Depends on what the government wants to do with it. Build a wall? Hell, no. Useful infrastructure? Maybe. Universal healthcare? I'm cool with paying taxes for that.
But if you live in the US, you might get to pay less than before. Would that be a bad thing? Rest assured, however, that universal healthcare isn't happening here.
Of course I wouldn't mind having more money in my pocket, but your assumption that this new tax scheme will do that may not be accurate. According to those who are trying to foist this upon us, the average family of four will have about $1300-$1400 more to spend. I'm a family of one - how much will I save? If you offset all of that by what you will no longer be able to claim as deductions, am I really ahead of the game?
All that aside, the estimate is that this tax plan will add more than a trillion dollars to the national debt. Wasn't it the GOP that was complaining about how much Obama added to the debt? Of course, now that it's them and not the Democrats that are doing it, it's OK. And, this is all predicated on the assumption that by reducing corporate taxes, some 400,000 new jobs will be created. Both Reagan and Bush tried this and it didn't work. What makes anyone think that trying it again will prove to have a different outcome?
12%, 25%, 35% and 39.6%. For single filers, corresponding income brackets will be up to $45,000, $200,000, $500,000 and $500,000+. For married people, those brackets will be up to $90,000, up to $260,000, up to $1 million and over $1 million.
So deduct $12,000 from you income and multiply by your tax rate. Should be less than you paid last year.
What tax "reform"? All I see is money being put back into one of "the Taxpayer's pockets while covertly being taken out of one of their other pockets.
It's a bunch of "drug" users trying to figure out a way to pay yet more to their "dealers" while making it look like they're stealing less from the neighborhood residents. And in another year or two the amount they steal will creep back up to being higher than it currently is, ala George H. W. Bush.
How's this for a true tax reform act . . "This 28th Amendment to the US Constitution hereby immediately repeals the 16th Amendment and further prohibits any Federal, State, Local or other governmental entity from imposing any tax on any personal income." Further, none of those afore mentioned governmental entities may impose any taxes, tariffs or other income schemes without the direct consent of the People and any such revenue legislation must be written to expire within 10-years of its enactment.
And sorry, all of you "dealers" that look to the government, and by extension to the pockets of the People, for free money are gonna have to take a haircut. It's coming sooner or later, might as well be now.
So who pays for infrastructure? Public roads. Libraries. Sanitation. Police. Fire brigade. Agreed, some of the fripperies that governments waste taxpayer funds on are unneccessary. But taxes pay for the stuff that otherwise wouldn't get done.
Which is the only item on your list that is a Constitutional obligation on the Federal government. (The military Constitutionally exists for the purpose of National Defense, which is why we refer to it as the "Defense" budget instead of the "Military" budget.)
This post was edited by Salt and Red Pepper at November 3, 2017 7:24 PM MDT
You're apparently VERY unfamiliar with historic government revenue paths in the USA.
And "stuff" "got done" just fine in the USA BEFORE the income tax was imposed. The sales pitch for that particular form of armed robbery was two-fold: to replace the lost revenue from Prohibition, and to fund occasional, necessary wars. (Funny how that income tax didn't go away when that 18th Amendment was repealed . . . ) Now it's become, basically, a repeal of the 13th Amendment.
As to your list . . . Police departments (local and State) are funded at those levels, not funded by the Fed. Although all those neat "toys" used to threaten and kill people do come from US military "surplus", at least the ones that aren't purchased with money stolen from people under the unconstitutional "Civil Forfeiture" laws.
Fire department services in the USA are largely "volunteer" (around 80%, if memory serves) with equipment paid for by donations from the public and from fire insurance companies. In large cities the municipality pays for them, along with donations from prosperous local people.
Most people get a monthly bill from a privately-owned and operated trash removal company in addition to having to pay their taxes. The very few municipalities that do have trash removal services STILL bill the property owner for the services, same as with water and sewerage.
Public roads were paid for by specific taxes on motor fuels, not from income tax revenue. (Those taxes are still there but no longer go to road construction and maintenance, just drain into the "general" fund, which might explain the current deterioration rate of our highway infrastructure.)
Historically most libraries in the USA are paid for by charitable contributions. That "piece of crap" Capitalist (as per the leftists) Andrew Carnegie had a fondness for "building and filling" them with the money he received from his sale of Carnegie Steel to JP Morgan. That included endowments to maintain them. Contrast that with libraries that are government funded like in Detroit, which are now book-less and roofless . . . And besides that, the Internet is sadly making libraries less and less relevant (I say sadly because I have a fondness for printed materials).
Public schools (which you did not mention) are paid for with local property taxes, not by the Fed.
Hospitals also used to be charitable endeavors. Ever hear of Johns Hopkins Hospital? Johns Hopkins was a real person, another one of those piece of crap capitalists so much hated by the left; made his money from railroading and canals in Maryland (it was a long time ago). A recently added wing to Johns Hopkins was paid for by a Saudi prince so he could have someplace to go for decent medical care should he need it (apparently that's not available in the middle east for some reason?)
Income tax is FAR from the only blood supply that the cancer of government has access to. There's all kinds of tariffs and excise taxes that can, or have levied. The USA managed to get along just fine without that income tax for it's first 100-years +.
But who knows. If we hadn't had the income tax we might have had to borrow money. Why, we could be in deep debt right now, maybe as much as $20-trilli . . .OH, wait. (And I do find it curious that the War on Poverty has consumed about that same amount without ANY improvement . . weird, huh?)
No, the income tax, along with the creation of that pseudo-private bank called the Federal Reserve, has been the equivalent of handing a group of drunken sailors (the Federal Government) an unlimited credit card that's directly attached to the bank accounts of over half the US population.
It's well past time for that to end. And it will, it has to. And unless we do that in a controlled manner it will be a real bloodbath.
It has about the same chance of happening as real tax reform at the moment. The money "junkies" inside the Capital Beltway have absolutely no intention of cutting of any of their "drug" supply.
But it will happen eventually. And if it happens spontaneously instead of in a controlled manner it will be a literal blood bath. It's happened many times before throughout history. Hell, just take a look at the French Revolution and its causes, or German history in the '20's that lead o the rise of Hitler . . . but no one ever takes the time to learn from history.
Slartibartfast 