Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!bbncca!msimpson From: msimpson@bbncca.ARPA (Mike Simpson) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: VATs That!!! Message-ID: <601@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Wed, 22-Feb-84 09:58:51 EST Article-I.D.: bbncca.601 Posted: Wed Feb 22 09:58:51 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 23-Feb-84 01:33:15 EST References: <685@ihuxq.UUCP> <308@tty3b.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 43 *** 22 February 1984. Mike Kelly (tty3b!mjk) has claimed that a "flat tax" would end "... the sliding scales which have been instituted to try to add a small bit of fairness to the tax system." Mr. Kelly, why do you believe that it is good to discourage people from generating wealth? Sliding scales give people less incentive to earn more money, because when someone earns more, a DISPROPORTIONATELY greater amount of their pay is taken from them in taxes. Nobody claimed that getting by on $8000 might not be easy. (Then again, if your food, housing, and transportation were being picked up for you, living on $8000 could be quite fun.) But can one unequivocally determine that Taxpayer X, making $8000 a year, uses SO much fewer tax-supported resources (police, fire, roads, sewer and water, Social Security, etc.) than Taxpayer Y, making $130,000 a year, that X should pay far less in taxes than Y? It appears to me that the following statements place an implicit blame upon people in upper income brackets for the conditions of people in lower income brackets: " ... 20% of an $8000 income just isn't the same as 20% of, say, a $130,000 income. There is clearly a hell of a lot of slack in the second; but try to get by on $8000 /year, let alone $8000-20%. Thus, the sliding rate tax system assess those who can afford to pay more at a higher rate, so that those who are barely scraping by pay at a lesser rate. " I am not a particular fan of having to pay taxes myself. But I do believe that sliding scales are NOT the answer. -- Mike Simpson, BBN ihnp4!linus!bbncca!msimpson -- -- cheers, Mike Simpson, BBN msimpson@bbn-unix (ARPA) {decvax,linus,wjh12}!bbncca!msimpson (Usenet) 617-497-2819 (Ma Bell)