So basically they're forcing the top 20% of earners to use the standard deduction, except for the top 1% and corporations who will still use itemized deductions and pay even less.
So... I'm sure this is dumb but I can't see why. If we just made everyone use the standard deduction on income tax, would that destroy society? Because it seems like that would fix a good chunk of our tax code. I get it would hurt people with a lot of business expenses, but why should some rich asshole not pay taxes on his first class plane ticket he can afford if I'm paying taxes on my train ticket that actually hurts me a lot?
I guess it would hurt small businesses in particular, but I don't know that small businesses should even be paying income tax. Or businesses in general. If we tax money businesses hold year to year (as investments or cash, or unused assets like gold), tax money that leaves the country*, and tax money that gets paid out to domestic employees via those employees own income tax... all the money is being taxed. There's no reason to have income tax on corporations. And it would solve the small business issue. If you don't pay yourself with company money** for the first year or two, and you put the money you make back into the business, you just don't pay taxes on your business.
Like seriously what are itemized deductions adding? From what I understand a little under half of corporations just don't pay income tax, because they can pay money out to charities and get 2-4x the money spent as deductions. Then they can double dip if the charity is owned by one of their CEO's private sector buddies because the CEO has effectively paid himself that money tax free and then used it as a bribe. Most people in the country are using the standardized deduction meaning their work expenses are still taxed, while meanwhile everyone seems to agree that we'd prefer that rich people pay their actual tax bracket without deductions. And its not like personal working expenses mean shit to the Bill Gates of the world, as any major expense is just going to come out of the company. Under my proposed system that money wouldn't bet taxed in the first place, instead if its say an airline ticket or fine dining at a meeting then the money would only be taxed once the airline/restaurant spent it on something other than business expenses.
*mostly blindly. Something like there's two rates; if you're paying money out to foreign corporation or freelancer, 5%, if you're moving it to a bank account or corporation you control, 33% or something disheartening like that. There would be no tariffs, no brackets, just two questions: is the money leaving the country? And will the person moving the money keep control of it? Very simple flow chart. And if you get the 5% rate you have to give the government an itemized list of everything you spent the money on, which congress could subpeona and individuals could make a freedom of information request about it after 5 years (to prevent industrial espionage). Because I'm sure rich people would think of some scam to get the 5% rate and at least that way journalists and auditors could try and sniff out those games
**as in you're either a person with existing income e.g. from real estate, or you hold on to some of your startup funds for living expenses. Or if we're talking really small, your parents/SO cover your expenses
Author
Topic: AmeriPol thread (Read 4462821 times)