Many debates have been waged over the decades on what will be taxed, on who shall be taxed and how taxes are collected. Since the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, the debate has intensified, centering on how high to make the income tax rate. Most Americans were not concerned since the Amendment was sold to them as something that would only affect corporations and the rich. With ever increasing fervor these corporations created lobbyists to convince Congress to exempt them from some or all of the income tax. The big breakthrough in this was taxing the worker directly with payroll taxes during World War II. This method of collecting income tax was sold to Americans as temporary, but Congress has extended it indefinitely and the public has become used to it. The next few decades saw the debate revolve around creating tax breaks for individuals in an attempt to modify behavior or spending. This has resulted in over 67,000 pages of tax code and an entire industry devoted to tax compliance and evasion, with the unintended behavioral change of corporations and the rich parking their money outside of the United States in small island nations to avoid taxation. These offshore accounts are estimated to hold $10 trillion dollars, a number approximate to the national debt. The FairTax Act should be enacted because it eliminates all federal income taxes for individuals and corporations, eliminates all federal payroll withholding taxes, abolishes estate and capital gains taxes and repeals the 16th Amendment; thus eliminating the need for offshore accounts.
The FairTax Act will replace these costly, oppressively complex and economically inefficient taxes with a progressive national retail sales tax, which would be levied on the final sale ...
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..., while at the same time doing their best to heighten economic class warfare. The FairTax Act is not addressing anything other than tax collection and pointing out that the worker is already paying the brunt of the tax bill, the FairTax just lets the worker know exactly how he is taxed and by how much. More importantly the worker can choose how much tax to pay, giving them more power over government, a power balance that has been in favor of government since the 16th Amendment was adopted. The very advocates against this plan want government to maintain this overwhelming power over the citizens; it allows the politician to hand out favors and punishment in the form of tax cuts and increases. These same advocates preach equality while dividing the classes; it is this division of voting blocks that politicians can play to that will be eliminated with the FairTax Act.
Proposition 47, also known as the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, is an act that applies savings towards mental health and drug treatment programs. It is extremely controversial and viral, with large amounts of support and protests. This piece of rhetoric is relevant and has a critical impact on our local community and state of California. As the Californian General Election Official Voter Guide states, the goal of Prop 47 is to “…ensure that prison spending is focused on violent and serious offenses, to maximize alternatives for non-serious, nonviolent crime, and to invest the savings generated from this act into prevention and support programs in K–12 schools, victim services, and mental health and drug treatment” (Bowen 70). This explains
The first of the Progressive amendments is the 16th Amendment. Approved by the Senate in 1909, it introduced the graduated income tax where a person’s taxes increase relative to his or her income. Specifically, the tax charged 1 percent of incomes over $20,000 and a maximum of 7 percent on incomes over $500,000 (Walter Nugent, p.86). It was brought about after the 2 percent tax on incomes over $4,000 tariff in 1894, and was supported by President Taft, Southern and Western farmers, and the Progressives (Foner, p. 718). They believed respectively that the government should wean off obtaining money from tariffs, and that the income tax should fairly correlate to a person’s income. Moreover, it was believed that the amendment would ameliorate the drastic income disparity, and that it would provide the government with more revenue for its increasing state budgets.
Abraham Lincoln became the United States ' 16th President in 1861, delivering the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy in 1863. If there is a part of the United States History that best characterizes it, is the interminable fight for the Civil Rights. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "The Declaration of Independence states “All men are created equal”.
The 15th Amendment was an law added to the United States Constitution in 1870 that gave citizens the right to vote no matter their race, skin color, or previous conditions of servitude. This specifically applied to African American males who, though technically were citizens under the 14th amendment, were still being oppressed and restricted from voting. According to Angela Davis in her text, while some feminist activists in the 19th century supported this amendment, others were adamantly opposed to it. These activists were both males and females and many of them had been or were distinguished figures in the abolitionist movement. Supporters argued that African American men had as much of a right as anyone to vote and shouldn 't be denied that right simply because women were, while antagonists argued that until women
Sixteenth Amendment- Authorization of an Income Tax – Progressives thought this would slow down the rising wealth of the richest Americans by using a sliding or progressive scale where the wealthier would pay more into the system. In 1907, Roosevelt supported the tax but it took two years until his Successor, Taft endorsed the constitutional amendment for the tax. The Sixteenth Amendment was finally ratified by the states in 1913. The origin of the income tax came William J Bryan in 1894 to help redistribute wealth and then from Roosevelt and his dedication to reform of corporations. I agree with an income tax to pay for all of our government systems and departments, but I believe there was a misfire with “redistributing wealth.” The redistribution is seen in welfare systems whereby individuals receive money to live. This is meant to be a temporary assistance, but sadly, most that are in the system are stuck due to lack of assistance in learning how to escape poverty. There are a lot of government funded programs, but there is no general help system to help lift people up and stay up, so there continues a cycle of
The Bill of Rights became a major influence on state actions with the adoption of the fourteenth amendment. The fourteenth amendment expanded the protection of civil rights to all Americans, many court rulings have nationalized the substantive protections.
Whether or not to keep or discard the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy, give tax breaks to the lowest tax bracket, and even throwing out the entire current tax code and replacing it with a simpler version, tax code and tax law has been a very controversial topic for the past few years. As it stands, the current tax code has over seventy two thousand pages, compared to the four hundred pages it had in 1913. There are many different stakeholders in this debate including taxpayers, corporations, businesses, etc. Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is an organization that was “founded in 1985 by Grover Norquist at the request of President Reagan”(.N.p.). Their goal is to create and advocate for a simple flat tax,“...on the belief that they will provide a strong stimulus to investment, employment, and output” (Stokey 1). They promote their organization and represent taxpayers in all fifty states. Along with tax reform, ATR also advocates for individual health care, free trade, and spending transparency (.N.p.). Using very simple and easy to understand images, ATR is able to convey their goals and get information across to the general audience that visits their website.
There have been numerous debates within the last decade over what needs to be done about welfare and what is the best welfare reform plan. In the mid-1990s the TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Act was proposed under the Clinton administration. This plan was not received well since it had put a five year lifetime limit on receiving welfare and did not supply the necessary accommodations to help people in poverty follow this guideline. Under the impression that people could easily have found a job and worked their way out of poverty in five years, the plan was passed in 1996 and people in poverty were immediately forced to start looking for jobs. When the TANF Act was up for renewal earlier this year, the Bush administration carefully looked at what the TANF Act had done for the poverty stricken. Bush realized that, in his opinion, the plan had been successful and should stay in effect with some minor tweaking. Bush proposed a similar plan which kept the five year welfare restriction in place but did raise the budgeted amount of money to be placed towards childcare and food stamps. Both the TANF Act and Bush's revised bill have caused a huge controversy between liberal and conservative activists. The liberals feel that it is cruel to put people in a situation where they can no longer receive help from the government since so many people can not simply go out and get a job and work their way out of poverty. They feel if finding a job was that easy, most people would have already worked their way out of poverty. The conservatives feel that the plans, such as the TANF Act, are a surefire way to lower poverty levels and unemployment rates as well as decrease the amount o...
The tax policy in the United States is very confusing. When the tax policy was originally written in 1913 it was four hundred pages. Now, over the past ninety one years, that tax policy has evolved to over 72,000 pages. Since the tax code has become so lengthy and nearly impossible to understand, the topic of tax reform has been in the minds of many. Although, most barely think about tax reform until tax season. It is a controversial subject due to the impact a change in tax code would have on the American people. The two most popular and widely known stakeholders in this debate are the two major political parties in the United States, the Democrats and the Republicans. The two parties share absolutely no common ground on the subject of tax reform, other than thinking the other parties solution is wrong. The Democrats, in general, want to raise taxes on the wealthy, while Republicans, generally, want to cut taxes for everyone (Democratic Party) (GOP). Unfortunately, with the United States economy currently doing so poorly, the parties can no longer afford to remain at a standstill, some sort of compromise is going to have to be made. The implementation of a flat tax, and discarding the current tax system would be a compromise that both parties can agree on and will simplify the tax code, overall benefiting all Americans.
In the United States, there are many different types of taxes. Some of them are goods and services, income, and property taxes (debt.org). The two most common taxes are the Flat Tax and the Fair Tax. Basically, Flax Tax is one income tax rate that everyone has to pay. Fair Tax is a proposal amendment to tax laws that removes the federal and state income taxes and replace it with a federal retail sale tax (Investorwords.com). Our current tax income system that we use is called Progressive Tax which is the tax system that takes a larger percentage from those who earn a higher income than those who earn a lower income (Investopedia.com). Out of all those taxes, the best one that I believe that can replace our current tax system is the Flat Tax because research has shown that it can be very beneficial for our economy today.
I. You might have heard politicians in the news, talk about overhauling our tax system with a new fix-all idea, the flat-tax. This would simplify our overly complicated tax system and might seem appealing at first glance, however there are serious problems with it.
The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation. The Antifederalists were extremely concerned that the national government would trample their rights. Rhode Island and North Carolina refused to ratify until the framers added the Bill of Rights. These first ten amendments outlined things that the government could not do to its people. They are as such:
“FERPA [Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act] essentially means you have no right, as a parent, to know what or how your children are doing in school.” Michele Willens says this in her article, “College Students Have Too Much Privacy” about the FERPA act that was passed in 1974. It was originally put in place to protect the privacy of students, but it also keeps information private from the student’s parents, or current gauardians. Because so many parents waste money on college students that might miss classes or even drop out without them knowing, the FERPA act needs to be reformed.
...eement – a collaborative achievement between state government and business community. Nevertheless, the Marketplace Fairness Act has a very slim chance to win the House of Representatives, because in spite of its simplified and modernized tax measure, the act will not eliminate the problem of complex multistate tax policies. Since each state has its own unique laws and tax codes, it is practically impossible to compel every state to follow the same simplification tax rule. Besides, given the heated controversy and universal impact of the bill, the politicians will look for ways to slow down the enactment as similar trouble has happened to the universal Obama HealthCare. No matter if the bill is enacted or not, one thing is certain that nothing is going to deter people from shopping online (not even sales tax) because shopping online is just too cheap and convenient.
Taxation has always been a major controversy. Just like any major corporation, the government is constantly looking to raise revenue. The easiest and fairest way to do this is by taxing the people. However, how the people will be taxed is always an issue.