Topic: [society] paying taxes (Read 268 times)

What The Declaration Should Have Declared

Oh dear! You left out an account for yachts for the bankers and other elite.

Education is great and all, but just throwing money at a problem isn't going to fix it. Many people think -- o if we just increase the budget for certain government programs everything would get better. In theory, this may be true, but at the end of the day this money may not be spent efficient in the least. We must ensure that when we're providing money to any program, that it is spent efficient and it helps the most amount of people -- cause what good is throwing all this money at a problem if we're not doing anything productive with it.

I think this is pretty evident when it comes to things like charitable organizations, who donations billions upon billions to a problem and we don't always see a benefit. Maybe the funds aren't spent appropriately, maybe enough isn't being spent on a problem, maybe the only thing that can fix a problem is a change in attitude or how we do things, not just money being thrown around.

I'm all for providing the best education to the children, the hardest part is finding out what works and what doesn't. We should be spending our money on pilot programs to see what works, then try to test this on a large scale.

Also -- parent involvement is a very big factor in determining if you're going to be successful in education -- obviously there are many more, but if your parent is on top of your education and involved in your love you're going to have a better chance to succeed (statistically)

First of all, to be able to properly spend this money, you need E.D.U.C.A.T.I.O.N.
Education must be our number one priority along health. Also education includes that you have to eat to be alive, not to live to just eat. And in this last case I mean how people are addicted to junkfood everyday that causes a lot of health issues. This is serious problem especially in USA.

The good subject to discuss is Medicine, why? Because what happens now is totally fatal. At first to my mind all of these viruses and etc are created manually in order to make money from it, to die some part of people and etc.
Mental health <-- children on stimulants from childhood, on anxiety meds and etc <-- it kills their brain, milk and pills don't mix! Just see, a number of depression increases, at the same time I want to mention that most population lacks Magnesium (it's removed from water and etc), they lack D vitamins... Pharma become a huge business and in this case doctors don't work on fixing the problem, they are just adding band-aid on problem that fades as time goes and situation becomes 100x worse.

Why do I have to pay tax if I live in a house? Government is great at collecting taxes but doesn't give a fuck someone lives in the street.
World's 26 richest people own as much as poorest 50% <-- Is this fair? (You can see article on TheGuardian).

Why do we need military services, soldiers? I hugely doubt you want a war with my neighbor and can say the same on me. You don't even know each other and probably you prefer to stay at home with your family and have a good day, why do we have wars? This is because of some people who get pleasure from it and launder money.

Personally I like how you spent money on your list, wouldn't edit it for a while.

But this isn't going to make the tax system better, it's just going to change it into something where the people pick where they think the money is best to go -- and to be honest most people are pretty fucking stupid, so that probably isn't too smart of an idea.

Do we waste a good amount of money in the current tax system? Yes. We finance wars and other countries around the globe and in the US we have people that are homeless, veterans on the streets, drug problems, healthcare problems, etc. We even waste money when it comes to 'pork barrel legislation' pretty much when politicians attach riders to regular legislation, bringing money home to their district so they can get reelected.

But what we need to fix is our focus. If we want to change how horrible the current budget proposals are, and to cut out the waste and spend efficentley -- then we need to vote for people that care about things like that. We need to step out of the tribal train of thought where we pick the 'better evil' just cause we don't want to 'lose'. Lose that thought cause most times when you vote you LOSE ANYWAY cause the two parties dont care about you.

Fix the focus, and we'll fix our problems. Elect people that care about the problems you care about.

i guess you missed the parts of history where hospital wards close. people rely on foodbanks. homelessness is on the rise. crime rising where it takes longer for a cop to turn up than a pizza delivery.

how about the point of if a certain domestic priority budget was not met then the least priority non-domestic budget gets reduced. EG less foreign humanitarian donations to big corp NGO.

some governments 'ringfense' (minimal budget requirement) funds
where the excess could be allotted elsewhere

so say the $10k tax is $5k  government ringfensed alloted and $5k then goes to citizen preference for what they feel deserves the extra budget for expansion/improvements

it may actually do things like stop making the military so trigger happy to carpet bomb foreign cities, and think smarter because they have to watch the budget

anyway
compared to the situation we have currently. .. think of ideas of how todays technology (blockchain included) can be used to make things better.

in the UK definetly and i believe the US(maybe) the police/fire are funded by local(state/county) budgets rather than national
so it could be more of a case of just 3 categories
local, national, international that could be decided.
but the point is blockchain has shown it is possible to get individuals more involved in day to day things. and the whole 'disrupt' economy (uber instead of government licenced taxis shows things can change. so what idea's have people got to stir things up a little

would be nice but i wont see it in my lifetime.

I mean the biggest flaw in a plan like this is that certain departments are going to provide you benefit if you pay into them or not, this is what is known as the free rider effect. If you were to tell people right now what they want to put money into, most people would say that they're going to put the most into Welfare/Social programs, education, etc. They see that as the one that is the most benefical towards them and the best ROI.

But there are two problems with thinking of your tax dollars as a return on investment.

1 - If everyone puts all of their money into welfare / social security / etc, there's not going to be enough for the other branches of government to operate. That's a problem and it could cause for a weak state.

2 - Certain departments like Defense, are unable to say 'we're not protecting you cause you didn't pay' It's not like you're not going to be educated if you don't provide funds to education, or if you dont pay into the police/fire department they're not going to protect you. That's just crazy to think about, unless that your intention here. Only certain people will be provided defense, police, fire department, etc depending on how much they contribute (that sounds like an issue)

I figured it out. My proper taxes to pay is $0. Therefore I am not criminal.

When somebody else figures it out for me, if they don't come up with the same answer that I do, they are the ones that are criminal.

We need the military to protect us. If somebody doesn't want to pay for the military through taxation, those of us who do pay, can turn the military on him and steal his tax money from him.

This is REAL freedom.

Certainly there is a large amount of waste, failure and abuse in the military budget. But you were talking about cutting funding to Zero with the exception of some basic defense. R & D can be hit or miss, the F35 certainly is no different, but look how amazing the B2 and F117 programs were. Not to mention the B52 and how many years of service we've seen from that amazing program.

Iraq, we steamrolled them in 90-91. We should've left it at that. I disagree with continued presence in the Middle East mess. But thats another discussion, you were talking zero funding for offensive operation.  We did a heck of a job in Kuwait/Iraq the first time. And I'm sure the helpless Kuwaiti's were thankful for US intervention.

Offensive US military funding is paramount to the world's security

I like the nice guy part, but don't you think that some of the US military expenses could be cut? For instance that whole F35 fiasco that's like a money eating and smoke farting monster. Think of the nice guy things this money could buy. More rescue ships, stronger coast guard, maybe some nice underwater supply facilities for submarines and ocean research, more space exploration...


Other countries have to wait their turn to invade Iraq because the US milirtary was first. Do you really feel like the US military presence is helping keep the peace? The us had in fact taken part in the highest number of military conflicts in the last century. They invaded Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, but when they were needed to keep the peace they weren't there. Big brother sat and watched as Russia invaded Ukraine a few years back.
I feel like the US military is abusing its power and putting hands into every cookie jar out there, especially when there's some money to be made. 

   I can agree with most of those statement minus one.  Military.   As former USN myself, I have seen the positive impact that a forward deployed US presence has in the world. In the early '90's there was some mess of a coup going on in Haiti. Haitian citizens were fleeing the fight in droves, jumping on anything that would float and trying to paddle to our mainland.  Our USN and Coast Guard was saving them at sea and we turned half our ship into the crew-nicknamed "Haitian Hotel."  With several hundred refugees on board, we docked in Guantanamo where we could bring on more USN and USMC support by way of food, clothing, and medical care. On several deployments to the Mediterranean, we embarked on Humanitarian missions while visiting foreign ports, helping to deliver food to the poor in the area, and joining with other humanitarian agencies to construct schools and other stuff to help the locals. When disaster strikes, other nations look to the US military for help. We can deliver food and supplies within hours or days to almost anywhere in the world. And we often do so.
    Thats just the nice guy part.

   Without a forward deployed US Military, foreign aggression can go unchecked. Some world leader can decide they want to invade some other weaker country when they feel like it (Iraq/Kuwait for example). With a worldwide US presence, every ill-tempered foreign leader knows big brother is always nearby and watching, and they have to think twice before doing something stupid. They know consequences in response to their actions can be delivered within minutes.

   And if you want to take a liberal approach to the military, we are providing paid jobs, full medical, and full benefits to over 1.4 million Americans who are willing to risk their lives to help others.

If I had to pay I'd include some various other departments because to me personally it's important that road are built and maintained, there's electricity, Internet. I'd surely support fire department and some basic healthcare, although I believe that healthcare and education should be private.

For me personally, the state should have money to provide all the basic infrastructure (city lights, garbage disposal, electricity, crisis management, basic healthcare like emergency services, CDC, but all the things like dental care, vaccines and such should be financed by citizens). There should be some money dedicated to research, space exploration, but I'd give 0 to the military and leave only basic defence forces and mostly stationary stuff like missile batteries, anti air defenses and such.


Just like obeying the police is your personal choice.

Voluntary, in that you are entrusted to pay the proper amount, and figuring that amount is on you.  But criminal if you dont.


As far as the allotment of where it goes, Ive thought about that before.  Like 90% decided by the elected official, the last 10% chosen by the payer from a list of maybe 20-30 categories.

paying taxes in the usa is actually voluntary.

Besides, there isn't any department for "bribery and skimming." So, government will never do this.

This is a great idea but sadly it won’t ever be implemented, and if Greta was here on this forum then I’m sure she would have definitely supported you because she would like all her Tax dues to go to the protection of the environment. In my case I would prefer to send majority of my funds for social service and social security as these two areas are very close to my heart, rest areas I’m not sure whether I would like to send my tax dues there or no.

This seems reasonable but those in power like to dictate where the funds are spent. They will always spend on issues they deem to be more important than others. Maybe some governments would allow users to recommend where their taxations are spent but the final say would have to lay with them. Do I see this changing? Not in the foreseeable future. We are as you put it, electoral pawns that are called in to cast a vote every so often.

The main priorities for me as far as governmental taxation expenditure is concerned would be health, education, social housing and social care. I would like to have a say in where those taxes are spent but apart from there being a governmental website (a form of appeasement) stating they would allow tax payers to recommend their chosen service, I cannot see anything happening.

a solution to cnuts problem would be simple.

say a $10k tax.. $5k is automated as goverment decided funding to split how they like and $5k then is decided by the citizens

im not suggesting for my idea to be implemented i was more thinking idea's that are actually possible with todays tech to allow 'voters' more control over government funded stuff. rather than just being used as electoral pawns once every 4-5 years

i also wanted to see a few examples of what people truly feel is their main priority of treasury funds.

That's a good idea.
This would eliminate the illegal spending of public money.
But governments are usually afraid to use new technological inventions. We need to push adoption in order to accomplish such a taxation system.

A great idea but next to nobody will be sending their taxes to the military and associated fields. There will probably be an unhealthy balance between the top two or three receivers versus the bottom two or three. That is one excuse that allows government to spend as they please I suppose though if tax payers had a say in where the taxation is spent it would make them feel like they are contributing more than just being citizens by default.

It's a nice idea, but my first thought is that people are idiots and it would cause chaos. Then we can add to this that people tend to vote on what's immediately in front of them, and don't consider the background stuff so much - so I think you'd get a load of money allocated to frontline services and very little to behind-the-scenes support areas.

It's a no from me I'm afraid. I do like the idea, but my main problem is with the general population itself. People tend to see democracy as a right, but they don't often see that it is also a responsibility, and that it's incumbent on people to be informed and to make educated choices, rather than just vote etc based on superficial knee-jerk reactions to clickbait and whatever crap the tabloid press are spewing out.

imagine a government treasury set up like 10 'stable coin' addresses for 10 government departments

social security (unemployment/housing/statepension)
local security(police)
homeland security(secret service/fbi/military defence)
offensive security(military offence)
social care(mental/rehab/domestic)
social services(roads/maintenance)
medical
fire rescue
environmental
education

where by if someone calculates they owe say $20k
the could buy $20k of a stable coin and then send the $20k out to the 10 addresses in fractions of their own choosing to area's that mean most to them.

what thoughts would people have. also. give an example of how you would allot a $10k tax bill
and link the tx ID and a signed message of proof .. to show they paid their taxes..
firstly proces they pay it. secondly lets them 'vote' for things that mean most to them

me personally:  (copy and edit your prefered numbers)
[$1k]social security (unemployment/housing/statepension)
[$1k]local security(police)
[$0.5k]homeland security(secret service/fbi/military defence)
[$0k]offensive security(military offence)
[$0.5k]locial care(mental/rehab/domestic)
[$1k]social services(roads/maintenance)
[$2k]medical
[$1k]fire rescue
[$1k]environmental
[$2k]education