Tell me again why taxes are necessary?

[Father Kit Cool Gun Garth]

 

"Revenue Act of 1913 - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1913#:~:text=Wilson signed the bill into,three percent of the population.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Because there were other taxes besides income taxes, among other reasons.

 

My state has no tax on earnings, i.e. income tax. But it has lots of other taxes.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Those things were funded by taxes, just not income taxes.

[Gateway Kid SASS# 70038 Life]

Pretty sure his point is that those things that most consider "necessities" were funded without need for an additional "income" tax.

Would be interested in how much of ones income was used to fund government programs back then in an overall sense.

Depending on whom you believe the "real" taxes that are taken today at all levels of government are upwards of 70% + of a persons income.

Income tax, sales tax, property tax, school tax, rain water tax, gasoline tax, ad nauseum.

Regards

   

Gateway Kid

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

In the case of the railroads, besides private investment (much of it from Britain), the Federal gov't made huge land grants to RR companies to underwrite railroad construction.

 

This stuff just didn't happen on its own.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

In the beginning anything over 1% was deemed excessive.

 

then 2

then 3 

then 5

 

 

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

26 minutes ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

In the case of the railroads, besides private investment (much of it from Britain), the Federal gov't made huge land grants to RR companies to underwrite railroad construction.

 

This stuff just didn't happen on its own.

 

 

 

"Typically, the federal government gave the land to the states. The states were to transfer land to the railroads upon the completion of each twenty-mile section of track. The railroad company would then receive alternate sections (a square mile each), six miles on both sides of the track. The price for the alternate sections kept by the government was doubled. If the lands adjacent to the tracks had already been occupied or claimed, the company could make up the full amount by selecting alternate parcels from lieu lands up to fifteen miles on either side of the track. In Nebraska, it was necessary to allow the company to go beyond the 15-mile limit to obtain all of the land to which it was entitled."

[Rye Miles #13621]

Well things were less expensive back then so as things got more expensive we needed more taxes. That’s my guess !

[LawMan Mark, SASS #57095L]

Because this was a road in 1913

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

Those "free" cell phones given to illegals aren't cheap.

[Bart Slade]

If I remember right, the federal income tax was initially meant as a replacement for the liquor tax.   Which had to be replaced because Prohibition was coming, and was going to cause a big problem for the treasury.   

[Utah Bob #35998]

I guarantee that pic wasn’t taken in 1913. In 1913 the roads were crap except in big cities. Most of the country was still wilderness.The population was growing. We needed a bigger army and navy. Income tax will always be necessary. 
But it needs serious reform that’s for sure. If legislators had to pay the same taxes we do, things would change.

[Birdgun Quail, SASS #63663]

As I recall from my readings of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution (the Federal Income Tax Amendment), it was highly popular and easily ratified.  Seems at the time the poor and middle class were paying most all the taxes and the rich and mega-rich very little to none.  The Amendment was called for by the average citizen so the rich would have to start paying taxes also.  The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, well before WW1 and Prohibition.

 

 

 

.

[Still hand Bill]

59 minutes ago, Bart Slade said:

If I remember right, the federal income tax was initially meant as a replacement for the liquor tax.   Which had to be replaced because Prohibition was coming, and was going to cause a big problem for the treasury.   

This is the basic idea.   Prior to the income tax, tariffs and excise taxes on goods (whiskey, guns) funded the government.  Due to the desire to impose prohibition, alternative funding had to be found.  Once there was an income tax, then prohibition could be passed (1918) as alcohol was no longer needed to fund the government.   
 

the original top marginal rate was quite high and has been decreased to what we have today.  Interesting that federal tax revenues have remained virtually unchanged as the tax rates have changed.  It stays around 18% of gdp.  This suggests that tax rates have virtually no impact on tax revenue.   Aka trickle down doesn’t work, nor does tax the rich.  The best way to increase tax revenue is to increase gdp.  
 

 

[Muggle]

You will be surprised how this have deteriorate since then, Here's a typical example: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/08/oecd-reaches-deal-on-corporate-tax-after-ireland-agrees.html

[Birdgun Quail, SASS #63663]

And as the old saying goes: "If 10% is good enough for Jesus, why isn't it good enough for Uncle Sam?"

[Buckshot Bob]

20 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

I guarantee that pic wasn’t taken in 1913. In 1913 the roads were crap except in big cities. Most of the country was still wilderness.The population was growing. We needed a bigger army and navy. Income tax will always be necessary. 
But it needs serious reform that’s for sure. If legislators had to pay the same taxes we do, things would change.

Also if the had the same health care and investment opportunities. The enforcement of our criminal code also seems to be quite subjective 

[watab kid]

its needed to allow Politian's to buy votes with other peoples money and keep poor folks enslaved to the government and unemployed , 

[Ozark Huckleberry]

Taxes provide a way for the government to drain the excess money supply it caused through deficit spending.

 

Draining the money supply results in demand destruction -- people can't afford something, so the demand for it goes down.

 

If the money supply isn't drained, demand remains high. If demand remains high but production does not increase to meet the demand, prices of goods and services up -- the result is inflation. 

 

Anything about this sound familiar yet?

[Texas Joker]

3 hours ago, Ozark Huckleberry said:

Taxes provide a way for the government to drain the excess money supply it caused through deficit spending.

 

Draining the money supply results in demand destruction -- people can't afford something, so the demand for it goes down.

 

If the money supply isn't drained, demand remains high. If demand remains high but production does not increase to meet the demand, prices of goods and services up -- the result is inflation. 

 

Anything about this sound familiar yet?

BUT if the money supply does not increase there is a finite increase in cost BEFORE the good/service is priced out of the market or a substitute is found.

 

Taxes have nothing to do with capitalistic demand markets, Only a government demanding a portion of the populaces work.

 

Inflation is caused solely by the increase in money supply. Which can occur ONLY when governments devalue their money through dilution.

 

What did they think would happen when we moved to fractional reserve banking from specie? Or when they CREATED 3 trillion dollars in covid relief.

 

[Ozark Huckleberry]

2 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

BUT if the money supply does not increase there is a finite increase in cost BEFORE the good/service is priced out of the market or a substitute is found.

 

Taxes have nothing to do with capitalistic demand markets, Only a government demanding a portion of the populaces work.

 

Inflation is caused solely by the increase in money supply. Which can occur ONLY when governments devalue their money through dilution.

 

What did they think would happen when we moved to fractional reserve banking from specie? Or when they CREATED 3 trillion dollars in covid relief.

 

You’re right — the trick is to expand the money supply at a rate that does not dilute the value (commensurate with expansion of production). 
 

Deficit spending dilutes the value of the money as the government pays for the deficit with bonds that the Fed has committed to buy by issuing more money. More money in circulation = diluted value = inflation. For all practical purposes, a hidden tax on savings. I’ve heard it referred to as the government stealing your past to pay for their future. 

Taxes are a means to manage the economy. They take money out of circulation by transferring it from individuals to the government. That reduces demand (thereby reducing inflation) by reducing purchasing power, and also reducing the deficit spending. 
 

Everything the current government is doing is classic MMT. 

[Texas Joker]

Taxes are a means to fund the government for public works projects. Not control the economy.

 

The Federal Reserve is as federal as Federal Express. It's a for profit bank.

 

Federal tax policy is a shell game. Now that almost ALL money is digital know one really knows how much there is. Add a zero remove one what's it matter? Fractional reserve banking allows the same dollar to be in at least 3 places at once.

 

To get rid of inflation you either need to increase the size of the economy or decrease the amount of money available. Some of that is why the .gov is talking about debt forgiveness like student loans. 

 

Cancel out a trillion in owed debt 'poof' books are closer to balanced. If I ran a business the way the .gov does they'd put me in jail next to Bernie Madoff. And there is NO WAY to run personal finances that way. 

 

 

[Ozark Huckleberry]

Taxes are SHOULD BE a means to fund the government for public works projects. Not control the economy.

16 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

Taxes are  SHOULD BE a means to fund the government for public works projects. Not control the economy.

 

 

There. Fixed it to reflect reality.

 

Tax policy routinely rewards economic behavior the government wants to encourage and penalizes economic behavior the government opposes. That's why the Tax Code fills 54 volumes., why lobbyists have jobs, and why legislators have multiple houses.

 

The notion that taxes are used purely as a mechanism to fund the government is quaint.

 

16 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

The Federal Reserve is as federal as Federal Express. It's a for profit bank.

 

Except Federal Express isn't able to add to the money supply by buying up government-issued bonds. 

 

16 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

Federal tax policy is a shell game. Now that almost ALL money is digital know one really knows how much there is. Add a zero remove one what's it matter? Fractional reserve banking allows the same dollar to be in at least 3 places at once.

 

The effect of fractional reserve banking, as you note, multiplies the impact of money issued, and that ripple effect is exactly why the government expanding the money supply can have such a profound effect on juicing up inflation.

 

16 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

To get rid of inflation you either need to increase the size of the economy or decrease the amount of money available. Some of that is why the .gov is talking about debt forgiveness like student loans. 

 

Cancel out a trillion in owed debt 'poof' books are closer to balanced. If I ran a business the way the .gov does they'd put me in jail next to Bernie Madoff. And there is NO WAY to run personal finances that way. 

 

There is no 'canceling out (aka, 'forgiving') debt. Someone pays it (aka -- the taxpayer). Shifting the burden of debt from one group to another is another type of shell game.

 

Again -- taxes decrease the amount of money available. How much more could your family spend if you didn't pay taxes? Multiply that by about 123 million households in the U.S.

[Texas Joker]

ANYONE can buy government bonds. The Fed and the mint are 2 different things. The .gov is hobo ass broke. The Federal Reserve is a Master PRIVATELY OWNED bank that sets cost of money for additional debt. 

 

1 hour ago, Ozark Huckleberry said:

 

Tax policy routinely rewards economic behavior the government wants to encourage and penalizes economic behavior the government opposes. That's why the Tax Code fills 54 volumes., why lobbyists have jobs, and why legislators have multiple houses.

 

And why is the government social engineering in 'the land of the free'?

 

1 hour ago, Ozark Huckleberry said:

 

 

Again -- taxes decrease the amount of money available. How much more could your family spend if you didn't pay taxes? Multiply that by about 123 million households in the U.S.

Who pays Boeing and Lockheed and Colt and whoever makes javelins? The .gov with MY tax dollars. that money didn't cancel out and disappear. The .gov took it and gave it to somebody they wanted to, not somebody I wanted to. Same dollars still in flow so how exactly do taxes remove money from supply. They just remove who CONTROLS that money.

 

A debt is a liability on the books. forgiving the debt cancels the liability REMOVING that money fractionally from flow. Now you no longer have to earn it find me give it to me and I no longer have it to spend now or forever in the future.

 

Look at the money pool and the tripling of available money AND the size of the national debt.

 

We as a nation do not use taxes to service debt. We have become a debt ridden deficit spending joke That pretends it is wealthy.  True wealth is ownership of assets not cash flow or a fancy lifestyle. 

 

This economy is a house of cards that they are propping up with MORE debt.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

I wouldn't mind taxes if ANYONE can prove to me that most, MOST, of the money is going to a really necessary and worthy cause.

 

I don't like seeing it spent on the UN so they can vote against us and our true allies and propose attacks against many of them; illegal aliens and welfare for people who have never worked second in their lives and who get more financial support, perks, and privileges than we get; support for causes detrimental to me and my country ;perks for politicians and their ilk; un-necessary projects; open attacks on the right wing; attacks on law enforcement, school children and our education system, the military, freedom almost everywhere and the Constitution; support for people who are bent on destroying me and my way of life; and open, bald faced lies via the public media.

 

Don't any of you or anyone else tell me taxes as they are now are necessary.  They are NOT!

[Ozark Huckleberry]

7 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

ANYONE can buy government bonds. The Fed and the mint are 2 different things. The .gov is hobo ass broke. The Federal Reserve is a Master PRIVATELY OWNED bank that sets cost of money for additional debt. 

 

Well, first -- the Fed is not privately owned. It's an agency with chartered banks. But it's not worth the quibble.

 

And you're right in one respect -- anyone can buy bonds, but only the Fed literally creates money to buy them, thereby adding to the money supply. The mint simply creates 'circulating coinage', which is actually a minor amount of the money in circulation.

 

Here's a helpful link -- go to the first 'Key Takeaways' for relevant info:

 

How the Federal Reserve works

 

There's a neat little video in there that's only a minute or so -- I think it might help.

 

7 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

And why is the government social engineering in 'the land of the free'?

 

Whole different thread for that one, and I'd probably get it shut down fast with some of my comments.

 

7 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

Who pays Boeing and Lockheed and Colt and whoever makes javelins? The .gov with MY tax dollars. that money didn't cancel out and disappear. The .gov took it and gave it to somebody they wanted to, not somebody I wanted to. Same dollars still in flow so how exactly do taxes remove money from supply. They just remove who CONTROLS that money.

Key phrase in there -- 'The government took it and gave it to someone THEY wanted to.' The point is that taxes remove money from consumers, and that lessens demand. People make economic choices that shifts their consumption to alternate acceptable goods and services, or just do without. Even taxes on corporations are passed on to consumers, so the 'greedy corporation' tax hits Joe Sixpack square in the bank account, just as if it had been pointed right at him. It just makes the corporation the bad guy for collecting it.

 

Yep, the same dollars are still in flow -- but it ain't YOUR flow anymore, so you can't run the price of pickles up because you and a million of your closest friends want them. The supply/demand curve is the best way to understand that point.

 

But you do pick a good point that I wasn't clear on -- taxes don't actually destroy money; they transfer control of it to the government. I see that the way  I phrased it might be interpreted as if the money collected just went *poof!* and disappeared. So again -- you can't run the price of pickles up.

 

7 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

A debt is a liability on the books. forgiving the debt cancels the liability REMOVING that money fractionally from flow. Now you no longer have to earn it find me give it to me and I no longer have it to spend now or forever in the future.

Okay, so whose debt? If it's a debt you owe the government, (I doubt you'd be interested in forgiving a debt the government owes you) then forgiving the debt then reduces government revenue, thereby adding to the deficit.

 

7 hours ago, Texas Joker said:

 

Look at the money pool and the tripling of available money AND the size of the national debt.

 

We as a nation do not use taxes to service debt. We have become a debt ridden deficit spending joke That pretends it is wealthy.  True wealth is ownership of assets not cash flow or a fancy lifestyle. 

 

This economy is a house of cards that they are propping up with MORE debt.

Won't find me arguing much here -- but on the other hand -- a little debt is essential to economic growth. It's making it smart debt that's the key.

[Texas Joker]

Revenue is produced when you create a good or provide a service. There is no  such thing a goverment revenue.

There are tax dollars collected from the populace. And restricting them is a good thing it SHOULD cause the .gov to work with what they have, not deficit spend.

 

Federalreserve act of 1913 CREATED  the Federal Reserve but it is NOT  a government agency. 

 

The Supreme Court stated that "instrumentalities like the national banks or the federal reserve banks, in which there are private interests, are not departments of the government. They are private corporations in which the government has an interest." You can verify this by reading the court case at this link (case 406 F.3d 532) and going to Part II, paragraph 9. This case further states that "each Federal Reserve Bank is owned by the commercial banks within its district.

 

i am not a fan of keynesian economics or governmental interference in economy in general. 

 

I might be misreading your intent but it seems like you are saying taxes are good because it reduces the amount of people's money that the might use to purchase their wants needs or desires with their own money?

 

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

What is interesting right now is that wages have gone up.  BUT prices have gone up even more.  So many people will be in a higher tax bracket and pay more in taxes even though their disposible income has actually gone down.  The Biden solution?  Raise taxes.

[Pat Riot]

Now I have a headache…

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

What is really giving me a headache is that the "value" of my house has doubled in the past 18 months.  That of course means my property taxes and insurance are also going up.

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

The federal "income tax" isn't necessary, if the government was honest and true. 

 

If the people had more money, they would spend more money, and some would even save more money. Sales tax revenues would go up, more goods and services would be purchased, more folks would have a job, more business would be established because of demand. The standard of living could really go up, as well. 

 

A debatable question could be: if we had no federal, or state, income tax, and we could keep all that we make (the gross) from our paychecks, would the sales taxes generated, by a better paid public, and import taxes collected, be enough to offset the money that is acquired by the federal and state income tax?   

 

It's all about, among other things, control. More affluent people can be more difficult to control, than poorer people.

 

Seems like, to me, that the government is doing its dang-est to keep me poor.  

 

One of the reasons I don't have a newer pickup, or a new clothes dryer, or a better mattress, is I cannot afford one. If I could keep more of my income, I have a strong feeling I would be able to afford to purchase some things that I need, but now have to put off buying, and try to save up for them. 

Of course, I could use a credit card, and make the bankers richer.   

 

Thankfully, I live in a State that does not have a state income tax. The federal income tax is bad enough.

 

After studying this for many years, I have come to the conclusion that we were betrayed in 1913.  

 

Some taxes are "better" (relatively speaking) than others.  

A sales tax, taxes everyone equally, no matter your income level.  

An import tax can keep foreign-made goods, at a competitive level, with American made goods. The importing country pays, or should pay, that tax.

 

I believe that human beings would spend more money, if they had more money. Make/keep more money, spend more money, and generate more sales tax revenue for the government to waste. I think economics 101 may agree. 

 

Being poor keeps me from considering an electric vehicle. If I had money, that would also keep me from considering an electric vehicle.  

Can you dig it, sleepy joe? I doubt it. 

 

My Two Bits.

W.K.

 

 

 

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

2 hours ago, Waxahachie Kid #17017 L said:

 

After studying this for many years, I have come to the conclusion that we were betrayed in 1913.

 

Ah yes. And who were the 'betrayers'?

 

You'd have more money if you didn't have to pay taxes. So would I. Say, maybe you have something there! I don't think most people realize this. Probably because they were betrayed.

[Ozark Huckleberry]

12 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

Now I have a headache…

You and me both.

[Waxahachie Kid #17017 L]

10 hours ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

 

Ah yes. And who were the 'betrayers'?

 

You'd have more money if you didn't have to pay taxes. So would I. Say, maybe you have something there! I don't think most people realize this. Probably because they were betrayed.

Exactly right...not sure if this reply was sarcastic or not, however. 

[watab kid]

we could exost with far less taxes if the federal government only did what the constitution required them to do , but that aint gonna happen any more than them protecting our southern boarder as they were constitutionally bound to do ,