America - The Official Thread
- Thread starter ///M-Spec
- 38,707 comments
- 1,594,576 views
Danoff
Premium
- 33,611
- Mile High City
I wonder if this was directed at another "1%er". Or if he just effectively told someone "poor" to volunteer extra tax before he'd be willing to. How does he know what the income level of the person that he's talking to is? It's not remotely fair for him to say "you volunteer too", perhaps the person he's talking to deserves handouts under his plan. That person should be saying "Bernie, you volunteer your money... to me!"
In fact, most of his fans, probably about 99%*, could demand that.
* ok maybe more like 70% because taxes are gradual but you get my point
- 86,089
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
And he won't pay it until it does, despite the fact that it's entirely possible for him to do so. To summarise:
He believes that 52% is the "fair share"* that these 1%ers owe.
He wants to create a law to force the 1%ers to pay their "fair share".
He is a 1%er, and thus owes a 52% "fair share".
He can choose to pay the 52% "fair share" that he believes in at any time.
He will not pay the 52% "fair share" that he believes in, until the law forces him to.
Therefore he believes he is not currently paying his own "fair share", but refuses to do so.
Hypocrisy is defined by the appearance of virtue despite actions to the contrary. Such as appearing to believe in 52% "fair share" contribution for the 1%, but not acting to pay the 52% "fair share" while being one of the 1%.
Whether you agree with his proposal or not, it's pretty clear he's not volunteering to do what he wants other people to be forced to do.
*Why 52%? Is there something innately fair about the number of cards in a deck (excluding jokers and rules of Bridge) or complete weeks in a year? Why are 53% and 51% unfair shares?
Last edited:
- 29,452
- a baby, candy, it's like taking.
- TexRex72
- 1,971
- Seattle, WA
This is absolutely spot on. I sincerely hope Americans see him for the fraud he is. Which is sad for me to say (to be perfectly candid and honest) as I used to have respect for Bernie, right up until he sold out and took the money. The pundits and the media can huff and puff about Sanders all they like, at the end of the day Biden is going to wipe the floor with this guy in the primaries.
- 11,646
- Marin County
I'm certainly not Bernie's biggest fan, but I don't really see him not donating the difference between his current tax rate and his proposed tax rate as contradictory to his policy. It's tax policy, not donation policy. And I, personally, don't have any reason to believe he would try to avoid paying his proposed 52% top marginal tax. So really....
Danoff
Premium
- 33,611
- Mile High City
I'm certainly not Bernie's biggest fan, but I don't really see him not donating the difference between his current tax rate and his proposed tax rate as contradictory to his policy. It's tax policy, not donation policy. And I, personally, don't have any reason to believe he would try to avoid paying his proposed 52% top marginal tax. So really....
He believes that people in his position should pay more than he's paying. He's not doing anything to rectify that. Hypocrisy. How is this hard to see?
Danoff
Premium
- 33,611
- Mile High City
How does him running for office cause him to pay more in 2018 than he paid? Or 2019? I don't see it.
If you think perhaps he's putting that money to better use than it would be in the hands of the IRS right now, well... then you have the argument against higher taxes for the wealthy.
- 29,337
- Bratvegas
- GTP_Liquid
He might feel that donating the difference to the current government or current system of government to be a waste in itself; they'd only use the extra tax dollars to buy more missiles or buy more aircraft carrier wax rather than on any beneficial social or cultural programme.
If the incumbent government actually didn't seem like a budgetary black hole or an inflexible, uncaring extension of the military-industrial-financial complex, then he might voluntarily contribute more, assuming that this is an administration he still isn't involved with.
It's a plan that would never come to fruition unless he was on the winning ticket anyway.
I'm not saying that is the case nor am I defending him. Just trying to find a reason why he might do so. Does he donate much to charities instead?
If the incumbent government actually didn't seem like a budgetary black hole or an inflexible, uncaring extension of the military-industrial-financial complex, then he might voluntarily contribute more, assuming that this is an administration he still isn't involved with.
It's a plan that would never come to fruition unless he was on the winning ticket anyway.
I'm not saying that is the case nor am I defending him. Just trying to find a reason why he might do so. Does he donate much to charities instead?
- 86,089
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
He beiieves he's not paying his "fair share", and he's refusing to pay it unless forced.
Which is a terrific argument against his policy - there'll always be wasteful spending in government, and there'll always be government spending on programs with which you disagree. "I want everyone who earns over 'x' to pay 52% of the income over 'x' by law, but I'm not doing it because this government spends unwisely" should only elicit the answer "Okay, so why should we do it then if even you won't?".
Between 2 and 4% of his reported income.
- 29,337
- Bratvegas
- GTP_Liquid
I don't dispute this.
But I don't think that someone should pay more taxes than they are legally required to, even if they support a higher taxation rate. It does stand better from a conviction point of view but people are free to agree with the idea of a higher tax bracket without starting payment until it is signed into law.
By the way, I'm sure the IRS would love someone's tax return being voluntarily overstuffed. It's as close as you're going to get to free money for whichever lucky office jockeys review that return. Once whatever required payments are made and the books are minimally balanced, the bonus money might, uh... disappear without ever having been registered.
- 86,089
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
It rather depends which big picture you're looking at. It helped recover unemployment rates and GDP out of the trough of Depression, but it also enabled a massive bloating of government which persists to this day.
Things are rarely as simple as good policy with good results/bad policy with bad results.
Which, on its own, is fine. It's the term "fair share" he's using that is the issue.
He likes to use it to lambast billionaires (he used to include millionaires in there too, but stopped the moment he became one) and large corporations, to suggest that paying exactly the amount of tax they owe is in some way unfair and they're damaging society by doing so - he wants them to pay more. But at the same time, he's paying exactly the amount of tax he owes, at the same rates... so why isn't that unfair and why isn't he damaging society by doing so?
I'm pretty sure that the IRS isn't an honour system and is no less computerised than the rest of the world's tax offices. In fact I saw the US tax system described recently as knowing exactly how much money you owe it, but still requiring you to guess at how much that is, and penalising you if you get it wrong.
There is, as far as I'm aware, no barrier to deliberately overpaying and refusing the refund you'll be due as a result.
Danoff
Premium
- 33,611
- Mile High City
His charitable donations don't make up for not handing over more to the government, just like they don't for Bill Gates and all of the rest. Many of whom donate incredible sums to private charity. It's still not paying "your fair share". The amount of money that his 52% tax takes from private charity is immaterial to him, the money is best used in the hands of the government. Which is why he should put it there.
It really is as simple as "this is what's fair... no I'm not doing it".
Overpayment comes in a couple of forms. One is people simply not claiming all of the deductions that they could. This happens for a variety of reasons, mostly due to people not realizing the various deductions or techniques they could use to reduce their tax burden. If you hire a tax professional, they'll likely ask you a series of questions "did you buy a car this year, any gambling losses, student loan payments, etc. etc." to try to catch those things you're not thinking about and not telling them about. But they can't ask you everything, and if you don't know and they don't ask, you end up overpaying your taxes because you didn't claim deductions.
The other method that people overpay is by not claiming their refunds. The IRS has an idea (although it can't know everything) of how much you should get back. And they estimate that for 2015 there is $1.4B of taxpayer money that is unclaimed simply because people didn't file a return to get their refund. This on the high side of typical apparently, but it represents a boost to the government to the tune of $1B per year.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-re...ting-on-1-4-billion-in-unclaimed-tax-refunds/
Joey D
Premium
- 47,161
- Boyne Falls, MI
- GTP_Joey
- GTP Joey
I admittedly don't know much about Sanders since he's not the type of candidate I follow. But, it seems like a large chunk of my Facebook friends are feeling the Bern, so I see a constant stream of articles and whatnot. From what I can gather, it seems like Sanders wants to close loopholes in the tax system more than anything. Apparently, companies like Amazon pay $0 in taxes (I'm not sure how true that really is) and he wants them to pony up tax dollars.
It seems like the simplest thing to do is implement a flat tax where everyone, no matter how much you make, and every company pays X% of their income or profits. That way the billionaire is paying say 10% of their income while the guy making $30,000 a year is paying the same percentage. While being a fairer system, it would also eliminate a tax code that is incredibly complicated to boot.
It seems like the simplest thing to do is implement a flat tax where everyone, no matter how much you make, and every company pays X% of their income or profits. That way the billionaire is paying say 10% of their income while the guy making $30,000 a year is paying the same percentage. While being a fairer system, it would also eliminate a tax code that is incredibly complicated to boot.
Danoff
Premium
- 33,611
- Mile High City
Corporate tax is very tricky. Amazon plays the tax game as well as anyone. Corporations are (basically) allowed to deduct all of their expenses from their taxes, because generally all of their expenses are for "work". So if they hand out bonuses at the end of the year, the corporation can avoid paying tax on it as it's not "profit" but is instead "expense". That money still gets taxed though, it just gets taxed on the private return of the people who received the bonus.
One could argue that there should be no such thing as tax on corporation profits... but then every individual would become a corporation.
- 5,051
- Netherlands
Can you actually chose to pay extra tax? Wouldnt that be deducted from your tax the next year? I get it seems hypocritical, but in my opinion it would only be hypocritical if he actually voted for tax reductions and/or agains lower taxes. If the current tax laws equire X amount and he is paying it now (without any tricky loopholes) then I dont think there ia anything hypocritical about it. He already established he is for a 52% tax law.
edit: correction
edit 2:
Do you have a source for that comparison? Buttigieg has also been called out by CNN for having no policy positions. Interesting battle on the Democratic side though.
Last edited:
Dotini
(Banned)
- 15,742
- Seattle
- CR80_Shifty
- 5,051
- Netherlands
The claim lacks a bit of nuance. The title is kind of clickbaity. You make it Sound he compared the two directly. He was only pointing out that both are at the far end of the the political spectrum. That is the only similarity he was comparing. He was making a case of how the Centre has lost its appeal. That said, without concrete policy points he doesn’t actually make a case of how he is going to revive the centrist position. In the USA somehow being centrist is a bad thing for both democrats and republicans.
- 29,452
- a baby, candy, it's like taking.
- TexRex72
It's called pandering, and the channel appears to be one of countless that specializes in it.
And it's no surprise that some are so ready to swallow it.
- 5,051
- Netherlands
