[geeks] Taxes

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: hike <mh1272 at gmail.com>
>Date: 2008/05/23 Fri AM 07:55:56 EDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] nVidia 8800GT for Apple Mac Pro

>On Fri, May 23, 2008 at 6:41 AM, Phil Stracchino <alaric at metrocast.net>
>wrote:
>
>> Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>>
>>> The only way I can see for socialism to work is for citizens to turn over
>>> most of their money and a lot of their freedom.
>>>
>>
>> Sweden is widely regarded as being pretty heavily socialist, but seems to
>> work pretty well.  But there's one crucial, and rare, factor:  the Swedish
>> government is *HONEST*.
>>
>> No system of government will work for the benefit of its citizens if the
>> government is corrupt, and ours is rotten to the core.  Not to the extent
>> of, say, Zimbabwe, it's true, but still rotten.  It serves itself first of
>> all, and anything else is an afterthought.

The US Gov't collects taxes on US Citizens working in other countries as well, I think this is pretty common actually. IIRC, that is why certain entertainers fled the UK back in the 70's and 80's, as they were "enjoying" 95% tax rates on their earnings... Which kinda makes you want to stop working (a lesson some politicians here in the US of A could stand to learn... It's way too easy to just say "we'll provide you X by taxing the rich").

I saw an interesting report last night that analyzed actual tax reciepts as a percentage of domestic earnings, and oddly, no matter what the tax rates were (91% down to the current "Bush Adjusted" tax rates that "benefit the wealthy"), the gov't took in about 19.5% in tax revenue. When the tax rate is higher, people find ways to reduce their tax liability, when it drops, there is less incentive to do so...

Lionel