A CALL TO INTELLIGENT DUers...

[Sebass1271]

i received this e-mail today from obviously a tax payer at the top of the bracket who hates to pay his taxes.. This is his "theory" from "distributing wealth"... which i immediately thought, what will the intelligent duers will say about this e-mail? I am sure we can all come up with our own theory to counter-attack this guy. what do you think?

_______________________________________________________________________________
Our Tax System Explained:
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!'
'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too.
It's unfair that he got ten times more than I got' 'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'
'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
_______________________________________________________________________________

[liberal N proud]

1. Tell him to avoid paying higher taxes by signing all his wealth over to you

Then he can get welfare and not worry about paying the taxes.

[Enrique]

2. Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy

and the republicans warned us that it would lead to a Great Depression.

They turned out to be full of shit.

[LiberalPersona]

15. Yeah and Bush lowered taxes for the wealthy

and where has that got us? We're on the verge of a great depression.

[charlie]

3. They could start

by attributing it to whomever actually wrote it, instead of hijacking the credentials of some poor guy who'd never heard of it.

Read the first line on Kamerschen's page:

http://davidk.myweb.uga.edu/

[Cronus Protagonist]

4. In the real world, no one is beating up the tenth man for his money

In fact, in the real world the tenth man gets to live in a better house, drive a better car, travel more, live more comfortably in general than ANY of the others, and the cost of his taxes makes little difference to his lifestyle. In fact, in the real world, he's sitting in a pretty damn great situation and all he's doing is bitching about the poor folk who are desperately trying to survive on his cast-offs.

So the analogy fails because it's not an analogy for the real situation. Case closed.

[AllieB]

5. Snopes.com

This email is ancient...

http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/howtaxes.asp

[rug]

6. After 8 beers they got fed up with the tenth man's bullshit and the first eight hit him with a chair

The ninth man fled to Paris.

[lonestarnot]

7. My suggestion is stop drinking period. It's cheaper and healthier and less fighting.

[AgadorSparticus]

8. this guy is arrogant...and arrogance is usually a coverup for some shortcoming.

his theory is based on the assumption that the richest guy is paying the higher percentage. Sorry. No dice. I've seen people make 5-10 times what my dad made and my dad had to pay more in taxes. That is just criminal.

[riverdeep]

9. Simple-false analogy.

Also, this:

"Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore."

Agree, but what is "too much". Was it too much when we had an over 70% tax rate on the highest earners? Supposedly also when America was at the height of its powers. If they move offshore, there needs to be a penalty set up so they can no longer sell. Finally, this assumes that the rich are the source of the wealth, exclusively. If workers don't show up, the rich starve as well. Theoretically, anyway. The rich never starve.

[Truth2Tell]

10. In the real world...

the beer actually costs $250, and $150 is being borrowed by all 10 men from the loan shark down the street, who will come back in 20 years and demand it, plus 1000% interest, from their children.

No one is beating up anyone. And really it's not about beer, but about things necessary for survival like healthcare, housing and police protection.

TAnd that's just a start. The analogy is absurd on so many levels I find it hard to believe it was really written by a college professor.

[ConcernedCanuk]

11. K & R

.
.
.

:hi:

[Uncle Joe]

12. Our tax system in reality.

The first four men would pay nothing, but their beer was laden with arsenic.

The fifth man paid one dollar, but his beer tasted of urine, probably as by product from trickle down economics.

The sixth man paid three dollars, but his beer was being watered down by the barkeep, he didn't the know difference but he did feel a slight unease.

The seventh man paid seven dollars, but he only got draft beer, and no pretzels, but he knew one day he would get pretzels.

The eighth man paid twelve dollars, and he usually paid for the gas as he drove the others to the bar.

The ninth man paid eighteen dollars, however he employed most of the others and profited from their sweat, so he was just re hydrating them for services rendered.

The tenth man would pay fifty nine dollars for each beer, however after closing time the bartender in secret would usually reimburse his money in full, while also giving him unlimited pretzels. To most of the other drinkers, he was shelling out the most. In fact, after hours, the tenth man would rendezvous with other tenth men at a bar in another city, where they would laugh and joke at the ignorance of the other nine men.

[Warpy]

13. They never consider that the poorest pay

on the first dime they earn with no exceptions. That's OASDI, an insurance premium that was supposed to be pay as you go but which Reagan raised SIX TIMES as a backdoor tax increase on the poorest workers. 40% of it is robbed even today and used like income taxes. Anybody who thinks the t-bills that "replaced" it will ever be redeemable is beyond naive. Add to that all the taxes that are disproportionately levied on the poor from sales taxes to license fees to all the other little niggling taxes we see on most of our bills and you get quite a different picture of what each percentage of taxpayers pays as a percentage of income.

They also never consider how much more that last guy is paid every year than the first guy is. They also never consider the sweetheart deductions his paid for Congressman has been passing for years that cut his burden down to exactly nothing in many cases.

I do agree with the last two sentences, though. Right wingers who are lied to with statistics will simply never understand, nor are they motivated to try to understand. Their opinions have been handed to them for many years and they find being relieved of the onerous duty of thinking to be one of life's truest pleasures.

[Cleita]

14. That old POS reasoning has been around since I was twenty.

I say let them drink overseas but tax them anyway.

[wakinglives]

16. Global Economic Hierarchy

Adam L Tucker
just3ants

[bigtree]

17. break it down into a pie chart

I like pie

[ColbertWatcher]

18. For a guy who claims to be a professor ...

... you'd think he'd be able to explain taxes without using a tired, old email.

Ten people go to a bar.

Five of them are kicked out because they're women and it's an exclusive "men's only" club, like Augusta National Golf Club.

Of the remaining 5, only two can afford the exorbitant prices.

They split the bill evenly and gyp the waiter.

Or

Ten men go to a restaurant.

One of them is the boss, the other nine are his employees and they're there to work.

4 work in the kitchen, the other 5 work in the dining area, the boss sits in the office watching FOX. He gets scared, calculates how much money he'll lose based on all the lies Limbaugh is spewing, and decides that he can only maintain the lifestyle he has become accustomed to by firing 3 of the guys just as the lunch rush begins.

2 remain in the kitchen, 3 work their asses off trying to please the customers and the last 1 tries desperately to clear the table for the next patrons, wash all the dishes that are piling up and keep the trash from accumulating.

Pleased that the workers are "more productive" the boss goes back to his office to finish listening to the radio while figuring out a way to "make more money."

Okay, okay, how about this:

The mayor of a town of 100 people convinces them God told her to build a sports complex.

12 of the townspeople are unemployed. There are 9 businesses that employ 68 of the townsfolk.

The businesses (and the number of employees, including the owner/manager) are:
* a car dealership (7)
* a gas station/garage (7)
* a restaurant & bar (10)
* Subway sandwich shop (8)
* a medical clinic (8)
* a grocery store (12)
* local consignment shop/beauty salon (6)
* bait & tackle shop (4)
* FOX radio affiliate (6)

Two other "businesses" in the town--the school district/library and the post office--are government run and employ the remaining 8 as well as people from out of town. The mayor's office also employs 6 people including the mayor, her husband, their son, 3 friends and 2 lobbyists from out of town.

The last business is the church which pays minimum wage to 6 people and their witch-hunting Bishop who gets what's left.

The 12 who are unemployed can only shop at the grocery store (using government food stamps) and also give a meager pittance to the church because the town is known for its hugh meth problem.

No one can afford to buy any new cars, so the car dealership closes, putting 7 people out of work.

Now that fewer people have cars, the gas station/garage lets 3 employees go, bringing the total of unemployed to 22.

Those 22 people no longer have any disposable income forcing the local consignment shop/beauty salon and bait & tackle shop to reduce their payrolls to just the owner, adding 8 more to the unemployment rolls.

With so many people of of work, the restaurant reduces their hours and lets half their staff go, adding 5 more to the unemployment total. With fewer people working and covered by insurance, the clinic lets 4 people go.

Bringing the grand total of unemployed to 39 out of 100 towns people.

However, the mayor is bringing construction jobs to town with the building of the sports complex. Everyone is excited, because this means work. Or so they thought.

The company the mayor awards the contract to build the sports complex is from out of town and hires no local people. The contractors live in their own trailers and eat only at the Subway, or cook what they buy at the grocery store.

The bait & tackle shop closes for the winter. Later the owner decides to move to Canada.

Eventually all the other businesses including the Subway and the clinic close, except:
* the grocery store, which is now only open 3 days a week
* the church, which will gladly accept donations of any size to help members of the community
* and finally, the consignment shop, because the mayor shops there.

The people who had government jobs at the school, library or post office move to get away from all the raping and meth.

Everyone left in town receives government assistance, a portion of which goes to pay for the $2 million sports complex, the local economy collapses and the mayor takes a trip around the country looting Neiman Marcuses.

The End

I think that's better.

[Juche]

19. This is only federal income tax

Which only makes up about 1/3 of the total taxes paid in the US. The total tax burden is roughly $4 trillion/year but federal income tax is only about 1.3 trillion of that. The rest is from payroll taxes, corporate taxes, sales, property, fuel, sin, etc. The federal income tax is progressive but alot of taxes like FICA, sales, fuel, alcohol, cigarette, etc taxes are regressive, not progressive.

The reality is the US has a flat tax system because the poor pay more in some taxes and the wealthy pay more in other taxes.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0414/p03s01-usgn.html

This is a highly manipulative email full of lying by ommission. You should call your friend on promoting ignorance. If you want you can write him back with your own email except instead of ignorning all taxes except federal income tax, ignore all taxes except social security taxes:

Our Tax System Explained:
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first eight men would pay 6.2% of their income in beer.
The ninth would pay 3.3%.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay 2%

All of a sudden a manipulative, half true spam email is sent out claiming the rich are overtaxed, having to pay 2% of their income on beer and they need a tax cut.............



PS that guy never wrote it, nor did the other professors this is attributed to.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

20. I knew you were full of shit when I read, "intelligent".

Besides, the more you invest in something OTHER than yourself, the less you pay in taxes. At least, in theory, that is how FAIR taxation is supposed to work.

[Evoman]

21. More like the tenth is drinking expensive wine, while the first five get "trickle down"

piss.

The sixth is drinking mud water. The seventh is drinking cheap beer. Number eight is drinking wine from a box. Number nine is drinking a nice port.

And when the bill is tallied, the tenth guy makes numbers 6 to 9 pay for most of it, while he sends 1 to 5 to fight the guys in an other bar and then takes the money off their broken bodies to pay his tiny portion of the bill.

[dorkulon]

22. Nobody pays nothing.

The poor may not pay income tax, but they pay payroll taxes, sales taxes, and various others. Payroll taxes make up about 40% of Fed revenue. Payroll and sales taxes have increased, while income taxes for the wealthy have declined. If anyone's been beaten up, it's the poor.