why tax the poor?

Question

paying sales tax us for the things we buy, then taxing us at the end of the year? huh?

Answer 1

Everyone pays taxes to fund the services that the government provides (and for some of the money that they waste). The rich are taxed a higher percentage of their income, but find loopholes to bring that amount down. Closing those (abused) loopholes and eliminating government waste would be the ideal way to alleviate some of the tax burden on the poor (and the rich that don't abuse those loopholes), but they would still have to pay some.

"There are only two things certain in life. Death and taxes." - Ben Franklin

Answer 2

That is part of the economic choice. We elect people to provide government goods and services--public goods--and while rich people use some, so do poor. We commonly used to call that citizenship, where the people of the country pay the costs of the country.

The thing we most often do is arrange a progressive burden. Not all of the costs of government are borne in the same way. We recognize that the rich have more, so we devise plans to get the rich to pay a larger burden. And they do. The top earners in this country pay the largest share of the income taxes--the biggest revenue source for the federal and most (but not all, some states don't have income taxes) state governments, along with several cities. Some places exempt sales taxes on foods and drugs, because the share of income that represents to the poor.

There is an economic principle also at play. If a commodity has no cost, we will use it wastefully. That is why for centuries we thought so little of dumping our garbage in the lakes and rivers and thought so little of filling the air with the smoke from our various fires of industry and pleasure. But there is a cost and it hurts us and now that we are so numerous and have such expectations of clean air and water, we discover that we can't simply assume it is endlessly abundant and free. With government, there is a cost. If we are paying for public goods, that is less available for private goods. We have to remind ourselves that government has costs. If we exempt the poor from the income taxes, and we do, what part of the burden of citizenship do they pay? In my community, except when they buy food, they pay a nickel for every dollar they spend. The rich have more dollars to spend and they pay more, but to some degree even the poor need to know that there is a cost for their police and roads and street lights and those people who watch planes and borders for bad people--even if we sometimes think they don't do a good job. We all must share the cost and the cost for the poor has long been scrutinized to keep it low because they do not have much.

Answer 3

The truly poor do not pay any income tax, actually they get more money back than they pay in as a result of the earned income credit. They actually pay a negative tax. If they have children they get back a refund much larger than the tax withheld from their checks. The middle class pay too much tax and the rich pay way too little. The poor do pay most of their tax in the form of sales taxes not income tax.

Answer 4

In a progressive tax system the poor don't pay much if anything. A single individual can earn $8,450 before paying any income tax and then they would pay 10% on the next $7,550 of income. On $16,000 they would pay an income tax of $750. With the earned income credit this tax would be avoidable.
If your definition of poor is at an income level greater than that you need to convince Congress that a higher amount of income is still poor.

Answer 5

Sales tax goes to the states, where most of the payroll tax goes to the federal government.

If you do not make a lot of money, there will only be a little bit of tax for the federal government coming out of your paycheck.

Answer 6

tax the rich - feed the poor - till there are no - rich no more.

Answer 7

government being an asssss cause they tax every1 if not you go to jail