On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the possibility that, once the tariffs take effect, there could be a reduction or elimination of income taxes for individuals earning less than US$200,000 a year.
“When the tariffs cut in, many people’s income taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even eliminated entirely. Focus will be on those earning less than $200,000 a year,” the Republican president wrote today on his social media platform, Truth Social.
“Also, massive numbers of jobs are already being created, with new plants and factories currently being built or planned,” he added.
“It will be a bonanza for America!!! The External Revenue Service is happening!!!” the U.S. President concluded.
This week, a coalition of twelve states, led by the attorneys general of Oregon and Arizona, filed a lawsuit seeking to block the tariffs imposed by Trump, arguing that the tariffs are “illegal.”
The lawsuit aims to block the imposition of a 145% tariff on most products from China and a 25% tariff on most products from Canada and Mexico, important trading partners of the plaintiff states.
It also challenges the 10% tariffs on most products imported from the rest of the world, as well as the Trump’s plan to raise tariffs on imports from an additional 46 trading partners starting on July 9.
I do not believe paying income tax to the US federal government will create the conditions for communism
I did not say that income tax in the US will lead to communism.
Both posts by Wizard say that income tax of laborers is never justifiable. “no amount of hand waving about how the government needs to take workers at the point of labor will make it true”.
I mention Marx talking about progressive income tax, as an example of how income tax is not only justified by Communist Theorists but also beneficial to the working class.
A progressive tax is a tax where wealthier people pay a higher percentage of taxes than poorer people. A regressive tax is a tax where wealthier people pay a lower percentage of taxes than poorer people. Income tax in the US is a progressive tax. Relying on tariffs to fund the government would be a regressive tax. Trump wants to replace a progressive tax with a regressive tax.
A progressive tax is good because it makes it harder for capitalists to accumulate wealth. Trump wants to eliminate income tax because it is a progressive tax and he is a capitalist.
The trickery of Trump in this situtation is not that “he doesn’t want to eliminate income tax”. The trickery is that he is saying he only wants to eliminate income tax for people earning less than $200k, but in reality, he wants to eliminate all income tax, including for people making over $200k. Then he wants to replace income tax with a new tax (tariffs) which taxes working people at a higher percentage than capitalists.
In Finland the bourge is doing exactly this by raising the VAT, creating all sorts of new regressive taxes (like a sweet tax) and disguising it as “taking care of the national debt” which for some reason still is able to fly as an argument for the libs.
They are currently also trying really hard to dismantle the last parts of our very high progressive income taxation which I would argue is the last thing standing behind the remaining relative equality here. A tax cut that only benefits very high earners was just announced, along with further easing on taxes for capital.
Income equality has been quickly eroding here since the early 90s (income inequality rose in Finland faster than in any other OECD country during the late 90s to early 00s) and one key development behind this was a tax reform. Capital income tax was decided to no longer be progressive and this along with austerity measures and capital accumulation is the nail in the coffin for the welfare state. The same reform was done in Sweden and Norway around the same time.
no you see actually income tax is a fundamental pillar of society and is actually necessary for communism, marx said so