Income Tax?

[Apoc]

Just want to gauge this...call it curiosity, it's for this thing i'm writing. Not looking for discussion but you're more than free to share your views and weigh in should you feel inclined

[Buck]

Nothing is certain but death and taxes

[Anita Blake]

I can't avoid paying income tax. Employers deduct it from your paycheck and send it to the government on your behalf in these parts. Unless you work under the table for cash, it's pretty much unavoidable.


Regardless, I approve of income tax. Roads and schools and healthcare and police don't just fall off of trees.

[Kalle al'Tear]

oh.. I voted no because i don't pay out at the end of the year.. I instead get a nice fat check from the Government. but yeah your right Anita it does come out of my check I just get some of it back.. so umm I guess change my vote or just know its really a yes..

[Corvus Corax]

I can't avoid paying income tax. Employers deduct it from your paycheck and send it to the government on your behalf in these parts. Unless you work under the table for cash, it's pretty much unavoidable.


Regardless, I approve of income tax. Roads and schools and healthcare and police don't just fall off of trees.

It's the same way over here, kind of.

The employer pays 135% of your salary. The 35% is payed as tax for the employer. Then of the 100% you get as a salary between 25 to 50% is automatically sent to the government as your income tax (depends on how much you make, causing some pay raises to actually amount to less money each month..). And that's when you still have to pay income tax to the local government (in the city I live in at the moment it's 8.5%), although that's not on a monthly basis.

Apart from all that, every month a certain amount is automatically sent to social security ($ 643 /month in my case)

My view on it:
It is quite a strain, but it's managable. The only big downside is that it makes us less appealing to foreign companies.... If only all the countries in the world would tax the same amount.

There is a party that wants to radically change the way the government gets money through taxes. Not by taxing the income, but by taxing the spending of money through a higher V.A.T. . Of course, seeing as Belgium is so small they had to make all the roads bendy in order to prevent people in the middle of the country to end up in a foreign country when they try to park their car, this would also mean more shopping would be done abroad.

Not a single system of government is ideal or flawless, but I've never had reasons to complain. So, I vote yes.

[Vivacia]

I voted yes, but really I get all my taxes paid throughout the year back as a refund, with a bunch extra. I'm poor, so I qualify for Earned Income Credit and i get an extra Child Credit. That refund I get in February is the only thing that saves me from total destitution. I use it for car maintenance and other expensive necessities.

[Dregs]

We have Pay As You Earn here as well, so I don't generally have to worry about tax until I get my refund, which has typically been pretty good for me.

What I'd really like to see is a flat rate of tax say 20% like in singapore. Not for any ideological or economic reasons, it would make working out your tax liability easier than the differential tax system we have at the moment.

[Amelia]

Taxes come out of my paycheck and I do get a refund check in the mail but I dont get all of it back. I dont mind paying taxes, its just as Anita said, policemen, firemen and roads dont fall from trees....and in the case of firemen, thats kinda sad.

[Anita Blake]

T I dont mind paying taxes, its just as Anita said, policemen, firemen and roads dont fall from trees....and in the case of firemen, thats kinda sad.

HAHA! that made me laugh.

[Eyreplenh]

We have Pay As You Earn here as well, so I don't generally have to worry about tax until I get my refund, which has typically been pretty good for me.

What I'd really like to see is a flat rate of tax say 20% like in singapore. Not for any ideological or economic reasons, it would make working out your tax liability easier than the differential tax system we have at the moment.

Yeah, that would be kind of cool. We have a quite heavy taxation over here, and one of the sadder effects is that our extremely rich money-jugglers all are listed with incomes of 0 and fortune 0 whilst it's really lying in som Cayman bankvault where the taxes are 0... But hey, far from me be it to take away the livelihood of the Caymans, heh.

Anyway, for reasons alike to Anita I'm quite happy about paying my taxes. A little socialism never hurt anyone As for the level over here, it's usually between 27 and 40% of your income, but you can choose pretty much yourself. Me, I have a pretty good economy, so I usually pay a bit more than I'm supposed to, then you get it back the next summer. A pretty neat way to compulsory save some money.

[Arianna]

my income tax, as well, is taken monthly from my paycheck... and then, (ostensibly), returned partially to me at tax season. i choose to keep more of my money in pocket over the course of the year (and not get a large check at the end) so that my money earns interest for me in my bank account over the course of the year, rather than being held by the government. in order to do that, though, you have to be good with balancing your finances.

[Eyreplenh]

Hah, sounds way too complicated for me. Luckily, I live in a country with lots and lots of fools, and our government knows it, so you get market value interest on the money you've paid in overtax automatically. We're a small nation, kind of like a little child. A slightly retarded one.

[sir archely]

I'm kind of hijacking this thread at the moment. Kinda sorta anyway. This is from the election 08 thread. In context, Jabb is referring to Obama. I wanted to respond and hopefully generate some discussion about it without changing the entire subject of that thread.

For instance, the promise to raise taxes on the "rich" in order to "spread the wealth"... Some call it socialism or communism or promoting a welfare state; I don't know if its to that extreme, but I do know this: The idea that giving people money they have not earned is the best way to motivate them to earn money for themselves is delusional.

So, there's a lot going on in that statement. For starters though, as I understand it, much of this "redistribution" talk is brought on by statements of simply allowing the tax cuts given to the top income brackets and on capital gains by Bush to lapse, instead of making them permanent. We as a country already have a 'redistribution of wealth'... it's called the graduated or progressive income tax. Not only that but higher taxes on capital goods as opposed to consumable goods.

The tax levels that Obama is proposing we return to are more like tax levels of the 90s, which are lower than they were before the massive anti-progressive tax cuts of the Reagan years. Those tax cuts were proportionately beneficial to the upper brackets as well, based on the "trickle-down" economic policy ideas. Ideas which i think we can fairly consider debunked at this point. (As a slight aside, the fact that lowering taxes on large corporations or wealthy is given as beneficial because then they have less incentive to illegally avoid the taxes should be indicative of why this addresses problems only indirectly.)

[Anita Blake]

well, for my foreign, socialist 2 cents worth , I'm not sure I agree with the jabb's statement. Certainly whenever there is an opportunity to get something for nothing, there are people who will abuse that and take unfair advantage of it. At the same time, in times of economic crisis particularly, there are people who just need a little help. I know that when I was between jobs, the amount of money I got from unemployment insurance was total garbage, it helped me cover my rent and food and that was about it. It was certainly a motivation to get back to work to earn a real paycheck!

There are also psychological factors at play as well - giving people something they don't "deserve" can make them feel kind of guilty, and force them into the action of actually deserving it. Of course, not everyone will react that way, and then you get the abuse of the system, which proves that there's no one solution to everything.

Of course, I kind of like the idea of a flat tax - everybody pays 10% (or whatever percent you like) on all income and/or all purchases. I guess this is bad for low-earners, but I just kind of like the way it sounds.

[wiggin]

I don't have issues with a progressive tax per se, assuming the the significantly higher tax brackets are for taxing, effectively, the luxuries of the more wealthy and not their livelihoods. I do have a few qualms about Obama's tax plan, though:

1) I think he should leave the capital gains tax where it is. In order to save for retirement, people need to invest a *lot* of cash, and the available tax shelters aren't adequate for that task.

2) I think he shouldn't increase the tax so much for the 200k and up bracket. As I've argued elsewhere 200k doesn't go as far as it used to. He should break the bracket in two - something like a moderately increased tax for 200-500k, and then a more dramatic increase for over 500k. Tax brackets should also be indexed to inflation.

3) I'm suspicious of a windfall profits tax, though I def. have issues with the oil companies' relatively light tax burden. Perhaps a more carefully structured corporate tax regime would be more effective without opening the door to any 'windfall profits' tax.

Ender