Taxes and What Not

[mikoyan29]

This is a pretty interesting little article I found.

http://wweek.com/portland/article-17...out_taxes.html

[Rapscallion]

So, are you for or against?

Rapscallion

[Andara Bledin]

Honestly, anyone paying attention already knows most of that.

The top 2% make 90% of the money but only pay about 10% of the tax burden, if that.

And politicians, who are usually much closer to the top 2% than the bottom 50% tend to work to keep it that way.

^-.-^

[Dreamstalker]

I've been saying for years that a way to get out of the shitpile we're in is to forcibly tax the richest (and get back taxes from them while we're at it). Distribute that money to where it actually needs to go. While we're at it, everyone who actually wants these wars can pay for 'em.

But I know that's never gonna happen...

[mikoyan29]

Well for the past 30 years, the income at the top tiers of the country has been going up significantly while income everywhere else has either held steady or gone down. Meanwhile, the government has made all sorts of crazy promises and has messed with the tax code to the point where it is broken. The folks at the top are not creating jobs in this company nor are they apparently helping in the infrastructure and I say, if they like China or India so much, maybe they should move there. Oh wait, they might not like that because those countries would tax the hell out of them.

I think all of this goes hand in hand with the current battle over the debt ceiling and just about everything else that's going on in this country. The companies that are providing jobs (the small and midsized businesses) are being asked to pay a larger share of the tax burden as the multinationals figure out new and creative ways to get out of paying taxes.

[protege]

The companies that are providing jobs (the small and midsized businesses) are being asked to pay a larger share of the tax burden as the multinationals figure out new and creative ways to get out of paying taxes.

That's exactly what's going on. Smaller businesses, who provide the *majority* of jobs in the US, are getting shafted over higher taxes. They then decide, "Hey, if I have to hire someone, I'm going to have to pay more in taxes and benefits. Fuck that shit." If they aren't creating jobs, they're only part-time jobs, or barely full-time (39 hours a week instead of 40). It sucks, but it's unfortunate.

I know that everyone likes to point the finger at GE. Sure they've done some shady shit to get out of taxes. However, we must also remember that GE Capital--one of their subsidiaries--lost a shitload of money when the housing bubble collapsed. All of those losses counted against the income that GE itself made. Apparently, even though GE as a whole got pwned--and thus didn't pay as much--some people are still pissed about that. Why? You only pay income taxes if you make money!

[DrFaroohk]

As an aside, I 've heard some businesses deliberately lose money to have tax writeoffs. Do they really do that, and why? why not just keep the money?

[lordlundar]

As an aside, I 've heard some businesses deliberately lose money to have tax writeoffs. Do they really do that, and why? why not just keep the money?

If they keep the money, then they get moved up to the next tax bracket and have to pay more money to the government. That extra amount they have to pay is often in their eyes not worth earning the profits, so they intentionally lose money to stay in their comfort zone and get some benefits from the government as well.

It's unethical, but I can rarely find anything in the business sector that is.

[draco664]

If they keep the money, then they get moved up to the next tax bracket and have to pay more money to the government. That extra amount they have to pay is often in their eyes not worth earning the profits, so they intentionally lose money to stay in their comfort zone and get some benefits from the government as well.

It's unethical, but I can rarely find anything in the business sector that is.

Technically, since a business' legal function is to make shareholders money, any business not actively seeking the best possible tax position is failing its duty.

Kerry Packer, who before he passed was Australia's richest man, once said that it was a person's duty to pay every cent of tax they owed, but if you paid one cent more than you had to you were an idiot. I think he paid about 20K tax a year because of how he set his finances up.

There was a bit of a stink about it at the time, but he pointed out that most of his obscene income came from sources that had already paid tax. No shareholder of a company that pays tax and then pays a dividend from net profits should expect to pay tax on that income.

[DrFaroohk]

If they keep the money, then they get moved up to the next tax bracket and have to pay more money to the government. That extra amount they have to pay is often in their eyes not worth earning the profits, so they intentionally lose money to stay in their comfort zone and get some benefits from the government as well.

It's unethical, but I can rarely find anything in the business sector that is.

And these are the people who complain about government handouts draining the system. I mean really, what hurts the wallet more, the 200 dollars a week given to someone for foodstamps, or like the 90 million the business owners get back in taxes from cooking the books?

I know, I'm generalizing a bit, but I still think there's some truth to it.

[mikoyan29]

My main reason for posting this is that I think our tax code is broken. It is supposed to be progressive, where the rich pay more than the poor and they do but not in a percentage way. I know that there is the table that Limbaugh likes to pull out where 50% of the people don't pay any income taxes but that table doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't include gasoline, sales and other taxes that poor people do pay. Nor does it include the tariffs that we all pay because that gets factored into a company's cost structure.

[DrFaroohk]

Rich people always seem to hate taxes the most. Someone once criticized me because since i've never earned a real paycheck (his words) I can't really understand taxes. See, cuz his paychecks were HUGE...like 4K a week or something. My paychecks were tiny - like 300 a week. So yeah, I paid like 60 a week in taxes, and he was probably losing a good 1K at least, so he's paying more. But I missed that 60 a lot more than he missed his.