re: #200 lawhawk

There are ways to broaden the tax base but they aren’t necessarily going to increase the tax burden on the poor.

For instance, sales tax can be expanded to services (professional services), reducing the overall tax rate.

Or property taxes could be imposed on nonprofit properties, reducing tax rates for all ratable properties.

You can also broaden the definition of income or restrict deductions or exemptions so as to reduce the overall rate (to keep the overall revenue levels the same).

But the way that the GOP approaches these things, they look to cut the revenue or to hold it the same, while those least able to afford it are hit with hikes.

As John Ralston Saul points out, “In the late 50s/early 60s jointly held stock corporations carried between 30 to 40 per cent of the tax burden in the West. By the early 90s that had fallen to 10 to 15 per cent.”

Then the personally wealthy also had their taxes cut. The burden kept falling down the pyramid. The people near the bottom just don’t have enough money to cover what the wealthy and corporations no longer pay.

We do not have a debt crisis. We have a taxation crisis.