Author Topic: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes  (Read 3586 times)

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Plane

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #15 on: October 13, 2011, 01:15:48 AM »
The advantage of this complexity falls strictly on the wealthy.

The more one is able to afford a staff of professionals , (Accountants and lawyers)
the more advantage accrues .

  Whoever told you that complexity is in service of fairness was taking advantage of your credulity.

Plane

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #16 on: October 13, 2011, 01:24:26 AM »
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Well, that's why numbers are negotiated between IRS and taxpayer all the time and if the negotiations fail, that is what the courts are for.  No tax is too complicated to be collected.  Right or wrong, some judge will decide the issue somewhere down the line, and once all the appeals are finished, there is a final answer, again right or wrong, on the table.


   This process is not free, nor fast.

   And if it can be drawn out a long time the taxpayer who simply delays payment of a large amount is practicly getting a low interest loan.
    The IRS has a very hard job , I don't really blame them for their poor track record for explaining the correct interpretation on help lines.
     The complexity isn't necessacery and does not serve fairness, unless you mean that the more wealthy can get away with more as fairness.

Michael Tee

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #17 on: October 13, 2011, 04:08:14 AM »
<<Whoever told you that complexity is in service of fairness was taking advantage of your credulity.>>

LOL.  I am not normally a very credulous person.  I think what I was trying to convey was how complexity arose in the tax code.  The code in its original form was relatively simple.  In some cases, an across-the-board application of the code to all taxpayers caused unfairness, so modifications were required.  Modifications were also required where special interests corrupted law-makers into doing favours for them.  So not all modifications were done for fairness.  However, fairness was a reasonable explanation for some of the modifications.  The rest of what I said about how complexity arose in the code is generally correct, what I was describing was an ideal process, I guess what I left out was the constant meddling with the code on behalf of special interests and their corrupting influence, which took place alongside the legitimate successive modifications made for legitimate purposes.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #18 on: October 13, 2011, 01:30:48 PM »
I did not say 999 was dangerous. I said it was unworkable, naive, inadequate and simplistic, and will never be enacted.

Buffett has never said that he pays less in income taxes than his secretary. He has said that his income is taxed at a lower rate than hers, which, because he rarely sells stocks and often is taxed at the 15% capital gains rate, is probably true most years. Buffett knows about money. His accounting skills are far better than Kramer's or mine.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

BT

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #19 on: October 13, 2011, 02:40:09 PM »
The only progressive tax we have is the income tax. Oh the unfairness of all the other taxes.

And when did the poor become eligible for special treatment? And what is the justification for doing so?

Plane

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #20 on: October 13, 2011, 03:01:34 PM »
<<Whoever told you that complexity is in service of fairness was taking advantage of your credulity.>>

LOL.  I am not normally a very credulous person.  I think what I was trying to convey was how complexity arose in the tax code.  The code in its original form was relatively simple.  In some cases, an across-the-board application of the code to all taxpayers caused unfairness, so modifications were required.  Modifications were also required where special interests corrupted law-makers into doing favours for them.  So not all modifications were done for fairness.  However, fairness was a reasonable explanation for some of the modifications.  The rest of what I said about how complexity arose in the code is generally correct, what I was describing was an ideal process, I guess what I left out was the constant meddling with the code on behalf of special interests and their corrupting influence, which took place alongside the legitimate successive modifications made for legitimate purposes.

Now you have it and this is half the puicture.

The rest of the picture is that tax complexity is a legislative power and a breauocratic power. The power to penalise and reward with special taxes or special loopholes is a strong power that is prone to be abused. The powerfull commonly resist reduction of their power reguardless of the resulting confusion or unfairness.

     It may be sold to the public as "fairness" but I am very sceptical .

Michael Tee

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #21 on: October 13, 2011, 05:23:48 PM »
<<And when did the poor become eligible for special treatment?>>

Special treatment?  God forbid the poor get special treatment. 

As Anatole France put it so well:  "The law, majestic in its equality, prohibits the rich as well as the poor from sleeping in culverts and under bridges."

<<And what is the justification for doing so?>>

LMFAO.  Questions that only a conservative could ask.  Why do the big pumpkins cost more than the small pumpkins, mommy?  Most normal people would feel a strange revulsion at the thought of taking half a loaf of bread from a poor man's table, but not at taking a whole loaf from a rich man.  I think it's called empathy.  We can feel the pain when a poor man and his family, stretched to their limits, are asked to contribute an extra $50 to the Treasury.  We cannot feel the pain when a hedge fund manager and his family are asked to contribute an extra $50 bucks.  That's just life.  What is the "justification" for that feeling?  There is no "justification."  Basically, we are human beings, conservatives are not.  We feel, they don't.  If you were expecting some kind of complex Aristotelian explanation for this, don't bother.  We're from one tribe, you're from the other tribe.  We give a shit and you don't.  End of story.

BT

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #22 on: October 13, 2011, 05:53:51 PM »
Well you can be as sarcastic as you like, but seriously why does what you have in your wallet determine your burden to the state when it comes to paying income taxes but doesn't mean a thing when you pay payroll taxes or ad valurum taxes or even sales taxes?

I mean if poverty is so virtuous why not apply the lesser burden to all  taxes? Apparently your empathy is half-hearted.

Michael Tee

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #23 on: October 13, 2011, 10:10:07 PM »
<<Well you can be as sarcastic as you like, but seriously why does what you have in your wallet determine your burden to the state when it comes to paying income taxes but doesn't mean a thing when you pay payroll taxes or ad valurum taxes or even sales taxes?

<<I mean if poverty is so virtuous why not apply the lesser burden to all  taxes? Apparently your empathy is half-hearted.
>>

Not really sure what you mean by payroll taxes.  Here in Canada, we have "source deductions" in which an employer holds back a certain sum from each paycheque and then pays quarterly remittances to the federal government on behalf of each employee whose paycheque was cut.  At the end of the year, the employer provides a "T-4" slip to each employee for inclusion in his or her tax return, showing total salary paid, amount held back for income tax, for Canada pension plan and for Unemployment Insurance (now called Employment Insurance.)  The amount held back from each paycheque depends on the employee's annual pay rate.  The ones earning more get more held back from each cheque.

Not sure what ad valorem taxes really are either.

Sales taxes are grossly unfair to the poor and are regularly attacked for being so.  There is no justification for sales taxes in their present form, but they're great for raising $$$ for the government.  One way the unfairness has been mitigated is a rebate system whereby tax-payers get back a rebate depending on income, the lower the income, the bigger the rebate.

BT

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #24 on: October 13, 2011, 11:35:46 PM »
Payroll taxes are for social security and medicare deducted at the same percentage rate no matter the annual salary rate. On Social Security there is a cap ( 100k) or there about over which no Social Security Taxes are deducted. I don't believe Medicare has a cap.

Withholding tax is basically a prepayment on expected income taxes.

Ad Valorem taxes are for motor vehicle taxes which again are charged at the same percentage rate no matter the worth of the vehicle. 

Property taxes are collected in the same manor. The collecting agency sets the millage rate which then is applied to the current valuation of the dwelling minus homestead exemptions. the millage rate is the same for a 100k home as it is for a million dollar home.

Sales taxes are also collected at the same percentage rate no matter the purchase.

No progressive taxation in any of those.

But income tax is different. If you earn less than x amount you are charged y percentage. If you earn more than x you are charged z percentage. And i don't understand why that is.




Kramer

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #25 on: October 13, 2011, 11:44:41 PM »
But income tax is different. If you earn less than x amount you are charged y percentage. If you earn more than x you are charged z percentage. And i don't understand why that is.

Are you serious that you don't understand why it is?

Isn't the answer to that question exactly what Obama is saying? Which is people that make more money have to pay more taxes. That isn't hard to understand. And if you listen to Obama and Democrats run around the country and speak to groups saying such things you will see that he/they don't say that to rich people during those appearances, they/he says it to not so rich people. The reason is so he/they can use the tax codes and the IRS to get Democrats elected to office.

Plane

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #26 on: October 14, 2011, 12:22:59 AM »
Quote
But income tax is different. If you earn less than x amount you are charged y percentage. If you earn more than x you are charged z percentage. And i don't understand why that is.

   Could it be a shell game?

      If you earn less than x you probly rent .

      If you earn more than x you probly have a mortgage.

       Mortgague interest is tax deductable , rent is not.

      Progressive taxes are a way for the middle to subsidise the upper while they think the upper is paying more (but they arn't).

      The lesser earner thinks that with earned income credit he pays nothing , but of course he is still paying for Social Security with no progressive advantage , and that money is directed to the general fund .

       So there we are , a tax code of massive unfairness that is capricious in its application but so complex in details that no one is sure that they have been cheated or that they have really paid their fair share.

BT

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #27 on: October 14, 2011, 12:39:27 AM »
But income tax is different. If you earn less than x amount you are charged y percentage. If you earn more than x you are charged z percentage. And i don't understand why that is.

Are you serious that you don't understand why it is?

Isn't the answer to that question exactly what Obama is saying? Which is people that make more money have to pay more taxes. That isn't hard to understand. And if you listen to Obama and Democrats run around the country and speak to groups saying such things you will see that he/they don't say that to rich people during those appearances, they/he says it to not so rich people. The reason is so he/they can use the tax codes and the IRS to get Democrats elected to office.


I don't understand why people buy into the justification for it. Mikey calls it empathy for the poor, i think it is all about envy of the rich and sticking it to them.

Michael Tee

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #28 on: October 14, 2011, 01:06:07 AM »
Progressive income tax rates are obviously about empathy for the poor because they have the least amount of discretionary income and cutting into that pushes them closer to the point where they have to make basic choices like food versus rent, new shoes for the kids versus medicine, etc.   Those choices excite a lot more sympathy than Virgina Beach versus St. Bart's or Lexus versus BMW.

Once you get into property taxes, automobile taxes, etc.  you are talking about people who can downsize if they can't afford the tax, or keep the property but compromise on some other luxury item, but when they are property or automobile owners, the tax usually won't affect them as starkly as an income tax will affect people in the lowest brackets.

I'm not sure about payroll taxes - - I think OK at the same rate for the guy making minimum wage as for the guy making big bucks because they all get it back in the end in the form of pension income or benefits.  If you were to cut the payroll tax for a minimum wage worker, wouldn't he get less in pension benefits when he retires?

And sales tax, I already said was unfair to the poor.  The unfairness can be mitigated as in Canada by rebates to the lower brackets when they file their tax returns.  Also by the exemption of some basic items like food and medicine from the sales tax.   Across the board sales tax on all items without exception, and without rebates, would indeed be unfair to the poor, which I think is recognized by the fact that the government DOES rebate to the poor and DOES except milk, food, medicine, etc. from the sales tax.

BT

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Re: Maybe Warren should pay his $1 Billion in back taxes
« Reply #29 on: October 14, 2011, 02:25:25 AM »
Empathy my ass. If "they" were truly empathetic they wouldn't build ghetto slums nor would they allow schools to fail.