The Glade 4.0

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

What's the problem? She's absolutely right, you don't deserve to keep 100% of the money you earn.

You should be able to keep most of it, because the free market leads to amazing development like Hong Kong. Whether you 'deserve' it depends on your interpretration of the word.

you 'deserve' to keep all of it.

What is in question is how much the government should be allowed to take...

The question is not how much you deserve to keep; it's how much you should have to pay for the services society provides, and what the appropriate services are. That is one nice side benefit of a sales tax; it avoids this stupid distortion of the issue into "stealing" and "how much you deserve to keep" when people want to score rhetorical points over taxation.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

+1

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Long have I pondered a racial epithet for Democrats to go alongside Repugnicans and Teabaggers. I'm thinking Feebocrats and Blueball Commie Liberals, which will be shortened to Blueballs or Blueballers.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

How much do I deserve to keep? More than I make.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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That's why I vote for policies that will allow me to take more of Khross' money.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

**** you. Khross's money needs to go to help poor redheaded mothers who post on the Glade and live in Ontario.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Good grief.

Your salary, hourly wage, or however else you're paid, figures in that the gov't will be taking a big chunk of that. If you got to take home 100% of your paycheck, your paychecks would be smaller.

You think that companies would just give you the the excess they didn't have to pay to taxes? They know that they set your salary based on what you take home. The actual dollar amount you get before taxes is immaterial. They'll pay you the same take home regardless, because they know you'll work for that.

Change your perspective. You get paid your take-home+Benefits. If there were no taxes your take home would be the same. (possibly worse, because businesses would have fewer reasons to offer benefits (no tax incentives))

That's funny. I didn't notice anyone's pay dropping when Bush's tax cuts went through.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You know, it was my recollection that I got offered a wage *before* they made me fill out a W-4, Riov.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I know this isn't a new concept, but we need to do away with payroll deduction. Make people write a check for the taxes every year. It's probably the only thing that will ever stimulate any real change.

The government would never collect anything. The #1 problem in the US is that people can't save money, do you think people would be capable of saving 25% of their income to pay once a year?

You do realize that for a significant portion of our population this is entirely the government's fault, right?

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Hardly, it's your fault you greedy bastard. If I had more of your money, I could save money rather than just blowing my entire Khross's money check on crack.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

with the understanding that taxes would be taken out. Are you really so naive that you think that such things are not figured in?

Actually, you're the naive one since at least 40% of the total cost of your employment isn't something you ever hear about ...

You do know that your employer matches both of your payroll tax deductions? You do know that your employer is required to keep various forms of liability and damage insurance beyond whatever immediate benefit is provided to you right? You do know that your "unemployment benefits" are paid into a state run insurance account and fundamentally operate as a tax on you having job? You do know that your employer likely pays somewhere around 75% of your actual group plan costs right?

More to the point, you do know that all of these wonderful expenses no one told you about in high school are based on your gross salary, not your net? Consequently, since your employer actually has to figure out how much you cost them (and you better believe your value needs to meet their cost, not your salary ...) based on your gross pay, it would be naive to assume they do their calculations based on your take home at all. In fact, the only thing about your net they care about is not breaking a god damned withholding law in getting you that check.

And, by the by, all of those taxes and government imposed costs are higher if you're self-employed ...

But, yeah, I offer my employees their wages based on take home ...

Actually, you know, come to think of it ...

In 13 years of owning a multi-state operation, I've never once offered a person a salary based on what they'd take home; I've always offered them a salary based on what it cost my **** business.

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Oh, ****. My sides hurt.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

How do they know how much will be taken out? Have they done a survey to discover my (hypothetical) spouse's earnings? Or my taxable investments?

If not, they don't know what tax bracket I fall into, and thus, cannot determine how much to "pad" my target income so that I'll have the right amount left over to pay my taxes.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yes I'm well aware of these things Khross. But you're not just going to give them money if you don't have to.

lets use your numbers:


CURRENT SITUATION: You're hiring a highly skilled/educated employee with lots of experience. In order to retain that person you're offering them a salary of $100,000/yr. Now your costs are $140,000/year. The person's take home is more like $60,000/yr.

YOUR HYPOTHETICAL: World without tax, you can hire a person for $60,000 that they can live comfortably off of. Their expenses remain unchanged. Are you going to just hire someone for $140,000 (so your costs are unchanged) knowing you could get the same employee for $60,000? of course not. Nor are you going to pay them $100,000. You're going to pocket the difference. you MIGHT use that cash to pay for another employee. But what if you don't have the work?

I've seen enough places that don't fail to hire people because they can't afford it-- they don't hire people because they have nothing for those people to do.

Khross:

You forgot that TheRiov lives in a vacuum in which there is only one employer and wealth is static.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Rynar:

No, I just figured someone forgot to give him his Thorazine today.

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I don't see how the distinction between these two things is all that relevant. No, a business isn't going to hire an employee whose cost exceeds his value, but at the same time an employee isn't going to take the job if his take home pay isn't commeasurate with his skills and experience. If a different company can find a way to increase the employee's value, through a better support system or process or whatever, they can increase his pay and still have it be a net gain for them, and he'll go work there instead.

But seriously, if the government suddenly decided to no longer collect the employer side of the SS tax, do you think you'd get a 6% raise? Of course you wouldn't, your value as an employee hasn't increased, he's not going to pay you more just because his costs went down.