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In principle, taxes are a citizen's membership dues, the membership in a society governed by laws, which are legislated, adjudicated, and administrated by elected representatives, to promote the common good. Promotion of the common good costs money.
It is obvious to me that the money required to promote the common good of a society's membership should come from taxes paid by the membership. The devil of taxes, however, is in the details of apportionment — the tax code, which in the United States has grown into a monstrous patchwork of social-engineering retrofits.
I have previously posted my thoughts on "What makes for a fair income tax structure?". But the complexity of our tax code is such that I daresay no one (not even the omniscient President) can determine if it is fair. It is only possible to consider the fairness of various broad aspects of the overall tax code.
In my humble opinion, a fundamental aspect of the general concept of fairness is inclusivity. Regardless of how the details of tax-burden apportionment are specified, everyone who benefits from their membership in our society should pay some fraction of their income in taxes. And if we consider the %tax range of an individual taxpayer to be (0%, 100%), it is clear that this range is to be interpreted as exclusive of the end points.
Post #719 The Principle of Inclusivity in Tax Burden
“Third, why do so many people pay nothing in federal income taxes? According to the Tax Foundation, fully 32 percent of all Americans pay no federal income taxes while 42 percent of single Americans pay no federal income taxes. With President Obama's aggressive efforts to give more money to more Americans through tax credit refundability, many experts expect that over half of the people will owe nothing or may get back some money from the federal government. Ironically, this trend started under George W. Bush, the president who supposedly ignored the poor. But taking so many people off the income tax rolls has two unfortunate consequences. First, it brings less revenue in to pay for a government that is already teetering on bankruptcy. Second, it makes wholesale tax reform more difficult. Hey, if I ain't paying any taxes under the current system, why should I want to change it? But at some point in time, squeezing the so-called rich will become counterproductive to economic growth, and the pie will start to shrink. It is not fair that so many Americans pay nothing in income taxes to their government.”I have never bought into the common perception that taxes are inherently evil and are to be avoided (evaded?) at all costs. I don't even think of them as a necessary evil.
— By John Feehery, Special to CNN
In principle, taxes are a citizen's membership dues, the membership in a society governed by laws, which are legislated, adjudicated, and administrated by elected representatives, to promote the common good. Promotion of the common good costs money.
It is obvious to me that the money required to promote the common good of a society's membership should come from taxes paid by the membership. The devil of taxes, however, is in the details of apportionment — the tax code, which in the United States has grown into a monstrous patchwork of social-engineering retrofits.
I have previously posted my thoughts on "What makes for a fair income tax structure?". But the complexity of our tax code is such that I daresay no one (not even the omniscient President) can determine if it is fair. It is only possible to consider the fairness of various broad aspects of the overall tax code.
In my humble opinion, a fundamental aspect of the general concept of fairness is inclusivity. Regardless of how the details of tax-burden apportionment are specified, everyone who benefits from their membership in our society should pay some fraction of their income in taxes. And if we consider the %tax range of an individual taxpayer to be (0%, 100%), it is clear that this range is to be interpreted as exclusive of the end points.
Post #719 The Principle of Inclusivity in Tax Burden
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