Who pays the most tax?

[speling bee]

And of course tax is really aggravated theft because it'll be taken forcibly using violence if you don't cough up.

Although presumably, deducting money straight from bank accounts would be fine because it is only changing some values in a database somewhere that relate to statist fiat currency.

[vetran]

So the poorest really pay less tax then
Otherwise you might as well say that the poorest speed more than the rich do, as doing 80 in a 20 year old corsa is a much larger percentage of the excess speed available than doing 80 in a new beamer.

Indirect taxes on 'luxury goods' hit the poor harder. Buying fewer luxury goods would mean they pay less tax.

Council tax needs addressing if its to become progressive as I pay about the same council tax as someone with a £20m mansion and a little bit more than someone with a 1 bedroom flat.

But the 'rich' probably pay more tax as an absolute figure than a poor person.

So your analogy is flawed. You would be better using two people losing 10% of body weight. The thirty stone one loses 3st, the 10st one loses a stone. The fat one lost 'more' but they both lost the same percentage.

[SpontaneousOrder]

British public wrongly believe rich pay most in tax, new research shows

The fat one lost 'more' but they both lost the same percentage.

I don't think it's my analogy that's broken

[vetran]

I don't think it's my analogy that's broken

yours provides an arbitrary limit 70mph, mine doesn't.

[VectraMan]

Indirect taxes on 'luxury goods' hit the poor harder. Buying fewer luxury goods would mean they pay less tax.

"Luxury goods" includes things like petrol to get to work, which is taxed at a ridiculous rate. But it's hard to see how means tested petrol could work.

[MarillionFan]

Me.

The ****ers.

[BrilloPad]

Me.

The ****ers.

Plenty of schems in accountancy/legal where you only pay 10%

[vetran]

"Luxury goods" includes things like petrol to get to work, which is taxed at a ridiculous rate. But it's hard to see how means tested petrol could work.

precisely why I put it in quotes.

I'm trying to shorten my answers to stop you lot falling asleep reading them.

If you are going to include indirect taxes then the poor will always pay more.Even if you don't tax their wages the money will have to come from somewhere and that is indirect taxation. The only people paying less will be those living in trees eating acorns.

[SpontaneousOrder]

yours provides an arbitrary limit 70mph, mine doesn't.

It's not an arbitrary limit; It's an example limit and a limit is a prerequisite component of the act of speeding - just as measuring a starting weight is a prerequisite component of the act of measuring weight loss

That aside, I just realised that the quoted bits I provided aren't particularly relevant; I thought you were saying something else.

[SpontaneousOrder]

precisely why I put it in quotes.

I'm trying to shorten my answers to stop you lot falling asleep reading them.

If you are going to include indirect taxes then the poor will always pay more.Even if you don't tax their wages the money will have to come from somewhere and that is indirect taxation. The only people paying less will be those living in trees eating acorns.

You're entirely correct (i've said the same thing here several times previously) - But I wish you'd stop saying 'more' and instead said something like 'a higher percentage'. To conflate a large percent of virtually nothing with a smaller percentage of a lot is to presuppose that people don't have any legitimate claim on their own earnings - only a percentage of them.

Supposing that I were rich - even if you think that I should pay more than poorer people, that money is still mine to give. Suggesting that I'm paying less than other men simply because I have more to pay is a very dishonest position to take. If I were rich I'd find it very insulting too.