General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The USA only has one fiscal problem: Lack of political will to tax those who have all the money. [View all]bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)I didn't pay any taxes for years when I had low income and kids at home, even getting tax credits back often. That was very nice, and if I wasn't scraping by I'd have felt guilty about it. Now with the kids grown I devote more time to work, make more money, and pay a reasonable amount of taxes. I'm not near the top tier by any means, but its a reasonable amount. If I make more I pay more, unless I were to take advantage of various loopholes, most of which have disadvantages and trade-offs.
I know there is a ultra-rich class that does things like getting paid with stock options rather than salaries. Stock options aren't taxed until they are sold, which is fair enough. I don't think there's much you can do about people who have so much money they don't need income, so there's nothing to tax. At least Obama succeeded in raising the capital gains tax,
In any case, I don't agree that there is a revenue problem. We have a decent tax system and government revenues should be sufficient. What we do have is a spending problem, specifically military spending. That's also been on an improving trend under Obama, but it has a ways to go.