feel bad 4 them

I don't know about everyone else but don't you feel bad for exxon they only had a record breaking profit year for the second year in a row. They only made 39.5 billion, and said they would have made more but fourth quater prices were down for gasoline, and nautral gas.

But remember your not being screwed at the pump by the gas company or the government.

Hope nobody works for them, if so I am sorry for my rant.

It's hard to fathom how much of a profit that is. Just makes it kind of hard to understand things from their perspective. How much money do the top exec's really need?
Wish the would share those profits!

so I guess we could bring gas prices back down aorund $1.50 a gallon and they can just be happy making $10 billion a year. Just my 2 cents. But that will never happen, so just fill them up and have fun.

What???? Who are we to say how much that Exxon should be happy with. The shareholders, which included loads of retirement funds for teachers and unions, depend on those profits. I'll bet they will tell you that more is better. Exxon also paid Billions (yes with a "B") in income taxes. A certain female presidential hopeful wants to take the profits from the shareholders and do something else with the money. Do you agree with that? Yeah take away that profit or ad "windfall taxes" and see how much you'll be paying for gas. Anyway, the profit margin on the gasoline that they sell is around 10%. Banking runs about 16%. I don't hear any complaining about that.

So invest in the oil companies instead of whining about how much money they are making!
Also, you don't get money back from banks when you get an interest deduction on your income tax. You get less taken from you by the government. Big difference. The banks still make the 16% profit margin, which is 60% higher than the oil companies' profit margin! That means that they make 60% more profit than the oil companies do on every dollar that they take in. They just take in fewer dollars because there product does not cost as much and not everyone uses their product.
In other words, buy banking and "greedy" oil company stocks. Then, some of the money that they make will go into your pocket, too. There's your gas money.

Poster112 is right. And add in the property taxes and regulatory taxes and fees they pay. Like the old saying... "Don't wish for something, you just might get it". Just let the government place profit caps or higher windfall taxes on oil profits and see what happens. You think oil prices are high now?   But unfortunately we are headed down that path.
Take away the taxes that are added to each gallon of gas that WE pay at the pump and you'll be surprised how much cheaper that gallon actually is.

We are not getting screwed on the price per gallon. The oil company makes 10 cents on every dollar that they take in. To lower the price would lower that profit margin. Would you invest in something that only gave you back less than 10 cents per dollar? I wouldn't. Then exploration and production would have to be cut back which would shorten supply, driving up the price on the market. Exxon also paid over 100 Billion in corporate taxes last year. That is a fact. So, basically, they paid over 100 Billion to the government, and after that, they had 39 Billion left over. If you had 139 dollars and the government took 100 of it and let you keep 39, what would you say to the guy whining that you are making to much money? I know what I would say to him.
As far as income tax is concerned:
Flat tax keeps us paying income taxes to be redistributed. Guy making a million pays for a hell of a lot more programs than the guy making 15 thousand. That punishes the higher achiever that may be employing 200 people. Why work so hard just to get punished? He may just cut back to 100 or 50 employees.
How about the "Fair Tax" ? The fair tax eliminates personal and corporate income tax. No more IRS. April 15th will be just another day of the year. You will get your whole paycheck, no payroll taxes at all. It is replaced by a consumption based tax (sales tax) and you get a rebate every month for sales tax paid on food and necessities. No more taxes on used cars or boats, either. The sale tax will be paid on the retail level only and it will bring production costs down (no more corporate taxes on every step of every process that the materials go through before being purchased by the manufacturer) and the prices will come down with the cost, as they all undercut each other. The US then becomes a tax haven and all manufacturers across the globe will flock here to open plants and create more jobs that they can fill. You would have to hide in order to not be employed. Wages will be up, as well, as their will be less compliance costs to filing all of the corporate and payroll taxes.
Just think, you will not have to pay ANY taxes, if you don't want to. The poorest folks will truly live tax free, as they will get the rebate on food and necessities, just like all of us. If they do not buy anything other than those bare necessities, they pay no taxes at all.
I'm not advertising this, just committed to help get it pa$$ed. It has 52 co-sponsors in the US House right now (Dems and Reps). Whichever party can get this pa$$ed will be heroes.

Sorry for the terribly long and boring post, though I find nothing boring about the possibility of eliminating income tax!

Poster,

The Fair Tax is intriguing. I think it is a great idea to tax spending as opposed to income. I think it would be a great way to encourage saving.
Over the years so much of our economy is built around income taxes, corporate and personal, not to mention the huge labor force in the IRS and State DOR's. I suppose the theory would be that with the increase of manufacturing that those jobs would then would offset the no longer needed CPA's and tax attorneys.


Chuck

Chuck, accountants spend a lot more time performing business services other than income and corporate taxes. Several of the big accounting firms endorse the fair tax. They can then focus on helping their clients make money rather than trying not to pay as much in taxes. (offense rather than defense)

Virtually all of the opposition to this tax plan comes from tax lobbyists in Washington that make their money influencing the tax law makers, those that do not take the time to fully understand it, or those that think that it is too good to be true.
Another thing about the fairtax that many here would appreciate is the fact that no taxes would be paid on used goods. That means to tax on used boats, cars, motorcycles. Can't beat that.

The fair tax proposals HR25 and SR25 are in the US House and Senate (federal level, only, which would repeal the 16th amendment and eliminate the IRS completely. State taxes would not change, unless they adopted a state version of the fair tax. Those in FL and other states where there are no state income taxes would be loving it.
Remember, federal withholding was supposed to be temporary during the war, but it made taxation so less transparent, the federal government kept it in place, as folks do not know exactly how much they pay. Prior to that, people knew exactly how much they had to pay because they had to write a check. Now, it is withheld, so you never really have it in your pocket before it goes to the government, so it hurts less. If we all had to write a check every pay period to the government for taxes, there would be a freaking revolution because we would know exactly how much we are paying. The way it is now, most people couldn't tell you the dollar amount that they pay in federal taxes every pay period. That's how many of the politicians like it.
I'm not sure what is meant by taxing used items "again and again". There would be no need for increased taxes just for fun. The politicians that would try would still have to get it through their local governmental processes and risk getting voted out of office.
As far as where to sign up, see the link above in my previous post. On that site, there is also a FAQ section and a link to see where your Senators and House Representatives stand on it. Write them or email them and vote for whomever supports it. I'll vote for any politician that supports it, regardless of their party, except Hillary, who would never support it, anyway.

What I mean by taxing over and over again is our lovely state of California charges you a use tax upon transferring ownership based on what you paid for a used auto or boat. This means that this vehicle was taxed when it was purchased new and then taxed again every time it is sold to a new owner. With this corrupt system, theoretically, if the vehicle was sold enough times, the state of California could confiscate more money in taxes on this vehicle than the vehicle sold for when new.
Taxes are a sore subject with me and I will do anything I can to help the cause. But with this congress and possibly a democrat president in 08, I just don't see it happening. But look... my republicans couldn't get it done either when they had the power.
Sorry... I didn't mean to gripe or offend.
Kurt

learn something new everyday on this site. I have not had time to check out the fair tax link but I will this week sometime. Sounds good though.

BKH in michigan we have to pay sales tax on used items cars, boats, bikes. Is that what your reffering to in cal? It's dependent on the price of the sale how much it is, is it the same for you? Does cal use a chart and say how much you have to pay for a certain used item based on original sale price?

87BFN owner wrote: BKH in michigan we have to pay sales tax on used items cars, boats, bikes. Is that what your reffering to in cal? It's dependent on the price of the sale how much it is, is it the same for you? Does cal use a chart and say how much you have to pay for a certain used item based on original sale price?

87, I haven't posted a response to this topic. But, you are correct, in CA we pay a sales tax on the puchase of used cars, boats, and motorcycles.

In addition, the way the California Constitution is written, we are subject to a personal property tax on everthing we own, unless explicitly exempted by law. Each year we pay a personal property tax on our homes, cars, boats and motorcycles. Household and personal items have been exempted. Businesses pay a personal property tax on all of the a$$ets they own.

BKH

We have a progressive tax now. It punishes achievement. The more you make, the higher percentage you pay. I think that is BS. It's good for people that are jealous of other peoples wealth. Cla$$ envy is a national pastime for certain folks. They love a progressive tax because it punishes those that have made better decisions than they have made.
I believe that we should pay taxes on what we buy, not our income, period. How could you be more fair than that? If you buy toys, you pay taxes. If you don't, you pay no taxes. Sounds fair to me.
I don't know why you call sales tax "regressive". By definition, a regressive tax rate decreases as the amount to which you apply it increases. The Fair tax does not. In fact, you could call the fair tax progressive in the sense that it punishes the "rich" when they buy their toys. It will not even apply to the "poor" who buy nothing other than the bare necessities (food, clothing, diapers).
Again, how can you more fair than that?
Let me also be clear that I am not "rich" (less that 40 thousand a year income due to my own bad decisions). I just don't think that hard work and good decision making should be punished with a progressive tax.

poster, I have to say I am at least happy you have not forgiven them for that spill, lol. But, I do disagree (which is ok) with you on the tax matter. A "regressive" doesn't have to be a tax whose rates go down as income rises--regressive is comonly synonomous with "flat." In that case, I'd call sales tax flat. Flat taxes, bottom line, aren't fair, imho. Consider the guy making 20K a year. He wants to buy a shirt, that costs, lets say, 20 bucks, for easy math. Also for easy math, a guy making 200K a year wants to buy that same shirt for 20 bucks. Lets say sales tax is 10%, also for easy math. Both the 20K/yr and 200K/yr guy are paying $22 for that same product, yet that poorer dude is paying .11% of his income, while the richer dude .011$ of his income. These numbers seem small, but think of it like this--the poorer guy is paying 10 TIMES as much in regards to income, as the rich guy is. I don't think this is fair.

I also disagree on your use of the word "punishes." I do not see the progressive tax as punishing the rich--if you look at what the rich people gain from the government, compared to the poor, and also compare how much the rich and the poor guys have to LOSE, then it is clear that the rich SHOULD be paying more. Quick example: rich guy has 4 houses around the country, a yacht, private jet, 1 ferrari, 1 rolls, and 1 mercedes; the poor guy has a small apartment living off of welfare. Who has more to lose? Who has more VALUE? The rich guy. So, don't you think its fair that the poor guy doesn't have to pay as much as the rich guy, for the same education, same military defense, etc? (BTW, the rich guy also has 5 kids, poor guy has none).

And, its not like the progressive tax increases forever. I think the income tax rate increases until around 200K or so, or some number, where it levels off. This number is about 43% I THINK. I don't see it as punishment at all, I see it as the law.

also sorry this is so long and boring, just trying to have a good cnvo