Occupy Wall Street: Tax The Big Dogs

Occupy Wall Street: Tax The Big Dogs

This cutie in police uniform conveyed one of the principle messages of the Occupy Wall Street protestors: Tax the big dogs.

Taxation is a complicated subject that many of us take for granted. Broadly speaking, taxation serves four purposes: Revenue, Redistribution, Repricing, and Representation. Primarily, taxation is a source of revenue for governments who in turn spend it on national security, military, large infrastructure projects, social programs, etc. Most governments implement a progressive tax code. Some taxes or their effective implementations can also be proportional or regressive. In theory, progressive tax is a form of redistribution where tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases, thereby the less privileged members of society receive certain opportunities.

One of the primary reasons for the American Revolution was the grievance of the colonists against the British system of taxation. This was summarized in a popular slogan of the times "no taxation without representation". If you take a look at the current tax code of the United States, and how tax revenues are utilized, it will be difficult to challenge some of the ideas floating in the Occupy Movements.

Although a progressive tax code is implemented in the United States, with tax loopholes and abuse of tax havens, the tax code more resembles a regressive tax where large corporations and the richest pay less taxes. More importantly, government expenditure is disproportionately made up of military spending with reduced spending in social programs and infrastructure. Besides the usual waste and corruption, deregulation, the bank bailouts and a flawed tax system have added to the burden of lower income families. A third of Americans live in poverty or near poverty, with no real signs of recovery. It is unacceptable that one in three children live below the poverty line in the richest nation on earth.

More Occupy photos.
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