US Taxation v Other Countries! - WE ARE THE HIGHEST

[nerdvincent]

Quote by: Hmm Frankly, I knew this thread was created by GHook before even clicking on it.

Oh you too?

[Dan_77]

Quote by: commonsense I'm no expert, but I know in Canada, its not nearly as high for the beautifully desirable areas I've visited

I have no doubt that large swaths of Canada are both very lovely and very lowly taxed. The problem with your point, however, is twofold:

1) Anecdotal fallacy. Merely because you know the tax rate on a few plots of land is not indicative of any wider trend.

2) You mistake "beauty" for "value". In doing so you forget the first three rules of real estate value: Location, location, and location. It's more then just a selling point. Location is the #1 appraising factor in real estate, and pretty much all of Canada is off the beaten path.

Quote by: Plus Ultra Quote by: tivodan1116 Most companies pay no corporate income tax at all. Source please.

My pleasure.

ABC News: Most Companies in US Avoid Federal Income Taxes

Close to 70% of US companies pay absolutely nothing in corporate income tax.

(Notice many of the misled politicians in the article thinking this is some kind of "loophole" because they do not understand the tax code... fortunately I do)

VAT is an awful and insiduous tax, its added on at each stage of the production process so that a shoe retailer pays it to his distributor, the distributor pays it to his factory supplier and at the factory its paid to the leather supplier. All along the way this gets passed on to the consumer. Additionally its a tax that doesn't get much review when raised and regularly rises (it used to be 8% in most of the EU and now is around 20%).

Neither the fact that the cost of a tax gets "passed on" to consumers, nor the method of collection, makes it inherently "awful and insidious". More than anything else, marginal rate determines the "awfulness" of a tax. Would you still complain if the total VAT rate was, say, 2%?

[commonsense]

location:
Suburbs of Vancouver! One of the hottest real estate markets anywhere... my observation, less than one fourth the property tax for comparable U.S. areas.
However, they have a lot of "sin taxes" but their rents for non owners are often much less than 1/4 portion of a modest income..all these factors conspire to make an accurate overall tax/cost of living comparison difficult, but i know one thing...

the govt used to function quite well as a tiny portion of GDP when I was a kid. They still minted the coins, built dams, bridges and roads, even made corrupt deals, did favors, gave corporate welfare, subsidized farmers... they even had "relief programs" waay before LBJ's "great society" to eradicate poverty (hah!) and even had overpriced military contracts for illegitimate or unnecessary wars...BUT THEY DID IT FOR LESS ! ! ! !

Today, the govt is sucking us dry. Have you ever heard the national tax day announced on the radio? Its the day some anti-tax group says is the first day of the year (sometime in June) you actually begin to work for yourself instead of Uncle Sam.
The date gets later every year.

[Yarn]

commonsense:

BUT THEY DID IT FOR LESS ! ! ! !

Our average age is rising, our health care payment system is nonsensical, improvements in health care diagnosis and treatment are on the net making "adequate" health care more expensive (ADD, autism, the girl who lived four months without heart..., etc), our populace is undereducated, our politics has gotten stupider, our food crapier, and our waistlines larger.

So we have a relatively inefficient sillyminded government of which more per capita is expected because of improvements in technology, because we are irresponsible with our own bodies, and because we have given it an additional duty or two (e.g. Bush's prescription drug plan). That is, at least in part, why taxes and the national debt have gone up so much. You'll note that part of the blame is our own culture.

In so far as government is concerned, in a democracy, the people reap what they sow

[commonsense]

Its good you bring up "technology"
The per capita production thanks to robotic assembly lines, greatly improved heavy machinery, all manner of powertools, pneumatic hammers, nailguns, etc.
Yet, the "typical joe" still works 40-60 hrs a week for aproximately the same roof over his head, car payments, food, vacation etc as he did in the 60s.
He should be living twice as well, with a "Jetsons" -like 3 or 4day workweek.
This additional productivity that is attributable to advances in technology has been usurped by a far larger parasitic government.
I cant ressearch this at the moment, but I would guess there are many many times the number of govt employees to private as there were at any previous window in history, many of them armed agents.

As far as "health care costs" I just received a bill for an emergency room visit (kidney stone) where I was administered a single pill (prophylactic antibiotic) for $78 !
This does not reflect the actual "cost" of the pill. Even an expensive brand-new synthetic drug does not retail for one tenth this price.
When I was a kid in the 60s and had a bad flu or what-have-you, a young family doctor visitedme in my home. My parents (mother never worked, father blue-collar, non-union, no insurance) could afford to pay the bill in cash. He managed to retire with plenty of money inthe bank and never "invested" in anything but CDs.
If you can't connect the dots here to the insidious role of govt in our lives, or should I say "serfdom" I dont know what else to say.
All you have to do is examine recent history and the direct cause and effect of each successive piece of govt-growing legislation and see its resultant economic or cultural effect.

[nerdvincent]

Quote by: commonsense Yet, the "typical joe" still works 40-60 hrs a week for aproximately the same roof over his head, car payments, food, vacation etc as he did in the 60s. He should be living twice as well, with a "Jetsons" -like 3 or 4day workweek. This additional productivity that is attributable to advances in technology has been usurped by a far larger parasitic government.

Government?! LMAO. Of course they did nothing to help us, especially in Canada (in Quebec as well as in BC) but here's the real reason why workers stayed to the same level:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...ay.graphic.jpg

Thank you Mr. Capitalism.

[commonsense]

Are you kidding?
All the CEO salaries put together are adrop in the bucket compared to the rise in govt proprtion of GDP

[Yarn]

All the CEO salaries put together are adrop in the bucket compared to the rise in govt proprtion of GDP

That may or may not be true, but irregardless of collectively how much CEOs rake in:

The wealthiest 1% of Americans earned 21.2% of all income in 2005, according to new data from the Internal Revenue Service. That is up sharply from 19% in 2004, and surpasses the previous high of 20.8% set in 2000, at the peak of the previous bull market in stocks. The bottom 50% earned 12.8% of all income, down from 13.4% in 2004 and a bit less than their 13% share in 2000.

- Income-Inequality Gap Widens - WSJ.com

- Image:Share top 1%.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So indeed it would seem that the data supports the commonly held belief that a reason why the middle class is working harder and getting the same amount of stuff despite great increases in its productivity and the economies income, is that the wealthiest individuals are absorbing a greater and greater percentage of the GDP. Globalization as well as Republican, taken to the extent to which it eventually was, corruption is much of what explains this reality.

Just in case you weren't already aware of this, we have an 8 year old regressive tax code.
- Our Regressive Income Tax | Middle Class Impact

The fact of the matter is also that market forces govern upper class incomes, which are greatly investment based, much less forcefully than they do lower class ones. Where the buck stops, there is not much that forces it to be efficiently distributed. So there is much greater incidence therein of people being overpaid, that is paid more than they need to be in order to keep doing their jobs. I think that ever healthy economy has ridiculously rich individuals. Nevertheless, I would say that we've taken things to an unhealthy extreme. In any market, there are only so many good investments to be made any particular time. Too much money was available to invest during the past 8 years, and the recessionistic consequences of bad investments are the cause behind this present global economic crisis. All of this piling in on housing. Unlike the internet bubble, this housing bubble, which is costing us much more, hasn't given us much of anything useful. I heard Bill Clinton argue that the government should have stifled the housing boom, and used the resulting revenue on alternative energy.

Mind you, I think that overall globalization is a good thing. And even in the median, it is probably good for the United States.

In the words of the man who wrote common sense, and who also is my avatar:

My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

- Thomas Paine Quotes

[nerdvincent]

Quote by: commonsense Are you kidding? All the CEO salaries put together are adrop in the bucket compared to the rise in govt proprtion of GDP

I gave you the CEO stats to give you the overall idea, but I also meant investors, the people just below the CEOs... all of those people who see their pay raising when employees stick to their grilled cheeze.
Communism Pt 1: Common ownership of the means of production and wages.

[Dan_77]

Quote by: commonsense Its good you bring up "technology" The per capita production thanks to robotic assembly lines, greatly improved heavy machinery, all manner of powertools, pneumatic hammers, nailguns, etc. Yet, the "typical joe" still works 40-60 hrs a week for aproximately the same roof over his head, car payments, food, vacation etc as he did in the 60s.

Untrue. The typical house is much larger than it was 50 years ago. The typical car is much better, the typical person eats much better food, and the typical vacation is much better.

He should be living twice as well, with a "Jetsons" -like 3 or 4day workweek.

We ARE living twice as well. And if you wanted to live to the standards of 50 years ago, you could easily obtain that on 3 or 4 days a week of work. We don't do that, though, because we like the standard of living we have now.

This additional productivity that is attributable to advances in technology has been usurped by a far larger parasitic government.

Marginal taxation has increased only slightly since 1960.

I cant ressearch this at the moment, but I would guess there are many many times the number of govt employees to private as there were at any previous window in history, many of them armed agents.

Armed agents? What are you talking about?

As far as government employees - for better or worse, people depend on government for a lot more now.

As far as "health care costs" I just received a bill for an emergency room visit (kidney stone) where I was administered a single pill (prophylactic antibiotic) for $78 ! This does not reflect the actual "cost" of the pill. Even an expensive brand-new synthetic drug does not retail for one tenth this price.

And a big part of why you need that pill is because our health care system has kept you alive long enough to need it.

When I was a kid in the 60s and had a bad flu or what-have-you, a young family doctor visitedme in my home.

And cancer was a death sentence. So were myriad other diseases. The doctor HAD to come visit you at home, because you had measles, mumps, chicken pox, or a host of other diseases that are all but wiped out of existence.

Do you know that I'm not even vaccinated for polio or smallpox? The diseases are eradicated - we flat out beat 2 of the 20th century's greatest killers, and you're complaining that doctors don't make house calls!

My parents (mother never worked, father blue-collar, non-union, no insurance) could afford to pay the bill in cash. He managed to retire with plenty of money inthe bank and never "invested" in anything but CDs.

Again, if you wanted to limit yourself to the lifestyle that was available at that time, it would be much easier to do that in this day and age.


There is a book I highly recommend that explains why someone can be so negative on some of the most positive things in our society.

Amazon.com: The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse: Gregg Easterbrook: Books

It's by Gregg Easterbrook, Brookings Fellow (and thinking man's NFL columnist to boot). It examines why, despite the fact that our lives continue to get immeasurably better, people still perceive them as getting worse.

[commonsense]

All good points you make... and I was aware of them even as I made the blanket statements... I just still argue that they are ameliorating factors, not the predominant ones..
although you are exceptionally correct especially when it comes to being able to save a hell of a lotof money were an individual or family trying to live nowadays as myparents did. ( still bumble around in the dark at night rather than turn on a light as I go from room to room---I'm sure my electric bill is half the average on the block! I still chck my gas mileage every time I fill up and try to out-do the previous score by driving easily and coasting up to lights... my brakes last twice as long becaus Im a smooth, aware, tactical, forward-looking driver. a little "post-depression mentality" in more of us and we wouldnt need global warming theocrats like Al Gore)

As far as the doctor housecalls, the point I was trying to make was that a direct payer system is far more efficient and provides better care at an affordable price.

And yes... I'm old, to be sure, but please don't lump me into the "being kept alive with modern technology and drugs" category at age 46 just yet!

Muchof our healthcare probs began with Nixon. The unions were very united and were able to threaten strikes and slowdowns and stoppage of goods etc in the early 70s---and demanded and were getting wages triple what the average worker was.
Nixon, seeing the unfairness and the inflationary potential (not to mention probably attempting to head-off further expansion of unionism) decided to compromise with the unions by changing tax policy instead of encouraging higher wages
Health benefits were traditionally taxed as part of overall income at their monetary value if purchased independently.
He removed this, effectively granting the unions their net income increase without inciting dissatisfaction in the workforce at large who avoided seeing their unionized neighbors' hourly rate skyrocket further with which they already had issues.
From then on, (for a long time, anyway) it became obligatory for all employers to provide healthcare benefits as part of income.
This increased healthcare costs in all the familiar ways:
administrative inefficiency
redundancy
simple human nature of abusing a system when its readily available and cost is paid by someone else
entitlement mentality since it is considered part of "earned income" for their labor
hospitals overcharging because costs are dissipated and individual payers dont notice increases

Gradually after this time, there was an increase in immigration combined with "mandatory treatment" laws which further permitted hospitals to inflate costs in efforts to absorb unpaid bills

Add to the mix increased letigiousness and the tendency for doctors to order increasingly available expensive tests from new technologies in order to cover themselves against liability and the vicious cycle of increased malpractice insurance being factored into the fees for treatment in general--and on and on...

Back to the country doctor:
A single payer system prevents greed on the part of the dr and medical establishment and provides better care at a reasonable price.

Ohhh.. as for the premise of your book...

The overriding reason people feel unhappy and on the brink of economic , societal and environmental woe despite gains in all these areas is the "henny penny the sky is falling" mantra of Gore-ites and other International Socialists who can only secure their power through spreading doom and gloom through collusion with their willing psycophantic partners in the newsmedia

[Dan_77]

Quote by: commonsense The overriding reason people feel unhappy and on the brink of economic , societal and environmental woe despite gains in all these areas is the "henny penny the sky is falling" mantra of Gore-ites and other International Socialists who can only secure their power through spreading doom and gloom through collusion with their willing psycophantic partners in the newsmedia

Well, fear-mongering is most certainly not a province of the left. Remember Joe Biden's poignant and accurate quip from the campaign in reference to Rudy Guiliani, "Every sentence out of his mouth is a noun, a verb, and 9/11." The GOP, I find, uses fear much more adroitly to get their way. I mean, look at the attention they have drawn to a "war on terror(ism)", when in reality, terrorism simply is not a problem for Americans.

[commonsense]

Hey...
I'm no warmonger and certainly not a Bush supporter, but the entire Homeland Security debacle he created and the entire Iraq War (throw in the 1990 War, too, just for good measure) doesn't come close to the 75% of the federal budget that "left" spending represents.

BTW, to answer your previous question of "what armed agencies am I talking about?" There's a veritable "alphabet soup" of new armed agencies created every year and just as many unarmed agencies. These are only the ones they tell us about:
A-Z Index of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies (A): USA.gov
Sure, war is inhumane especially when contrived, but the tragic social and human cost of all our social engineering is immeasurable.
The key among these is "education".
The topic of this thread is "taxes"
Only through decades of leftist mind manipulation through our public education and academic system and a complicit newsmedia can we have such a thoroughly blinded populace.
Left and Right politics are nothing but a smokescreen anyway for the real masters, the IMF and the Federal Reserve,with a handful of top banks carrying water for them.
The bailout, approved by both supposedly opposing candidates, goes largely unquestioned by anyone, accepting the mantra that "its complicated but necessary" . The "bailing out" has just begun. You think Iraq "mortgages the future of our grandchildren"--you ain't seen nuthin' yet. This is serfdom.

Monkeys - Stressbuster1 | Un-stress Me!

Its especially galling when any politician utters the words "We might want to temporarily suspend tax increases in these economic times" but "we are unable to pay for it" !!!!
The "bailout" is so obviously a contrived theft. THAT will have to "paid for"
If the govt wants to stimulate the economy, they already have a perfectly efficient mechanism in place with zero administrative costs:
simply stop collecting taxes!
How is that less efficient (or less "fair!") than all these convoluted, clandestine, not to mention INSULTING proposals?
I wish I didnt care about these things. My life would be so much more enjoyable.
How about a nice, soothing collective
"Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

[Dan_77]

Quote by: commonsense Hey... I'm no warmonger and certainly not a Bush supporter, but the entire Homeland Security debacle he created and the entire Iraq War (throw in the 1990 War, too, just for good measure) doesn't come close to the 75% of the federal budget that "left" spending represents.

You must agree (since no Republican has ever shrunk the size of government) that both the GOP and Democrats are on the "left", then, since most of that spending you talk about has been consistently supported and expanded by Republican administrations.

If you're there, I'm with you on it.

Left and Right politics are nothing but a smokescreen anyway for the real masters, the IMF and the Federal Reserve,with a handful of top banks carrying water for them.

Well, I was with you, until you started on the monetary conspiracy theories...

[commonsense]

Of course both parties "are on the left" and have been since 1913.
As far as the "monetary conspiracy" theories, you don't have to go too deep beyond simple math.
The fractional reserve (and I dont claim to be expert, but my knowledge is expanding on this) the way U.S. treasury bonds are used to fund the govt [when theres no balanced budget] perpetuates the taxpayer's debt to the Fed.
It most certainly IS a "conspiracy" of simple math when our government [treasury dept] can issue a treasury bill, but not a 100$ bill. The interest on the treasury bill is paid to the FED.
Remember, the cash in your wallet is not U.S. govt currency, its a FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE.
Its not bad enough our taxes support a parasitic, self-perpetuating inefficient (in fact, counterproductive) class of bureaucratic and paramilitary apparatchiks...but must also feed the FED bankers with interest to boot for imperpetuity.
It doesnt qualify as a "conspiracy" because it was done in plain sight, through a series of legislation, but the feudal nature of all govt expenditures owing interest to an independent body of bankers slipped by the public becaue initially, it was only to effect the scarcely populated western territories that benefitted uniting the continent with a uniform currency.
Its like bloodletting the nation, its like double jeopardy, its like blackmail on top of blackmail.... I can't describe it any better.
It is what is and it impoverishes us all whil eenriching the same original crew and their legacies dating back to the late 1800s.
Its simple math.
Why doesn't the U.S. govt print its own money?
Why must we all pay interest on top of all the rest of govt's financial inefficiencies, abuses, mischiefs, and manipulations?

[GHook93]

...for a country that has no UHC (no saying I want this), no college tuition paid for (not saying I want this either) and other programs that other countries we our taxes are very very high in proportion to what we get. First off I don't necessarily want to the government giving us things, because they tend to screw things up when they take over things. So if they are not going to provide them, then DON'T TAX US like they do or like our European Socialist Counterparts!

But we are the kings of Corporate Taxes. Tivodan can make his claim that most corporations pay no corporate taxes, however, that is because most corporations are the smaller S-Corps, LLC or LLPs! The big corporations that employ numerous and high paid positions do indeed pay the corporate tax! The corporate tax is what is driving our corps overseas and across the border!

[GHook93]

Quote by: tivodan1116 You must agree (since no Republican has ever shrunk the size of government) that both the GOP and Democrats are on the "left", then, since most of that spending you talk about has been consistently supported and expanded by Republican administrations.

I will agree with that! GWB increased government more than any President since FDR (and FDR at least had some good reasons for it)! Reagan increased the ever wasteful, unwinable and overtly expensive war on drugs! He increase our national debt to a record (that was until the King of National Debt GWB came along)!

[GHook93]

Quote by: nerdvincent Oh you too?

At least I'm consistent!

[nerdvincent]

Quote by: GHook93 At least I'm consistent!

No doubt about it!

[nerdvincent]

Quote by: GHook93 ...for a country that has no UHC (no saying I want this), no college tuition paid for (not saying I want this either) and other programs that other countries we our taxes are very very high in proportion to what we get. First off I don't necessarily want to the government giving us things, because they tend to screw things up when they take over things. So if they are not going to provide them, then DON'T TAX US like they do or like our European Socialist Counterparts!!

I absolutly agree. For a country without UHC or paid college, the numbers are just wow. America must reform the health care system: by creating UHC, so that at least those amount of money won't seem too silly, or something less expensive (yet less effective...). And we should nationalise Bush's bank account to pay the debt...

Quote by: GHook93 But we are the kings of Corporate Taxes. Tivodan can make his claim that most corporations pay no corporate taxes, however, that is because most corporations are the smaller S-Corps, LLC or LLPs! The big corporations that employ numerous and high paid positions do indeed pay the corporate tax! The corporate tax is what is driving our corps overseas and across the border!

This and the fact that you can underpay 3rd world worker without fearing trouble. But I absolutly agree that those corporate taxes aren't helping at all, especially in a full economical crisis.