Additional Thoughts on Tax

Because of a well thought and said comment on my facebook notes section in response to the last post, I have decided to re-post my response here. I will be addressing the Tariffs and imports tomorrow. Thank you for reading. The respondent's name will not be posted with the comments. Original post on Facebook.

Comment to post,

"ok, so you're saying that rich people would still get taxed more because they consume more? Not always the case, if you're talking about low priced items then this is more than likely not the case. Let's say an average (poor) family wants to buy a new tv, such as myself. Then Not only is the price of the good very expensive in general, but it would have a larger tax on it than say buying a gallon of milk... I really don't see the benefit of this, this would make people outraged things would be sold under the table. Instead of penalizing people for how much they make (which is not always a tag of how much the person is worth but how much people are willing to give them) you punish people for just wanting to improve the quality of their life. I can't say that tarriffs are a terrible idea, but there is also no reason to punish other countries because they want to make money or deprive people in america (lets say Japaneese people for example) who want to buy Japaneese things..."

My response,

"Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and commenting. In response, I agree that there exist instances where some my find it more difficult to buy items that are already quite pricey and adding a progressive sales tax would be a hinderance. I would hope that this idea on taxes would inspire savings and tighten the belt on runaway consumer spending that has occurred in the last few decades. This decade, for the first time in history, has seen spending out-pace income and savings. This means we have a negative savings rate in this country. It is important to keep the quality of life high for as many as possible but resorting to out of control spending is not the key. Additionally, affluent people tend to buy luxury items, yachts, exotic cars, mansions etc. Tax on a mansion 12,000,000 @ 15% = 1,800,000. LCD TV 800 @ 7% = 56. Its not the every day items that would be tax heavily but big ticket items in what would be higher brackets. I am transferring income tax brackets to sales"

second comment, same addressee,

"It's just too bad people like to spend more than they have, I find this to be funny, I still don't understand the concept... I don't have a credit card, so therefore have no credit, but yet am quite responsible, I suppose I am to flirt with irresponsibility and get one, but if I can't afford something now, why do I want to pay interest on the money I owe. I do understand better now what you mean if it were a literal tax transfer this would penalize those spending money one luxury items greater, I am still not so sure about tarriffs. It is a fine line to draw when people say "buy American" because there are so many of us (none) that are fully American, so why would we want to go and tax products from other countries when they may be things we can't/don't make in America. I don't think if I wanted an Imported CD/DVD/whathaveyou that it should then get an extra charge added to it just because it is foreign. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I see no problem with buying foreign."

I will be addressing the topic of imports and tariffs in tomorrows post. Thank you for reading.


If you have topics or ideas you wish to discuss or have commented on, please email (my email address was posted on a previous post) or comment and I will try to have it addressed. Thank you.