Should the rich pay more taxes?

[rogue]

I need more coffee.

[rogue]

I'm going to try and distract MP with this until I can read his last post.

Original Story URL:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=610122


Running on empty
Hit by high prices and fees, some gas station owners stop selling fuel
By THOMAS CONTENT
tcontent@journalsentinel.com
Posted: May 23, 2007

As gas prices hit another record last Friday, Jeff Curro couldn't take it anymore.

He wasn't a motorist at the pump fed up by the blur of numbers spinning higher as he filled his tank.

Curro is a gas station owner who has stopped selling gas to his own customers.

After selling gas at N. 124th and W. Burleigh streets for 20 years, Curro turned off his pumps at his Shell station in Brookfield when the price he was being asked to pay was just too much.

Including the wholesale cost of gas and other taxes and charges, he was being asked to pay $3.44 a gallon Friday, a day when the competing stations down the street were selling gasoline for $3.47.

"Three cents a gallon doesn't cut it," Curro said. "It doesn't pay the bills."

Add to that the money he loses every time a motorist uses a credit card at the pump, and there was no reason to keep selling gas, Curro said.

Credit card companies and banks get an average of 2.75% on every gallon of gas sold, and credit card processing fees now rank as the second-biggest expense for gas station operators, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores.

"The way I see it is, I'm doing all the work of providing the labor, the wages, the electricity, the lighting, the maintenance of the pumps, the repairs and the insurance, which is quite substantial," Curro said. "I'm doing all the work, and somebody else is getting fat on me."

Curro isn't alone in deciding to not sell gas anymore. Casey O'Gorman did the same thing. In business for 25 years near State Fair Park, his West Allis service station is now doing business exclusively as Auto Analyzers. The Shell name came down a few months back.

"I finally had to just pull the plug on it and say, 'I can't afford to do it anymore,' " O'Gorman said.
High wholesale prices

Curro and O'Gorman are leaving a relatively small and disappearing group of service station owners who both sell gas and repair cars.

Independent auto-repair shops face competition from car dealerships and quick-lube repair shops, and in the sale of gasoline, they compete against full-line convenience stores.

Most gas stations today double as convenience stores, and although they generate more than two-thirds of sales from gas, two-thirds of profit comes from in-store sales of cigarettes, drinks and food, according to the convenience store association.

When drivers are paying more, they think that means higher profits for the filling station, said Bob Bartlett, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Stores Association.

The case of the two Shell stations stopping sales of gas illustrates the challenges faced by independent station owners across the state, Bartlett said. Nine of 10 stations in the state are independently owned and run, he said.

Between Feb. 1 and Monday, Bartlett said, the average wholesale price paid by service stations in Milwaukee to buy gasoline rose from $1.66 to $2.94. Add in taxes paid to the federal and state governments, as well as transportation costs, and the average service station had to cover $3.47 on Monday, without charging any profit. On that day, stations were charging their customers $3.47 on average in Milwaukee, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

"People are upset about oil and gas prices, but it's not this guy right here," Bartlett said of the independent gas station owner. "He's not OPEC. He's not refining it. He's buying it kind of like I am, right at the end of the line here."
Sales up, profit down

Curro has been thinking about shutting down his gas pumps for about a year, and he has complained to his supplier about prices.

When he shut down his pumps, he was charging $3.59 a gallon, 12 cents higher than the competing stations nearby.

"Even at $3.59, I was making 15 cents, but I was still giving 10 of those cents to MasterCard," he said.

Nationally, the Association of Convenience Stores estimates that sales rose 12% but profit fell 23% industrywide last year, and for the first time, credit card fees were higher than the industry's profit.

Lower margins on the sale of fuel and credit card fees were the two main factors behind the drop in profit, the association said, as profit margins on the sale of fuel dipped to their lowest point since 1983.

Until January, O'Gorman and the predecessors at S. 84th St. and W. Greenfield Ave. sold gasoline on that corner since 1938.

He says he never made much money selling gas but started seeing margins nosedive last year when gas prices rose.

"More and more, it was crowding out my real form of income," O'Gorman said, referring to car repairs.

"Then you listen to the public, and they say we're gouging them. Who needs to listen to that? I'd need to have my head examined."


Buy a link here




From the May 24, 2007 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[DPL]

I think I may have killed this thread with that post, LOL!

Yeah, ultimately this thread pretty much highlights why I didn't major in economics, and why those folks have my utmost respect. It's convoluted to an almost impossible point to understand cause and effect on any kind of stable level.

To keep it going, though...

I pretty much fundamentally disagree that anything other than a flat tax makes sense when talking purely about income. Any proposed justification (again, income-only) that the rich should pay more percentage of their income in taxes just comes across as a rationalization for some flavor of socialism, even if it's socialism-lite or socio-capitalism. (I'm actually against an income tax at all, because I have so little trust in career politicians making financial decisions that even vaguely approach the public's best interest, but that's another topic.)

I've never been convinced that being successful should be punished. Same basic reasoning for estate taxes - the rich get punished again for being successful, even though everything being taxed post-death was already taxed at least once as income or otherwise during life.

It seems to me that the people who usually end up getting hurt the most by laws like these are the people who have just barely climbed into the next highest tax bracket. They end up losing money, and that's a pretty big dis-incentive for anyone.

So, yeah - flat tax on underwear. Ladies' underwear. Thongs especially...

[Ultimatewingchun]

"So what's rich? Over $100,000 per year? Over $200,000? I believe I read somewhere that $100k/year nowadays is roughly equivalent to $50k/year about 30 years ago, so would that really be rich?

Whatever the definition, I think the original question does not allow that so much of rich people's income is hidden or structured to prevent taxation. As an example, a very good friend of mine recently divorced a woman who would be considered rich by almost any definition, but she has no income per se. Multiple large houses, nice cars, country club memberships, money to spend on anything she wants at any time. But the bulk of her money is in offshore accounts and hidden in other ways so that he's been forced to pay child support to help her 'provide' for her children when she buys a new Jaguar every six months or so. Not trying to derail this into a child support discussion - the point is, her money is mostly if not completely hidden from the government. So it can't be taxed." (DPL)

..................................

"a person making 50,000 would hardly be considered "rich." I would argue that given his middle class income he's not benefiting from it more... he might be USING it more, but his benefit seems questionable." (MP)


***AND HERE is where the rubber hits the road, imo...Clearly in today's world "rich" can't be considered reality unless you're making at least $200,000. per year...AND ALL THE LOOPHOLES have to be closed for those who are hiding their incomes.

There's no other way to tackle this enormous problem (not enough tax money being collected by Federal and State governments)...than by raising taxes on the rich and closing the sneaky loopholes.

[Black Jack II]

Me and my wife are not at the 200k mark yet, but we are a good deal above the 100k mark, we live a comfortable lifestyle, and not even close to above our means. Yet still I feel middle-middle class due to where I live, in my view, everything has to be in that kind of micro context, as Rogue stated a few posts back I believe.

Here is the problem with high-income individuals or families paying a much larger share of the taxes. A free society must treat all citizens on the same level, so we are all equal in the eyes of the law.

For some disenchanted hippy to draw some made-up line in the sand and say "Hey, BlackJack, you have enough money, give up some of your hard earned personal property so that the government can redistribute it to someone else" should be considered a serious violation of a citizens rights and their personal liberity.

All that we enjoy at this moment, a lot of the good in our country at any rate, is because our Republic was founded on principles that are in a serious direct contrast that the governmnet should draw arbitrary descriptions of class distinction and redistribute personal property.

Here is a example,

Picture you are walking down the street going to your kwoon. You just pass by a homeless man laying on the ground. A cop comes over and stops you, and by use of force, gives the homeless man a chunk of money from your wallet or purse.

That would be kinda a sucky day now would it not?

[RD'S Alias - 1A]

Picture you are walking down the street going to your kwoon. You just pass by a homeless man laying on the ground. A cop comes over and stops you, and by use of force, gives the homeless man a chunk of money from your wallet or purse.

That would be kinda a sucky day now would it not?

Reply]
Yet this happens every day to everyone who works in order to fund career welfare slugs rapping the system...only they take it from your pay check before you even see it in the first place...before you knew it was yours...

[Sang Feng Fan]

"This redistribution of wealth is a tricky thing."
Dennis Moore

[Ultimatewingchun]

"Here is the problem with high-income individuals or families paying a much larger share of the taxes. A free society must treat all citizens on the same level, so we are all equal in the eyes of the law. "


***YEAH, that's nice...except that we're not equal. An extremely small percentage of the population own and control enormous amounts of wealth, property, and resources....and always conspire to keep it that way - for themsleves, their friends, their political/economic allies, their children, their chidren's childen, and on and on for generations....monopolies, price fixing, labor union busting/dirty tricks, the buying and selling of politicians, political power, status, judgeships, and media/newspaper companies to control the flow of information damaging to their ambitions and greed...etc...

So stop the crap, please...

The rich...and especially the ultra-rich (ie.- those who have many millions/billions in their possession and control) need to have their taxes raised.

There's just no other way that's fair if we're going to have a just society.

[Black Jack II]

Ah give it a break already with this robin hood nonsense.

An extremely small percentage of the population own and control enormous amounts of wealth, property, and resources....and always conspire to keep it that way -

Yes and so what. You expect people to want to give away what they earned so others can have a share who did not ear it?????

That seems somehow fair to you?

There's just no other way that's fair if we're going to have a just society.

According to you, maybe if you keep typing it enough somehow it will go from your personal viewpoint to fact, to bad though that its not wearing a pretty shade of the correct for everyone.

Fair is overrated man.

[bakxierboxer]

MP -

My mischevious (sp?) nature is amused by this idea: the use of supply and demand for the public sector, to justify a higher tax rate for high income folks, when the invisible hand is so often proffered by the far right as the appropriate regulatory mechanism for just about anything you can think of, LOL.

The use of "Supply & Demand" FOR "public sector services" is an "interesting concept".... of course, you're assuming that someone/everyone actually WANTS said "services". Perhaps we could even consider "marketing" them.

Surely someone would like to do a bit of thinking on the "efficiencies" of government and just what would happen if there was *COMPETITION* to *ATTRACT* your tax dollars as opposed to extor.... uhm "pre-empting" them.

Of course, I've long held the opinion that government is largely non-productive.
I arrived at this conclusion because there once was some nitwit in the GSA or similar bureaucracy that announced that government was 100% "productive". This struck me as a rather "odd" idea since most of what they "produce" is more regulation which tends to cost taxpayers/citizens even more money. After a while I began to get the idea that government was something on the order of @250+% NEGATIVELY productive.
Perhaps someone can disprove that "sneaking suspicion".....

Pete

[Ultimatewingchun]

Not give it away...just pay your FAIR SHARE of taxes if you're so wealthy. The society you live in has laws, institutions, and government breaks in place that have allowed you to get wealthy (ie.- corporate socialism) - then be ready to give something back.

Something befitting your wealth - not what befits somebody making $40-50-60-70K per year.

Don't give me the Robin Hood bull5hit.

[DPL]

Not give it away...just pay your FAIR SHARE of taxes if you're so wealthy. The society you live in has laws, institutions, and government breaks in place that have allowed you to get wealthy (ie.- corporate socialism) - then be ready to give something back.

Something befitting your wealth - not what befits somebody making $40-50-60-70K per year.

Don't give me the Robin Hood bull5hit.

I'm just curious - if you make $50k/year and I make $1,000,000/year, and we both pay 20% of our income, am I not paying my 'fair share'? You end up paying $10k, and I end up paying $200k. I'm unclear as to how that's unfair for anyone.

Except for MerryPrankster's inspired but (I believe) ultimately futile attempt to see if it's provable that the rich BENEFIT more, per dollar, from government services, the bulk of the other posts I've seen on here suggesting the rich should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes read like entitlement. "Why do those lucky b@st@rds get to have all the money while I'm sitting here struggling to pay my bills? They don't even work hard, or at least not as hard as me!!"

Success is built mainly on some combination of four factors: 1) Hard work, 2) Taking advantage of opportunities (recognizing good luck when you see it and TAKING ADVANTAGE OF IT), 3) taking risks, and 4) pure BULLSH!T. Some people purely bullsh!tted their way to wealth, lying cheating and stealing, and some worked really, really hard for it.

But if I worked really, really hard for my money, and earned every last single freaking penny of it, how is it fair to me in any way to force me to pay to support someone who may or may not have worked hard at all? Yes there are plenty of poor people who bust their @sses every day, but there are plenty of middle-class and rich people who do too. Just like there are plenty of lazy-@ss people of all income ranges as well. But I've met a whole lot more lazy-@ss poor people than rich people. Just my experience, but one that I bet is shared by the majority.

Again, if someone could prove MP's idea that the rich uniformly receive more benefit for their dollars PER DOLLAR (which I think is a fair question), then it would make sense to tax them more based on the benefit they receive.

Otherwise I'm unclear why 'amount of money' is the measure by which we determine relative social responsibility.

[Ultimatewingchun]

Here's my point, pure and simple...The Federal government clearly does not collect enough money to do the things I spoke about in my first post on this thread. (Post #76)

So where is the needed money going to come from?

A) Closing loopholes (of which they're numerous) that allow people to hide their income and their wealth...

B) Raising taxes on those who can most afford to pay them (ie.- the wealthy).

So our society needs a PROGRESSIVE tax structure. It won't work if everyone pays, say 20%, as you suggested.

[Mas Judt]

This is the wrong argument.

A progressive tax structure is inherently immoral. In fact, taxing the exchange of services, such as labor is unconstitutional. Proogressive tax systems are used to manipulate society in ways that the politicians can't with a vote. It is right from the Karl Marx handbook, and anybody who advocates a progressive direct tax on labor should be considered the immoral thug that they are. For that matter, the 'income tax' isn't even really required to raise funds. All we need to do is roll back to 2000 spending levels and we could be done with it.

However, there are constitutional taxes that could in fact be higher. The 'Death Tax' is set at too low a starting point due to inflation since it started it, and the extremely wealthy - who it was intended to tax (like the Kennedy's, Kerry's and others who advocate the middle class pay more) avoid it with off shore trust schemes.

Corporate income tax - which is constitutional could be certainly be higher. Speaking as a business person who is fighting a gross receipts tax in illinois (It will destroy the economy) - I could easily pay a higher marhin on profits if I dd not pay so many taxes and fees on my employees or witheld so much from them for the government.

Progressive taxes are a political tool that has the side effect of stripping us of our position as citizens and turns us into serfs with no due process - as the IRS has excessive powers and is widely documented to lie and cheat in order to persecute innocent Americans.

We are gradually losing our Republic due to poor primary education and univerrsities full of professors who, frankly, should not be teaching.

Now, all this being said: www.ronpaul2008.com

[Black Jack II]

Certain people seem to hate the idea, but the prosperity of a market economy often depends in a good part upon what some class as the rich. The captial they earn generates jobs and there personal savings keep interest rates lower.

A progressive tax is a parasite and as already stated technically wrong on a number of different levels from the respective of our Republic. We need to keep the rich in the country through incentives, think of the countries we used to shake our hands at that taxed the rich so much that they left there home countries, Great Britian for example, we really don't want that happening here.

We need to stop trying to pick the pockets of those who happen to be very successfull in this bizzare attempt to level a playing field.