Fact check: Are rich taxed less than secretaries?

[spidey07]

Are you sure you know what you're talking about? Income from non-exempt bonds and funds are treated as non-qualified dividends by IRS and get taxed at your marginal...

Nice try at the trap but I'm not biting. I'm talking straight dividends and sales of long term holdings. Why you hate gramma?

 

[matt0611]

Doesn't BH pay corporate profit tax on his behalf before Buffets dividends even get to him?

If Buffet got payed a regular salary instead of getting payed by dividends then BH would pay that much less in taxes and Buffet would pay the tax instead.

I say we just eliminate the corporate income tax and just tax individuals income, (the same for wages, interest, dividend, and capital gain).
Get rid of all the complex rules and deductions too. Then all of this complications would go away.

 

[halik]

Nice try at the trap but I'm not biting. I'm talking straight dividends and sales of long term holdings. Why you hate gramma?

Because retirees' portfolios are composed of long term stock options and similar aggressive asset classes, right? Nothing says income like high beta equities, woo woo


Might want to freshen up on the portfolio strategy in retirement before opening your mouth.

edit: Fuck it, i'll be explicit, since your premise is so retarded you may not follow the above.

In retirement essentially all of your portfolio is in inflation protected guaranteed income instruments (tax-exempt and taxable bonds, annuities, money market etc). The idea being is that you've sold those aggressive "long term holding" during the tax-advantaged (and cap-gains deferred if you're smart ie 401K)period and now are living off the income. Therefore capital gains tax has very little do with grandma, since her income will taxed at her marginal.

 

[Throckmorton]

Don't forget, they own 70% of all the wealth as well.

I believe it's more like... 95%.

 

[Michael]

Stock option "gains" are ordinary income.

I doubt that many people generate capital gains consistently to stay in the top 100. I bet many are there 1 time bcause they sold off a business and made a huge gain at that time.

So the question in this case is not "should rich pay more", it is does a flat tax of 15% on "long term" capital gains make sense? At all levels of gain? Is 1 year really long term?

Michael

 

[spidey07]

Because retirees' portfolios are composed of long term stock options and similar aggressive asset classes, right? Nothing says income like high beta equities, woo woo


Might want to freshen up on the portfolio strategy in retirement before opening your mouth.

edit: Fuck it, i'll be explicit, since your premise is so retarded you may not follow the above.

In retirement essentially all of your portfolio is in inflation protected guaranteed income instruments (tax-exempt and taxable bonds, annuities, money market etc). The idea being is that you've sold those aggressive "long term holding" during the tax-advantaged (and cap-gains deferred if you're smart ie 401K)period and now are living off the income. Therefore capital gains tax has very little do with grandma, since her income will taxed at her marginal.

Pay attention folks, this is what is called the trapper pulling him into the trappee. I had hoped he would go this route, and he fell for it hook line and sinker exposing his position. It's fucking perfect, you fell right for it, I know you know what you're doing and yet you're trapped now.

In your position gramma/granpa were smart and moved correctly to safe guaranteed investments, these are outside of retirement tax advantages, I'm talking holdings outside of that. You know, living off LTCG outside of retirement accounts so that their life accumlation of wealth can be passed on to heirs? Oh shit! Libtards want to steal that as well.

At the same time you assume granma/granpa moved their holdings to bonds or other inflation protected/low risk stuff? Do you really think folks are that smart? Wasn't it Obama and others who said "folks watching their nest egg dwindling to nothing?" Well who's fault is that?

And now Obama wants to tax gramma's nest egg via LTCG into obvilion? So who do you blame? What would you recommend to dividend reinvestment if said dividends were taxed as income?

You contradict yourself and assume too much.

 

[halik]

Pay attention folks, this is what is called the trapper pulling him into the trappee. I had hoped he would go this route, and he fell for it hook line and sinker exposing his position. It's fucking perfect, you fell right for it, I know you know what you're doing and yet you're trapped now.

In your position gramma/granpa were smart and moved correctly to safe guaranteed investments, these are outside of retirement tax advantages, I'm talking holdings outside of that. You know, living off LTCG outside of retirement accounts so that their life accumlation of wealth can be passed on to heirs? Oh shit! Libtards want to steal that as well.

At the same time you assume granma/granpa moved their holdings to bonds or other inflation protected/low risk stuff? Do you really think folks are that smart? Wasn't it Obama and others who said "folks watching their nest egg dwindling to nothing?" Well who's fault is that?

And now Obama wants to tax gramma's nest egg via LTCG into obvilion? So who do you blame? What would you recommend to dividend reinvestment if said dividends were taxed as income?

You contradict yourself and assume too much.

Not quite sure what's going in your head with that whole foreword, but:

In case of retirement and estate planning, no one keeps an aggressive portfolio you describe, because there are more tax-efficient instruments. 1031 Exchanges along with TICs are very popular, since you still get income and can defer capital gains via in-kind exchanges. On the second topic, the popular methods of non-tax transfers are annual and one-time gifts to avoid the estate tax. But in any casem, neither the goal of having retirement income or shielding assets from estate taxes are accomplished with what you describe.

But all this is kind of pointless when you're talking about an average "grandma" who lives off of social security and possibly her hubby's 401K. The above are fun strategies for high net worth clientelle that I and good friend of mine have used professionally (me working at a real estate brokerage at one point, him being an estate planning atty).

 

[mect]

Pay attention folks, this is what is called the trapper pulling him into the trappee. I had hoped he would go this route, and he fell for it hook line and sinker exposing his position. It's fucking perfect, you fell right for it, I know you know what you're doing and yet you're trapped now.

In your position gramma/granpa were smart and moved correctly to safe guaranteed investments, these are outside of retirement tax advantages, I'm talking holdings outside of that. You know, living off LTCG outside of retirement accounts so that their life accumlation of wealth can be passed on to heirs? Oh shit! Libtards want to steal that as well.

At the same time you assume granma/granpa moved their holdings to bonds or other inflation protected/low risk stuff? Do you really think folks are that smart? Wasn't it Obama and others who said "folks watching their nest egg dwindling to nothing?" Well who's fault is that?

And now Obama wants to tax gramma's nest egg via LTCG into obvilion? So who do you blame? What would you recommend to dividend reinvestment if said dividends were taxed as income?

You contradict yourself and assume too much.

Despite your appeal to emotion, I'm afraid I wouldn't have that much sympathy for gramma's nest egg getting taxed at the same rate as other people's income considering under the initial proposition these increased taxes would be on over $100k of profit from just letting that egg sit. Someone bringing in that kind of revenue off of investments will have their home paid off, and not having a house payment I think old gran will live just fine off of say $120k instead of $130k, regardless of where she lives. The funny thing is you are very concerned about this old gramma who is pulling in over $100k per year from her nest egg, but you don't give a shit about the grandma who was a single mother, wasn't able to save anything, and now is reliant on the government.

 

[Jhhnn]

Spidey only cares about winners, not losers!, mect. You know, people who might have to pay higher taxes on their portion of income over $100K. Why, that's just a terrible and terribly unfair burden according to him. Most median earners would just thank their lucky stars & pay up, but they don't have Spidey's sense of entitlement, either.

 

[DaveSimmons]

So, Spidey, would you agree on a modest increase in capital gains to a 20% rate, say after the first $100K in gains?

That would have earners above $1 million paying the same rate as those earning $75K now, that seems fair to me.

No, I wouldn't. Why do you want to attack grandma living off her husband's nest egg? You really want to increase LTCG 33%? I see you're trolling though.

If grandma's nest egg is earning her over $100,000 a year in new capital gains income, I think she can afford to pay 20% on the amount over $100K. That is, if she is making $150K a year in capital gains, she can afford to chip in $10K.

She'll still have $140K a year in gains to live off of without touching her nest egg's principal. Plus medicare and her social security check.

 

[Craig234]

I believe it's more like... 95%.

It's not that high, yet. The top 50% I think do, though.

 

[thraashman]

It's not that high, yet. The top 50% I think do, though.

I believe the most specific number I last saw a few weeks back was that the top 53% of all earners control 97.6% of the national wealth. A 2% increase on the marginal tax rate of the top 1% would in 10 years increase revenue equal to 50% of the entire assets of the bottom 47%. In other words if you increase taxes on the bottom half of tax payers, you'd have to take half their total assets to gain revenue equal to only increasing the top 1% by a 2% increase, an amount they wouldn't even notice.

Has a spidey thread ever not backfired on him? I don't think I've ever seen a thread where he wasn't quickly proven wrong. He never admits or accepts it, but it always happens.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Obama lies, taxes rise

These are getting catchier Spidey. Good for you.

 

[Ausm]

Spidey doesn't even have a job but yet argues in the favor of the filthy rich not paying their fair share by repealing the Bush tax cuts is fucking golden

 

[PokerGuy]

Obama did not say that secretaries, teachers etc. pay a higher percentage in taxes than millionaires on average. He's pointing out that some people in those professions do

Oh, so now we apparently shouldn't look at averages and medians anymore, we look at specific individual examples (outliers) to drive public policy. Interesting logic there.

 

[the DRIZZLE]

And capital gains aren't indexed for inflation, so the actual rate needs to discount the eroded purchasing power of the "gain." For the millionaire who sells an investment at a profit after twenty years, probably half the "capital gain" is simply loss of purchasing power instead of a true gain. This is why I like Mitt Romney's idea to completely exempt from capital gains taxes people with earned income of under $200k/year, it will allow normal people to actually accumulate some assets for retirement without Uncle Sam reaching his hand into their pockets at every turn.

This is true but isn't all that relevant. Bank interest generally pays less than inflation and is taxable as ordinary income.

 

[dank69]

Oh, so now we apparently shouldn't look at averages and medians anymore, we look at specific individual examples (outliers) to drive public policy. Interesting logic there.

No, Obama is saying that it should never happen. Even if it happens in 1 out of 1000 cases, that is too many. What happens in the average case has no bearing on his statement.

 

[QuantumPion]

Spidey doesn't even have a job but yet argues in the favor of the filthy rich not paying their fair share by repealing the Bush tax cuts is fucking golden

I don't understand this point. It makes about as much sense as saying "Ausm is a fat out of shape blob yet he still watches pro football!"

You don't have to be rich to be against socialism. In fact, in the former soviet nations, it was the poorest of the poor whom were most adamantly opposed to communism. It was they whom understood the price of liberals' policies was their own lives. Therefore I would fully expect the poor and unemployed today to be the most stringent opponents of Obama's policies. And in fact we are beginning to see that as a collapse of Obama's base.

 

[thraashman]

I don't understand this point. It makes about as much sense as saying "Ausm is a fat out of shape blob yet he still watches pro football!"

You don't have to be rich to be against socialism. In fact, in the former soviet nations, it was the poorest of the poor whom were most adamantly opposed to communism. It was they whom understood the price of liberals' policies was their own lives. Therefore I would fully expect the poor and unemployed today to be the most stringent opponents of Obama's policies. And in fact we are beginning to see that as a collapse of Obama's base.

First, obviously you have no idea what socialism is. Don't use words you don't understand because when you use them out of context you look like an idiot. Or perhaps you are just an idiot. And Obama's base is doesn't have problems with him because of his liberal policies, they have problems with him because he has too few liberal policies. The man is as far right as the Republican party was in 1995. Unfortunately the Republicans have gone so far right they see moderates as socialism and they see the far right as RINOs.

 

[Macamus Prime]

I have a secert to tell you all; I am a rich person.

I have been following these boards for quite sometime now and I am glad you are all defending me and my constant efforts to save my money from being taken by those l feel are so far below and beneath me.

spidey07 - get off your knees son. No need for your to lap up and clean my butt any longer. I am going to reward you for all your efforts!!

You can now clean the bottom of my prize horse. Enjoy!!

 

[soulcougher73]

How about this:

"The 10 percent of households with the highest incomes pay more than half of all federal taxes. They pay more than 70 percent of federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office."

And yet they are still filthy rich. Im not saying tax them more. Im just saying these people are not struggling and ahve benefitted from the system we have in place.

Also you have to remember how much larger a piece of pie the rich have when talking numbers and percentages.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

No, Obama is saying that it should never happen. Even if it happens in 1 out of 1000 cases, that is too many. What happens in the average case has no bearing on his statement.

If that's true, why don't we just "fix" the capital gains tax rate and be done with it?

 

[the DRIZZLE]

Pay attention folks, this is what is called the trapper pulling him into the trappee. I had hoped he would go this route, and he fell for it hook line and sinker exposing his position. It's fucking perfect, you fell right for it, I know you know what you're doing and yet you're trapped now.

In your position gramma/granpa were smart and moved correctly to safe guaranteed investments, these are outside of retirement tax advantages, I'm talking holdings outside of that. You know, living off LTCG outside of retirement accounts so that their life accumlation of wealth can be passed on to heirs? Oh shit! Libtards want to steal that as well.

At the same time you assume granma/granpa moved their holdings to bonds or other inflation protected/low risk stuff? Do you really think folks are that smart? Wasn't it Obama and others who said "folks watching their nest egg dwindling to nothing?" Well who's fault is that?

And now Obama wants to tax gramma's nest egg via LTCG into obvilion? So who do you blame? What would you recommend to dividend reinvestment if said dividends were taxed as income?

You contradict yourself and assume too much.

Why should grandma pay a lower rate then someone who earns the same amount of money working for a living?

 

[spidey07]

Anybody who doesn't think Obama is engaging in class warfare, just look at this thread. It shows both classes bitterly fighting each other. But the big point was to point out obama's lies.

 

[spidey07]

Spidey doesn't even have a job but yet argues in the favor of the filthy rich not paying their fair share by repealing the Bush tax cuts is fucking golden

What on earth are you talking about? My wages are directly impacted by obama's plans since he's also seeking to take away my mortgage and charity deductions. I've been a network architect for some 20 years, my bill rate is 250/hr - you do the math.