During the next year Congress should consider comprehensive tax reform. Most of the Republican candidates would keep the Bush Tax Cuts permanently. Most of them also have plans that would lower Capital Gains Taxes, Corporate Taxes, and taxes on the rich, and shift the tax burden onto the middle class with national sales taxes or flat taxes.
http://www.ctj.org/election2012/gopprima...Those tax plans all help the 1% and hurt the 99%.
What would a tax plan for the 99% look like?
The most popular type of tax that is acceptable to most people, are "Sin Taxes" like tobacco taxes or alcohol taxes. These serve a triple purpose. They raise revenue, the higher costs discourage the use of the harmful substances, and the revenue generated can be used in programs to discourage the harmful behavior.
We should expand that form of tax to many other areas. We should tax all harmful substances to raise revenue, to discourage their use, and to help find safe alternatives.
The best application would be a simple carbon tax on all fossil fuels, to reduce greenhouse gases, and to promote clean safe renewable energy.
Every year environmental pollutants and toxic chemicals costs families $77 billion a year when their children get sick, because of the pollution.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2011/...The costs of Climate change are projected to increase each year until in 2100 we will be paying $1.9 trillion a year.
http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/cost/c...Similar taxes should be levied against nuclear material and toxic waste, to discourage their use, and find safe ways to dispose of them.
Similar taxes should be levied against trans fats, sugar, and other harmful foods, additives, and harmful chemicals to help people remain healthy and to reduce health costs.
Perhaps the most harmful activity in this country is the influence of special interest money on politics. Apparently the Supreme Court has declared that special interest money is protected as speech by the 1st amendment. That speech may be protected but it doesn't have to be free. Why can't we tax all lobbying, campaign contributions, and donations to Super PACs? If we taxed all of these efforts at 50% they would still have access and be able to influence the politicians, but the tax would discourage this harmful activity, and the money could go into a pot that would pay for support, ads, and televised debates, especially those who refuse to take special interest money, so non millionaires that haven't sold their souls to special interests would have a chance to run for office.
There are two kinds of wealth in this country Real Wealth and Phantom Wealth.
"Real wealth has intrinsic value. Examples include fertile land, healthful food, knowledge, productive labor, pure water and clean air, labor, and physical infrastructure. The most important forms of real wealth are beyond price and are unavailable for market purchase. These include healthy, happy children, loving families, caring communities, a beautiful, healthy, natural environment."
Phantom wealth or "Money, a number on a piece of paper or created with an accounting entery, has no intrinsic value. Wall Street generates it in astonishing quantities through accounting tricks, financial bubbles, and debt pyramids. It appears from nowhere and can disappear in an instant, as a phantom in the night."
http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/david-k...A tiny Financial Transaction Tax would discourage financial speculation, and would curb algorithmic super fast computer trading, where stocks trade hands hundreds of times a minute. It would also curb the practice of leveraging. Currently bankers and traders can leverage their actual wealth by 20-30 times. The 4 banks that we bailed out because they were "Too Big To Fail" only have $5 trillion dollars, but they have $ 236 trillion of derivatives on their books. This is a 50 to 1 leverage. $236 trillion is an amazing amount considering the total GDP of the entire world is only $60 trillion! The world economy could collapse again if everyone wanted to cash in those derivatives because that money doesn't exist except on ledger books. It is Phantom Wealth. If the banks are going to use imaginary money they should be willing to pay a tiny transaction tax on those funds.
http://usawatchdog.com/four-biggest-bank...Wall Street is 40% of the economy. They created the economic collapse so they should help solve the problem. A tiny .03% Financial Transaction Tax (just 3 cents for every $100) could generate $15 billion a year.
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index...Europe is proposing a larger .05% FTT or "Robin Hood Tax" that would generate $72 billion a year. A European FT would be more effective if the US joined in, so European traders wouldn't just move to our markets.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-09...The "Robin Hood Tax" is so small that 99% of the people wouldn't feel it at all, and the 1% can well afford it. It will just put a bit of "skin in the game" to dampen rampant speculation and reduce volatility. So why don't we eliminate all of the other taxes and just have a Financial Transaction Tax on any transactions?
An Automated Payment Transaction Tax of 0.6%, (6 cents for $10 purchase) could replace all federal and state income, corporate, excise, and estate taxes. See:
http://www.apttax.comThis tax would be automatically deducted by the banks, every time money is moved, just like a small bank fee. It is very simple, no tax forms and no tax preparation is required, and there would be no cheating. If international corporations did business in the US they would be taxed .6% every time money changed hands. They wouldn't be able to escape taxes by having dummy offices on a Pacific island.
Everyone would just pay 6 cents for every ten dollars spent, but that wouldn't add up to much for the 99% because they just pay for basic needs. The 1% on the other hand would pay the same rate but it would add up to much more because they are constantly moving and leveraging their millions to earn more. Proponents of Flat taxes say people would have to pay $2-$3 for every $10 spent, to provide the same revenue. The flat taxes would tax mostly real wealth while the Automated Payment Transaction tax would mostly tax phantom wealth.
The 99% should get behind the tax policies that are the least painful for them, and which help the economy the most.