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It's similar here in the US. All transactions above $10k
https://www.irs.gov/businesses...

I will NOT settle and be happy for "what I have", I will take what I earn.

Blame taxes. Per capita, and adjusted for inflation, the average US taxpayer now pays about 50% more than what they did, back in 1960.

Federal income taxes in 1960 were $41 billion, in 2012 it was $1.13 trillion - that's a 30X increase. The number of tax returns went from 61 million to 145 million. And a dollar in 1960 was worth $7.76 in 2012. Add that all up, and the average taxpayer is paying about 50% more than they did back in the day.

And that is just Federal income taxes. State taxes have gone up, and of course Social Security/Medicare has more than doubled from 3% to 8%. Combine all that together, and the average person is paying quite a bit more in income taxes today, and that does not help with the situation at all.

I will say from the outside looking in the argument that any of these awards shows are "trade organizations" seems quite weak, and I would love to see how the court case goes here...

Yes, it's quite a weak argument when you publicly categorize yourself as a trade organization for an exemption from taxation by the IRS.

It was a tax tax cut and an increase in standard deduction. "Fucked with withholdings". They took less out because tax rates went down. If your HR fucked with your withholding that doesn't have much ado about the government or tax cut.

Of course tax rates influence withholdings yet this is not the entire story.
https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/n...

Why would you want a return? That means you had the government take too much money. That means you coudn't use that money or save that money and earn some kind of interest in a savings account (any interest rate is better than what the government gives) or invest it (any return is better than what the government gives). Why would you let any institution hold your money for nothing?

While I tend to agree with this sentiment it's irrelevant WRT my comments.

The point is not every extra dollar in pay check is due to lower taxes. They lowered the margins on withholdings. You can have any opinion you want on the merits of it. My point is only that it occurred.

I believe the Politifact article you are referring to is: here. If this is not your article, please provide a link. This link shows your post to either be confused or full of carefully constructed half truths.

Your list of net givers appears to be taken from the figure from the California Legislative Analyst's Office, January 2017 (original). If so, you are reading that figure wrong. That is the per capita federal spending in the state - what the feds send back, not the net transfer.

Much of the original discussion around this started with a study from The Tax Foundation. Characterizations of this group range from neutral/non-partisan to fiscal conservative/business friendly. That study listed the top ten givers as:

Colorado: $0.81
New York: $0.79
California: $0.78
Delaware: $0.77
Illinois: $0.75
Minnesota: $0.72
New Hampshire: $0.71
Connecticut: $0.69
Nevada: $0.65
New Jersey: $0.61

and takers as

New Mexico: $2.03
Mississippi: $2.02
Alaska: $1.84
Louisiana: $1.78
West Virginia: $1.76
North Dakota: $1.68
Alabama: $1.66
South Dakota: $1.53
Kentucky: $1.51
Virginia: $1.51

But that's from 2005, and the California report I linked to above said they had questions about its methodology around estimating taxes paid by Californians.

WalletHub put out an analysis last year on "2018’s Most & Least Federally Dependent States." That list is largely similar, but with California buried at (gasp!) #39.

I have better things to do on a Saturday than correct people on the Internet, but if you'd actually like to have an informed discussion, we can pull data from the IRS and understand why PolitiFact's conclusion was there isn't a simple answer.

I'm not sure what I'm missing here. With the data from the website provided, I'm a bit confused when I compare with the IRS statistics (look at table 3.5) and there are only 34,769,282 out of 150,272,157 filers that pay $0 tax (10 millions from capital gained is a part of the 34.7 millions).

But after I look closely on the small print on the source site that your link provided, I'm seeing why the number of those paying 0% on the site is exaggerated.

(5) Calculated as: all non-filers plus filers with federal individual income tax of less than $5.

What this meant to me is that the non-filers are included as those who are paying $0 taxes. This is not true at all. Those non-filers are, as the name, not filing tax return. But that doesn't mean they pay $0 taxes. The IRS doesn't require an individual to file tax return if the person does not owe any taxes. This meant the individual either does not have income for the year or has his/her wages withheld at the exact amount for tax year. In other words, the person owes $0 to IRS, so no filing required. However, the person also can't get tax money back if the person overpaid the taxes unless the person file the tax return. Another catch is that if the person either owes money (not paying taxes or tax withhold is not enough) or has filed tax return in the previous year, then the person MUST file tax return in that year and there after. In other words, once a person starts filing tax return, the person must continue to file tax return in later years regardless his/her income.

Another reason is that the number of returns in the IRS table is from both single and married filing. As a result, the married couple is counted as one return. So the total number returns is less than the total number of people who filed tax return. This can be fixed by cross reference with another table 3.6 (marital status).

In conclusion, the number on people should not be used in context of paying $0 [income] taxes. The number used in this type of statistic should directly come from the number of filing tax return itself in order to give the correct picture of tax return.

I'm not sure how your post is related to what you quoted from the parent post...

What the parent post talking about is that the money that goes into SS fund is coming out from each employee and employer at the rate of 6.2% of the employee's salary. The amount is calculated separately from (or in addition to) federal/state taxes. If you look at your W2, you should be able to figure it out.

The idea that the 1% has all the power is a myth. The IRS tax stats are freely available for anyone to see and analyze. The 1% (everyone making approx $500k per year or more) only accounts for 19% of total income in the U.S. The vast majority of economic power in the U.S. (64% of all income) rests with those making $50k-$500k per year.

Who care about income? Wealth is where the power is.

The top 1% in net worth in the U.S. hold 40% of the nation's wealth. The bottom 50% in net worth of the U.S. population combined hold 1% of the nation's wealth.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (First paragraph and first chart.)

The idea that the 1% has all the power is a myth. The IRS tax stats are freely available for anyone to see and analyze. The 1% (everyone making approx $500k per year or more) only accounts for 19% of total income in the U.S. The vast majority of economic power in the U.S. (64% of all income) rests with those making $50k-$500k per year.

This is also why the fantasies about giving the 1% a 90% tax rate won't really accomplish much. The 1% simply doesn't make enough money. If you taxed them at 90% (which with certain state tax rates would be a 100% total tax rate), that would only bring in enough money to pay for about a third of the Federal budget. Paying for the Federal government at its current size requires a significant tax rate on those making $50k to $500k, and increasing Federal spending means the taxes on those people has to increase to pay for it.

That said, the ineptocracy happens because currently 61% of the adult population makes less than $50k, and 43% of adults make less than $30k. If you don't flatten income distribution so a majority of the population makes the majority of income, the majority of the population will simply vote to take via government programs what they're not being paid enough to buy on their own. And the end result will be an ineptocracy.

Anything else is fleecing the middle class to pay for the extravagance of the ultra rich.

The people who buy the products are the ones paying for the taxes. They're the ones generating the revenue for Apple, and a portion of that revenue is used to pay for taxes. For OECD nations, the purchasers are predominantly middle class people.

Your belief isn't entirely wrong. It's true in countries whose development has stalled at around $10k per capita. Those countries typically have a small group of extremely wealthy people who maintain their status not just by creating economic activity, but by preventing (via corruption) others from becoming wealthy. They maintain their big fish in the little pond status. In these countries, the ultra-wealthy can account for 50% or more of total income.

But the OECD nations (who predominantly have a GDP per capita in excess of $30k) are far beyond this stage. To reach OECD levels of economic efficiency requires you to pay the middle and lower classes more (or rather, pay them closer to the actual productivity they're generating). Henry Ford accidentally stumbled upon this when he paid his workers what was a then-unheard-of $5 per day. His workers were paid well enough that they could afford to buy the cars they were producing, which generated more work for them, which meant more workers were hired, which meant more of them could buy cars. which meant more work, etc. This feedback loop helped turn the U.S. into the world's top economy, and made Ford one of the richest men on earth.

As a consequence, the income distribution in OECD nations is skewed heavily towards the middle. For example, the ultra-rich in the U.S. (say, everyone making $1 million/yr or more, about 0.4% of the population) only accounts for 13% of total income. Even if you taxed them at 100% as Warren and Ocasio-Cortez would like to do, that would only be $1.36 trillion in tax revenue. Or just 33% of the 2018 Federal budget ($4.094 trillion). The percentage is even smaller if you include state and local government budgets (another $3.85 trillion). The bulk of income in the U.S. actually goes to those making $50k-$500k a year. Those income brackets accounts for 64% of all income in the U.S., or over $6.5 trillion. You have to tax those middle class to lower upper class people heavily if you wish to pay for the levels of government spending we currently have.

the ruling class not wanting to pay for it is holding it back.

The IRS tax stats are readily available. The 'ruling class" (say everyone making over $1 million/yr) only accounts for 13.3% of total gross income (2016, column E).

% of total income - income bracket
0.3% - less than $5,000
0.8% - $5k to $10k
1.4% - $10k to $15k
1.9% - $15k to $20k
2.2% - $20k to $25k
2.4% - $25k to $30k
5.1% - $30k to $40k
5.1% - $40k to $50k
12.1% - $50k to $75k
11.0% - $75k to $100k
25.0% - $100k to $200k
15.5% - $200k to $500k
5.9% - $500k to $1 million
2.3% - $1 million to $1.5 million
1.3% - $1.5 million to $2 million
3.2% - $2 million to $5 million
1.8% - $5 million to $10 million
4.7% - $10 million or more

The bulk of the income in the U.S. is made by the upper middle class and the lower upper class - people making $50k-$500k per year. They're the ones you have to tax if you want to fund any sizable programs. (And no, increasing corporate taxes won't help. Corporate taxes are paid from profits, so higher corporate taxes would reduce the profits distributed to stockholders. So increasing corporate taxes is equivalent to increasing the income tax of those stockholders.)

I mean, we have massive amounts of data that single payer healthcare would be infinitely superior. The latest studies (real ones done by Universities) show $5 trillion savings every 10 years.

The U.S. currently spends $3.5 trillion/yr on health care. A $5 trillion savings over 10 years would knock that down to $3 trillion/yr.

The total gross income of everyone making over $1 million/yr (column D) is only $1.36 trillion/yr. Even if you taxed "the ruling class" at 100%, you'd get less than half the money needed to pay for single payer healthcare. You'd have to confiscate 100% of the income of everyone making a bit over $200k/yr to generate $3 trillion in tax revenue ($200k/yr and up have a gross income of $3.5 trillion).

...Google just wants to ensure that their employees don't cause contractors to be reclassified as Full-Time Employees by the IRS. This is a very common issue and is of particular focus for the IRS currently. If you've paid someone as a contractor/1099 and the IRS audits your payroll taxes, Google would owe the "unpaid" payroll taxes (7.5%) plus penalties. Here is information about employee classification: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/u... In addition to the items listed, thing like including them in all company meetings, giving bonuses, giving direct/day-to-day instruction are all things that companies have to do in order to avoid this issue. The penalty is assessed against one year of the person's wages if they're reclassified. This helps limit the damage as, even if a contractor has worked for 20 years at a company that should have been treating them as an FTE, they'll only assess back payroll taxes and penalties on that one year. All that said, I'm not saying I agree with what Google is doing - they could certainly afford to hire FTEs - but this strikes me as good policy given the regulatory environment around this issue.

Standard "self-employed" IRS forms (Schedule C as I recall) allow one to account for business use of a car.

That's true. But being self-employed also means paying all of your social security tax. That's about 7% more off the top than an employee pays. And of course it means no benefits. The primary scam of Uber and Lyft is to hire lackey employees and call them contractors, thereby saddling them with those extra expenses.

Also, that deduction doesn't come close to covering the cost/maintenance/gas for a car. You're only counting gas and repairs. On an older car repairs are very expensive. Buying a new car is very expensive. You can't use your car for business very long before you need to account for those expenses. Schedule C deductions are a help, but only a help.

A very valid point about being a contractor vs an employee in terms of benefits and taxes.

However unless I am misunderstanding your point, you are incorrect about the deduction not covering all the costs. If using the actual expenses rather than the "standard per mile", it does in fact cover all of the actual expenses - fuel, maintenance, depreciation, tires, insurance, registration - everything. If you buy a car, use it for a few years, then sell it - all of your expenses and costs (less the final sales price) would be available to be deducted (or the pro-rated mileage fraction that is business-use if you also make use of it in non-business contexts). Unless I have been doing it wrong for over a couple of decades now, all actual expenses are covered.

See Chapter 4 of IRS Publication 463: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pd...

Actual Car Expenses include: Depreciation, License and Registration, Gas and Oil, Tolls and Parking fees, Lease Payments, Insurance, Garage Rent and Repairs and Tires. What is missing?

OK, there are some complications on the depreciation amounts available depending on when it was purchased and when it was put into service. And using the standard deduction one year might preclude using the actual costs (or visa versa I never remember which way is forbidden) the next year. In my case I calculate it both ways, and I think the standard deduction is always greater than the itemized one - but if you drive a gas guzzler this might not be the case. Then again for super high mileage driving perhaps the standard deduction allows you to make out like a bandit expense-wise since many of the costs (parking, license, insurance) are time based and thus uncoupled from mileage, and depreciation and maintenance are partially time based and not completely mileage based.

The Federal $7500 EV subsidy was structured as a tax credit. To take full advantage of the credit, you had to owe at least $7500 on your Federal taxes the year you bought/leased the EV. If you look at the 2016 IRS tax stats, you had to make about $80k/yr (column O*1000 / column N) to receive the full credit, which would put you in the top third of the U.S. by income. Someone making the U.S. median income of $59k would only receive about $4500. Or put another way, the subsidy makes that Leaf cost $3k less for the guy making $80k+ than it does for someone making $59k.

If you don't like EVs, you should be for repealing the subsidy because you don't think EVs should be subsidized.

If you like EVs, you should be for repealing the subsidy because it unfairly benefits wealthy people.

If Americans were actually getting paid relative to their productivity then they'd have the wherewithal to afford locally sourced products, even at double or triple the price of imports. [...] We need to fix the income inequality in our country first,

U.S. income distribution is actually pretty good. Certainly not at European levels, but it's a myth that the 1% control U.S. income. Income stats are readily available from the iRS. The top 1% (about $500k/yr and above) only account for about 19% of total income. The top 5% (about $200k/yr and above) account for about 35% of total income. The problem is the top 25% (about $75k/yr and above) account for 70% of income. And the top 50% (about $38k/yr and above) account for 90% of income.

That is, the bottom 50% only make 10% of the income. So the problem is not limited to the 1%. Even if you confiscated all of the top 1%'s income and distributed it to the bottom 50%, that would only improve their share of income from 10% to 29%. If you make more than about $38k/yr, and especially if you make more than $75k/yr, you are part of the problem.

You're also incorrect in assuming that increased equality always equals more productivity. Aside from city-states and countries with disproportionate oil imports or banking industries, the U.S. leads the world in GDP per capita. That is, there isn't a linear correlation between income inequality and productivity. Extremely high income inequality like in nations with high corruption (Central America, Taiwan, South Korea, and China) reduces GDP per capita (productivity per citizen). But extremely low income inequality like in EU nations also reduces productivity per citizen. The U.S. sits at pretty much near the productivity optimum - the amount of income inequality it has is just about what you need if you wish to maximize productivity per citizen.

I liken it to the checkout lane problem. What's the quickest way to get shoppers checked out of a supermarket? Fast lanes (where a few elite shoppers get their own dedicated lanes with no waiting) obviously slow things down. But if you try to make everything equal (everyone stands in one line, and the person in front goes to the next available checkout lane, so it's impossible for someone who's waited less time to check out before you), that actually ends up being slower than if everyone just picks whichever lane they want. In the pick-your-own-lane model, inequality is higher (you sometimes get stuck in a slow lane so other people who've waited less than you get checked out before you). But on average the extra time added on due to the inequality is less than the time added due to the inefficiency of trying to make everything equal (in the one-line model, each checkout lane sits idle slightly longer while it waits for the next person to move from the one line to the register). Satisfaction is higher because people like fairness and equality, but the higher equality actually results in lower productivity.

So one can argue that income equality is a more desirable goal from a moral standpoint. But economically it is not optimal - a certain level of inequality is needed to maximize productivity per capita. We can still do it, like how we do not discriminate against physically disabled persons holding jobs (non-disabled people subsidize the cost of equipment to allow disabled persons to do those jobs). But understand that it results in lower productivity per capita, not higher.

Sorry for late reply because I was very busy. Anyway, yes it is the mode you are talking about and it is not irrelevant. In this case, the "point" is a "range" of incomes. The interval could start from small (e.g. $2k or lower). If the range still produce too many number of data, then increase the interval to be a bit bigger until you get useful info from it.

I believe that your PDF data came from this one. Anyway, it is similar data, so I just wanted to point out.

Now speaking of the meaning of mean and median are closely aligned would meant the data has a good distribution in the middle, which I agree. However, the data you presented doesn't seem to show that mean and median are align.

Let's talk about the year 2015 data (other years seem to show the similar trend). The PDF (going to use yours on page 2) shows that, the total number of returns is 141,204,625. The total AGI is $10,142,620,000,000. Thus, we can calculate the mean which is around $71,829 per return. The median (income split point) is $39,275. That's way off for aligning. However, the AGI average should be lower because of joint filing. Unfortunately, there is no data of how many are filed joint in the PDF, so I will make an education guess using some raw data.

The U.S. population in the 2015 is 321,418,820. Total population age 18 and above is 247,773,709. Assuming that all of those who are above 18 file tax returns (I'm generous). Thus, the new mean should be around $40,935.

Even though the new mean compared to the median isn't that bad, it still shows the trend that income per person is lower than the mean. Thus, to me, mode is a better indicator. It is only how you use mode to analyze the data. It is acceptable to use range for mode in analysis. That's what I wanted to say.

Driver's license and Social Security number are the most commonly used documents for the I-9 form. Basically, the government doesn't want you hiring aliens and visitors without a work visa, but don't have a system in place for an employer to verify if someone is authorized to work in the country (is a citizen or has a work visa). Rather than put together such a system, the government requires employers to collect the I-9 - it becomes the employer's proof that they did their due diligence and collected the info the government required of them to "determine" work eligibility. (In quotes because the documents are commonly forged, and the employer can't root out forgeries because they'll get in trouble if they mistake real docs for a forgery.)

The tax documents are probably the W-4 form. They're used to determine how much of your paycheck is withheld (sent directly to the IRS) for income taxes. If an employee is dishonest or wrong and the incorrect amount is withheld (usually the employee errs on the low side), it gets corrected on April 15. If the employee had too little withheld, they could face fines. So the employer has to keep the W4 on file as proof that the incorrect withholding wasn't their fault, and they did as the employee told them to do. It's a matter that is entirely between the employee and the IRS, but the IRS doesn't want to do it themselves (employee could submit the W4 to the IRS, and the IRS could tell the employer how much to withhold). So they require employers to do it and force them to keep each employee's W4 on file. This one has always baffled me - the IRS verifies it anyway when the employee files their taxes, so it's not like the IRS would have to do any extra work to handle it themselves instead of foisting the job onto employers..

Both are usually shoved in a filing cabinet and forgotten about, since the government requires you to keep them but they're never used for anything again (unless you happen to be raided by INS or ICE)..

Social Security is forced retirement savings - on average you get the money back after you retire. If you're going to call it a tax, then you have to call the money people put into 401ks, IRAs, and long-term investments a tax. And rich people put a helluva lot more money into those than the bottom 90%. Medicare and FUTA (unemployment) are insurance - they're managed so the amount paid out equals the amount paid in on average. The states manage their unemployment funds and the rate charged to each company so each company pays in as much as its ex-employees collect (yes your employer pays for unemployment, not the government). So for all three of these, on average you get back as much as you put in, resulting in a net zero tax rate.

The problem with the 1% underpaying is visible in the 2016 IRS tax stats (latest for which stats are available). Column T - income taxes as a percentage of AGI minus deficit. You'll notice that percentage gradually ramps up, indicating a progressive tax structure, up until a 29.1% rate for those making $2-$5 million. Then it starts to go down. 28.6% for those making $5-$10 million. 25.2% for those making $10+ million.

This is actually improved from before - changes to tax rates under Obama mitigated this downward trend. it used to begin ramping down at a bit above $1 million+ (anyone making more than about $500,000 is in the top 1%). So the problem has been pushed from about the top 0.5% up to the top 0.1%. We should probably add an additional tax brackets above $5 million and $10 million to get the percentage those people pay above 29.1%.

That said, the 85% tax rate proposed by GP is impractical fantasy. The top tax bracket in California is 13.3%, which would put the combined tax rate at 98.3%.. Add in other required payments and a 85% Federal tax rate is basically saying you're not allowed to keep any money above a certain income.

Capital gains are taxed once you break $38,600 in income - long or short term capital gains. And for many people, capital gains taxes are at a level about the same as their regular income tax rates.

For overseas income, IF you live exclusively overseas then you MAY get up to your first $97,000 in income tax-free in the US, provided you paid taxes overseas. All income above that rate is taxable in the US, regardless of where you live. So overseas income is still taxable.

And loans that are forgiven are taxable income; if you default on a secured loan and lose stock/assets because of it, then it is considered income and can be subject to income tax (exclusion for the first $500K in home value). Get a loan against $1MM in shares, and default and have to sell those shares to cover the loan? You also have to pay any capital gains taxes due on that sale.

Capital gains are taxed once you break $38,600 in income - long or short term capital gains. And for many people, capital gains taxes are at a level about the same as their regular income tax rates.

For overseas income, IF you live exclusively overseas then you MAY get up to your first $97,000 in income tax-free in the US, provided you paid taxes overseas. All income above that rate is taxable in the US, regardless of where you live. So overseas income is still taxable.

And loans that are forgiven are taxable income; if you default on a secured loan and lose stock/assets because of it, then it is considered income and can be subject to income tax (exclusion for the first $500K in home value). Get a loan against $1MM in shares, and default and have to sell those shares to cover the loan? You also have to pay any capital gains taxes due on that sale.

Social Security has a flat rate for everyone up to about $128,000; everyone's income is taxed at the exact same rate to that point, no one has a "bigger bite" or a higher marginal rate to that point. Above $200K, there is a special tax (which does NOT increase a person's retirement benefits) applied to income.

And of course this all assumes we consider Social Security as a plain tax (which it is) rather than as a forced retirement program (which many like to claim it is, but in fact it is not).

"we pay into"
"FUTA. The federal unemployment tax is part of the federal and state program under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) that pays unemployment compensation to workers who lose their jobs. ... FUTA tax should be reported and paid separately from FICA and FITW. FUTA tax is paid only from an organization's own fund."
Exempt Organizations: What Are Employment Taxes?

You do not pay in to it. It is an additional government tax on business for the honor of hiring an employee. In order to hire you, the business must pay the government a percentage of your wages. This (Unemployment) does not come out of the employees earnings at all like FICA tax does.
BTW your employer is required to match your FICA payment. If an individual is self employed like me, pays 15.3 % FICA ( employee half 7.62%, employer half 7.62%) + Federal taxes (10% - 22%) + State Taxes (~7%) + Local Taxes (~5%). Better yet, those tax rates apply on incomes in tax brackets under 100k. So we are not talking rich here we are talking middle class.

Just my 2 cents ;)

I'd like to think that the destruction of everything below the upper-class is somehow related to the top 1% of americans controlling 40% of the wealth

That's mostly a self-created problem. The top 1% only makes about 19% of the income. That they're able to leverage that to attain 40% of the wealth (integral of income minus expenses over time) tells you that (1) the 1% are more likely to spend their income on things that retain or grow in value, rather than disposable or transitory things like entertainment, and (2) the 99% are willing to pay exorbitant interest rates to borrow money from the 1% (that interest becomes income for the 1%). I call it self-created because this is something the 99% can solve on their own. They don't have to spend as much of their income on things which quickly or immediately lose value. And they can put off major purchases for some years while they save up money, rather than take out a loan to buy it right now.

The bigger concern should probably be that the bottom 60% also makes about 19% of total income. That is, the income of the top 1% just about equals the income of the bottom 60%. That is, for those income valuations to be correct, an individual in the top 1% has to be 60x as producitve as someone in the bottom 60%. I'm a fiscal conservative, and that sounds pretty hard to believe. Unlike spending, the bottom 60% aren't really in control of their income. Making it much more likely that the problem as that they're simply being underpaid.

People seem to think unemployment payments are a government-funded service. They're not. Unemployment is pre-paid by your employer. Every employer pre-pays a percentage of each employee's wages into the state/federal unempoyment funds (it is not deducted from the employee's wages). The percentage scales based on how how many of and how much your ex-employees have collected in unemployment.

The government tries to keep the amount an employer has paid in line with current and future expected unemployment payments. If the percentage of your employees filing for unemployment suddenly spikes causing the employer to exceed the unemployment funds in their account (e.g. you have a bunch of layoffs), the government will jack up the percentage the employer has to pay in unemployment taxes until the employer's account is in balance again. If you've held multiple jobs in a short while, the government will go through a complicated calculation where some of your unemployment comes from your most recent employer's fund, some of it from the employer before, some of it from the employer before that, etc. Scaled based on how long you worked at each employer and how long it's been since you worked there.

So the net effect is that your employer pre-pays your unemployment payments into an escrow fund held by the government.

Yes, just like in the United States, for example, Form 8300 and Reporting Cash Payments of Over $10,000.

And yet my country requires that I keep all that information for a minimum of 7 years. So it seems a lot simpler to just cut off any and all sales to the EU.

I seriously doubt you are an expert on GDPR compliance. I'm not an expert either, but I manage the CRM of a US financial institution with EU clients and there is guidance on how to deal with these kinds of issues. Such advice is beyond the scope of a Slashdot post, but look into concepts such as data minimisation and purpose limitation if you are actually curious. In short, if you can show a good reason why you need to keep data and minimize your data to only keep what you need, you will get some latitude when it comes to your ability to store some personal information about your customers. Doing so for tax purposes is one of those good reasons to keep data.

And yet my country requires that I keep all that information for a minimum of 7 years. So it seems a lot simpler to just cut off any and all sales to the EU.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses...

Starting January 22, 2018, passengers with a driver's license issued by a state that is still not compliant with the REAL ID Act (and has not been granted an extension) will need to show an alternative form of acceptable identification for domestic air travel to board their flight.

A check attached to the return... is not vulnerable to denial of service attacks.

It happens. Sometimes, the IRS even offers filing and payment extensions to those impacted.

... an easy stance to take on /. . Arguing that in front of an auditor, well you have more kahunas than I.

Pages 74-75 of the instructions offer a half-dozen ways to pay. As long as at least one is available, I am pretty sure I can guess how that discussion would go.

The IRS has a complex definition of who is an employee vs who is an independent contractor. There is a form SS-8 - Determination of Worker Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding with 47 detailed questions to determine precisely what the status of a worker is. This is important for tax purposes because the IRS expects the Social Security and Medicare taxes to be paid, at least in part, by the employer or else be paid by the independent contractor under the self employment rules. What if the court says that they're not employees but the IRS argues that they are and that Uber owes them back taxes?

Paying fines, as far as I know, are tax deductible, so there is less of a motivation there than one might think.

Fines paid to a governmental entity for violation of the law are Non-deductible. See
p535-056:

no deduction is allowed for penalties and fines paid to a government or specified nongovernmental entity for the violation of any law except the following.

• Amounts that constitute restitution.
• Amounts paid to come into compliance with the law.
• Amounts paid or incurred as the result of certain court orders in which no government or specified nongovernmental agency is a party.
• Amounts paid or incurred for taxes due.

Per executive order 13692, you cannot send any property to Venezuela. The IRS considers cryptocurrencies as property. Thus trading - sending or buying - in Venezuelan crypto is not legal. Unless, of course, the underlying executive order is illegal - but that's not been determined yet.

Based on the above, it is quite clear that President Trump didn't add anything new, just explicitly listed Venezuela's cryptocurrency as banned - which it already was, per the earlier EO and existing IRS statutes.

Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle This is a new vehicle with at least four wheels that: Is propelled to a significant extent by an electric motor that draws electricity from a battery that has a capacity of not less than 4 kilowatt hours and is capable of being recharged from an external source of electricity, and Has a gross vehicle weight of less than 14,000 pounds.

The Gen 1 Volt battery has a presented/usable capacity of something on the order of 10.3 kWh, but the battery pack itself is on the order of 16 kWh, as it changed from introduction to the end of Gen 1. Gen 2 has 18.4 kWh pack so it also qualifies (and delivers 53ish mile range rather than 35ish mile range)

Quick summary:

You get taxed on the gains, and the tax rate depends on whether the crypto you sell has been held for at least one year. If so it falls into long-term capital gains (low tax rate), otherwise it falls into short-term (ordinary income tax rate).

Form 8949 is useful from there. It asks for details of each transaction, including the value of that trade in dollars at that time, so day traders are going to have a lot to report. But the sum total is what determines what you get taxed on. You can ultimately think of it as total dollar gains - total dollar losses. (Oh and I believe you can deduct fees.)

(This is based on a response I got when I asked the same question. It's just internet advice, not accountant/legal advice... someone please correct me where I'm mistaken.)

• Illegal immigrant - someone who is in the country illegally and uses forged documents to trick an employer into hiring them.
• Undocumented immigrant - someone an employer hired without properly checking their work documentation.

IRS Publishes this Independent Contractor (Self-Employed) or Employee?
Or you can file an SS-8 form and have IRS make the determination.
"If, after reviewing the three categories of evidence, it is still unclear whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor, Form SS-8, Determination of Worker Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding (PDF) can be filed with the IRS."

IRS Publishes this Independent Contractor (Self-Employed) or Employee?
Or you can file an SS-8 form and have IRS make the determination.
"If, after reviewing the three categories of evidence, it is still unclear whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor, Form SS-8, Determination of Worker Status for Purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Withholding (PDF) can be filed with the IRS."

• If you're an employee, half of these taxes are taken out of your paycheck, half paid for by our employer. If your pay is $50k/yr, the company is actually paying $53,825 on your behalf. You just never see the extra $3,825 because it's sent straight to the IRS. After subtracting your share of the payroll taxes, your take-home paycheck for a $50k job (before income taxes) is $46,175.
• If you're a contractor, you have to pay all of the payroll tax - both the employee's share and employer's share - as the so-called self-employment tax. Your take-home paycheck for a $50k job is then $42,350. (You also have to pay for your own business liability insurance, but that's just an extra expense for you, not a cost savings for the company.)

The net result is that a dollar paid to a contractor is worth 7.65% less than a dollar paid to an employee, because the contractor has to pay an extra 7.65% of it to the IRS as what would otherwise be the employer's share of these payroll taxes. This is one of the big mistakes people make when they first start working for themselves. They used to be paid $70k as an employee with $10k worth of benefits. The company offers to pay them $85k as a contractor and they jump at it. Only to discover later that they now owe an extra $6500 in payroll taxes which means their net take-home pay is less than before, plus the company can now fire them at any time without termination benefits. Meanwhile the company pats themselves on the back for turning an employee who used to cost them $86.5k ($70k salary, $10k benefits, $6.5k employer's share of payroll taxes) into a $85k contractor.

What Uber is asking for is basically a loosening up of the IRS classification guidelines, so contractors can be given benefits. That would allow them to exploit the fact that most people don't grok that contractor pay is worth 7.65% less than employee pay, and they mistakenly equate $50k as an employee with $50k as a contractor. So by doing this, Uber can appear to be paying their contractors the same as employees and even offering them benefits, when in reality they'd be paying them less than if they just bit the bullet and made them an employee.

The situation wouldn't have arisen if the government had just been up-front and deducted all of the payroll taxes from the employee's paycheck, instead of trying to be cute and hide some of it by having the employer pay for it. But that's water under the bridge now, and the system we have today is the system we're stuck with. And one of the consequences of that system is that a dollar received by a contractor is worth less than a dollar received by an employee.

• If you're an employee, half of these taxes are taken out of your paycheck, half paid for by our employer. If your pay is $50k/yr, the company is actually paying $53,825 on your behalf. You just never see the extra $3,825 because it's sent straight to the IRS. After subtracting your share of the payroll taxes, your take-home paycheck for a $50k job (before income taxes) is $46,175.
• If you're a contractor, you have to pay all of the payroll tax - both the employee's share and employer's share - as the so-called self-employment tax. Your take-home paycheck for a $50k job is then $42,350. (You also have to pay for your own business liability insurance, but that's just an extra expense for you, not a cost savings for the company.)

The net result is that a dollar paid to a contractor is worth 7.65% less than a dollar paid to an employee, because the contractor has to pay an extra 7.65% of it to the IRS as what would otherwise be the employer's share of these payroll taxes. This is one of the big mistakes people make when they first start working for themselves. They used to be paid $70k as an employee with $10k worth of benefits. The company offers to pay them $85k as a contractor and they jump at it. Only to discover later that they now owe an extra $6500 in payroll taxes which means their net take-home pay is less than before, plus the company can now fire them at any time without termination benefits. Meanwhile the company pats themselves on the back for turning an employee who used to cost them $86.5k ($70k salary, $10k benefits, $6.5k employer's share of payroll taxes) into a $85k contractor.

What Uber is asking for is basically a loosening up of the IRS classification guidelines, so contractors can be given benefits. That would allow them to exploit the fact that most people don't grok that contractor pay is worth 7.65% less than employee pay, and they mistakenly equate $50k as an employee with $50k as a contractor. So by doing this, Uber can appear to be paying their contractors the same as employees and even offering them benefits, when in reality they'd be paying them less than if they just bit the bullet and made them an employee.

The situation wouldn't have arisen if the government had just been up-front and deducted all of the payroll taxes from the employee's paycheck, instead of trying to be cute and hide some of it by having the employer pay for it. But that's water under the bridge now, and the system we have today is the system we're stuck with. And one of the consequences of that system is that a dollar received by a contractor is worth less than a dollar received by an employee.

Or most of the OECD for that matter. The "Aristocracy" rich mostly exists in developing countries where they control the vast majority of the wealth. In those countries they're big fish in little ponds, and maintain their status not only by being rich, but by preventing others from becoming rich. The economy of these countries mostly consists of (by volume) the rich selling and buying to/from each other. The GDP per capita in these countries typically stagnates at around $15,000/yr or below.

The U.S., EU, etc. grew past this stage around the 1900s. Henry Ford accidentally stumbled upon this when he discovered that paying his workers above the prevailing wage actually resulted in more business for himself (because his workers could afford to buy the cars he was producing). That's what happens when you (1) put a worker in a productive job, and (2) pay them a fair wage for the productivity they're generating. Basically, when pay your workers less than a fair wage, you make money for yourself, but you stunt the economy. When you pay your workers a fair wage, you spend more money, but the economy blossoms. Usually more than enough to offset the extra money you spent paying your workers.

A market economy *wants* everyone to be as productive as they can, because the feedback effect of that maximizes average income. GDP per capita in these countries is typically $30,000/yr or higher because the vast majority of the population is contributing a meaningful amount of productivity to the economy. Consequently, the vast majority of the rich in these countries are rich from selling things to the middle class (who by population and aggregate income are much bigger than the richest 1%*). If the average income of the middle class decreases in these countries, it ends up hurting the rich too.

* IRS tax stats show that the top 1% only makes about 20% of the income in the U.S. So if they began buying and selling only amongst themselves and replacing everyone else with robots, that would result in about an 80% pay cut for themselves. The bulk of the country's income (73%) is in the $30k-$500k per year wage range, and it's in the best interest of the 1%ers in the U.S. to insure those people continue to have jobs.

Push hard and you can see discounts of near their marginal tax rates on income.

Which is a rip. You know they are keeping the cost of what they sold you on the books, just forgetting they got paid.

Protip: Only works when dealing with the owner, or at least someone who understands.

Then you take great the "cash discount" for your product, and report them to the IRS or local tax authority for investigation (great if they also offered to "fogive the sales tax" too) and maybe you can get a "snitch reward" on top o the great purchase deal! And a criminal gets some payback! Win-win-win!

IRS links for reporting fraud - https://www.irs.gov/individual...

Probably this type of "they offered me a great deal" evidence isn't enough to actually get the reward payout, but hey, worth a try, no?

story on how to get paid for reporting - https://www.usatoday.com/story...

There are more significant ages. At 59.5, you can start withdrawing from IRS and 401(k) savings without penalty.

Actually, you can start withdrawing from an IRA or 401k penalty free at any age, as long as you can demonstrate that the withdrawals are expected to last until your actuarial life expectancy. IRS rules covering how to make that calculation:

https://www.irs.gov/retirement...

The only significance of 59.5 is that you can now take all the money at once without penalty, although you normally would not want to do that unless forced to do so.

Nice anecdote, doesn't actually change the options of the rest of the US, which is basically one cable company, one phone company, and roadblocks keeping the competition out.

Who's creating the roadblocks?

And you completely missed the point. by "the bush" he meant away from everything, no income so no taxes.

You have to earn a living. Even if you try to live by barter, the IRS can come after you.

As a business owner, I pay annual taxes on my desk, my stapler, my printer, etc.

I think you misspelled "take deductions equal to the cost of my desk, stapler and printer divided over the useful life (MACRS) as documented in IRS Publication 946. See explicitly the section about how "[O]ffice machinery (such as typewriters, calculators, and copiers)" which specifies a 5-year depreciation timeline".

Either that or your accountant is not very good.

Business property taxes cover the same kinds of real property (real estate and buildings) that personal property taxes do.

The other items you listed not only are not subject to business property taxes but actually can be written off taxes as either expenses (pencils, paper) or depreciation (PCs are actually listed, same here at the IRS).

Business property taxes cover the same kinds of real property (real estate and buildings) that personal property taxes do.

The other items you listed not only are not subject to business property taxes but actually can be written off taxes as either expenses (pencils, paper) or depreciation (PCs are actually listed, same here at the IRS).

The IRS disagrees with you. If you realize a gain on bitcoin or use it for payment (or redemption) it must be reported like any other currency. Given the IRS ruling, in fact, traveling overseas with a BC wallet on your phone would mean you have to declare that as a monetary item above $10K, or face fines and jail time...

Well, let's quote the IRS on this:

Fringe benefits are generally included in an employeeâ(TM)s gross income (there are some exceptions). The benefits are subject to income tax withholding and employment taxes. Fringe benefits include cars and flights on aircraft that the employer provides, free or discounted commercial flights, vacations, discounts on property or services, memberships in country clubs or other social clubs, and tickets to entertainment or sporting events.

In general, the amount the employer must include is the amount by which the fair market value of the benefits is more than the sum of what the employee paid for it plus any amount that the law excludes. There are other special rules that employers and employees may use to value certain fringe benefits. See Publication 15-B, Employers' Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits, for more information.

If you dig in further into Publication 15-B, an employee discount on the services provided by the employer to the general public is taxed at only 80% of the price charged the general public. But, it is taxed at 80% of the price.

So, if you work for anybody other than a college, and your employer gives you a coupon for the services it provides to the general public, you have to pay tax on 80% of the coupon.

Now, of course, there's also the category of "Educational Assistance" in Publication 15-B. For benefits in that category, the first $5,250 is tax-free, and everything after that is subject to income and employment taxes.

So, if you work for anybody other than a college, and they give you free college tuition, you have to pay tax on every cent of the tuition in excess of $5,250.

In short, treating tuition discounts from an employing college as taxable income would be, in fact, just treating colleges like everybody else.

> i avoid with cash payments. i don't evade, unless TurboTax does.

You're not just guilty of evasion, but the *felony* variety.
If you accept cash payments and intentionally don't file a return showing those payments, that's misdemeanor tax evasion. When you file a return which says "total income... Under penalty of perjury" which you know does not accurately include those cash payments, that's FELONY tax evasion.

https://www.irs.gov/compliance...

Common tax avoidance methods include 401k, IRA, HSA, and FSA.