LogFAQs > #885310019

Zeus posted...

Which is so typical of the far-leftist view that the government owns everything and by their grace we're allowed to have anything which completely misses that our system was set up so government could work for the people instead of the other way around.

Or, you know, that paying a certain percentage of your income is the price of admission for living in the country and taking advantage of all of the public spending programs. Nowhere did I suggest that that percentage should be 100%, so I'm not sure what's with the desperate hyperbole.

Zeus posted...

As for a person's "fair share" of taxes, that's literally decided by the tax code.

I like how you switched tax (>.>) so quickly to "the government knows best and what they say goes verbatim" from "we shouldn't trust the government with so much of our money." It's no secret that the tax code is a convoluted mess, full of loopholes that get exploited for reasons far beyond their original intent. The basic intent of the tax code is to tax people based on what they can comfortably afford to contribute to the running of the country. Ergo, people paying less than what they can comfortably afford are not paying their fair share. That's just how the tax code is supposed to work.

Zeus posted...

There's no "need" argument involved, especially since the neediest group is broadly exempt from most taxes anyway and then, on top of them, are gifted money from the government.

Sure there's a need argument involved. Somebody who makes $60,000 a year and is also putting two kids through college can't comfortably afford the same amount of taxes that somebody who's making $60,000 a year without children can. They don't have to be the neediest to have needs. What an absurd notion.

Zeus posted...

However, if you're so insistent on tax dollars being transparent because it's public money, why aren't you insisting that the government list everybody on the dole and how much they get by benefit? Then everybody would be able to see who actually needs it and who's being greedy, right? (Granted, it *would* make fraud easier to find.)

That would be implied by "everyone's tax returns," yes. "Everyone" doesn't mean "rich people," as much as the focus here is on preventing legal tax evasion.

OhhhJa posted...

It's not cheating the system if it's legal.

It's cheating the intent behind the system. It's definitely exploiting its shortcomings, which would generally be considered cheating if it were, say, a video game.

OhhhJa posted...

The tax code is available to the public. It's nobody's fault but your own for being ignorant to the available tax breaks.

Not really. Technically, yes, anyone can view the tax code and find all the breaks they're eligible for, but that's not a reasonable expectation for anyone not getting paid to do so. The tax code is terribly complex, and there's a mountain of legal precedent to sift through to figure out whether or not ambiguities can be interpreted in your favour, such that optimizing taxes is a far larger time commitment than most people can manage. This is why people pay accountants, and the best accountants (who can find the most breaks) tend to charge more than any middle-class person will make from those breaks. Ergo, cheating the system. Or maybe just that the system's pay-to-win, to make another video game analogy.
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