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Should people earning over $1 million a year pay 5 % more in income taxes to create jobs?
Results so far:
| Yes | 57% | 458 votes | Total: 802 votes | |
| No | 43% | 344 votes |
Yes
by Kelly Zona
Created on: November 30, 2011
I feel that MOST people that make that much money are primarily at fault for our countries economic status. I feel that a person making over $1 million a year should help this country, not just the government, instead of trying to find ways around it just to put even more money in their own pockets and make it even harder on the "lower class". Doesn't that sound degrading, "lower class"? It comes down to things called common sense, and decency, two things we are severely lacking.
Common sense: Who really needs to make that much money? I feel that anyone who makes that much in one year, which is more than some make in a whole lifetime, should be able to live more than comfortable even with a tax hike. While, the people making much less, who are barely making it in this economy we have in front of us, would NOT be able to live comfortable, in fact those people are living paycheck to paycheck as it is, which is not a very comfortable feeling, believe me. Then if you implement a tax increase on them, what will happen? They are buying less healthy food for their families, because it's cheaper, Which causes health problems, they are overall much more stressed out due to the fact that it's increasingly harder to maintain a "comfortable lifestyle", which is bad for ones health as well, to be so stressed out all of the time.
Also, they will be buying less of what they NEED and want, which means even worse for our economy. Wake up people! I mean, are you going to take away from the families that can already barely survive, or are you going to take a little from the people that own 5 vacation homes, and all of their expensive, lavish unnecessary material things? Do you think THEY Will not be able to afford their groceries or their utilities, or even their mortgages?
Common Decency: If you are a millionaire business owner, and you are laying off American workers and getting workers elsewhere, just to make even more money for yourself, then shame on you! You should all be ashamed of yourselves. It's a thing called GREED! You are willing to sacrifice, your own country, and America as a whole, just to make more money, when you already have more money than most will in a lifetime. You can't take it with you! Spend it wisely, helping others and making a difference is the best way I can think of. And by helping others I mean to give them an opportunity to have a "good" job making wages that are realistic to having a "comfortable lifestyle".
There is more than enough money in this country for all the people who are willing to work for it. There is no reason why, other than simple greed, that we as a country can't do the right things here. As far as the ones that aren't willing to work for it, that's a whole other story, that I'm sure I will discuss at a later time. America, it's time to knock the "upper class" down a notch! How ridiculous, them complaining about having to pay more taxes, so greedy, so selfish. A real complaint is from a mother and father who both work full-time, that have children, don't live beyond their means, who have to figure out what bill NOT to pay in order for their family to eat.
My mother always told me when I was a little girl, and crying for no good reason, 'if you want to cry I'll give you something to cry about'. I think because of their greedy, selfish opposition to this tax increase, we should bump it up to 10% more increase; let's give them something to REALLY cry about.
Learn more about this author, Kelly Zona.
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No
by Sylvia Harrison
Created on: October 12, 2011 Last Updated: October 13, 2011
In our democratic society, it is extremely difficult to stay fair in the income tax debate. The logical, most fair way, to implement income tax tables would be to have everyone, across the board and with no exceptions, pay 10% of their earnings to help support the government.
That is not going to happen because of the invariable idea that there are always mitigating circumstances that should let this person or that person pay less. When looking at paying less, there are ALWAYS folks coming up with great ideas. When more needs to be committed, the ideas certainly slow down. Ten percent across the board with no exceptions and no evaluations would be the only fair solution. If one made $10,000 a year, he would pay $1000 income tax. If he made $1,000,000 a year, he would pay $100,000.
Personally, I am all in favor of the higher earners paying more. However, it is not justified with any real reasoning power. Spite and jealousy are not good reasons. I will never, in my lifetime, make more than $20,000 a year (and that is a stretch of my imagination). If I did make half a million or so I would not feel it to be my mission to "save the world" by paying more into our government.
There are so many other different, more fair ways, to produce an additional income to the U.S. government. For one thing, perhaps there should be a 10-15% tax on election funds that goes directly into the legal systems, school systems, or infrastructures. Some candidates for various offices can accrue millions of dollars to run campaigns! Not thousands, but millions. Where do these donations come from? They come from big business, banks, investment companies, phone companies, armed services divisions, the U.S. Government, and so on.
Which leads us to idea number 2: If we must tax unfairly, it might be a great time to check into tax cuts on big businesses, banks, etc. Not to give them more....but to take some away. If I ran my home like many of the big businesses seem to run their business, I wouldn't stand a chance of having food on my table. If bigger businesses had to face the reality of achieving and staying on a secure, fixed budget, the U.S. Government and we, the real people of the country, would not have to "bail them out" in the first place. A sore spot with my opinionated notions: We give them all kinds of tax breaks, then give them even more when they muck it all up in the everyday running of things.
Idea number 3: Take a long look at where the government funds are really spent. Looking at the pie chart, Human Resources holds about 30% with Military a little over that. Sounds fairly even except, when you hack through the Human Resources section, you note that that is inclusive of education, medicare, social security, and a slew of other topics of division. Spread things a little thin in a lot of places. Someone, preferably an everyday tax payer in middle income bracket, should take a really hard look at that section and decide what can be done without and what needs a bit more. Raising income taxes on any section, unless across the board, might not even be necessary if the people running the government and its finances would look beyond what each group is telling them they need and deserve, to the realities of each section of spending. Confusing, but let's consider that schools might get, (example only, not real figures), $100,000. How is this money to be spent? These figures need to be taken apart, discover where each penny goes, and plans made to distribute funds more appropriately to produce the most good for the most people.
It astounds me that so much money is put into the hands of so many people who "think" they know the best way to invest or spend it. A complete overhaul of the income tax system using a flat-line approach to taxing is the only real fair way to get more money from those who can afford it. In reality, if all the tax cuts in the higher earners brackets were taken away and a fixed percentage taken from gross earnings it would most likely even out to be about the same. In other words no more taking a client to wine and dine and then using the costs as a tax cut.
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