Wait a minute! People actually believed that the lowest earners shouldered the majority of our tax burden? That’s what you get when you get your news from cable networks… or don’t read anything but what’s on the internet.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
And then when you, who have never even seen an American tax form, tell an American accountant that he doesn’t understand what he’s talking about with regard to American taxes, compared to you, and gee, all you have to is incorporate in Nevada, it goes to the completely off-the-wall.[/quote]
But why is he correct and the so-called accountant cannot even understand a very simple idea?
Finding the loop holes in US Tax Code isn’t too difficult especially for the rich who pay accountants to do just that.
Talk about a profession that only exists because of the IRS. What a waste. He doesn’t even get what a joke his job is.
[quote]Therizza wrote:
Wait a minute! People actually believed that the lowest earners shouldered the majority of our tax burden? That’s what you get when you get your news from cable networks… or don’t read anything but what’s on the internet.[/quote]
Follow along please. The argument is not that they do not pay ANY taxes it is that they can effectively hide their income so that they do not pay in proportion to their actual incomes – which is a completely arbitrary notion to the individually wealthy, anyway.
Lifticus, are you thinking about and trying to say productive things with regard to the topic of this thread, or are you engaging in public mental masturbation?
It looks a lot more like the latter.
In case you hadn’t noticed, as not a single post of yours recognizes the fact, the thread is not about whether the John and what’s-her-name Kerry’s of the world pay a high percentage of their increase in wealth each year to taxes. And right off the bat it was stated plainly that such are able to pay a low percentage. That was never either the topic nor, if someone wanted to bring it up as an additional point, in dispute.
The thread is about the top 1% – which is over or about a million Americans, mostly professionals drawing a salary and small business owners – not the top 0.001%. If you hadn’t noticed.
So exactly what the purpose or point of your posts is, besides indulging yourself or trying to show that you read a book, is not remotely clear.
Additionally, in terms of relevance: Are you unaware that when politicians wanting to raise taxes talk about how the “rich” aren’t paying their fair share and propose a tax increase on the “rich,” they are NOT talking about the John Kerrys of the world?
The relevance in terms of what is going on politically today, even if not concerning yourself with the topic of the thread, is not on the top 0.001% or even the top 0.01%.
It is on increasing taxes for families making over $250K per year, and for individuals some figure such as $150K, even by their own admission.
In reality, they consider “rich” anything more than perhaps one standard deviation over the median (not that they think in statistical terms.) In other words, in reality they view a tax increase on an individual making say $80K per year as being a tax increase on “the rich,” with that individual supposedly presently “not paying his fair share.”
People constantly changing the argument, as you do, to the super-rich and agreeing “the rich don’t pay a high percentage in taxes” are just playing into their game. Hope that makes you feel good!
But it sure as heck contributes nothing to the discussion but distraction.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
orion wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
Orion can correct me if I’m wrong as to what I meant, but it seems to me that he means that if you don’t ever want to yourself see or be able to use for personal expenses or possessions the income that you earn, and you own your own business and are incorporated, you can drive your personal income tax to zero or a low level.
He seems to be confused on thinking that in America the corporation can earn the profit and yet still have it available for you to have, as the owner, when you want it. Being utterly unfamiliar with American tax law, yet presuming to educate an American accountant on it, I suppose he does not know that the sum of the corporate income tax rate and tax on dividends is just as high as the personal income tax rate.
(Pre-emptive strike: Saying that the customers pay the corporate income tax does not change the above consideration in any case where the owner wants to himself be able to enjoy the money earned on things like all his personal and family expenses, things he would like to buy for himself, college education for the kids, etc, etc.)
But having only the shallowest knowledge of America gleaned from thousands of miles away never has stopped and I guess never will stop Orion from assuming that he knows more about how things are done in America than those that have been immersed in this society for decades. So the above will probably just get another post saying how we just don’t understand American taxation.
See, despite being wrong on almost all counts, because your tax law is very similar to other nations you seem to get the gist of it.
Yes, if you want to consume your money, spend it on your family, whatever, it gets harder to avoid taxation.
However, the richer you are, the less important that relatively small amount of you fortune becomes.
No, I am not wrong.
Your answer to the fact that the upper 10% – which is tens of millions of Americans – and the upper 1% – which is a million or so Americans – pay a crushing tax burden and carry the great majority of the burden of government is that those of us saying this are wrong, because if we were in a situation where incorporation would apply, and IF WE WANTED TO LIVE LIKE PAUPERS AND SEE VERY LITTLE OF OUR MONEY BENEFIT OURSELVES OR OUR FAMILIES, then we wouldn’t have to pay much if any personal income tax.
(Though generally the corporation would then have to pay the corporate income tax rate, which is the second highest in the world.)
Your argument is a total “so what?” and is completely irrelevant to the reality of the problem.
And then when you, who have never even seen an American tax form, tell an American accountant that he doesn’t understand what he’s talking about with regard to American taxes, compared to you, and gee, all you have to do is incorporate in Nevada, it goes to the completely off-the-wall.[/quote]
Corporations do not pay income taxes.
Their customer do.
See my article “taxation 101”.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Talk about a profession that only exists because of the IRS. What a waste. He doesn’t even get what a joke his job is.[/quote]
Hey, he is the private market answer to legal robbery!
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Lifticus, are you thinking about and trying to say productive things with regard to the topic of this thread, or are you engaging in public mental masturbation?
It looks a lot more like the latter.
In case you hadn’t noticed, as not a single post of yours recognizes the fact, the thread is not about whether the John and what’s-her-name Kerry’s of the world pay a high percentage of their increase in wealth each year to taxes. And right off the bat it was stated plainly that such are able to pay a low percentage. That was never either the topic nor, if someone wanted to bring it up as an additional point, in dispute.
The thread is about the top 1% – which is over or about a million Americans, mostly professionals drawing a salary and small business owners – not the top 0.001%. If you hadn’t noticed.
So exactly what the purpose or point of your posts is, besides indulging yourself or trying to show that you read a book, is not remotely clear.
Additionally, in terms of relevance: Are you unaware that when politicians wanting to raise taxes talk about how the “rich” aren’t paying their fair share and propose a tax increase on the “rich,” they are NOT talking about the John Kerrys of the world?
The relevance in terms of what is going on politically today, even if not concerning yourself with the topic of the thread, is not on the top 0.001% or even the top 0.01%.
It is on increasing taxes for families making over $250K per year, and for individuals some figure such as $150K, even by their own admission.
In reality, they consider “rich” anything more than perhaps one standard deviation over the median (not that they think in statistical terms.) In other words, in reality they view a tax increase on an individual making say $80K per year as being a tax increase on “the rich,” with that individual supposedly presently “not paying his fair share.”
People constantly changing the argument, as you do, to the super-rich and agreeing “the rich don’t pay a high percentage in taxes” are just playing into their game. Hope that makes you feel good!
But it sure as heck contributes nothing to the discussion but distraction.[/quote]
You are right when you say that the “rich” do not pay that much.
It is the actual middle class, making a few hundred thousand K a year.
So, what “myth” has he “debunked”?
If you accept that the “rich” pay so much taxes, you automatically accept their definition of rich.
No, the richer you are the less you pay percentage wise and the middle class gets fucked.
That is what you should focus on and the presented statistic just muddies the waters.
Incidentally we have a flat corporate tax rate of 25%. Not because our politicians would not love to get at the “rich”, it is just that it commonly understood that the taxation of corporations is not the way to do it.
OK, let’s for a moment stipulate that you’re right, the matter under discussion SHOULDN’T be what the OP presented it as and what everyone else but you and Lifticus was discussing – about what the top 1% or about a million Americans are paying – but SHOULD be about what percentage of their increase in wealth a few thousand of the super-rich are paying.
Which no one was denying in the first place is a fairly low percentage.
Now, in light of the fact that the political issues at hand are tax increases on people such as the top 1% and the top 10%, whom the politicians and media call “rich,” you find it a more important issue that the super-rich don’t pay enough (if you even think that), rather than that the people actually being talked about are already very heavily taxed and yet the endless parrotting is that they “don’t pay their fair share” and the issues at hand are increases on them, not the super-rich?
I don’t know about your position, but Lifticus’ one, if I understood one of his posts correctly, is that the super-rich ideally wouldn’t be taxed at all. And I doubt your position really is that in an ideal society they should be taxed more heavily than they presently actually are.
So exactly why do you turn the discussion from the relevant one, to one that isn’t even relevant to you in terms of what you think important?
Unless I’m wrong and actually you are deeply distressed that the super-rich don’t pay a high percentage, while feeling that there’s nothing wrong with Obama’s tax increases hitting professionals and small-business owners and others of similar income that, to the American media and politicians, qualifies them as “rich”?
On your argument about words: It is about as useful as – there is absolutely no intent to cause harmed feelings or to suggest that taxation is as bad as internment and death, it is not – a person in Nazi Germany whom Hitler and persons in general in Germany would classify as Jewish, arguing that they are using the word the wrong way, he is not Jewish by his definition, and arguing that Hitler is wrong for what he is doing to the Jews is just ‘automatically accepting their definition’ and thus the person rejects all arguments about the wrongness of what Hitler is doing and insists he isn’t included.
When in fact they are coming for him.
(I would rather use another example but at the moment can’t think of an alternate one where the government defines a class of people they are going to go after in any way, and there could be argument about the meaning.)
When the politicians and the media call the income level “rich” that they do, and someone starts a discussion that is PLAINLY about the top 1% not the top 0.001%, for you to insist that they are using words wrongly and therefore really the dogma in question is correct is just sticking your head in the sand. And you are the one acting to support their propaganda.
The issue in America – but you’re not here and you don’t know – is class warfare defining very ordinary people as being “rich,” claiming they don’t pay their fair share, and ginning up votes from those making less and raising money for government programs by promising to take yet more from these very ordinary professionals and small-business owners and others with rather ordinary, though better than average, incomes.
But instead you think it’s more important to talk about whether such as John Kerry pay a high percentage in taxes, when NO ONE DISPUTED IN THE FIRST PLACE THAT THEY DON’T.
And when the politicians say the “rich don’t pay their fair share” and that they are going to increase taxes on “the rich” they don’t mean John Kerry. You are answering to something that is not the issue on the table. Not remotely the issue.
So what exactly was the purpose of your and Lifticus’ posts except to show thatyou read a book, or that (in your own mind anyway) you know more about American taxation, without ever having even seen a single IRS form let alone had to file U.S. taxes, than does an American accountant?
I just can’t see the purpose, besides those.
Guess what, you win and I’m going to address you again, you sucked me back in…
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
But why is he correct and the so-called accountant cannot even understand a very simple idea?[/quote]
I am an accountant. What did you make last year? If you are honest I’ll tell you what my bonus was, which I’m sure is at least a 3rd of what you made last year. My so-called accountant salary isn’t anything to laugh at.
And what don’t I understand? There are certain points I will argue with you two about, but others I will not. I refuse to argue with people that claim 2x2=7. (To which some of your arguments equate.)
That is why you are ignorant. There is no “loopholes”. The code is the code. The same opportunity for deductions, distributions, etc are available to everyone. Just because some people are smart enough to tax plan, and operate in a manor that reduces tax liability doesn’t mean everyone can’t. Just so happens “rich” people are often smart enough to take advantage of the credits & deductions you call “loopholes” because you are too lazy & ignorant to tax plan.
In fact, most deductions, credits and so called “loopholes” are phased out the higher your income. So under that rational, the “poor” people should be taking more advantage of the code than the “rich”.
My job is a joke?
Look up the definition of Audit. Do you own any stock? How about a 401k?
Lol, if you think a business of any appreciable size could run effectively without a competent accounting department you are truly ignorant enough where I assume someone read the books you quote to you.
[quote]orion wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Talk about a profession that only exists because of the IRS. What a waste. He doesn’t even get what a joke his job is.
Hey, he is the private market answer to legal robbery!
[/quote]
lol.
Yup champ, how is it you contribute to society again?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Follow along please. The argument is not that they do not pay ANY taxes it is that they can effectively hide their income so that they do not pay in proportion to their actual incomes – which is a completely arbitrary notion to the individually wealthy, anyway.[/quote]
Follow along please… Outside of committing fraud one cannot hide income.
Yes, someone with half a brain can operate in a way to minimize income tax, shelter their wealth, but it is truly only a temporary situation. And there is only so much one can do. You cannot just keep all your wealth in a C corp, and would be a toolbag retard to keep it in an S corp because you are paying the tax in the income from the S, plus you can take distributions from an S dependent upon At Risk limits. (Same goes for a partnership.)
Wait do you two know the difference right? Off to Wikipedia you go…
And before you go off with your school book bullshit, outside of legal liability, a C corp is the worst form of ownership for a small business. The precedence of law is the only real advantage, but with the S corp available, it would be foolish to go C, unless you plan on going public.
You make money, you pay tax. Period, that is it, end of story. (Again that is assuming you are NOT committing fraud.) You may not pay tax this year, but you will eventually. (That is also assuming they don’t change the estate taxes. In which case you would be able to shelter your wealth from tax for generations.) That is why ANYONE with money needs to see a lawyer or accountant about estate planning before death is eminent.
You can set up your kids without paying out your ass in tax.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Excuse me for not being able to read a 78 page article at the drop of the hat. I’ll get to it next weekend. But from this excerpt, you have surely mistated the central principle. The article is about an optimal tax system.
But nothing in there says that someone making $160K a year does not have a high percentage of income going to taxes, and it cannot be read that way. If I’m wrong, I’ll find out Saturday. Maybe I will discover a wonderful new way to avoid paying a high rate of tax.
Maybe you shouldn’t comment until you do.[/quote]
That’s rich, coming from you. Anyhow, I’ll read it this weekend because it’s interesting to me. But Bill already explained the central flaw and problem. I don’t expect this article to be earthshattering to any degree.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
orion wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Talk about a profession that only exists because of the IRS. What a waste. He doesn’t even get what a joke his job is.
Hey, he is the private market answer to legal robbery!
lol.
Yup champ, how is it you contribute to society again?[/quote]
No, I meant that as a compliment.
You hopefully help people to avoid as many taxes as possible.
So my post was 100% irony free.
[quote]orion wrote:
countingbeans wrote:
orion wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Talk about a profession that only exists because of the IRS. What a waste. He doesn’t even get what a joke his job is.
Hey, he is the private market answer to legal robbery!
lol.
Yup champ, how is it you contribute to society again?
No, I meant that as a compliment.
You hopefully help people to avoid as many taxes as possible.
So my post was 100% irony free.
[/quote]
We do not avoid tax, that is a felony.
We maximize deductions, and shelter as much income from taxes as legally possible.
lol, the language you use is very important.
But thanks I guess.
orion,
So, let’s recap: you believe that absent information about personal assets, the top 1% of all income-earners are actually middle-class because they are still income-earners (c.f. Teresa Heinz Kerry). Moreover, you believe that because a corporation derives its revenues from consumers, and the so-called “corporate taxes” are taken from these revenues, the corporations didn’t pay any of the taxes; the consumers did. Finally, as a related point to the first, you believe that the truly rich, defined as people who don’t work for money but rather have their money work for them, aren’t paying much in taxes.
For the first point, it’s a definitional issue, and thus not worth arguing over. There’s nothing “wrong” with your definition. Richard Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, would certainly agree with you that as long as you’re working for money, you’re middle-class, even if the money you work for comes out to be quite a high amount.
For the second point, really and truly, you haven’t said anything wrong. This perspective is overflowing with liberal bias, but it is still technically correct.
For the third point, I’d like to say a few things. First, going back to the Richard Rahn (Cato Institute) article, assuming that the second family represents a family that did not benefit from any inheritances, did it occur to you that in order to amass a net worth of $7 million, you probably had to have earned a substantial income for many decades? Thus, wouldn’t you agree that it’s extremely likely that before this family became truly rich, they were middle-class? Again, assuming no inheritances, this is a straightforward consequence of the Intermediate Value Theorem. Second, do you have a source on how many people in this country are like Teresa Heinz Kerry? I promise you that the overwhelmingly majority of our country can’t have her asset allocation strategy and survive.
Orion, what kind of tax system do you support? You seem to be against corporations’ “not” paying taxes and against the truly rich’s ability to avoid taxes. (By the way, tax avoidance is completely legal.) On the off chance that you support a tax on wealth, may I remind you that your Richard Rahn source is highly critical of that idea?
Obviously the below is subject to correction by Orion as to whether it fairly represents his positions. It is only what I have gathered from his posts.
I agree with you that he disagrees with the definition of “rich” as including people such as professionals, small-business owners, and others with a combined family income such as $275K per year.
So do I.
Politicians and the media are doing this as class-warfare and to justify tax increases on such quite ordinary people, albeit with above-average incomes. Because the average voter they are catering too wants tax increases on “the rich.”
And the average such voter is probably so careless a thinker that when he hears the politician is going to raise taxes on “the rich” and only on “the rich,” he has no idea this means his doctor, five of his neighbors living on the same block, the owners of many of the small business he buys from, and the owner of the small business he himself is employed by.
However the thread was plainly about the top 1% that these politicians call “the rich,” on whom the tax increases are planned, and who are claimed to not be paying “their fair share” already. Not on the John and Theresa Kerrys of the world and their like that Orion wanted to talk about, but of whom no one was disputing that they pay a relatively low percentage.
Yes, Orion is convinced that since corporations derive their income from their consumers, therefore the consumers pay the corporate income tax and the corporations pay nothing, regardless that money is now not available for payment as dividends or towards capital improvements, paydown of debt, or anything else that, if not for the tax, would benefit the shareholders. I am sure he will next tell us that since I derive my income from Biotest, therefore I pay no personal income tax. That is news to me, but clearly is true to Orion. In a literal sense there is truth to it – that is where the dollars came from – but in the practical reality of whether I am out anything or not, it would be absurd nonsense if claimed. But it is precisely parallel.
No, I don’t gather that Orion is against corporations “not” paying taxes or that he wants them hit financially in some way that they now are not.
I also don’t gather that he is against the actually-rich being able to preserve much of their gains in wealth from taxation, or that he supports a tax on wealth.
It seems to me generally that Orion has philosophical points that he wants to make, and is consistent in these points. It’s just that sometimes what is actually going on in America and is being discussed, doesn’t match up with his intellectual model of it (not actually being in America).
Thus for example having a model that a couple earning a combined total of just over $250K can’t be called rich, therefore the discussion cannot be about whether they don’t pay “their fair share” as widely claimed, therefore the “myth” in the title is actually right not wrong, etc.
But the fact is, such ARE categorized as “the rich” by tax-raising politicians, and such ARE widely believed to “not be paying their fair share” and that is a big part of why voters put into office politicians promising to raise taxes on these people, while having no plans to raise taxes on such as John Kerry.
So while satisfying his theoretical model, in practice his arguments on such things don’t apply. It does no good to insist that the super-rich do pay a low percentage in taxes, when we already knew that, no one disputed it, and it isn’t the topic of discussion. Except for satisfying an intellectual model that differs from what is actually going on, in practice, in America, the country being talked about.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Excuse me for not being able to read a 78 page article at the drop of the hat. I’ll get to it next weekend. But from this excerpt, you have surely mistated the central principle. The article is about an optimal tax system.
But nothing in there says that someone making $160K a year does not have a high percentage of income going to taxes, and it cannot be read that way. If I’m wrong, I’ll find out Saturday. Maybe I will discover a wonderful new way to avoid paying a high rate of tax.[/quote]
As an aside…and shorter…
"The numbers could hardly be more stark: Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion.
Other figures in an Associated Press analysis underscore the recession’s impact: Individual income tax receipts are down 22 percent from a year ago. Corporate income taxes are down 57 percent. Social Security tax receipts could drop for only the second time since 1940, and Medicare taxes are on pace to drop for only the third time ever.
The last time the government’s revenues were this bleak, the year was 1932 in the midst of the Depression."
You earn more, you pay more in taxes. Plain and simple. Lower class people need to stop bitching about businesses and corporations making money. They earned it, they pay a massive amount in taxes(assume at least 25% of a million dollars, which is 250,000 a year), yet people still bitch that the rich don’t pay taxes.
Want to earn more money? Work more, save more, spend less. You can be a millionaire yourself if you watch your money closely and know where to diversify it. Better to be financially stable than a broke ass with a bunch of useless materials that you had to buy to look good!!!
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Excuse me for not being able to read a 78 page article at the drop of the hat. I’ll get to it next weekend. But from this excerpt, you have surely mistated the central principle. The article is about an optimal tax system.
But nothing in there says that someone making $160K a year does not have a high percentage of income going to taxes, and it cannot be read that way. If I’m wrong, I’ll find out Saturday. Maybe I will discover a wonderful new way to avoid paying a high rate of tax.
As an aside…and shorter…
"The numbers could hardly be more stark: Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion.
Other figures in an Associated Press analysis underscore the recession’s impact: Individual income tax receipts are down 22 percent from a year ago. Corporate income taxes are down 57 percent. Social Security tax receipts could drop for only the second time since 1940, and Medicare taxes are on pace to drop for only the third time ever.
The last time the government’s revenues were this bleak, the year was 1932 in the midst of the Depression."
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article12505.html
[/quote]
Yeah, I’m sure that this is true. Less taxable income certainly means less going to the government in taxes.
Ok, so I read this Elasticity article. Orion, remind me again what proposition you were citing this article for. Because, by all accounts, it was about behavioral responses to taxation. And said nothing about what percentage of real income people are paying in taxes in various tax brackets. Except for one small throw-away line about the ability to shelter income for some. Something I already mentioned. Moreover, this is a very poor article as well. In 78 pages, it did a very poor job of explaining WHAT the actual behavior response is to changes in taxation.