[Chris Rhines]

Okay. Iraq has a 15% flat tax. And the Land of the Free is running what, a 30%+ average progressive? Does this strike anybody else as, well, wrong?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50031-2003Nov1.html

(Note: This post should not be taken as an endorsement or acceptence of taxation in any way, shape, or form.)

- Chris

[Triad]

This surprises you? They nearly have heart attacks thinking about Americans having 11 rnd mags, but they let the folks in Iraq have full auto AK's.

[Pilgrim]

A very smart move. Can you think of anything more likely to cause a popular uprising than forcing the equivalent of the U.S. Tax Code on the Iraqis?

Pilgrim

[Art Eatman]

Yeah, we're rubber-stamping our approval on what the new Iraqi ruling council instituted a few weeks back.

As far as U.S. taxes, the income tax is less of a burden on the vast majority of wage-earners than is either the FICA or the state/local taxes.

When you add up sales taxes on your disposable income, gasoline and excise taxes, ad valorem taxes (that also affect rent) to pay for schools, and all the new taxes and fees, you'll find they're about three times as much of a cost as are after-deductions income taxes...

Art

[Chris Rhines]

Pilgrim - I dunno, reinstating prima nacht???

Art - I know, I know, please, please don't remind me...

- Chris

[El Tejon]

Chris, quit it, you're killing me! Third quarter is still fresh in my mind.:uhoh:

[uncontrollable sobbing]

[telomerase]

Contrary to urban legend, the US has usually forced socialism on conquered nations. After WWII, the US imposed on the defeated price controls, insane taxes (see below), and reparations. Fortunately for everyone the postwar German and Japanese governments junked the US tax systems:

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(Excerpt from Alan Reynolds' Townhall.com article on the subject)

In Germany, Finance Minister Ludwig Erhard raised the income threshold at which the Occupation's 50 percent tax rate applied from $500 a year to $2,200 on June 22, 1948, and to $5,000 in the following year. The income level at which the occupation's top tax of 95 percent applied was immediately raised from $15,000 to $63,000. The top rate itself was brought to down to 63 percent at $250,000 by 1955 and to 53 percent by 1958. Overtime was even tax-exempt in the early years, which means the marginal tax on extra work was zero.

The occupation of Japan lasted from Aug. 30, 1945, to April 28, 1952. As in Germany, occupation tax rates were brutally punitive, with at top tax rate of 86 percent applying at middling incomes. As soon as the occupation ended, Japan cut taxes in every year but one from 1952 to 1974. The income needed to fall into the 60 percent tax bracket was raised from 300,000 yen in 1949 to 3,000,000 in 1953. A tax on wealth was abolished in the same year. The top tax rate was soon cut to 55 percent, and interest income and capital gains became tax free.

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I have to admit that compared to Marshall Plan-era America, our modern proconsuls are geniuses. So at least the Iraqis aren't living in tax slavery. Too bad the Bush Administration's benevolence doesn't extend to Iowa or Texas.

[Standing Wolf]

It seems kind of strange to send more fairness overseas than we practice here at home.

If we're all supposed to be equal under the law, why don't we all pay the same taxes?

[Glock Glockler]

There's a very good reason why this is: the people in the Iraq don't vote in the US.

I've actually met socialist twits who didnt want to see the the income tax go for one reason: the "rich" would have more and that couldnt stand that. Even though they would have more as well, the fact that the rich would get disproportionately more just burned them.

[Pilgrim]

Pilgrim - I dunno, reinstating prima nacht???

With their camels? :what:

Pilgrim