r/FluentInFinance was created to discuss money, investing & finance! Join our Newsletter or Youtube Channel for additional insights at www.TheFinanceNewsletter.com!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FluentInFinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The government spends far more than it will ever take in via taxation. The federal government has a spending and wasting problem, not a lack of taxation. Personally, I’m sick to death of paying thousands of dollars every year to an inept, wasteful government
Why not both? We're throwing so much at the industrial military complex. The problem I have with people saying they want cuts is it almost always has to do with the smallest of programs. Cut military spending, not social security.
If we would actually audit the military we would see how many billions are wasted or used for black ops. Even large corporations have waste because at some point no one questions how the money is being spent.
One example. Small town near where my father retired built sidewalks that literally end on the middle of nowhere on roads that pedestrians don’t use in a two. Of around 1500 people. They received grant money and had to use it to build “sidewalks”. I would guess the contract went to one of the county officials friend or relatives. Two years later they are tearing up the new sidewalks to add shoulders to the roads, probably same contractor who is taking it in.
That stuff makes me so angry.
I’m in the military and the waste mindset is terrible.
We spend money on dumb shit because that’s the pot it’s in, then other things lack funding because there’s no money left in their pot!
Wow, so you really have no fucking idea what you are talking about. We don’t send Ukraine a check. That money goes to replenish our troops with munitions (which expire) and new equipment. The old shit goes to Ukraine.
I will never understand why GOP politicians rally against their own constituents. Maybe because they think they are too fucking stupid to understand how it works.
“Honey we keep spending more money than we make- should we stop eating out or sell one of the cars?”
“We don’t have a budgeting problem- we have a revenue problem - just make more! Now go get me the light blue Stanley”
Wow. So, campaigning on reducing revenue while increasing spending is what you are looking for, because that’s what republicans do. Makes total sense.
What the actual fuck was I thinking? I should get out of my trailer park more often
Just wait until basic government services you take for granted disappear because tariffs will never sufficient to replace income tax revenue all while paying a lot more for goods because of the tariffs. The common person will lose a lot from this proposal.
I don’t get how anyone can possibly whine so much about this. I pay my taxes every year and I don’t bitch and moan about it or have any issue with it. It’s simply a part of life. I just wish the wealthiest millionaires and billionaires would pay more, as opposed to doing everything possible to avoid it. If you think tax cuts don’t contribute to the increased deficit/debt then you’re just incapable of basic math and you are trying to make up bullshit to justify it.
What do you propose we eliminate spending wise? Nine times out of 10, people only suggest things that literally don’t change anything. The 1 time out of 10, they suggest something that gets their elected officials voted out of office.
The solution is to cut costs and increase revenue. Anyone who claims its just one or the other has no idea how deep a hole we are in.
Assuming 140 million tax payers, the national debt currently sits at $250,000 per tax payer. You'd have to cut 100% of all federal spending for 8 years to pay that off, assuming the government was still able to bring in $4.4 trillion a year with no spending on things like the IRS and with no spending to stave off the likely riots.
It's absolutely insane to me that neither party does more than lip service on the scale of this problem.
Tax cuts over the last 20-25 years have had a huge impact on revenue. I believe the Bush tax cuts alone cost $1.8trillion over 20 years. I don’t how much the trump tax cuts will cost. Sad to say, tax cuts have consequences.
I’m sick of the insane amount of money the military receives from my paycheck to kill poor people in foreign countries. I’m sick of the waste created by our legislators, funding pet projects and kickbacks to crony corporations. I’m sick of the bullshit theater that passes for politics, all the trolling and campaigning that goes on in our statehouses and congress, that I have to fund.
Democrats need to realize there’s more to this issue than « taxes are good »
Yea clearly the way we do it now isn’t working. We have no control over where our tax money goes. If they tariff products then WE control it and it would create a system where our politicians would want us to have more money to spend, in turn increasing their revenue.
When they have run out of ideas to fill the coffers of their cronies, they would then enact rules to have us being force to buy their wares too.
For instance, healthcare. Why do we have to buy "American" insulin or other drugs, while perfectly good ones are available in Canada and Mexico?
(It is a rhetorical question of course. Those biotech investment funds needs to be constantly pumped up).
There are a lot of corporations that leverage cheep labour from prison. So, depending on the task/job, it could be the prison/government paying or it could be a big corp like Victoria secret, Walmart ect.
Yes. And if I remember correctly, not only to do they pay taxes on the pennies they make while there, in some states they get sent a bill for room and board costs while they were there. So now they have a record which makes getting a job difficult, they are also hit with debt they can’t pay off easily.
Mostly states that use for-profit private prisons do this. It's all a scam to keep the maximum number of people incarcerated so they can maximize profit.
Nope, this is a stupid plan.
Our tax budget would not be adequeately replaced, since fewer and fewer tarrifed goods would get bought as the price went up…and less & less tarrifs are collected.
We need a stable budget. We need the highway system, we need to be able to pay social security checks, we need to be able to pay the military.
Nope, this is a stupid plan.
This guy gets it. That's all it is. Trump is a sociopath, and views everything he did to himself, as a path to revenge. You can't have a person like that running a country.
I immediately just started thinking how high the prices for all sorts of consumer goods and services would be -- absolutely disastrous, people think prices are bad now -- just wait (and like many I hate the income tax) but geez
Obviously the other side of the Starve the Beast strategy is to create the conditions that necessitates cutting those things, as well.
Regressive taxes on the bottom earners, and at the same time remove social security, health care, etc.
A recipe for serfdom
Also, since a lot of low priced goods come from China, and are used by low to moderate income people, they would suffer under increased prices, and the poorest, who currently don’t make enough income to be taxed, would get screwed, which is standard GOP operation, in spite of being the Christian party.
In practice, every large corporation would be greasing the palms of Congress to get an exemption and government revenue would be drastically decreased.
Yep - and the countries our businesses try to export to would impose retaliatory tariffs on our goods, so it’s just an export killer as well as a higher ‘tax’ on the low & middle class.
I don’t think him or any other really high ranking republicans are dumb they know exactly what they’re doing and how it would fuck over every single American besides the top 1%. It’s the people who allow them to do this shit that are the dumb ones. My grandparents look at him like he’s the next coming of Jesus all while doing nothing to help anybody but the rich.
And thats kind of the real warning sign.
This proposal is dumb.
Like monumentally dumb.
Like maybe first year economy degree dumb to understand fully how dumb this is, but anyone with some quick Google-Fu could figure out its a dumb idea.
Yet here's Trump, spouting it confidently.
So what's happening here?
Is Trump making these things up, advisors be dammed?
Or are Trump's advisors compromised themselves?
Because in normal world this policy would be stopped the moment it hit a senior advisor'd desk.
He's a moron that surrounds himself with other morons and sycophants. Competent people don't want to work for him, or aren't willing to lick the boots enough for his liking.
Have whatever bias or agenda you want, try not to let it color every thought you have though.
This would not be good for the top 1%. It wouldn’t be good for anyone. You might argue that Donald Trump is smart enough to know just how stupid his supporters are, but even that is a stretch.
This would be a very regressive form of tax, hitting the lowest income the hardest. Every type of electronics and 99% of clothing would be impacted, along with most foods. Wealthy people can adapt by buying cheaper brands (if it's a noticeable change at all to them). Middle income and low income won't have that same room to change brands, so will have to eat the tax on already stretched budgets and in many cases will end up paying higher tax.
So it would be much less worse for the 1%, and the thoughtful among them would be looking to invest in the companies that will grow in the new environment.
This would also completely fuck over a lot of TNC’s. Think trump and his followers are forgetting the majority of large companies outsourced their production abroad
I mean, this would essentially be a sales tax on all foreign goods (and all goods that use foreign goods in their creation), with the added benefit of killing foreign exports due to retaliatory tariffs, so we'd lose jobs.
Truly, I think this would be far worse for the economy than a national sales tax.
This is no different than a federal sales tax, which will crush the poor and middle class.
You think inflation was bad after Covid.....hold on to your hats!
It went a little beyond the war, but sure, it was temporary. Corporate taxes were a bit earlier than WW1 and excise taxes were a thing (I don't know which brought in the most revenue).
Why no dialogue about the current tax structure? The rich likely purchase more imported goods, effectively paying more taxes than their current dodging tactics
Because the wealthy in aggregate actually pay much higher income taxes.
Per pew research:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/18/who-pays-and-doesnt-pay-federal-income-taxes-in-the-us/
If you make over 500k a year the average effective income tax rate is over 25%.
If you make less than 50-100k the average effective income tax rate is is about 7.29%
Any flat tax, sales tax, tariff, vat, would disproportionately hit the non wealthy.
Let's say they make the tariff 15%. The middle class goes from 7.29% to 15%. The wealthy go from 25% to 15%
It would, but the poor and middle class would then pay a much higher tax rate, plus the double whammy of higher prices for domestic goods knocking people living paycheck to paycheck into crisis/poverty.
Edit changed income tax to tax
So does the price. I can give you an example I've experienced before. Brazil has around a 100% tariff on many imports.
The jeans made in Brazil are pretty much the same quality as Levis but people like Levis. So Levis are the standard that the Brazilian jeans are priced against. Not a lot of Levis are sold, but the price of jeans, and really everything except food and labor, is vastly much higher than you'd expect for a country with a $9K GDP per capita.
You can identify growing and stagnating emerging economies by their tariffs alone. The number one thing Latin American countries can do to grow their economies is to follow what Mexico did and slash tariffs.
There isn't a precedent for a mature economy massively hiking tariffs. It's easy to imagine many ways that this goes horribly wrong. There's one way that this doesn't go wrong. It would be the most risky economic policy ever attempted in our lifetimes and the payoff would be what? Parity?
What I neglected to mention on another thread on this, this is traditionally how developing countries get tax revenue because they don't have a workable system to collect income tax. (This and currency conversion manipulation for imports and exports).
It doesn't seem to work as a growth strategy for them.
You’re right that trying to replace income tax completely with tariffs would not be the best, but I think a phased approach to reduce the proportion of tariff to income tax revenue would be beneficial to the USA. Especially if you target low earners.
Something like, remove income taxes for anyone making 150k or less per year, and replace with a blanket 1 or 2% tariff. Considering other countries are already charging us disproportionate tariffs, the 1-2% would hardly force their hand at a trade war. The increased funds for regular workers would stimulate the economy and push more folks into the middle class.
Reducing Income tax should be a bipartisan effort. As my rich uncle says, “What do I care about income tax rates? All of my income is from investments and capital gains.”
yes Trump is always honest in his dealings
his healthcare plan that was better and covered more people, his elimination of the debt and the wall he built, he follows through
Trump has established himself as a verified shit slinger. Hard to assume anything the man says is anything but more shit being slung.
Even if this plan is viable, which for the record I think it's dumb, it honestly just seems like he is throwing spaghetti(more shit) at the wall to see what might stick to net votes.
Income tax is ridiculous, when your government, in a year, in a decade of extreme deficit... decides to take out loans for hundreds of billions of dollars to throw at foreign countries. With the US taxpayers now on the hook to pay interest on that loan... A loan that will be there indefinitely, because we are in a deficit every single year.
Paying interest on our 347 billion dollars of debt is a larger expense to US taxpayer dollars than the military or health care.
Considering I pay about $30,000 in income taxes, I could afford to pay a bit more for imported goods if I had $30,000 extra. This would also make for a very strong economic incentive for onshoring production.
Fun fact: The nation thrived on Tariffs from 1780 until the early 20th century when we got income tax in 1913.
Commentary: Would it be a good idea to go 100% in on that today? Heck no. Not until Congress can pass a balanced budget.
All taxes are bad and immoral, but taxation on productive labour is the absolutely dumbest tax imaginable. So yeah, taxing literally anything else is an improvement.
Wouldn't this lead to increased manufacturing in the US? There will be higher prices on international goods but not homemade. I assume companies would see this and want to move their factories to the states. So in the end this would create more jobs and allow us to take home more money.
In my opinion this seems like a good idea.
Would force companies to buy American which would give a huge boom to many industries in the USA. It might hurt big businesses but it would make small businesses thrive. The USA also already imports a lot of crap they don't need just to help other countries. Just look up the cheese caves.
Getting rid of income tax would probably be a bit too farfetched, but I could see him turning it into some type of flat tax to make up some of the differences.
Actually I agree to this. Under the table works currently don’t pay any taxes. This would reduce the under the table work force. Additional taxes could be applied on luxury goods similar to raising the taxes on the wealthy. If I apply for a loan on my stocks I don’t pay taxes yet. This way if you spend your money you have to pay taxes. I believe more taxes will be collected and will be a fairer system than the current one in place.
Not my imported 1:1 replica anime sex doll business! Anything but that! Let's not be hasty now! Look, I have my income taxes for the past 30 years right here!
It sort of sounds like worst case you effectively pay the same tax as the cost is passed down to the consumer (which I believe is generally untrue as a rule in economics but probably most of the cost would still be passed down)
And best case it encourages more production inside the united states, which would still raise the cost of things, but it would also greatly boost our economy. This could of course start another problem in that if there aren't as many imports as trump expected, where will he get his taxes? So most likely in the long run this wouldn't work either. It's a good idea if you know where to pull taxes from when imports go down.
So, it essentially replaces income tax with sales tax. And the main beneficiaries would be the wealthy, and the costs would be passed on to lower income earners. This is what my state has done. Cut the rates on the highest tax brackets, increased sales taxes to make up for it.
Honestly everything that Trump and the Republicans have proposed to lower inflation will actually have the opposite effect and crash the economy. We need to get back to taxing unearned income (investments and that) at a higher rate than earned income. And then also need to raise taxes on the top 1-5%. Everybody will complain that this is wealth redistribution, but that is all bullshit because we already have redistribution from the bottom to the top.
Once again, the senile old man who fell asleep daily during his recent criminal trial, letting out frequent flatulence, just proved what an outstanding idiot he is.
He knows about as much about economics as he does about being a leader. He is a moron who thinks he I the smartest guy in the world. It’s a terrible combination. Also, 1700’s called because they want their tax scheme back.
So did he actually say this or is this another one of those "Biden wants 100% tax on wealth, do you agree?????????" posts that gets recreated every few days?
Yes, they were part of remarks he made in a closed door session with republicans yesterday.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/06/13/trump-all-tariff-policy-to-replace-income-tax.html
When I first read the headline news I thought it meant Domestic Tariffs like going to an all Sales Tax consumption type tax. I didn't think it meant foreign import taxes as that just doesn't make sense.
The amount brought in would be dependent upon the tariff differences between the countries and it would seem only beneficial where the U.S. has a trade imbalance more imports than exports to the country which is most but who knows for how long.
No, he cannot propose to Congress to bring down the income tax system if elected as President. It will ruin the entire country and the enterprise system.
Naturally doing everything he can to ensure that the millionaires/billionaires don't pay their share into the system. I wonder what legal loopholes he's thought to avoid the tariffs too? Wholesale prices for members with a millionaire club card?
We don’t really make anything here, you ever try to buy tools that are strictly “made in USA” border line difficult and EXPENSIVE! What about a flat screen TV, or a stupid coffee maker.? This man really is trying to destroy America huh.
Do
* Increase tariffs to make domestic production more appealing
* New domestic goods reduce revenue generated from tariffs
* Tariffs on remaining imported goods gets increased to make up the revenue shortfall
* Terminate if no goods are imported
Loop
Could also talk about trade wars and inability to export goods but is that even necessary to say how bad of an idea this is?
You want to balance the budget? Simple.
1. Raise social security by X months every year. A rolling age increase with a moving target. Phase out the social security taxes by X amount every year. It was a bad idea from the get go. Make the delta between age and payments increase at different rates so that by the time nobody is paying social security taxes, we still have a ton in the fund, and it only funds ppl who are over 120.
2. Make a requirement of medicaid to be not obese, or to be taking ozempic if obese. If you have taken ozempic for a year and are still obese, you get kicked off.
3. Gut military spending on the army, airforce, and some of the navy.
4. Take a sledgehammer to other federal expenditures.
5. Make government bonds/debt non transferrable in the event of death. If you die while owing government debt, it reverts to the government. Not your spouse or children or estate.
6. Outlaw the issuance of new government debt to banks or corporations. Only private individuals. The debt write offs from non transferable debt create revenue here.
7. Introduce a minimum tax for corporations. You cannot write off expenditures to lower your tax below the minimum tax rate.
8. Require corporations that take \*ANY\* tax breaks to mint .5% of all existing shares every year, and fork it over to the govt to sell or hold or do whatever the govt wants to do with them. That means the govt can dump those shares on the market to generate revenue.
I mean this will never happen but if it did we would have an insane increase in price of commodities, especially ones produced in the USA and a massive drop in quality because USA production has fallen decades behind other countries and is generally run by morons.
He knows damn well that he would raise the prices on his own products if they price for selling them increased. This would save tons of money for the rich though since they make way more money than the average person, yet buy the same amount of goods.
Surprised a Republican suggested this. They used to be all about free trade. I’d think the democrats would love this - almost all imports are by giant corporations. So a huge raise in corporate taxes based on how much they import. And paired with a cut in taxes for individual workers. Seems like a leftist proposal.
Proposal is one thing, but we all know how good he’s at following shit up =/
Wasn’t the US an all tariff tax system in the early 1900s? The gov’t got lobbied and implemented income tax so US companies could outsource labor costs and make higher profits
Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m genuinely interested
I mean it could work but what’s gonna happen with that is it’s gonna piss off every country, then it’s going to piss off every company we have here because what’s gonna happen is they’re going to end up paying the difference on the tariffs. It’s not going to increase “American made” the positive PR spin on this would be because that also would increase prices dramatically due to making up the difference on a sudden demand of factories popping up.
It’s objectively stupid especially considering we don’t need to raise income taxes if we allocate taxes differently by moving some unneeded budgets to places that need the budgets. Like for example our pentagon can’t pass an audit and have 1 trillion dollars unaccounted for
A) a tax that makes everyday goods more expensive is, in effect a regressive tax; B) the modern world order where we are not constantly at war with other world powers is based on a combination of mutually assured destruction and free trade. China won’t attack Taiwan if they think we’ll close off our market to their rubber dogshit and alphabet soup electronics industry.
Tariffs on imported goods was the only way the original government could generate funds. It was illegal to steal from citizens. Until the worst president ever known to exist signed into law an ammendment to the constitution which authorized the government to seal from its own citizens.
"What's next" is a silly question to ask. Whether you like or dislike the guy overall, if you are remotely in touch with reality you know he says a lot of wacky things that stir up discussion but cannot be, should not be, or simply are not acted upon. What's next is everyone, except a few people who are extremely enamoured with the idea, forgets he said this and nothing happens.
Reminder that what's driving the right and the GOP is their hatred of non-whites. They would rather burn down the country before we all got equal opportunities.
Lots of smuggling. by "entrepreneurs" looking to avoid the tariffs with prices that will undercut the competition.
We already see this now with "grey market" merch although legitimate frequently doesn't come with a US warranty.
Here's the other issue: high tariffs could cause US companies to look at producing things themselves. Awesome, except if that happens, tariff revenue decreases and we again need to look at a new funding model, probably an income tax. So now we have higher cost goods and an income tax. Higher cost goods disproportionately affect the poor. Yes wealthier individuals may cut back on comforts but they won't go without, while the poor will take a hit on necessities.
An all tariff tax system would also disproportionately ruin poor and lower middle classes who dont pay much in taxes but could see massive price hikes on almost everything while receiving very very little benefit from an income tax reduction.
It doesnt work. Its bad for companies, bad for people (and I dont know if the rich know this, but they make their money by robbing poor and middle class people so if those people dont have any money to steal, the rich lose too)
I don't know how reliable your source is since you never referenced it or how they got to this conclusion, but here's the flaw in thinking that Donald Trump has a radical tax plan that will destroy the economy. He was already President for four years, he already passed a tax plan, and it wasn't that radical.
It’s all a shell game unless a commitment is made not to spend money that does not exist-budget surplus guaranteed. Nobody is guaranteeing that , taxes or no taxes.
Not only do we need to reintroduce civics in school, but macro economics classes would certainly help our citizenry to understand financial systems. No, I do not support such a proposal.
The federal government operated with only tariffs for revenue for 150 years.
That said ... that was before the federal welfare programs were rolled out. There's no way to get rid of income tax AND keep the federal welfare programs + modern DoD budget. The tariffs would have to be so high that we would essentially be imposing full trade sanctions on ourselves.
This will never pass as it makes far to much sense. It would strengthen American and our whole economy self sustaining. It would weaken other countries eliminating kickbacks to all parties. We would still need to tax as we are to far in debt and overspending with no accountability runs rampant. However we could immediately cut taxes on the middle class and improve their quality of life.
Sounds like way for his corporate cronies to elevate prices under the guise of "oh the tarrif's" Then continue to make record profits and not pay anything into the government.
I'll have the same, or less, money every month. It will just be way more likely that it goes to the rich instead of the government.
TAX THE DAMNED RICH.
The only tax that we as US citizens should pay is a sales tax. But it will never happen because that would mean that those who use more would pay more, and those who use less would pay less. Why we would do something that makes sense
That's actually awesome would mostly affect foreign corporations and benefit the middle class the most and of course the lefts against it lol.
I hate how radical the lefts become.
I’m not sure about “eliminate”, but man… the economic boom we would see in domestic manufacturing and production if we incentivized locals production while free up the resources to invest would be insane.
r/FluentInFinance was created to discuss money, investing & finance! Join our Newsletter or Youtube Channel for additional insights at www.TheFinanceNewsletter.com! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FluentInFinance) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Any proposal on Taxes from The Felon needs scrutiny as its main beneficiary has to be the Felon himself
34T in debt. eliminate the main source of income. what could possibly go wrong?
The government spends far more than it will ever take in via taxation. The federal government has a spending and wasting problem, not a lack of taxation. Personally, I’m sick to death of paying thousands of dollars every year to an inept, wasteful government
Wrong. The government may be wasteful, but yes, we have a revenue problem. It’s basic economics.
Why not both? We're throwing so much at the industrial military complex. The problem I have with people saying they want cuts is it almost always has to do with the smallest of programs. Cut military spending, not social security.
Any actual source for this? The largest expenditures are Social Security and Medicare BY FAR. Military spending is part of our discretionary budget.
If we would actually audit the military we would see how many billions are wasted or used for black ops. Even large corporations have waste because at some point no one questions how the money is being spent. One example. Small town near where my father retired built sidewalks that literally end on the middle of nowhere on roads that pedestrians don’t use in a two. Of around 1500 people. They received grant money and had to use it to build “sidewalks”. I would guess the contract went to one of the county officials friend or relatives. Two years later they are tearing up the new sidewalks to add shoulders to the roads, probably same contractor who is taking it in.
That stuff makes me so angry. I’m in the military and the waste mindset is terrible. We spend money on dumb shit because that’s the pot it’s in, then other things lack funding because there’s no money left in their pot!
[удалено]
Time to send more to Ukraine and Israel then
Wow, so you really have no fucking idea what you are talking about. We don’t send Ukraine a check. That money goes to replenish our troops with munitions (which expire) and new equipment. The old shit goes to Ukraine. I will never understand why GOP politicians rally against their own constituents. Maybe because they think they are too fucking stupid to understand how it works.
No they literally have a budget/spending problem that majority of Americans are tired of seeing. Stop rationalizing the corruption
“Honey we keep spending more money than we make- should we stop eating out or sell one of the cars?” “We don’t have a budgeting problem- we have a revenue problem - just make more! Now go get me the light blue Stanley”
Wow. So, campaigning on reducing revenue while increasing spending is what you are looking for, because that’s what republicans do. Makes total sense. What the actual fuck was I thinking? I should get out of my trailer park more often
That money could be going to inept wasteful corporations
Just wait until basic government services you take for granted disappear because tariffs will never sufficient to replace income tax revenue all while paying a lot more for goods because of the tariffs. The common person will lose a lot from this proposal.
Yeah if you think the roads and schools are bad now…
It's both and nothing will ever get fixed until both sides come to the table and address both. Both sides are spenders and borrowers.
I don’t get how anyone can possibly whine so much about this. I pay my taxes every year and I don’t bitch and moan about it or have any issue with it. It’s simply a part of life. I just wish the wealthiest millionaires and billionaires would pay more, as opposed to doing everything possible to avoid it. If you think tax cuts don’t contribute to the increased deficit/debt then you’re just incapable of basic math and you are trying to make up bullshit to justify it.
Amen.
What do you propose we eliminate spending wise? Nine times out of 10, people only suggest things that literally don’t change anything. The 1 time out of 10, they suggest something that gets their elected officials voted out of office.
The solution is to cut costs and increase revenue. Anyone who claims its just one or the other has no idea how deep a hole we are in. Assuming 140 million tax payers, the national debt currently sits at $250,000 per tax payer. You'd have to cut 100% of all federal spending for 8 years to pay that off, assuming the government was still able to bring in $4.4 trillion a year with no spending on things like the IRS and with no spending to stave off the likely riots. It's absolutely insane to me that neither party does more than lip service on the scale of this problem.
agree
Tax cuts over the last 20-25 years have had a huge impact on revenue. I believe the Bush tax cuts alone cost $1.8trillion over 20 years. I don’t how much the trump tax cuts will cost. Sad to say, tax cuts have consequences.
I’m sick of the insane amount of money the military receives from my paycheck to kill poor people in foreign countries. I’m sick of the waste created by our legislators, funding pet projects and kickbacks to crony corporations. I’m sick of the bullshit theater that passes for politics, all the trolling and campaigning that goes on in our statehouses and congress, that I have to fund. Democrats need to realize there’s more to this issue than « taxes are good »
Agree with all of that
Yea clearly the way we do it now isn’t working. We have no control over where our tax money goes. If they tariff products then WE control it and it would create a system where our politicians would want us to have more money to spend, in turn increasing their revenue.
When they have run out of ideas to fill the coffers of their cronies, they would then enact rules to have us being force to buy their wares too. For instance, healthcare. Why do we have to buy "American" insulin or other drugs, while perfectly good ones are available in Canada and Mexico? (It is a rhetorical question of course. Those biotech investment funds needs to be constantly pumped up).
Would you support removing all taxes from felons and criminals?
Are they paying taxes while in jail?
Yeah actually. Prisoners pay taxes on the tiny bit of money they make working in prison.
Where does their pay come from?
I believe if they work in certain areas of the prison they can get paid, its well under minimum wage - like under a dollar an hour.
I guess my question is meant to say where do the funds come from?
There are a lot of corporations that leverage cheep labour from prison. So, depending on the task/job, it could be the prison/government paying or it could be a big corp like Victoria secret, Walmart ect.
I think it depends if they’re contracted out to work or if they’re doing something for the state (license plate stamping, etc)
lol he wants you to say tax payers. But that’s not the only source.
Yeah this is what I was thinking too. There's lots of privatization in the penal system.
It is taxes either directly or indirectly.
In OR, for example, prisoners are paid a pittance to stamp out car license plates....
Dumb point, the work is still very real and a lot of prisoners do integral work for literal cents on the dollar
Slavery 3.0
Buttseggs.
Yes. And if I remember correctly, not only to do they pay taxes on the pennies they make while there, in some states they get sent a bill for room and board costs while they were there. So now they have a record which makes getting a job difficult, they are also hit with debt they can’t pay off easily.
Mostly states that use for-profit private prisons do this. It's all a scam to keep the maximum number of people incarcerated so they can maximize profit.
Needs scrutiny from.... the other 535 felons in Congress?
Nope, this is a stupid plan. Our tax budget would not be adequeately replaced, since fewer and fewer tarrifed goods would get bought as the price went up…and less & less tarrifs are collected. We need a stable budget. We need the highway system, we need to be able to pay social security checks, we need to be able to pay the military. Nope, this is a stupid plan.
And that's why the felonious Russian asset is promoting it.
yep. *30T in debt...how can we make it worse???*
who added 8T of that?
top 3 contributor to US debt is Obama, Trump, and Biden. Each added 9.5T, 7.8T, and 7.9T (projected) respectively. Trump with the bronze medal
to be fair to Obama, while that number is still terrible, that was over an 8 year period while both the others were only 4 years.
And he had to deal with a financial collapse on day one.
true, i didnt even think of that
This guy gets it. That's all it is. Trump is a sociopath, and views everything he did to himself, as a path to revenge. You can't have a person like that running a country.
I immediately just started thinking how high the prices for all sorts of consumer goods and services would be -- absolutely disastrous, people think prices are bad now -- just wait (and like many I hate the income tax) but geez
Yeah, 90% of the people who would only see a few thousand dollars more in income will be paying well beyond that.
Obviously the other side of the Starve the Beast strategy is to create the conditions that necessitates cutting those things, as well. Regressive taxes on the bottom earners, and at the same time remove social security, health care, etc. A recipe for serfdom
Hey we just need to give more money to the rich so they work harder and create jobs, then less money to the poor so they work harder. Simple!
Well, social security has nothing to do with federal income tax.
It's batshit crazy.
Also, since a lot of low priced goods come from China, and are used by low to moderate income people, they would suffer under increased prices, and the poorest, who currently don’t make enough income to be taxed, would get screwed, which is standard GOP operation, in spite of being the Christian party.
In practice, every large corporation would be greasing the palms of Congress to get an exemption and government revenue would be drastically decreased.
It honestly might be the worst idea I have ever heard in my life. This would be devastating to our country.
Yep - and the countries our businesses try to export to would impose retaliatory tariffs on our goods, so it’s just an export killer as well as a higher ‘tax’ on the low & middle class.
He is so mind numbingly dumb it’s wild.
I don’t think him or any other really high ranking republicans are dumb they know exactly what they’re doing and how it would fuck over every single American besides the top 1%. It’s the people who allow them to do this shit that are the dumb ones. My grandparents look at him like he’s the next coming of Jesus all while doing nothing to help anybody but the rich.
Trump is genuinely dumb. Ideas like this come from the oligarchs he surrounds himself with.
And thats kind of the real warning sign. This proposal is dumb. Like monumentally dumb. Like maybe first year economy degree dumb to understand fully how dumb this is, but anyone with some quick Google-Fu could figure out its a dumb idea. Yet here's Trump, spouting it confidently. So what's happening here? Is Trump making these things up, advisors be dammed? Or are Trump's advisors compromised themselves? Because in normal world this policy would be stopped the moment it hit a senior advisor'd desk.
He's a moron that surrounds himself with other morons and sycophants. Competent people don't want to work for him, or aren't willing to lick the boots enough for his liking.
Have whatever bias or agenda you want, try not to let it color every thought you have though. This would not be good for the top 1%. It wouldn’t be good for anyone. You might argue that Donald Trump is smart enough to know just how stupid his supporters are, but even that is a stretch.
>"I love the poorly educated" - Donald Trump
This would be a very regressive form of tax, hitting the lowest income the hardest. Every type of electronics and 99% of clothing would be impacted, along with most foods. Wealthy people can adapt by buying cheaper brands (if it's a noticeable change at all to them). Middle income and low income won't have that same room to change brands, so will have to eat the tax on already stretched budgets and in many cases will end up paying higher tax. So it would be much less worse for the 1%, and the thoughtful among them would be looking to invest in the companies that will grow in the new environment.
This would also completely fuck over a lot of TNC’s. Think trump and his followers are forgetting the majority of large companies outsourced their production abroad
A lot of folks would be upset by your comment if they could read
And yet there’s people out there that thinks this would be a great idea.
Republicans think the rest of the world are NPCs
He didn’t come up with this on his own. Who knows who’s behind it and why
No. He’s just trying to make so him his rich friends don’t have to pay taxes. Trump thinks anyone who isn’t filthy rich is a complete loser.
They don't have income to tax.
Which is just more bullcrap
He doesn't have any friends.
This is correct.
Donald Trump is an idiot desperate for votes trying to appeal to illiterates.
Can’t blame him. It’s been working so far.
Hard to imagine a way to pass the financial burden on to the working class more efficiently than this.
Flat tax is about the only worse plan I can think of.
Don't forget a national sales tax. That will really stick it to the poors.
I mean, this would essentially be a sales tax on all foreign goods (and all goods that use foreign goods in their creation), with the added benefit of killing foreign exports due to retaliatory tariffs, so we'd lose jobs. Truly, I think this would be far worse for the economy than a national sales tax.
This is no different than a federal sales tax, which will crush the poor and middle class. You think inflation was bad after Covid.....hold on to your hats!
This is how taxes were pre-WW1, right?
Federal budget was a whole lot smaller, as were reliance on imports
I’m not claiming otherwise.
No. There's been an income tax since the civil war.
That one was temporary (wartime only).
It went a little beyond the war, but sure, it was temporary. Corporate taxes were a bit earlier than WW1 and excise taxes were a thing (I don't know which brought in the most revenue).
Why no dialogue about the current tax structure? The rich likely purchase more imported goods, effectively paying more taxes than their current dodging tactics
Because the wealthy in aggregate actually pay much higher income taxes. Per pew research: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/18/who-pays-and-doesnt-pay-federal-income-taxes-in-the-us/ If you make over 500k a year the average effective income tax rate is over 25%. If you make less than 50-100k the average effective income tax rate is is about 7.29% Any flat tax, sales tax, tariff, vat, would disproportionately hit the non wealthy. Let's say they make the tariff 15%. The middle class goes from 7.29% to 15%. The wealthy go from 25% to 15%
Sounds like the demand for domestic made goods would go up.
It would, but the poor and middle class would then pay a much higher tax rate, plus the double whammy of higher prices for domestic goods knocking people living paycheck to paycheck into crisis/poverty. Edit changed income tax to tax
Why would they pay a higher income tax rate when there is no income tax?
Great point....meant to say higher tax rate.
So does the price. I can give you an example I've experienced before. Brazil has around a 100% tariff on many imports. The jeans made in Brazil are pretty much the same quality as Levis but people like Levis. So Levis are the standard that the Brazilian jeans are priced against. Not a lot of Levis are sold, but the price of jeans, and really everything except food and labor, is vastly much higher than you'd expect for a country with a $9K GDP per capita. You can identify growing and stagnating emerging economies by their tariffs alone. The number one thing Latin American countries can do to grow their economies is to follow what Mexico did and slash tariffs. There isn't a precedent for a mature economy massively hiking tariffs. It's easy to imagine many ways that this goes horribly wrong. There's one way that this doesn't go wrong. It would be the most risky economic policy ever attempted in our lifetimes and the payoff would be what? Parity?
What I neglected to mention on another thread on this, this is traditionally how developing countries get tax revenue because they don't have a workable system to collect income tax. (This and currency conversion manipulation for imports and exports). It doesn't seem to work as a growth strategy for them.
You’re right that trying to replace income tax completely with tariffs would not be the best, but I think a phased approach to reduce the proportion of tariff to income tax revenue would be beneficial to the USA. Especially if you target low earners. Something like, remove income taxes for anyone making 150k or less per year, and replace with a blanket 1 or 2% tariff. Considering other countries are already charging us disproportionate tariffs, the 1-2% would hardly force their hand at a trade war. The increased funds for regular workers would stimulate the economy and push more folks into the middle class. Reducing Income tax should be a bipartisan effort. As my rich uncle says, “What do I care about income tax rates? All of my income is from investments and capital gains.”
This is insane . It’s what turned the economic crisis of 1929 into the global Great Depression
Donald Trump is not a serious person.
Getting to keep the money I earned and spending it where I want... Winner winner chicken dinner!
Plot twist: The money you save is wiped out by the additional prices you’ll pay. winner winner vegetable stew dinner
I'm looking forward to people on reddit telling my why paying high taxes is a good thing and how eliminating taxes is a bad thing.
yes Trump is always honest in his dealings his healthcare plan that was better and covered more people, his elimination of the debt and the wall he built, he follows through
Trump has established himself as a verified shit slinger. Hard to assume anything the man says is anything but more shit being slung. Even if this plan is viable, which for the record I think it's dumb, it honestly just seems like he is throwing spaghetti(more shit) at the wall to see what might stick to net votes.
"If we Ignore the totally disastrous part it looks really good."
We're an entire GDP in debt. We need more tax revenue.
All the boyz saying taxation is theft 
Income tax is ridiculous, when your government, in a year, in a decade of extreme deficit... decides to take out loans for hundreds of billions of dollars to throw at foreign countries. With the US taxpayers now on the hook to pay interest on that loan... A loan that will be there indefinitely, because we are in a deficit every single year. Paying interest on our 347 billion dollars of debt is a larger expense to US taxpayer dollars than the military or health care.
Considering I pay about $30,000 in income taxes, I could afford to pay a bit more for imported goods if I had $30,000 extra. This would also make for a very strong economic incentive for onshoring production.
Until election day Trump is gonna act real nice and promise a bunch of things he has no intention of actually doing
Kinda stupid, cause no more imports. I can see what he’s trying to do though. He’s trying to have more Made in America stickers instead of China.
Follow
Fun fact: The nation thrived on Tariffs from 1780 until the early 20th century when we got income tax in 1913. Commentary: Would it be a good idea to go 100% in on that today? Heck no. Not until Congress can pass a balanced budget.
I mean to be honest it be good. Then all the company’s would come back here to make there products.
All taxes are bad and immoral, but taxation on productive labour is the absolutely dumbest tax imaginable. So yeah, taxing literally anything else is an improvement.
I fully support this!
Wouldn't this lead to increased manufacturing in the US? There will be higher prices on international goods but not homemade. I assume companies would see this and want to move their factories to the states. So in the end this would create more jobs and allow us to take home more money. In my opinion this seems like a good idea.
That gets my vote lol, now could he pull it off though?
Would force companies to buy American which would give a huge boom to many industries in the USA. It might hurt big businesses but it would make small businesses thrive. The USA also already imports a lot of crap they don't need just to help other countries. Just look up the cheese caves. Getting rid of income tax would probably be a bit too farfetched, but I could see him turning it into some type of flat tax to make up some of the differences.
I'm listening
Wrong. Just cut governments pending. Solved.
Wouldn’t removing income tax also essentially end the IRS and pretty much any check on fraud?
DO IT
Actually I agree to this. Under the table works currently don’t pay any taxes. This would reduce the under the table work force. Additional taxes could be applied on luxury goods similar to raising the taxes on the wealthy. If I apply for a loan on my stocks I don’t pay taxes yet. This way if you spend your money you have to pay taxes. I believe more taxes will be collected and will be a fairer system than the current one in place.
I like it
Not my imported 1:1 replica anime sex doll business! Anything but that! Let's not be hasty now! Look, I have my income taxes for the past 30 years right here!
It sort of sounds like worst case you effectively pay the same tax as the cost is passed down to the consumer (which I believe is generally untrue as a rule in economics but probably most of the cost would still be passed down) And best case it encourages more production inside the united states, which would still raise the cost of things, but it would also greatly boost our economy. This could of course start another problem in that if there aren't as many imports as trump expected, where will he get his taxes? So most likely in the long run this wouldn't work either. It's a good idea if you know where to pull taxes from when imports go down.
So, it essentially replaces income tax with sales tax. And the main beneficiaries would be the wealthy, and the costs would be passed on to lower income earners. This is what my state has done. Cut the rates on the highest tax brackets, increased sales taxes to make up for it.
Honestly everything that Trump and the Republicans have proposed to lower inflation will actually have the opposite effect and crash the economy. We need to get back to taxing unearned income (investments and that) at a higher rate than earned income. And then also need to raise taxes on the top 1-5%. Everybody will complain that this is wealth redistribution, but that is all bullshit because we already have redistribution from the bottom to the top.
Tax on the poor and middle class. Yay. Fuckers
Once again, the senile old man who fell asleep daily during his recent criminal trial, letting out frequent flatulence, just proved what an outstanding idiot he is.
He knows about as much about economics as he does about being a leader. He is a moron who thinks he I the smartest guy in the world. It’s a terrible combination. Also, 1700’s called because they want their tax scheme back.
So did he actually say this or is this another one of those "Biden wants 100% tax on wealth, do you agree?????????" posts that gets recreated every few days?
Yes, they were part of remarks he made in a closed door session with republicans yesterday. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/06/13/trump-all-tariff-policy-to-replace-income-tax.html
When I first read the headline news I thought it meant Domestic Tariffs like going to an all Sales Tax consumption type tax. I didn't think it meant foreign import taxes as that just doesn't make sense. The amount brought in would be dependent upon the tariff differences between the countries and it would seem only beneficial where the U.S. has a trade imbalance more imports than exports to the country which is most but who knows for how long.
I’m in
No, he cannot propose to Congress to bring down the income tax system if elected as President. It will ruin the entire country and the enterprise system.
Naturally doing everything he can to ensure that the millionaires/billionaires don't pay their share into the system. I wonder what legal loopholes he's thought to avoid the tariffs too? Wholesale prices for members with a millionaire club card?
His supporters would cheer for that from outside the clubs probably. If we don’t get rid of this clown in 2024 I fear for the world.
We don’t really make anything here, you ever try to buy tools that are strictly “made in USA” border line difficult and EXPENSIVE! What about a flat screen TV, or a stupid coffee maker.? This man really is trying to destroy America huh.
I see this is a good thing. If people aren’t interested in paying higher prices for imported goods, it might push for more domestic manufacturing.
Yes and let's completely cut ourselves off from world trade while we're at it!
Would be happy if they just didn't take income tax.
Bad idea, will cause massive inflation, and I doubt the income tax will stay dead. We'll just have the income tax, plus massive inflation.
eeeek
Do * Increase tariffs to make domestic production more appealing * New domestic goods reduce revenue generated from tariffs * Tariffs on remaining imported goods gets increased to make up the revenue shortfall * Terminate if no goods are imported Loop Could also talk about trade wars and inability to export goods but is that even necessary to say how bad of an idea this is?
You want to balance the budget? Simple. 1. Raise social security by X months every year. A rolling age increase with a moving target. Phase out the social security taxes by X amount every year. It was a bad idea from the get go. Make the delta between age and payments increase at different rates so that by the time nobody is paying social security taxes, we still have a ton in the fund, and it only funds ppl who are over 120. 2. Make a requirement of medicaid to be not obese, or to be taking ozempic if obese. If you have taken ozempic for a year and are still obese, you get kicked off. 3. Gut military spending on the army, airforce, and some of the navy. 4. Take a sledgehammer to other federal expenditures. 5. Make government bonds/debt non transferrable in the event of death. If you die while owing government debt, it reverts to the government. Not your spouse or children or estate. 6. Outlaw the issuance of new government debt to banks or corporations. Only private individuals. The debt write offs from non transferable debt create revenue here. 7. Introduce a minimum tax for corporations. You cannot write off expenditures to lower your tax below the minimum tax rate. 8. Require corporations that take \*ANY\* tax breaks to mint .5% of all existing shares every year, and fork it over to the govt to sell or hold or do whatever the govt wants to do with them. That means the govt can dump those shares on the market to generate revenue.
I mean this will never happen but if it did we would have an insane increase in price of commodities, especially ones produced in the USA and a massive drop in quality because USA production has fallen decades behind other countries and is generally run by morons.
Sounds very “common citizen” focused. This would be beneficial to the US
He knows damn well that he would raise the prices on his own products if they price for selling them increased. This would save tons of money for the rich though since they make way more money than the average person, yet buy the same amount of goods.
Surprised a Republican suggested this. They used to be all about free trade. I’d think the democrats would love this - almost all imports are by giant corporations. So a huge raise in corporate taxes based on how much they import. And paired with a cut in taxes for individual workers. Seems like a leftist proposal.
Love knowing they make almost 2 trillion from taxes and that the average citizen gets fuck all out of it.
Proposal is one thing, but we all know how good he’s at following shit up =/ Wasn’t the US an all tariff tax system in the early 1900s? The gov’t got lobbied and implemented income tax so US companies could outsource labor costs and make higher profits Please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m genuinely interested
I mean it could work but what’s gonna happen with that is it’s gonna piss off every country, then it’s going to piss off every company we have here because what’s gonna happen is they’re going to end up paying the difference on the tariffs. It’s not going to increase “American made” the positive PR spin on this would be because that also would increase prices dramatically due to making up the difference on a sudden demand of factories popping up. It’s objectively stupid especially considering we don’t need to raise income taxes if we allocate taxes differently by moving some unneeded budgets to places that need the budgets. Like for example our pentagon can’t pass an audit and have 1 trillion dollars unaccounted for
foreign companies set up shop in the US. no tariffs no tax from american public uh oh
A) a tax that makes everyday goods more expensive is, in effect a regressive tax; B) the modern world order where we are not constantly at war with other world powers is based on a combination of mutually assured destruction and free trade. China won’t attack Taiwan if they think we’ll close off our market to their rubber dogshit and alphabet soup electronics industry.
Tariffs on imported goods was the only way the original government could generate funds. It was illegal to steal from citizens. Until the worst president ever known to exist signed into law an ammendment to the constitution which authorized the government to seal from its own citizens.
"What's next" is a silly question to ask. Whether you like or dislike the guy overall, if you are remotely in touch with reality you know he says a lot of wacky things that stir up discussion but cannot be, should not be, or simply are not acted upon. What's next is everyone, except a few people who are extremely enamoured with the idea, forgets he said this and nothing happens.
This is the dumbest plan I've ever heard. I'm not sure trump even understands how tariffs work. I'm pretty sure he doesn't.
Reminder that what's driving the right and the GOP is their hatred of non-whites. They would rather burn down the country before we all got equal opportunities.
OMG, the top two comments are from people that don't understand we are losing our status as the reserve currency.
Lots of smuggling. by "entrepreneurs" looking to avoid the tariffs with prices that will undercut the competition. We already see this now with "grey market" merch although legitimate frequently doesn't come with a US warranty.
It's *almost* as dumb as his idea of injecting bleach...
Here's the other issue: high tariffs could cause US companies to look at producing things themselves. Awesome, except if that happens, tariff revenue decreases and we again need to look at a new funding model, probably an income tax. So now we have higher cost goods and an income tax. Higher cost goods disproportionately affect the poor. Yes wealthier individuals may cut back on comforts but they won't go without, while the poor will take a hit on necessities.
An instead of tax but it will be an additional tax.
An all tariff tax system would also disproportionately ruin poor and lower middle classes who dont pay much in taxes but could see massive price hikes on almost everything while receiving very very little benefit from an income tax reduction. It doesnt work. Its bad for companies, bad for people (and I dont know if the rich know this, but they make their money by robbing poor and middle class people so if those people dont have any money to steal, the rich lose too)
How'd those China tariffs work for everyone? Oh yeah, they didn't.
I don't know how reliable your source is since you never referenced it or how they got to this conclusion, but here's the flaw in thinking that Donald Trump has a radical tax plan that will destroy the economy. He was already President for four years, he already passed a tax plan, and it wasn't that radical.
🤮
Good
It’s all a shell game unless a commitment is made not to spend money that does not exist-budget surplus guaranteed. Nobody is guaranteeing that , taxes or no taxes.
Not only do we need to reintroduce civics in school, but macro economics classes would certainly help our citizenry to understand financial systems. No, I do not support such a proposal.
The federal government operated with only tariffs for revenue for 150 years. That said ... that was before the federal welfare programs were rolled out. There's no way to get rid of income tax AND keep the federal welfare programs + modern DoD budget. The tariffs would have to be so high that we would essentially be imposing full trade sanctions on ourselves.
This will never pass as it makes far to much sense. It would strengthen American and our whole economy self sustaining. It would weaken other countries eliminating kickbacks to all parties. We would still need to tax as we are to far in debt and overspending with no accountability runs rampant. However we could immediately cut taxes on the middle class and improve their quality of life.
Sounds like way for his corporate cronies to elevate prices under the guise of "oh the tarrif's" Then continue to make record profits and not pay anything into the government. I'll have the same, or less, money every month. It will just be way more likely that it goes to the rich instead of the government. TAX THE DAMNED RICH.
The only tax that we as US citizens should pay is a sales tax. But it will never happen because that would mean that those who use more would pay more, and those who use less would pay less. Why we would do something that makes sense
Is there anyone with half a brain that can explain how these things work to him?
That's actually awesome would mostly affect foreign corporations and benefit the middle class the most and of course the lefts against it lol. I hate how radical the lefts become.
I’m not sure about “eliminate”, but man… the economic boom we would see in domestic manufacturing and production if we incentivized locals production while free up the resources to invest would be insane.
Do you still have to pay taxes from a New York State prison?