subrob1967
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Hippiekinkster
quote:
ORIGINAL: DarkSteven
Rob, you're thinking of this an an economic problem. In Greece, it's an economic AND political problem.
The problem is simple - the spending wasn't sustainable. So Greece borrowed money to cover the shortfall. The lenders demanded austerity measures as a cost of making the loan. The result was rioting.
From what I've read, it wasn't that the spending was so out of whack with receipts, it was that tax cheating/evasion was so endemic that the only way government could function was by borrowing.
"The sight of a helicopter can cause panic in the plush suburbs of northern Athens. Residents know it could be a spy machine, hired by the government to take images of their backyard swimming pools.
Tax collectors make doctors and lawyers squirm by asking how someone who claims to be earning only $20,000 a year can afford such luxuries. Of the 17,000 pools spotted, only 324 had been declared." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/europe/the-roots-of-the-greek-tragedy-bloated-bureaucracy-and-tax-evasion/article2056715/
Funny (ironic; peculiar) that nary a peep is heard from Rob et alia about the massive tax fraud committed in the US by the rich and their companies.
"Tax evasion, which includes but isn’t limited to the use of tax havens, costs the world more than $3 trillion per year -- or about 5 percent of global gross domestic product -- according to a December report for the Center for Tax Justice. The U.S. is the biggest absolute loser from tax evasion, the report found."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/global-tax-evaders_n_1497597.html
"The IRS periodically tries to measure how much of this cheating goes on. The latest estimate, released this past January and covering 2006, puts the tax gap — the difference between taxes owed but not paid on time — at $385 billion.
"Taxpayers at all income levels, of course, cheat. But the only fiscally consequential cheating comes from the super rich. They both cheat at a higher rate than Americans of modest means and — given the enormity of their incomes — deny Uncle Sam far more tax dollars when they do cheat. >snip<
"The IRS super-rich task force, reports the Syracuse Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, has so far completed intensive audits on only a few dozen super rich.
"That few dozen represents only about 0.4 percent of the more than 8,300 U.S. taxpayers currently reporting over $10 million a year in income.
"On the bright side: The tiny handful of audits the special IRS task force has completed did recover $47.7 million in unpaid taxes. At that recovery rate, if the IRS had completed audits on all the taxpayers making over $10 million, the federal treasury would likely have picked up over $200 billion.
"In 2011, the IRS conducted these traditional audits on 29.9 percent of all taxpayers reporting over $10 million in income, a considerable hike over the 18 percent of these deep pockets audited traditionally in 2010.
"But analysts at the Syracuse tax center note that the IRS is spending less time per wealthy taxpayer on these traditional audits, only 2.6 hours, on average, for each by-mail “correspondence” audit and only 31.4 hours on the average “field” audit, down from 41.7 hours in 2007.
"The much more intensive audits that the new IRS high-wealth unit conducts, by contrast, can take months of staff time to complete. The agency simply does not have a large enough staff complement to put in that sort of time for more than a relative handful of no-holds-barred audits.
--->>> The reason: Congress over recent years has consistently declined to adequately fund IRS tax-collection operations.
(The REPUBLICAN Congress)
"In just the last two years alone, budget cuts have cost the agency some 3,000 enforcement staff positions. The bigger picture: Just 20 years ago, in 1992, the IRS had 114,758 staff to cover a U.S. population of 249.4 million. In 2011, the agency’s 94,709 staff had to cover a total U.S. population of 312.6 million.
http://www.nationofchange.org/so-much-tax-evasion-so-little-accountability-1335156348
TWO HUNDRED BILLION. That's from INDIVIDUAL taxpayers making over TEN MILLION. No corporations, no middle-class tax cheats; that's from 8400 PEOPLE.
Why don't the Robs ever get pissed off about getting fucked like this? Why don't they ever bring up how much welfare to corporations the REPUBLICAN Congress is giving away every year?
No, they instead whine about welfare cadillacs and food stamps and the scummy immoral poor (code for minorities). Surely it must occur to them once in a blue moon that they are aiding and abetting the very people who are fucking them? And that they are opposing and mocking the only people who are trying to give them a better America - Progressives and some people in the Occupy movement?
Viva le France!
So you obviously missed my many posts where I said the US needs to cut spending by 20% across the board, and eliminate subsidies... Not surprising, you progressives love to form an opinion of someone or something, and maintain it, regardless of any evidence to the contrary... Like Global Warming/Cooling/Climate Change, or whatever name their calling it these days.
I'm all for a fair/flat tax, and know the tax code needs to be rewritten... I'd love nothing better than to see the IRS fire 75% of it's employees... How about you?
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RE: France - 
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