What was the rationale behind the graduated income tax? Why was it thought the rich should pay more?

Answer 1

Strongest shoulders carry the heaviest burden.It's only fair.
To me it's very clear that if you implement a flat tax the poor pay more.
If I have a thousand dollars and have to pay five hundred dollars,half my income is gone.
If I have hundred thousand dollars and I have to pay five hundred dollars,I won't even notice.
Socialist would be to give everyone equal pay no matter what they do or how they preform at that job.Or tax everyone to that extend that their income is nett the same.
Graduated income tax is a globally used fair system and has nothing to do with socialism

Answer 2

I think it is more that the rich CAN pay more. If you take 75% of a poor worker's paycheck then that is just more money the government has to pay out to support that person.

With this system there are some who legally pay little to no income taxes. Not only do they get back everything they paid in, they also receive some of your taxes in the form of tax credits i.e Child tax credit, and the Earned Income Credit etc...

What we need to do is to abolish the 16th amendment and to institute a National Retail Sales Tax. This way we would get almost all of our paycheck, minus state taxes, and there would be many benefits. Some of the benefits would be: 1. all of that money being infused into the economy (face it, very few people would save that money). 2. Each and every person would pay taxes when they bought a new item (this would include non-citizens, legal and illegal, Inmates, criminals and all others who hide money from the IRS). 3. Investment in America would skyrocket because the gains form it would cease to be taxed. 4. Citizens would receive a prebate card that would be credited with the amount of taxes paid on "life necessities". 5. All government spending projects would be able to be funded. Above all this would remove all the BS we have to put up with each election cycle about "tax breaks for the rich" and "starving the poor".

Please go to your local library, or book store if you can afford to support the economy, and pick up a copy of The Fair Tax Book by Neal Boortz and Congressman Linder and educate yourself and those around you and force the wusses in Washington D.C. to grow a spine and do the right thing for the nation.

IMPLEMENT THE FAIR TAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 3

They would pay more even if they had a flat tax.

The graduate income tax refers to increasing the percentage income tax with respect to the amount of money a person makes. This is justified because the minimum cost of living is a fixed number at any given time. Thus, people don't need as much as they make when they are in the upper tax brackets.

That being said, I'm a fence sitter on this issue. The problem is incentives. Where is the incentive to work harder if you hit the ceiling of one tax bracket?

Answer 4

Karl Marx.
Problem is, the farther you carry this principal, the poorer everybody becomes. Then, people start cheating to beat the broken-down system and to enrich themselves at the expense of the others. Eventually, the cheaters have to begin killing those who reveal their cheating. Voila! You have Stalin's USSR, or Castro's Cuba.
The freer the enterprise, the richer everybody is, like Hong Kong under Britain. It's not perfect, but its reality is sure better than Marxism.

Answer 5

we have a horribly antiquated tax system. But as far as the logic is concerned, money matters more when you can't pay the bills...and those who struggle to make a mortgage payment should have less of a tax burden. I don't agree with this AS IS, but you asked the thinking behind it, not MY thinking behind it

Answer 6

It was the only way to sell the idea. Everyone gets screwed, but some how it is better if other people are getting screwed worse.

It created the "them" and "us" mentality that has caused this country incredible grief and many bad decisions.

Answer 7

In economics, there is a term; ``diminishing marginal utility'...'

``A law of economics stating that as a person increases consumption of a product - while keeping consumption of other products constant - there is a decline in the marginal utility that person derives from consuming each additional unit of that product.''

Politicians' mentality is basically ``you don't need the higher income that bad to meet your basic needs, therefore we will use the law to confiscate it from you.''

Answer 8

because the poor are dumb enough to think that punishing the rich will somehow benefit them somehow, so they vote thieves, er, Dems into Office

Answer 9

Yes.

Answer 10

Great question. It's socialistic.