Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
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Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Let’s say you and I are neighbors. You’re an emergency room doctor, and I don’t work, thanks to a pile of money my grandparents left me.
You spend your days and nights stitching up gunshot wounds and helping children survive asthma attacks. I’ve gotten really good at World of Warcraft, winning EBay auctions, and frying shishito peppers to just the right crispiness.
Let’s also say we both report $300,000 in income to the Internal Revenue Service this year. Who pays more in taxes?
You do, by a lot. You owe the IRS about $38,500 more, assuming each of us pays the maximum with no special deductions. I also have more flexibility to lower my burden with tax planning strategies and other tricks, and I get to skip about $24,000 in payroll taxes that you and your employer must fork over each year.
Steve Mnuchin is “looking into” giving another $100,000,000 tax break to the richest among us without having to go through Congress.
In the mean time, we must get these out-of-control ‘Entitlements’ reduced. Because we have a big deficit. Because we already gave a $1,000,000,000 tax break to the richest among us. Because it would create jobs. But it didn’t.
Comments
I think anyone realizes this who has interest in the late night videos about getting out of their grind life and gaining wealth by buying real estate and flipping it and buying real estate with rental income possibilities to help pay mortgages.
Anyone who has ever formed a little corporation (i.e., LLC) and then filed taxes realizes this, the potential of moving a lot of normal expenses to the corporation, where it is not taxed as much, the potential of even employing like family members to do stuff. (Happens to be why, there are like rules with Obamacare for small business where you can no longer easily put your wife down as an employee as easily so that you can get her health insurance under the corporation.)
This point also got me thinking that this whole mindset it is actually part of the reason for popularity of the Trump persona before he ran for office. It is basically capitalism and I think a lot of people do understand that unearned income is taxed less, and they think that's okay because how else is anyone going to build a business and employ people and gain wealth without that incentive, that they aren't going to take on the responsibilities and headaches of owning a big business out of the goodness of their hearts. Same as they see that sweat equity in a home should eventually pay off big, that a house is not just a place to live.
I may be wrong but I think a lot more in this country believe this is right way to do things as opposed to a strongly socialist system where unearned income is heavily taxed. I think often immigrants especially believe this, that's why a lot of economic immigrants are attracted to this country from places that tax differently and why they often start businesses.
Edit to add: and who doesn't believe this is the people who believe in the 1950's myth of lots of high paying working class jobs under big corporations, and a world balanced between strong labor unions vs. big corporations where neither CEO's nor labor bosses make a ton of money. What happened after that short-lived world started to die: people saw how much money was made by owning a house and passing it on to your children, how that could help a family out of working class world.
by artappraiser on Tue, 07/31/2018 - 4:29pm
And now it comes to mind how I think that the Rubinites of the DLC and the Clinton administration were the best evah, really geniuses, at figuring out the sweet spot where every type and class was taxed just enough so that there were very few who ever complained they were paying too much or likewise, few who complained someone wasn't paying their fair share. As opposed to the previous general Dem party policy which ended in the whole "tax and spend liberal" label and helped a great deal in forming the famous phenomenon of "Reagan Democrats".
Edit to add: Furthermore, the Clinton administration actually found that receipts rose under their sweet spot, because far fewer of the wealthy and their accountants bothered to spend the time and effort to come up with new ways to evade and would just pay and play by the rules
by artappraiser on Tue, 07/31/2018 - 4:34pm
Except "payroll tax" is a misnomer - it's a retirement insurance premium that you bank, guaranteed by good ol Uncle Sam decades after. So while the millionaire wont get gov payouts, workers will. There's more to it than that, but Social Security is a good deal.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 07/31/2018 - 6:49pm
yes, and the minute that people start suggesting that the wealthier kick in more and more over the limit where they are sorta due back what they paid in is when the anti people start screaming that they can now call it social welfare rather than a retirement plan. That said, there is the "widows and orphans and disabled" payments side of it that one can use against it being "a retirement plan", but that just makes it more like a good life insurance plan as well.
Dirty secret where it's not a good deal: when you die in your early 60's and do not have a wife or dependents. You have collected zed on all you paid in and your heirs get zed as well. But that too is like insurance, where the people who never have any claims end up paying for the others who do. And for some strange reason,
, nobody ever suggests that the rich should pay higher car insurance premiums just because they are rich and it would be the morally right thing to do.
by artappraiser on Tue, 07/31/2018 - 7:59pm
Of course - insurance is insurance.
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 08/01/2018 - 12:09am
NYT Editorial Board, July 31: Trump’s Crony Capitalists Plot a New Heist
Mnuchin floats a plan to hand $100 billion in capital gains tax savings to his superrich friends. It’s almost certainly illegal.
by artappraiser on Wed, 08/01/2018 - 12:06am