Taxes... Where Will It End?

[slowrev]

John,
Right you are the US gummit used to be "by the people and for the people" it is now "to the people and for the gummit". It no longer serves us we serve it. Sucks don't it....

 

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> Bob, thinking about sales taxes...The poor, on the other hand, spend all their money on necessities.</font>
This is why many states do not charge sales tax on necessities, e.g., food, clothing, etc.

 

[Gatorboy]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( on the other hand, spend all their money on necessities )</font>

Like beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets?

Definition of rich: Anyone who makes more money than you. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Bob_Skurka]

MikePA, the state I live in does not charge sales tax on food for the very reason that it is a necessity. However, with sales taxes and excise taxes, the so-called rich pay considerably more than the lower income earners for several reasons. First, they spend more. Second, many of the items they buy have extra taxes levied on them when new. Third, most of those extra taxes (excise taxes) are only paid on the sale of the items the FIRST time they are sold, but not on the sale of "used" goods, so when a so-called rich person buys something with an excise tax on it, he pays both a sales tax and an excise tax. When that good is traded in or resold in some way, the person buying it the second time often does not pay the excise tax at all, and pays sales taxes at a considerably depreciated rate because the price of the used good is often sold at a price well below the price of a new good.

Consider also property taxes, the tax on a 4000 sq foot home in an exclusive suburb is going to be exponentially higher than the tax on a bungalow in a middle class community. Here in my state we are having a property tax revolt in some counties (especially Lake County) because some people are being hit with 100% property tax increases.

I owned a home in Highland, IN and paid property taxes in the range of $500 per year. I moved to the country and built a larger home, all but the home + 1 acre was classified as farm land, my taxes went up to $8000 per year on the new property. We were just re-assessed and the home in Highland was increased nearly 100% while the home outside of Lowell went up about 20%. Is it fair that the big house only went up 20% while the little house went up 100%? Think of it in different terms, in actual dollars. The big house went up over $1500 per year. The little house went up about $450. The newer bigger house is approaching $10,000 per year in taxes, the little house is approaching $1000 per year in taxes. And since my income did not go up 1000%, I tend to think the tax burden on the newer bigger house is unfair. And since the value of the newer bigger house is only about 4 times the value of the little house, I further conclude the tax is unfair since it is taxes 10 times higher.

 

[Richard]

Boone.... seems to me, you're helping defend us against those friendlies you have behind bars....

My vote?

not a leech

/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[fivestring]

Don, may I suggest that you ride a second or third shift with the police dept. of your area? Make several ride-alongs.
Times have changed since you were growing up....
What used to be a helping hand back in those days has now become an expected hand-out.
You go to any public housing project and just watch for 2 hours. Some of what you will see:
4 generations of families dependent of the gummit; no pride in the surroundings; litter; loose dogs and cats; stray puppies and kittens; lots of small children; grandparents raising kids instead of the parents.

After a ride-along or two, you will begin to see where the probems start and how they are perpetual.
Neccessities of the poor that police deal with:
1. beer
2. cigarettes
3. big name-brand clothes
4. wide screen TV
5. new car
6. cell phone

This will be a big list before you get to things like food, water, toiletries, housing, etc.

All people from at least my age and younger have had the same opportunities as I have had.
It's their own fault that they are lazy, un-educated, unemployed, drug addict, etc. That is their choice.
Some people just don't want any responsibilities in life. Go check out a men's shelter.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

OkeeDon . . . the first time I ever saw food stamps was when I was in college. I went to the grocery store in Crawfordsville, IN and was buying some noodles, rice, some hamburger, cheese, spices and probably some things like soda pop. The lady in front of me had a cart full of TV Dinners --yes, I'm old enough to remember when they were actually called TV Dinners-- and she paid with food stamps.

That experience really got me thinking. Calculated per pound, I probably paid something like $0.75 per pound for my food. Calculated per pound, she spend something like $3.00 per pound for her food, and my daddy's tax money was paying for her food. I won't be so bold as to say it was my tax money back then, afterall, I was a college kid. So I spent a lot of time studying demographics, sociology, economics, world political & economic systems and got a degree in political science with a minor in economics.

Strikes me that property taxes are NOT voluntary (JUST TRY NOT PAYING THEM), they vary in rates from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The tax jurisdictions do not consider income, or even if you have any money, they simply levy taxes.

As for sales taxes, I will not dispute that the poor pay a higher % of their income to sales taxes, but they also spend a higher % of their income for just about anything you can name including cigarettes, alcohol, gas, illegal drugs, and food than do higher income people, but that is a SIMPLE MATHMATICAL RATIO that can be proven for everything that money is spent on. It is also a cop-out used to divide the classes and foment class warfare.

 

[Boone]

Go check out a men's shelter.
========================

How many in the shelters are actually seriously mentally ill, in the shelters today instead of an psych institution as in the past?

I see many inmates that are mentally ill, the threshold for competancy is very low. The cost for the prison system to deal with the mentally ill inmate is much higher than a run of the mill convict. The chance of being double celled with a schizophrenic multiple murderer, should be enough deterent to stop anyone from drinking and driving. Scary stuff.

 

[NIXON]

Boone . Nope you aren't a leech !!! I got carried away with the keyboard ! When I made that comment ,I had the picture of waiting two hours in line at some DMV office . I get to the front of the line only to be told I have to go back and fill out another form and start over . It was just part of a rant . None of which was directed at you ,or any one else for that matter .
When I was stationed in La. A good freind called the AF quits .
He took a job as a coorections officer at ANGOLA !!!
Some of the things he'd tell me were almost unbelievable .
It also gave me great incentive to stay out of jail /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
John

 

[EastTexFrank]

I've ranted on these pages before about the shortcomings of Socialist European Governments, their programs and how they finance those programs so I won't do it again. 'Nuff said that it's one of the reasons I'm here and I'm STAYING.

I think that as caring human beings we all want to help those less fortunate than ourselves, I just have a hard time with the definition of "poor" that we use in this country and how our tax dollars are used to "benefit" them. I will say, that having travelled all over this world, that there are billions of people out there that would love to have the opportunity to be "poor" in the USA.

As for the taxes we pay, the situation is never going to improve until we can stop the politicians from buying votes with our money. They cater to two of the most basic of human emotions ... GREED and the wish to get something for nothing.

A lot of the poverty I see in the States can be classified as self inflicted wounds. The opportunities are there, as never before, to improve your circumstances and living standards through education and hard work. You just have to get off your fat, lazy a** and do something about it ... make the right decisions. If all you want to do is sit around and collect wefare benefits, remember, that in order to do that some hard working American and their family is being penalized by having to pay higher taxes than necessary.

OK, I'm off my soap box now. It's just that everything that I have, little though it may be since I'm not in the top 15%, I owe to living and working in this country. I also know that the little that I have would have been even littler if I'd stayed in the U.K.

Let's get back to tractoring.