Our candidates need to do a better job with the payroll tax issue

[wryter2000]

I'm a pretty smart person, but I only recently caught on about what people talk about when they mention the payroll tax. It isn't on my pay stub anywhere. Our candidates should explain that they mean FICA so that people can look at that hunk of money that disappears from their pay. Also, we really need to get people past the idea that that money is going into trust somewhere so that they can get it out when they get Social Security and Medicare. They need to be told that that money's being used to fund the war in Iraq.

And another thing...most people who don't reach the cap (which is a huge majority of people) don't even realize that you only pay that tax on the first (what is it?) $85,000. I'll bet most folks would eagerly support raising that cap.

For the first time in my memory, taxes are our issue. People at the bottom and in the middle are truly being taxed too much. You can't really point to sales taxes because they're pretty much invisible. You only pay property tax if you're lucky enough to be buying a home. But we can point to FICA if we tell people where to look!

Edit: typo

[forgethell]

1. They are, they are

Now, how do we lower them without giving up our programs??

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sangh0]

3. Your corrections have mistakes

You pay property taxes long after you "buy" a home.

True, but you don't pay any property taxes if you don't own a home. The original poster should have said "You pay real estate taxes only if you're lucky enough to own a home"

And renters pay property taxes. It is included in their rent.

Not true. Renters do NOT pay property taxes. The owners do. Renters pay rent, and rent is determined by whatever the market will support. If the market is low, rent can be less than it costs the owner to maintain the rental space.

[livinontheedge]

6. In the vast, vast, vast majority of cases, the cash used to pay for

property taxes came directly out of the cash paid by renters. I'm not going to quibble but I doubt that many owners reach into their own pocket to pay property taxes.

[sangh0]

10. Cash is fungible

so it's impossible to say that any particular dollar came from one particular place.

I'm not going to quibble but I doubt that many owners reach into their own pocket to pay property taxes.

They do when their apts go unrented. The do when their apts go for less than they cost to keep up. They do when the rent only covers their mortgage, which occurs quite often.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sangh0]

14. Yes and No

WHile your points do have a great deal of truth to them, they do nothing to refute my point which is that renters do NOT pay real estate taxes, the owners do.

As to your second argument about leasing cars, I'd just like to point out that in leasing, there is an assumption of ownership while with renting, there is none. IOW, your analogy is fatally flawed. A better analogy would be to compare it to renting a car, not leasing one.

Sorry, when I had a leased vehicle I was without question paying property taxes on it.

Sorry, but when you rent a car, you don't pay any property taxes based on the car.

[livinontheedge]

4. You're walking on thin ice around here talking about privatization.

I happen to agree with you. I have absolutely, positively no doubt whatsoever that if you gave me back a PORTION of my FICA taxes (money I earned myself and paid to the government as FICA taxes) to invest for myself, I would beat the pants off the government's rate of return. I would have a hell of a lot more money for my retirement if I could invest a portion of it in the stock market. No doubt about it. None. Zero.

Unfortunately, this issue will get demagogued to death. Every once in a while, you gotta change programs to save them.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sangh0]

5. Dems should promote "Flat Payroll Taxes"

If we made ALL income subject to ALL payroll taxes we could reduce the rates giving a tax break to millions of low and middle class voters

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sangh0]

9. Why not?

If you're having a problem with the word "payroll", then we can change it. The important point is that no income should be "sheltered". It should all be subject to taxation.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sangh0]

15. Huh?

I get the feeling you think you've just made some sort of significant argument, but for the life of me, I dont understand how your response has anything to do with what I said.

You have gone from subjecting all income to payroll taxes to just "taxes".

No, I have suggested giving them a new name. Nothing else. Why are you so hung up on what they're called, while ignoring what they do?

Guess you are in favor of eliminating tax free municiple bonds. Why?

I guess you guessed wrong. I also guess you have to make up words to put in my mouth. When did I say something about tax-free munis?

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sangh0]

17. I guess you skipped the parts

where you falsely claimed that RENTers pay real estate tax because you pay property tax when you LEASE a car while ignoring that car RENTers pay NO property taxes.

Or maybe you missed the part where you falsely claimed that I "switched" my opinion.

Or maybe you missed my argument about the fungibility of money.

Or do you now mean most income, and not really all income as you said before?

Like I'm gonna answer your questions when you dont respond to my points and when you're not expected to last very long

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sangh0]

20. Bye, bye

asshole

[Capn Sunshine]

13. Then they just change the definition of "income"

The biggest "income tax break" of all was in the DIVIDEND TAX CUT.

Effectively, rather than issue traditional stock options as compensation to high level exedcutives, they are given "preferred" shares especially issued to be non-saleable. Listed at a low value per share, the sole purpose is to provide a vehicle for delivering a special "dividend" to the holder.

Where typical dividend might be as much as a dollar per share , the "preferred" share (say they own two thousand shares) gets dividends of thousands per share.

Result? The recipient pays the max dividend tax rate of 15%. Take a look at YOUR paycheck and see what your average Tax rate is.

Yet another of the hidden costs to the system built into W's little tax cuts.

[apsuman]

21. I agree

I agree that more people need to be educated about FICA and that the tax issue is really fertile ground to grow political hay.

First, I think it is a really bad idea (in general) for your dollars to be double taxed, that is your income is taxed once for FICA and then the same gross wages are used for income taxes.

Second and more specifically, I think it is an exceptionally bad idea that working people on the lower end of the wage scale are required to pay the FICA.

I don't want to get rid of FICA, but there should be some type of credit applied to individual's taxes for the amount of FICA they paid.

[TAH6988]

22. Just remember FICA is not a tax

it is technically an insurance program. Actually, it is a pyramid scheme, but we won't go into that.

[apsuman]

24. yes you are correct but...

If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, chances are, it's a duck.

[forgethell]

26. anything you can go to jail

for not paying is a tax. Calling a stinker something else doesn't make the smell go away. but it was the only way it could be sold to the American people in FDR's time.

[blm]

23. Yet you support a guy who REFUSED income taxes be raised....

He was fine with any tax raised EXCEPT income taxes. Odd, considering the greater burden on the working class in that equation..


Those who know Dean say he’s no classic liberal

By ROSS SNEYD

Associated Press Writer

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Howard Dean may be many things, say those who worked with him over nearly a dozen years as Vermont governor, but an elitist liberal is hardly one of them.

He’s actually a lot more moderate — many would say conservative — than the reputation he’s built during his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

>>>>>>>>>>>>
The state was in a fiscal crisis at the time, working its way out of the biggest budget deficit in its history. Then-Gov. Richard Snelling had pushed a series of temporary tax increases and budget cuts through the Legislature and Dean took up that austerity plan as his own.

To the anger of more liberal members of his own party, he insisted that the tax increases be rolled back on schedule and then went on to work for additional tax cuts later in his tenure.

By the same token, though, he also supported raising taxes — as long as it wasn’t the income tax — when school funding crises and other issues arose that required it.

Throughout, he held a tight rein on state spending, repeatedly clashing with the Democrats who controlled the Legislature for most of his years as governor.
>>>>>>>

Dean trimmed spending or held down increases in areas held dear by the liberals. More than once, Dean went to battle over whether individual welfare benefits should rise under automatic cost of living adjustments. Liberals were particularly incensed when he tried that tactic on a program serving the blind, disabled and elderly, which he did several times.

Dean turned often to the bully pulpit to belittle and berate them.

[Donna Zen]

25. The Democrats use FICA

This entire argument is clearly and completely spelled out in "The Two Percent Solution" by Matthew Miller. I have posted snips from this book before on DU, but I want to encourage members to look at a serious discussion of why our government is so seriously broken. The federal budget is a unified budget, there is no locked box. Both parties survive on soundbites deriving from the fiction that SS is somehow a separate item.The repubs know this, but it works to their advantage when calling for tax cuts, they only produce the numbers from the income tax scales which make it seem that the rich really are paying more. The Democrats know this, but "think the "don't touch the Social Security surplus" drumbeat is a political winner..." Of course as Miller goes on to say, this is not only hypocritical it also "cuts them off from a stronger line of attack that is truer to progressive values." Finally, the Democrats use SS to "slam the GOP for unfairly excluding low-wage workers who pay payroll taxes..."

The problem that the Democrats find themselves in, is if one pretends that SS is off limits and separate, how then does one make case that they are part of the entire tax package that needs to be considered in tax cuts. "This is a debate the Democrats could lead to great effect if they weren't torn between the substantive desire to ease payroll taxes and the demagogic convenience of etching them in stone."(38)