Fair Share

[Pat Hartman]

The Dems are at it again. Bernie is pushing for a 32 hour work week because the wealthy don't pay their "fair" share. This opinion is reached because Jeff Bezos pays a lower percentage than the average taxpayer. I can't argue with the concept but I wonder if he knows who writes the tax laws? Who gives the wealthy the loopholes they use to reduce their taxes? Does he think that Bezos does? Does Bernie ever read the bills he votes on? Does any member of Congress actually read the bills he votes on?

How can a politician rail about the wealthy not paying their fare share when it is the politicians who write the tax laws that give favors to the wealthy? I guess they think we're pretty stupid. I can't argue with that either because I hear ordinary citizens saying the same thing. So, I guess they also don't know who writes the tax laws.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Does any member of Congress actually read the bills he votes on?

For Obamacare, they almost certainly didn't. As I recall, it was approximately 1200 pages and they had only a couple of days to read it before they voted.

 

[Pat Hartman]

I wonder if any of them thinks this is a poor way to govern. I sure do. I wonder if any of them thinks that perhaps the length and scope of a bill should be limited so they will always know what they are voting for or against. How can we convince them of the error of their current methods? It feels like they're so old that they can't even think about trying to improve the process so that it benefits "the people" rather than retaining their power to swap favors with each other in the good ol' boys club.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

How can we convince them of the error of their current methods?

Louisiana passed a law that says a legislative proposal must be single-purpose, so that limits at least some reasons why bills become unreadable.

 

[Jon]

Forget the percentage Bezos pays. What about the absolute value? The average American pays about $18,000 in tax per year. Jeff Bezos probably pays hundreds of millions, or say 10,000 times the average person. Yet they get vilified. And don't forget all the tax their companies pay too. It must be hard being a billionaire.

 

[ebs17]

Who gives the wealthy the loopholes they use to reduce their taxes?

Are you talking specifically about loopholes that the Biden administration created?

Stupid Biden had many smart predecessors. What outstanding contributions have they made to the topic?

 

[Pat Hartman]

Are you talking specifically about loopholes that the Biden administration created?

No. Both the Democrats and Republicans are equal-opportunity loophole creators. This is a "Congress" problem and cannot be blamed on either party. For reasons that escape me, no bills ever clean up old tax laws so they accumulate and add to the confusion. Most Americans can't even do their own taxes any more. They are just too complicated. There is an entire industry that thrives on the complexity of our tax code. I'm guessing that at least 500,000 people would lose their jobs and businesses if the "flat tax" people ever succeeded in getting that provision passed. My 8th grade math teacher taught us how to prepare tax returns so for the next 10 years or so, I was the tax preparer for many in my family. Even back then, the code was complicated but not so complicated that an 8th grader couldn't follow the directions. Today, I wouldn't want to do my taxes by hand. I buy one of the software packages which do a pretty good job of dumbing them down to a Q & A process.

Republicans are somewhat more likely to propose tax cuts. The Democrats always rail about tax cuts favoring the "rich". The part they skip over is that cuts are percentage based so if you pay more in dollars, you save more in dollars. Not to mention that 47% of the people obligated to file tax returns do not actually pay ANY taxes at all so I'm not sure how you can enjoy a tax cut when your tax burden was $0 to begin with. The tax cuts passed by the Trump administration expire this year so people earning under $200,000 (the biggest beneficiaries of the cuts) will have to pay a lot more in taxes. But at least one of the loopholes that was cut out as a way to offset some of the tax reduction, will remain gone. The rich in Democrat states always made good use of this one. It let you deduct your city and state taxes from your income thereby reducing your Federal tax amount. Of course Republican states didn't much benefit from this loophole because their state and city taxes are much lower than those in the Democrat states. So, the Democrats really were pissed at Trump for getting Congress to eliminate this particular loophole.

There is a chart I posted last year that shows what part of the population pays what in taxes. I don't remember the numbers but they were something like the top 5% of taxpayers pay half of all the taxes collected. So, yes, the rich have way too many loopholes but they do pay more than their "fair" share already.