Why not tax all wealth, instead of wealth production? It seems a very simple task to require each citizen to report an annual Net Worth statement to the IRS, detailing assets & liabilities (real-estate, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, collectibles, savings, etc. . . . including offshore bank accounts) and a simple flat tax be paid monthly to the IRS, eliminating the withholding of income, social security, and medicare payroll taxes.

This Net Worth Tax, would answer both political sides by truly “taxing the rich,” and unfettering societies’ wealth producers, creating growth like never seen before. Nay sayers will say it would be impossible to enforce accurate reporting. However, I don’t see where enforcement would be more difficult than current complicated system of reporting income and deductions. Failure to report accurately would result with similar punishments

I think that you are correct (and were three months ago) in wondering if tax increase of any sort would benefit America, due to the fact spending is still not curtailed.

I’d like to throw in something that I just read today from “Issue Number: IRS-2011-94 NEWSWIRE”:

(quote)”“My goal all along was to get people back into the U.S. tax system,” Shulman said. “Not only are we bringing people back into the U.S. tax system, we are bringing revenue into the U.S. Treasury and turning the tide against offshore tax evasion.”

In new figures announced today from the 2009 offshore program, the IRS has $2.2 billion in hand from taxes,
interest and penalties representing about 80 percent of the 2009 cases that have closed. These cases come from every corner of the world, with bank accounts covering 140 countries.

The IRS is starting to work through the 2011 applications. The $500 million in payments so far from the 2011 program brings the total collected through the offshore programs to $2.7 billion.”(unquote)

Where is all that money right now? Shulman wrote that
it was in the U.S. Treasury. (I can’t believe that, though.)

Well, I just also read that Sec. Sebelius wrote a check last week for one million dollars on her own accord for a private group in New Hampshire because that state wasn’t going to fund that private group anymore. This check represented one million dollars in NEW spending! AND this new spending wasn’t directly authorized by Congress.

Maybe instead of jumping to mess with the huge tax code, maybe America should clean up the leaky purse first. America has to know what is being debited and what is being credited….and then try to make them balance.
How hard is that? Really hard when you don’t know where you are to start with!

You really should have stayed at Reuters, one of the only real news agencies left. It gave you credibility you will never have at AEI.

The huge, huge tax give away that Bush2 tax cuts started was not so much in earned income (W-2 income) but in dividends, capital gains, derivative income, partnerships, etc. (1099, 1098, K-1 income) where rates can be as low as 10%. While middle class America has seen payroll taxes triple in 25 years, the 0.5% of top earners that own 75% of equities in this country saw their dividend tax rate drop from 70% (pre 1983) to 15% (current Bush2 tax rate).

If lowering taxes on dividends and capital gains had any correlation to economic growth, the current great recession certainly has refuted that premise. THis was the whole argument from the conservative think tanks throughout the 80s and 90s – and we still hear it from the Republican party – lower taxes on the rich will trickle down to the masses. The stark reality of the 21st century has proven how wrong they are.

Furthermore, the low short term capital gains tax rates and low rates on derivatives has fed speculation which is destroying the financial markets worldwide.

In short, Obama’s plan is not only sound for the fiscal situation, but sound economic planning.

35% – 39.6%

Not enough to change a millionaires lifestyle.
That would go toward helping to create more jobs,
and bring down the debt. More people working is better
for employees, the businesses they spend money with and investors.

The second is #4, which uses two unrelated data points to distort info. When this stat was created 20% of income meant earned income, not all sources of revenue. And the 40% of taxes is only income taxes, not all taxes. For some reason the right thinks the only tax is federal income taxes, but it ain’t. When you factor in payroll, sales, property, state, gas, and other taxes the top 20% pay far less than 20% of all taxes.