Social Security- Is it viable in todays tax structure

There is always a doctrine tension in the substance of taxes applied to people. The problem of form and substance in tax jurisprudence is sometimes as a result of misunderstanding of the various existing laws and regulations that pertains to the taxes and laws being levied. Whether or not social security is and will remain viable in the near future is a question of discussion (Magers 2003). Certain elements and factors that determine the viability of tax in connection with the related laws and tax issues need to be discussed. Social insurance, which is a term commonly used as a synonym to social security, has the characteristic of being a program sponsored by the government with clear guidelines, benefits, eligibility and other requirements being stated in a statute.

Concept of Social Security
The term social security mainly refers to a government sponsored programs of insurance that are normally defined by a given statute and it serves the intended defined population (LaFaive 1997). The premium to the insurance policy money payment is commonly funded by through taxes or premiums by the participants or by somebody or an organization on behalf of the persons in question.  In most instances, the social security program is normally compulsory (Lambro 2004 Logue 2009, pp. 21-50). To ensure that most individuals that are targeted participate in it, the program is at times heavily subsidized in order to reduce the burden of cash payment from the concerned persons.

Social Protection
Social security is a means of offering protection for ones life, property or resources with an aim of ensuring a better life at all times. Most states, households, societies or markets offer certain benefits to the members in order to help them reduce the multidimensional deprivation which could be affecting few persons that live in poor living conditions. Social security is normally appreciated by most people whose living conditions are poor in nature rather than the rich, wealthy minority in the society (Logue 2009, pp. 21-50). In poor countries, the deprivation of social security protection is normally viewed as an incentive from the authority to help improve the living standards of people. However, among the developed countries and the working class, social protection is normally viewed by most people as a burden meant to cater for the needs of people who have not made any meaningful effort to improve their own lives.

To ensure that all issues related to social protection of people lives and needs is fully done, proper collaborative measures should be put into place to ensure that the needs of the minority addressed. A framework should ensure that the state is held fully responsible for the needs of the majority should be put in place and necessary tax laws to cater for such frameworks put in place. Various legislative platforms also ought to be outlined to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding between the subject and their leaders (Magers 2003). Public awareness could also be carried out to ensure that all stakeholders in the social protection issues are fully aware of the manner in which the related issues are connected and the best way through which they could contribute to enhance the lives of their fellow citizens or other people and societies that may be in dire need of assistance. Accountability and proper utilization of money collected in form of premiums and taxes is also always a backbone to the efforts laid to ensure that more people are encouraged to contribute to the social protection kitty. The means-tested, which is a benefit offered to people who cannot cater for their basic needs, could be offered either as a discretionary benefit, a non-contributory benefit or as categorical (universal) benefits (Kogan 2003).

Tax Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of tax law
The philosophy of tax law mainly revolve around issues pertaining to the law of taxation and how the laws could be utilized to ensure that proper utilization and accountability of taxes collected is put into place. Adequate and necessary infrastructure is also put in place to facilitate the necessary collection of taxes, planning, organization of the various programs and investments made there to. According to tax jurisprudence, tax is charged on an individual or an organization depending on the amount of income the person receives with close consideration to other related factors (Johnson 2004, pp. 119-261). Taxation should be closely viewed in the context of the capital gains. However, issues such as taxation of gifts, inheritance taxes, capital gain taxes, partnerships and sales taxes are also analyzed when a government is deciding on the best way in which to tax people and how social security would be affected from the collected taxes.

The philosophy of tax law believes on the fact that people are taxed based on the overall contribution they make to the income and the salaries they earn. Poor people are therefore charged low taxes if they earn a given minimal predefined salary otherwise they get exemption from paying taxes. Social security greatly depends on both the primary and security secondary sources of taxes. Such rates of taxes therefore determine to what extend taxes should be charged, by who, when, how and for what purpose (McCluskey and Franzsen 2005).

Social Security Policy and tax law
Social security refers to the overall benefits that people who are considered not to be in a position to cater for their basic needs receive from the government. The major goal of social security is to ensure that poor people are protected from extreme poverty levels that may, if not properly checked, cause death and economy underperformance of a country (Cobham 2007). Other related threats such as increased insecurity, drug abuse and trafficking, robbery, and terrorism may also occur as a result. The social security policy needs to explicitly state that the state should be forced to cater and be fully responsible for the very poor sections of people in society through various regulatory measures of the non state agencies.

A number of both internal and external laws that help in the regulation of social security implementation do exist. Various loopholes also do exist in the tax laws that govern the implementation of social security policies (Middlebrook 2009). Unless addressed, the loopholes would continue to compromise the standards of social security in the country. This would in turn term threaten the lives of jobless poor people who cannot cater for their own basic needs. The viability of the social security would greatly depend on the various policy laid down to guide and govern all related issues in the industry. Various companies should always give their views on best they think the social security matters can best be addressed.

The policies should be flexible enough in order to cater for the ever increasing diversity of people who are both within and outside the country. McCluskey,  Franzsen (2005) argue that the differences in the income brackets, regions of stay, overall family income, part time jobs and related business, and marital status should keenly be analyzed in order to ensure fairness when determining the tax rates to be applied to different categories of people (Arun and Serge 2006 Arno 2003 Amsterdam and West 2008).
Various researches carried out clearly indicate the dire need to ensure that stringent social security policies are put in place need to be made with closer consideration of the fact that the policies should not be stumbling blocks peoples attainment of social security services in a more flexible manner.

Security policies in tax laws should also be geared towards ensuring that the rule of law is adhered to (Middlebrook 2009). To adequately manage the policies related to the social security, the major policies could be subdivided in order to ensure that proper management that would minimize bureaucracy is put in place. Bureaucracy increases expenses in the management process and hence decreasing the overall benefits that would have been realized from a given process. Social security plan encourages people to save money while at working with the belief that they would get a refund of their cash when they retire together with other minor related benefits one they have retired (McCluskey and Franzsen 2005). Unlike the money which is saved in bank accounts, the law clearly stipulated how the social security should be managed and the exact way through which people of varied status and financial backgrounds would benefit from the arrangements.

Future Viability of the Social Security
Introduction
The viability and future of the social security is dependent on a number of factors. Various limitations does exist which tend to compromise its viability. Indeed whether or not social security is viable is a matter to be debated since it depends on a number of factors. The viability of the social security could be analyzed based on a number of factors. The law and various philosophical aspects of the various regulations in a country determine to a greater extend the manner in which social security would be meaningful to a give group of people in the society (McCluskey and Franzsen 2005).

Likely Future of the Social Security The Related Factors
On a number of occasions, rejection by a few people through jeopardizing the efforts to offer social security to the poor could be a great drawback to the efforts targeted at ensuring that poor people in the society benefit from the social security efforts being implemented by the government. Jeopardizing the social security programs could be done through evading paying taxes and misappropriation of government resources that are collected in the country. The political class in the country may also jeopardize the entire process through making of laws that do not assist in the collection and utilization of taxes in   a more transparent and ethically upright manner (Cobham 2007). It is therefore very evident that the viability of the social security is dependent on a number of interrelated factors and people who must network and coordinate various activities, policies and process in order to fully streamline all the processes that are involved in providing social security services by the government (Modigliani 2004).

Additionally, there is need to do defined contribution so as to put into place proper procedures for distribution of taxes. Tax collection should be planned in a manner that would ensure that people are taxed in fair ways that duly reflect the actual income they receive. Double taxation should be avoided as it could lead to people evading taxes and thus making the overall contributions to the social security tax kitty to drastically decrease. This in turn would increase the poverty levels. Indeed according to Muralidhar (2001), proper taxation models that reflect the societal structure, job description, profession, social status, regions and environment of working in the country and the special interest groups should be put in place to positively change the current situation.

The viability of the social security is also dependent on the health status of people in the country which is normally reflected by the birth and death rates in the country at the various ages. A country with many aged people with is an indication of the high tax burden to the entire countrys working class. Old people normally do not work. It is therefore clear that such people, in their retirement period, neither works nor pay taxes to the government. Ones the money they had saved during their working days is fully consumed, such people would always resort to begging and extreme reliance on the governments support. It is therefore clear that serious threat comes from the ever soaring life expectance combined with a decline in the birthrate. This leads to the existence of many young and old people in society. These two groups of people only depend on the government, family and societal support since there are rarely in a position to pay taxes (Amsterdam and West 2008).

The fact that a person may be too old or young and hence unemployed means they do not pay taxes. The tax burden thus shift to the few working ones. In order to ensure that social security continues to have a brighter future, it is vital the population is regulated in order to ensure that there is a balance at all ages of the population. The growth rate of the population should also not be too high to the extent that the available resources in the country are fully overstretched. Whenever the birth rates are very high, the scarce resources exhibit a lot of pressure leading to the governments inability to employ people who would in turn contribute to the social security kitty. In order to ensure that people who are currently in their mid 20s enjoy the benefits of social security one they are sixty seven (67) years old,  proper planning for the population need to be put in place. Any changes in security laws and policies should be made with the common good of the next generations at heart.

The Best Way Forward
Olmert (1996) believes that it is not always possible to shift the tax burden from one person to another without causing any form of discomfort to other people. At times governments force to contribute more cash from their income to the social security kitty. Even though this may seem like a good strategy to get a lot of cash that would later be used in the social security for other people and thus offer good rates, the end results are normally detrimental. Indeed paying more to the security fund compared to the amount being collected in taxes becomes a major threat to the social security programs as the government may end up depending on donor funding in order to keep the program running. Such financial threats pose a lot of stress to the tax payers, the actual beneficiaries of the funds, and the government which has the responsibility of ensuring that retirees fully benefit from the kitty and adequately sustained using the amounts already collected (Olmert 1996).

To ensure efficiency and transparency, it is very fundamental to ensure that the current market trend in the market is changed for better. The future of the social security may never be viable is the current operational and management trends is maintained. Positive changes could also be reflected in the manner in which money is managed, economic performance of the country and the entire global economy and the personal initiatives made by individual persons. Moreover, the viability of the social security could hoped on the fact that the ever increasing development rates could influence positively to peoples lives due to better living standards, increased levels of employment thus more taxes are paid to cater for the few poor people who may be existing in the society. Increasing the number of years which an individual would have to work before retiring does not solve the problem of employment in most societies. This is because older people would most likely underperform due to the likelihood of their ages not allowing them to put in more energy and thought in whatever duties they perform. There would also be more young people at the lower level of the pyramid who would be having the energy, willingness and skills to work but with not jobs to get employed to do.

Social security has a very close relationship to the existing healthcare and medicare related issues. For a quite a long time now, social and medical security services were associated with the rich people who were perceived to have afforded well paying jobs that enabled them to pay taxes and commissions. However, the trend changed and the social security began serving individuals of all backgrounds (Rackham 2002). The opinion of the public on the role and importance of the social security helps a great deal in achieving the goals set in the various social security platforms. For the goals to be understood and people to be willing to fully participate in them, it is very crucial that people have full belief in the morality and importance of the programs.

The future and viability of the social security therefore pertains to ensuring that proper guidance and people relationship is enhanced in order to gain full support from the tax payers. The public support, which is reflected through payment of taxes and the belief that the programs in question is actually affordable to the public expenditure. It is therefore the responsibility of the government and other relevant bodies to carry out the necessary awareness to and enlighten the public on the various efforts being made by the government in ensuring that the programs yields most fruits to the public. Public opinion could also be collected and then utilized in formulating other programs that would help in aligning the social security programs to the needs of the public and the changing trends in the way of life. The viability of the programs would therefore depend on the collaboration that would be attained through collaboration and exchange of ideas among all stakeholders that affect social security programs (Amsterdam and West 2008). Moreover, historical trends and the prevailing laws in the industry and the entire country need to be analyzed. This would enable the management of the programs to be able to lay down the necessary strategies needed to ensure that public confidence is restored into the ensure system.

Furthermore, the tax system also needs to be changed to fully reflect the needs and trends of the current market and ways of life of the people. Rather than continuing to practice the traditional taxation practices and applying laws that insist on the utilization of very bureaucratic practices in the management of the programs, the legislatures need to change with the changing times. In situations where the government does not want to change with time, pressure groups should be actively b e involved in synthesizing the public and ensuring that they combine their efforts in ensuring that the government and the political class are forced to initiate programs which would streamline social security operations. So far the public support has continued to remain very strong. The public members need to fully support various incremental changes that are needed in addressing their respective financial concerns (Riedl 2007). The public therefore need to oppose changes being pushed in by other special interest groups and the government especially if the groups do not seem to champion the needs of the majority of people representing the common good.

Policy makers need to take very in-depth consideration in the overall stand of the pubic, their areas of interest with reference to the social security programs, and the necessary support needed to help in overcoming the continued political lack o support for the necessary changes in the programs. To enhance public and other stakeholder support to the programs, there is a dire need to ensure that access control mechanisms should be put in place. The access mechanisms should ensure that the moment people reach their retirement ages, the process of benefiting from the program should not have a lot of discouraging processes and bureaucracies meant to discourage more current tax payers from actively paying their taxes.

Shortcomings of the Current Social Security and Its Lack of Viability
Despite the many efforts made in ensuring that the social security programs in the country remains relevant and continues to be viable for the future, there are a number of drawbacks related to the program. The challenges that the program faces makes it very hard to enforce the various policies and adequately address challenges related to the program. To some people, the program is normally viewed a constant trouble that is aimed at robbing people their cash by giving the cash to the government. According to this people, sometimes the cash lands in very irresponsible peoples hands who misuse the cash without any concern of the actual purpose of the cash. This, according to the people, is evidenced by the fact that most social security benefits experiences a lot of troubles that are mainly caused by ignorance, corruption, lack of experiencing in managing the social security programs, and lack of accountability (Modigliani 2004).

The life expectancy of people in this country is another great issue of concern. Even though, the foreseen problems shall not affect the current or the near future retirees, there is a high possibility that the next generations would be greatly affected in the most possible negative ways. Currently, people tend to live much longer than was expected thus this causes a strain to the resources that had been allocated by the government to the social security programs. The fact that the birthrate is slightly low implies that in the near future, people who would be paying taxes would be much fewer than those who would be demanding money from the government from the social security programs in the country (Sabates-Wheeler and Devereux 2007, p. 3). The high drop in the worker to-the-beneficiary ratio would put a lot of pressure on one side. Either one of the sides would be exploited or the lack of balance would lead to total collapse of the program. Should the current trend continue or even worsen in the future, the n there will not be adequate workers at the working places to pay for money which will cater for the retirees at the current tax rate. The more the worker to the beneficiary ration decrease the worse the situation becomes.

Modigliani (2004) strongly believes that constant decrease in the revenues is a problem that could totally jeopardize the social security problem. The current continued decreases in the total amount of revenues paid to the government are not adequate to cater for the needs of people. This means that the current security benefits cannot be sustained for a longer time unless the government and the tax authorities changes the tax rates in order to increase the overall tax paid to the government while at the same time decreasing the rates of benefits to be accrued by people who have fully qualifies and reached the age of benefiting from the social security program in the country.

Consequently, it is very evident that the future of the social security programs is very bleak, unless tremendous changes are made to the entire taxation systems (Welch and Bello 2007). Short term taxation systems should be utilized in order to ensure that better and more reliable tax systems are integrated to the management taxation and social security programs. Additionally, if the current social security, which is not appealing to the public, is not changed, the level of people committed to it would be low making the entire program to be infeasible to implement. In such circumstances, the entire payroll taxes would have to be increased and todays younger workers, who pay high taxes, would have to receive very low benefits.

The existing alternatives to enhancing viability of social security
If the current trend in the countrys taxation and overall performance of the social security programs was to be maintained, then it is very evident from the discussion above that the social security programs will not have a viable future. Towards that end, there is an urgent need to reform some of the issues and practices in both the taxation and the social security industry. The alternatives to be implemented to ensure that the overall revenues are increased and that the future generations are protected from the possibility of total loss of the money they are currently contributing from the work they do. The alternatives to be initiated should be geared towards ensuring that payroll taxes are maintained at the minimal levels possible while at the same maintaining a reliable and very beneficial social security programs in the country that has peoples trust.

There are four possible basic alternatives which ought to be implemented in order to ensure that social security continues to be a viable issue of concern that would positively impact peoples lives. To begin with, the payroll taxes increment is one of the possible alternatives that should be initiated. The different kinds of taxes that fall under this category would have to be considered and where possible necessary changes on their rates changed to suit the needs of the future social security programs. Taxes such as the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) or the Pay as You Go tax and the taxes paid and directly related to the actual employment of a worker should all be reconsidered and necessary alterations made to them. Moreover, the federal and state unemployment taxes also need to be reconsidered. The taxes should then be adjusted depending on a number of factors both within and outside the job environment. The government should also ensure that the employers remit to the authority the cash they claim to deduct from their employees salaries in form of taxes. In most instances, tax increases should be guided by laws to avoid over exploiting the very reach in the society. At the moment, the annual social security tax rate is 6.2.

The second possible alternative that could be employed in order to sustain the social security programs in the country would be the reduction of the benefits offered to the retirees. Even though the Federal revenues could be utilized, this alternative could involve ensuring that the total monthly or annual benefits are put to the bear minimal if the benefits have to be enjoyed by people for a much longer duration (Welch and Bello 2007). The need to ensure that the future generations benefit from the program is paramount since it would motivate the young-employers to actively contribute to the social security kitty through transparent methods of paying taxes as the law prescribes. Additionally, other special groups such as the militarys pension should also be decreased in order to ensure that the amount paid to the pensioners truly reflect the economic status and the expected market trends.
Thirdly, general revenues could be utilized in ensuring that the future of the social security programs continues to be viable. Rather than concentrating on the monies contributed by individual employers, money could taken from the revue generated other government bodies such as the local government, local authorities, and the revenue generated by the state. However, this could lead to the loss of the actual concept of social security. In cases where voluntary retirement has been take by the individual, the government could ensure that it supplement the individuals with its funds in form of short funds in order to ensure that the actual social security funds are not overstretched. General revenues are also called superfund taxes.

Finally, to enhance the feasibility of the social security in this country, it could also be possible to do it by encouraging people to participate in direct investments trust funds or in personal saving accounts that are open and voluntary. This strategy would enable the government, through various authorities, to do prefunding.  People would be given their cash before their retirement ages and then advised to invest in trust funds or in personal saving accounts.  This would slightly decrease the burden of the government having to incur extra expenses in the management of the cash without actually making any reasonable profits from them. This would also help in ensuring that individuals of more than 72 years do not lose out on the benefits of social security programs

From the above analysis, it is evident that several options which could be used in ensuring that social security continues to be viable do exist. However, most of the options available can never work well if solely applied to the market. Options such as selling of bonds by the treasury could help generate more money to be used in funding the social security needs. The policy makers in the country could also decide to raise the taxes being levied on people in order to ensure that the required money to cater for the needs of the retirees in the social security programs. However, instance of the government printing more money for similar purpose should be opposed at all cost.

 Conclusion
From the above discussion and analysis, it is evident that there is need to change the current approach being used in most social security programs in the country. Instead of making various attempts to get back the lost money in social security through poor planning and lack of accountability among various leaders, it is important that the focus is laid on the need to streamline the operations of various programs. The legislatures in the country should ensure that they formulate policies that would help in the effort to change for the better the manner in which various issues that relates to social security are conducted (Watson 2009). It is very evident that social security in the country is very viable even though minor changes need to be put into place in order to streamline the operations and make people have more trust in it. There is no one single effective social security model thus the need to integrate a number of issues in order to enhance efficiency in the programs.

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