Our tax system explained in beer

Since many of us like beer, I thought this video gave an excellent analogy of how our tax system works.

It was created by an accountant too. Someone who does taxes all the time, and understands the system better than many of our politicians.

Enjoy

 

I don't like the sound of this, I'm not giving away my beer!

 

The video explains in theory how a tax system works. But seems to skew heavily on the rich worship and the general idea that through good deeds the rich take care of it all. It does not take into account the true economic realities of the system. Things like corruption and bribery so as to not pay a high tax when wealthy and actual economic theories that counter the wealth inequality seen in the video. It was almost feduel era to me.

Like let's step outside the bar. How much is $20 to the top guys. How much is it REALLY to all these broke fucks drinking. Rather then rely on the charity of the wealthy some would seek to regulate it in the first place. Like as scary as it is those top guys don't even have 20, they have 16. Everyone else in the bar somehow has money to drink their own beer.

Someday you will come around comrade.

 

*eye roll*

 

He forgot to mention that the rich men held most of their money in overseas beer money havens and didnt actually have to pay the totality of their bill at face value, and the bartender looked the other way and just borrowed money from the Chinese bartender down the street to make ends meet instead. And the middle class guy paying $3 ended up paying more than anyone

 

grow weed, brew beer.. taxation is theft..

 

Yeah, fuck the rich!

Who needs ‘em?

The government will print more beer!

It’s not like AOC keeps saying that billionaires are gonna pay for all her pie-in-the-sky ideas

 

It's less than five minutes long... I'm impressed. I may actually watch this. Judging from some of the responses though I sense partisan rhetoric might play a role here.

 

Yep. Partisan rhetoric. I think that you should consider instead of not charging the rich as much, charging them more. That's it! simple.

 

God bless the rich. God bless their hearts.

 

Clearly you didn't watch the video, so how in the hell can you concoct such an argument if you don't know the thesis statement of the video? LOL

Rather than examine the point of view of a possible opposition, open your mind to hear the opinions of others, broaden your world view, and better understand your challengers, you go off and hide in your safe space.

 

WOW what a lopsided and simplistic explanation, but that’s not surprising as it fits in with all of 6’s other posts.

So the bar is the state, the barman the government and the beer is the benefits to the society people receive from taxation.

If that is correct then it is the barman that runs things it’s not down to the generosity of the more advantaged that helps out the disadvantaged it’s the barman letting the poorer to have a beer.

And why beer why not food.

 

Well the video implies that all the people have the same standard of living they can all go to the same bar and get the same amount of beer.

But do billionaires really go to the same bars as garbage collectors?

I mean the disadvantage have to have to take the beer they are offered there is no choice but the rich guys can order Champaign instead if they want.

Then who built the bar, if the barman is the government then he has used a substantial amount of the beer money on building the bar and probably a lot of it was built by low pay labourers the one that get the tax breaks at the bottom, they also staff the bar, clean the place up, do running repairs take the garbage away etc

Then there are the middle class supervisors and manages that were involved, the architectures, accounts and companies that have been used to make the bar and then there is the sewage system that helps keep the bar sanitary, the electrical grid and the police that deal with any disorder etc etc.

The bar also needs good educated staff to run efficiently so it is very dependant of the education system in fact come to think of it the disadvantaged depend on that education system as well.

So the money given to the barman is mainly going to keep the bar going.

In fact the really rich guy actually employs three of the more disadvantaged guys but he pays them so little that they can’t afford to buy their own beer and that is why the barman likes to help them out.

 

OK hit the music

So everything is going fine in the US bar until the really rich guy buys the company that runs the bar and forces the barman to cut the amount the rich guy has to pay.

Things carry on but the new situation means the barman doesn’t have as much money to keep the bar going as it was before he cuts corners, cobwebs start appearing in corners, paint starts to peel.

The really rich guy then gets the bar company to cut his bar bill by even more.

The barman cuts back even more, he stops cleaning the washroom as much, then a bowl gets blocked and he can’t afford a plumber so he closes that cubicle. Some of the electrics are shot and lights start flickering and don’t get fixed, the cook is replaced with someone that isn’t as hygienic as before.

The rich guy forces through another cut in his bill.

The bar is now deep in debt and can’t really pay for its upkeep and starts watering down the beer.

Thing is that the rich guy has been telling everyone else that it’s all the barman’s fault for the bars problems, saying ‘if he just was more efficient’ or if he would ‘just stop giving the disadvantaged those beers and food’.

And in the meantime the rich guy has invested the money he's saved from not paying into this bar in another bar across town.

Anyway the other guys start beginning to notice that it’s not the barman but the rich guy that is the problem, and start asking why he isn’t paying his way to keep their bar going.

So the rich guy leaves to go and screw up the bar across town just as the repo men come in to take away the pool table and the bar creditors force it to foreclose.

And that boys and girls, posters and online right wing propagandists is what happens under plutocratic neoliberalism

 

Dude that's like 10+ sentences.

But I will claim the pool table.

 

If the beer in this video was fictitious, the two rich guys were also making/selling the beer to the bar in the first place, and their beer grew itself, this video would have been stellar.

 

Anyway after I presenting my own view on this Australians video I found out that it seems Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeated it in a press conference

*

And here is what one journalist thought of it

Then at last the truth came out. Sanders said, “This is a silly story, of course.” Yes, it is a silly story, indeed, in a number of different ways.

A good fable should not be a fantasy. In our country, people who can afford to spend $59 a night for beer do not go out drinking with the people who can’t afford to pay anything or very little for such luxuries. They live in two different worlds.

Clearly, the parable’s real message has to do with something other than merely justifying tax reform. It portrays the Republican/Trumpian vision of America, a land where the rich at the very top are carrying the load for the losers and moochers at the bottom, the 47 percent that Mitt Romney called the “takers.”

If you want to confirm this, take a look at Sanders’ internet source for this parable, a primitive cartoon produced by Johnston Grocke, an accounting and financial services firm. The depiction of the 10 drinkers is telling.

The richest drinker is wearing a tailored business suit and a tie, and he isn’t drinking beer at all. He’s enjoying a glass of red wine with the second richest drinker and both are schmoozing with the bar owner. The third richest is close by, but the other seven are swilling beer from bottles and cans around a pool table.

Based on their descending economic status, the other seven are decreasingly presentable, until we reach the four moochers at the bottom, who are scruffy and unshaven, especially the one who appears to be the only African American in the group. Of course he expects other people to pay for his beer.

There’s nothing subtle about this message or the patent threat by the rich guy to take his money to other countries where they’ll be nicer to him. But it leaves out a lot.

For example, the rich guy drinking red wine with the owner is oblivious to three important factors: his wealth largely depends on natural resources and infrastructure that belong to all of us; our prosperous economy is grounded in the hard work and productivity of ordinary people; and when this system is threatened, our nation turns to the “losers” — so the rich guy sees them — at the bottom of the hierarchy to defend us. And they’ve never let us down.

And then there’s this basic truth: A country is not a bar, and the various complex needs and desires of its citizens cannot be described in a simple-minded parable like this one. Unfortunately, in the current political climate, this is what passes for argument.

John M. Crisp

Ten reporters walk into a bar ...

 

Here is Forbes take on the bar story

But that's not what happens in this little thing we call "reality." There are far fewer taxpayers in the richest 1% than there is in the, say, middle twenty percent. That's kinda' how percentages work. Thus, the richest 1%, who in this example, get a total tax cut of $11, are required to share that $11 cut among very few people. The $1 cut going to #5, however, must be shared among 20% of the total population. This is why, in reality, not only will the richest taxpayers get the biggest cuts in terms of pure dollars, they will also get the biggest cuts in terms of a percentage cut….

Whoa, our happy little bar tale has suddenly taken an ugly turn, has it not? Because under the GOP's must recent plan, the average taxpayer in the richest 1% will enjoy a reduction in their tax bill of 18%, while the middle class will see a decrease in tax of 5% -9%.

It gets worse when you look at things from a percentage-of-after-tax-income perspective, where the richest 1% -- #10 in Sanders' story -- will walk away with an 8.5% increase in after-tax cash, while everyone from #7 on down will see a bump of just 1%.

Then there's the little matter that according to the Tax Policy Center, one-in-three taxpayers in #5, #6, and #7 would actually experience an INCREASE in their tax bill, meaning in Sanders' terms, they'd have to chip in MORE after the price of booze was reduced while #10 pockets the extra cash.

Finally, Sanders' story speaks to a bigger issue: why did she feel the need to spin a yarn justifying large tax cuts to the richest 1% when President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have both gone on record as saying that under their plan, #10 would pay the exact same amount for beers before and after the $20 price reduction. In other words, the richest 1% would experience no net benefit after tax reform is complete.

Perhaps that is in fact the case, the richest 1% will get no tax cut, and Sanders' performance yesterday will go down as a bigger waste of time than it already appears to have been. But maybe, just maybe, the point of Sanders' speech was to set the stage for what's coming.

Tony Nitti

Sarah Huckabee Sanders Misses The Mark With Her 'Bar Analogy' Tax Lesson