Mersey

I really appreciate the detailed analysis... and your perspective is greatly appreciated. As you probably know, I'm mostly a 'big picture' guy, so I tend to focus on 'what happens to most people', recognizing that there are always exceptions. The rules should be set up for the typical American that lives here most of their adult working lives.... with some adaptations for people who come here late or (as you did), leave early.

The point I am making is that at 40 quarters, you are 'fully vested'. The amount changes if you make more money, but is still subject to a maximum of $3,011, retiring at age 67 as you note. I don't know what threshold this is, but I believe you hit that cap at around 50k... so if you earn 50k for 10 years, you're good... and done. There are as you note other ways to hit that cap... like making 40k for 20 years or 30k for 30 years or whatever the math is (I don't get bogged down into those details)... but the idea is that once you hit that cap, you're done... and most people with college educations will earn 50k for at least 10 years (or 40k for 20 or whatever) in their lifetime. Plenty of moderately skilled people will also hit the caps. Where is the incentive to do more?? Unless you can do so much more that you can do without this income. That probably means making more than 80k, but living like you make 50 and investing the other 30 (plus the extra taxes you have to pay on 80 vs 50)... and almost nobody does that... and again while I don't know the number, I suspect only about 15% of people make more than that 80, especially for 10 years.... add in the 'spouse' and it gets even more complicated.

When you put all the pieces together though, we are still encouraging the wrong things through our policies, some of which conflict with each other. I don't lay this all at the feet of Democrats. Republicans are equally complicit, and I blame them more than Democrats for not explaining things better to the public. I GET that these are complex issues and it is REALLY easy for 'the other side' (which is sometimes either party) to shoot holes in complex explanations making them look bad, even when they are 100% accurate... and that the 'Average' American doesn't understand many of these complex issues... but it is AMAZING how much math and energy goes into finding ways to skirt good intentions, turning them into disasters, either by costing a lot more than they should... or generating a fraction of the revenue they should. The people who lead these groups, essentially spreading the word on 'how to beat the system' are REALLY freaking smart. Smarter than the 'lawyers' who write the policies... and now with the internet, those 'tricks' spread like wild fire.

We need a much simpler system. It doesn't need to be this hard. There is nothing hard nor expensive to administer about sales tax, VAT, flat tax, use tax and other sorts of taxes. If you put some of those in place, income taxes can be made much simpler and still collect the necessary revenue.

To anyone who'd argue that 'we don't need 'another' tax', I'd say... what we need is SMARTER taxes... and that the cost of 'what we're doing' makes these 'new' taxes MORE than worth it.