Is over-taxing the "rich" really fair?

Consider this scenario:
Tom and Harry are two twin brothers. Both boys are saving up to buy new bicycles. Tom has a strong work ethic. Harry is a good kid but is just not as motivated as Tom. Tom gets a job delivering papers and gets up early every morning and works hard at it. Harry mows an occasional lawn in the neighborhood. Dad finally takes them to the bike shop to let them buy their bikes. He discovers that Tom has $600 while Harry only has $50. To Tom's dismay (and Harry's delight) he takes $275 from Tom and gives it to Harry, leaving each with $325 to spend on a bike. Dad rests his conscience believing he has made a fair and just decision. After all, Harry has never been as fortunate as Tom, and surely Tom didn't need all of that money. Harry decides he will never mow another lawn again.

Is this fair?

Clearly, some people are born with more wealth. So long as every American has the opportunity to be successful, then the system is fair. A poor boy from the ghetto can work his butt off, go to school, earn scholarships, take out loans, get an education, and earn a good living. It happens all the time. Is he guaranteed to drive a Ferrari like the rich boy? No. But he can still be successful.

No, absolutely not! The rich should pay their fair share and nothing more. The father should have let the Tom make the decision himself after suggesting it. (and not made to feel guilty about his decision)Harry should be scolded on his work ethic.

Not exactly. However, this taxation of the rich is a good idea when it comes to income redistribution. The idea of Income Redistribution aims to tax citizens in the highest income brackets, while giving refunds to the Middle and Lower class citizens. The problem ensues when we bring incentive into the argument. If we were to tax the higher class, then they would no longest have the incentive to continue their course of work, and, ultimately, shut down their businesses.

You have been reading Obama's playbook.

No, it is not fair, it is stupid. See below.

"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strenghten the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by encouraging class hatred.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

--Abraham Lincoln

there should be a flat tax for everyone if the mega rich want to pay more no one is stopping them
Thoreau in your scenario it not what life is there is no certain end line the rich kid might have a better chance of becoming mega rich faster but the ghetto kid can still work and make a great living even if he only becomes just plain rich and it takes a little longer and then his kid will be in the same spot as the rich kid in the beginning of the story

Your example is not fair, but it is not a fair representation of real world inequities. You're talking about twins, who start life at the same economic levels.

Do you really think a poor ghetto boy from the poor ghetto streets has the same opportunities at success as a rich boy from a rich family has?

Look at it this way:
In a 100 yd. dash, Rich boy starts the race at the Starting Line. Poor ghetto boy starts race 70 yards behind Starting Line. Who would you bet your life on will win the race?

Now I implore you. Is this fair???

It is a made up story, you can make up any story to back up an idea.
What you haven't taken into account is that Harry is very ill, and he's given up mowing lawns because he wants to spend more time on charity work.

Nope, not fair.

Some governments believe in placating lazy people in order to get more votes, but when people don't have the motivation to be inovative, then health, technology, etc. types of inventions and improvements are not made and society suffers.

It seems Harry's work ethic isn't all you claimed since he has rejected it...

Now considering the "rich", remember, Harry would have many more zeros following the 6 rather than just two, and taking a few bucks wouldn't matter at all.

Take out the "fairness" and consider taxation on a basis of what is best for the country and economy. Those with wealth create more wealth. They don't bury their money and leave it idle. They invest it and create jobs.

No.

But...

...in the eyes of a liberal it is fair in their pursuit of a welfare state.

Liberalism = Do little yourself, let society do the rest = Socialism.

No, but undertaxing them is not fair either. For example, the cap on SSI being somewhere around an income of 108k. After that, you do not put any more into social security.

Is this fair? Ask the father, he made the decision.
Your scenario isn't accurate.
it is misleading and has no basis on factual or actual application.

OBAMA '08!

Yea but Harry's black, so it's fair.

No and its not fair what Obama wants.......tax the richn they don't have bottomless pockets to fund all his solcist adgenda.....

Where is Dick while all this is going on?

I don't think that the scenario you've presented is fair, but I also don't think that scenario represents real life fairly.
Many wealthy people pay proportionately low taxes because they have enough money to be able to take advantage of tax breaks and loopholes that aren't available to average joes.
I know an individual who is a managing director of a family-owned business. On top of his salary, he has a son who "works" for the company on paper. He drives a "company vehicule" BMW, gives thousands in tax-deductible "gifts", and undoubtedly writes off gas,part of his home, and other perks as "business expense'.
I'm sure the value of the perks that he writes off actually more than doubles his income, but he doesn't pay income tax on it.
I'm an average joe and pay income tax on every penny that I get.
Is that fair?

Taxing the rich more than the poor is fair. "Over-taxing" is an arbitrary term. Tom and Harry are arbitrary examples not illustrative of the real situation and your scenario is set to be unfair. One who makes $10,000,000 a year, paying a higher percentage of that income than someone making $50,000 is equitable. It's likely the $50k person works as hard as the megabucks one and to support the family needs to retain more of the earnings. The big buck person has a whole lot more disposable income. You presume the return on effort is equitable. In fact the megabuck is likely playing with other people's money, inherited wealth for which he/she did nothing except be born, and profiting from other people's labor a lot more than they do.

The system we live by (capitalism) is set up so that one person can benefit from another. In other words, we have to have a class system in North America; there must always be some one on the bottom, in the middle, and on the top otherwise capitalism doesn't work. No matter how bright or hardworking a lower class citizen may be, for the most part, they must remain where they are to make our system work. Is that fair? Absolutely not. This being so, I do believe it's fair to tax at a higher rate those that benefit from a system that keeps people on the bottom. It's really a nessisary evil.

it is extremely unfair but this is what socialist want. it is called 'redistribution' regardless of what else you want to call it. most of those people dedicate themselves to building their businesses. the majority of them earn their money, except for ted kennedy.

i am not rich, infact i now live at the poverty level but i know that the 'evil' rich are what make America a great nation. it is called capitolism and it works as many former communist countries are now doing
.
The bottom 40% pay about 6% of taxes, while the top 40% pay about 85% of taxes 鈥?or about 14 times more than their counterparts in the lower brackets. But in light of the constant droning 鈥渢he rich don鈥檛 pay their fair share鈥?

Progressive taxation is not inherently wrong, but taken too far it鈥檚 socialist income redistribution, which is legalized theft. Asking one minority group to shoulder the burden almost exclusively is discrimination and unethical.

http://constitutionalconservative.wordpr...

According to the statistics, the richest 1% of American taxpayers (those earning above $389,000) earned 22% of the nation鈥檚 reported income. But their share of the nation鈥檚 income taxes was 40%. In other words, the wealthiest 1% of Americans鈥?income tax payments are almost twice as much as their 鈥渇air share.鈥?

The same is true for other income levels as well. According to the IRS data, the wealthiest 5% of Americans earned 37% of the nation鈥檚 income, but paid some 60% of the nation鈥檚 income taxes. The top 25% of Americans earned 68% of the nation鈥檚 income, but paid 86% of the nation鈥檚 taxes.

And astonishingly, the top 50% of American earners brought in 88% of income dollars, but paid 97% of all income taxes in this country. Thus, half of the American population is paying almost the entirety of income taxes.

It is also untrue that wealthy Americans have disproportionately benefited from the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. As noted by The Wall Street Journal, the wealthiest Americans today pay twice as much of the nation鈥檚 income taxes as they did during the Carter administration. Back then, they paid 19% of income taxes, compared with 40% today

http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/c...

Obama is rich by any standard, how and why do poor people identify with him, because he promises them much but will give them little, IF elected.

the problem with redistribution is that soon the money runs out and then there is no way to provide all the entitlements so soon all are equally poor.

ask a cuban how well this has worked for them.

We wouldn't even need to be considering additional taxes if the government would stop giving so much money to the people who refuse to better their own lives because they have been living off of the government (welfare, etc...). Anytime my sister's income goes up she has another child to keep her family in the income/family size bracket where they still get the most government assistance. They don't need to pay for private health insurance, they get food stamps, discounted housing. My sister can afford a family of 7 while me and my husband can barely afford ourselves - but our income/family size puts us in the middle class bracket... welcome to america where the middle class is the class with the fewest benefits.

If only we were poor or rich... THAT is where the benefit lies with the current system.

Tom then decides to start a paper-delivering company. People decide to work for his company, as not everyone (mathematically and economically) can be an entrepreneur. Tom eventually grows his business so that it employs 10,000 people. By this time, Tom is plenty wealthy. He is concerned, however, that one day he might become slightly less wealthy. So in order to calm his fears, he decides to do away with the majority of his salaried, full-time workers so that he can hire much-cheaper and disposable temp labor. He lays off a good deal of his workers, many of whom relied on the medical benefits that Tom's company had provided. Tom doesn't seem to care that, while yes, he had initiative and entrepreneurial spirit, he could not have amassed his enormous fortune without his employees. Tom is against upper-class tax increases since he believes that only himself, and people just like himself, are the only ones who ever worked hard in their lives. He doesn't give a rat's *** about his laid off workers or the ones he decided to hire on-the-cheap and without benefits.

OVERTAXING THE RICH?????
Do they not profit FAR more then others from being in this country?
EDIT:
Do they EVER DO ANYTHING TO EARN THAT MONEY? who really does the work - Trump LOL!!!!!
Their offspring are protected from public service ie the military - protect and benefit from this govt - you better believe it.
They themselves profit by paying for the development of weapons to kill!!!!! In all honesty how can ANYONE BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT THIS GOD ALMIGHTY DOLLAR SIGN LOVING PEOPLE OF AMERICA (THE ONES WITH POWER) NOT ADMIT THE TRUTH!!!
I AM AN ATHIEST AND AS A RESULT OF ADMITTING THAT JUST LOST A LOT OF SUPPORT EVEN THOUGH I BELIEVE AND PRACTICE EVERYDAY THE TEACHINGS AND BELIEFS OF JESUS AS THEY ARE THE ONE AND ONLY TRUTH - ANYBODY WITH A BRAIN KNOWS THAT - YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE A GOD TO UNDERSTAND THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU LYING DEVILS WILL PAY FOR YOUR LIES ONE DAY BY YUR LORD IE HELL FOREVER!!! IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT I BELIEVE IT IS WHAY YOU BELIEVE - AND YOU WILL BE PUNISHED!!! i BELIEVE IN AN IMMORTAL SOUL NOT GOD BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS SMALL AND YOU LIARS WILL PAY - NOT BY MY HAND BUT BY THE LAWS OF UNIVERSAL JUSTICE OR IF YOU ARE CORRECT BY THE HAND OF YOUR GOD! TRUTH SHALL PREVAIL!!!!!

You scenario is false. Tom and Harry could very well both be hard workers, they could both have a strong work ethic...both be motivated....yet Harry could still make less money at a different job.
The problem is that we under tax the rich....and over tax the middle class. Nearly every super wealthy person agrees that they should be paying more in taxes than what they pay currently. Gates, Buffett, Winfrey, etc.
There are millions of americans who are middle class, who work hard, who struggle to pay their bills, many with college educations. I don't know if you are trying to imply that everyone who isn't wealthy is a slacker, but it certainly comes across that way.