The chart that shows how grossly unfair US Tax System become

Oh, you mean the factcheck.org that has been so wrong in the last two years that they appear to have redefined the word "FACT" in the English language?

Ultimately, those bonds are part of the overall U.S. national DEBT ...

Why, yes...It IS part of the "national debt"...Which I didn't dispute...

So, your own article from factcheck restates the same policies about the funds... And gives it one Pinocchio because there's some stress in the funds right now...

Wow.. Looks like my previous post was right on-target:

LadyJazzer wrote: OR, they need to pass a law to FUND Social Security by raising the cap on income. And I've stated FOR YEARS that I'm all for that. Raise it from $106,800 to $150,000, $250,000, or remove it altogether... I'm good with that. It doesn't penalize the folks making less than that, and god knows the folks making more than that can afford to pay more.

Works for me.

Doesn't change the FACT that Fred was responding to something I did not say, does it...

Doesn't change the FACTS of the chart in the OP that shows how GROSSLY unfair the US tax system has become, does it....

LadyJazzer wrote: Oh, you mean the factcheck.org that has been so wrong in the last two years that they appear to have redefined the word "FACT" in the English language?

Ultimately, those bonds are part of the overall U.S. national DEBT ...

Why, yes...It IS part of the "national debt"...Which I didn't dispute...

So, your own article from factcheck restates the same policies about the funds... And gives it one Pinocchio because there's some stress in the funds right now...

Wow.. Looks like my previous post was right on-target:

LadyJazzer wrote: OR, they need to pass a law to FUND Social Security by raising the cap on income. And I've stated FOR YEARS that I'm all for that. Raise it from $106,800 to $150,000, $250,000, or remove it altogether... I'm good with that. It doesn't penalize the folks making less than that, and god knows the folks making more than that can afford to pay more.

Works for me.

Doesn't change the FACT that Fred was responding to something I did not say, does it...

What proof do you have about factcheck.org being wrong the last two years? You've made such a strong statement that I assume you must have many examples?

I was disputing your constant claim that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit. I gave you two different factchecks to support my claim that Social Security DOES contribute to the deficit.

Plus you have no response to my main point which was proof that Social Security does contribute to the deficit. That proof comes straight from the horse's mouth in the form of Obama's own 2014 budget. It's his proposal and his calculation, and that calculation does include the Social Security red ink as part of the deficit. If you can't see that, then you must be blind by intention.

And finally, you do realize that your proposal to raise the Social Security cap or eliminate it will make the payroll taxes portion on your graph even bigger, don't you? I thought you were complaining that it was too big already. So why do you want to make it even bigger?

And by making the payroll portion on the graph larger, it will also make the corporate tax portion smaller (and all the other portions too), not because the corporate tax dollars got lower, but because everything must add up to 100%. Humm, maybe that's why you want to make payroll taxes higher so you can artifically make the corporate tax percentage look smaller, and then complain even more about corporate taxes?

And that is why your graph is so misleading in the first place. There are too many variables crammed into it. Some portions change due to legislation, some due to population growth. If one gets bigger and nothing changes for the others, the other portions will still get smaller on that graph just to fit the one portion that got bigger in order to have every percentage add up to 100%.

It "doesn't make the payroll portion bigger"...It makes the people earning over whatever they would move the new limit to pay a proportionate share, and those that make less would not be affected, i.e., mostly the 1%... YES, I want to make the payroll taxes higher for the 1%... Did I stutter?

I don't know how many times I have to say that I"M OKAY WITH THAT.

I'm also okay with corporation paying the taxes on what they EARN...Not just the part that they don't hide offshore.

This is NOT a zero-sum game.

LadyJazzer wrote: It "doesn't make the payroll portion bigger"...It makes the people earning over whatever they would move the new limit to pay a proportionate share, and those that make less would not be affected, i.e., mostly the 1%... YES, I want to make the payroll taxes higher for the 1%... Did I stutter?

I don't know how many times I have to say that I"M OKAY WITH THAT.

I'm also okay with corporation paying the taxes on what they EARN...Not just the part that they don't hide offshore.

This is NOT a zero-sum game.

You clearly don't understand your own graph because if you increase payroll taxes collected (which is what you propose) and keep everything else the same, then the percentage of payroll taxes that contribute to total federal revenue will increase and the payroll area on your graph will get wider (and other revenue will get smaller to fit the graph).

Let's do an example.

It's hard to read from your graph, but for 2010 payroll taxes accounted for 40% of total federal revenues.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing ... evenue.cfm

You propose raising the cap on Social Security. That will increase payroll taxes for people making over about $110K which is a group who make much less than the top 1% (sounds like the upper middle class to me). If you raise the cap, you will increase total payroll taxes collected and that 40% will go up. I don't know what number it will go up to, but let's say after raising payroll taxes, they will now contribute 45% of all federal revenue.

That means the payroll width on your graph must get 5% wider. If it gets wider, the width of all other sources of revenue on your graph must get 5% narrower in order for everything to add up to 100%.

Again, that makes your graph misleading, and uninformative. Yes, I get you want to raise Social Security tax for the higher end middle class, but your graph doesn't reflect that. It just shows what percent payroll taxes contribute to total federal revenue and doesn't care what people earn. If you raise Social Security tax for any group without reducing it for other groups, then you will increase total payroll taxes collected. And that will make the payroll width increase on your graph, even if nothing else changes.


And back to my original point... Since Obama includes Social Security in his own published deficit calculation, can we now agree Social Security DOES contribute to the deficit?

Let's try this again Jazzer - we'll go slow for you to see if we can get through this time.

Your premise is that the chart demonstrates that the tax system is unfair because it shows a growth in the percentage of federal revenue which the payroll taxes represent.

Your support for removing the ceiling on wages that are subject to the tax would increase the percentage of revenue represented by payroll taxes.

This, according to your original premise that the tax system is unfair because such a high percentage of the revenue is raised through payroll taxes, would make the system more unfair than it already is if one presumes that your premise has any validity at all. Which, by the by, this little exercise pretty well demonstrates that, like most of what you offer up for consideration, it doesn't.

With regards to corporate income taxes, no one pays income taxes based on their gross income. No one pays taxes on their gross profits either. It is net profit which is taxed. Once the amount of tax owed has been figured, then the tax deductions and credits are applied against that amount. If there is a tax owed after this, then that amount is paid. What "net profit" is comes from an exercise in accounting. This is nothing new, this is how businesses have always been taxed.

If the democratically elected representatives in the federal government decide to issue tax credits and tax deductions when companies buy solar panels for their roofs, or hybrids for their fleets, or for burning alternative fuel in their fleet vehicles, or for investing in new equipment, or for hiring veterans, or the disabled, or an ethnic minority group, or a woman, or for offering a pension program, or health insurance, or paid sick days, or vacation time, or personal days, or pick any of the thousand and one things that are purposefully inserted into the tax code that the elected officials wish to push for "general (individual) welfare" purposes, then the corporations which behave in the manner that the federally elected representatives wish them to behave in get to reduce their tax bill using those intentionally inserted tax deductions and tax credits.

A "Tax-Loophole", on the other hand, is a tax reduction which was not intended to be offered but exists as a result of sloppy work by the elected officials who are responsible for passing the legislation which establishes the tax code. A "tax evasion" is a purposeful deception, and it is quite different from a tax deduction or a tax credit, though many "progressives" continue to try and dishonestly and purposefully conflate them because they are of the belief that words mean what they say they mean rather than what their definitions say they mean.

Yes... It IS GROSSLY unfair....

CBO: Tax Breaks Cost $12 Trillion Over Decade, Benefit Most Wealthy

WASHINGTON, May 29 (Reuters) - The top ten U.S. tax deductions, credits and exclusions will keep $12 trillion out of federal government coffers over the next decade, and several of them mainly benefit the wealthiest Americans, a new study from the Congressional Budget Office shows.

The top 20 percent of income earners will reap more than half of the $900 billion in benefits from these tax breaks that will accrue in 2013, the non-partisan CBO said on Wednesday.

Further, 17 percent of the total benefits would go to the top 1 percent of income earners -- families earning roughly $450,000 or more. The same group that was hit with a tax rate hike in January.

The benefits of preferential tax rates on capital gains and dividends, a break worth $161 billion this year, go almost entirely to the wealthy, including 68 percent to the top one percent of earners.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/2 ... 55836.html

Wow... Imagine my surprise.... :VeryScared:

And all these tax cuts continue under Obama's watch! Guess Obama prefers to help out the 1%r's over people like LJ. Quick photoshop Barack into the photo above..."and they thought I was going to decrease wealth disparity. Ha ha ha."

You mean the tax-cuts he's been trying to curtail ever since he became president, and that the Teabagger congress keeps blocking?... Yeah, we're all aware of who's blocking the repeal of the sweetheart cuts.

Wanna try again?...But, hey, you got to use "Obama" in a sentence.

Obama, he tries so hard, doesn't he? Oh wait, he has only met with his cabinet four times over the last year. Doesn't sound like a guy who is actually trying to me.

You need some new material, Fred... That one is getting tiresome... (Most untrue garbage is...)