lol, I KNEW 12clicks would like this....
 

I did a search to see if it had been posted before and it had a couple of years ago, by? 12clicks.

I'd never seen it before but it was certainly an interesting analogy on taxes.

Sorry for the repost, but after 2 years it'd be interesting to see some other people's reactions........



Suppose that every day, 10 men go out for dinner. The bill for all 10 comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men ? the poorest ?would pay nothing; the fifth would pay $1; the sixth would pay $3; the seventh $7; the eighth $12; the ninth $18, and the 10th man ? the richest ? would pay $59. That?s what they
decided to do.

The 10 men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day the owner threw them a curve (in tax language, a tax cut).

?Since you are all such good customers,? he said, ?I?m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.?

So now dinner for the 10 only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free.

But what about the other six men, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his own ?fair share??

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody?s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.

So the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man?s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so the fifth man now paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the 10th man with a bill of $52 instead of his earlier $59. Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the 10 customers began to compare their savings.

?I only got a dollar out of the $20,? declared the sixth man, pointing to the 10th. ?But he got $7!?

?Yeah, that?s right,? exclaimed the fifth man, ?I only saved a dollar too. It?s unfair that he got seven times more than me!?

?That?s true!? shouted the seventh man. ?Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!?

?Wait a minute,? yelled the first four men in unison. ?We didn?t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!?

The nine men surrounded the 10th and beat him up. The next night he didn?t show up for dinner (or, in the real world, he took his business out of the country), so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered a little late what was very important. They were $52 short of paying their bill!

Imagine that!

your burden is bigger when you have deeper pockets.

Is that really a fair analogy ? :)

Should it be that the guys 1-3 pay nothing the guys 4-6 pay everything and the guys 7-10 also pay nothing . Isnt that closer to reality :)

Because i seem to remember a time when i did my taxes , that if i had earned $150 less i would have saved over 1k in taxes by fitting in a lower bracket..

actually that only proves your point hmmm bad example.

I had to read that a couple of times to get your point, because you were obviously taking the opposite point of view.

Then I read it was a bad example. Agreed unless you'd now like to take the "Right" side. :winkwink:

heh , i forget what side i'm on now ..

aha now i remember , rich people pay less taxes than middle class people on average .. ( maybe its just a myth , i dont ask what other pay)

It doesnt work like that, Warren Buffet said my assistant pays more in taxes than I do. If the rich paid their fair share Social Security wouldnt be in trouble . Something is wrong when Bill Gates pays the same amount of Fica I do. lol.

Good analogy but they're actually short less than $52 as the 10th person didn't eat that night :)

The rich dude needs new friends, hehe

fine Ron.. I owe you $2

And now reality:

The first 4 men are off to war fighting. The 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th men are paying $20 each but all they get is a McDonalds hamburger. Men 9 and 10 are paying $10 and get steak and lobster.

interesting

umm yeah

its funny how this thread exposed what tax bracket you're in and which bracket you've never been in.

I pay more in a year than some of you will in a lifetime.

Oh, the Warren Buffet comment is a lie and if bill gates pays as much as you do to fica, its because you'll both get the same amout out of it later.

you're a perfect example of the guy eating his dinner for free and bitching about it.

:1orglaugh

hahaha :thumbsup

Well thats either because those 4 men are either:

Wanting to go to war. (there is no draft, so they VOLUNTEERED)
Or
Too stupid to get an education so they realize in order to make anything out of themselves they have to go the army.


If you think that they are there due to that fact that they are poor or anything else, you need to leave the internet.

I dont think anyone mentioned there tax bracket.. I'm the only one who vaguely stated their tax bracket as ( middle class ), and its a rather moot point because you dont know how much taxes anyone here has paid , so its a fairly idiotic statement . My daughter has paid more taxes than "some" people on this board , because "some" people have never filed taxes.

Brag about your traffic , brag about your dick size , but dont brag about how much taxes you pay :)

If its just about the $$$ then post how much you paid this year :)

Your premise is flawed befcause you assume the working poor pay zero taxes. They may not pay INCOME taxes by they are for 100% sure paying FICA taxes which is 7.65% of thier income. They also pay SALES taxes, POPERTY TAXES( and yes even if you rent you pay property taxes unless your landlord is a moron and doesn't pass his property taxes on to you in the form of higher rent ) There are taxes and "fees"( a fancy term for more taxes )on you phone bill, electric bills, water bill etc.

This is from an atricle form the Chistian Science Monitor so don't say it's some liebral crap.

US already moving toward a flat tax

Billionaires are paying not much more taxes, proportionately, than those Americans who are merely prosperous.

It's a sign that, even without the formal adoption of a so-called "flat tax," America's tax system is getting flatter.

Chalk up President Bush as not just a tax cutter but also a tax flattener. Under Mr. Bush and a Republican Congress, big tax cuts since 2001 have given major tax reductions to those wealthy individuals presumed, up to now, to be able to afford paying a bigger chunk of their income in taxes. By one measure of the federal, state, and local tax burden, just 3.4 percentage points separate the effective tax rate paid by the top 1 percent of earners from the other 99 percent of American households.

Actually, no. Your analogy is closer to fantasy.

Hardly my premise, but I'm flattered that you're giving me credit for it.

Everything else you stated beneath that (sales taxes, utilities taxes and fees), is not exclusive to the poor or middle class. The wealthy pay for those as well. While the first four men pay rent or property taxes on a $50,000 house, the 10th man is paying property taxes on on $1,000,000 house.

Again, they're paying more. Should they? Naturally.

But when there's a tax break, all everyone focuses in on is how much the wealthy will save, as opposed to how much they're saving themselves. Forgetting of course, that the wealthy are already paying a LOT more in taxes than themselves.

THAT is the point of the analogy.

And so your point is what. That statement may impress some of these 17 year olds on here but it really does show you try to base what you make on how other people look at you. Obviously trying to compensate from other areas of your life.

A good part of the Clinton years I was paying over $200,000 a year in taxes, and yea it pissed me off. But the difference between you and me is I would rather have my tax money go to feeding or housing someone rather than invading some country or building more bombs. I don't feel I'm better than less fortunate people because of what I have or make. I feel bad other people don't have the same lifestyle I have. Nothing irritates me more than some fucking prick that thinks he's hot shit because he has something that others do not. People like you are only concerned with themselves and what you have, you could give a fuck that there are people out there barely scraping by and have the dilemna on if they should pay their light bill or buy food.

so your trying to tell us that the 9 guys beat you up? But seriously I have no problem paying my fair share as it's needed to keep the country running. I just have a problem with how it's spent a lot of the time. There is just so much waste, but that's why we have elections.

cute little story there... moving to nevada from ny really changed my prespective businesses, money and the poor. i am starting to become more angry with the poor and more sympathizing with those who earned their huge heaps of cash.

If you were so rich and such a big business man , you wouldnt need to be on this board trying to make yourself feel better. I pity you.

it is a draft ,people voluntreer because the army is the only option for alot of people for a chance at a career or a decent living.

this tends to happen as you mature, as in get older,

maybe I should have left out the mature.. :1orglaugh

Ok put it this way. I know poor people who pay nothing , i pay quite a bit , and i know rich people who pay almost nothing..

so my analogy is from personal experience of ACTUAL money paid in taxes not fantasy..

Granted i'm only one person ,there could be thousands of people with opposite stories

wouldnt the dinner be cheaper because its only 9 men now?

DUke

A quote I remember...remember people a QUOTE, not mine.

"If you're not a liberal when you're 20 you have no heart, if you're not a conservative when you're 40, you have no brain." ... Winston Churchill

No you are wrong.
Its not a draft. And if its the only option for a lot of people then its thier own fault. Anyone can get an education, anyone can get into college, anyone can get jobs, anyone can get scholarships, anyone can get loans.

For the record, I'm more like Chris Rock however...

"I've got some things I'm liberal about, and some things I'm conservative about. Crime, I'm conservative. Prostitution, I'm liberal."

Insert Taxes for Crime above and that best describes me.

The only rich people I know that pay nothing are the ones that actually lie on their tax return. Sure there are definite loopholes and ways to lower your tax liability but I've never found a way to pay nothing, and if there are ways I sure would like to know about them. From what I've seen the most people that pay nothing are either poor or are middle class and have a cash business.

True i dont know any that pay nothing(rich people)

middle classers pay the most i think .

See sig .....

Individually, I don't think middle classers pay MORE than the rich. Collectively, they pay a larger percentage though because there IS more OF them.

Damn..what a disappointing thread. When I saw the title, I expected to at least see a dog in leather chaps with the butt cut out, or some other domesticated animal ready for some 12clicks lovin'.

And as an aside...this wonderful analogy was written by T. Davies, Professor of Accounting at the University of South Dakota School of Business.

Yes i like knowing i have a choice in life and dont have to join the army becuase i grew up poor.

Actually most economists I've read say that 90% of income tax is paid by 5% of the people.

A lot of folks also forget that when a rich corporation gets a tax break often times the result is that they can afford to expand and create new job openings and that money is pumped back into the economy. It's not always as black & white as "the rich get richer" or the government screwing the working man.

As for looking for tax shelters and loopholes, trust me, if you ever start making 2 million a year just to net 1 million, you too would be looking for ways of leveraging some of that back. I'm speaking about legal ways and funds, those who try getting away with illegal methods deserve what they get once they are caught.

Dear idiot, as I said, its easy to tell who is in which tax bracket by their view on taxes.
If you're not bright enough to divine that same info, please don't pretend I'm bragging.

Its just funny to see so many people guess (wrongly) about what people making more than them pay in taxes.