US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1863

On April 20 2015 22:58 oneofthem wrote:
progressivity without distributive motive is just a formula for burden sharing. right now we are not even at that. amount of tax avoidance and evasive action is high enough to place tax burden on the most stressed rather than on those with major wealth.

redistributive tax rates havent been seen for half a century and wont evr work given globalization of capital

On April 20 2015 22:58 oneofthem wrote:
progressivity without distributive motive is just a formula for burden sharing. right now we are not even at that. amount of tax avoidance and evasive action is high enough to place tax burden on the most stressed rather than on those with major wealth.

redistributive tax rates havent been seen for half a century and wont evr work given globalization of capital

On April 20 2015 23:08 cLutZ wrote:


Do you not read the chart?

On April 20 2015 23:13 Aveng3r wrote:

I don't get why so many posts in this thread contend that "the most financially stressed taxpayers pay more in taxes than the rich". on what grounds is this true?

On April 20 2015 23:58 oneofthem wrote:

the chart is misleading. effective tax rate on reported income for the top 0.1% is around 20-25% by most estimates and this is not taking into account active evasion and avoidance schemes that gets more effective as the source of income is more diverse and international. and let's not get into real estate taxation

if your idea of measuring tax burden is simply looking at the federal top bracket rate for wage income then i wonder if you've ever filed a tax return in your lief

On April 21 2015 00:51 cLutZ wrote:


The chart may be misleading you, because you are reading it incorrectly. It takes % of total revenues paid to the government, and divides it by total % of income earned. America has the highest such ratio of OECD countries which means, that the top % of Americans bears a larger burden of the taxes than in any other country. In other words, if you say "the rich are paying too little" you are just being intellectually dishonest. Really, what you want is more taxes on everyone. That's the only feasible way to generate more tax revenue.

On April 21 2015 00:02 oneofthem wrote:

the claim was never 'pay more taxes' in absolute amount but in the form of higher rates and also higher burden in terms of impacting life.

just based on reported income alone the top 0.1% pays under 25% effective rate, while a working professional would pay around 40%.

On April 21 2015 01:42 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

The top marginal rate is ~40%. How are you getting that a working professional will be paying 40%? Have you ever filed taxes?

On April 21 2015 01:08 oneofthem wrote:


notice i connected my definition of 'rich' with substantial wealth ownership. this means looking at the group of people whose income is mainly investment/real estate.

effective tax burden should be examined based on the individual's wealth/income, because the 'fair' amount of tax burden depends on the structure of income/wealth distributino in a particular society. looking merely at revenue sourcing is not very informative.

the rest of your post is insubstantial.

On April 21 2015 01:47 oneofthem wrote:

effective tax rate jonny, including state taxes, payroll and ss.

the largest disparity in effective tax burden basically comes down to the composition of income. those who have fairly high income, top 10% even, but have that income in the form of wages will face high tax rate.

+ Show Spoiler +

Taxpayers at the very top of the income distribution, the top 0.1 percent, which includes taxpayers with incomes over $2.2 million, actually paid a slightly lower income tax rate than the top 1 percent (21.7 percent versus 22.8 percent). This is due to the fact that very high income taxpayers are more likely to report a greater share of their income as taxable capital gains income. This leads to a slightly lower effective tax rate because capital gains and dividends income faces a lower top income tax rate

On April 21 2015 01:47 oneofthem wrote:

effective tax rate jonny, including state taxes, payroll and ss.

the largest disparity in effective tax burden basically comes down to the composition of income. those who have fairly high income, top 10% even, but have that income in the form of wages will face high tax rate.

+ Show Spoiler +

On April 21 2015 03:21 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Marginal tax rates aren't your effective tax rates though, that's your effective rate on the next dollar you earn. Actual effective tax rates are much lower.

To address your other post, effective tax rates as described by the IRS are going to be different from the CBO because of definitional differences. The CBO tries to get closer to reality, while the IRS goes strictly by tax law. This is important when you get into the top 0.1% and higher, since income will be split between multiple IRS taxpayers (C-corp and individual).

WASHINGTON -- Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) on Monday extended a short-term needle exchange program in order to respond to an exploding HIV crisis in southeastern Indiana.

"While we’ve made progress in identifying and treating those affected by this heartbreaking epidemic, the public health emergency continues and so must our efforts to fight it," Pence said in a statement.

As of April 17, the Indiana State Department of Health had confirmed 128 cases and at least six preliminary cases of HIV in Scott County, the governor's office reported. The week before, the county was looking at 106 cases. Typically, Scott County would see fewer than five new HIV cases a year.

Indiana's HIV crisis is linked to intravenous drug use of a prescription painkiller called Opana. Like many other conservatives, Pence opposes needle exchange programs as part of drug control efforts. The exchanges allow drug users to obtain sterile needles and have been shown to reduce the transmission of diseases like HIV, but critics say the programs facilitate drug abuse. Research has refuted that claim.

The exchanges are technically illegal in Indiana. But last month, Pence made an exception and signed an executive order authorizing a temporary needle exchange program that was set to expire this week. Pence has now extended that order for another 30 days. According to The New York Times, since the temporary exchange was approved, 5,322 clean syringes have been distributed to 86 people.

"The goal of that program is a clean needle for each person for each injection," Amber Kent, a spokeswoman for Indiana's Joint Information Center, told The Huffington Post. The center is working on behalf of the state's Department of Health.

The FBI has admitted "errors" in evidence provided by its forensics laboratory to US courts to help secure convictions, including in death penalty cases, over more than 20 years.

A report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) noted "irregularities" in the hair analysis unit.

More detail on the cases affected is expected later from campaign groups.
Flawed forensics were used in at least 60 capital punishment cases, the OIG report found.

Fourteen defendants were either executed or died in prison, says the Washington Post, which first reported the story at the weekend.

The review of cases was prompted by the Post's 2012 story that three men were wrongly placed at the scene of violent crimes by the unit's hair analysts, raising the possibility of hundreds of unsafe convictions.

As the first black female mayor of Parma, Mo., took office last week, five of the town's six police officers resigned, Missouri television station KFVS reported.

The new mayor, Tyrus Byrd (pictured above on the right), was sworn in on Tuesday evening. Former Mayor Randall Ramsey told KFVS that in addition to the five police officers, the city's attorney, clerk and water treatment plant supervisor resigned due to "safety concerns."

Byrd was not aware why the five police officers resigned, according to KFVS. When she took office, Byrd said she could not find the resignation letters and that the city computers had been cleared. She told KFVS that she needs more information before addressing the resignations publicly.

Byrd was born and raised in Parma, and formerly served as the city clerk. Ramsey lost the mayoral election to Byrd by 37 votes after serving as the mayor for 37 years, according to KFVS.