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Bad News If You Make $150,000 to $300,000: Higher Taxes for Many (wsj.com)
From a WSJ report: If President Donald Trump sticks to what he has said, Americans earning between $149,400 and $307,900 are most likely to see an increase in their taxes as a result of tax reform (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled). Those figures come from a recent study by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group in Washington, and are based on Mr. Trump's statements and proposals. The study concludes that nearly one-third of about 19 million households in that income range could see tax increases averaging from $3,000 to $4,000 a year. By contrast, less than 10% of households earning the least or the most -- below $25,000 or above $733,000 -- would owe more after a tax overhaul. Over all, the study found that about 20% of taxpayers would owe more after tax reform than before it. The issue of tax reform's winners and losers has resurfaced after top congressional Republicans and the Trump administration released a set of broad principles for tax policy on Thursday containing few details.
This is an attack on the middle class. No new taxes for the real rich but we are gonna stick it to the households that have two solid middle class jobs.
You all voted for conservative politicians in the States who ran on cut now pay later starting with Reagan and vodoo economics.
Later is here! No it is not Obama's fault. It is yours and your parents. The banks need their money and it is not fair for the rest of us to pay higher taxes and no services for things like healthcare. Pay the piper man and in 30 years we can pay off the interest and $19,000,000,000,000!
Oh and lets blame it on the liberals so you can keep your nice home? Well expect a dollar crash and Great Depression 2.0 as the value of the dollar is nothing because the credit built on a house of cards for tax cuts and spending increases comes crashing once bankers start demanding a return on their money.
http://saveie6.com/
As a higher earner (well, when I'm not in startup mode), I don't actually have a problem with being taxed more - provided those that earn even more than me are not able to avoid the tax. The thing is, once you earn over about $100k, pretty much all your extra money is just going into bidding up the prices of a limited pool of assets such as housing. This doesn't benefit you or your fellow high earners, because if we can't build more, say, London housing when a rickety Victorian hovel costs over $1 million, then bidding up the prices to even more ridiculous levels isn't going to deal with the fundamental supply issue. All that happens is a parasite class forms around these things, consisting of speculators, gamblers and real estate agents. The same houses are still being traded between the same pool of high earners.
If we had higher taxes, then it would help to curb speculation activity by preventing this form of asset inflation, and governments could use the money to redirect economic resources towards, say, actually creating new housing supply through transport infrastructure or training new engineers and doctors. Of course there is a big if there, because the government could also just use those resources to create more bureaucracy, but that is probably still better than real estate agents.
The big problem, though, is that once you move into the 0.1% nobody is paying any taxes. I mean, the wealthy are even quite open about this - its not some sort of conspiracy. The problem then is that if you just tax the upper middle income earners more, all you do is allow the ultra rich to hoover up all the assets off them even faster than they are doing now. It is a one way road towards neo-feudalism.
There is no easy solution. Probably a land tax would help, but that is almost impossible to achieve politically. France tried a wealth tax, and London is now stuffed full of rich French people. An aggressive death tax is probably the best solution, but again this is incredibly hard to achieve politically. Of course the natural solution is a revolution where the masses just confiscate everything. I really hope we can avoid this.
The rich don't have income, they have capital gains. The rich also never learn. This will end badly. Very badly.
It's called "trickle-down economy". You asked for it, you got it. Staying rich becomes easier, getting rich harder.
You are obviously not poor and still fit and well.
It is easy to complain about taxes until one day, maybe, when you need it. Then you learn that it is morally just for people to pay taxes to help others.
Here in Australia we pay what you would call high taxes. The society seems to accept paying taxes as it has value. We have free health care and a safety net for those who need help whether they are old or handicapped you name it. Not perfect, but it gets tweaked over time.
It is possible to have a very good standard of living with 'high' taxes.
At > $150k you are living a good life. Good for you, but care for others.
The current model of governance was created as an alternative to a monarchy centuries ago. And it is time to start to think how to modernize it.
I have got an impression that the "elected" officials represent mostly themselves.
Nope. I want big government and NO TAXES. I will blame the liberals and listen to Fox News, Drudgereport, Sean Hannity, so I do not have to take responsibility.
http://saveie6.com/
Just watching Fox news doesn't make you any more stupid that watching no news at all, oh wait, it does:
http://www.businessinsider.com/study-watching-fox-news-makes-you-less-informed-than-watching-no-news-at-all-2012-5?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
So you get to decide what is morally right and force your views...interesting indeed.
"Small government" is just rule by the rich. We've tried that already. In fact, it's the thing we've spent most of human history trying. It's a terrible system for everybody except the few people at the very top. Honestly, I don't think there's anything less "out of the box" than "let's let all the rich people make the rules and not try to constrain them in any way". Why is it that no conservatives have any working knowledge of history?
The vast majority of people would benefit from a larger government funded by higher tax rates. The rich fight this tooth and nail because they think it will be worse for them and they do not care at all whether it's better for everybody else, which is just selfish and evil, but the most important part is that it's not even true. A society in which public infrastructure is more effective and plentiful benefits EVERYBODY, including the people paying for the largest portion of it. It's incredibly obvious, but selfishness has a powerful ability to blind, it seems.
So you get to decide what is morally right and force your views...interesting indeed.
That is a very concise explanation of laws.
Either way I've seen what happens when poor Americans get ill.
Since they can't afford healthcare they have to rely on handouts.
In that situation there are two kind of people. Good ones that cares for others and that pays up a small sum so no-one has to die, and then there are people that keeps their money to themselves.
So, the choice is between a society where:
1) people dies in the street.
2) good people have to pay for everyone healthcare and uncaring people can keep their money.
3) everyone is taxed so that people don't have to die and good people don't have to pay for everything themselves.
You may not like paying taxes but you are defending a situation that benefits psychopaths more than anyone else.
I keep getting told I can move when the conditions around me aren't suitable. Guess what... everyone can move. Why would I care about the cost of living in SF when I live in Denver?
You forgot to mention the set of people who don't have HC will go to the Emergency room. ERs have to help people who have a immediate life threatening condition. So this very expensive service is passed onto that one hospital's customer base. But normally because the condition is so far along, the results are poor and people still die.
Those with a future appt with death can't use ERs and need to rely on charity. Which also has really poor results because again they can't do preventative, ongoing, and stable treatments in that financial situation.
How? We have the largest governments the world has ever produced in terms of number of people, per capita, number of lines of laws, etc. None of it is working. You think making it bigger is the solution? Big or small, people with the will to do violence win. The rich are the benefactors of this and cower behind them. It's all over the history books and you can see it everywhere today.
How did you talk about small government and not talk about the biggest expenditures?
(2015)- Social Security benefits make up 20%. Followed by Military, Medicare, Unemployment, and other HC at ~15% each. 6% is net interest on debt. 5% is Vet benefits. The remaining ~25% is everything else.
Of the top 5, only Miliary is reviewed and set every year. I agree these is a lot to cut here. At the very least stop jumping into decades long wars. The rest are earned promises in the past. So what promises do you want to break to those who already paid in?
It's actually going to be more painful for those expensive areas like SF.
One of the proposals in Trump's tax plan is to drop the deductions for state and local taxes, and for mortgage interest. The areas where people earn $150-300k are usually the areas with high state and local taxes, and where houses cost a lot.
No it's not - if you earn income through capital gains, you get taxed at 15%. If you earn income through employment you get taxed at (up to) 35%.
If the law says that's how it is and you want to live in a developed country then sorry, but that's how it works. Otherwise nobody pays for anything and it all turns to shit.
Perhaps Somalia would be more to your liking?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"If President Donald Trump sticks to what he has said... " ... and when has that happened, even if he wanted it to?
Oh, it's clear why people here wouldn't like this: this is just the income bracket for progressive Silicon valley techies and nerds. But to put this into perspective: this is small potatoes to what Democrats would have given us. Democrats want a European-style welfare state, and that requires large tax increases on the middle class; it's the only way it can be financed. In European welfare states, the average tax bill for people making more than $50000 is 35% (compared to our 25%), and sales taxes are 2-3x higher.
One might add here that if Medicare/Medicaid cut per patient spending to what European systems spend, we would have single-payer healthcare in the US with no tax increases and without touching the private health insurance system at all.
As much as I don't like Trump or his tax reform plans, you're actually repeating false information. Removing mortgage interest is no longer in the plan.
I think that, more accurately, after taxes (even with deductions), you are left with an amount that does cover rent, but rent chews up so much, that you are left with not a ton left over.
150k is still pretty good, but consider that if you had no deductions, you would pay 50k in taxes, leaving you with 100k. Then consider 5-6k a month rent. That would leave you with only 30-40k. Still not bad, but it gets chewed up fast.
Then you have the fact that many things are more expensivei n those locations (like fuel, food, household supplies) and tack on another 7+% sales tax for some of that, and 35k goes by pretty fast. Still workable, but if you were to reduce your income by 25k (125k total), this would start to get rough.
Interesting, thanks for the info. That said, it seems somewhat backwards to me. If you wanted to remove one, the deduction on mortgage interest seems reasonable - the government isn't penalising you that money, you made a choice to pay it.
The state and local taxes on the other hand, by not having that deduction, causes people to be double-taxed, which is weird.
Of course, with my cynical hat on... if you wanted to penalise left leaning people, double-taxing people in states that pay high state and local taxes would be a good way to do it.
Really?
You can't find a rental for less than $12,000 a month?
Well lets see.
150K income after federal, state, and city taxes for a NYC resident will net about 90K.
90K/12 = $7500/month
Figure there will be other deductions for medical and such, so 7000/mo
If you fund your 401K retirement plan, deduct 1500, so you have 5500
Median rent in Manhattan is $3350 so that leaves you $2150/mo for everything else.
Insurance, food, entertainment, clothes, medical expenses, transportation, and so on.
You will definitely be tight, and not saving much other than the retirement income
..if his proposals go through, I'm looking at a refund about 10x what I was anticipating, with my obligation falling from 14,500 to ~10,000.
As I loathe giving this government a single dime, I have to say I'm quite pleased with this potential outcome.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I have nothing to worry about if those numbers are correct.
> None of it is working.
How can you seriously say that compared to the plight of average people in the early 20th century or 19th century, let alone even earlier? It's imperfect, but things are distinctly better.
There's good grounds for being concerned about pathologically bloated and/or tyrannical governments, but the correlation with overall size of government is overblown. You can have efficient, competent governments that are a pretty decent size that aren't ultimately tyrranical. You'll still get people bellyaching about their "freedom" to impose their will on others being restricted, and that they can't take advantage of people like they used to in the "good old days" of unsafe work conditions or bare subsistence wages, but so what? If the people at the top want that kind of "freedom", screw that. That's not "government overregulation" getting in the way, that's government doing its job for the people. If government becomes an obstacle to ordinary people fulfilling their lives, then if it is a democratic government we have the means to change it until the right balance is achieved. It will lead to some kind of balance between ever-expanding and costly government and a government so small it can't properly do its job anymore.
Making the case that "none of it is working" despite government being on average pretty big compared to history is a phony argument in my opinion because overall an average worker from 100 years ago has far greater control over and protection of their lives now than they did then. I'm reluctant to make government even bigger, because it costs all of us, but I see little evidence it needs to be radically smaller either, or that we would definitely benefit from such a change. What I expect is a result that would roll things back to the early 20th-century absuses of the workforce that people used to experience all the time. They didn't call them "robber barons" for nothing.
Actually, capital gains tax reaches 20%, which is close to the average tax rate paid by the top 5% on all their income.
And the GP AC is also pimping a way that will DEFINITELY draw the attention of the IRS (a house from your corporation will be considered as material payment, and should be considered income - even if your corporation owns it, unless you can prove that it is used strictly for business purposes by anyone associated with the business) and land you in "Federal PMITA Prison".
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Okay, I read some history books. Afghanistan is everybody's favorite place to have a proxy war, so that's why that happened. Now go look at everywhere else that they didn't have a major government backing them up. Take a look at all the unsuccessful Nazi resistances. Take a look at Ruby Ridge. Take a look at every country that ever subjugated another.
The point of a modern military is not the "boots on the ground", but the infrastructure that gets them there armed, equipped, on time, with good intel about their surroundings. And in general, it's more efficient to have a rank structure where one guy at the top can send a bunch of people out to kill or be killed without having to hold a war council: this is a tough thing to evolve as a militia.
For the best argument against the second amendment ever, we can look to the war of 1812, where the more numerous militia completely failed to prevent the British from burning down Washington, D.C.. At which point our leaders decided that standing armies were maybe not such a terrible thing after all and started funding an army and a navy. They didn't update the Constitution to reflect this change of heart, and now we're stuck with it.
Given that no one has tried to repeat this militia nonsense, not even ourselves, we can suggest that this is probably a terrible idea. However, if you want to champion it, you should probably either be advocating for the elimination of the military. If not you should be aware that what you're advocating for is very much not in line with the Founders' views.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Trump's policy statements are barely more relevant than they were during the Apprentice. Just look at what happened with health care, it's the congressional republicans driving legislation and Trump is essentially tweeting randomly based on clips he saw on TV.
Now, when it comes to tax policy his personal beliefs, give rich people a tax cut, are in line with Republicans as a whole, and he might actually push a specific policy because it personally affects him. But I don't think he has the basic competency to impose that view on congress. Paul Ryan's view is the one that really matters.
I stole this Sig
As much as I don't like Trump or his tax reform plans, you're actually repeating false information. Removing mortgage interest is no longer in the plan.
Even if mortgage interest isn't officially removed, it is effectively removed for the middle class by way of doubling the standard deduction and removing state taxes from the pool of itemized deductions. A married couple today has a standard deduction of $12,600. The mortgage interest deduction is only useful if it, along with other deductions on Schedule A, surpasses this amount. It is easy to do that today if you have a few thousand in state taxes and/or property taxes. But once those are removed from the picture, and you double the standard deduction to ~$25k, suddenly you need to buy a house over $850k for the mortgage interest deduction to have any effect on your tax liability.
In other words, mortgage interest is removed for the middle class, but left in place for the rich.
The whole Trump "administration" is fraudulent. They will have to pass a blank tax bill before actually writing something with content. Republicans have had a long time to plan what they would do if they were in power. All that they can do still is to attack the Democrats. It is always Obama and Hillary's fault even when in control of all three branches. If that doesn't work, go after the Media.
There is no Republican tax plan! They have forgotten how to make a plan.
Taxes should be flat and based on percentage of income and assets. Yet in the US (I can't speak for the UK) we have over 80,000 pages of tax code to benefit the wealthy and punish everyone else who earns money. Middle class people can't afford to read through the tax codes or hire legal staffs to do so for them, only the wealthy can (and that means the very wealthy, because a millionaire can't afford to either).
Taxes are one of several reasons for the revolt in the 13 colonies and founding of a new country called the USA. The slogan "No Taxation without Representation!" should ring a bell to anyone who studied US History (sorry if you went to US public schools and missed that course). The "average" person certainly lacks representation in their State and US Federal Governments.
The Middle class already pay near 30% of their wages to Federal tax, and depending on the State another 10-20% in income tax, property tax, and sales taxes. This doesn't include taxes on gasoline, taxes on utilities, taxes on phone services, taxes on internet services, and various "fees" the State imposes on public property and services such as vehicle registration, license fees, and usage charges for roads.
If anything, the taxes on the wealthy should be higher than lower income earners. As Socrates pointed out in the Republic, that would prevent them from screwing with Government to get more simply because of what they have and ensure that the best remain productive.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
In Manhattan or San Francisco? Say, are you the old lady who lived in a shoe?
In some ways what we're dealing with here is a lack of clarity -- at least among the mass of voters.
Health care spending in the US has increased faster than inflation every year since around 1960, but think about how different medicine was in 1960. In 1960 there were no MRIs or CAT scans. Chemotherapy for cancer was experimental. Heart valve replacement wasn't an option, nor was hip or knee replacement. There was no Viagra, no statins for high blood pressure, very little that could be done about diabetes. The famous catch phrase was "take two aspirin and call me in the morning", because a lot of medicine amounted to keeping a patient comfortable and hoping he'd get better on his own.
So it's no surprise we're paying more: we're getting more. And if someone who has no health care coverage comes into a hospital sick, we will use that full armamentarium of cures on them because we want our hospitals to value life above profit. But when a patient goes medically bankrupt, somebody still has to pay, and that somebody is everyone.
Under the circumstances there is only one way to spend less: use less. And since we don't want to stop treating sick indigent people, what we have to do is keep everyone healthier: manage chronic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, and detect diseases like cancer early, before heroic measures are called for.
Our failure to keep people healthy is why other countries that spend far less than us, and have less technology than us, have better healthcare outcomes. Once you're very sick, the US is a great place to be treated; but it's not so great if you don't want to get sick in the first place.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
LOL you must be new here. This place is filled with libertarians and conservatives who hate taxes.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
You missed an important point: Even those uncaring people benefit from the people around them being healthy. Helping people not to die in the streets isn't just entertainment for good people that has no benefit whatsoever for uncaring people; it benefits uncaring people too. It is a non-excludable good, like national defense or clean air.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
> That's because your pre-ACA insurance plan was crap that would not have covered you if you got a serious illness like cancer.
Utter bullshit, lame, canned, liberal narrative.
YOU are why people voted for Trump.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Duh, which is why you have an accountant set it up in a way that isn't so obvious and remains perfectly legal. At least as far as your lawyer can convince a judge.
There's just no way that you can make people pay the "True Market Value" for everything and disallow any sort of 2 for 1 deal, or a bundle deal, or teaser rate. Not without a centrally controlled economy that breaks capitalism. And that doesn't work. As long as those sort of deals are viable marketing strategies, then a business is going to be able to give things to people for practically free. If businesses can do that, then the owners of said business will be able to funnel money pretty much wherever they want.
a house from your corporation
Ok, it's a house from my buddy's corporation. And I just happen to employ his nephew. But that's OLD hat sort of collusion. Now it's more like a tax write-off donation to a friends's wife's non-profit which pays it's CEOs whatever it feels like.
and land you in "Federal PMITA Prison".
No, they simply send you a bill. We caught you dodging X amount of taxes, pay X + Y in fines. If they didn't catch you dodging Z, and Z>Y, then you're net positive. They only send people to prison when they can't pay it back.
I really don't see why the above summary says certain categories will pay more. The TPC article (yeah, yeah) shows negative numbers for ALL quintiles, with the top one of course having the by far largest %.
This, by the way, is one of the reasons why they were desperately trying to pass a "Health Care" bill which -- even with a giveaway to the rich of its own -- was intended to cost less so they had $ to balance against lost income here.
Note that the article says they used the same 10/25/35% brackets Trump proposed last fall. He did not specify the actual brackets and still hasn't. So this is somewhat speculative.
That said, anything with a lowered top rate, and the removal of the AMT and Inheritance Tax, will help the wealthy immensely. This is what we should be pushing back on.
The mortgage interest deduction is only useful if you're living beyond your means.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> As much as I don't like Trump or his tax reform plans, you're actually repeating false information. Removing mortgage interest is no longer in the plan.
It doesn't matter either way. People living in high cost of living areas are far less likely to be home owners.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
How what?
None of [government] is working.
OH NOES! I hate that Canada has invaded and we're suffering under foreign rule. That Mexican cartels regularly have raids into texas for slaves. That all our water is poisoned and tainted. That the farmers regularly mix water and lye to the milk to save a buck. That every time I drive from one city to another state all the rules of the road completely change and I have to learn to drive on the left side. That when roving gangs kill my children, I have no recourse other than vigilante justice. That there's just no way for me to send a message to another person farther than I can shout. If only we could get away from this terrible bartering system, there MUST be something better. And just the other day the pfizer megacorp injected my kids with experimental drugs as a case study. If they die I really wish I could at least sue them like those classy fellows over in Nigeria. And I need those kids so I can send them down into the coal mine and make some income because I've already been laid low by the black lung. Too bad we only get paid in company script.
Big or small, people with the will to do violence win.
Try me. I'll call the cops. You'll go to jail. YAY rule of law. I'm not even that rich.
In 10 years with the savings from single payer healthcare. Seriously, google the cost savings. Insurance is robbing us blind
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
He never had a plan. He never needed one, because he didn't want to be president to fix America's problems. He wanted to be president to make himself richer, that's all.
Ah but then you'd have to cut regulations which ultimately made our healthcare this expensive in the first place. ;)
Adjust the cost of what people paid for a broken arm 50 years ago to today's money... and you'll find that people were paying about 1/4th of what we're paying now for the same procedures. Why?
Mixture of regulations which have dramatically inflated medical costs.
Doubtless you're dubious... did you know we recently had a shortage of medical grade baking soda. Sodium bicarbonate. The drug industry in the US is so screwed up because of the FDA that we have a shortage of baking soda. Any company that produces baking soda could have produced the medical grade version of it but they are not allowed to without going through some FDA hoops that are frankly absurdly expensive and prohibitive.
The notion of Single Payer is that you're going to lower costs. And the only way you're going to be able to do that is by making less silly most of the dumb regulations that have made medical care so expensive in the US.
50 years ago, the top 3 floors of most hospitals were not taken up with people doing paper work. It wasn't needed. Shift nurses ran wards. Administration was much lighter. And as we have seen recently, private practice medical care is getting hammered.
If we what we had was such a bastion of free market healthcare, then why are private practices dying? Its all big hospitals sucking on federal money. And this we conflate with free market healthcare.
The hypocrisy on the issue is astounding. My body my choice we are told... except when it doesn't involve abortion or recreational drugs... then suddenly even though it is our bodies we don't have a choice.
By all means, allow these organizations to monitor things and inform people. But if I don't give a flying fuck what the FDA says or I don't give a flying fuck what Washington DC says about how I should get healthcare... kindly either get out of my way... or I can only judge you a detriment to my health and well being.
Our healthcare system used to be affordable. It was the meddling in the system which made it unaffordable. And it is no coincidence that the more you meddle the worse it gets. Every failure and disaster is used as an excuse to get more money and more power.
Remember how the ACA was supposed to lower costs? It didn't. At some point failing to predict the outcomes of your programs should compel some humility about how well you understand what you are talking about.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Speculation designed to inflame...
Call me when you grow up Slashdot...
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
"Small government" is just rule by the rich. We've tried that already. In fact, it's the thing we've spent most of human history trying. It's a terrible system for everybody except the few people at the very top. Honestly, I don't think there's anything less "out of the box" than "let's let all the rich people make the rules and not try to constrain them in any way". Why is it that no conservatives have any working knowledge of history?
The vast majority of people would benefit from a larger government funded by higher tax rates. The rich fight this tooth and nail because they think it will be worse for them and they do not care at all whether it's better for everybody else, which is just selfish and evil, but the most important part is that it's not even true. A society in which public infrastructure is more effective and plentiful benefits EVERYBODY, including the people paying for the largest portion of it. It's incredibly obvious, but selfishness has a powerful ability to blind, it seems.
Republicans are always bleating out that line "I am for smaller government!" Yet no one ever brings up the fact that smaller government basically means more power in the hands of fewer people. Sorry but the current administration is more power-hungry and more of an avoider of the rules of society than any other in history.
When you have a president who asks whether he can pardon himself, then you realize that he has placed himself beyond the rules governing everyone else.
Trump needs to be impeached post haste otherwise this society is pretty much done!
Demonstrably false.
My plan before ACA covered more, had a lower deductible, and cost 1/3rd as much. It was deemed illegal and I had to pay for a worse one that cost a shit load more.
You are the reason why I voted for Trump.
are not really to be taken serious - like anything trump ever said.
He never had a plan. He never needed one, because he didn't want to be president to fix America's problems. He wanted to be president to make himself richer, that's all.
Indeed, he never had a plan. Not because he wanted to be president to make himself richer, though. That only occurred to him after he got elected. He never had a plan because he never wanted to actually be president. He wanted to be a candidate for president.
He absolutely loves being the candidate. People hold rallies just for him, people cheer any bullshit he says, Important People from Important Places get up and give flattering introductory speeches about him, and the news talks about nothing else but Trump, Trump, Trump. He adores that so much that he's already created his reelection committee and started holding campaign rallies! Just five months in to his first term! He's campaigning again because that's the only part he wanted. Actually getting elected was a total disaster for him. He did everything he could to avoid it. He said every outrageous thing he could think of, and it still didn't work.
Trump didn't have a plan to govern because everybody knew he wasn't going to get elected, including himself. He even started laying the groundwork for his post-campaign talking points (election was rigged). Then he got elected and he discovered how much it truly sucks to be President of the United States. People expect him to govern now. He never wanted that. People expect him to lead the Republican Party, which he is completely incapable of doing, because unlike every career politician before him who pretended to be an outsider, Trump really is an outsider. New York is his stomping grounds, not D.C. He didn't know the first thing about D.C. and how it works, and the more he learns, the less he likes it. Now people expect him to read long, complicated policy documents, understand them, make administrative choices, and accept that at least 30% of the population is going to hate his choice no matter what it is. Trump doesn't even want to do Step One, which is why his daughter and son-in-law now have offices in the White House. Somebody has to do all that reading.
The United States may end up with a shadow presidency by sheer accident, just because the President doesn't want to do the job, and never did.
its true. the wife and i combined do 150k. we just got the irs letter today. deal with it.
This site is a fucking disgrace, like Digg and reddit.
Correction. An income of $150000 for a family of four is "easy streets" IF:
4.1 You do not live in any urban area with decent services and and a decent set of work options
OH NOES! I hate that Canada has invaded and we're suffering under foreign rule.
At least they apologize when their jackbooted thugs kick down your door and rape your wife.
Where are my mod points... gone into the wind....
Lie
You can always leave the Nation
No one is forcing you
HOWEVER, Progressive Income Taxes are how you apportion costs among the inheritance class
Pity is that even Progressive taxation permits wealth centralization.
Until the NET, TOTAL tax bill of the top 0.1% = the 40% paid in excise, income, sales and transfer taxes paid by the bottom 40%, there is nothing to whine about.
Go ahead. Give it a shot. See what happens. You'll get slapped with back taxes and plenty of penalties. Enjoy!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
if they didn't catch you dodging Z, and Z>Y, then you're net positive.
You'll never be rich enough to afford those type of accountants if you don't read the memos all the way to the bottom kiddo.
No I read it. And having used LEGAL means of sheltering income, and being audited nearly yearly because of it, your supposition about not getting caught is wrong. You will get caught. Then it's a matter of dealing with the results...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Got it.
"and remains perfectly legal. At least as far as your lawyer can convince a judge."
So what exactly are you doing to dodge taxes that gets you audited yearly?
To be fair to said hi tax states, they're also the states that have the highest GDPs, and the highest tax takes. Trying to claim that the low-state-tax states are subsidising them is kinda crazy, when they contribute more to the tax pool than their population suggests they should.
How is that working out for you?
Don't forget the carbon tax, which we need to pay for stuff.
You'd also have to reduce the massive profits for pharmaceutical companies, lawyers, and doctors, all big Democratic donors. That's why it's not going to happen.
I'm simply pointing out that Democrats are lying when they are saying that they want a European-style welfare state.
its all paper work that comes from the government. The private practices can't afford to do it and the government is ultimately mandating the paper work. Even if it is the insurance company requiring it, consider why they are requiring it... same reason... regulations. For them to comply with regulations and liability they need the care provider to do a lot of paper work or else the insurance company would risk not being in compliance.
There was a test hospital in Texas that was able to drop the prices for care by something like a factor of six or eight. It did it by literally just going back to the old format. From all indications the quality of care didn't decline.
We're seeing this with all the things that have out of control costs.
What percentage of our healthcare bill actually goes to doctors? A tiny fraction when all is said and done. And what portion of our college tuitions goes to professors... also very little. Just as with the medical industry, most of the cost increases in education have gone to administrators which are not actually required... and even if you need SOME administrators, you certainly don't need more now per capita than we had in the 1950s. If anything, because of automation, we should need less. That administration has increased as the ability to automate administration has increased... and as institutions become existentially affordable is interesting.
Its very hard to look at this as anything but corruption, mismanagement, and stupidity. Both healthcare and education could be made very affordable simply by reverting the regulations and allowing competition.
If I'm happy enough to go to a doctor, wave the paper work and whatever protections its alleged to afford me... who's business is that besides mine and the doctor's?
That the government even thinks it has a right to tell me who I can and cannot see for medical treatment is offensive.
The vast majority of medical procedures aren't even that complicated or require a proper medical degree.
Here someone will make the argument that you want to have the full 8 year doctor in every little thing or you'll die of some rare and highly unlikely thing that the less educated practitioner will miss. But we have to do a cost benefit here. The vast majority of cases involve simple repetitive procedures that are neither hard nor require an extensive background to administer. Having a cadre of technicians just performing those procedures would take enormous weight off the rest of the industry. Those people handled, you'd only be dealing with more serious cases that do require that sort of expertise. And even there, most of the expertise is in diagnosis. They could guide the techs which would be much more efficient than having the doctor personally do it.
Western medicine developed in the triage tents of the Legion. It was all about practicality... division of labor... This man cannot be saved so prioritize this other man that can be saved. The long and the short is that the US healthcare industry can be saved... the cancer has to be cut out of it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
How did this make it on Slashdot? For the most part I'm willing to deal with politics that relates with technology on this site but this doesn't have anything to do with anything.
Not dodging anything - dodging is illegal, sheltering is not. Legally sheltering income and splits of salary and bonus income. Earn enough, and have a "complicated" enough 1040 (several K-1s and quite a few holdings) and you draw their attention. Most people with more complicated financial situations and corporate ownerships tend to get audited quite often.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Unlike everyone else, who loves taxes.
Well, some simultaneously hate paying taxes, but love it when other people are taxed.
And a very rare few who love being taxed so much, they pay extra, just because.
Apparently, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are not among that last group.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
If it's Reaganomics, it's trickle everywhere. Everyone benefited from his economic package. We saw the largest expansion of the economy the world had ever seen. It worked really well. The left can't stand it though. There will always be poor and there's nothing that can be done for some people.
Wow, do all of you realize this will be the first budget since GW Bush? Obama couldn't manage to pass one himself. I think he's the only one in history that wasn't able to pass a budget.
So you want taxes to pay for things that benefit you personally, and screw everything (and everyone) else. Typical libertarian.
right right, you didn't murder him, he just ran into your knife.
So, what do you do to "Shelter" your money from taxes? I'm honestly curious. What makes your "complicated".
Not to mention that they also tend to get fewer dollars back than they contribute to the treasury.
The same thing was said of the democrats (no budget, etc), but that's not why the democrats were removed from office.
Having a plan is not in itself something the voters want.
Since money now = speech, and by extension, votes, taxes should be based solely upon the percentage of a nations' wealth that the people controlling that wealth hold and not on the percentage of the demographic that those people occupy.
In other words, the 0.01% of the population controlling 80% (or x% amount) of a nation's wealth should pay 80% (or x% amount) of the taxes necessary to fund the activities required of government. Our representatives could then concentrate on determining exactly which functions their constituents want to fund, based on the actual costs of those programs, not on what the politicians and special-interest pundits merely imagine that they should cost.
As always, anticipating the knee-jerk derision of the usual supply-sider apologists. ;}
PlaynBass
"Then consider 5-6k a month rent."
Why would I ever pay such a ludicrous sum for rent? My mortgage is a fifth of that.
We're talking about locations where salaries are high, but basic costs of living, like rent are also high. With a quick search the low end for a 2BR studio apartment in SF was around $3k/month. That's really the cost of living in the city, and that's why the salaries are higher.
lol ... i guess if you earn that much you CAN leave the nation xD ... if its shouting for sympathy i think it will fall on deaf ears considering most trump voters, im not sure how progressive progressive is, it should be complex algorithm depending on how much actual work you stick into it to some ? like for instance you pay a team of analysts to write HFT algorithms, you make money while sleeping, you can actually afford to pay a little more since you got plenty of time to make more with the more that you make. You got a boat building company that sells handcrafted from the cog to the steering wheel and you work seven days of 16 hours , well maybe you deserve a little more of a break. Its very hard to find a one size fits all here i think but as said, i dont think anyone's gonna pity people who make $300k if they have to pay more cos most of us dont lol. Such an unfair world hm. How about taxing politicians ? i dont know if american senators and whatever have to but in belgium and actually the whole EU wages are tax-free ... in belgium that can make up to euh maybe 60% (its crazy sometimes especially for labour business like gardeners and people who lay driveways and put fences and stuff taxes are fracking crazy if they DONT do seven days and some off the books its virtually not worth it lol
and then some ... its a proposition, right ? not a law yet
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Sounds decent to me.
How cool would it be if the taxes were based entirely on surplus (investable) income, from any source?
Thus the single mom putting out for Child care automatically is taxed at both a lower percentage of gross income AND a lower percentage of "surplus"?
The only other idea that looks feasable would be an "Unearned income tax" wherein all income NOT due to labor, but return on excess (profits) is taxed at a higher rate, since we really need to disincentivize wealth centralization.
Or do we?
I agree.
Reward work, penalize compounding
thus, those who inherit or gain via existing wealth profit most by the economy and government, and should pay the majority of those costs.
I'd start with attaching state sales tax rates to every single stock transaction, thus ending the socially worthless arbitrage movement overnight.
Long term salubrious effects would be investing in startups and HOLDING THE STOCKS for actual market returns, rather than speculative gains.