Half of Americans dont pay taxes?

[Guest]

Bfish - 4/21/2010 3:43 PM

cheez, good for her, but is that the typical path or an exception? I tend to think it is an exception.

I guarantee Brenda is an exception. Most people would go to work at Wally for the $7.25 an hour and gripe and complain and come in late and lay out of work for stupid reasons then never advance. Mainly because they know they don't have to actually work. They know there are programs in place to give them an existance without earning it.
I travel all over this country on my job and it is the same story from Maine to Florida to Texas to Wisconsin. People will not work. They know they don't have to and it is getting worse. One of my customers actually starts people out at $10 per hour with opportunity to advance to upwards of $20. He still cannot get people to work so he now has a full crew of Hispanics. Even with the Hispanics he has a high turnover rate after a few months. They become "Americanized" and won't work either.
The problems in our country will never be solved until people quit getting a living handed to them. Our problems as I have stated before will never go away until we start living within our means and stop trying to keep up with the Jones. The only way the government is going to help the situation is to cut people off. Tough love if you will.

 

[rstewart]

Bfish,

I think you are missing my point. Why can the adults not make more than minimum wage? That's the question. Could it be because they lack the necessary job skills to do something else? If so, who is to blame for that condition? The cold hard fact is there is NOBODY to blame other than one's self. If someone choses to have various assortments of metal sticking out of his/her face and tats all over the place Do they expect prospective employers to just "deal with it"? Sorry but it don't work like that.

As I said, unless there is a mental or physical defect the ONLY reason an adult is making minimum wage is because they chose to. Not necessarily consciencely mind you. I don't think many folks say " I only want to make minimum wage". But decisions in the past still have consequences. Neal Boortz said this and I believe it with all my being. If you don't want to be poor there are only 3 rules you need to follow. Stay in school; do not get pregnant or get someone else pregnant before you have a career; and don't EVER quit a job until you have one as good or better waiting on you. Not very difficult rules to follow.

 

[shsimons]

Spur,

Is it living beyond my means this year when I have to buy shiners for bait? haha!

 

[SpurHunter]

Well, that depends Sam. Are your kids going without food and medical care? Do you pay all your bills without the help of GVT aid? If you answered correctly, please proceed to Jacks bait and Tackle, and stimulate his economic situation.

 

[Bfish]

rstewart,

Point taken. However, with 1/4 hourly wage workers making minimum I seriously doubt that they all choose too, or have other conditions.

 

[SpurHunter]

If we went to a flat tax, or fair tax system, I would be all for making essentials like food and clothing tax free. (within common sense mind you. $200 a pair designer jeans should not count) If EVERYBODY started paying a share, all of our tax burdens would go down, hence giving us all more disposable income and INCREASING the economic position of the US.
The more money citizens have to spend, the more they will.

 

[Bfish]

SpurHunter - 4/21/2010 4:57 PM

... If EVERYBODY started paying a share, all of our tax burdens would go down, hence giving us all more disposable income and INCREASING the economic position of the US.

Nope, only the tax burden on the upper 3/5 would go down. The tax burden on the lower 2/5 would increase. Rich get richer, while the poor get poorer.

The more money citizens have to spend, the more they will.

Not entirely true, as the more wealthy brackets tend to take any the surplus and put it in investments that don't get taxed or spent. Being that it is the upper brackets that have the majority of the wealth, it makes the impact of trickle down less than what is commonly stated. What you said tends to be true for the middle. While for the lower class, most gets spent, some of which goes to pay down debt (which IMO goes back to the upper brackets trust fund).

 

[WLG]

How did the rich man get so rich??

 

[Guest]

WLG - 4/21/2010 7:02 PM

How did the rich man get so rich??

Some inherited the money but I would wager that most of the rich got that way by hard work and sacrifice. I have a good friend that is a multi millionaire. Although making money comes easy to him it was not always that way. When he started out he worked and slept out of his pickup truck. Worked 7 days a week and as many as 20 hours per day. He always did and does what he says he will and it has payed off. Never took a handout from anyone.

 

[Bfish]

If you talking about the growth shown in my quintiles, then a large percentage of it is from interest. I am sure some of it is hard work, like Cheez mentioned.

 

[bbdown]

Bfish - 4/21/2010 2:17 PM Good for him. I am sure you instilled a good work ethic in him, and provide him lots of support along the way. With his raise (and if he were working 40 hrs a week) do you honestly think he could pay rent, buy his food, make his car payment (got to have transportation to work), pay the utilities, have car insurance, and health insurance. I am assuming no renters insurance and no money spent for work clothes. At $9/hr=$18720 annual ($3640 more than min wage of $7.25). Now assume that no FICA or Social Security or any other deductions, at the proposed 11% "fair" tax, his take home would be 16,660.80. Let's assume $500 rent +$50 utilities (no deposit), leaving $10,060.80 How much food does a young person eat, let's say $80/wk. Leaving 5900.80 Car payment, $100/mo w/ insurance at $50/mo. Leaving 4,100.80 (actually would be higher if you include gas money needed). Health insurance say $60/mo (which is really cheap), Leaving 3380.8/yr or 281.73/mo disposable income. At $281/mo pretty much does not allow very much for cable, computer, and/or phone (house not cell). As you still have to pay for cloths and laundry, car maintenance, and fishing gear. Looks like he might make out okay, just barely treading above (that is assuming my conservative cost estimates are not unrealistically low). That is until his car breaks down or insurance rates go up, or inflation goes up, or his employer cuts him back to 32 hr/wk or he burns his hand in the frier and can't work for 3 weeks (I don't think workman comp will pay full wages, not sure though), or he has a kid (and possible a non-working spouse). The last one is a real dozie, as that also makes your health insurance go up and adds more to the grocery bill. It does not take much of a life event to end up as a debtor.

</p>

You math is spot on. But who says he can only have one job. If this job is not providing enough you simply get a second or third job. I worked three jobs from the time I finished high school until I was 24 years old. A little hard work never hurt anybody. I learned early on that if I wanted something I had to (and should) WORK for it. There's 168 hours in a week. If you sleep for 8 hours/day that leaves 112 hours/week to work. I have and continue to pay my fair share of taxes and sadly it looks like we'll all be paying more in the near future. Well at least those of us that WORK for what we want.</p>

 

[Davo]

I posted this a couple of years ago, but it still makes sense today. And yes, it is a cut and paste.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until on day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily bee r by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share'?
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same percent, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The n inth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got TEN times more than I!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. B ut when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier

 

[beetlespin]

Spot on.

 

[Bfish]

bbdown - 4/21/2010 8:40 PM
</p>

You math is spot on.  But who says he can only have one job. ....  If you sleep for 8 hours/day that leaves 112 hours/week to work. 

Surely your not advocating 112 hr/wk. My math showed that 60 hours/wk would just barely make it. I too have worked three jobs at once (about 75 hr/wk) however I could not sustain that pace for more than a couple of months and all three were cushy jobs.

I looked up the Bureau of Labor Statistics- avg male worked 8.8 hours (but only on days worked). With a five day work week, it works out to 44 hour/week.

 

[Bfish]

Davo,

Take your example and make it equal rate for everyone ($5 x2 drinks)

1st through 6th would not have enough to pay, so they don't show up.
7th could only afford one beer
8th-10th would not be affected.

So the bar goes from $100 of sales, to $30 of sales. It looks to me like they will be forced to close its doors soon.

 

[bbdown]

Bfish - 4/22/2010 9:42 AM

bbdown - 4/21/2010 8:40 PM

</p>

You math is spot on. But who says he can only have one job..... If you sleep for 8 hours/day that leaves 112 hours/week to work.

Surely your not advocating 112 hr/wk. My math showed that 60 hours/wk would just barely make it. I too have worked three jobs at once (about 75 hr/wk) however I could not sustain that pace for more than a couple of months and all three were cushy jobs. I looked up the Bureau of Labor Statistics- avg male worked 8.8 hours (but only on days worked). With a five day work week, it works out to 44 hour/week.

</p>

I'm advocating you do what you have to do to make it. You could not sustain or would not sustain that pace. Fourty four hours/week is great if that's what it takes but if you can't make ends meet do you sit at home with your hand out,not pay taxes, or get your butt to work??</p>

 

[Davo]

Bfish - 4/22/2010 9:47 AM

Davo,

Take your example and make it equal rate for everyone ($5 x2 drinks)

1st through 6th would not have enough to pay, so they don't show up.
7th could only afford one beer
8th-10th would not be affected.

So the bar goes from $100 of sales, to $30 of sales. It looks to me like they will be forced to close its doors soon.

Except that the tax is a percentage, not an exact dollar amount.

 

[Bfish]

How is 1/10 (ie 10%) of the total bill not a tax? Fair share, each pays 1/10. I am not following your reasoning?

 

[Eyeman2]

If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em. Minimun wage is a suggestive number you should pay a person to work, and if you don't pay them the min. then the Fed will put you in jail, unless you hire illegals, then it's OK.
Entitlements are a freebie that the Fed gives people who can't afford to take care of what they procreated, even themselves. These programs started under FDR in 1937. That is why FDR was so popular, "Here is my principle:Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay." quote by FDR..see what has happened to the tax system now.
VAT is being recommended @ 20%..That may sound good, but what about the federal tax we now pay, will the IRS still collect their fair share?? + the 20% VAT tax, value added tax= tax on all products sold. 20% + your federal , state, city ,county.
The Dems are saying, "it works in Europe", who are they kidding??? it's a complete fraud, out of contol bunch 'o bull. Europe is failing.
FDR told everyone to turn in ther gold, April 5, 1933..Now the Fed Reserve can controll the USA and print all the $$ for FREE ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS they want to ,so they can get votes from the dead beats who want a Nanny State. Nanny also stands for a goat, like a bunch of sheep.
How you Dems like that "Hope, Change & Blame" thing now.??