Talk:Income tax

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[edit] Unsourced commentary moved to talk page

I moved the following commentary from the article to here:

The US Supreme Court ruled that the 16th amendment conferred no new powers of taxation to the US government. Therefor, if the income tax was unconstitutional before the 16th, it was also after the 16th. Also, IRS Tax Code does not list the income as a mandatory tax which you are liable for, it is not listed in the table of taxes you are liable for, and there is not penalty listed for not paying it. It is actually a voulentary tax for individuals. If you have any doubt of this, read IRS form 1040 (the income tax filing form, and it lists the IRS tax code sections in the privacy statemet which are relevant to the income tax, then read the IRS tax code. Also, contact the IRS, a tax attorney, or your local political representative.)

Non-neutral, unverified. Stay tuned. Famspear 18:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Post-script: Dear anonymous user at IP 75.72.81.229: The arguments in the above commentary, (which was posted by IP 75.72.81.229), have been covered over and over here in Wikipedia. Please read all talk (discussion) pages.

It is correct to say that the U.S. Supreme Court and other Federal courts have stated, over and over, that the Amendment conferred no new powers of taxation. However, the statement that "if income tax was unconstitutional before the 16th, it was also after the 16th" is, from a legal standpoint, nonsensical.

Regarding the IRS Tax Code, there is no such thing as a tax that is not "mandatory." There is no such thing as a "table of taxes you are liable for" -- taxes are not listed that way in the statute.

The whole voluntary - not voluntary argument has already been covered and explained.

The privacy statement in the Form 1040 instruction booklet is also irrelevant. Please read the relevant articles.

Contacting the IRS, a tax attorney, or your local political representative will almost surely yield the correct answer -- which is that the U.S. Federal income tax is constitutional and is being applied correctly.

Have a nice day. Famspear 18:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Post-post script: Rather than repeat all the reasons why the commentary by IP 75.72.81.229 is incorrect (aside from violating the Wikipedia guidelines of verifiability, neutral POV, and no original research), please refer to: Tax protester arguments; Tax protester constitutional arguments; Tax protester statutory arguments; Tax protester conspiracy arguments, and other tax-related Wikipedia articles. Yours, Famspear 19:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)



It is utterly apparent your objection is not to the usage of words you sought criticism upon, but it’s substance. Your objection is Non-Neutral.

You gave no references in your objections. Please revise your objection.

Whoa! What a touch of subtlety to suggest sweeping it under the rug of “protestor conspiracy.” That's a bit of leap, my friend.

And no, it hasn’t been covered and explained. Tilde, Tilde, Ssauble 15:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

This article is not the place to cover and explain it. Please see the articles referenced above by Famspear. Morphh (talk) 15:08, 9 February 2007 (UTC)


Way to be nonbiased!! (sarcastically speaking). If you are giving all of the details, then the law for income taxes should be explained in this article. Explain to us exactly how income taxes are Constitutional. If you cannot supply us with the law, than both sides should be covered and we shouldn't be refered to other articles. FFF 20:48, 22 March 2007

[edit] Archive

I have archived this talk page. GameKeeper 08:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image

This article needs a good image to stimulate interest. I have quickly knocked up a graph Image:Income Taxes By County.svg based on http://www.oecd.org/document/60/0,2340,en_2649_34533_1942460_1_1_1_1,00.html table 1.2. Average % income taxes by County.

If this is considered suitable I will make it prettier, ie add titles and labels keys. FYI the 4 bars for each county represent % income paid in taxation based of 67%,100%,133% and 167% of average income. I had used a stacked bar graph but unfortunately the Netherlands % income for 100% average wage is less than that of 67% average wage which could not be represented in this way. GameKeeper 10:01, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice! - I wonder if it is necessary to have all four bars though. Maybe we should just pick one like 100% and state it below the chart. As it is now, the image may be difficult to read due to size and this could help. We could add another bar based on table 11.1 (Corporate income taxes). Morphh (talk) 13:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree, 4 bars does look cluttered. 100% is the obvious choice to retain. I am not sure if adding a bar for corperation tax would make it look cluttered again. I'll try both soon. GameKeeper 10:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
New version qith 2 bars one for corperate one for personal uploaded Image:Income Taxes By County.svg, you may need to refresh you browser to see new version. I like this more , cleaner and more relevant to income tax as it shows both types. If we are agreed about basic data and graph format I will clean it up next and add titles etc. GameKeeper 16:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
This looks great! You got my vote. Morphh (talk) 16:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the nudge. I have uploaded what I have got at present GameKeeper 20:12, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately there seems to be a bug in it. Norway is not displayed until you zoom right into picture. I'll see if I can work out why and correct. Annoyingly the SVG works fine for me on my local machine GameKeeper 22:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Odd - Since your tweaking on it... See if you can get a tighter crop on it - looks like the right, left, and bottom have a bit of extra transparency and whitespace. Might also want to see what the title text would look like as one line (or perhaps two). The tighter you can make it, the larger the chart will look (and thus look better). Don't take that as a critique - I think the image looks great! Just figured since your tweaking it, we could see if these other changes might make it look that much better. Morphh (talk) 01:54, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I think I have cracked the Norway problem, I don't see it with firefox or IE anymore. Tightened the crop and put the title on a single line. Criticism is appreciated when it is constructive. GameKeeper 20:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I have a bone to pick with this graph. For most people this is not a very accurate reference on how much personal tax is paid per country. Based on what I know about tax rates in several European countries, this graph seemed completely wrong. It wasn't until I downloaded the excel spreadsheet that I realised the figures used are inclusive of Employer social security contributions and then it started to make sense. Perhaps there should be a note explaining how the figures are derived? Or even better, perhaps there should be a separate graph showing only the tax and SSC paid by the employee. --JamesTheNumberless 13:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Good point - I'll add this to the image caption. If we have a source that adds employer payroll tax contributions, this would be a good supplemental or replacement image. Morphh (talk) 14:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Morph you have it the wrong way round. The personnal income tax graph does include SSC payments (see the referenced data table 1.2 footnote). The reason for this is that it is a graph of 'income taxes' which are all taxes calulated on income. Many countries have a tax they call 'income tax' and in additon taxes that may be called different things, such as SSC contributions, these are still classified as income taxes. I have added a note to the graph and changed your note on the page. I don't think excluding the SSC payments would make this of more use, in my opinion this is just a method of disguising the total tax cost of employment. To have a good comparision to another country it should be included. GameKeeper 15:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Opps - I guess I should have taken a closer look at the data before making the change. Thanks. I had misunderstood the comment and I agree that the information should be included as it shows a more accurate tax burden. Morphh (talk) 16:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree that separating income tax from social security contributions would just lead to more confusion, however, I maintain that there is encyclopaedic value in showing the percentage paid by the employee against the percentage paid by the employer. In many countries, the employee pays far less tax than here in the UK, however, this is often because the employer is paying a lot more. Consequently this makes the UK business more competitive as it can offer higher gross salaries at the same actual cost of employment. --JamesTheNumberless 15:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure it is generally accepted that employer portions of payroll taxes come directly out of would be salaries to employees. So I'm not sure the ratio would would make much difference, although the perception would be so. It is more a tax shuffle to hide the tax burden then anything. I don't disagree that such is important to specify. I think that distinction is discussed on the articles regarding those particular taxes. I'm sure we can find a place to briefly mention it in this article. Morphh (talk) 16:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

This article needs a criticism section. Morphh (talk) 03:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA drive

I think this article was greatly improved during the Taxation Collaboration of the Month. I think if we take care of the tasks in the todo list, we should be good to submit this for Peer Review and then for GA. Morphh (talk) 20:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I had a go with an auto review tool. The results are here Talk:Income tax/autoPR GameKeeper 21:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Paul Conners commentary

A user named Paul Conners has been repeatedly inserting the following material at the top of the article:

This article is loaded up with all the predictable BULLSHIT that keeps many lawyers and accountants in business.
The phrase "Income Tax" is a government promulgated semantical phrase which practically speaking means "Living Tax". "Income Tax" is a tax citizens pay for simply "maintaining their life by pursuing sustenance and shelter by having otherwise lawful employment". It is a clear assault on every American's supposedly unqualified "Right To Life". Yet "Income Tax" is somehow spoken of here in this article as if it was bestowed upon the American public by some spontaneous act of the creator. Where is it properly articulated that "income tax" is any different than "slavery by stealthy means"? This article speaks of "income tax" as a concept that has existed since the dawn of time. Why not just tax an American citizen for every heartbeat they have "Heartbeat Tax", or every breath they take "Breathing Tax"? It really is not that much different if you think about it. "Income Tax" is nothing but a "legalized" assault on the American citizens by the government. There are ways to finance necessary government services without taxing a citizens' pursuit of sustenance and shelter through lawful labor. But I guess those ways would not allow the government to weazel it's way into every nook and cranny of our lives. So those methods are not prefered by our power hungry government.

Verifiability, Neutral Point of View, No Original Research. Wikipedia is not a proper forum for venting your personal views. Please observe Wikipedia policies & guidelines. Yours, Famspear 04:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

The user has been blocked from editing for 31 hours in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy as a result of the repeated abuse of editing privileges. Morphh (talk) 04:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Materials related to United States v. Laugenour

I offer the unrebutted facts agreed by all parties in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California case number 2:06-CV-00183 as revealed in document number 76, filed on 21 February 2007.

As you will see if you obtain documents 70 through 76 of the case through Pacer the DOJ attempted to get the Langenours to admit to all kinds of tax obligations. Instead, the Langenours accused the DOJ of a plethora of crimes, and they made many assertions about income tax-related issues.

The DOJ not answer. The DOJ by silence and acquiescence thereby admitted, agreed, and confessed to all the Langenours' assertions.

I performed OCR on the PDF file obtained from Pacer, document 76 in the case, shown below. In it the Langenours serve judicial notice that their unrebutted assertions constitute the established the facts of the case.

David E. Laugenour and Debra L. Laugenour's notice to the Court under authority of Federal Rule$ of Evidence r 201(d) – mandatory judicial notice of adjudicative facts. Plaintiff, The United States of America, by and through McGregor W. Scott and Goud P. Maragani, has confessed the following adjudicative facts:

  1. The records of the Internal Revenue Service are business records as defined in the Federal Rules of Evidence.
  2. Business records as defined in the Federal ..Rules of Evidence are hearsay absent qualification for entry into the record of lawsuit through the business records exception.
  3. The only business record which authorizes IRS collection activity is the summary record of assessment.
  4. Other records such as the IRS form 4340 and RACS 006 cannot serve as the assessment because these forms lack requisite information such as the type of tax owed.
  5. The term type of tax owed refers to an impost, custom, duty, or excise tax.
  6. "Income" and "1040" are not types of tax.
  7. Federal Law found at 26 U.S.C. § 7214(a)(1)(2)&(7) makes it a felony crime for any officer or employee of the United States to compel any person to pay a tax on IRS 1040.
  8. Every time an IRS or Tax Division attorney from the Unite States Department of Justice makes any sort of demand relative to IRS form 1040, they are committing a felony crime.
  9. An Impressed Fund Account exists for the purpose of rewarding those who assist in IRS prosecutions.
  10. The Impressed Fund Account allows for up to $25,000.00 to be paid for assistance in prosecutions relative to IRS forms 1040.
  11. Anyone is eligible to receive rewards from the Impressed Fund Account including federal judges, federal magistrates, and federal prosecutors.
  12. On one or more occasions a federal judge has been financially rewarded for a prosecution involving an IRS form 1040.
  13. On one or more occasions a federal magistrate has been financially rewarded for a prosecution involving an IRS form 1040.
  14. On one or more occasions a federal prosecutor has been financially rewarded for a prosecution involving an IRS form 1040.
  15. Two or more rewards paid to two or more federal judges, magistrates, or prosecutors for a prosecution involving an IRS form 1040 would constitute racketeering.
  16. Use of the courts to prosecute actions involving IRS form 1040 has the intent and purpose of federal judges, federal magistrates, and federal prosecutors receiving money and not for the purpose of putting money into the United States Treasury.
  17. The United States Supreme Court, in the case of Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916), determined that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution authorized no new taxing powers for Congress which were not inherent in the Constitution form the very beginning, that the income tax is an indirect tax in the nature of an excise, that nowhere is found support for the contention that the Sixteenth Amendment authorized some heretofore undiscovered tax lying between the two great area of taxation, and the purpose of the Sixteenth Amendment was to harmonize the operation of the two great areas of taxation.
  18. The United States Supreme Court has reviewed Brushaber more than sixty times without reversing the Supreme Court's determinations in Brushaber.
  19. Neither any federal district court, nor any federal circuit court, and certainly no United States Tax Court has authority to overrule the United States Supreme Court's determinations in the Brushaber case.
  20. Every single criminal or civil suit filed by the United States involving IRS form 1040 was a fraud absent a procedurally proper, lawful assessment including identifying the type of tax owed such as an impost, custom, duty, or an excise tax.
  21. A notice of lien is an inchoate article requiring other action to perfect the lawful taking of property.
  22. Taking property or even encumbering property based solely on a mere notice of lien is a felony crime.
  23. An IRS levy does not apply to people in the private sector.
  24. Every single dollar taken away from a person without a procedurally proper summary record of assessment, every single parcel of property taken away from a person without a procedurally proper summary record of assessment, and every hour of imprisonment for an alleged tax crime where there was no procedurally proper summary record of assessment is owed back to the people from whom the money was extorted; and as a matter of common law fraud, the people are entitled to treble damages.
  25. Many of the people who have worked for the Internal Revenue Service or the United States Department of Justice, many federal judges, federal magistrates, and federal prosecutors have played a role in taking money or property under the false pretense that many millions of Americans and others who happened to be domiciled within the United States or its territories actual owed some sum to the United States Treasury where no procedurally proper assessment verified a valid tax debt, are nothing in the world but common criminals.
  26. The basis for calculating an individual's tax bill is the Individual Master File for the respective individual.
  27. It is the standard operating procedure of the Internal Revenue Service to falsely state, on the Individual Master File and the Individual Master File's underlying documents, that individuals domiciled in the several states of the United States are actually operating a business in one of the Territories of the United States.
  28. Congress has made an alliance with the federal court system to the effect that if the federal judiciary will enforce the collection of the 1040 tax, the federal system can operate extra-legally for the purposes of fraud and extortion.
  29. Personnel within the United States Department of Justice have actual knowledge that federal judges and prosecutors receive kickbacks, dividends, and bonuses from Corrections Corporation of America and have a stake in sending people to prison for tax crimes that are never proved.
  30. The CID, "criminal investigation division" of the Internal Revenue Service maintains a file on every single federal judge and federal prosecutor to extort compliance with IRS fraud.
  31. There are no summary records of assessment, IRS form 23-C, for each and every year that the Internal Revenue Service alleges that David F. and/or Debra L. Laugenour owe a sum certain to the United States Treasury.
  32. There are no certified mail receipts, or parcel verifications, or process servers certifications verifying that David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour were noticed of a known duty, the breach of which, would warrant legal action in re: the summary records of assessment, IRS form 23-C, for each and every year that the Internal Revenue Service alleges that David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour owe a sum certain to the United States Treasury.
  33. There are no Individual Master Files for David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour which would be the basis for claiming that David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour owed some sum to the United States Treasury.
  34. There are no Individual Non-Master Files for David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour which support the claim that David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour owed some sum to the United States Treasury.
  35. There are no documents underlying any Individual Master Files for David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour and Individual Non-Master Files for David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour.
  36. There are no notices of deficiency directed to David. E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour to prove that the IRS exhausted administrative remedy before suing the Laugenours.
  37. There are no mail or parcel certifications and/or service of process verifications proving that the IRS provided David E. and/or Debra L. Laugenour with notice of a known duty relative to a notice of deficiency.
  38. There are no Treasury delegation orders directed to Gaud P. Maragani, Guy Patrick Jennings, and/or McGregor W. Scott.
  39. Goud P. Maragani and McGregor W. Scott fabricated tax bills for David E. and Debra L. Laugenour.
  40. Gaud P. Maragani and McGregor W. Scott are nothing in the world but common criminals with a pattern of fraud and extortion that exceeds the requisites for criminal and civil racketeering warranting: (a). Inquiry to determine how many U.S. Attorneys, IRS agents, federal judges, federal magistrates, federal clerks, and federal circuit court judges are engaged in this racket, (b). Prosecution of all U.S. Attorneys, IRS agents, federal judges, federal magistrates, federal clerks, and federal circuit court judges involved in the racket to the full extent of the law including five years in prison per count to be served consecutively [after all these are the "keepers of the law"], (c). the United States of America returning all that has been taken from the American people for a so-called 1040 tax, (d). exoneration of all those imprisoned for a so-called 1040 tax issue, (e). compensating all those who have been imprisoned relative to a so-called 1040 tax, and (f). executing each and every U.S. Attorney, IRS agent, federal judge, federal magistrate, federal clerk, and federal circuit court judge whose acts in re: the so-61led 1040 tax were the proximate cause of the death of the target of IRS racketeering — See 18 U.S.C. § 241 providing:
18 USC Sec. 241 01/19/04 TITLE 18 - CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE PART I CRIMES CHAPTER 13 - CIVIL RIGHTS Sec. 241. Conspiracy against rights. If two or more, persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or, If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured - They shall be fired under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this sectlon or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death. [After all, if you can't trust the keepers of the law to obey the law...]. Prepared and submitted by: David E. Laugenour and Debra L. Langenour

Frankly, I consider this a BOMBSHELL because it utterly destroys the credibility of the courts and the IRS. IRS victims might use it in their criminal cases to prove that federal judges and DOJ attorneys accept bribes and commit fraud, extortion, theft, and racketeering against the people and the courts, thereby making it impossible for IRS victims to obtain a fair trail in federal courts. And certainly, the Langenours now have grounds for filing criminal complaints against the IRS agents and the DOJ attorneys in their case, and possibly even the judge.

I encourage Famspear to investigate and keep tabs on this case so that he can maintain his neutral point of view by revealing the unrebutted facts of the case in the main article on USA income tax on Wikipedia. The facts prove that the IRS, DOJ, and federal judges operate an extortion racket so enormous and diabolical that it probably makes the world's Mafia families green with envy.

How's that for neutrality, Famspear?

Image:bobhurt.jpg Bob Hurt 07:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear User Bob Hurt: You may want to review the following materials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines (guideline)

Yours, Famspear 16:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the arguments raised by Laugenour as described above are without legal merit. Let's get real. Yours, Famspear 16:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Dear Bob Hurt: I also want to reiterate what I stated in my comment when I moved this material down to the bottom: the positioning of this material on this particular talk page is problematic. Although I have not deleted it or moved it somewhere else, the material really relates to tax protester arguments. There are already several Wikipedia articles on tax protester arguments, each with its own talk page. If this kind of material goes anywhere, it should go on the talk page for the relevant tax protester article -- and in the future the commentary probably should be confined to discussion of ways to improve the related article, not to push your personal point of view about the horrible evilness of judges, the legal system, taxes, etc., etc.

Also, it may be considered bad form to insert new material at the TOP of a talk page. New material generally goes at the bottom, to keep the chronology. That's why I moved the material down. And at the expense of stating what may be obvious to many editors, the picture of user Bob Hurt is, uh, an unusual touch on an article's talk page, to say the least. Yours, Famspear 17:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Further note to fellow editors: I have changed the heading for this section to make it neutral, per:[1]. And the heading as originally inserted was not only Non-Neutral and Unverifiable for purposes of Wikipedia, but also blatantly false.
There is a procedure under the U.S. legal system whereby a party can be deemed to have admitted a fact. Unfortunately, that procedure is not found in Rule 201 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. As explained below, a request by a party under Rule 201(d) does not result in an "admission" of anything.
Rule 201(d) relates to requests made by one party that the court judicially notice a particular fact. The "fact", however, must be "capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned" (Rule 201(b)). Examples of statements of facts of this kind would be: "Albany is the capital of New York" or "the sun generally rises in the east and generally sets in the west" or "spring is followed by summer."
Preposterous statements like: "Every time an IRS or Tax Division attorney from the Unite [sic] States Department of Justice makes any sort of demand relative to IRS form 1040, they are committing a felony crime", and "An IRS levy does not apply to people in the private sector", and "The CID, 'criminal investigation division' of the Internal Revenue Service maintains a file on every single federal judge and federal prosecutor to extort compliance with IRS fraud" are about as likely to be judicially noticed as I am likely to arrive on the planet Neptune later today.
By law, the judicial notice of adjudicative facts, if one is made at all, is made by the court, not by the silence or acquiescence of an opposing party after the filing of a Rule 201(d) request. The idea that the absence of a Department of Justice response to the above-listed Laugenours' assertions found in a Rule 201(d) request would constitute, "by silence and acquiescence," an admission, agreement or confession of "all the Langenours' [sic] assertions" is without legal merit. Yours, Famspear 21:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Karl Marx on income tax

I am removing the Karl Marx quote. It has been added to 'principles'. My reasons for doing so are: i) There is no particular connection between the fact that progressive income tax was mentioned by Marx and the principle of income tax or progressive income tax; ii) the previous text mentions that it was supported by economists of different ideologies, and it appears POV to mention only one of them; iii) Marx was far from the only economist or first economist to suggest progressive income tax, and hence no compelling reason to quote him over any other (or at least more substantiation needed); iv) regardless of the above, quoting Marx is similar to some usages of an (implied) ad hominem argument ("Marx supported income tax, and he was a communist. Are you a communist?"). Did Hitler support progressive income tax? I have no idea, but quoting one of the most controversial figures of the last 200 years (Marx) seems an attempt to establish guilt by association. Or to put another way, Lenin was an advocate of electricity grids - quoting him over, say, Edison on electric transmission is stealth POV. (Apologies if I have misused in any way the strict philosophical definition of ad hominem)--Gregalton 08:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Update: another user deleted before I did, and I support his reasons (and conciseness in expressing them). Marx is not particularly relevant here, and it should be discussed on this talk page before being inserted again.--Gregalton 08:03, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I want to re-affirm the fact that I support your position. It seems that someone wants to give the impression that income tax is communistic - which is ironic when you consider the fact that communist states had no income taxes. -- Nikodemos 08:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • i) The reason for the quote is that it shows support for the previous statement different ideologies. It is relevant and in context.
      • ii) Agreed it would be better to supply more citations, or perhaps a direct citation of 'supported by economists of different ideologies', that is a reason to add not delete info.
      • iii) Agreed. We have a quote from Marx here, better to replace than delete, if anyone can find a better one.
      • iv) The argument "Marx supported income tax, and he was a communist. Are you a communist?" is just a bad argument. Guilt by association is a bad argument. there is no reason to remove text because it supports this argument when the itself argument is bad! GameKeeper 08:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I conclude, it would be best if another citation can be found, showing support by different ideologies, but until that time the Marx citation is better than none. I'll try to find a better citation later. GameKeeper 08:33, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments, although I still disagree. My point on (iv) was that this is the implied/inferred argument. It is, of course, a bad argument: my point is that it will be read by some that Marx was the primary or an important advocate if that is the only quote; inclusion of a quote from Marx (particularly if alone) is POV, irrespective of the merits or deficiencies of Marx's analysis. A quote from, say, Kenneth Arrow would not have similar connotations, so I think this quote should stay off until it can be NPOV - in this specific case, deletion is better until more balanced quotes can be found. Until such time as there is a better quote to balance - or some compelling reason to quote Marx - please leave it off. Personally, I do not see the need to provide quotes at all; the statement that 'economists of different ideologies support' is neutral and non-controversial (and on your point (i), does not really need support, unless in the context of a longer section) - "dueling quotes" will be controversial.--Gregalton 08:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with GameKeeper on this one. He was the father of a political philosophy. Such would not be dueling quotes if you added other significant political ideologies. A negative attitude toward communism, socialism, or Karl Marx is not inherent and instantly POV. I'd argue that many of the political philosophies of the western world are greatly influenced by Karl Marx's work and a hybrid of socialism / capitalism. I see your argument though - I'll look for others to include. Morphh (talk) 14:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, we can agree to disagree on this one - I think it is inherently POV for most people (although which POV is ambiguous, some would argue positive, some negative). I would propose deleting, however, on another basis: the quote does not demonstrate in any way that Karl Marx was a noted thinker on income tax, nor prominent in decisions to implement), simply that he supported/predicted it.--Gregalton 14:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
The point, I believe, is that Marx is a highly polarizing figure. Very few people have a neutral opinion about Marx - the vast majority either strongly support or strongly oppose him. Thus, associating Marx with something (other than Marxism, of course) is very likely to generate a stealth POV. For another similar example, imagine what would happen if someone quoted the Bible in support of taxation (which can be done, by the way - I can find the relevant verse for you). -- Nikodemos 18:29, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree entirely with Nikodemos - there are few neutral opinions about Marx (not knowing which POV a reader will have does not mean it is NPOV). And I still see no compelling link between Marx and income tax other than that he mentioned it in a book of rather sweeping nature.--Gregalton 18:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
This problem would no longer exist if we reworded or found an alternative. Immedidately after However, the idea of a progressive income tax has garnered support from economists and political scientists of many different ideologies. , something like :-
citations for both of these can be lifted from Progressive tax, where the quotes exist too. It would be a bit excessive to include both quotes in this article. I think these two examples demonstate the breadth of support for progressive income tax which is what the article needs at that point. GameKeeper 19:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
What? A quote from a red like Adam Smith ;) ? I think a line like you have proposed without the full quotes (just refs) is a lot more reasonable. I'd suggest the wording "ideologies, from Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations to Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto." Assuming the quotes are not too off. Thanks for the suggestion.--Gregalton 19:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and made the edit. Thanks. -- Nikodemos 07:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] uk tax update

uk taxation needs updating re budget —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.159.16.219 (talk) 16:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Canada - top marginal rate

The source I have found for top marginal rate in Canada [2] gives a top rate of 48.64%, not the 50% cited here. I will substitute unless there is a reference that supports what the text currently has ("many provinces have top marginal tax rates over 50%).--Gregalton 08:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

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