The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3550 on: January 09, 2013, 08:01:14 PM »

Hi Jerry!

I wouldn't mind seeing 4 across the board but I'd like to abolish the income tax portion. I think it drives a message home when you can take home all your money and not have to give the government the firstfruits.
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JerryArkansas
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« Reply #3551 on: January 09, 2013, 08:03:40 PM »

I think it drives a message home when you can take home all your money and not have to give the government the firstfruits.
I would also like that, but it would be so hard to just get rid of it.
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3552 on: January 09, 2013, 10:24:03 PM »

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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #3553 on: January 10, 2013, 02:26:30 AM »

     I've crunched the numbers and it looks like we're $36 billion in the black this year. I'll do a formal write-up soon, as well as a determination of the exact contribution of personal income tax. Personal and corporate income tax together are $69.25 billion, so maybe we'll be able to handle abolition without needing to introduce any new taxes. Smiley
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3554 on: January 10, 2013, 09:01:28 AM »

Awesome news PiT! Cheesy
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #3555 on: January 11, 2013, 05:45:49 PM »

I don't know the current tax rates here, but I inherently oppose a flat tax simply because its regressive on our lower income citizens. I do favor lowering rates though if we can afford it, which it sounds as if we can having a $36 b surplus.
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #3556 on: January 11, 2013, 07:57:34 PM »

I don't know the current tax rates here, but I inherently oppose a flat tax simply because its regressive on our lower income citizens. I do favor lowering rates though if we can afford it, which it sounds as if we can having a $36 b surplus.

     I should have a more in-depth analysis up tonight, though I will point out that our current income tax is already very nearly flat. The top bracket of 6% comes at just $7,000 for single returns and $10,000 for joint returns.
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #3557 on: January 11, 2013, 09:09:25 PM »

I don't know the current tax rates here, but I inherently oppose a flat tax simply because its regressive on our lower income citizens. I do favor lowering rates though if we can afford it, which it sounds as if we can having a $36 b surplus.

     I should have a more in-depth analysis up tonight, though I will point out that our current income tax is already very nearly flat. The top bracket of 6% comes at just $7,000 for single returns and $10,000 for joint returns.

OK. I've never been a huge fan of flat taxes/consumption taxes. I will wait for your analysis. Perhaps we can move to cut taxes, especially on lower incomes, as a compromise to ridding us of it altogether.
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3558 on: January 12, 2013, 12:06:39 AM »

If it's only 6 percent right now, we might as well just eliminate it.
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #3559 on: January 12, 2013, 01:27:43 AM »

Right now we bring in $69b via the income tax and we are running a $12b surplus, yes? How does that change if we do as you propose? I am not on a computer to really run the numbers. Right now it's 5.8%. Perhaps we should consider cutting it? Not completely though. I am still not sold on a consumption tax. I need to read up on Texas and Florida and see exactly how they do it before I can be sold on such a plan.
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #3560 on: January 12, 2013, 01:35:23 AM »
« Edited: January 12, 2013, 01:38:08 AM by Emperor PiT »

     I had forgotten, but we eliminated social security taxation. I don't know about state level programs, but the federal Social Security tax is a regressive tax, so if this is similar then that would help address Duke's concerns.

     As such, our surplus now stands at $12.1578 billion. Our total revenue due to combined personal and corporate income taxation is $69.25 billion. If we want to reduce them both equally, then we can brook an equivalent to a 4.8% flat rate.

     Breaking the income tax numbers down, $56.27 billion is personal income tax and $12.98 billion is corporate income tax. If you wanted to reduce only personal income tax, we could go as low as 4.55%. If you wanted to reduce only corporate income tax, we could go as low as 0.4%.

     The problem? I neglected Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico's total tax contribution is $19.04 billion. The site I use for these numbers does not include Puerto Rico, unfortunately. While income tax numbers and splits vary heavily from state to state, I can try and assume they're proportional in Puerto Rico. In that case, they pay $2.75 billion for personal income tax and $630 million for corporate income tax. The impact is fairly small, and I actually really should recalculate their share since I now know that social security taxes don't exist in this region. It would have negligible impact on the issue at hand, though. I merely suggest not venturing too close to the limits that I suggested.
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3561 on: January 12, 2013, 11:00:14 AM »
« Edited: January 12, 2013, 11:03:08 AM by IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi »

Ok, given that we make nearly 400 billion, spending cuts of 10 percent and a raise in the sales tax of 1 percent will allow us to eliminate income + corporate taxes altogether.
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #3562 on: January 12, 2013, 12:22:53 PM »

What will we cut from our budget though? And what effect would it have on our economy to have such a big cut all at once?
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Wisconsin+17
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« Reply #3563 on: January 12, 2013, 01:16:07 PM »
« Edited: January 12, 2013, 01:21:46 PM by IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi »

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We could do across the board cuts.

Given that Texas alone is about a third, we could cut, say 5 percent everywhere else and 20 in Texas. That, plus the 1 percent sales tax rise will bring us level for the year (I expect that we will see a surplus).

The effect would mean that we spend less this year, but we'll have a surplus (and a much larger one), in the next. Everything we cut this year will get put back next year.
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #3564 on: January 12, 2013, 01:27:40 PM »

Are we keeping the corporate tax? Texas places a franchise tax on gross margins of all their corporations, and Florida has a 5.5% corporate tax despite having no income tax. I don't think I can support eliminating all taxes in the IDS. I'd be much more in favor of reducing the corporate tax and potentially dropping our state income tax to 5%, which is in line with other states. A lower corporate tax would encourage job creation as much as eliminating the income tax and keeping a higher corporate income tax.
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
AHDuke99
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« Reply #3565 on: January 12, 2013, 01:33:50 PM »

Texas has zero. If we want to outcompete the mideast - we should consider emulating Texas on our corporate tax rate or at least splitting the difference between the two.

See, this is where you are mistaken I think. From what I read, Texas has a franchise tax on corporations. I don't see how doing that would help grow businesses. I know Texas has seen a boom in business, yes, but it is inconclusive as to whether its all due to the tax policies of things like cheap labor, land, capital, etc.

But I'm not one to favor eliminating income taxes while keeping our corporate and business rates at 5.8%, which is actually high, to compensate.
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3566 on: January 12, 2013, 01:47:43 PM »

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I'd be fine with that - that effectively acts as a tax on larger businesses while not taxing smaller ones. As worded, our corporate tax hit everyone exactly in the same way - from the small one person business to, say McDonalds. I'm not sure how much the franchise tax generates, but it's small change when compared to what the sales tax generates. Most of the Texas revenues come from sales taxes alone.

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You tax them when they get big enough, but you let them grow to the point where they can actually be taxed this much. Most businesses are quite small, under 50 employees.

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Texas has relatively cheap labor and land and capital because of their tax policies. Also - in game, we have Texas. So the things that apply to Texas would also apply to us. From what I'm seeing the majority of our boom has come from a large jump in the sales tax receipts, despite the sales tax not increasing. So Texas has successfully transitioned from an income tax tax base to a sales tax tax base.

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Neither am I. I'd like to see both gone. And we wouldn't be eliminating taxes, far from it. We'd simply be shifting how taxes are collected. It would also eliminate much of the reporting requirements on businesses and individuals by eliminating our income tax - less red tape means less overhead needed for compliance.
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Fmr. Pres. Duke
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« Reply #3567 on: January 12, 2013, 02:03:18 PM »

We may as well talk about it here. I wonder why no one else is participating in this debate?

Anyway, so hypothetically speaking, if we eliminate both corporate and income taxes, how do we pay for it? As far as I can tell, no state has a policy like that. We'd have to switch to a consumption tax, and that is inherently something I cannot support. You said a 5% cut across the board. Would that even be possible without upsetting something?
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JerryArkansas
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« Reply #3568 on: January 12, 2013, 02:11:36 PM »

I truly belive that this tax cut is to much.  We should have the tax, but at like .5-1%.
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3569 on: January 12, 2013, 02:26:33 PM »
« Edited: January 12, 2013, 02:31:26 PM by IDS Speaker Ben Kenobi »

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Look at the numbers from Texas. The increased spending and better economy pays for it. Instead of people paying money into income taxes, the same money gets collected in sales taxes.

One year. Give it a chance. If it doesn't work, we can always go back to the way it was.

Revenue, rather then going down - after Texas cut spending, revenue went up. Dramatically. This is despite the fact that Texas has no income tax. Revenue went up, and Texas went from having a deficit to a ten percent budget surplus.

Why? Because more money was collected from the sales tax. Why? Because there were more people spending money. Why? Because they had jobs and could afford to do so. The government gets the same take. We don't lose anything. We do, however, gain a competitive advantage on every other region in atlasia.
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JerryArkansas
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« Reply #3570 on: January 12, 2013, 02:31:36 PM »

I think that we should just do it for one year and if it doesn't work, then repeal it.
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3571 on: January 12, 2013, 02:33:47 PM »

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Deal. I'm bringing it up for a vote.
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3572 on: January 12, 2013, 02:35:37 PM »

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JerryArkansas
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« Reply #3573 on: January 12, 2013, 02:41:14 PM »
« Edited: January 13, 2013, 12:02:16 AM by jerryarkansas »

Even though I believe this bill has it's flaws, we can't judge something that has not been tried before.  So I vote Aye.
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Wisconsin+17
Ben Kenobi
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« Reply #3574 on: January 12, 2013, 02:48:26 PM »

AYE!
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