Monday, September 3, 2012

The Tommy plan on taxes

You know, there’s an old saying; “there are only two things in life that are true, you have to pay taxes and you die”

Well, I’m not sure what we can do about the second of those. We start our lives knowing, but not believing, that we’re going to die. No matter what you do, this is true!

Now, taxes, on the other hand are another story. While it is true that we all need to pay taxes in order to support our government. The rules that determine what is paid, is a totally different story. As I’ve said before, I’m sort of a simple person and therefore try to adhere to the K.I.S.S. theorem, which is Keep It Simple Stupid.

There’s another saying that I believe also; there are two ends to every stick. On one end of the tax stick is our current tax system as administered by the Internal Revenue Service. On the other end is or should be a system based on that K.I.S.S. theorem.

Now I know that this is going to initially sound pretty silly, maybe a little stupid. But, let it sink in for a few minutes and see what comes out.

I think that we should simply throw the current system into the fireplace and let it keep us warm for a few days. In its place, the Tommy plan..

The first premise is that there are some pretty smart people in this country when it comes to finance and the economy. These people need to come up with a percentage of a dollar that each and every citizen needs to pay. Just for arguments sake, let’s say that they decide that to support our governments we all need to give 10%. Now, ALL and I mean ALL deductions, Credits, etc. are out the window. For every $1.00 that you earn $0.10 goes for taxes. Now, that’s GROSS income, because there is no longer net income when it comes to taxes. Someone that has an income of $40,000 would pay $4,000. Someone making $1,000,000 would pay $100,000 in taxes. Of course, there needs to be a sliding scale on this percentage if your annual income is at or below a preset level (aka. the poverty level).

I’m not a financial person, so I would have NO way of guessing what this percentage would actually be. But, with the Tommy plan, everyone pays their share. This 1% and 99% situation would begin to be flattened out a bit.

Oh and I haven’t thought this one through a lot, but those Corporations receiving all that money from our Government. Forget it! If a company can’t make a profit without the help of the Government tough, you’re in the wrong line of work so get out.

So, I’m curious what are your thoughts on this one..

3 comments:

Ray said...

Hi, Tom -
This article in Wikipedia says:-
In 2010, in the United States, the poverty threshold for one person under 65 was US$11,344 (annual income); the threshold for a family group of four, including two children, was US$22,133.[11][12] According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released on September 13, 2011, the nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent in 2010.

Ray said...

Hi, Tom -
This article in Wikipedia says:-
In 2010, in the United States, the poverty threshold for one person under 65 was US$11,344 (annual income); the threshold for a family group of four, including two children, was US$22,133.[11][12] According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released on September 13, 2011, the nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent in 2010.

Ray said...

(Another try at that URL....)

Wikipedia article on poverty