Why Tax Breaks For The Rich Are Important....To Them!

[chess9]

"(A married couple from Wyoming earning $4.4 million a year, as the Cheneys did last year, would receive a $278,000 tax cut under Bush's plan.)"

Sign me up! Sheezh! The Cheney's tax cut would be larger than the annual earnings of 99% of Americans.

Doesn't sound fair to me.

 

[DABANSHEE]

Yeh, no one is forcing them to 'earn' so much (as if anyone on a income like that actually earns the money), if they don't like being in an upper-tax bracket they can just chose to 'earn' less money & put themselves in a lower tax brackets.

Besides what with teams of creative accountants working for them creating bogus trusts, investments, deductions & income splitting & profit transferr schemes its not as if the wealthy really pay more income than anyone else, as a percentage of their incomes (anyone remember the billionaire Media mogul Kerry Packer, who spends his time commuting between casinos, race tracks & polo fields, he's one of the wealthiest people in the world, but because of all the creative accountants working for him, he only paid $14 in income tax last year).

 

[Tominator]

Why are you so envious of another's wealth?

IF the figures are correct, that $278,000 dollars would go further in the private sector. The 'couple' would invest their money. This creates jobs, leads to more economic activity and taxes will be paid on that activity leading to more than the initial $278,000!

Leave the $278,000 in the Governments hands leads to excess spending with the major portion being siphoned away by the beaureacracy. Politicians will spend it on 'Pork,' or use it to influence our private lives.

 

[Ferocious]

The trickle-down theory doesn't work.

By the time it gets down to the majority of the working class, they get very little.

I do NOT think the government should get more money from anybody. Even leave the loopholes present as they are. But wages need to increase a bit more rapidly then they have for most of the last two decades (though the last two years have been nice for the national average).

It's time for the corporates to stop being so greedy and limit their shafting of the working class. Yeah right.

 

[Ulfwald]

So wha5t you are saying is that someone who WORKED for their success by going to college,up through PHD possibly saving money, bettering themselves through continuing ed, not having kids until they can afford them etc, does not deserve to keep their money that they fought to earn?

I suppose that the person who has 10 babies by the time their 28 should be entitled to it?


GET A FRIKIN LIFE.

Just wait until you earn a substantial income, and see how much of your taxes goes into incom redistribution.


It is because the "EVIL" rich keep doing what makes them rich, that we, the working masses, have jobs.



A democrat looks down the street at his neighbor and says "D@mn those evil rich people, one day they will be on the same level as me because I will vote for the one that gives me more of his income."

A rtepublican looks down the street and says "D@mn you, you son of a b!tch, one day I will bne as rich as you, because I am going work harder, and smarter"

 

[Dameon]

Chess9,

Please review my Fuzzy Math thread. I already showed you why this occurs and is a natural occurance with a graduated income tax, as these fame people PAY a disproportionate amount of income tax every year. You're worse than Gore. Even after being confronted with the truth, you want to play class warfare and class envy games. Shame on you. I don't CARE how many dollars they get back. ALL I care about is by what percentage are their taxes being reduced. If that is greater than any other bracket, fine we have something to talk about. But if their taxes are only being reduced by 3 % and the middle class by 6%... shut up and go away.

 

[jobert]

>>Sign me up! Sheezh! The Cheney's tax cut would be larger than the annual earnings of 99% of Americans. Doesn't sound fair to me.<<

But it DOES sound fair that they PAY
more taxes than 99% of Americans. Right???

 

[purplehayes]

That's only a 7% tax cut. Shoot, I'd take a 7% tax cut any day.

If the lower income people got a 7% tax cut too, would that still be unfair?

Me thinks it's just envy.

PH

 

[Ferocious]

Bush's tax cut proposal is nothing more than an attempt to buy votes.

The standard of living for a middle class member will not change. You wouldn't see any real world differences. Same car, same house, basically the same everything.

If wages went up, tax revenue would go up, and the rich might get a break on their taxes. Yeah right.

As long as the rich and corporates insist on suppressing wages, they at least should shoulder more the tax burden.

 

[jobert]

>>As long as the rich and corporates insist on suppressing wages, they at least should shoulder more the tax burden.<<

Never in his wildest dreams
did my UPS driver imagine he'd earn
almost $50,000 for delivering packages.
He doesn't feel that those big bad rich people
are suppressing his wages.

In this country wages are part of the supply/demand
system. If you want to make big bucks,
you do what's in demand.

>>Bush's tax cut proposal is nothing more than an attempt to buy votes.<<

Isn't it lucky we have such forthright citizens like Gore
who only want to help the poor people of the world!

 

[DABANSHEE]

Why are you so envious of another's wealth?

I'm not envious in the slightest Tom, I have absolutelly no ambitions about being wealthy (not that I'd say no, if some money fell out of the sky). I personally beleive people who do have ambitions about being wealthy are spiritually sick (that is unless they grew up in grinding poverty, one couldn't help but have ambitions to be wealthy, in such circumstances).

The simple fact is you end up with a higher net income if you pay 50% tax on an income of $2000000 ($1000000 net), than you do if you are paying 15% tax on a income of $20000 ($17000 net). So what are they complaining about. I'd certainly much rather have a net income of $1000000 than $17000 anyday, no matter how much tax I payed to get it. Anyway does anyone here truelly beleive that someone who 'earns' $2000000 is a 100 times more productive than someone who earn $20000?

When I was in the railways, because of all the overtime &amp; penalty rates I ended up in the 50% tax bracket, but I didn't mind in the least because I was still heaps better off than when I was in the 30% tax bracket.

The fact is no one forces anyone to 'earn' so much that they end up in higher tax brackets, if they don't like it they can always chose to 'earn' less, so they don't end up in a upper tax bracket.

Besides as I said before &quot;what with teams of creative accountants working for them creating bogus trusts, investments, deductions &amp; income splitting &amp; profit transferr schemes its not as if the wealthy really pay more income than anyone else, as a percentage of their incomes (anyone remember the billionaire Media mogul Kerry Packer, who spends his time commuting between casinos, race tracks &amp; polo fields, he's one of the wealthiest people in the world, but because of all the creative accountants working for him, he only paid $14 in income tax last year).&quot;

But it DOES sound fair that they PAY
more taxes than 99% of Americans. Right???

Jobert, if life was meant to be fair everyone would get a fair income &amp; there would be no poor people or wealthy people, but as we all know communism doesnt work. So obviouslly life wasn't meant to be fare. Anyway no one is forcing them to be in a upper tax bracket, They can alway choose to 'earn' less money.

 

[DirkBelig]

chess9 is someone who knows that he'll NEVER get a better job than he has now as a towel boy at the car wash, so he spends all his waking hours with his thong in a twist making sure that the &quot;evil rich&quot; are demonized for having more money than he does. Since a one-legged prostitute with a mustache makes more than he does, that's a whole lotta hate to have.

What the class-warfare envy merchants DON'T do is put the numbers in context. They select certain numbers to make things look slanted, like this:

Let's take two single men, one makes $32K and the other makes $100K. With standard deductions, the Bush plan gives the rich guy a 13.7% tax cut that would &quot;cost&quot; the government (remember: they consider not TAKING your money to be the same as GIVING you money!) $3,231 while the poor guy would only get and 8% tax cut worth $301.(Only 83 cents a day, Gore would say.)

Looks like the GOP is giving it all to the rich, right 10.% of chess9?

WRONG! Here's ALL the numbers:

Under current tax law, the &quot;poor&quot; guy pays $3,743 in taxes while the &quot;rich&quot; guy pays $23,593!!!:Q So, while he's making only 3 times as much in wages, he pays 6.3 TIMES in taxes. Under the &quot;massive tax cut for the rich&quot; the rich guy will still pay 5.9 times as much tax as the poor.

As a percentage of income the poor guy would pay 10.7% of every dollar as Federal tax (none of these numbers take into account state, SS, city taxes or marriage penalties) under Bush tax plan while Mr. Rich would still pay 20.3%. But remember, the income taken in by double the tax rate is SIX TIMES as much in dollars.

The problem for tax cut proponents is that numbers make people's eyes roll back in their head and don't have the power with the envious class that a factual (though utterly lacking in context) line like, &quot;Bush's tax scheme will give almost ELEVEN TIMES as much to the rich.&quot; That's a true statement and the reason why Bush couldn't call Gore a liar about it. BUT, it doesn't tell the whole story and the whole story is that the &quot;rich&quot; PAY MORE TAXES IN PERCENTAGE AND IN ACTUAL DOLLAR AMOUNT.

Chess9 is too stupid to advance beyond his car wash gig, but for anyone else who is going to school, building a career, etc., be aware, THESE are the people who will call you names like &quot;greedy&quot; as you climb the ladder and pay more and more as punishment for your efforts.

Gore doesn't think I deserve a tax cut. Bush will give me back 2-1/2 days of my life's work which, while not a ton of money, will buy my next video card or take me to the movies 20 times with my girlfriend or I can invest in a mutual fund...WHATEVER I, ME, MYSELF WANT TO DO WITH IT. Soaking the rich doesn't enrich anyone but the government. Money stolen from the rich doesn't go into your pocket, so why are you so obsessed with what others have?

Finally, the moochers complaint that tax cuts for the rich is just to buy their vote falls down on it's face. Are there more rich people or poor people? A: Poor people. So, which politician will get more votes? The one who is slanderously portrayed as saying, &quot;Vote for me and deduct your limo's gas bill.&quot; or the one who IS saying, &quot;Vote for me and I won't let you keep your own money, I'll take more from you if you get married. If you start a business, I'll take 55% of it when you die. BUT, the rich won't get their taxes cut. And if you're a member of a special ethnic/gender tribe I'll give you their money. Love me.&quot;?

Get over it and get out of my wallet you stupid moochers!:| I started my working career in high school for $3.75/hr. I'm making over 4 times that now and am on the low end of my field, BUT with more experience and training (and the attendant hard work) I can make a lot more, BUT I will be responsible for my improvement, not government, and I'd like someone to explain to me why it's &quot;fair&quot; that hard work should be punished.

Can you do that, chess9?

 

[DirkBelig]

DABANSHEE: It's nice that you are OK with paying half of your income in taxes but if that's what it takes to keep your guilt in check, so be it. But, why does EVERYONE have to suffer for your guilt.

And who the hell is to say how much is &quot;too much&quot; money? I've always been amazed at the hypocrisy of Americans as they fawn over athletes that sign multi-tens-and-hundreds-of-million dollar contracts and movie stars that make $25 MILLION PLUS GROSS PROFITS and then say that a doctor who goes to school for 10 years for training shouldn't make more than $100,000/yr. WTF is dat about?!?!

Corporate honchos have pulled down some OBSCENE PAYMENTS even when the company's stock has gone DOWN. That is wrong, BUT how will my life be improved by beggering them? It won't be.

Greed drives most of what everyone does. If you want anything better than what you got, that's greed. Greed is good. Avarice is NOT.

I've always said that ENVY is the most destructive emotion because it's not about you wanting more (like greed), but it's about OTHERS HAVING LESS! Anyone who argues that it's OK to punish the rich because they'll still have more than you, is a naive fool.

Someone living in a Appalachian mining town would look at jackasses like chess9 and think HE'S farting through silk and should have his money taken. Would you agree?

 

[AndrewR]

Doesn't Bush support the adjustment of the marriage penalty? I know that will damn well have an effect on my wife and I. And Gore doesn't support it, from what I remember. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[jobert]

Well spoken, Dirk.

 

[Mister T]

I smell socialists in this thread...

 

[Napalm381]

chess: what kind of tax cut WOULD be fair in your eyes? In 1998, the top 50 percent of the population paid 95.7 percent of the taxes. You could give the bottom half a 100 percent tax cut, the top only a 5 percent tax cut and the absolute dollar amount would STILL be greater. The top 1 percent paid almost as much in taxes as did the bottom 90 percent (32.7 percent of amount vs 37.6). I'm at a loss to come up with a tax cut plan that would give equal amounts back to both rich and poor when you take these figures into account.

 

[Shuxclams]

The rich create jobs and generally have enough money to overcome many taxes, still they do control 90% (or a really high amount ) of the countries money and pay thier fair share, what doesnt get brought up in these threads about these poor beaten rich folks is the fact that they can't have thier accounting staff working 24/7 to find every single loophole known in the universe and make 5-6 million a year and not end up owing a thing, now how does that work? If I make 80,000, I know unless I claim 0 on my W-4 I am going to owe some taxes. What has seperated the USA from the rest of the world for the last 200+ years is the middle class and land ownership, destroy the middle class and destroy america, how to best preserve the middle class is the question. If that means taxing the rich the poor the deer and mice then that should be done IF the middle class is going to get the biggest break. Personally I would love to see a user tax, just strait across the board, 20% or whatever it took. The poor who cant afford to go to dinner won't have that added tax, whereas the &quot;rich&quot; who do go out to dinner would pay that tax, gas would have that tax, sales of everything but average foodstuffs and clothing etc...





SHUX

 

[Russ]

<< the fact that they can't have thier accounting staff working 24/7 to find every single loophole known in the universe and make 5-6 million a year and not end up owing a thing, now how does that work? >>



The perfect argument for a flat tax.

I was going to outline all the flaws in Chess9's assertion, but it looks like all the facts have already been presented and, as usual, the other side has nothing but emotional arguments.

I will say one thing, though:



<< Sign me up! Sheezh! >>



Chess9,

You are free to &quot;sign up&quot; anytime you are willing to seek the opportunities necessary to do so.

Russ, NCNE

 

[DaBoneHead]

Dang,

None of this helps me yet... I'm in the 'Single white guy' Tax bracket. If I could claim my cats, I'd actually manage to save money. As it is, I paid about 22k in taxes last year, while a family of 3 that made slightly more than me only paid 6k... How fair is that? Just cause I didn't buy the cow I gotta finance everybody else? Come on!

I like the idea of flat-tax. Perhaps it is the only time Russ and I will agree on anything.

 

[Russ]

Well, DaBoneHead, under Bush's tax plan, you would get a break. Under Bore's, you would not.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Shuxclams]

What about a Pres. canadate that wants a flat tax????? I don't really care what shrub or bore are going to do or not do.




SHUX

 

[ElFenix]

flat taxes at the fed level are bad because it means regressive taxes in total. flat taxes in total aren't quite as bad, but they don't have the automatic damping feature that progressive taxes have. a progressive plan that wasn't some huge book of code and treated everyone the same except for a tax rate variable on income would be the best.

dabanshee- people take into account taxes when deciding on a comp package. so in your example of someone getting $200,000 and someone else getting $20,000 but after taxes being $100,000 and $17000 respectively that work is only valued at 5.88x. not 10x. not to mention that the $100,000 tax is probably 60/40 paid by the employee/employer, so even then the work is 8.79x more valued. (60/40 was pulled out of my ass to recognize that labor supply is slightly more inelastic than labor demand. it could be 51/49, in which case its 8.18x)

ferocious- the wealthy aren't holding down wages and neither are the corporations. if anything its the suppliers that are holding down wages which is why supply-side solutions are the ones that bring wages up. what exactly do you think a union is, other than an attempt to control supply?

 

[JellyBaby]

Streamline government first (eliminate pork-barrel spending, pet projects, unnecessary programs, waste?pay off out debt?and fix the damn tax code!). Then come back to me about raising my taxes. If the government is working efficiently yet for some reason still needs more of my money, lets talk. But only then.

Another thing: instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, whatever happened to elevating the poor so they too can become rich?

 

[ElFenix]

pork is necessary for politics. without it the gov't wouldn't do much. actually, that might be a really good thing.