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USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

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Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#251

Post by dev_tty01 »

abeyer wrote: post #214
minot wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't believe the tax burden on the lower classes in the US has ever been lessened by increased rates at the top levels. I'll be frank. I have no reason to believe anyone is honest (not even myself). While we like to say that we are not savage animals, we are. CGP Grey made a video https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?t=1072 based on The Dictator's Handbook I read an article on some online magazine which argued that the…

> Just to put things in simple terms, this $200B does not include money Apple made by selling iPhones in the US, right? It only includes money Apple made by selling iPhones in other countries? I don't get why we obsess so much over it. US economy is large enough. If they want to bring this money back to the US or they want to give money to their owners/stock holders, they can pay the tax at that time? I don't have a…

>As an American citizen, I'm still subject to federal income tax, even on income earned while I'm residing outside the country, for work done entirely outside the country, for a non-American employer. That being the case, I see no reason why similar rules shouldn't apply to American corporations. If we say an individual still derives services and value from their citizenship even when outside the country, and thus needs to pay in to support that, why not also American businesses?

Wrong question and answer. Assuming what you say is correct (I'm not a tax expert), the question is why is that the law and how can we fix it? The situation you describe is morally wrong. You are getting no protection, use of infrastructure, or other aspects of the services that our taxes provide. Therefore, you should not have to pay tax. Rather than propagate an unfair situation to other entities, the situation should be fixed. A paraphrase of your comment is: I'm getting treated unfairly, so others should also be treated unfairly.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#252

Post by rqebmm »

schoen wrote: post #201
tunesmith wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a case of seeing what you want to see. According to the Trustees Report, SS is only in deficit if you don't factor in interest income. [1] It's projected to deplete its trust fund in 2034. Please resist the urge to argue that the trust fund doesn't exist. That 2034 date can easily be extended through minor tweaks, check out any of the ideas from the late Robert M. Ball. The flat tax is regressive. Reg…

> The flat tax is regressive. Strictly speaking, a flat tax is the border between progressive and regressive taxation and is neither progressive nor regressive.

While you ARE technically correct, the alternative in the wild is progressive taxation. That makes flat taxation a de facto regressive tax, as it will be more regressive than the current taxation regime.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#253

Post by ZoeZoeBee »

dragonwriter wrote: post #234
ZoeZoeBee wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time for fixing Social Security with "minor tweaks" has passed, the problem moving forward is Demographics >Social Security's total income is projected to exceed its total cost through 2019, as it has since 1982. The 2015 surplus of total income relative to cost was $23 billion. However, when interest income is excluded, Social Security's cost is projected to exceed its non-interest income throughout the projecti…

> The time for fixing Social Security with "minor tweaks" has passed, the problem moving forward is Demographics Eh, if it makes it past the Boomers (which it does in the low-cost estimate in recent trustees reports, but not in the intermediate- or high-cost estimates; so risky-but-plausible with no intervention, certainly achievable with minor tweaks) it's fine, demographically, for the foreseeable future; Gen X is…

I'm sorry, but quite frankly the low-cost estimate is about as Rosy a prediction as one can hope for, and is decoupled from current and past demographic and economic trends.

1) To get to that number the Trustees assume fertility rates will rise to over 2.2, a rate not seen since 1970 which completely goes against the trend of the last 50 years.

2) They continue to assume 1 million migrants a year to the US, despite active legislation seeking to limit migration to half a million a year.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TR/2016/2016_Long-Range_Demographic...

All of this is dependent upon a Labor Force Participation Rate not encumbered by automation and a general lack of skills by the populace. Which may not be a problem but the BLS has been underestimating the decline in LFPR in their projections for the last 20 years. We're decades a head of where we should be based on Demographics alone, according to all of their predictions.

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/o...

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#254

Post by dlp211 »

Cshelton wrote: post #205
bobwaycott wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic point in simplest form is that the less money a person earns, the greater the impact of paying 20% of their income in taxes is in terms of real dollars left to live on. A family earning $50K will have $40K left after federal taxes to live on. A family earning $250K will have $200K left to live on. One of these families is hurt more than the other by a flat tax. This is what is meant when a flat tax is criti…

Thanks for the explanation of what he meant. I was thinking more macro, but by regressive, people seem to mean the micro aspect of it. I don't believe it would take a very complicated tax code, if we started over, to make sure the lower brackets are not regressive. Even just using standard deductions, child tax credits (cost of living higher), etc. A single "family" of one making 50k though should most likely be payi…

If you are just going to carve out a bunch of exemptions, which is what actually makes that tax code difficult in the first place, to end up with the same outcomes that we have now, why change anything? It would actually be even more difficult to get the exemptions right since there would have to be more, they would have to be higher, and their phase outs would be more complicated.

Also, a single "family" of one, pays more in taxes today then say a family of four with 2 kids earning the same household income. Apologies ahead of time if I misconstrued your argument.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#255

Post by tgb29 »

Cshelton wrote: post #106

I'm seeing many things (if this data is accurate, which assuming it is as it's from all government sources) and trends that go against a large percentage of what the media on both sides are perpetuating. That is my first takeaway at a glance. My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It's been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclus…

Tax all churches on donations and property assets and use these revenues to fund Social Security. The Constitution grants the Pope and his equivalents the freedom of religion; not the freedom to avoid taxes owed to the Federal Government.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#256

Post by Shivetya »

shmageggy wrote: post #127
Cshelton wrote: post #106

I'm seeing many things (if this data is accurate, which assuming it is as it's from all government sources) and trends that go against a large percentage of what the media on both sides are perpetuating. That is my first takeaway at a glance. My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It's been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclus…

> Lastly, it seems that Government revenue for Federal and State/Local has actually increased pretty linearly with the population. Despite all the different changes in the income tax rate/other progressive taxes. This supports an overhaul to the tax code to a more simple, flat tax system. From another data source outside this report, I'd have to find it, but historically, no matter the top bracket tax rate, the Feder…

Progressive taxes only work because the poor get steamrolled by embedded taxes, local fees, and other taxes. Hence the politicians can tell them they have low taxes while eating them from the other end.

The primary reason to simplify the tax system is to remove as much influence special interest groups have in regards to carving out special exemptions. Making the system a simply sign and forget return type. A complex burdensome system only provides power to the political class.

The real reason to cap tax rates is because it has been proven time and time again, the more they have to spend they will and thereby pay a much higher over all tax rate.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#257

Post by martin_bech »

abeyer wrote: post #214
minot wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't believe the tax burden on the lower classes in the US has ever been lessened by increased rates at the top levels. I'll be frank. I have no reason to believe anyone is honest (not even myself). While we like to say that we are not savage animals, we are. CGP Grey made a video https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs?t=1072 based on The Dictator's Handbook I read an article on some online magazine which argued that the…

> Just to put things in simple terms, this $200B does not include money Apple made by selling iPhones in the US, right? It only includes money Apple made by selling iPhones in other countries? I don't get why we obsess so much over it. US economy is large enough. If they want to bring this money back to the US or they want to give money to their owners/stock holders, they can pay the tax at that time? I don't have a…

You guys should get out moore, no other country does this. If i work a year in say Australia I pay Australian taxes that year, and nothing in my home country (Denmark). Thats how the rest of the world works.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#259

Post by thescriptkiddie »

tptacek wrote: post #220
_pastel wrote: post #208

Can anyone give me some intuition into why 77k people are employed by the Social Security Administration? [1] That's bigger than Google, and I didn't think their scope was that wide. [1] http://usafacts.org/government-finances/employment?compariso... under "Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and Our Posterity". The combined count is "n/a" - maybe that's because the State & Local count has some overlap with…

"Bigger than Google" isn't an interesting metric. A better comparison would be to other insurance companies: Progressive Insurance has ~30k, Allstate ~43k, and State Farm ~70k. Roughly half of Social Security's workforce consists of insurance administrators, who respond to and adjudicate claims and set individual citizens up with their benefits. Unlike State Farm, basically every American interfaces in some way with…

It seems to me that we could eliminate a lot of that overhead if we stopped pretending that Social Security is insurance and just gave every retiree the same benefit. You would still need to keep track of who has reached retirement age, who has died, and where to send the checks, but you could get rid of a lot of arcane rules.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#260

Post by abeyer »

dev_tty01 wrote: post #251
abeyer wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just to put things in simple terms, this $200B does not include money Apple made by selling iPhones in the US, right? It only includes money Apple made by selling iPhones in other countries? I don't get why we obsess so much over it. US economy is large enough. If they want to bring this money back to the US or they want to give money to their owners/stock holders, they can pay the tax at that time? I don't have a…

>As an American citizen, I'm still subject to federal income tax, even on income earned while I'm residing outside the country, for work done entirely outside the country, for a non-American employer. That being the case, I see no reason why similar rules shouldn't apply to American corporations. If we say an individual still derives services and value from their citizenship even when outside the country, and thus ne…

I'm not necessarily convinced that it's unfair. There are still benefits you derive like consular support abroad, and rights you retain regardless of where you're located, and guaranteeing those does have costs.

Perhaps it would be more fair if there was some intermediate tax rate that accounted for services that you aren't able to take advantage of...but at the same time, I think additional rules and exceptions are the last thing the tax code needs.

But you're right that I'm not necessarily so much insistent that business should be subject to that kind of taxation as that I think it should be consistent.

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