Topic: Are you going to pay taxes? - page 28. (Read 18730 times)

Well spoken, Lupus.

"Social Security is an entitlement program" is a huge fallacy that is promoted by the Right wing that many fall for. If you never work and never pay into it, you don't get anything back. They also stop taxing people at $106,800...meaning that somebody who makes $10 million pays the exact same dollar amount to Social Security as someone who makes $106k. If they eliminated that tax break for the wealthy, Social Security would be solvent forever. Thanks, Reagan!

Its funny how the only people to complain about any type of socialized medicine, taxes, etc are from America. You really don't hear any complaints from any Britons about ther NHS, or from the Canadians about their health system, or any other civilized country's citizens for that matter. This is an international forum, and yet it seems the only people pissed off about Govt programs are the far right Americans. Go figure.

There are many elderly in the US who have no families and no one to look after them. All they have is Social Security, and that really isn't enough by itself. Still it is far better than starving and dying alone in the dark, which seems to be the outcome that many on the Right prefer.

A government too weak to take anything from you, is also too weak to prevent anyone else from doing the same. If the US had a weak central government we would all be speaking German right now, or Japanese.

In fact, I advise anyone who wants to see how a weak government works in a real life application to plan their next vacation: boating off the coast of Somalia. If you are lucky you will get the added bonus of witnessing a stong government in action when the SEAL team rescues you.

Normally, yes.  It certainly applies in this case.  The alternative to income taxes is presently chaos, as our present government - at least in the USA - cannot survive and provide us with its protective services and benefits without income tax.  Mad Max 2.

No, and there hasn't been a human being alive who ever has.  From the moment we are born, we are obliged to dance to the tune of life, forced to love people who are bad for us, forced to hunger for things that aren't good for us, and forced to seek power to protect ourselves from others.  True freedom is for the dead.

Yes!  Bullets, for one.

Possibly.  I'd have to read it, first.

Please humour me and answer these questions with a yes or no?

Is consistency preferable to inconsistency?
Do you own your self?
Should any product or service be provided at the barrel of a gun?
If your ancestor signed a contract with sword to his throat, are you obliged to honour the contract?

To those who don't intend to pay your taxes -
They're going to make you pay.  Render unto Caesar, or you go in the lion pit.

Speaking of losing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMGAi8aGeYM

And I still don't see what you think an entitlement program is. My definition is anything the government owes me. I believe the generally accepted definition is something like that, anything the government has promised it will give you.

What country are you from?

My Swedish girlfriend is of similar opinion, and was the source of some heated "debates" when we initially met. The tax-rate there is something like 50%, but they have free university even for foreign students( but that is being stopped in August I think), health-care, etc, etc.

It's interesting how the majority of people here say big government and high taxes are one of the biggest evils leading to social decline. Except that it is a massive contradiction if you look at the Nordic countries....

It would be nice if people who are against big government and high taxes could explain this in their arguments.

IMO big government and high taxes can only work if you have transparency and an educated public, which is achieved by a comprehensive education system; all Nordic countries have this.

Income tax no way.  I do not support big government and never will.

Why the hell was this moved to the politics forum? It's a simple question. Are you going to pay taxes or not? Sheesh.

the SS system doesn't even need reform.  a little tweak or two for the next gen.  what it REALLY needs is for the rest of the government to stop stealing from it - which they've been doing for a long time.

but you don't get out if you don't pay in.  and survivors get some of what you paid in if you die before you collect, and they qualify.  it was your money, after all.

you can argue that SS is coerced, if you like.  it doesn't matter to me.  i'm 60 years old, and my parents and grandparents saw starvation.  screw that.  we should treat our brothers and sisters decently - if they contribute during their lives.

and i suppose you could make the argument that the 'early adopters' made out like bandits - they got quite a lot, relatively, without putting as much in as the rest of us.  sound like a familiar argument?  care to make it?  of course, they were all dead by WWII, so the point is moot.  and besides, they built more of our country and its structure than any tinhorn carpetbagger.

I would only lose if I paid into them, which I don't. So exactly what do YOU think they are?

I wouldn't classify those programs as "entitlement programs" to be honest.  Both of them we pay into via taxes our entire lives, every paycheck.  I don't think it's greedy to want to get those funds back out in our time of need.

Welfare, sure.  Medicaid, sure.  But SS and Medicare are on a slightly different tier.  

EDIT:  I'm not arguing that they don't need reform.  I'm simply arguing that they aren't "entitlement programs" that's all.

you lose.

Ugh, social security is one of the WORST examples of a "successful" program.  It eats up $400-$500B of taxpayer dollars every year, and is completely unsustainable.  As in, when I get to 65 or 70 years of age, there isn't going to be any money left to help with my retirement.

Do you have any idea what kind of retirement that amount of tax dollars could provide to each person if it was invested by each individual, instead of forced to go to the state?  You'd be seeing people retire much, MUCH wealthier.  But everyone is blinded by the socialist mindset of everyone needing provisions, instead of people properly planning for the rest of their life.  It just brings the whole country down.

SS is a joke.  And a scam.

Huh? Social Security is one of the two biggest entitlement programs, the other being Medicare.

actually, you're mistaken.

now me, i certainly plan on paying my (US) taxes - always have, always will.  but in the US, one of the earliest SCOTUS decisions regarding taxes was this:  it is lawful to arrange one's affairs for the sole purpose of reducing one's tax burden.

and where you're mistaken, forever-d, is in this:  a US citizen owes no federal tax (and obviously no state tax) on the first $90,000 of income in a year where said taxpayer/citizen lived for the entire year in a foreign country.  think about it.

if Bitcoin works out and i cash out, it would make sense for me to tourist around and rent a studio apartment in a bordering canadian province for $400/mo - and cash in $90,000 USD worth of Bitcoin.  maybe do some traveling in other countries as well.  as long as i didn't live in the US for that entire calendar year, $90k of my income would be tax free.  and - since i would not be living in any state or territory, i would owe no state taxes. either.

i would still have to pay Social Security taxes, but i don't mind that at all; since it is not an entitlement program of any kind.  and this little experiment in democracy known as the United States has already seen the terrible result of ignoring the elderly and unable to work.  Social Security is easily the most successful program in our history - and it took a class-traitor who saw his own class for what it was to ram it down our throats.

Lol


Hear, hear

I believe Richard Dawkins actually addressed this in "The Selfish Gene" way back in the '70s. Basically said that altruism is against our biology, it's something we do societally *despite* our biology, not because of it and that the problem with the welfare state is that we are biologically programmed to be selfish. Most of us will likely overcome that evolutionary programming but even if a small few remain selfish and manipulative they will misuse the altruism of others to such an extent as to essentially destroy it.

I have no problem paying for valuable services that I desire. I have a problem with being forced to pay for them (and many other undesirable things, like mass murder) at gunpoint. I find it very frightening that you don't see a problem with this.

Actually what is despicable are the parasites that live in a society, enjoy all of its benefits, yet refuse to contribute anything back to that society to keep those benefits going. The penalty for tax evasion should not be imprisonment, at a minimum it should be deportation. Don't want to pay the taxes that keep the roads paved, the water clean, the air breatheable? Fine. Go live somewhere else and quit sucking up the valuable resources that you feel are yours by some sort of divine right. Other people that are of far more use to society as a whole can use those resources and actually do something worthwhile.