Calling All Progressives [Archive] - HungAngels - Guide to TGirls and Transsexuals

trish

12-10-2010, 02:56 AM

onmyknees

12-10-2010, 06:20 AM

I know Chris Matthews got a tickle up his leg thinking about Obama, but I don't recall Keith being moved to tears. But then I watch MSNBC about as little as I watch FOX. I don't believe you when you claim not to know what to make of Keith's disappointment. You're just trying to get a rise out us. Okay, here goes.

Obama was always pragmatic, always willing to compromise and never the radical socialist his conservative enemies made him out to be. Of course you knew that. Look at the health care bill. Fox would have you think he shoved it through the legislature like Suzanne Holmes ramming her long, black, turgid cock down gulping conservative throats. It's a nice image. But of course that's not the case. Obama made a lot of concessions to get that legislation passed; concessions that upset his base even back then (e.g. single payer health-care went by the way-side). The exasperation of the democratic base with Obama's willingness to compromise has been a long time baking in the oven. The oven bell went off when he made this latest deal extending the Bush Tax Cuts for another two years even though giving it to the wealthy (who are already making record profits) will add 700 trillion dollars to the deficit over the next decade. A lot of things aren't going our way lately; e.g. nixing DADT got indefinitely delayed today. Obama could've done away with DADT months ago, but insisted on a bipartisan solution. Yet a bipartisan solution is not visible on the horizon. And so it goes. That's politics. When you disagree with your party leader's political tactics you let him know.

Personally, I'm not a political tactician, nor do I like to think about political strategies and tactics all that much. I'm mostly a issues person. So yeah, I think health-care got compromised and watered down; I think we should get rid of DADT immediately; I think we should extend the Bush tax cuts on the first quarter million dollars everyone makes but not the second quarter million. I also realize compromises have to made to make progress. I'm unwilling at the moment to say Obama made the wrong compromises or unnecessary compromises, but it seems a lot of people are entertaining that proposition. I do think the conservative wing plays very good poker and rarely compromises, even if it means American will lose jobs, health and homes.

Well Trish....I'm as into the politics as much as the policy. You can't get the later without the former. Hard to separate the two anymore...but in a way I was asking a legit question. I can't figure progressives out. Name me a more progressive President in the past 40 years? They got their man , the press and the libs did what it took to get him elected...and look at them now. Cannibals! You see, Obama has a progressive problem...not a conservative problem.

I totally and completely disagree Obama was always this big consensus builder you portray him to be. He worked with Dick Luger while staying long enough in the Senate for a cup of coffee. Other than that....I'd like some proof of this great compromiser. If he didn't get all he wanted on Health Care...he can't blame Fox News, and you're too smart for that to. He had overwhelming majorities in both houses.....it's not the Republicans that took the public option out...it's members of his own party. If he had been the compromiser you tell us he was, he may have gotten the 2 Maine gals to vote with him on Health care, but not one Republican vote in either chamber, and the reason he didn't get them because he didn't try. A skillful Pol could have peeled at least several Republicans away. . I think you're really off base on this assessment. This guy is as ideological driven as anyone I've ever observed. There's no history to support your thesis. None.
He put on a great dog and pony show at that Health Care Summit, but never included anything that was suggested by the Republicans that day.Nothing. It was a made for TV show. In fact...just 2 days later they had their first draft of the bill. It was 9 months before he met with the Senate Minority leader. That's fine....he didn't have to...he had plenty of votes to ram through what he wanted and tried, and now that the policies are seen as largely unpopular....suddenly he's centrist?? Not buying' it. Not for a second. He may yet become that....but as of today he isn't. Progressive love to point to the war in Afghanistan as proof he has some sort of moderate cred....That's laughable. Deep down he despises this war and everything to do with it, but at this point....to cut and run would be political disaster. It has nothing to do with his will to win. I'm sorry, but I read the Woodward book and that's the conclusion I've come to. None of this makes him a bad guy....but it also doesn't make him a moderate ! He's said some over the top shit about the opposition party....stuff that cuts deeper than the usual political one upsmanship. ( shall I furnish you a list...??) And when he gets the back of their hand...he has only himself to blame. He was the progressive Messiah...did he change ? Did they change? Or did he fool all of you?

onmyknees

12-10-2010, 06:26 AM

Trish...."like Suzanne Holmes ramming her long, black, turgid cock down gulping conservative throats. It's a nice image"

...we finally agree on something baby !!!!!!! LOL

onmyknees

12-10-2010, 06:32 AM

"Obama could've done away with DADT months ago, but insisted on a bipartisan solution"

No...that's not why he waited. He waited for the political cover the Pentagon study provided him, but now the political landscape is dramatically different.

He did the same exact thing with the deficit commission...( waiting until after the election as not to put any dems in danger) and look where that's heading. He could have implemented any number of these measures. Sorry Trish, but he's not decisive.

trish

12-10-2010, 07:47 AM

Well he may have fooled you into thinking he's a socialist ideologue, but he never fooled me. I knew back during the campaign that he was a pragmatist. How did I know. He said so. His views on Afghanistan, even back then, weren't aligned with the liberal view. Yes of course he hated and hates that war and feels we're too invested to pull out. That's pragmatism. My thesis is that he compromises, not that he's a great consensus maker, or even a consensus maker. It seems he rather good at giving ground and getting little or nothing in return. I do find it amusing that there was not one single republican vote for the health-care bill and you take that not as evidence of republican intransigence but evidence that Obama didn't compromise enough.

As far as DADT goes, the public is overwhelmingly in favor of repeal. It was impolitic to delay the decision. The election is over. Not only is the general public in favor of repeal, the generals and the admirals are in favor of repealing it too. Obama can repeal DADT tomorrow; but there's no indication that he will. That's evidence that he wasn't waiting for political cover_rather he delayed action for the reason he said he delayed action: he wants a bipartisan solution in the legislature. No such solution is in sight because the republicans don't know what to do with the tea-party peeking over their shoulders.

Cuchulain

12-10-2010, 09:23 AM

hippifried

12-10-2010, 03:54 PM

Well, I still don't know what the hell "a progressive" is, so I didn't think this was for me. But since you mentioned my name, I figure I might as well chime in.

Both the left & right have been whining about the president for the last year & a half. That's because they're whiners. I have no sympathy for glassy eyed ideologues from any bent. The republicans have been whining since before the inauguration of course, & they formulated a plan from the outset to be completely obstructionist. They announced the plan in 2008 right after the election. The "professional left" (I love that term. Thank you Mr Gibbs.) started whining as soon as it became clear that their agenda wasn't on top of the priority list. So what? It was never even part of the campaign. Barack Obama didn't get elected because he was black or because the country suddenly took a left turn. He was elected because he's smart & pragmatic. He was elected by an overwhelming majority, & still has better favorable ratings than any other politician or political group, because he's NOT an ideologue.

On health care: It was the right wing democrats in the Senate who gutted the original proposal. It's not that republican ideas weren't incorporated. They didn't have any, other than "not now" or "it's not the right time to do anything on healthcare" or "let the markets handle it" blah blah blah ad nauseum. We've heard that bullshit for the last century. Well now there's finally something on the books that can be tweaked, changed, & added to. I figure that my great grand daughter (on the way & due in April) will have a pretty good setup by the time she goes to school or starts thinking about a family of her own.

The tax deal will pass. If the democrats wanted the proposal that the President sent them 2 years ago, they should have taken it up at least 6 months ago, before they lost the House, where all tax legislation must originate. I don't know what makes them think they'll get a better deal if they wait till the republicans take over. There's a lot more to this than just the Bush tax cuts. Somebody needs to get a grip.

The ban on homosexuals serving in the military will get lifted. It's part of the military appropriations bill, which won't pass without it. Personally, I think "don't ask don't tell" should still be the policy after the ban is gone. It's really nobody's business, & shouldn't be any kind of an issue within the unit. They have other things to do.

onmyknees

12-10-2010, 10:34 PM

Trish has it right. You're just trying to stir shit up, but then that's what we all do here. Obama made some progressive noises when he was running - against the tax cuts for the upper 2%, the Iraq debacle, gitmo, torture, trade deals and he favored climate change legislation and cardcheck. He gave us a reason to hope that he would be a fairly progressive President

Personally, I never expected him to be another FDR, but I never thought he'd be this middle of the road. I think a lot of people on the left got carried away with their hopes for his Presidency and are disheartened by the truth. We watched the repubs ram through every damn thing they wanted when they were in power and we wanted the same from the Dems. Obviously, that hasn't happened and Obama is taking the brunt of our anger.

In politics (and many other things), perception can be just as important as reality. You suggest that Obama never really tried to compromise with repubs, but that's not the way the Party base sees it. We feel he bent over backwards to accommodate them and that pisses us off, especially after the way the gop slapped Dems around during the first six years of Bush/Cheney.

Sure, LIEbermann and a few CONservadems in the Senate are largely responsible for the failure to push through a more liberal agenda. Obama is the President though, and we wanted him to have more fire in his belly. The base of either Party needs a little red meat now and again. Barry O the candidate knew that. Barry O the President seems to have forgotten it.
Well of course you think Trish has it right...that could have been left unsaid ! And as far as stirring things up....I'd like to think we talk
politics under the "POLITICS" section. I like to hear what Trish has to say. I'm not trying to jab a stick in anyone's eye here...lord knows it was not a fun time being a Buckley conservative during the last few years of the Bush administration, but the downplaying of the current situation is in stark contrast to much of the exuberant posts on this forum 2 years ago.

My point to Trish and you all is that Obama has really boxed himself in. I referred to it as his "progressive problem". His base wants him to deliver, but the reality is that only 25% of the population identifies themselves as left wing. That's not where elections are won. If he seeks to mollify his base, he'll alienate the 30% of moderate independents ( witness this past election) and his party will continue to loose ground. There are about 5...maybe 6 congressional districts that Nancy Pelosi could get elected in outside of S.F. and that's part of your problem. Add to that, he allowed her to pretty much set all the legislative agenda the past 2 years and you can see why you guys are in such trouble. But hey...there's hope. I heard Slick Willie himself was at the White House today ! Here is what I truly don't get about you progressives despite studying you for many years...Let's take Congressman Anthony Weiner from NYC, and the issue of the death tax that the Dems have thrown down the gauntlet over. I know Trish knows who he is. My observation is that he represents the far left progressive wing of your party....along with Pelosi and others. When Meghan Kelly ( Fox News) was questioning him the other day about the death tax and the fact it's insidious, because the accumulation of one's lifetime of work and assets, has already been taxed. For example you purchase most assets with after tax dollars over the course of a lifetime. That means the vast majority of your assets have already been taxed once...perhaps more. Upon your death, the government comes in ( Probate) places a value on the assets and hands a tax bill to the heirs. In most cases, the heirs can't possibly pay the hefty tax and sell off their parents lifetime body of work at 35% tax. When questioned about this, Weiner actually said...yes of course the earners of that estate have paid taxes on it through a variety of taxation mechanisms , but the heirs haven't.......?????? He almost wanted to say...we'll their dead...what do they care?? The point is Congressman Weiner...THE ASSETS HAVE ALREADY BEEN TAXED. I'm honest with you when I tell you I really can't comprehend that kind of thinking, and from the looks of it..........neither can the vast majority of Americans.

trish

12-10-2010, 11:18 PM

Faldur

12-10-2010, 11:35 PM

The fact that anyone is allowed to serve in Washington for more than a decade is half the problem. We should cut our representative office/staff budgets by 75%. And we should reduce their salary by 25%. Maximum Senate terms 1, maximum Congressional terms 2. Then maybe we start electing people who actually cared about getting something productive done for the country. Representation that is not so bent on "keeping my cushy job".

And the death tax is unconstitutional, it is clearly double taxation.

hippifried

12-11-2010, 06:41 AM

onmyknees

12-11-2010, 05:20 PM

I don't think anyone who has been in Congress for more than decade is far anything. If Pelosi and Weiner are far left progressives, then Bonner and Sessions are far right regressives.

First of all, dead people don't pay estate taxes. Seems to me any argument for or against a gift tax could be used to support or counter the validity of inheritance tax, which is just a tax on a gift left to you by the deceased. I don't see the inheritance tax as insidious. Just the opposite. What is insidious and dangerous is the accumulation of inherited power in a single family over generations. Such accumulation amounts to an effective aristocracy and a generational consolidation of power. Moreover, the inheritance taxes that have existed in the U.S. have never been a burden on anyone but the extremely powerful. When the estate tax was under consideration under W's administration the right got farmers all upset claiming they won't be able to pass on their family farms, or that middle class families won't be able to pass on their homes because the estate tax is way too exorbitant. But no family farm, nor any middle class home has ever been subject to an estate tax. What has put the family farm and middle class homes in danger are the bizarre banking practices that the powerful have utilized to grasp even more power.

I will admit, the term "death tax" was a stroke of genius. Two simple words. The republicans are masters at creating the most compact lies in the known universe.

Trish...
The death tax is the most regressive, punitive tax currently on the books. It is a death tax and you've given no substantial reason why it either shouldn't be abolished, or renamed "THE DEATH TAX". It is what it is Trish. This idea that liberals have about confiscation of wealth even after death, and who's wealthy is a phenomenon. Other than what is absolutely necessary to run a functioning, limited federal government, what entitles you to think it's acceptable to take from one and give to another ? My gawd...it's created generational dependence on the government for just about everything. You only need to look at the UK to see where that's all headed.But I digress...back to the death tax... I understand you're from NYC, and I'm not attempting to be condescending here...but here's what it does to farms and farmers. You might think about that the next time you look for locally grown fruits and vegetables and find it's all from Chile or Mexico.

I became aware of the impact of the death tax some years ago. Worked with a guy in construction who planned on going back to the family farm in Iowa and making a go of it. Most of his paycheck went back to help support his folks who were still farming the land struggling to mechanize and produce more with less. The farm had been in the family for decades. He tells the story of his father digging out rocks with the help of a mule to make the pastures and fields suitable for plowing. When they bought the farm, it was essentially woods and weeds and through sweat equity over many decades made the farm into a struggling, but sustaining endeavor. One son had gone to gain his masters in agriculture and returned to the farm. The land and school taxes were paid every year. The plan was to farm well into the future. Both parents in their 70's died within the span of a week. As with most simple folks, no plans had been made to shelter the estate from the long reach of the government. Before the bodies were cold, the Probate court assessed the value of the land, and demanded the "inheritance tax" be paid on the land that was valued at over 1 million. If you know anything about farming, most of them are land rich , but dirt poor. Obviously the heirs making 30K a year had no way to pay the death tax of nearly 300K, and so the farm was sold at auction to a developer for pennies on the dollar. Another family farm carved up and sold off. By the time all the fees and taxes were paid, the 3 siblings barley had enough inheritance to buy a used car. Melllencamp talked and sang about this passionately in the 80's and 90's with Farm Aid and songs like "Blood on the Plow".
And there's your inheritance tax at work Trish . Liberals like to think of themselves as champions of the poor and working class.......but they're hypocrites. Their compassion only seems to extend to illegal aliens, and other vocal constituency groups.

onmyknees

12-11-2010, 05:38 PM

There's always been an inheritance tax, until the last few years. It's never been a problem. It's income. Assets that you didn't have before. The 16th Amendment makes the taxation of income, from any source, absolutely Constitutional.

We already have term limits. They're called elections, & they happen every 2 years. Any restriction on the length of time any Congressman can serve is a restriction on the people who elect them. If you want to term limit the Congress, all you have to do is amend the Constitution. No Problem. Just convince Congressmen & Senators that they should form supermajorities to fire themselves, then convince the folks in 3/4 of the States that they shouldn't be able to keep returning someone they like.

I got an explanation earlier in this forum, on what "a progressive" (noun) is, but it just didn't work for me. Too convoluted. But it definitely convinced me that I didn't want to call myself one. It had nothing to do with being liberal. So... Since y'all like to bandy the word about so much, maybe you can explain exactly what it mean in context of today's American politics.

Despite the common misconception that the death tax impacts only wealthy estates, economists now generally agree that it is actually a tax on capital because of its impact on businesses and workers. Capital--whether it is cash, equipment, or other types of property--is necessary for businesses to create new jobs and pay higher wages. There is a general consensus among economists that taxing capital is harmful to the economy.
Yet because it is a tax on capital, the estate tax hits America's family-owned businesses and their workers particularly hard.
Family-owned businesses often appear valuable on paper because they own many assets, but they usually lack substantial amounts of available cash. And they cannot easily sell their assets since they are necessary to generate income and employ workers. But if a family member passes away, the death tax liability would take into account the full value of those assets anyway.
If a business's available cash would not cover the full estate tax bill, it would also need to sell some of its assets--despite their necessity to the business. The foregone assets the business sells to pay the death tax lower its income-generating capability, forcing it to reduce wages or let go of some existing workers because of reduced capacity.
It does not matter if the estate tax confiscates cash, assets, or a combination of both. It is still a tax on capital that reduces the ability of family-owned businesses to expand, hire new workers, and pay higher wages.

trish

12-11-2010, 07:06 PM

It is a death tax and you've given no substantial reason why it either shouldn't be abolished, or renamed "THE DEATH TAX".Sure I have. You must have skipped over it.

An inheritance is a gift. The tax is paid by the receiver of the gift. The receiver is usually a living person. The federal inheritance tax never effected small farmers or middle income home owners. It is a tax on the transfer of large estates and huge sums of money, more than anyone could spend in a lifetime. Hence "Estate Tax" is a pretty apt name.

The concentration of power within a few wealthy families is obviously dangerous to democracy. Of course the Estate Tax cannot possibly check that power, but it does return a little of that accrued power to the people.

BTW I live in farming country and know many farmers personally. They aren't afraid of the federal Estate Tax. In fact most of them get substantial federal and state tax brakes and other subsidies and couldn't survive without them. IMO it's owning fitting that some of that money go back to the people when the farm changes hands. The amounts can be argued, but not the principle.

PomonaCA

12-11-2010, 07:49 PM

Cuchulain

12-11-2010, 09:07 PM

As long as the money went to <chuckle> "The people".

I love how liberals define "people" when it comes to social programs.

"The PEOPLES Republic of China" for example.

"PEOPLE" must be an acronym or something. Some sort of acronym for;

"Slush fund and give whats left to bums who are poor".

Are you still here? You should have gotten the boot after the over the top insult you tossed at trish.

As for the inheritance tax, it exists for good reason. Here's a couple quotes to help you grasp it.
MOYERS: Why shouldn't you be able to direct your money to where you want it to go in your will or however you want to do it? I mean, you earned it.
GATES: "You earned it" is really a matter of "you earned it with the indispensable help of your government."
You earned it in this wonderful place. If you'd been born in West Africa, you would not have earned it. It would not have occurred. Your wealth is a function of being an American.
GATES: The huge disparity in wealth that's happening, is something that is, I think, really dangerous.
MOYERS: Why?
GATES: Wealth is power, Bill. And it just is not a good situation. And the examples of the aristocracies of Europe are so clear. We don't want to have a country like that. Who was it that said, it was Louis Brandeis who said...
MOYERS: Justice of the Supreme Court...
GATES: Yes, indeed. And he said, you know, we can either have a situation where we have a small number of people with a huge amount of wealth or we can have a democracy. But we can't have both. That's clear wisdom.

MOYERS: Are we living in a new gilded age...do you fear that we're living in that kind of time again?
GATES: I do. I do. You know, the data is very clear. We have this enormous accretion of wealth in the top levels, and it's hugely out of balance. The disparity is very disturbing.
COLLINS: The establishment of the estate tax in 1916 was in a sense a response to the excesses of the first Gilded Age a century ago, that there was a social movement of farmers and workers, people like Andrew Carnegie and Teddy Roosevelt who said, we should have an estate tax because too much concentrated wealth is going to backfire and create an American aristocracy.
So both that and the circumstances of World War I led to the push for an estate tax. And here we are entering the second Gilded Age, a period of incredible dizzying inequality and also new obligations in terms of defense and security spending.
It's unprecedented to think about repealing a tax on the very wealthy in such a circumstance, and yet that's what is being talked about.
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_inheritance.html

America doesn't need a ruling class.

hippifried

12-12-2010, 02:25 AM

Faldur

12-12-2010, 05:19 PM

An inheritance is just unearned capital gains.

Bullshit, when I earn $100 and I pay what ever state and federal taxes apply to my legal income, the balance left is MINE. If I pass, and choose to give it to my family, or any other organization it is my right to do so as POST tax monies. For the over reaching federal government to come and say that my POST tax monies are to be taxed again is clearly double taxation. It is not income to my beneficiaries, it is the gifting of my POST tax monies. Anyone who thinks differently is wrong, plain and simple.

onmyknees

12-12-2010, 05:30 PM

Capital gains are income. There's a form to file for capital gains with your income tax. An inheritance is just unearned capital gains. When they got rid of the inheritance tax, it just became a money laundering scheme because death isn't necessary for inheritance. When somebody dies, they don't care if they get taxed anymore. This isn't now & never was a "death tax". It taxes the living for capital gains, which are income. Parroting cookie cutter talking points isn't impressive.

So nobody knows what the hell "a progressive" is? Strange, since it seems to be the "vogue" word of the day & the title of this thread.

Well.................I don't care to go through the history of the word dating back to Teddy Roosevelt and Wodrow Wilson, so let's keep it
concise ....It's a word that liberals now use to describe themselves....thinking that liberal had a negative connotation and that progressive sounded more chic and foward .. Don't believed me? Tune into MSNBC and see how they refer to themselves. It's a word they choose....no one else. So if you're struggling what the label.......ask them. I was quite content with referring to them as liberals.

trish

12-12-2010, 06:17 PM

...when I earn $100 and I pay what ever state and federal taxes apply to my legal income, the balance left is MINE.AGREED

If I pass, and choose to give it to my family, or any other organization...Then it is no longer yours. It left your hands and was received by your family or the organization etc.

For the ... federal government to come and say that my POST tax monies are to be taxed again is clearly double taxation.No. Those monies are no longer yours. They are now the gains of another and liable to taxation as such. You are not being taxed twice for the same gains. The receiver is being taxed for the first time for the gains he just received for the first time.

I have no problem distinguishing between gifts and other kinds of gains, but taxation of gifts nor taxation of gains is double taxation. Anyone who thinks differently is wrong, plain and simple. (Thanks for that last argument in italics, I thought I'd use it too) Nor do I have a problem with gifts of $100 or even much larger. Christmas gifts don't endanger democracy, but the transfer of concentrated power via exorbitant wealth does. Gates (see Cuchulain's post) appropriately paraphrases Louis Brandeis, "we can either have a situation where we have a small number of people with a huge amount of wealth or we can have a democracy. But we can't have both."

onmyknees

12-12-2010, 06:39 PM

Sure I have. You must have skipped over it.

An inheritance is a gift. The tax is paid by the receiver of the gift. The receiver is usually a living person. The federal inheritance tax never effected small farmers or middle income home owners. It is a tax on the transfer of large estates and huge sums of money, more than anyone could spend in a lifetime. Hence "Estate Tax" is a pretty apt name.

The concentration of power within a few wealthy families is obviously dangerous to democracy. Of course the Estate Tax cannot possibly check that power, but it does return a little of that accrued power to the people.

BTW I live in farming country and know many farmers personally. They aren't afraid of the federal Estate Tax. In fact most of them get substantial federal and state tax brakes and other subsidies and couldn't survive without them. IMO it's owning fitting that some of that money go back to the people when the farm changes hands. The amounts can be argued, but not the principle.

Trish...if you know farmers, or anyone for that matter who isn't concerned about the Death Tax....they're either planning on croaking in 2010, have no assets to speak of, are just plain ignorant, or have no heirs. Your soak the rich routine and mischaracterazation of millionaires and "huge estates" in this case is frankly just wrong. ( It is possible to be wrong, ya know!) On 1/1/2011 the threshold will be one million dollars and the tax at 55%. I don't know the value of your personal estate, but I can assure you that for a lifetime of work, accumulating one million in assets is easily attainable. The average median value of a home in NYS is over 300K. Add in pension plans, 401K, vehicles, jewelry and you can get to that threshold pretty quick. If we take a home as an asset, it is paid for with after tax dollars, that is to say...you pay your mortgage with dollars that have been taxed by the feds, the State, and in many cases the city. Additionally you pay mortgage taxes and you are taxed yearly ( R.E. Taxes) on the value of that asset. Taking into account all the aforementioned levels of taxation, for every one dollar of gross income, you have 40 cents to pay your mortgage.The death tax is double, perhaps triple taxation on a single asset. If under these circumstances, you're a proponent of the government taxing the after tax asset another 55%, then liberal is too kind a word for you. The farm subsidies are a completely separate matter and have no bearing on the death tax.

For example if a business’s available cash does not cover the full estate tax bill, the family must sell some of its assets—despite needing it for the operation of the business. The assets the business sells to pay the death tax lowers its income-generating capability, forcing it to reduce wages or let go of some existing workers because of reduced capacity. Even if the business can pay the death tax liability without reducing its workforce or lowering wages, it can no longer use the resources diverted to paying the tax bill to expanding the business, adding workers, or raising wages.
The reason we call it a death tax is because that's what it is...no play on words. Be honest. The major difference between the death tax and the inheritance tax is that the heirs do not pay the tax at the time of the estate owner’s death; rather they pay it when they sell what they inherited. While the inheritance tax is still a tax on capital, the effects the death tax has on capital are significantly lessened because other resources do not have to be sold or liquidated to pay the capital gains tax. What we have now is a death tax.

I think class warfare, ignorance and ideology are the hallmark of the left wing when it comes to subjects such as the death tax, capitol gains, corporate taxes etc. I take Obama as an example, but really you could substitute anyone with that frame of reference. I think they lack a full understanding of capitol markets and capitalism....how it's attained, how it's kept, how it works it's way through the economy, the sense of entrepreneurship, ingenuity and the building of a business or the unintended consequences of drastic tax policy. And we wonder why our jobs are fleeing to Mexico, India, China...It would certainly be one thing if we had a government who funded through the hard work of it's citizens was efficient, effective, compassionate, and with malice towards none. That obviously is not the case by a long shot.

I would think, knowing your ideology, you would be more compassionate to the small businesses owners and family farmers who generally cannot afford high priced estate attorneys to shelter and hide their assets. The never ending zeal of some on the left to "soak the wealthy" so they can socially engineer , or as Obama put it in a moment of clarity and unrehearsed candor to Joe the Plumber...."Spread the Wealth Around". Check out Greece, Ireland, Britain Spain, Portugal, France, and soon others who've gone down that Social Democracy road for the past 50 years . How's that workin' out for them ??

trish

12-12-2010, 09:03 PM

Amounts and details can be negotiated. If you think that the tax rate on a million dollar inheritance is too steep, you may or may not be right. But the principle behind the notion of an inheritance tax is not in question. There is precedence: we have had such taxes and the courts have never found against them. There is legal consistency: as explained above, no person is taxed twice on the same gains, and only the living pay on gains they receive for the first time.

I think class warfare, ignorance and ideology are the hallmark of the left wingLiberals have no problem with wealth. There is no class warfare. Yet the middle class is dwindling at an alarming rate and the difference in wealth between the rich and the poor has grown unfathomable. Still, liberals wish to put no impediments in the way of anyone who wants to get rich by working, or by producing, or by gambling on the market. To repeat, liberals have no problem with wealth per se. But everyone should have a problem with dynasties. Concentrations of power passed down through generations are anathema to democracy.

Where is the ideology here? Ideology is adherence to a general political principle. But the argument above relies on no such principle. There are the two legal arguments of precedence and consistency and the pragmatic argument for a tiny check against effectively Aristocratic powers. If there’s any ideology here it is a inclination towards general democratic principles.

onmyknees

12-13-2010, 12:05 AM

Liberals have no problem with wealth. There is no class warfare. Yet the middle class is dwindling at an alarming rate and the difference in wealth between the rich and the poor has grown unfathomable. Still, liberals wish to put no impediments in the way of anyone who wants to get rich by working, or by producing, or by gambling on the market. To repeat, liberals have no problem with wealth per se. But everyone should have a problem with dynasties. Concentrations of power passed down through generations is anathema to democracy.

Amounts can be negotiated. If you think that the tax rate on a million dollar inheritance is too steep, you may or may not be right. But the principle behind the notion of an inheritance tax is not in question. There is precedence: we have had such taxes and the courts have never found against them. There is legal consistency: as explained above, no person is taxed twice on the same gains.

Where is the ideology here? Ideology is adherence to a general political principle. But the argument above relies on no such principle. There are the two legal arguments of precedence and consistency and the pragmatic argument for a tiny check against effectively Aristocratic powers. If there’s any ideology here it is a inclination towards general democratic principles.

Hmmmmmmmmm.....liberals have no problem with wealth...you said that twice so are you trying to convince me...or yourself Trish ? Liberals have no problem with wealth as long as it thier own ...it's everyone elses they want to get thier hands on!! Liberals by way of the current discussion on the tax code believe wealth is any individual or small businesses filing as a 501c5 as anything over 250K. Every liberal Senator and Congressperson that steps to the podium reads from the same sheet of music. It invariably starts off...."we believe the richest Americans"...blah blah . In case you haven't noticed they're in all out mutiny over one issue, and one issue alone. Confiscate more income from those business or individuals making over 250K. To offer any argument to the contrary is frankly to have you head in the sand, and I know that's not you...so what is it? Liberals have been on the class warfare mantra for decades now. Fact...........the top 5% of the wealthiest Americans pay 40% or the revenues collected by the IRS. One could argue that the bottom are not contributing their fare share.

"Concentrations of power passed down through generations is anathema to democracy. " I read that line 4 times and still find it astonishing. You sound more like a 1918 Bolshevik living in Moscow referring to the Czars, than a 2010 Liberal living in the US. I mean really???? Surely you don't mean that? Tell me you're just being provocative Trish. What's an anathema to democracy and free enterprise and fee markets is liberals sitting in judgement of the risk takers and smothering job creation and growth and wealth from their high minded perches. Liberals most certainly do have a problem with wealth.

Cute little side step trish..."as explained above, no person is taxed twice on the same gains" You gloss over rather nicely the facts laid out regarding the death tax. By your logic a person could by a 50,000 car, sell it a year later and the buyer should be taxed at the same rate. The second owner sells the car 2 years later and the tax is paid on the original value of the auto. Hey...as you say no person is taxed twice on the same gains. That entirely misses the point...........the asset is taxed once. How many times do you tax the same asset Trish before it becomes confiscatory?

"Still, liberals wish to put no impediments in the way of anyone who wants to get rich by working, or by producing, or by gambling on the market. " That's laugh out loud funny Trish. From environmental over regulations, to taxation ( corporate and personal) , to card check, to health care requirements, to Sarbaines Oxley accounting requirements, liberals by design or ignorance put every possible obstacle in the way of wealth accumulation. If you just said you'd like to see a more European Style social democracy in place here in the US, I could have more respect for your position, and it would be at least more factual.

yes..there is a growing concern between rich and poor and liberals are going to breath their last breath trying to reverse that........not by sound taxation and fiscal policies, and allowing a thriving private sector to create living wage jobs...but by taking from the producers and giving to the non producers. That gap has more to do with bad trade deals, over regulation, corporate income taxes , the cost of doing businesses the over valued dollar, the inability of businesses to get capitol needed because of the growing appetite of the Feds to suck up all the oxygen to pay China, and 50 years of great society programs that have kept people indentured and reliant on the government.

Every piece of legislation the liberals author is about taking something from someone and giving to someone else "more deserving". Your empty claims to the contrary defy history, logic and reality, but you can believe what you wanna believe...this is after all still a free country !

trish

12-13-2010, 12:08 AM

Sorry...I must've been editing while you were posting.

trish

12-13-2010, 12:44 AM

liberals have no problem with wealth...you said that twice so are you trying to convince me...or yourself Trish ?Actually I said it twice because I wanted it to be a lead into the paragraph and also a lead into the concluding sentence of that paragraph. You might do better to take people at their word instead of trying to use your own brand of psychology to interpret what people's motivations might be. Let liberals tell you what motivations are and we'll let you tell us what your motivations are.

Confiscation is your term, not ours, for the taxes paid by people and business that are used to create the legal infrastructure, the communications infrastructure and the transportation infrastructure that makes doing business possible.

"Concentrations of power passed down through generations is anathema to democracy. " I read that line 4 times and still find it astonishing. You sound more like a 1918 Bolshevik living in Moscow referring to the Czars, than a 2010 Liberal living in the US.The Czars had direct political power; i.e. they were monarchs. Even monarchs were fearful of the Aristocracy and were careful to court the super-powerful of their day. You don't think that goes on today? You're telling me there are no super-powerful families and super-powerful corporations (sometimes the same thing) in the world today who have more than a citizen's vote when it comes to shaping U.S. policy? Those who have benefited the most from the protections and infrastructure afforded by the general taxpayers and those who have more say and influence should indeed pay a share in proportion to benefits and power accrued. That's not class warfare, that's just playing fair.

From environmental over regulations, to taxation ( corporate and personal) , to card check, to health care requirements, to Sarbaines Oxley accounting requirements, liberals by design or ignorance put every possible obstacle in the way of wealth accumulation. That's like saying the governor that regulates an engine is designed to impede efficient functioning. Regulations keep the market from destroying the commons which belongs every citizen. The function of government is to provide for the security of it's citizens, not pave the path of some to enrichment while the get cancer, suffer from toxins in their water or watch as their landscapes are flattened. Guarding against these disasters is not placing impediments in the way of the citizens who devote their energies to getting rich.

yes..there is a growing concern between rich and poor and liberals are going to breath their last breath trying to reverse that........not by sound taxation and fiscal policies, and allowing a thriving private sector to create living wage jobs...but by taking from the producersSpeaking of producers, job productivity is at an all time high. So are profits. This has been a record year for most business. But none of those profits are being used to create new jobs or hire new employees. That money is just going to sit and grow in the money fields of the major stockholders, who are not the producers of the goods. The actual producers of the goods (who are producing at record rate) are the people making the five figure salaries.

Every piece of legislation the liberals author is about taking something from someone and giving to someone else "more deserving".The parallel statement would be that every piece of legislation the conservatives author is about taking more from the productive and giving it to someone who sits on his ass for a living.

onmyknees

12-13-2010, 02:32 AM

Trish....perhaps some audio visual aids are in order. Humor usually lightend the dialogue ! Here's a perfect example of what I'm referring to ........Self described
socialist and part time NBC anchor Larry O' donnell questions the chairman ( make that soon to be ex chairman) of the congressional progressive caucus regarding the proposed tax legislation. Instinctively he falls back into the class warfare mantra ( the rich...blah blah blah...) and he can't wait to spew his BS. Watch Larry jump in his shit !!
Now either Greyson doesn't understand the question regarding the income tax rate..., or he's so programmed to supply the party line about the richest Americans he doesn't even care what the question is !!!!!!!!!! And they wonder why they were plastered !
And you all have a field day laughing at Palin? This moron has no clue what the legislation even is, but he knows how to answer the question........any question . LMAO !!

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=hd6Uuz4z4z

hippifried

12-13-2010, 07:25 AM

Faldur

12-13-2010, 05:03 PM

An asset changing hands is an asset changing hands.

A gift is a gift, if the money has already been subject to the taxation process the government has no business with any of it. You cannot tax the same dollar twice.

hippifried

12-13-2010, 09:04 PM

Odelay

12-14-2010, 02:55 AM

Trish makes a lot of good arguments, above. I really don't have anything to add from a liberal perspective except this...

The proponents of government-free, unrestrained market capitalism like to point to entrepreneurship as something that should be highly rewarded, be it company creation, new business ideas, inventions, etc. Entrepreneurs, do indeed, deserve compensation for their creative efforts. I, and all true liberals, believe this. However, the system as it currently is set up, over compensates entrepreneurs for their efforts.

Lew Daly did some fascinating research on how entrepreneurs are compensated in the western world and summarizes his findings in the book Unjust Deserts. Before you roll your eyes and conclude this is just another liberal screed, go watch this bloggingheads review which includes Will Wilkinson.

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17524

Yes, that Will Wilkinson. The brightest light that's come out of the Cato Institute, i.e. Libertarian Think Tank. Will doesn't necessarily agree with everything Daly is saying, but Daly clearly had a significant impact on Wilkinson's thinking on the topic.

The basic premise here is every entrepreneur, inventor, business creator, etc., is standing on the shoulders of giants. But instead of rewarding these people for the incremental improvement associated with their ideas, we instead reward them the full amount as if they invented the wheel for the first time. The government and market mechanics do this. There is not enough payment by these creative business people to the infrastructures that Trish talks about, above. Gates, Buffett and many others agree.

Onmyknees wants us to refer to ourselves as social democrats. I have no problem with that. Conservatives have been bending our labels all over the place for decades, and for whatever reason, the political party that represents us, the Democratic Party, has had little or no spine. So I guess you can say I just bend in the breeze. You want to call me liberal today, social democrat tomorrow, or socialist the next day... so be it. Doesn't change anything for me.

As to entrepreneurship, I have an intimate knowledge of it. I started my first consulting practice when I was 26. My practice specifically served entrepreneurs and inventors for 8 years. I then was a 4th partner in a software startup during the dotcom days that went on to raise $2 mill in venture capital and exploit a niche in the enterprise software market. I have since worked for one of the biggest IT companies in the world, where again, I helped small, medium and large companies to realize greater gains from their ideas. And now I've come full circle and started another solo consulting practice.

From everything I've experienced, I believe Levy is absolutely right. And again, the arguments that Trish has made, are sound. Capitalists need to look around and understand that they should be very very thankful for all of the infrastructure around them. And that's not just concrete and computer chips. The "public" education system provides them with educated workers that they would not get in some banana republic. The Capitalists need to recognize that they need to pay back into the system in order that the system remains sustainable. Many industrialists, from Carnegie to Gates, have recognized this.

As to tax rates, I actually believe we should hold down the rates for people who make over $250k.

Yup, I believe that. I think the Bush tax rate for people who make $250k to 1 million is fine.

Above 1 million should be a little higher.

Above 10 million should be higher than that.

And anything above 100 million should be well over 50%.

A more progressive tax structure will actually help this country a lot.

onmyknees

12-14-2010, 03:39 AM

An asset changing hands is an asset changing hands. Who's hands they are doesn't matter, & neither does reciprocation. This is America. The only birthright is citizenship. The only class is American. If you think there's some kind of right to inherit wealth, then why isn't there an inheritence of debt? You'd all be screamin' bloody murder if some banker came by & said: "Your daddy was in hock up to his ass before he bailed out of the window of his Wall Street office, so we're here to repossess your house & everything else you own to cover it." Gee, I hope you have enough, so the next 5 generations don't need to be indentured. We're not Europeans, & we're not caste oriented Aryans. We didn't just break away from British rule. We broke with the entire feudal system & ideological concepts that made it happen. Why does anybody want to hang onto or reinstate such lame ideas?

No disrspect...but it sounds to me like you'll never have to fear the threshold of 1 million ! What is American is working a lifetime and passing some, if not most of what you've accumulated to your kids. Wow...what a fashist concept. You libs talk in generalities but never address the question at hand...do you favor the 1 million dollar threshold and the 55% tax ? That's the question. You too have what I'd call wealth envy dude...read your post. You think you have some birthright to what someone else makes. Make your own fortune...you live in a country that not only allows that, but encourages it.

onmyknees

12-14-2010, 04:18 AM

Actually I said it twice because I wanted it to be a lead into the paragraph and also a lead into the concluding sentence of that paragraph. You might do better to take people at their word instead of trying to use your own brand of psychology to interpret what people's motivations might be. Let liberals tell you what motivations are and we'll let you tell us what your motivations are.

Confiscation is your term, not ours, for the taxes paid by people and business that are used to create the legal infrastructure, the communications infrastructure and the transportation infrastructure that makes doing business possible.

The Czars had direct political power; i.e. they were monarchs. Even monarchs were fearful of the Aristocracy and were careful to court the super-powerful of their day. You don't think that goes on today? You're telling me there are no super-powerful families and super-powerful corporations (sometimes the same thing) in the world today who have more than a citizen's vote when it comes to shaping U.S. policy? Those who have benefited the most from the protections and infrastructure afforded by the general taxpayers and those who have more say and influence should indeed pay a share in proportion to benefits and power accrued. That's not class warfare, that's just playing fair.

That's like saying the governor that regulates an engine is designed to impede efficient functioning. Regulations keep the market from destroying the commons which belongs every citizen. The function of government is to provide for the security of it's citizens, not pave the path of some to enrichment while the get cancer, suffer from toxins in their water or watch as their landscapes are flattened. Guarding against these disasters is not placing impediments in the way of the citizens who devote their energies to getting rich.

Speaking of producers, job productivity is at an all time high. So are profits. This has been a record year for most business. But none of those profits are being used to create new jobs or hire new employees. That money is just going to sit and grow in the money fields of the major stockholders, who are not the producers of the goods. The actual producers of the goods (who are producing at record rate) are the people making the five figure salaries.

The parallel statement would be that every piece of legislation the conservatives author is about taking more from the productive and giving it to someone who sits on his ass for a living.

"The Czars had direct political power; i.e. they were monarchs. Even monarchs were fearful of the Aristocracy and were careful to court the super-powerful of their day. You don't think that goes on today? You're telling me there are no super-powerful families and super-powerful corporations (sometimes the same thing) in the world today who have more than a citizen's vote when it comes to shaping U.S. policy? Those who have benefited the most from the protections and infrastructure afforded by the general taxpayers and those who have more say and influence should indeed pay a share in proportion to benefits and power accrued. That's not class warfare, that's just playing fair. "

I don't know where to begin with this. The Czars were the Aristoracy and they ruled with an iron hand, but let's not get bogged down in Russian History, but your statement regarding wealthy families sounds like it's right out of a Doctor Zhivago script rather than a 21st century Anerican Liberal. It's stunning in it's contempt.

"The function of government is to provide for the security of it's citizens, not pave the path of some to enrichment while the get cancer, suffer from toxins in their water or watch as their landscapes are flattened. "

Now there's a democratic talking point dredged up from a decade ago. You remember..."republicans want to posion the air we breath and the water we drink, and throw old people out in the streets" LOL
You were doing fine at ""The function of government is to provide for the security of it's citizens"...you should have stopped there. On that single point we agree.

I remain at a loss for the left's deep seeded contempt for the wealthy, despite your declarations to the contrary. Again...a fact you fail to come to terms with. We have a progressive tax system where the top 5% pay 40-45% of the total tax revenues collected...I'm ok with that, and my opinion is most of the high wage earners are as well. How much more should they contribute Trish?

" But none of those profits are being used to create new jobs or hire new employees. That money is just going to sit and grow "

Wonder why that is Trish?? Could it be uncertainty on taxes, health care costs ? Energy costs? ( cap and tax) new regulations from the Dept of Energy? You'd have us believe it's a bunch of Silas Marner type fat cats hoarding thier money.
There's only 2 ways to get this economic engine running again so that average folks can have living wage jobs. We can do it the Paul Krugman/Barrack Obama/Keyensian way with massive federal deficit spending, or we can do it through the private sector . For part of the former administration and 2 years of the present one, we're trying it your way. Nearly 17% ( the true unemployment rate) of Americans await your results.
.

trish

12-14-2010, 05:54 AM

your statement regarding wealthy families sounds like it's right out of a Doctor Zhivago script rather than a 21st century Anerican Liberal. It's stunning in it's contempt. Once again I'll ask the question you left unanswered. Don't you think there are super-wealthy families and corporations today that wield political influence far in excess of the average voter? Don't you think that with exorbitant wealth comes exorbitant power? Don't you think then that inheritance of wealth is the inheritance of political power.

Now there's a democratic talking point dredged up from a decade ago. You remember..."republicans want to posion the air we breath and the water we drinkCheck today's news. PG&E are back at it again in Hinkley CA.

I remain at a loss for the left's deep seeded contempt for the wealthyOnce again, I wish you'd argue real points and try not to psychoanalyze. I have no deep seeded contempt for the wealthy. I wouldn't object to being wealthy myself. Just because I think power is dangerous, doesn't mean I hate everyone or every institution that's powerful. You think the power of the government needs to be checked. Does that mean you hold the United States in deep contempt?

Wonder why that is Trish?? Could it be uncertainty on taxes, health care costs ? None of the above. There are RECORD PROFITS. What uncertainty?? Corporations are taking advantage of a frightened and pressured work force. They see the opportunity to squeeze out record production from a small underpaid work force, and an opportunity to break the backs of unions. If the private sector won't dig into their huge profits and create jobs, then the government should create jobs through public works programs. It's not like there isn't plenty of infrastructure that needs maintenance.

yodajazz

12-14-2010, 02:47 PM

Trish...
The death tax is the most regressive, punitive tax currently on the books. It is a death tax and you've given no substantial reason why it either shouldn't be abolished, or renamed "THE DEATH TAX". It is what it is Trish. This idea that liberals have about confiscation of wealth even after death, and who's wealthy is a phenomenon. Other than what is absolutely necessary to run a functioning, limited federal government, what entitles you to think it's acceptable to take from one and give to another ? My gawd...it's created generational dependence on the government for just about everything. You only need to look at the UK to see where that's all headed.But I digress...back to the death tax... I understand you're from NYC, and I'm not attempting to be condescending here...but here's what it does to farms and farmers. You might think about that the next time you look for locally grown fruits and vegetables and find it's all from Chile or Mexico.

I became aware of the impact of the death tax some years ago. Worked with a guy in construction who planned on going back to the family farm in Iowa and making a go of it. Most of his paycheck went back to help support his folks who were still farming the land struggling to mechanize and produce more with less. The farm had been in the family for decades. He tells the story of his father digging out rocks with the help of a mule to make the pastures and fields suitable for plowing. When they bought the farm, it was essentially woods and weeds and through sweat equity over many decades made the farm into a struggling, but sustaining endeavor. One son had gone to gain his masters in agriculture and returned to the farm. The land and school taxes were paid every year. The plan was to farm well into the future. Both parents in their 70's died within the span of a week. As with most simple folks, no plans had been made to shelter the estate from the long reach of the government. Before the bodies were cold, the Probate court assessed the value of the land, and demanded the "inheritance tax" be paid on the land that was valued at over 1 million. If you know anything about farming, most of them are land rich , but dirt poor. Obviously the heirs making 30K a year had no way to pay the death tax of nearly 300K, and so the farm was sold at auction to a developer for pennies on the dollar. Another family farm carved up and sold off. By the time all the fees and taxes were paid, the 3 siblings barley had enough inheritance to buy a used car. Melllencamp talked and sang about this passionately in the 80's and 90's with Farm Aid and songs like "Blood on the Plow".
And there's your inheritance tax at work Trish . Liberals like to think of themselves as champions of the poor and working class.......but they're hypocrites. Their compassion only seems to extend to illegal aliens, and other vocal constituency groups.
First of all, I agree with the posts of the so-called progressives, and especially with Trish's posts. However, I have been giving some thought to the issue raised in this particular post. It does seem that what happened to the farm was unfair. But it seems to me that the major problem, was the valuation of the property, and that could have been adjusted through legal arguments. If the place was sold for pennies on the dollar, then that was the real value of the property. Also, I have seen many cases where people were able to make payments on tax bills. So it seems to me that they could have delayed payments until there were actual profits from production. I admit that, I do not know the details of the mechanics behind inheritance taxes. However, I think that actions of the government are subject to reasoning, of the legal process. In my personal case, when my father passed, my two siblings and myself received a modest cash sum, and that was counted and taxed as income for that year. So perhaps, parts of the laws on inheritance taxes could be reformed, but as a principle, I think it fair to have inheritance taxes.

onmyknees

12-14-2010, 03:44 PM

First of all, I agree with the posts of the so-called progressives, and especially with Trish's posts. However, I have been giving some thought to the issue raised in this particular post. It does seem that what happened to the farm was unfair. But it seems to me that the major problem, was the valuation of the property, and that could have been adjusted through legal arguments. If the place was sold for pennies on the dollar, then that was the real value of the property. Also, I have seen many cases where people were able to make payments on tax bills. So it seems to me that they could have delayed payments until there were actual profits from production. I admit that, I do not know the details of the mechanics behind inheritance taxes. However, I think that actions of the government are subject to reasoning, of the legal process. In my personal case, when my father passed, my two siblings and myself received a modest cash sum, and that was counted and taxed as income for that year. So perhaps, parts of the laws on inheritance taxes could be reformed, but as a principle, I think it fair to have inheritance taxes.

I appreciate your thoughts.

I think the general point I have been attempting to make is that in my view, the function of a democratic government is to strike a complex, delicate , oft times unattainable balance between raising the revenue (taxes) required to provide services it's citizens need and desire and a belief that the government cannot be all things for all people. There is an equilibrium that from time to time gets out of whack. Sure...every citizen wants free "stuff" from the government..just ask them. The difficulty comes in funding all those wants ( wholly different than needs) and in delivering them. Government by in large is deeply inefficient and largely ineffective at delivering a dollars worth of services for a dollar of revenue, and has become entangled in endeavors it was never intended by the founders to be involved in, and when a when a subsidy or program is funded ( look at the farm and ethanol subsidies for example) no matter how well intentioned, it will be decades, generations in fact before they can be purged from our system. You ask every member (with the exception of a few from Iowa and Nebraska) if repealing the ethanol subsidies is a sound idea, and you'll get nearly unanimous consent, yet mark my words...it will pass as an amendment to the current tax bill. Fiscal conservatives believe that when taxation approaches 40-50% on many producers, we no longer have a revenue problem....we have a spending problem and At some point, additional taxes so discourage the activity being taxed, such as working or investing, that they yield less revenue rather than more. There are, after all, two rates that yield the same amount of revenue: high tax rates on low production, or low rates on high production.That is to say....we're no longer spending scarce tax dollars on public safety, education, infrastructure, national security...but on a whole lot of things that should be left to the private sector. If citizens set the massive federal budget on a table and pulled out any 12 pages from that document, and actually take the time to read it....they'd be horrified at the things our government has become entangled in. We call it pork. It benefits a few, but sucks critical dollars away from the rest of us...

I read an interesting in depth study by an economist recently who studied a cross section of people making that average median income of 60K per year. In many places, you'd be living pretty well on that........or would you? He then studied a large cross section of people working only a few months out of the year at minimum wage, and relying on a vast array of public assistance programs for their subsistence. His study found that those in the former group had the same amount of disposal income as those in the later. I'm not trying to engage in a class warfare discussion here, or attempt to glamorize a life spent on public assistance, I'm trying to make the point that when someone making 60K a year is equal too or loosing ground to someone who survives largely on public assistance....we have a problem.

Lower tax rates are important, but they are not the only critical issue. Both the level of government spending and where that money goes are very important. And even when looking only at tax policy, tax rates are just one piece of the puzzle. If certain types of income are subject to multiple layers of tax, as occurs in the current system, that problem cannot be solved by low rates. Similarly, a tax system with needless levels of complexity will impose heavy costs on the productive sector of the economy.

OR...more eloquently put.........." Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits… In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now." ............I leave you with those words from....not Ronald Reagan, but John F. Kennedy.

trish

12-14-2010, 06:30 PM

A gift is a gift, if the money has already been subject to the taxation process the government has no business with any of it. You cannot tax the same dollar twice.

Sure you can. Happens all the time. You're making the error of thinking that money's static & only shrinks when tapped. Not so. I'm sure somebody's invented a word for this, but every time money changes hands, somebody's skimming something but it actually grows. A business makes a dollar & pays the tax. Then they pay you, & you pay the tax. Then you buy something, & you pay the tax. Then the merchant pays the tax, & spends the dollar so somebody else pays the tax. By the time it's over, that dollar's been taxed to a tune of around 150 to 200%, & there's still $5 left over. What you can't do is tax the same transaction twice. Nobody's advocating that.

Hippiefried is exactly right. Imagine that after you pay your federal income tax, you have some money left over. Take all those bills you have left over and label them: write “already taxed” on each of them. All that labeled money was already taxed. Now you use some of those labeled bills to pay your house-keeper, who declares it as income and she eventually pays taxes on it. Wait a second. She paid taxes on money that was already taxed! Proof: the money she paid taxes on is marked, “already taxed.”

Of course the above is a ridiculous example. No one would call that double taxation. Yet people who argue that gift and inheritance taxes are double taxation are making the very same argument. Faldur, you might be against gift and inheritance taxes, but you’re going to have to rationalize your dislike with a different argument; double taxation isn’t going to cut it.

hippifried

12-14-2010, 06:53 PM

So this is really just an argument over who's ox should be gored. It's necessary spending if it's for something I want, but it's pork if it's for something somebody else wants.

onmyknees

12-15-2010, 12:16 AM

So this is really just an argument over who's ox should be gored. It's necessary spending if it's for something I want, but it's pork if it's for something somebody else wants.

Incorrect....We all pay for things we don't like by way of the federal government. I may not like publically funded abortions, you may not like the fact millionaire write off thier mortgage interest on thier mansions. That's essentially what elections are for. It becomes pork when we have to borrow 40 cents of every dollar from China to pay for it....as we do now, and then kick the can down the road so that the next generation is saddled with the debt you've created for all your pet projects and multi million dollar airports that serve a handful of people a day ( I give you John Murtha liberal from PA) That's Pork. That's Earmarks. That's Irresponsible.

I have said many times there's something perverse about sending 35% of your income to a central government, then sending representatives there to whore themselves out, (enriching themselves beyond comprehension in the process) so they can bring home the bacon to thier districts. But wait....isn't it thier citizens money to begin with?
Maybe...just maybe that money should not go to Washington, but rather to places like Albany, Sacramento, Hartford and Harrisburg. If John Murtha wants an airport in rural PA to serve his family and friends, let the good folks in that district pay for it. We happen to have more pressing needs in my congressional district. Take the money from Washington and you stip the power and return it locally. Take some time and read Madsion and Federalist Papers....you'll quickly see how far away from the founders intent we have really strayed.

onmyknees

12-15-2010, 01:03 AM

So this is really just an argument over who's ox should be gored. It's necessary spending if it's for something I want, but it's pork if it's for something somebody else wants.

Hippiefried is exactly right. Imagine that after you pay your federal income tax, you have some money left over. Take all those bills you have left over and label them: write “already taxed” on each of them. All that labeled money was already taxed. Now you use some of those labeled bills to pay your house-keeper, who declares it as income and she eventually pays taxes on it. Wait a second. She paid taxes on money that was already taxed! Proof: the money she paid taxes on is marked, “already taxed.”

Of course the above is a ridiculous example. No one would call that double taxation. Yet people who argue that gift and inheritance taxes are double taxation are making the very same argument. Faldur, you might be against gift and inheritance taxes, but you’re going to have to rationalize your dislike with a different argument; double taxation isn’t going to cut it.

Ok Trish...how about this question to you proponents of the death tax...If a small bussiness or family farm is taxed 50% of it's value once every 20 years, or possibly once every generation...as has been in the past, and will be again 1/1/2011....how can they ever grow? And again I ask...how many times can or should an asset be taxed. You have to answer that question if you're for the death tax.

Here are some informative vids of the practicale impact of the Death Tax...These are not the Donald Trumps or Bill Gates of the world. After viewing them if you still think it's a good tax, and a good idea then I suppose there's not much more to discuss, but buy the same token...please don't ever expect sustainable private sector job creation. Small to medium sized bussiness is how were going to climb out of this current mess. The last vid is particularily relevent.

http://www.heritage.org/research/projects/the-death-tax-burden-on-american-business

trish

12-15-2010, 01:43 AM

Quote:
Ok Trish...how about this question to you proponents of the death tax

Actually I'm not a proponent of any death tax. I don't believe the dead can pay taxes. Talk to the Christians. They believe in life after death. If you read my posts above you will discover that the receiver pays the tax on their gains. It's a gains tax. In the above post the boss doesn't pay the tax twice; first the boss pays and then the maid pays. This happens to all transfers of money. All money gets taxed multiple times, once on each transfer. Yet our economy grows! Miracle of miracles! My how does that happen?

Quote:
how can they ever grow?

If the tax rate (say B percent every twenty years) is lower than the growth rate (say A percent every twenty years), then the value of the farm will grow exponentially value = (original value) x exp[(A-B)x(time/20 years)]. In the case of the economy as a whole B doesn't figure in, because the tax revenue goes back into the system. Next question.

I already said that as far as I'm concerned amounts and cutoffs are negotiable. I don't see any need to exorbitantly tax the farm as it passes to the next generation. The competition with exponentially growing hog factories and corporate owned agribusinesses is squeezing the near fictional family farm out of the picture. Family farms only survive today through government subsidies and special tax brakes. All businesses, growing or not, feed through infrastructures provided by tax payers. The interstate highways are the arteries of just about every business. The legal infrastructure protects every business from abuse of contract, from patient infringement etc. The communications network and the electrical grid are the nerves and muscle of every industry. All these things are paid for by us...the tax payers. We use them, yes. But your use and my use of these infrastructures is nothing compared to DuPont's use, or Monsanto's use, or Rupert Murdoch's use, or Bill Gate's use of them. Fair tax laws reflect the gains various people and corporations have made of these infrastructures.

Faldur

12-15-2010, 02:47 AM

Actually I'm not a proponent of any death tax. I don't believe the dead can pay taxes. Talk to the Christians. They believe in life after death. If you read my posts above you will discover that the receiver pays the tax on their gains. It's a gains tax.

One of the largest reasons we no longer have family businesses, or family farms.

trish

12-15-2010, 02:55 AM

Bullshit. Ever hear of agribusiness and box stores?

trish

12-15-2010, 04:44 AM

In my neighborhood there was a reasonably successful mom and pop grocery. Some years ago one of its product distributors said they weren't going to deliver goods there anymore. Driving 5 miles off route to deliver one carton of dish-washing-liquid and two cartons of breakfast cereal wasn't worth it. The distributor was now delivering only in "bulk" to the big franchise grocers. Okay they survived, until all their other distributors made the same decision as the first distributor. There was still demand. People in the neighborhood and nearby neighborhoods still wanted to buy groceries at the neighborhood store. But the big distributors no longer wanted to bother delivering to that demand. So much for supply and demand. Long story short, the store, that survived in one family for four generations, died. It didn't die of taxation. It didn't die of the inheritance tax. It died from competition with the big franchise grocers. We now all drive the five miles to the gaudy neon edge of town where all the capitalist blight shines red, pink and blue to buy our groceries. There's nothing wrong with that I suppose. The big stores have a wider range of selection than the little stores had. Surviving that kind of competition is what capitalism is all about, right. If you're a free market capitalist that's what you care about, not about the survival mom and pop businesses. If you want mom and pop stores to survive, if you want down towns to survive in rural America, government has to step in do something special to help them. Oh that reminds me. The Walmart that moved into our neon stretch on the edge of town didn't have to pay school taxes for five years. That was the deal, that or it would take its minimum wage jobs elsewhere. So I guess you can say our little neighborhood grocery was killed by a tax brake.

Faldur

12-15-2010, 04:43 PM

More family business have been killed by the death tax than box stores. I will argue that point to my grave... and at that point another family business will go by the wayside.

Odelay

12-15-2010, 09:13 PM

Here are some informative vids of the practicale impact of the Death Tax...These are not the Donald Trumps or Bill Gates of the world. After viewing them if you still think it's a good tax, and a good idea then I suppose there's not much more to discuss, but buy the same token...please don't ever expect sustainable private sector job creation. Small to medium sized bussiness is how were going to climb out of this current mess. The last vid is particularily relevent.

http://www.heritage.org/research/projects/the-death-tax-burden-on-american-business

I watched all of these videos and I have to say they are not informative, at all. You have a succession of business owners coming out and making the emotional arguments against estate taxes. They fail to go into any details of the options that a business owner has to either minimize or avoid the estate tax, altogether.

All of these businesses, from the wine shop to the timber products company to the developer, have the means to get legal counsel. And the first thing any corporate lawyer will tell them is to re-organize their business as a Subchapter S Corporation. Once that is done, the transfer of all or part of the business before death, after death, during divorce proceedings, or in any other situation, becomes a whole lot easier. And as they face those situations, they can seek out the lowest tax rates applicable for those transfers, be it income tax, capital gains tax, estate tax, etc. An accountant will help any business owner to ensure the transfer of S-corp shares will result in minimal (EDIT: strike that, not minimal... "a minimum of" - sorry for the bad grammar) taxation.

Calling the estate tax, a death tax, is great political theater. Emotional arguments are always better in any political matter. You can sway public opinion a lot easier with emotional arguments. You might think my post is critical of the opponents of the estate tax, but it's actually a commendation of Republicans on winning this argument. I believe estate tax rates, limits, etc., should be set even with capital gains tax rates and be done with it. In the process they should do away with various exceptions and deductions that are no more than tax loopholes. Tax loopholes are as bad or perhaps even worse than taxes themselves. I'm hoping tax reform gets done sooner than later.

onmyknees

12-16-2010, 12:57 AM

I watched all of these videos and I have to say they are not informative, at all. You have a succession of business owners coming out and making the emotional arguments against estate taxes. They fail to go into any details of the options that a business owner has to either minimize or avoid the estate tax, altogether.

All of these businesses, from the wine shop to the timber products company to the developer, have the means to get legal counsel. And the first thing any corporate lawyer will tell them is to re-organize their business as a Subchapter S Corporation. Once that is done, the transfer of all or part of the business before death, after death, during divorce proceedings, or in any other situation, becomes a whole lot easier. And as they face those situations, they can seek out the lowest tax rates applicable for those transfers, be it income tax, capital gains tax, estate tax, etc. An accountant will help any business owner to ensure the transfer of S-corp shares will result in minimal (EDIT: strike that, not minimal... "a minimum of" - sorry for the bad grammar) taxation.

Calling the estate tax, a death tax, is great political theater. Emotional arguments are always better in any political matter. You can sway public opinion a lot easier with emotional arguments. You might think my post is critical of the opponents of the estate tax, but it's actually a commendation of Republicans on winning this argument. I believe estate tax rates, limits, etc., should be set even with capital gains tax rates and be done with it. In the process they should do away with various exceptions and deductions that are no more than tax loopholes. Tax loopholes are as bad or perhaps even worse than taxes themselves. I'm hoping tax reform gets done sooner than later.

How perceptive of you....it's an emotional argument to them because they're small businesses people fearful of loosing their businesses...they're not estate attorneys or politicians or think tank lecturers cooly detached from the situation. I'll bet if your daddy worked for one of them, you might be more inclined and understanding to their emotion.
And if we all just had your business savvy and hired estate planners no one would ever be burdened by the estate tax. Alas Odelay has solved the problem, and with such ease. Let me ask you a question...are your affairs in order? Do you think there's a chance you're going to expire tomorrow? Jesus...if it was only as easy as you lead us to believe with your simplistic brilliance. Maybe we can get some of your insight on how to resolve the carbon tax credit issue some companies are already grappling with in the Northeast....or the health care mandate. Can you help with opt outs? Your ability to cut through all the difficult issues is astounding. I'm being sarcastic, obviously...but in this particular case...you deserve it. Have you secured the services of estate and shelter attorneys recently? If not, get back to me when you do . I'm telling you in the farm belt this is a huge issue....if you choose not to believe that, that's your prerogative I suppose.

Look...here's the larger point which goes far beyond the death tax. I'm assuming you're an Obama guy...forgive me if that's incorrect. Just last week, it was he who schooled us on how it would be small businesses that create 70% of the jobs over the next 5 years, and it was they who would be the job creators that ultimately pulled us out of the recession. In my opinion, he happens to be right about that, but then armed with that knowledge, why then is he and his administration creating such hurdles for them to succeed ? (The death tax being just one of many) Trish acknowledge business are stock piling cash, but you're not being intellectually honest if you don't admit that some are doing that for a reason. I deal with many small businesses during the course of a week from construction and engineering firms to accounting firms to farms. Almost every one are struggling with uncertainty, the tax code, the cost of regulation, health care, restrictive and arcane accounting rules, unionization, a lack of available credit, and a plethora of other issues including yes...the death tax. If they are going to be creating 70% of all new jobs, Washington had better start listening to them. They have razor thin profit margins, but why don't you send me a business card....I'll refer them to you. You seem to be a guy who can solve all their problems! That's what drives me insane about the left and Obama...they create many ( not all) of these problems, then when businesses either can't or won't hire or spend, or attempt to explain the unintended consequences of the policies, he demagogues or like you do...make light of their issues in a slight of hand way. That's why the criticism of his administration for the lack of private sector business people is so valid.

In finality....the death tax discussion has been instructive to me as it reinforces my perception about the left, but it may be a mute point. The 5 million floor, and 30% tax may soon be law. Far from perfect, but certainly better than a 1 million/55% threshold.

Odelay

12-16-2010, 02:06 AM

And if we all just had your business savvy and hired estate planners no one would ever be burdened by the estate tax. Alas Odelay has solved the problem, and with such ease. Let me ask you a question...are your affairs in order? Do you think there's a chance you're going to expire tomorrow? Jesus...if it was only as easy as you lead us to believe with your simplistic brilliance. Maybe we can get some of your insight on how to resolve the carbon tax credit issue some companies are already grappling with in the Northeast....or the health care mandate. Can you help with opt outs? Your ability to cut through all the difficult issues is astounding. I'm being sarcastic, obviously...but in this particular case...you deserve it. Have you secured the services of estate and shelter attorneys recently? If not, get back to me when you do . I'm telling you in the farm belt this is a huge issue....if you choose not to believe that, that's your prerogative I suppose.

I'm not a big fan of sarcasm in argumentation, but I'll ignore it and address your concerns. Forming an S-corp, or an LLC if you prefer, is not difficult and every business should be concerned about being formed as a proper legal entity. You're far more likely to lose your business in a liability lawsuit than you are to a big estate tax. That's the primary reason for going the S-corp or LLC route, to limit your liability. But as I stated in the previous post, you additionally gain flexibility in transfer of ownership.

These entities aren't difficult to form. In fact, most offices of secretary of state provide free information and tutorials on how to do it. Here in WA state it costs $200 to register as an S-Corp. You can do it yourself, or take it to a small business oriented law practice who will likely do it for $1,000 to $3,000. Note, I'm not an attorney. These are best guesses based on my previous experience forming businesses.

But to get back to the original argument, perhaps an example would be illustrative....
Let's say you have Business XYZ which is called Sanford & Sons. Old man Sanford started the company after returning from the Vietnam War. Over the years, his 2 sons have also participated in the business. The year is 2000, and old Sanford starts to get worried about how he transfers the business to his sons. So he goes to a lawyer and is advised to form an S-corp. Sanford and his 2 sons do just that. In 2000, Sanford owns 100% of the shares. But he starts a stock sharing program for his 2 hardest workers, his 2 sons. In return for sweat equity, they are awarded S-corp shares each year.

Now, it's 2010. Old Sanford turns 65 and is ready to retire. But wait, he has no formal pension. All of his wealth is tied up into the business. At this point he owns 80% of the S-corp shares and each son owns 10%. How are the sons going to take care of Pops in retirement since he won't be working in the business and therefore not entitled to any of the business profits or salary? They go to their attorneys again, and this is what is advised...

Have the business sell Pops a retirement annuity. He will get $100,000 per year for the rest of his life. But he has to turn over all of his shares of stock to buy it. The company buys back that stock at some nominal par value, say $1/share. After the buyback, the 2 sons own the business 50-50, and Pops is nicely set up for retirement.

What happens to the business upon Pop's death? Nothing. He doesn't own any part of the business anymore. It's already been fully transferred to the sons.

This is just one example. Having your business as an S-corp also helps you out in divorce or in other sticky situations, that might involve the transfer of a business. You don't need to be brilliant or rich or super educated to take advantage of this. You just need to plan in advance.

Odelay

12-16-2010, 02:19 AM

I'll bet if your daddy worked for one of them, you might be more inclined and understanding to their emotion.

My father worked his long career for an airline. Three years before he was due for retirement and a nice pension, the airline was run into the ground, went bankrupt and he received pennies on the dollar on his pension amount. He never complained about it and neither do I. Bankrupticies are a natural part of the free market.

My father's father and his brothers were farmers. They transferred their farms to relatives and friends without having to pay exhorbitant estate taxes because they planned ahead.

Onmyknees, maybe my point about those videos raising emotional arguments set you off in some way. That wasn't my intention. Running a business is a very rational thing to do. Running a farm is the same. No matter how deeply personal owning a business or farm is to a person, it's no excuse for not using rational thought to seek out the best financial solutions to protect that person's farm/business/investment.

onmyknees

12-16-2010, 06:16 AM

Deficit ? Debt ? 10% unemployment? Record number of foreclosures? Feed "em Cake !

More good news for you believers in Keynesian economics. Your tax dollars at work. The more you give these thugs, the more ferocious their appetite for pork becomes.

And, in what has become a grand holiday tradition, the Senate stuffed the bill with more than 6,000 earmarks, including:

$450,000 for the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa;
$500,000 for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston;
$100,000 for YouthCare in Seattle;
$550,000 to rehabilitate Beacham Street in Massachusetts;
$300,000 to renovate the Josephine Bakhita House in Wilmington, Delaware;
$150,000 to renovate the Tibbits Opera House in Michigan;
$500,000 for streetscaping in Porter County, Indiana;
$200,000 to install solar panels at the Community Food Bank, Inc., in Arizona;
$700,000 to reconstruct Norwood Drive in Pennsylvania;
$500,000 for Denver Bike Sharing;
100,000 for the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway Transportation Museum in Columbus, Mississippi;
$3.5 million to research Formosan Subterranean Termites in New Orleans;
$1 million for peanut research in Athens and Tifton, Georgia;
$500,000 for oyster safety in Florida;
$600,000 for the Lewis and Clark Legacy Trail in North Dakota;
$750,000 for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail Project in California;
$125,000 to develop a walking trail in Mississippi;
$2 million for an Ice Age National Scenic Trail in Wisconsin;
$250,000 for Pigeon Point Lighthouse in California; and

trish

12-16-2010, 07:15 PM

Some people's pork are other people's jobs.

So, to summarize:
In this thread it was definitively established that:

1. the inheritance tax is not a death tax, but a tax paid by the living recipient of the inheritance;

2. the inheritance tax is not double taxation, it is a tax paid once by the recipient on the gains he or she made through their inheritance;

3. the inheritance tax is not a threat to small farmers and small business owners, indeed if they plan intelligently they don’t even need to pay a cent of inheritance tax.

4. the inheritance tax in no way prevents the growth of family estates from one generation to the next.

Faldur

12-16-2010, 09:45 PM

People see things differently through there own eyes..

1. The inheritance tax is a death tax, applied to ones passing as the departed assets are gifted to family/charity/friends.

2. The death tax is double taxation, its a tax applied to a families post tax income.

3. The death tax has done more to kill the American family business than Walmart.

4. The death tax ensures that the oppressive federal government takes a larger percentage of an individuals income than the family/charities/friends they gift their monies to.

trish

12-16-2010, 10:29 PM

1. The inheritance tax is a death tax, applied to ones passing as the departed assets are gifted to family/charity/friends.This is a lie.

2. The death tax is double taxation, its a tax applied to a families post tax income. Imagine that after you pay your federal income tax, you have some money left over. Take all those bills you have left over and label them: write “already taxed” on each of them. All that labeled money was already taxed. Now you use some of those labeled bills to pay your house-keeper, who declares it as income and she eventually pays taxes on it. Wait a second. She paid taxes on money that was already taxed! Proof: the money she paid taxes on is marked, “already taxed.”

Of course the above is a ridiculous example. No one would call that double taxation. Yet people who argue that gift and inheritance taxes are double taxation are making the very same argument. Faldur, you might be against gift and inheritance taxes, but you’re going to have to rationalize your dislike with a different argument; double taxation isn’t going to cut it. Meet the point, don't just state the opposite.

The death tax has done more to kill the American family business than Walmart.So you say without a shred of evidence. But I don't know any family farm or business that was lost to the inheritance tax. I can name about six businesses in my neighborhood that got pushed out by Walmart. The reason is that no small family farm or business needs to pay a cent of inheritance tax. See http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/showpost.php?p=845415&postcount=48

The death tax ensures that the oppressive federal government takes a larger percentage of an individuals income than the family/charities/friends they gift their monies to.Once again, despite your "ensurances" the the government of the United States of America, which you seem to hate with a passion, is neither oppressive nor unfair to the super-powerful. Most other people will never have to pay a cent of inheritance tax.

onmyknees

12-16-2010, 11:49 PM

So you say without a shred of evidence. But I don't know any family farm or business that was lost to the inheritance tax. I can name about six businesses in my neighborhood that got pushed out by Walmart. The reason is that no small family farm or business needs to pay a cent of inheritance tax. See http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...5&postcount=48 (http://www.hungangels.com/vboard/sho...5&postcount=48)

Trish...I'll address Odelay's misconception later, but I can't allow you to further mislead. You're no longer engaging in stating an opinion , but stating a falsehood. Your statement is sorta like saying ...no American ever need get lung cancer...just don't smoke cigarets. It's oversimplistic, and false on it's face.

onmyknees

12-17-2010, 12:11 AM

These entities aren't difficult to form. In fact, most offices of secretary of state provide free information and tutorials on how to do it. Here in WA state it costs $200 to register as an S-Corp. You can do it yourself, or take it to a small business oriented law practice who will likely do it for $1,000 to $3,000. Note, I'm not an attorney. These are best guesses based on my previous experience forming businesses.

If you're talking about forming an LLC, I agree the cost is minimul, however and I'm serious about this...if you can find a reputable attorney to do estate planning and shelters and trusts for small firms or individuals over over 1m ...let me know the firms contact info. I'd like to see if they're licensed in NY. I should know...I just paid the attorney fees for a family member to do a simple trust. She has a used car, small modest home , and 2 small C.D.'s totaling about 8k. We did this to avoid probate and because of the uncertainty of the death tax....So far I written checks to the lawyers for 5200.00.....you have grossly oversimplified and underestimated the costs. A cheap attorney with a bad suit and lousy haircut will cost you 2000 per day here in the N.E. Did you really watch those vids?? More later.

Odelay

12-17-2010, 04:03 AM

If you're talking about forming an LLC, I agree the cost is minimul, however and I'm serious about this...if you can find a reputable attorney to do estate planning and shelters and trusts for small firms or individuals over over 1m ...let me know the firms contact info. I'd like to see if they're licensed in NY. I should know...I just paid the attorney fees for a family member to do a simple trust. She has a used car, small modest home , and 2 small C.D.'s totaling about 8k. We did this to avoid probate and because of the uncertainty of the death tax....So far I written checks to the lawyers for 5200.00.....you have grossly oversimplified and underestimated the costs. A cheap attorney with a bad suit and lousy haircut will cost you 2000 per day here in the N.E. Did you really watch those vids?? More later.

Onmyknees, don't bother further replying. It's clear you are arguing in bad faith. You aren't interested in a debate of the issues where both sides make reasoned arguments and counter arguments are made that address the opposing debaters specific points.

Instead of responding directly to my points, as well as Trish's, Hippifried's, Yoda's and other's, you instead attack points that we never made or you raise brand new arguments on topics we weren't directly discussing in an attempt to make us look bad. You've done this repeatedly. It's called, moving the goalposts.

Above, you say that trusts, shelters, and estates are very expensive to get legal help on. I never said anything about trusts, shelters and estates in my post. My post(s) speak to the issue of the flexibility one has to transfer assets if one forms an S-corp. And forming S-corps is something that many people do themselves. Some reputable law firms will offer to form an S-corp for a business at pretty marginal rates. They'll put one of their most junior associate attorneys on it, and the total charge comes out to be a couple or a few thousand. Why would they offer such discounts, you ask? Because a business has many legal needs and giving them a break when they form the company will often lead to further legal work with the same firm, down the road. It makes good business sense for law firms to do this.

Again, just to be clear... I'm talking about minimizing or avoiding estate tax just by forming an S-corp, and using the structure of the corporation to allow transfer of ownership between individuals. The annuity that I refer to in my example is, again, something that is very boilerplate. While an attorney might advise me, I would take it to an insurance professional to see that it was done right. None of my example, nor my posts speak to super expensive legal help that onmyknees seems to be accusing me of.

I would think that one might concede on one or more of my points that business owners and farmers have alternatives to paying full estate taxes upon their death. But what I have come to realize is that onmyknees is not interested in conceding on any point, even if it's ground in facts and logic.

* * * * *

Even though my background or broader opinions haven't been requested by anyone, I do want to state for the record that I love creating, building, and operating businesses. I also love farming. All through my teens, I helped work the farms of my uncles during the summertime. In the 28 years since I graduated from college, I've spent 4 years working for the federal government and 24 working for private industry, and I appreciate having both perspectives. I am definitely pro-capitalism. I have been for most of the free trade agreements.

But being pro-capitalism doesn't mean I'm anti-government. I see a much broader role for government than many conservatives do.

hippifried

12-17-2010, 08:35 AM

So... If we're taxing the dead, why does anybody care? They don't.

Faldur

12-17-2010, 04:54 PM

So... If we're taxing the dead, why does anybody care? They don't.

The fact of the matter is that they do, while they are living. Taking 66% of ones income before they can pass it on to whom ever they wish is oppressive.. nuff said.

trish

12-17-2010, 06:42 PM

The dead don't own it. Upon death those named in the will own the inheritance. They pay the taxes on the gain.. nuff said.

Faldur

12-17-2010, 06:58 PM

We have 10 people sitting at the dinner table, all are eating and might I add eating pretty well, in fact better than anytime in the history of the US. When the check arrives 5 of the diners refuse to pay anything for their food and demand the others pay for it. 4 of the other 5 look to the diner at the head of the table and say "were not paying for it", and only pony up 4% of the check.

Lets get all American's putting some skin in the game, flat tax same rate for everyone. Once the freeloading side of the table starts to carry their fair share, we can have a discussion of what we want to call a certain tax.

trish

12-17-2010, 07:34 PM

Wear and tear on road surfaces increases exponentially with use. So do you think a corporation that ships hundreds of thousands of goods over those roads everyday should pay the same proportion of their revenue for the maintenance of those roads as you do? Boy have they got you snowed!

Faldur

12-17-2010, 09:01 PM

Are you saying a wealthy individual "wears and tears" the economy with they're daily use? You are far to intelligent to suggest that. Who do you think builds and services their mansions, yachts, automobiles, airplanes, who runs their companies, and works in the factories. How many jobs does a person earning say $35,000 a year create in comparison?

And your stupid road comparison, 30% of my business happens to move materials via truck to get where its being installed. The truckers we employ pay a steep tax for their right to use the road. And yes its exponentially with amount of miles/weight they carry/use. So you want to tax road use twice also? Everyone or every corporation shipping goods is paying a premium for the additional taxes the shipping company pays for its use of our road system.

Skin in the game ..

trish

12-17-2010, 09:40 PM

So you want to tax road use twice also?No, I'm not for taxing any gain twice. But that road brings you revenue as well as the truckers. 30% of your business goes over the roads in the trucks those truckers drive. I just don't want you to feel like a freeloader when your revenue depends on those surfaces just as much as theirs. You can pay your fair share of maintenance too.

Everyone or every corporation shipping goods is paying a premium for the additional taxes the shipping company pays for its use of our road system.As they should.

My larger point is that it's naive to think that the the stress we place upon our infrastructures is proportional to our individual incomes, or to the revenues of our businesses and corporations. That why it's naive to think that a flat tax is anything close to being a fair tax.

So why the digression away from inheritance taxes? Giving up and changing goal posts again?

Faldur

12-17-2010, 09:54 PM

Giving up and changing goal posts again?

Have I changed goal posts previously? Not intentionally I assure you.

This subject has everything to do with the death tax. We have 50% of the population that pay no federal taxes. Half of our populous are freeloaders. Yet these freeloaders have the audacity to decry that the ones actually paying the tab need to pay more. And more isn't good enough, we even want to tax everything you have one additional time when your pulse stops, (35% more). Thats an effective 65% tax rate that the freeloaders want the rich to pay.

If the freeloading half of our country wants ownership in the country, its time they step up and help proportionately. When you get all 10 people at the dinner table paying there proportional share of the bill, come find me and we'll talk about raising the proportional tax.

If we spent half as much energy looking for ways to shrink governmental spending as we do insisting the "rich" pay more taxes we would probably have a balanced budget.

Skin in the game..

trish

12-17-2010, 10:14 PM

The 50% figure is just a lie O'Reilly made up and you're willing to believe. It's nowhere close to true. Income tax is taken out of the paychecks of nearly every working person. Everyone pays sales tax when they buy gasoline. So who are these freeloaders? If 50% of the population doesn't pay any federal taxes we would all know some of these freeloaders personally. They'd be family members, acquaintances, people who work at Fox. So who do you know personally that doesn't pay any federal income tax? Name names. Personally, I can't think of anyone who would have enough lawyers and loopholes available to them to avoid paying all federal taxes...or can I? http://mediamatters.org/research/200506100002

BTW you started off with the claim
This subject has everything to do with the death tax.and then as usual never came back and supported it. But of course, how could you, there's no such thing as the death tax.

onmyknees

12-17-2010, 11:08 PM

Onmyknees, don't bother further replying. It's clear you are arguing in bad faith. You aren't interested in a debate of the issues where both sides make reasoned arguments and counter arguments are made that address the opposing debaters specific points.

Instead of responding directly to my points, as well as Trish's, Hippifried's, Yoda's and other's, you instead attack points that we never made or you raise brand new arguments on topics we weren't directly discussing in an attempt to make us look bad. You've done this repeatedly. It's called, moving the goalposts.

Above, you say that trusts, shelters, and estates are very expensive to get legal help on. I never said anything about trusts, shelters and estates in my post. My post(s) speak to the issue of the flexibility one has to transfer assets if one forms an S-corp. And forming S-corps is something that many people do themselves. Some reputable law firms will offer to form an S-corp for a business at pretty marginal rates. They'll put one of their most junior associate attorneys on it, and the total charge comes out to be a couple or a few thousand. Why would they offer such discounts, you ask? Because a business has many legal needs and giving them a break when they form the company will often lead to further legal work with the same firm, down the road. It makes good business sense for law firms to do this.

Again, just to be clear... I'm talking about minimizing or avoiding estate tax just by forming an S-corp, and using the structure of the corporation to allow transfer of ownership between individuals. The annuity that I refer to in my example is, again, something that is very boilerplate. While an attorney might advise me, I would take it to an insurance professional to see that it was done right. None of my example, nor my posts speak to super expensive legal help that onmyknees seems to be accusing me of.

I would think that one might concede on one or more of my points that business owners and farmers have alternatives to paying full estate taxes upon their death. But what I have come to realize is that onmyknees is not interested in conceding on any point, even if it's ground in facts and logic.

* * * * *

Even though my background or broader opinions haven't been requested by anyone, I do want to state for the record that I love creating, building, and operating businesses. I also love farming. All through my teens, I helped work the farms of my uncles during the summertime. In the 28 years since I graduated from college, I've spent 4 years working for the federal government and 24 working for private industry, and I appreciate having both perspectives. I am definitely pro-capitalism. I have been for most of the free trade agreements.

But being pro-capitalism doesn't mean I'm anti-government. I see a much broader role for government than many conservatives do.

Nice try Odelay...when you don't like or agree with the retort, or feel some judgemental overtones in it, it's time to end the discussion. Look...there were some things said that were factually incorrect, and others that were hugely overly simplistic. I do conceed this....you admitted you're not an estate attorney. Neither am I ...There is nothing fundementally wrong with the example you laid out but let me point out a few flaws as I see them...if that's not too presumptuous of me. First, it doesn't matter if the father no longer works at the company. If he still owns 80% of the shares he gets 80% of the profits each year. The income of an S-corp flows through to the owners. The actual income need not be actually distributed, but as a majority owner the father could easily make sure that some income is distributed to him each year.

Second, I don't see the problem with this scenario. The sons are buying the business from their father. Sure, the father’s estate tax liability decreases because they do, but are you arguing the sons shouldn't be able to buy the business from their father? They have to earn enough income through the business to pay his annuity, so they're growing the business. The problem with your scenario overall is not so much it's framework, it's that many bussiness arrangements are more complicated than this, and death by it's very nature almost never comes when one's affairs are in order.

Although the death tax is a tiny portion of revenues collected by the IRS, I believe it's as fundementally un American as as some of the eminent domain rulings by the Court that allows government seizure of private property for a shopping mall. I'm sorry....I'm not going to concede those opinions to anyone. I do however believe in certain situations, there should be high thresholds ( above 5-7 million) and lower percentages 20-25%, so I'm not an absolutist.
With respect to Trish and her statement that no small business or family farm need be lost and then citing your example, that's just factually incorrect. I found hundreds of examples , but here are a few that jumped out at me...
Even a company as big and successful as Black Entertainment Television (BET) will not survive its founder’s death under current tax law. In order to pay the death tax, the heirs will likely have to sell BET to a big conglomerate. The same would happen to Chicago’s Chatham Food Center, built up by Leonard L. Harris, who put his earnings back into his business. His family, too, would have to sell the store in order to pay the IRS. Worse still, The Chicago Daily Defender, the oldest black-owned daily newspaper in the United States, was already forced into bankruptcy by the death tax in 2003.
Again...you left the reader with the impression that if they only followed your example, all this could alas be avoided, with a few accounting measures and that those who fell prey to the death tax did so out of ignorance and that all this talk of the death tax was highly overblown and just something conservatives were using as a club . That's not nearly the whole story. I'm sorry, but that's the opinion I came away with. If I'm guilty of not conceeding a point, and that may be accurate, you're guilty of generalizing, and in the case you offered, cherry picking an ideal situation.
Peace.

trish

12-17-2010, 11:34 PM

I know you guys are Fox indoctrinated and thoroughly enjoy using the fallacious characterization "death tax." But your continued usage of this mischaracterization belies your lack of good faith in arguing the issue and it calls into question your ability to see the issue clearly and without bias.

Faldur

12-18-2010, 12:42 AM

The 50% figure is just a lie O'Reilly made up and you're willing to believe.
That is completely inaccurate, or as you would put it a lie. I love how you equate intelligent thought with Fox News or Bill O'Reilly, I'm sure they would both be flattered. But thank you very much but I can do my own research. The Tax Policy Center estimated that for 2009, 43% of tax units will have no income tax liability or will have a NEGATIVE income tax liability. Their negative side combined with the next 7% of units accumulates 2.1% of the gross revenues our government receives. Those are mathematical facts Trish, unlike global science they don't lie.

Income tax is taken out of the paychecks of nearly every working person.

Huh? Are you really trying to say that withholding is paying taxes? People are smart enough to realize they get it all back when they file, plus - earned income tax credit - meaning they take out more than they put in. 43% of tax reporting citizens result in a negative number to the treasury! They cost us money!

Everyone pays sales tax when they buy gasoline

Oh brother, yes everyone pays sales tax when they buy gas. Its how we pay for our roads. And the key word there is EVERYONE. Has nothing to do with federal income tax.

we would all know some of these freeloaders personally

Thats just stupid. Lets put it this way, next time your in a room with 19 other people there is one person in the room that is paying for 60% of the services the other 19 of you are using. And as you look around, 10 of you are along for a free ride. All expense paid trip on the whiners express. You keep trying to distance this from the death tax, but those of us paying all these taxes are tired of listening to the freeloaders bitch and moan that we don't pay enough for their lazy asses to enjoy the ride. Lets get everyone with some skin in the game, unless your helping carry this country shut the fuck up and quit bitching that the top 50% aren't paying enough taxes.

trish

12-18-2010, 01:10 AM

You keep trying to distance this from the death tax, but those of us paying all these taxes are tired of listening to the freeloaders bitch and moan that we don't pay enough for their lazy asses to enjoy the ride.This piece of emotional tripe does not relate it to the inheritance tax. I know you guys are Fox indoctrinated and thoroughly enjoy using the fallacious characterization "death tax." But your continued usage of this mischaracterization belies your lack of good faith in arguing the issue and it calls into question your ability to see the issue clearly and without bias. Prove you're not a troll.

Faldur

12-18-2010, 02:09 AM

The 50% figure is just a lie O'Reilly made up and you're willing to believe.

So I take it your agreeing with me that your comment was completely lacking factual basis?

hippifried

12-18-2010, 03:00 AM

The fact of the matter is that they do, while they are living. Taking 66% of ones income before they can pass it on to whom ever they wish is oppressive.. nuff said.
Wow! That percentage just keeps on going up with every telling of the tale.

Faldur

12-18-2010, 03:39 AM

Wow! That percentage just keeps on going up with every telling of the tale.

Correct me if I am wrong, is not the death tax included in the law just signed put it at 35%? Typically 28 - 35 percent is paid on income tax. Where did I go wrong? Not trying to deceive anyone, but figured 66 was pretty accurate.

Odelay

12-18-2010, 04:54 AM

First, it doesn't matter if the father no longer works at the company. If he still owns 80% of the shares he gets 80% of the profits each year. The income of an S-corp flows through to the owners. The actual income need not be actually distributed, but as a majority owner the father could easily make sure that some income is distributed to him each year.

Wrong. I'm not an estate attorney, but I did run the finance and corporate governance of a dotcom company organized as an S-Corp. With S-Corps you have total flexibility on how that income flows to the owners/employees. In fact, it would abnormal for 80% of profits to flow to the 80% shareholder in most S-Corps. Profits of S-Corps are not like C-corp dividends. They do not have to be distributed proportionally to ownership.

Second, I don't see the problem with this scenario. The sons are buying the business from their father. Sure, the father’s estate tax liability decreases because they do, but are you arguing the sons shouldn't be able to buy the business from their father? They have to earn enough income through the business to pay his annuity, so they're growing the business. The problem with your scenario overall is not so much it's framework, it's that many bussiness arrangements are more complicated than this, and death by it's very nature almost never comes when one's affairs are in order. You're right. Most businesses are a little more complicated than the scenario I described. And sometimes the solutions are little more complicated and expensive than I describe. But my over all point stands, that such a structure can aide in the transfer of a business. And also note, the emotional arguments in the videos you linked to largely applied to small family owned businesses, where a parent wants to hand it off to his children. In these type of simpler businesses, my scenario would work.

As for an unexpected death messing up the works, you are right. I concede that the families of some business owners and farmers get royally screwed by the estate tax if they haven't properly planned ahead for an eventual or even accidental death of the owners. Part of my post made it clear that you have to plan ahead in order to avoid the worst of the estate tax.

Although the death tax is a tiny portion of revenues collected by the IRS, I believe it's as fundementally un American as as some of the eminent domain rulings by the Court that allows government seizure of private property for a shopping mall. I'm sorry....I'm not going to concede those opinions to anyone. I do however believe in certain situations, there should be high thresholds ( above 5-7 million) and lower percentages 20-25%, so I'm not an absolutist. We are in agreement on the percentages. Estate gains by an heir, to me, are identical to long term capital gains. The long term captial gains tax rate is 20%. I think the estate tax should be 20%. Match 'em up. That way, people don't have to hire a bunch of professional services to figure out how to avoid the estate tax.

Going back to my example, the two boys who share the company 50-50 after the retirement of their dad will ultimately have to pay 20% on long term capital gains, if or when they sell the company. If these two rates were equal, they could decide to pay the tax, up front, through the estate tax, or pay the capital gains tax on the back end, when they sell their shares. Either way, they only pay 20% tax, and only once.

With respect to Trish and her statement that no small business or family farm need be lost and then citing your example, that's just factually incorrect. I found hundreds of examples , but here are a few that jumped out at me...
... Black Entertainment Television (BET) will not survive its founder’s death... Chicago’s Chatham Food Center...The Chicago Daily Defender,Details are required to fully ascertain how responsible the estate tax is/was to the demise of these companies. There could be many responsible factors. For example, if a company isn't run responsibly, taking care of cash, growth, etc., they could run into a situation where they are almost insolvent or practically bankrupt at the time of the death of the founder(s). In such cases as these, it might be easy to point to the estate tax as the culprit when in fact financial mismanagement had the business closing doors.

Another scenario is a founder who distrusts his children and never plans ahead because he really doesn't know who he wants to transfer the business to. Kids who are real shits all their adult lives, leading lives as dilletantes who do nothing while their father slaves away, will look to a scapegoat in these situations. It goes something like this... "My daddy worked hard and I loved him dearly and now the big old bad guvmint is taking my inheritance away."

I'm not saying that every business and farm should be run perfectly so the estate tax has minimum impact. It's not easy to run businesses and sometimes bad things happen that are mostly unavoidable. However, it's impossible to have a perfect tax code that is 100% fair to everyone. The best you can do is make it as fair as possible.

In the late 50's and 60's the highest income tax bracket was 90%. That was unfair. They lowered it to 70%, then to 55%, then lower, and eventually all the way down to 28%. Then, that became unfair in the opposite direction. It was untenable.

Again...you left the reader with the impression that if they only followed your example, all this could alas be avoided, with a few accounting measures and that those who fell prey to the death tax did so out of ignorance and that all this talk of the death tax was highly overblown and just something conservatives were using as a club .I never spoke of the ignorance of business owners, and you can't even reasonably infer that I have any thought relative to those who don't plan ahead. My post(s) dealt with an alternative to fully paying the death tax. You say I'm cherry picking with my example. I say it's a reasonable scenario that many family owned businesses can take advantage of.

If I'm guilty of not conceeding a point, and that may be accurate, you're guilty of generalizingIt's almost impossible not to generalize when you debate these types of issues. The US Tax code covers 100's of millions of people. All you can do is generalize and create a system that is fair to a super-majority of people.

The beauty of our current system over the old feudal system of europe, centuries ago, is that some thug representing a Lord or Baron doesn't come by and steal from us directly. The government has to create a law, collect the taxes relative to the law, allow reconciliation by the individual to make sure the collected tax is accurate (which can include using a tax accountant), allows for appeal of an IRS ruling, and ultimately allows us to individually and collectively lobby congress to change the tax law if a group of us don't like it.

Options. We have options.

And thank you for taking a more reasonable tone. I appreciate it.

hippifried

12-18-2010, 10:00 AM

Correct me if I am wrong, is not the death tax included in the law just signed put it at 35%? Typically 28 - 35 percent is paid on income tax. Where did I go wrong? Not trying to deceive anyone, but figured 66 was pretty accurate.
Yes you are. You're trying to claim double taxation, & that ain't happening. The recipient of the gain gets taxed once & once only, whether it's through earnings or inheritence.

But it doesn't matter anyway, because the top marginal rate on long term capital gains is 15%. & even jacking the rates up to some imaginary level of 66% still doesn't make for a good argument that the rates are too high when you figure that the biggest economic boom in American history, that created the American middle class, had top marginal rates of over 70%, & the most robust years of that boom saws rates of 80 to 90%.

trish

12-18-2010, 04:59 PM

So I take it your agreeing with me that your comment was completely lacking factual basis?That just makes you wrong again as well as a presumptuous asshole.

So did you mean to cite the very same Tax Policy Center that debunks 5 Myths About Your Taxes in a post of the same title?
Myth 1:The poorest and the richest Americans pay no taxes.
Hmmm, what did you claim? Ahh here it is:
We have 50% of the population that pay no federal taxes. Half of our populous are freeloaders.. Now remember the context of our discussion was the inheritance tax, flat tax and the building and maintenance of our legal, communications and transportation infrastructures.
The conclusion you draw is that our tax structure is such the poor and middle classes are full of freeloaders who have contributed nothing toward the construction of maintenance of the aforementioned infrastructures.

Here's is what the TPC actually claims:
About 45 percent of households will owe no federal income tax in 2010, according to our estimates. Half of them earn too little, while the other half -- mostly middle- and lower-income households -- will take advantage of tax credits such as the earned income credit (http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96406,00.html), the child and child-care credits, the American Opportunity and Lifetime Learning (http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=177996,00.html) credits, which help pay for college, and the saver's credit, (http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=172969,00.html) which subsidizes retirement saving. But even citizens who pay no income tax still pay other kinds of taxes. They pay Social Security and Medicare taxes when they work, sales taxes when they buy things and property taxes on their homes. Drivers pay gasoline taxes, and smokers and drinkers pay excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol. According to our research, more than 75 percent (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=2408) of us will pay at least some form of federal tax in 2010.
Those who pay no federal taxes are mostly the low-income elderly or very poor families with children. Even about half of those with annual incomes under $10,000 pay some federal tax, most often payroll taxes on wages.
And yes, the richest Americans pay taxes, too. Though a tiny minority manage to avoid federal income tax through elaborate tax planning, 99.7 percent (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=2409) of those with annual incomes above $1 million will pay federal taxes this year, surrendering 27 percent of their earnings to the government. The average American taxpayer pays 18 percent (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=2417).
I took the liberty of putting the words, "will owe" in underscored boldface. Notice it's in the future tense. It hasn't happened yet. All those people you claim were freeloading in the past and are freeloading in the present, have been paying federal taxes (as well of all sorts of other taxes) to support our infrastructures and your use of them as you do your daily business. So what about 2010? Because of the recession, and because those on middle class incomes or lesser incomes have not made RECORD PROFITS this this year, they get a federal income tax brake. This brake will save families, homes and small businesses.

So to summarize:Your statement "We have 50% of the population that pay no federal taxes. Half of our populous are freeloaders," is at best misleading.

The TPC's statement, "About 45 percent of households will owe no federal income tax in 2010..." is their estimate of how Obama's tax break WILL help 45% of Americans.

I also took the liberty of underscoring in bold another line or two of the CPC's statement, namely, "Those who pay no federal taxes are mostly the low-income elderly or very poor families with children. Even about half of those with annual incomes under $10,000 pay some federal tax, most often payroll taxes on wages." So who are the freeloaders, according to you Faldur? Answer: the low-income elderly and the very poor with children.

Faldur

12-18-2010, 06:13 PM

So paying FICA is equated to paying federal income tax? Oh brother..

47% of the tax filing citizens result in a negative income to the treasury. The current poverty level for 2010 is 14.3 percent. 32.7% of the lower 47% of taxpayers are deadbeats, a drain to our society, and the biggest bunch of whiners demanding everyone else pay more for their welfare programs. Its the basis of why our country is about to go bankrupt. Without everyone contributing "their fare share" we have no ownership for the 32.7% of tax filers.

trish

12-18-2010, 09:34 PM

So paying FICA is equated to paying federal income tax? Oh brother..Hey, I'm only quoting the TPC, the organization you previously cited as the authority on these matters.

Now let me quote you. Faldur says,
32.7% of the lower 47% of taxpayers are deadbeats, a drain to our society...

Nice. Is that what all you conservatives think? Perhaps you guys should make it an official line in your plank. I think it rather accurately speaks to your character, your bias and and your intellectual dishonesty.

Faldur

12-18-2010, 10:31 PM

There are a lot of things you could rightly call me Trish, but I really don't think dishonest is one of them.

Hippie,

In my case what ever I may have left at my passing, will be the result of wages. Taxed in my case at an average rate of 30%, (see 2010 rate schedule below). Now we will have to agree to disagree on weather or not this double taxation, because I ain't changing your mind, and I guarantee you ain't changing mine. I call it a death tax, and double taxation.

So first time at this rate: (2010 Rates)
Tax Brackets for Head Of Household:
10% Tax Bracket – $0-$11,950
15% Tax Bracket – $11,950-$45,550
25% Tax Bracket – $45,550-$117,650
28% Tax Bracket – $117,650-$190,550
33% Tax Bracket – $190,550-$373,650
35% Tax Bracket – $373,650+

And upon my death this rate: (2011 Rates)
Lower Limit Upper Limit Initial Taxation Further Taxation
0 $10,000 $0 18% of the amount
$10,000 $20,000 $1,800 20% of the excess over $10,000
$20,000 $40,000 $3,800 22% of the excess over $20,000
$40,000 $60,000 $8,200 24% of the excess over $40,000
$60,000 $80,000 $13,000 26% of the excess over $60,000
$80,000 $100,000 $18,200 28% of the excess over $80,000
$100, 000 $150,000 $23,800 30% of the excess over $100,000
$150,000 $250,000 $38,800 32% of the excess over $150,000
$250,000 $500,000 $70,800 34% of the excess over $250,000
$500,000 $750,000 $155,800 37% of the excess over $500,000
$750,000 $1,000,000 $248,300 39% of the excess over $750,000
$1,000,000 $1,125,000 $345,800 41% of the excess over $1,000,000
$1,125,000 $1,500,000 $448,300 43% of the excess over $1,250,000
$1,500,000 $2,000,000 $555,800 45% of the excess over $1,500,000
$2,000,000 $2,500,000 $780,800 49% of the excess over $2,000,000
$2,500,000 $3,000,000 $1,025,800 53% of the excess over $2,500,000
$3,000,000 and over $1,290,800 55% of the excess over $3,000,000

When i run it through my calculator I come up with 71%, (based off current wage plus estimated amount of inheritance), is what the government will take out of every dollar I earn/save upon my passing, so that my daughters may have a little better life. They get a whopping .29 cents on the dollar.

hippifried

12-19-2010, 09:40 AM

Well first of all, I didn't think the tips were that good at Burger King. But that's neither here nor there.

So... You planning on dying next year? If you do, you won't be paying anymore taxes. The second you stop breathing for good, you no longer have anything. Your rights & privileges as a human being are gone, because you aren't one anymore. Your creditors get first crack at anything that might be left over. Even your last will & testament is just a cultural courtesy. They all get contested if there's enough money to make it worthwhile after the lawyers get their skim. (Conrad Hilton left his fortune to the Catholic Church. Barron Hilton said "no fucking way!" & got that overturned.) None of it's yours anymore. Whoever gets a piece of the spoils of your death, gets taxed on the windfall.

I don't know about that table you posted. Something's got my "fauxdar" up. Got a source link? The top tax rate is 35%, & that's on regular income like wages, salaries & tips. This is all capital gains you're talking about, & the rate is 15% in the top bracket, with the first $250,000 exempt.

Nobody in the income bracket you're claiming files short form.

Faldur

12-19-2010, 05:04 PM

First rates could be found here.. http://www.maxi-pedia.com/2010+federal+tax+rates+tables Just standard 2010 tax rates.

The second set came from Wikipedia, ya i know a little lazy but it was Saturday.. The rates are taken from the Internal Revenue Code section 2001(c), as amended by section 302(a)(2). They could have changed with the law passed yesterday, in a quick search I couldn't find the new info listed.
Estate tax in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia@@AMEPARAM@@/wiki/File:US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg" class="image" title="Obverse side of the Great Seal of the United States"><img alt="Obverse side of the Great Seal of the United States" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg/100px-US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg.png"@@AMEPARAM@@commons/thumb/b/be/US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg/100px-US-GreatSeal-Obverse.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States)

Actually the "sunset" on death taxes was this year. The Steinbrenner family made out like bandits. I'd say the odds are pretty good I will make it to 2011.

I strongly disagree with your take on last will and testament, (can you believe it?). That is my legal avenue to rights and privileges after my last breath. As far as being overturned in court, judicial law making is another subject entirely. I believe a properly prepared will and testament will be enforced.

Which monies are you saying "capitol gains" is what I am talking about? Income is subject income tax rates, and inheritance is subject death tax rate, I don't get where capitol gains comes into play.

Finally "short form"? Not sure what you meant by that. If your asking if I file the 1040EZ.. lol, I wish.. too many tips from Burger King for that.