But why should an employer be taxed? They are performing a vital surface by giving others a source of income? If anything ought to be done away with, it is the idea of this. If I pay 72% in taxes, this hamstrings my ability to help others.
If I instead pay 36% in tax, assuming no other expenses, I now can set aside significantly more to pay employees.
Further, I have no employees. I work as a small struggling business who formerly had two employees. If I am self employed, but have no employees, in what way should I pat double? The reasoning behind this is complete nonsense. It talks about fair share and debt, but the truth is that older businesses are grandfathered in to systems where this extra payment didn't exist (laws made to prevent competition), or maybe its shared by the corporation instead of loaded on the back of a single person. For a new business owner, even 12% instead of 6% is financially ruinous.
When you automatically distrust businesses as greedy, when you then punish them, you deserve the fact that government stole money you could have earned, and instead "gives" (loans) it to you. But money you don't get to keep is not really yours. So ultimately, working for a business, you get a smaller cut of your income, and you get a big fake "time and a half" instead of properly getting most or all of what you actually earn. As long as you can't let go of envy of "rich" people, even when I tell you they are rich only because they avoid these pits you have set upon them, and this money instead gets sent to you. Poorer people like me can't afford advice on how to get out of these double taxes, these sudden raises in bracket, these financial traps. So they are ruined by things like winning the lottery.
Overtime should not be taxed. Income should not be taxed, if we're being honest. Gifts, prizes, and inheritance shouldn't be taxed. Property shouldn't be taxed. Whatever you earn, it is unethical for a third party to steal.
Now, what you spend on, yes it is ethical to add more to it. This tax affects both the rich and the poor, but now that the poor aren't being bled by what they earn, they can actually earn without a sick fear that if they earn too much, most of it will be taken. "A worker deserves his wages." When you have to save up until the end of tax season, when you have a legion of IRS agents looking for an excuse to get your money, you never develop a healthy sense of saving money. However, when too much spending is punished, you learn to save money.
"But sales tax punishes the poor." Yes, but as the rich are convinced by their church to help the poor, they have more to help with. The poor are not as poor, until they are taxed into poverty.
A man can be poked every time he rises up, or whenever he bends over. Which of these is designed to keep him low to the ground?
And for all of those complaining about how it still punishes the poor, sales tax can be exempted for certain goods. Grocert stores have even automated this process. Taxing cigarettes but not food? Sure, you can do that.
Abolishing income tax and property tax would be the best thing you can do. Failing that, ridding the world of the onerous double tax and taxes on overtime would be a positive step to the overall wealth of communities. When people are wealthier, guess what? They go out and buy that XBox 4 at 20% sales tax. They go out and get a retractable awning. They are able to have a pool, because unlike a renter who never gets to own a roof over their head, a house (in the absence of property taxes) stays bought, leaving them able to focus on other expenses. They are certainly able to feed themselves. You can make an economy like this using cradle to grave government management (China tried this with the Rice Bowl, I think it was called)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_rice_bowlbut the end result is far more expensive than just letting people work at what makes them happy, and leaving them to it. Stress comes from worrying constantly if you have a roof over your head, or whether taxes leave you with enough to eat. With a VAT, you never think about this because the current price is already set.
There is a system to stop abusing ppl. But it only starts when you stop thinking of people as automatically richer than you because of what you can see.
Some people have fancy clothes and fancy cars, but have no money left because they spent beyond their means. Other people look like wretches but are actually rich because they like to save up for emergencies, and find the government is always taking the money they set aside for their kids to have a better life. When you yourself can't be sure if someone is rich or poor, how can you expect the government to do so? Owns a business, appears rich? Yes but that $100,000 a year on paper might go to any number of expenses from charities to business cosrs to therapy to addictions to genuine desire to pay employees a decent wage. Government doesn't care. They want 70% of that, which any newly rich person gets blindsided by. That sort of system abuses people who have a sudden upgrade in salary. If you stop punishing hard workers, the system works as intended. Taxing higher base pay, not taxing those who work long hours past the 40 hour threshold.
When we let go of the busybody covet impulse, and just tax flatly or not at all, everyone thrives.
When you let go of the lie that government debt is yours, it suddenly doesn't make any more sense to abuse people with high taxes. It's their own damned fault.
They ought to declare bankruptcy and start settling their debts like responsible adults. Instead, as I say, they are the child who bought a game system with money they don't have, and when the bill collectors come, are demanding that the town help pay their debts. And when you do, that time, they continue to spend and spend.