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Taxes

Page history last edited by Mike 6 years, 2 months ago

There's always somebody who is paid too much, and taxed too little * and it's always somebody else. ~Cullen Hightower 

 

  • We must maximize the benefits and minimize the cost of our taxation system. 
  • Taxes are, by definition, a benefit to the government and a cost to the citizen.  
  • We must balance our government budget (government income) without discouraging economic activity.
  • We must ensure the burden of taxation falls equitably.
  • We shouldn't try to re-create the world in our likeness. We shouldn't try to play god and social engineer every aspect of people's lives. Government shouldn't be our chance to get back at the world, prove to our parents how good we are, and force everyone to live in our MyTopia (my version of utopia). But when we have to collect taxes and reconstruct the nature of reality we should try to leave a world that rewards those who work harder, are wiser, smarter, and even those who risk more, dream big, and get lucky. We should try to find ways to help the unlucky without rewarding and encouraging more bad behavior.  
  • We must reform our tax code. Our current tax system is a patchwork of random decisions. It wasn't designed intelligently. Care was not taken to maximize job and economic improvement, to work with our   economic growth. Every year, individual taxpayers are forced to confront a Rube Goldberg contraption of bewildering complexity that leads to a range of undesirable outcomes, including the fact that millions of Americans have to pay hundreds of dollars to have their tax returns prepared by a professional who understands the rules. Corporations, for their part, are subject to rules and regulations that all too often encourage tax gamesmanship while discouraging reinvestment in the American economy.
  • Tax policy needs to work with the size of government, and the economy. The size of the federal government should only be those things that work extremely well in the states, overseas, and that are universally supported by all the states. Taxes policy should also work with the overall economic policy. You don't lower taxes when the economy is booming, and you don't raise them during a recession. You don't want the economy to grow too fast or too slow. We should structure these obvious decisions so they are out of the short term interest of politicians seeking re-election.
  • Tax policy should be designed to support long term financial health of our government, not just to keep the current government officials in power. Government officials don't like investing in the long term health of the economy, because they have to harm the economy when they are in office, and help it when someone else will take credit for it. Listing cost and benefits for each policy will help use highlight those actions that make the most sense, and will help use reward politicians who support politicians who support long term planning by increasing the popularity of actions that require long term planning. 
  • Tax policy should bring predictability and stability to help investment decision-making. We also need to find a way to keep the tax structure stable so that investors and entrepreneurs are not confronted with a constantly shifting set of rules that makes it impossible for them to plan ahead. 
  • We need to simplify the system. People shouldn't be able to make careers because the system is too complex for average people.
  • We need taxes to pay for the operations of government. But they should be collected by a system that is simple and fair, and that causes the least possible disruption to the productive economy.
  • Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
  • We should avoid extreme aristocracy in which children of the very rich never have to work a day in their lives. We shouldn't feel too much shame when we tell kids that if they end up poor, it is their own fault. 
  • Pursue a conservative overhaul of the tax system over the long term that includes lower, flatter rates on a broader base
  • We shouldn't have corporate taxes a lot more than other countries. It will cause companies to move over seas. 
  • We should pursue a transition from “worldwide” to “territorial” system for corporate taxation
  • America's Tax code is a labyrinth that imposes an enormous and unnecessary burden on our citizens and employers. Keeping taxes low and simplifying the code will grow the economy and enhance our competitiveness." 
  • Raising taxes can often hurt working people and scares away jobs.
  • We should go after waste, inefficiency, duplication, and patronage before raising taxes.  
  • It is unfair to tax people retroactively. It is wrong to change the rules after the fact on taxpayers who sold assets in reliance on the Tax code in effect at the time.
  •  State should avoid rising property taxes that don't let seniors stay in their homes. Seniors should be able to stay as long as they want in the homes where they’ve raised families and created a lifetime of good memories.
  • States should be able to pursue their own tax policy. California can tax people more than Idaho, because people really want to live in California. 

 

Links:

  1. Electronic Democracy: Taxes

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