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The Tax Facts: "You Do The Math"
As UBS reported said, in both the Republican primary and the general election campaigns in 2012, various Presidential candidates in discussing taxes have recommended that voters "do the math" in evaluating various tax change proposals. The following preliminary 2010 data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) should be helpful for performing such calculations. We present a variety of self-explanatory exhibits sourced directly from the IRS, which include all the DIY math on income distribution, tax rate schedules, who is affected if Bush taxes cuts for high-income taxpayers expire, sources of itemized deductions and higher incomes, the size distribution of businesses paying individual income taxes, and everything else that may and likely will be thrown out, if incorrectly, by one or both candidates tonight, in an attempt to rally any one group of people behind the cause (what cause exactly remains to be seen).
Source: UBS
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Tax Facts: Do the Meth...
As illegal/immoral today as it was 100 years ago...
methadone?
Asking Americans to 'do the math' when it comes to taxes and things like treasury spending VS tax inflows, is like asking Americans to count the number of calories they consume VS calories burned doing exercise.
They don't want to know the final answer.
Almost a totally worthless analysis. Add in payroll taxes which is a larger portion of revenue than income taxes and then see which brackets are paying what. But these propaganda pieces never,, ever do that as the facts are startling. One of the better things to do on taxes (revenue wise) would be to preserve the Bush tax cuts for everyone would be fine but an adjustment for the top 5% would be better, and then eniminate the ceiling of SSAN, FICA and FUTA contributions. Make the rich pay the same gross percentage as everyone else. Then watch the screaming. You can't do this to me. I'm rich. Payroll taxes are for janitors, secretaries, public sector workers, sales clerks and other wage minions. I'm rich. How dare you. Which is why such an option is never suggested and the facts to do a comparisson are never even presented. The whole frame of the "debate" is a slanted joke.
Damn, did you ever get that right. How dare you! Facts not allowed! And we should means-test the bennies on top...which might not solve everything, but it'd sure go a long way in the right direction.
I personally know multi millionaires who collect SS. Pretty sick.
It's not a revenue problem, it's a spending problem.
BTW, why should someone who paid into an alleged insurance scheme not get some of the benefit he or she was promised when forced to make those "Contributions"?
It's sick that people sit around thinking they can take, take, take from others because the others have more. Can't wait for the return of fuedalism so we can get back to chaining the serfs to their plows in exchange for the protection and handouts.
It's not a theoretical question--we're well past the point of "principle." There's just no money. If you want your taxes to continue to increase to provide fun-money for guys like Warren Buffet and John McCain, you should clarify the socialist argument a bit.
It should start something like this:
"Government should *definitely* be collecting money from fast-food employees to provide Social Security checks for Ted Turner BECAUSE _________________."
Can't wait for the return of fuedalism? It's already here, my friend, just in new clothes.
Paul,
The problem is you're trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. The progressive tax code relying on earnings/wages is what the problem IS. Entire forests have been decimated by politicians screwing around with the tax code trying to herd people this way & that. Cronyism is rife within it.
Tweaking it solves nothing.
Abolish it, go with a flat tax at point of sale and fire three quarters of the IRS.
I think a point of sale tax is a good idea, but you know, over time, they'll tinker with that also. Certain items will have lower taxes than others.
Or no tax...food for example, shouldn't be taxed IMHO.
I'm talking vegetables, meat, bread, soup, eggs, flour, sugar, fish, salt etc...not comfort foods like Pepsi and chips.
And so it begins, as you say...the carve outs ;-)
Mr. Fawkes,
Interesting that you propose such as above.
I've done some analysis on what would it look like to abolish income taxes, and have a regressive sales tax based on inflation (i.e. low inflation items have a high sales tax, think computers and cars, and high inflation, food - energy, have a low to no sales tax) or simply a progressive tax based on the size of the purchase (necessary goods tend to be small absolute dollar amounts, and luxury items tend to be large dollar amounts - low to no sales tax on $5 dollars, but a 15% tax on anything of $20,000, obviously some linear model not a dumb step function like current laws).
Because TPTB control currency and inflation numbers, focusing on taxes alone is like fixing one side of a slide rule. They can make the taxes look more "equitable", but screw the poor on inflation and currency debasement - move the other side in the favor of the rich. A tax code that accounts for this intrinsic inequity actually appears to minimizes the fiscal and monetary forces that lead to ever expanding wealth disparity over time.
Would love to crowd source thoughts on this policy proposal from the brainpower we have at ZH.
Everything needs to have the same tax rate, otherwise you're still allocating production based on central planning. The market pricing mechanism is necessary to avoid malinvestment and economic collapse. This is one of Mises' basic principles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_calculation_problem
True, but when you have a federal reserve / fiat currency, the market pricing mechanism is already basically being intentionally overridden when it comes to interest rates and exchange rates by TPTB. Without removing that from the equation, you don't / can't get market pricing anywhere else in the system, including goods and services, because interest rates and currency value drive all of those prices.
If you have central planning that is explicitly designed to inflate my cost structure/deflate my asset base, while deflate someone else's cost structure/inflating their asset base, that is central planning that leads to misallocation of capital and exponential compounding of the weath gap. We have no check and balance currently in place to address this.
Accepting that I have little probability of success in ending the Fed or a fiat currency system, I ask can one design a tax system that is explicitly designed to offset those distorting forces? Can tax be applied with the explicit goal of normalizing the market price distorting effects of monetary policy?
Mises and Hayek are correct, but that doesn't answer this question.
For decades, of course we were told that "Payroll taxes" were "insurance premium " payments.
As the Social Security payment has an income related limit, the tax obviously should, too.
methaoverdone
Guess How Many Millionaires Collect Unemployment In U.S...?
It's a higher number than I thought.
Unlike Welfare, Section-8 Housing, FoodStamps or ObamaPhones; Unemployment is an insurance policy which every worker pays premiums for. The idea is to insure the worker against the loss of their job. Millionaires who earned incomes paid their premiums; why shouldn't they be allowed to collect their insurance benefits when they lose their job just like every other worker?
The real question should be why do we have an Unemployment Insurance in the first place? If you want to be safe from one job to the next perhaps you should actually save some money rather than expecting OP to pay you for being a lazy bum and not finding a job.
Stop typing and put down your iPhone, the fries are up.
Debt Based Money makes it impossible for everyone to "save money."
Money is debt. Your wealth is, by definition someone else's debt.
Warren Buffett is not just a good con artist, his billions literally enslave millions to perpetual debt.
Poverty: Debt is not a Choice
Debt Money Tyranny v. 6.1
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/4768883/debtmoneytyranny-6-1-pdf-60k?tr=77
The Trojan Horse, debt based monetary scheme is the world's biggest con game in human history.
The people running it aren't stupid, after all, they've enslaved every Western nation to debt based money and they are bombing the crap out of nations that don't allow usury... until they a conquered and a central bank is set up to covertly enslave their populations to debt based money.
Wake up! Stay focused!
+1 for your healthy mind and clear vision.
It's difficult not to lose focus or get confused.
I never paid unemployment taxes as a contractor - or even the "CEO" of my business which only used contractors. Nice loophole. I gave each of my hires a choice of being a legal employee, or a contractor, and showed them how much money they'd get from customers either way. Not one chose to be an "employee". Did I only hire smart guys? That's what I tried to do, but man...when you roll the numbers, no young guy wants to pay for unemploymet or disability insurance, no friggin way. They want the cash to do with what they think best, period.
Boat payments need to be made, dammit!
That's what people don't understand. Just like Dad said, 'I pay the bills and you will obey my rules while you live you under my roof.", the government does the exact thing with employees.
Fuck the government.
Fuck the police.
You are not your job.
You are not your fucking khakis.
There is no hedge against calamity.
When it's your time, your time is up.
WAKE UP!
WAKE UP!
WAKE UP!
I'm no millionaire but I'm self-employed. Every year I'd pay several hundred dollars in unemployment 'fees' but I can never collect any benefits. I don't want any to be honest, but why the fees? I pay both sides of taxation but don't derive any benefit as an employee would and have little if any tax benefit as a small business person so where is the incentive to hire? I've never been able to make the jump to employer and only use 1099 workers. The 'system' is seriously skewed towards big(ger) business and there is little incentive towards true entrepeneurship, if I sold my soul and begged .GOV for Bennies, I could move Forward! but then my incentive would be to pad my pockets and close the doors as soon as the numbers didn't make sense. The system is seriously screwed...
Spot on Krispkritter and yet all the talk about how we have to help small business blah, blah. The two parties are both the same side of a one sided coin.
Same comment as before ... forced contributions to acquire a benefit, so why should that benefit not be provided when the precedent conditions are met?
Balancing a $1.5T deficit between 110,000,000 taxpaying households comes to $14K per household and change. Make the top 10% of those pay, and oops, you need $150K from each household, more than they make on average. You can see where this is going.
Send the "two Bobs" into every Gov agency to CUT the waste?
You're assuming the $1.5T deficit is the right spending level. 87% of Egypt hates our guts, but we need to give them over $1B a year to sit billions of dollars in planes and billions in support staff at the base so they'll be friendly to Israel and lots of stuff sold by the military industrial complex. All these countries get free schools and hospitals and such, even the ones we bomb. Egypt will help us with that problem and so will China, South America and Africa. It wont be solved by the president or congress because they are paid for.
Eliminate foreign aid (maybe a good idea politically anyway) and you reduce the $1.5 T to $1.48T. So what? Cut our military spend down from #1 until it's in a two way tie for the most and you cut $1.5 T to $0.75 T. Don't get hogswallowed by "conservative" politicians railing against foreign aid. That ain't even rounding error. And if we didn't blow up brown people who live in the sand, we wouldn't need the foreign aid anyway.
If it was only $1.5 trillion. What about the losses Fannie and Freddie are going to rack up?
How about the losses the worthless 2nd mortgage MBSes are going to rack up at the Federal Reserve Trojan Horse - and you know they will force those bankster losses down our throats, too.
We are already about $20 trillion in debt, they just haven't told gullible citizenry yet. Did I say citizenry? I meant consumers.
And people making between $100-200,000 get the biggest shaft while carrying the bigest load - who would have thought
Maybe I am misreading the chart but the 100-200k is about even. I read that %agi as percentage of all taxes paid, not as the % of income, I.e., effective tax rate. Am I wrong?
If I am correct then this shows the wealthiest are pulling more than a proportional share of taxes.
Why are they telling us married couples making $250k are in the top 1% and should be paying the highest taxes?? They aren't living like Wareen Buffet. And he pays less taxes to boot.
Answer: it's all bullshit.
You should use the Big Bird Tax Credit and be subsidized for your talents & labor...its the latest thing in progressive taxation!
I got cha Big Bird Tax Credit right heah...
lol...Big Bird (crony capitalist).
Did you know my son and I blew up a Barney the Purple Dinosaur stuffed toy in our backyard when he was young?
It was a Christmas gift from a friend, my son looked at me when he opened the box...I smiled at him...he smiled back...aaah memories ;-)
CUTE PURPLE DINOSAUR
The Romans had no letter 'U', and used 'V' instead for printing, meaning the Roman representation would for Barney would be: CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR
CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR
Extracting the Roman numerals, we have:
CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR
CV V L DI V
And their decimal equivalents are:
CVTE PVRPLE DINOSAVR
CV V L DI V
100 5 5 50 500 1 5
Adding those numbers produces: 666.
Well, there ya go.
What was left of Barney seemed right at home sitting there in the ashes ;-)
Well, they ARE in the top 1%, but the top 1% is still mostly middle-class.
Let's create the Warren Buffet declaration tax. Any billionaire/millionaire that publicly declares that taxes should be raised, will automatically be assessed a new tax requiring them to contribute 25% of their net worth to the deficit problem. Let them put their money where their mouth is.
All members of the Democratic party should be assessed an extra 5% to prove they believe the tax BS they spout, as well. Instead they park their yatchs in the lower tax states.
That is by far one of the best tax proposals I've ever heard.
Call it "blowhard tax."
I took the "% of AGI" and "% of Taxes Paid" from chart 2 and the "AGI", "Taxable Income", and "Taxes Paid" from chart 1: http://oi50.tinypic.com/24o1x15.jpg
"And people making between $100-200,000 get the biggest shaft while carrying the bigest load"
Wrong .
Divide the "% of Taxes paid" number by the "% of AGI" number to see the real tax burden,
I would have liked to have seen a break-out of the Earned Income Tax Credit nuber.
I would have liked to have seen a break-out of the Earned Income Tax Credit nuber.
Don't worry, when everyone's broke, everyone'll get it.
I would add that since the USA runs 25-40% annual deficits everyone's taxes should be that much higher to balance the books. If you add new spending as Obama and all socialists propose, then keep adding.
What about the new spending that Romney and his socialists propose?
I am no fan of Romney. He is a centrist Democrat in the wrong party. However, I do think he is a more competent statist as compared to the current incompetent statist-socialist.
0-$8,700 hit hardest until you factor in running to the nanny-state for relief.
Gotcha right where they wantcha.
Still seems like arithmetic to me...
Voters do the math ? Thats akin to a legless man doing the high jump...
''I was told there would be no math''
Tax the banks, that's where the money is...
Thats double counting!!! ;-)
Unless you pass a law that says "banks must loose money" they will just pass the tax as a consumer on to you.
That's our current problem: the biggest bank of them all; the Federal Reserve is 'loosing' too much money... wish they'd stop 'loosing' all that money into the system...
Where is the calculation for untaxed theft and robbery...why not let criminals pay their fair share?
Oh wait...that means we would have to tax banks!
Another potential fix:
MAKE CORPORATIONS PAY TAXES ON "EARNINGS ANNOUNCEMENTS" QUARTERLY
Or- make corporations pay taxes.
You'll need a companion bill for price controls to prevent them from passing (increased?) corporate taxation on to the consumer.
Historically, not a good idea.
Corporations pay lots of taxes - you know, the mom and pop kind.
The multinationals, though, they are different category. They are controlled by Big Finance Capital... and they spend more money lobbying their political operatives than they do paying taxes.
MAKE CORPORATIONS PAY TAXES ON "EARNINGS ANNOUNCEMENTS" QUARTERLY
Make OVERSEAS AMERICAN Corporations, pay American Tax rates.(or More)
Maybe THEN it would pay to keep em HOME.
Think, Globally, act LOCALLY.
I'm thinking that ZERO rate that GE paid on 191 billion over the last seven years might be a good place to start. Fifty billion or so buys a lot of 50k taxpayers.
Fuckers.
But then we wouldn't be able to use the fact GE paid zero taxes to raise everyone elses rate to 40%.
Start by getting rid of the Department of Education because they obviously have not done a good job at developing a standard for teaching math.
NO FAIR!!!
I agree with Francois Hollande: there should be NO MATH HOMEWORK!!!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/french-president-ax-homework-article-1.1185055
Typical ZH propaganda ignoring any taxes other than income tax.
Three Things Romney Forgot:
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2012/09/three_things_romney_...
Duh, yes Brain.
-- Pinky
They tax people who earn less than 8700$ at 15% ??? Are they fucking serious??
You can barely live with 8700$ a year! And with that money, you can only live in a hell hole somewhere...
This is some epic BS!
They tax people who earn less than 8700$ at 15% ??? Are they fucking serious??
No, they are not serious, looks good until you see the FREE INCOMES and BonEus awards that come form that income level.
I did the math and that's why I stopped volunteering my hard earned fiat currency, back in '86, every April 15th. I suspect I'm not the only one here at ZH.
The thread is great but, as I have said a few times before, no one ever considers the 'loss carry forwards' that have been amassed on the K-1 tax sheets of long form filers. With all the Trillions of dollars of deflation those loss dollars are on someone's or some entities balance sheet-s. C corps and LLC's carry them on their balance sheets and with S corps the CEO's and owners carry them on their K-1's.
Unless the entity files for bankruptcy those losses will remain on the entities balance sheet, are worth .33 cents on the dollar and will be sold to the highest bidder utilized to offset the buying enties future gains. (that future taxes will be levyed against) No profits = No taxes
Tylers - what about the accumulated loss carry forwards that will stifle any attempt to increase revenue from increasing taxes; and that will also virtually guarantee that no financial institution ever pays taxes again?
And we continue to get nothing but LIES from the KING.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-we-got-back-every-dime-bailout-cbo-bailout-will-lose-24-billion
A flat tax - never ever.
I moved to NJ in 1974. That year, the voters allowed the politicians to start a NJ state income tax. AS AN EXPERIMENT. Well, the politicians liked it. In the beginning, the top tax rate was about 1%. Now, in 2012, it is 10%. NJ has practically no deductions and no place for the taxpayer to hide.
You slit your own throat with a flat tax - pretty soon, it will be 101% of income over $100.00.
It is better to have a thick forest to hide in. Whack all the trees, and you are just a sitting duck. Let's make the tax code even thicker. Just use a machine reader to search for hiding places.
This may sound unfair to those who have a limited ability to game the system. But with the flat tax, you are just duck soup.
I'm surprised that no-one has seen the $4trillion a year industry that lies, steals, harasses, extorts, conspires against Americans for the populous x-IRS community and Kansas City HRBlock corrupt families. If you'rent part of this family you are assured an audit and worst if you fight them - you might as well kiss your financials goodbye because they'll concock an illegal IRS sponsored case against you and they'll not stop until you are buried - areal oppressive Federal Gocvernment in your own back yard!
I saw on Television, Agents Ferrer' report on Seniors loosing everything, due to a increased climate of fradulent activity, specially in Florida. We are those people. Below is our last letter seeking help, because the IRS, FTC, DOL, Civil Rights for DOL, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama Staff have ignored, refused and dened us any help or Taxpayer Rights; so we used the Tax Advocates Service(TAS), a Congressionally directed Office when they acted like Collectors instead of compling with Form911, and denied us help, intenionally ignoring, refusing and denying our Constitional Rights; and finally we have used two(2) Tax Attorneys to which having lost all our money and they doing "nothing" we have used the Disciplinary Offices in those States to no avail, they have sanctioned their lack of skill, legal prudence and unprofessional Attorneys duties. We are being told for being honest and supplying all financial information the IRS, they just walked in and stole our money, our Home, our Retirements, but its the other way around -we were to receive representation by these illicit Attorneys and they ignored, refused and denied us our "due processed" to which then the IRS took everything. Now we are told by the IRS, "too bad, sue the Attoney", and so this is the response by the governing body of those Attorneys. See below our latest communications with The Florida Bar and Tax Attorney Ira Zuckerman, PA.; we will continue to tell our story until our last breath. Regardless, we are those that wanted to retire in "peace" andworked hard all our lives to have a retirement, to have a home for our kids future equity; but now have "nothing" and as senior citizens see very little hope in getting any money back or working to replace this grave LARCENY. Even the State of Florida and the United State of America Government are protraying the IRS actions as just, good behavior and sought to quell ALL assistance by ignoring us time after time. So we saw Agent Ferrer' Television report as hope for us that have paid-paid-paid our taxes but because of the criminal, flagrant irresponsibilty within Government we have lost everything. I hope someone can now help us.We had to flee the State of Missouri and Treasury Dept. / IRS to seek legal help in Florida where there are more “Latinos / Hispanic” Representation per capital, against a system of double taxation that has followed us to the State of Florida. Our initial balance was only $15,000 but we have paid exorbitantly in taxes($65,000), in Tax Representation ($26000) and now the illegal seizure of our home($200,000), and both Retirements($106,000) while having a Tax Attorney. We have paid more tax than anyone inthe US, for salaries of less than $95,000 a year between my wife and I. This is why we need your help; No Legal Representation, Failure of Legal Skill and Continued Avoidance to Resolving Our Legal “Due Process” Against the United States of America, Treasury Dept./ IRS Case We recently learned this Tax Attorney Ira L. Zuckerman, PA, 954-922-1975, #402702 said,” he had no obligation to assist us…”. While we were told by him, “ it should be resolved by September 16th, then October 16th, then, then December 19th” . We were also mislead and told all thru this process, “ I am working on it“, “I have other cases similar“, “I know how to get your home back if the IRS takes it”. As responsible Americans we continued to pay-pay-pay-pay; we were garnished, levied and on a payment plan in which we sacrificiously paid All the time, on time; but the IRS and its corrupt Agents decided they’d push every tax year forward and did not allow us court approved access to respond; or this Tax Attorney had an secret agreement with the IRS Agent to take ALL our assets. We say this because the Florida Bar, notified us he showed up with HIS own Attorney to protect HIS assets while HE allowed the IRS to take ALL our assets?! This is why we need your help; No Legal Representation, Failure of Legal Skill and Continued Avoidance to Resolving Our Legal “Due Process” Against the United States of America, Treasury Dept./ IRS Case Both States have sided with the IRS actions, no one in the Federal Government will help refusing, ignoring, denying all governmental, Taxpayer Rights Provisions, or judicial precedent and when seeking legal action against these Attorneys; these “Disciplinary Organizations” approve, favor and side with these incompetent Tax Attorney’s. In Florida: The Florida Bar,Attn. John F. Harkness, Jr,651 E.Jefferson St.,Tallahassee, Fl.32399-2300, 850-561-5600, Ref No.2012-51,668(17A), TheodoreP.Littlwood Jr. In Missouri: Chief Disciplinary Counsel 3335 American Ave. Jefferson City, Mo 65109, 573-635-7400, File #08-2080-IV. This horrendous United States of America Government behavior is unconstitutional, misrepresents and is oppressive! Because of the “lack of(to) motion”, favoritism, attitude and refusal to assist; WE and our family of four(4) children, have had to deal with the cruelest, hateful, ill-minded, extreme, excessive tax collections that has cost us our; livelihood, savings, property, retirement funds and forced us into financial poverty. WE are in fact POOR because of this neglect approving Tax Attorney IRA Zuckerman, PA behavior, attitude chalaunt practices and ill minded legal practice, and approved by The Florida Bar has produced another abusive action against us; we continue to be garnished, our credit report shows multiple errors by thye IRS exceeding $475,000 owed and the the IRS continues to show a balance of $45,000?! We do not know if we were attended by employees within Organizations, Governmental Offices and Attorneys that don’t know their Mission, Statement to assist by Law, Minority Rights, Senior Citizen Rights and/or Congressional Oversight mandates; but even the assistance of Tax Advocate Office(TAS) that instead of adhering to Form911, they acted as tax collectors and were thumbing their nose to their responsibility. Likewise the result of trying to get copies of our file “Tax Attorney” Ira Zuckerman would not release ALL materials claiming “Attorneys Confidentiality“? This why we need your help; No Legal Representation, Failure of Legal Skill and Continued Avoidance to Resolving Our Legal “Due Process” Against the United States of America, Treasury Dept./ IRS Case This United States of America, Department of Treasury / IRS has acted, with avoidance, ignorance, surrounded by actions of denying, refusing and alienating us of our Civil Rights of due process. Below is the address of the IRSCC Office to which we submitted our complaint August 20th, to which they sent us the “we owe $45,000” responseand instead of getting our refund for 2011 we have to pay $8800 for the Retirement funds illegally seized that we did not receive or enjoy! They are going to continue their fraudulent actions and activity against us. We are terribly effected by their actions and it has caused us continued, undue loss, emotion distress, financial hardship, anguish and pain. Violations of “due process” pursuant to ;
[Title 42 USC Chapter 21 - CIVIL RIGHTS, §1981, §1982, §1983, §1984,§1985,§1986,§1987, violations of Title VII, race, color, religion, sex, national origin]. Cordially, MR&MRS MAR Tel. 787.424.3629
Internal Revenue Service Office of the Chief Counsel (IRSCC), 801 9th Street, NW, Mint Building, Room 4-157, Washington, DC, 20220 Regular Mail: 1111 Constitution Ave NW, The Mint Building, M-4-157, Washington, DC 20224 FTS: (202) 283-8600 FAX: (202) 283-7176Email; pabmarq2000@yahoo.com