and buy something, I have to go 40 minutes to the city, look around, get it, and come back home. Or, I pay $70 a year for Prime, and then I can buy it on Amazon for less, and get it tomorrow in most cases. They're actually changing that tomorrow to today. That's what the local distribution centers are for. It also saves me the collateral damage of getting stuff I don't need because I'm already at the store.
40hz:
A standard tax fee for all people (say, $X,000 per person) is regression-neutral: everyone has to pay exactly the same amount, so it's neither regressive nor progressive. A flat income tax (e.g., 11% of your income) is progressive, because those making more money have to pay more money. Our marginally-increasing income tax you might think of as being doubly-progressive, because its progressive scales up super-linearly.
-CWuestefeld (February 06, 2013, 02:02 PM)
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Possibly. But only if you ignore the fact a flat fee or percentage disproportionately impacts those in lower income levels who can least afford the hit.
By example a flat fee type tax of $5000 per person presents a much greater hit on a person's standard of living if they're only making $15,080 (min wage x 2080 hrs) annually than it does somebody making $50,000. It's 33% vs 10% of their respective incomes.
A flat percentage does much the same except in a less obvious manner. If we were to go with a hypothetical flat percentage of 15% on income then the minimum wage earner would pay $2,262 leaving a disposable (rounded) income of 12,800. The 50k earner would pay $7,500. But that would leave them with a disposable income of $42,500.
Now if you consider the potential lifestyles of these two flat percentage taxpayers, it becomes very obvious that even as little as a few hundred dollar per year would yield significantly greater and measurable benefit (i.e. more or better food, uninsured medical expenses, etc.) to the lower earner than the higher one.
The difference in lifestyle between a multi-millionaire and a billionaire isn't all that great. Between somebody making $15k a year and somebody making $35k it's huge.
So once again, a flat rate will still adversely impact those earners in the lower income brackets. Especially since costs for food, minimal housing, transportation, and medical care - along with most other necessities - are much the same no matter what your income level. And the thing that differentiates the needy from the affluent is how well their disposable income can cover such necessities - and how much surplus is left over for luxuries or higher quality goods and services.
Is this "fair?"
I don't know since what constitutes "fairness" and "equality" depends on who you ask. There are arguments that say the poor disproportionately access public services and benefits and therefor "get back" more of what they contribute via taxes. There are others who argue (not without cause) that if there weren't such arbitrary and illogical discrepancies in wage levels, there would be significantly less need for so many publicly supported social services...and so it goes.
No easy answers.
And in this particular case, I don't think that a "flat" tax (despite it surface appeal) is really an answer - unless you have a fundamentally socialist system and with a regulated economy where prices are controlled and much of what is privately provided in the USA would be handled by the government.
But socialist systems also tend to stifle innovation and dampen individual achievement and ambition (because why bother?) so that's not an easy answer either...
One real problem with the US system is that we currently have a hodge-podge of socialist and non-socialist programs and practices which gives us the worst of both politico-economic philosophies.
It just goes on and on.
Economics isn't called "the Dismal Science" for nothing. ;D
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Addendum: FWIW, sales tax is a flat tax - and it also hits the lower income bracket harder than it does the higher wage earners. That's been one of the biggest arguments against the "fairness" of sales tax when it's put on necessities such as: food, non-perscription medication and health products, non-luxury forms of clothing, etc.
Renegade:
+1 for 40hz there.
And in this particular case, I don't think that a "flat" tax (despite it surface appeal) is really an answer - unless you have a fundamentally socialist system and with a regulated economy where prices are controlled and much of what is privately provided in the USA would be handled by the government.
-40hz (February 08, 2013, 08:11 AM)
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Then we get around to how the extreme left and right wrap around and there's no real difference between socialism and fascism. My how things get even messier~! :P ;D
Yep. No easy answers at all. ;)
40hz:
^Nope. If there were, we'd already have them - and probably be doing it. :)
Or (knowing how people sometimes behave) maybe not? ;D
40hz:
Then we get around to how the extreme left and right wrap around and there's no real difference between socialism and fascism.
-Renegade (February 08, 2013, 08:17 AM)
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A professor of mine once said that if you take Hegel's Philosophy of Right, and go to the extreme right with it, you arrive at fascism. If taken to the extreme left, you end up with socialism.
It's your basic yin-yang.
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from the 40hz Dictionary:
Yin-yang (n.) - ancient symbol representing the pattern formed when everything is going down the drain.
Yet another reason why I often wish I lived in Massachusettes Yet another reason why I often wish I lived in Massachusettes
Coincidence?
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