Re: Tea Party v. Constitution
Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 12:49 am
Wealthy people used to pay a lot more in taxes in the US than they presently do. The Republicans have been kind to the rich.
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Really?Zute wrote:Wealthy people used to pay a lot more in taxes in the US than they presently do. The Republicans have been kind to the rich.
No they did not.Zute wrote:Wealthy people used to pay a lot more in taxes in the US than they presently do. The Republicans have been kind to the rich.
Paine was different than most of the others of his time.Zute wrote:and other founders(including the Brit Paine),Wasn't pretty much everyone in colonial America before 1776, a Brit, regardless of where they were born?Born in Thetford, in the English county of Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. His writing of "Common Sense" was so influential in spurring on the Revolutionary War that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of 'Common Sense,' the sword or Washington would have been raised in vain.”
I did not know that Tudamorf owned a bunch of houses in SF.Daldaen wrote:
If you intend to compare the millionaires you know to the rest of the posters here, you are making a baseless claim you don't know a single person here I'll bet.
That, I agree with.Tudamorf wrote: You don't know what you're talking about. Wealthy people pay a fortune in taxes.
And if you invest in non-taxable sources (like municipal bonds), you get a much lower return. That's not a "loophole", it's a federally created municipal subsidy.
Your high standard of living, which you no doubt take for granted, is almost entirely paid for by wealthy people.
No, you said, "by time they are finished paying 'taxes' they spent what they would normally spend on a party."AbyssalMage wrote:I didn't say they didn't pay a fortune in taxes. I said they don't pay the same % of their net income in taxes.
Many rich people in California invest quite a bit in municipal bonds, because considering taxes, the return is amazing for a relatively safe investment. Yields usually match or beat treasury bonds, and you don't pay 45% of income in taxes.AbyssalMage wrote:Rich people don't invest in non-taxable bonds, well any signifigant amount at least. The return is too low. They do invest in other funds that are more risky but have a better return. And the bonus of these investments are that if they fail, its a tax write off. If they succeed, they don't pay any tax on the return investment until they withdraw the money. The trick (and loophole) is withdrawing them in a manner that you don't have to pay taxes on them when you finally withdraw the money. It requires intimate knowledge of tax codes but the deductions to get this money tax free exists. It just requires losing money on something (buisness expense that you would normally lose money on) you would do normally in order to offset the investment you made.
Who paid to build the school?AbyssalMage wrote:And my standard of living is paid for by tax payers because I work for the people(school aid and wife is a teacher). When I worked in the private sector, the people who paid me were not wealthy. They were my (our) customers.
You can go on all you want. Doesn't make you correct.Tudamorf wrote:No, you said, "by time they are finished paying 'taxes' they spent what they would normally spend on a party."AbyssalMage wrote:I didn't say they didn't pay a fortune in taxes. I said they don't pay the same % of their net income in taxes.
As my previous post illustrates, rich people spend a lot more on taxes than they do on parties.
And purely in terms of income taxes, they pay a larger percentage of their income than poor/middle class people, so you're wrong there too.Many rich people in California invest quite a bit in municipal bonds, because considering taxes, the return is amazing for a relatively safe investment. Yields usually match or beat treasury bonds, and you don't pay 45% of income in taxes.AbyssalMage wrote:Rich people don't invest in non-taxable bonds, well any signifigant amount at least. The return is too low. They do invest in other funds that are more risky but have a better return. And the bonus of these investments are that if they fail, its a tax write off. If they succeed, they don't pay any tax on the return investment until they withdraw the money. The trick (and loophole) is withdrawing them in a manner that you don't have to pay taxes on them when you finally withdraw the money. It requires intimate knowledge of tax codes but the deductions to get this money tax free exists. It just requires losing money on something (buisness expense that you would normally lose money on) you would do normally in order to offset the investment you made.
And the "loopholes" you think exist either never existed, or were closed decades ago, during the Reagan-era reforms. For example, you can only offset $3,000 of capital losses against ordinary income and there are limits to using passive losses to offset other income.
I could go on and on about why you're wrong, but the numbers plainly show the bottom line, that rich people pay a fortune in income taxes.Who paid to build the school?AbyssalMage wrote:And my standard of living is paid for by tax payers because I work for the people(school aid and wife is a teacher). When I worked in the private sector, the people who paid me were not wealthy. They were my (our) customers.
Who paid to build the road that connects the school to your customers?
Who pays all the guys with guns (and the manufacturers of those guns) to keep the school and the road safe, from domestic and foreign enemies?
The K-12 budget for California alone is about $60 billion. Who do you think pays the overwhelming majority of that?
Rich people.
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/fact-s ... stax.shtmlFederal, state and local income taxes consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.
"The idea that taxes are high right now is pretty much nuts," says Michael Ettlinger, head of economic policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.
taxpayers with incomes over $1 million faced a top rate of 94 percent.
So the top tax-bracket was reduced from a high of 94% to 50%.The Reagan Tax Cut
The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, which enjoyed strong bi-partisan support in the Congress, represented a fundamental shift in the course of federal income tax policy. Championed in principle for many years by then-Congressman Jack Kemp (R-NY) and then-Senator Bill Roth (R- DE), it featured a 25 percent reduction in individual tax brackets, phased in over 3 years, and indexed for inflation thereafter. This brought the top tax bracket down to 50 percent.