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About Those Tax Increases for the “Rich”
I listened to Obama the other day. He was pretty clear on the issue of
taxes. He said that marginal tax rates on those making $250,000 or
more would go up if he got his way. It is a fair bet that this
is the way it will work out. The Bush tax cuts for those under 250K will
be retained for a few more years and taxes are going up for the fat
cats making over $250k. That sounds reasonable. After all, we are broke
and have to raise taxes someplace.
But I did not hear word one from the Big O about AMT taxes. That is
another set of tax laws that is subject to a sunset at the end of the
year. This is a screwy tax (that I have been subject to for years). If
one is subject to the AMT you lose deductibility of a number of things.
Charitable contributions, property taxes and child-care deductions are
lost. It is also dependent on the ratio of earned versus unearned
income. It is an ugly tax that everyone will hate.
This a big deal. Congress has been putting a patch on this every year
for the past five. The 2010 patch cost Treasury $70billion. According to the CBO,
if the AMT is allowed to sunset it will increase the number of
individuals that are subject to this tax from 4.5mm to 27mm in 2011.
This would result in nearly every individual or family with income of
$100k+ to pay more tax. The CBO estimate is for an increased tax bill of
$3,900 per filer. That would come to $90 billion of additional tax. The
vast majority of those making $250k or higher are already stuck in the
AMT trap. Therefore the bulk of this increased tax burden would fall on
those making between $100k and $250k.
Watch as this evolves over the next few months. Should we see the “Great Compromise”
from D.C. where marginal taxes go up for the wealthy but no action is
taken to address the AMT problem a significant percentage of the
population will be screwed. When and if that happens you will hear that
great sucking noise from the economy. When 30 odd million people get hit
with another 4k in taxes the economy will stall, again.
Of course it could go the other way. We could extend the Bush tax cuts
and “patch up” the AMT for a few more years. That would get the deficits
north of 10% of GDP. Depending on the economy we would be looking at
annual deficits pushing $2t. Debt would explode. I can’t see the upside
in that either.
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All men are created equally under the eyes of God. I however have a different opinion. If I pay more into the system shouldn't my vote then have more bearing then someone who contributes less into the system. An imbalance occurs when less productive citizens have equal say relative to those that are more productive. Perhaps we tie productivity to a basket of contributions that tabulates into a weighted vote. The contribution basket could be made of what society sees as value such as financial, social donations, charity, etc... It seems unfair that equality of vote isn't derived from what you invest into the system. 50% of Americans don't pay taxes, and yet our government favors them with increasing social spending that comes from my sweat equity.
Gummit already works for the rich folks. I don't see much of a change, there.
If we start from the premise that human beings have value based solely on their ability to contribute to someone else's profit, why not just exterminate the poor?
It'd save some bux.
I like it. We have a citizen's distribution framework that puts the federal budget in the hands of the people.
That way, when welfare doesn't get funded, we can all just shrug our shoulders.
I can't decide whether I'm being sarcastic or not.
Anything to control the controllers and oversee the overseers is good for me.
We are facing declining spending habits of the baby boomer demographics, decades of outsourcing, largess of the U.S. Gov't, unfunded programs, (2) unfunded wars, towering debt (16 trillion), decreasing asset prices, and it looks like uncle Sam wants to make sure I go down with the party boat by paying AMT (again). If the Fed could have paid these debt loads off in 1-3 years by printing money, this would be kicked down the road. Unfortunately, these are systemic issues. The root of which will last decades. Print money....too much debt...not enough real economic growth. Deflation with Inflation with increasing debt. What asset class is immune to that combination? Gold and Silver? Are we looking at a financial morass that lasts decades. Maybe..the zombie state will go on for years. Treasuries will be purchased by the coalition of central banks, so we'll never see a failed treasury auction. The economy will trend lower overtime. The gov't will print money to cover unfunded benefits like medicare, however no one will make so much as to cause economic growth or real inflation. Thanks to AMT and other such devices. Where is the match that lights the tinder? Perhaps the real economies such as the BRIC nations will require some form of payment such as Gold or will demand higher amounts of dollars. That might trigger hyper-inflation overtime as we see GDP decrease and demand for dollars increase to offset imported inflationary pressures. Is the slow decline the new normal?
My guess is Obama has to address this
He said he would not raise taxes on families under 250 K and adding millions to the AMT roles under 250K will be a political blunder. I know Obama has proven political blunders are his middle name lately but this would be a severe misstep IMO
There is nothing in AMT that says, "If you make more than X you have to pay AMT. As discussed here this will impact some (but not all) that make $90k and up. It is weird how it works. You may make $100k and end up getting hit for an estra $3k in fed taxes. But your neighbor down the street makes $200k and he pays no AMT. (He will pay net more taxes than you, but not AMT)
Therefore O can avoid the conflict with the campaign promise of not raising taxes on those making less than $250k.
Few will understand it. What will happen is that in April of 2012 the 23mm people who get hit with this "surprise" will feel $90b poorer.
The tax problems of people making more than $100K are totally, completely unsympathetic to me.
Hey Zack! Don't worry dipshit, I'll just have a shunt installed to make it easier for you to suck the blood straight from my fucking veins.
BTW, it was me that junked you.
Do you have any idea how patrician you sound?
Why would you assume that every tax dollar taken from your "veins" goes directly to mine?
Zack, I hope in a few years you will be looking at 100k. When it happens you will pay more in taxes. But this AMT is a bad one. It is anti home ownership, It is anti having a large family. It will discourage us from making charitable contributions. Dumb tax policy in my opinion.
All due respect, Bruce, but so what?
So a rentier goes from paying 26% of his income under the special rules of the AMT to paying at the same marginal rates as all us other working mortals. So he goes from paying 15% for long-term capital gains to 25%, when there should never have been a distinction between cap gains and ordinary income to begin with. Honestly, big fucking hairy deal.
Government *ought* to be out of the business of encouraging home ownership. Why should mortgage debt get preferential tax treatment over, say, student loan debt? College is good, right? At least that's the bullshit line they've been selling the middle class for decades.
Frannie *should've* gone into runoff two years ago. Banks have done just fine for centuries without any concept of securitization. Banksters should have to put on their big girl panties, suck it up and hold the debt on their sheets as covered bonds.
Government *ought* to be out of the business of using tax policy to influence reproductive decisions. History shows us recession will have more to do with that decision than a child tax credit.
Spot on. The web is so twisted there is no way out. Hit the reset button - Hyperinflation.
Again with the whole notion of tax cuts being something the gubment has to 'pay for'. Please remember, the gubment has NO MONEY to 'pay' for anything. What the f**king washington vampires need to do is STOP SPENDING OUR MONEY like drunken degenerates, and then 'paying for it' by borrowing more money from thin air or foreign loan sharks (which will require REAL interest in return), or trying to find creative new ways to suck just another drop of blood from the enslaved peasantry.
The longer as we keep believing that a tax cut is something poor gubment has to write a check for, the longer we'll keep thinking 'gee, this kool-aid tastes purty good!'
Over half of all Americans have this attitude because they don't have to pay taxes. There's no fixing the system at this point. We've fallen off the cliff already and there's nothing to be done until we hit bottom.
And here are the rats who get the cheese:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/our-government/executive-branch
Department of Agriculture - employs more than 100,000 employees and has an annual budget of approximately $95 billion. It consists of 17 agencies.
Department of Commerce - oversees a $6.5 billion budget and approximately 38,000 employees.
Department of Defense - The largest government agency, with more than 1.3 million men and women on active duty, nearly 700,000 civilian personnel, and 1.1 million citizens who serve in the National Guard and Reserve forces.
Department of Education - oversees the Department's 4,200 employees and $68.6 billion budget.
Department of Energy - oversees a budget of approximately $23 billion and more than 100,000 federal and contract employees (ed. mostly contract).
Department of Health and Human Services - oversees a budget of approximately $700 billion and approximately 65,000 employees. The Department's programs are administered by 11 operating divisions, including 8 agencies in the U.S. Public Health Service and 3 human services agencies.
Department of Homeland Security - The third largest Cabinet department, DHS employs 216,000 people (budget unstated).
Department of Housing and Urban Development - oversees approximately 9,000 employees on a budget of approximately $40 billion.
Department of the Interior - oversees about 70,000 employees and 200,000 volunteers on a budget of approximately $16 billion. Every year it raises billions in revenue from energy, mineral, grazing, and timber leases, as well as recreational permits and land sales.
Department of Justice - is comprised of 40 component organizations. With a budget of approximately $25 billion, the DOJ is the world's largest law office.
Department of State - oversees 30,000 employees and a budget of approximately $35 billion.
Department of Transportation - oversees approximately 55,000 employees and a budget of approximately $70 billion.
Department of the Treasury - oversees a budget of approximately $13 billion and a staff of more than 100,000 employees.
Department of Veterans Affairs - oversees a budget of approximately $90 billion and a staff of approximately 235,000 employees.
What do all these people do? Oh, just figure out how to spend more money. 100,000 in the Energy Department ... WTF.
Careful now. Those morons in the DOE are in charge of maintaining our nuke silos.
I should junk you just for putting the Exec Branch link in your post. It's malicious site that will suck money from every pore of your being.
Cut taxes and CUT SPENDING> this can be done! PS this tax hike will not go down well with all the Dems who are Gob't employees making 120 with a wife school teacher who is making 100. and have other passive income etc. Also, the DEMS leadership so called are ticked that HIMSELF did not talk to them about the latest sops= 100% expensing and R/D expansion. Dearest Leader -good luck bro.
52K is the median HOUSEHOLD income, not individual.
I find myself wondering more and more often, what if we could start a trend similar to the $500 dollar ATM withdrawal day.........only this time, have more time to plan, spread the word, and do it with TAXES.
Everyone just go to work, request new IRS forms, and change the with-holdings. List 9 dependents and start keeping everything on your check that you can. Then, come next April 15th, no one files a tax return.
How many people could be recruited to join the fray.
And for that matter, why haven't the tea partiers put this out there already.
You could have a real tax revolt without really having to do anything........just starve the beast.
What could the federal government really do if there were massive numbers of working people who did this. They wouldn't have the money to pay IRS agents and lawyers to do the prosecutions, let alone enough cops and jails to hold everyone. And even if they did lock them all up, how does removing a significant portion of the hard working american economy help them?
An idea I've floated for years, and the main reason I think it attracts no mainstream attention is because (although few people admit it, we all know) we live in a fascist totalitarian state where THE MAN will come put you down like a dog if your crazy-ass revolutionary ideas ever actually begin to create a problem for the existing power-structures.
Go drop that comment into virtually any "respectable" innerwebz message board and watch the conversation stop cold.
Of course, I'm just another ranting loony, so I doubt anyone would appreciate *my* support.
Larry they are most likely on to you already.
wrong spot
Actually, Bruce, there is at least one other alternative. The goobermint could do what I did when my income went down a couple of years ago - not spend so much. What a concept. If you start with the assumption that goobermint needs more money you won't wind up any place pleasant.
Maybe a small beginning step would be to cut entitlements for illegals? I was amazed to find out in postings the other day we send dollars to illegal recipients, but only to other countries.
My entitlement, social security,
"I was amazed to find out in postings the other day we send dollars to illegal recipients, but only to other countries."
Well, be prepared to be amazed even further.
"This year, the Obama administration will spend nearly $6 million to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including mosques and minarets, in 55 nations, according to State Department documents.
Under a program established by Congress in 2001, the department will fund at least five projects in as many countries at a cost of more than $271,000.
The contributions include $76,135 for the 16th century Grand Mosque in Tongxin, China, and $67,500 for the 18th century Golden Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan. An additional $62,169 will be spent on restoring a 19th century minaret in Mauritania's ancient city of Tichitt; $50,437 for the Sundarwala Burj, a 16th century Islamic Monument in New Delhi, and $15,450 to restore the 18th century Gobarau Minaret in Katsina, Nigeria."
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/obama-spending-6-million-to-restore-mo...
Where are all out "progressive" friends screeching about separation of church and state?
Because our taxes are spent in other nations it's okie dokey I suppose.
Six million there...a billion over there...a trillion out there...pretty soon we're talkin real money here...and Barry has the gall to speak of 250k as rich...idiots.
As pissed as we are about ridiculous spending, wouldn't it be better to spend $6 million helping to restore beautiful historic building, preserving incredible history, culture and beauty than doing this:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
"With the December 2009 enactment of the FY2010 Defense Appropriations Act (H.R. 3326/P.L. 111-
118) and the FY2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 3288/P.L. 111-117), Congress has
approved a total of $1.086 trillion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid,
embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks:
Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Afghanistan and other counter terror operations; Operation Noble
Eagle (ONE), providing enhanced security at military bases; and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)."
why is excessive taxation so popular? why is the majority so different from the majority of the past? whatever happened to the boston tea party?
http://covert2.wordpress.com
Read up on the Boston Tea Party and what the colonists were upset about, it is very interesting. First, it was not taxes period, it was taxes without representation. Second, the tea tax advantaged a crony govt big business and disadvantaged local, small businessmen..their protests were about big businesses getting special favors from big govt without those it effected having any say or vote in it.
Read up on the Boston Tea Party and what the colonists were upset about, it is very interesting. First, it was not taxes period, it was taxes without representation. Second, the tea tax advantaged a crony govt big business and disadvantaged local, small businessmen..their protests were about big businesses getting special favors from big govt without those it effected having any say or vote in it.
Read up on the Boston Tea Party and what the colonists were upset about, it is very interesting. First, it was not taxes period, it was taxes without representation. Second, the tea tax advantaged a crony govt big business and disadvantaged local, small businessmen..their protests were about big businesses getting special favors from big govt without those it effected having any say or vote in it.
Read up on the Boston Tea Party and what the colonists were upset about, it is very interesting. First, it was not taxes period, it was taxes without representation. Second, the tea tax advantaged a crony govt big business and disadvantaged local, small businessmen..their protests were about big businesses getting special favors from big govt without those it effected having any say or vote in it.
Does anyone know anything about the tax on rental income that was in the health care bill?
Democrats are a bunch of hypocrites (many Republicans too). The Bush tax cuts were bad, terrible for the economy they say, well, gee... except for the biggest part of them that cut taxes for everyone making less than $250K. Oh, and never mind that individuals making more than $250K actually paid MORE in taxes despite the lower marginal rates.
I still remember my late father-in-law's counsel in the 90s. It was fresh and simple. When I pissed and moaned about how much in taxes I had to pay he said he wished he could pay three times as much in taxes because it meant he was making three times more money.
Make more money pay more taxes. Okay. Shut me right up.
Today we are on the fringe of collapsing net worth AND paying more in taxes. Much of it is to pay down irresponsible fiscal behaviors. Very different story.
I'm pretty sure that a tendency toward hypocrisy is a requisite for holding public office, without regard to party affiliation. Almost all of them are liars, cheats and scumbags.
I believe you are going a little easy on the liars, cheats and scumbags. Would love to see a complete list of nouns, verbs and modifiers that one could use to descrbe the aforementioned LCSs. Probably need a whole new website.
Fucking ball-busting imbeciles? People so slow that they haven't figured out what to have for breakfast yesterday, despite being at the helm of a quasi-metaphysical Titanic? A bunch of greedy, self-serving, snake-kissing, dog-licking, cum-burping guttersluts? Douchebags in wing-tips and a three-piece with an I.Q. that's the fourth derivative of their credit score? Ben Bernanke finally listed as a person who's most beneficial contribution to life would be to the cast of "Survivor" if he let them use his dome as a reflecting mirror to signal for help?
Forget epithets or easy insults...just remove the convenient context of basic social services, and see how long any of these assholes would survive, regardless of useless political bias. Anyone who ever read "The Masque of the Red Death" is just laughing until this subverted and perverted interpretation of free-market capitalism finally dies under its own stupid weight.
As Dems blather about taxing the "rich", lets all remember that the AMT was originally passed because a couple dozen millionaires legally didn't pay any taxes one year in the late 60's - and now the AMT is hitting mostly families with modest incomes in high tax states.
Along similar lines, it should be noted that the new medicare "surtax" of 3.5% on high income earners is NOT indexed for inflation. So when the Fed fires up the high speed printer, that surtax will be coming to a neighborhood near you.
What is needed then are more, ahem, jobs like those the government created for CPAs and Tax attorneys, millions of jobs that are very highly paid, have excellent benefits, and although most of them are subject to the AMT, and highest tax rate schedule, they are merely 'investing' in keeping those jobs by complicating the tax code more each year. We can be certain that this segment of the population will not join the cry for a flatulent tax.
So. What kinds of jobs can theBamster create like that? What an opportunity to shine.
1. IRS Agent
2. Re-Settlement/Internment Specialist
3. Neighborhood Monitoring Agent
4. Streamlined Migration Assistance Officer
I'm sure there are more...
In light of all of this bullshit, I think it's high time we begin seriously evaluating just what it is that we receive for our tax dollars. Apparently, mine are going toward paying the salaries of useless, bloviating assholes with no practical skills whatsoever who write laws in which I don't believe, provide "services" that I don't need, instigate and prosecute wars that benefit only themselves and some of their butt-buddies in the defense and energy sectors, and failing to maintain the infrastructure on which I do depend to any reliable level. Wow...that sure makes me happy, as a single man, to give up 33% of what I earn every year. In fact, it makes me so happy that, every time I think about it, I'd like to jam a #6 sewing needle through my eye and into my brain, then stir until drooling results.
Wouldn't it just be grand if we all stopped paying anything other than our municipal taxes? I mean, those are the only ones that go to providing you with anything in return at all...trash pickup, leaf/brush pickups, local road maintenance, etc. I'd love to see a taxpayer revolt that starved the federal level like the tumor that it is, held the state level at ransom until they agreed to get the fuck out of my life and back to keeping the roads and bridges in good order, and left my municipality able to function just as well as it does...which, fortunately for me, is very well, in my opinion.
By the by...sales tax is a bunch of fucking bullshit, too. Here in NJ, I actually have to charge my customers 7% on my fucking LABOR. Why? It's my time and effort...why does the state get a cut of it? I think I might send them a bill for the time that it takes me to compute and collect their fucking sales tax, just for a lark. I'm curious as to what the response would be.
Have you considered forgetting to file your taxes?
Hasn't hurt Tim Geithner's career...
Yeah, but I actually provide a very clear-cut service to my customers, without a lot of smiling or hand-shaking involved. I also lack the clout to do much more than make my own toilet flush properly, so...to modernize a great quote, "when they came for everyone but me, I said very little, for I was just myself. When they finally came for me, I just died in a hail of gunfire." I don't expect that anyone would stop paying their taxes on the very simple basis of my own objections, and I continue to pay my own...however, if enough people started to actually ask just what it was that they were buying with such a ridiculously lopsided purchase, well...that might lead to something better. POSSIBLY, but not very likely. Hence, we're all toast.
+14,000,000,000,000
Thanks for such colorful venting! Well said, Sir!
Hahaha, I like to think that, if nothing else, I can contribute some colorful imagery to the discussion at hand.
This year, I worked 5 months, made 100K, then am taking the rest of the year off. No AMT, no problemo with the 250K cutoff. Thanks for your contributions, suckers!!
Actually there is no AMT tax in 2010 unless you are in the trap from the prior years. So you can "afford" to work some more....