Taxes are purely voluntary no one forces you to be a member of a club (country) unless you of course you think you have some mysterious natural rights to work and live in a country for freeCormac wrote:Gawdzilla Sama wrote:That's like saying it's evil to pay to see a movie. If I didn't pay my small bit, and everybody else paid their small bit, billion-dollar movies wouldn't be made.MrJonno wrote:No bills are pleasant but that doesnt make them evil
That Isn't a fair comparison though Zilla. Seeing a movie is entirely voluntary. Taxes, though necessary, are not.
Agree or disagree?
Re: Agree or disagree?
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Re: Agree or disagree?
I don't know about Beatles, but there is a reliably documented case, where the Swedish author of children's books Astrid Lindgren had to pay 102% taxes on the margins, due to highly progressive tax scales, in the 1970's, and some flukes in how the taxes where calculated during one specific year.
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Re: Agree or disagree?
Look into the tax rates of the UK during the 1970s. Tax rates at 90%+ are not hyperbole.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:Drew, do you really think the Beatles paid 95% of their income in taxes?
http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn25.pdf
Last edited by Drewish on Tue Dec 11, 2012 7:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Agree or disagree?
But on how much of his actual income did he pay that tax?MiM wrote:I don't know about Beatles, but there is a reliably documented case, where the Swedish author of children's books Astrid Lindgren had to pay 102% taxes on the margins, due to highly progressive tax scales, in the 1970's, and some flukes in how the taxes where calculated during one specific year.
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Re: Agree or disagree?
That's not what I asked.Drewish wrote:Look into the tax rates of the UK during the 1970s. Tax rates at 90%+ are not hyperbole.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:Drew, do you really think the Beatles paid 95% of their income in taxes?
Re: Agree or disagree?
The tax rates were that high. The Beatles made enough to pay that rate. They claimed that taxation levels were that high for them and that's what inspired them to write that song. So yes. Though perhaps they managed to avoid it on income they made from foreign markets.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:That's not what I asked.Drewish wrote:Look into the tax rates of the UK during the 1970s. Tax rates at 90%+ are not hyperbole.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:Drew, do you really think the Beatles paid 95% of their income in taxes?
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Re: Agree or disagree?
And tax shelters, etc., with the end result that they kept most of their money. It's a spiral. Tax rates set, rich folks find loopholes, etc., taxes raises to reflect the fact that they're not paying their share, they find more loopholes, buying politicians to create them, and the tax rates go up again. Ad infinitum.Drewish wrote:The tax rates were that high. The Beatles made enough to pay that rate. They claimed that taxation levels were that high for them and that's what inspired them to write that song. So yes. Though perhaps they managed to avoid it on income they made from foreign markets.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:That's not what I asked.Drewish wrote:Look into the tax rates of the UK during the 1970s. Tax rates at 90%+ are not hyperbole.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:Drew, do you really think the Beatles paid 95% of their income in taxes?
Re: Agree or disagree?
Source?Gawdzilla Sama wrote:And tax shelters, etc., with the end result that they kept most of their money. It's a spiral. Tax rates set, rich folks find loopholes, etc., taxes raises to reflect the fact that they're not paying their share, they find more loopholes, buying politicians to create them, and the tax rates go up again. Ad infinitum.Drewish wrote:The tax rates were that high. The Beatles made enough to pay that rate. They claimed that taxation levels were that high for them and that's what inspired them to write that song. So yes. Though perhaps they managed to avoid it on income they made from foreign markets.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:That's not what I asked.Drewish wrote:Look into the tax rates of the UK during the 1970s. Tax rates at 90%+ are not hyperbole.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:Drew, do you really think the Beatles paid 95% of their income in taxes?
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Re: Agree or disagree?
Class at Purdue. The prof supplied the publicly available information and pointed out the neat tricks.
Re: Agree or disagree?
No, I mean that the Beatles themselves used tax shelters allowing them to avoid paying a 95% tax rate.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:Class at Purdue. The prof supplied the publicly available information and pointed out the neat tricks.
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Re: Agree or disagree?
That was part of the information the prof showed us. I don't have my notes from that class, sorry.Drewish wrote:No, I mean that the Beatles themselves used tax shelters allowing them to avoid paying a 95% tax rate.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:Class at Purdue. The prof supplied the publicly available information and pointed out the neat tricks.
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Re: Agree or disagree?
I don't know what the rates and thresholds were in 1970s, but generally tax rates only apply to earnings over the given tax threshold, meaning if someone is in the top tax bracket they've already earned a shed-load that has only been taxed at each of the lower rates, and the real rate applied to their total earnings is significantly lower than that of the tax bracket they are in - unless they are earning so much that the lower rates become insignificant. Either way, if you're in the top tax bracket you probably don't need to be worrying about how much tax you're paying because your net income after tax is still higher than most people would ever even know how to spend.
[Disclaimer - if this is comes across like I think I know what I'm talking about, I want to make it clear that I don't. I'm just trying to get my thoughts down]
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Re: Agree or disagree?
And you never get taxed on all your income. "Taxable income", you've heard this before. The tax lawyers were invented to create loopholes and tax shelters.PsychoSerenity wrote:I don't know what the rates and thresholds were in 1970s, but generally tax rates only apply to earnings over the given tax threshold, meaning if someone is in the top tax bracket they've already earned a shed-load that has only been taxed at each of the lower rates, and the real rate applied to their total earnings is significantly lower than that of the tax bracket they are in - unless they are earning so much that the lower rates become insignificant. Either way, if you're in the top tax bracket you probably don't need to be worrying about how much tax you're paying because your net income after tax is still higher than most people would ever even know how to spend.
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Re: Agree or disagree?
Exactly. I suspect we would disagree on where to draw the tax line, but that is a far cry from the libertarian lunacy "taxes are theft"Coito ergo sum wrote:Agree as far as it goes. That doesn't mean that all taxes are appropriate or that higher taxes are always the right thing to do, or that all government spending is proper.Gawdzilla Sama wrote:
I guess that's their equivalent of the equally crazy Marxist line "property is theft"
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Re: Agree or disagree?
MrJonno wrote:Taxes are purely voluntary no one forces you to be a member of a club (country) unless you of course you think you have some mysterious natural rights to work and live in a country for freeCormac wrote:Gawdzilla Sama wrote:That's like saying it's evil to pay to see a movie. If I didn't pay my small bit, and everybody else paid their small bit, billion-dollar movies wouldn't be made.MrJonno wrote:No bills are pleasant but that doesnt make them evil
That Isn't a fair comparison though Zilla. Seeing a movie is entirely voluntary. Taxes, though necessary, are not.
As far as that goes, it still does not mean that taxes are voluntary.
I did nit say that taxes are a bad thing per se, or that they should not be collected, or that they should be voluntary.
I simply said that they are not voluntary.
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