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Originally posted by apacheman
reply to post by macman
You forgot to include the deductions for depreciation of equipment, which sometimes results in a tax credit, the fact that a week at resort can be written off as a "business" expense, and all the other tax-payer provided subsidies, like the company car, computers, etc.
Any good accountant can use the tax code to provide not just tax relief for businesses, but income from tax credits most years, just like GE.
Originally posted by haarvik
If you are a regular person who wants to play the rich boy game, and you are married here is how you do it.
You and your wife form an LLC. You put all of your assets under the LLC. Now you can take advantage of the same deductions businesses use. You can pay for everything thru the LLC, and if you are forced to declare bankruptcy, only the business assets can be used, not your personal ones. Oh, and rarely do business assets have to be surrendered under bankruptcy The business usually owes more than what the assets can be sold for.
If corporations and households taking in $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did back in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an additional $716 billion a year.
In other words, if the federal government started taxing the wealthy and their corporations at the same rates in effect a half-century ago, the federal debt to investors would almost totally vanish over the next decade. Similarly stunning numbers have come, earlier this month, from MIT economist Peter Diamond and the University of California's Emmanuel Saez, the world's top authority on the incomes of the ultra-rich. These two scholars have shared some fascinating "what ifs" that dramatize how spectacularly the incomes of our wealthiest have soared over recent decades.
In 2007, Diamond and Saez point out, taxpayers in the nation's top 1 percent actually paid, on average, 22.4 percent of their incomes in federal taxes. If that actual tax burden were to about double to 43.5 percent, the top 1 percenter share of our national after-tax income would still be twice as high as the top 1 percent's after-tax income share in 1970.
So why aren't we taxing the rich? Why are we now suffering such fearsome "debt crisis" angst? Why are our politicos so intent on shoving the "fiscal discipline" of layoffs and cutbacks - austerity - down the throats of average Americans?
No mystery here. Our political system is failing to tax the rich because the rich have fortunes large enough to buy off the political system. Again, some numbers can help us better visualize that plutocratic big picture.
In 2008, the IRS revealed this past May, 400 Americans reported at least $110 million in income on their federal tax returns. These 400 averaged $270.5 million each, the second-highest U.S. top 400 average income on record.
In 1955, by contrast, America's top 400 averaged - in 2008 dollars - a mere $13.3 million. In other words, the top 400 in 2008 reported incomes that, after taking inflation into account, amounted to more than 20 times the incomes of America's top 400 a half-century ago.
But 1955's top 400 didn't just make far less than 2008's top 400. The rich in 1955 paid far more of their income in taxes than today's rich. In 2008, the new IRS data show, the top 400 paid only 18.1 percent of their total incomes in federal income tax. The top 400 in 1955 paid 51.2 percent of their total incomes in tax.
The bottom line: After taxes, and after adjusting for inflation, 2008's top 400 had a staggering $38.5 billion more left in their pockets than 1955's most awesomely affluent.
Multiply that near $40 billion by the annual tax savings the rest of America's richest 1 percent have enjoyed over recent years and you have an enormous war chest for waging class war, billions upon billions of dollars available for bankrolling think tanks and candidates and right-wing media.
In the face of these billions, should the rest of us, America's vast non-rich majority, just toss in the towel? Our counterparts a century ago certainly didn't. They challenged their rich, on every battlefront imaginable. They eventually prevailed. They sheared their rich down to democratic size.
We can do the same.
Originally posted by apacheman
reply to post by haarvik
I agree that $250K "ain't what it usedta been".
Would raising the floor to $350K make you happier?
That seems a reasonable compromise.
eidt to add:
He's your illustrious leader, too, as much as mine;that's why we have elections. I didn't vote for him, but he won anyway, so there it is.
Sorry 'bout that.
edit on 27-7-2011 by apacheman because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by origamiandurbanism
Originally posted by macman
You clearly have never started and/or ran a business.
OK, here's what doesn't make sense to me. According to some people, rich people create jobs, according to those same people small businesses create jobs, and according to those same people they are NOT rich and taxes are killing their business.
So which is it? I guess we can have it both ways? Boehner, I'm waiting for a response!
Originally posted by no time
Originally posted by origamiandurbanism
Originally posted by macman
You clearly have never started and/or ran a business.
OK, here's what doesn't make sense to me. According to some people, rich people create jobs, according to those same people small businesses create jobs, and according to those same people they are NOT rich and taxes are killing their business.
So which is it? I guess we can have it both ways? Boehner, I'm waiting for a response!
As a small business operator, I will tell you that cash/flow does not always = profit. Depending on the business and your market, you could have large amounts of $ tied up in inventory. For a small business this is a big deal. The jest of this being, small businesses are crippled by taxes. Mostly unemployment taxes. My business pays $1000 per employee just for unemployment insurance. You take away some of these taxes I would never have to lay anyone off, therefore wouldn't need unemployment insurance. I could also pay employees a lot more in benefits and compensation.