April 15 -- Tax Day -- has come to symbolize America's lack of economic freedom. Americans have no more claim to their incomes than did medieval serfs. The most successful Americans are comparable to slaves. The long struggle for freedom was a struggle to own oneself and the value of one's labor. European serfs did not own their labor. Consequently, they were not free to sell their labor in markets for wages. In the feudal age, labor, like land, was not bought and sold, but allocated according to a system of use rights. The lord of the manor could claim as much as one-third of a serf's working time. The remainder of the time, serfs would produce for their own households. When serfs became owners of their labor, which they sold for wages, they became free men unaccountable to lords. Freed labor produced independent men because men had nothing to fall back on except their own strivings. A slave was worse off than a serf. A serf faced a maximum tax rate of 33 percent, but a slave was owned by another and had no claim to his own labor beyond subsistence. Low-income Americans face a Social Security and Medicare tax rate of 15.3 percent, a federal income-tax rate of 15 percent, federal excise taxes, state income and sales taxes, and local property taxes. The combined tax rate exceeds the burden borne by a medieval serf. Upper-income Americans are exploited like 19th century slaves. The uncapped Medicare tax places the top federal income-tax rate at 41.5 percent. Adding in Social Security, excise, state income and sales taxes, and property taxes produces a tax burden in excess of 50 percent.
Given, slavery was only abolished because it was cheaper to employ people, and make them pay for housing, food......healthcare.....(such as it was) where does that leave the situation?
That just isnt correct, fuedal records, the doomsday book just dont back that up at all, not to mention Cromwell . Not to mention legal feilty to lords, unless your talking about economic conditions post circa 1630 odd, at best.
whether it was worse to be a serf, surf (joking) or a slave is a distinction we do not need to argue here. We should see that indahook's warning is a serious one. Our govt extracts serious taxes from us. On a level higher than Lords and serfs. Do we really need to be told by the liberasl our taxes should be higher?
IRS agents raided the Engleworld Learning Center near Detroit. Parents were told their children would not be allowed to leave until parents immediately paid any balance due to the Learning Center for the coming months. However, the money would not go to the Center, but to the IRS. A creative IRS official thought he had a great way to force parents to pay the Center's taxes. "It was like something out of a police state," Sue Stoia says. "They were using the children as collateral." Marilyn Derby, director of Engleworld, said, "Parents were not allowed to see their children until they had signed an agreement with the IRS. It was a very scary situation, like the Gestapo was here. Children were crying, parents were trembling. I told one woman whose hands were shaking that she shouldn't sign anything she didn't want to. She signed anyway."
Taxes Are Crippling America Why are more businesses failing, why is unemployment soaring, and why are more and more families becoming homeless? Two major reasons are skyrocketing taxes and destructive regulations. Taxes and regulations are destroying businesses. By the time businesses pay income tax, payroll tax, capital gains tax, inventory tax, corporate tax, license fees, IRS penalties, EPA fines, etc., etc., little or nothing is left to operate the business. Taxes and regulations are destroying the middle class. Thirty years ago, middle-class Americans could afford to buy a house. Today, increased taxes consume a sum equivalent to mortgage payments. Both parents now have to work just to make ends meet. 15% Social Security taxes make it nearly impossible to save for retirement. And state and local taxes make it difficult for many families even to pay utility bills. Taxes keep poor people poor. Cash-starved businesses can't afford to hire and train the poor. The working poor often can't even afford to feed their families on what's left of their paycheck after taxes. Taxes make it extremely difficult for the poor to start businesses. To operate a push cart you must pay a $7,000 license fee in Washington, DC. A city "Medallion" to legally operate a taxicab in New York costs $142,000. Atlanta charges the poor $50 for a license to beg for money.
Tax Slavery is the absolute legal ownership of the ruler over a person's labour or income. Dont believe me? Think i`m being a "nutcase". Try not paying your taxes and see what happens...
1%, 2%, 7%, 15% tax rates sound good. By 1913, 36 States had ratified the 16th Amendment to the Constitution. In October, Congress passed a new income tax law with rates beginning at 1 percent and rising to 7 percent for taxpayers with income in excess of $500,000. Less than 1 percent of the population paid income tax at the time. The entry of the United States into World War I greatly increased the need for revenue and Congress responded by passing the 1916 Revenue Act. The 1916 Act raised the lowest tax rate from 1 percent to 2 percent and raised the top rate to 15 percent on taxpayers with incomes in excess of $1.5 million. The 1916 Act also imposed taxes on estates and excess business profits. Driven by the war and largely funded by the new income tax, by 1917 the Federal budget was almost equal to the total budget for all the years between 1791 and 1916. Needing still more tax revenue, the War Revenue Act of 1917 lowered exemptions and greatly increased tax rates. In 1916, a taxpayer needed $1.5 million in taxable income to face a 15 percent rate. By 1917 a taxpayer with only $40,000 faced a 16 percent rate and the individual with $1.5 million faced a tax rate of 67 percent. Another revenue act was passed in 1918, which hiked tax rates once again, this time raising the bottom rate to 6 percent and the top rate to 77 percent. These changes increased revenue from $761 million in 1916 to $3.6 billion in 1918, which represented about 25 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Even in 1918, however, only 5 percent of the population paid income taxes and yet the income tax funded one-third of the cost of the war. The economy boomed during the 1920s and increasing revenues from the income tax followed. This allowed Congress to cut taxes five times, ultimately returning the bottom tax rate to 1 percent and the top rate down to 25 percent and reducing the Federal tax burden as a share of GDP to 13 percent. As tax rates and tax collections declined, the economy was strengthened further. In October of 1929 the stock market crash marked the beginning of the Great Depression. As the economy shrank, government receipts also fell. In 1932, the Federal government collected only $1.9 billion, compared to $6.6 billion in 1920. In the face of rising budget deficits which reached $2.7 billion in 1931, Congress followed the prevailing economic wisdom at the time and passed the Tax Act of 1932 which dramatically increased tax rates once again. This was followed by another tax increase in 1936 that further improved the government's finances while further weakening the economy. By 1936 the lowest tax rate had reached 4 percent and the top rate was up to 79 percent. In 1939, Congress systematically codified the tax laws so that all subsequent tax legislation until 1954 amended this basic code. The combination of a shrunken economy and the repeated tax increases raised the Federal government's tax burden to 6.8 percent of GDP by 1940. The Social Security Tax The state of the economy during the Great Depression led to passage of the Social Security Act in 1935. This law provided payments known as "unemployment compensation" to workers who lost their jobs. Other sections of the Act gave public aid to the aged, the needy, the handicapped, and to certain minors. These programs were financed by a 2 percent tax, one half of which was subtracted directly from an employee's paycheck and one half collected from employers on the employee's behalf. The tax was levied on the first $3,000 of the employee's salary or wage.................. http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/ustax.html