I almost included a note to make sure this wasn't misunderstood. Perhaps that illustrates another difference between us. I don't consider the desire to avoid taxes as evil, I see it as human and natural. Just as with the NRST, if it weren't for all the benefits that I SEE, speaking strictly for myself and intending no slight to you, for the good of everyone which will help me in the long run, I would be against it because I will change from a receiver to a payer. I don't willingly pay more without added benefit.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Are you talking about the Earned Income Tax Credit, the EITC? Do you receive that? I certainly don't, and never have.
Another misunderstanding. I was referring to paying taxes, not the EITC. You have corrected that.
Our difference is that I see a benefit and you don't. Morality has nothing to do with it.
No, that's wrong. The Limbaugh figures actually speak to the fact that precisely 4% of federal income taxes are paid by the bottom 50% of households.
There is no conflict between that figure and what I said. Both can easily and logically be true. Part of the 50% who pay no taxes are in the top 50% of households and some in the bottom 50% pay taxes. That has no impact at all on the fact that about 50% of us pay no taxes.
But that will mostly stay the same under the new system, as FOLKS WILL GET PREBATES, and those prebates will add up to most, if not all, of the taxes paid by folks in the same bottom 50% of households.
You are confusing household income with taxes paid. With our present system that is not a linear connection. Under the NRST it will be.
Yeah, I agree. And that's part of WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY FOR A LONG TIME (Entrepreneurs taking legal tax breaks.). Even though nominal income tax rates are high, most folks don't actually pay anything close to the nominal rates, even in their brackets.
This seems to be suggesting that even though the rich pay a lot of taxes, the dollar sum is not as great as it may appear. That makes it easier for the increased tax payers under the NRST close the tax collection gap.
Sorry, Rush's numbers show that the "tax shelters for the rich" are modest, at most. The rich currently pay 27.5% of their income in federal income taxes. That will fall to an absolute upper ceiling of 23% under the NRST, and probably to half that amount - closer to 12%.
According to the numbers released during the presidential campaign, Theresa Heinz Kerry paid only 12% of an estimate $800,000 income. How did that happen? Is she unique?
No, actually, based on my own research, I think that the costs to which you refer (embedded costs) are very modest. I look at my own experience, the experience of other small businessmen I know, and the actual financials of large corporations. The costs are real. In absolute terms, they're in the many billions of dollars.
But as a percentage of GDP, as a percentage of the cost of goods and services sold, it's very, very modest. Low single digit percentages.
First, you can't dig that information out of an annual report. What you are looking at is the percent of corporate taxes paid compared, I guess, to gross income, although the taxes are figured on net. Using gross is the only way you can compare that to GDP, which in itself is a deceptive and wrong comparison.
Embedded costs are in everything the corporation buys and in the services they use. Those aren't annual report line items and most corporations aren't even aware of them. They are, however, in the costs they consider to price their own goods or services and to determine their profit and taxes.
In addition, the GDP includes ALL goods and services. That include the millions of small mom and pop businesses, every doctor, lawyer, artist, etc., who plays in the market place.
To take annual reports, which don't even account for embedded costs, your own experience whose embedded and compliance costs are minimized (that is not an insult, it is my opinion and it reflects human nature, not deviousness or evil), your friends and acquaintances who are also not likely knowledgeable about embedded costs, and then comparing that to the GDP is by nature going to yield a small percentage.
You know, that's a pretty insulting question, Mind-numbed Robot. You don't know a thing about my business, and you should keep your fingers off your keyboard rather than make asinine assumptions like that.
My business would exist no matter what the tax laws were.
I am simply amazed at your proclivity to find insults where none are intended nor, indeed, even there. In one of our very first exchanges you took exception to a nothing comment. I have been exceptionally careful since. Had I read your entire post before I started replying I would have covered this at the top with the others.
Are you aware of how many business advice and self-help books are written to help people decide their true calling and find the right niche for themselves? Are you in anyway aware of how many people are in businesses they don't like, tax benefit or not? I'll bet fully 75% of all people are in jobs they don't particularly care for. They are doing what they think they need to do to make a living and support their families.
For you to consider that question an insult says more about your insecurities than any projection on my part.
Would that you weren't so caught up in your own delusional system that you could ascribe decent motives to those who disagree with you.
Now there is a true example of projections. There is another SQLer that I no longer respond to because anytime his tail feathers get singed he runs to the moderater and cries, Mommy. they are being mean to me. You will be happy to know that I will not bother with you anymore either.
Tell your shrink I said hi. Don't look for an insult there, I intended it as one. If I were to say what I am suppressing I would be banned from even the Smokey Back Room
Dear Mind-numbed Robot,
"I almost included a note to make sure this wasn't misunderstood. Perhaps that illustrates another difference between us. I don't consider the desire to avoid taxes as evil, I see it as human and natural."
The issue goes like this. I've often seen, and you've done it again in these posts, the NRSTers infer that opposition to the NRST is most likely rooted in self-interest. So, I've seen NRSTers assert that Your Nightmare, RobFromGa, myself, and others, must derive our livelihood from the current tax system, or from some other advantage of the current tax law. Thus, you infer that perhaps my business wouldn't even exist without the current tax law.
This is maddening and insulting.
It's maddening because you people are so convinced of your own rightness that you can't believe that honest, well-informed people would dare to disagree with you. Unless it was against their self-interest.
It's insulting because the clear upshot is that you think that we'd put our own private interests ahead of the best interests of the United States. In my book, that's unpatriotic. Maybe it isn't in your book. If not, get a new book.
I've seen it repeated over and over. You usually don't make this gross misjudgment, but it doesn't make it any less maddening or insulting when you do make it.
Stop thinking that I have any other motivation than what I credit you with - the desire to do what is best for our country.
For myself, I'm not altogether clear whether the NRST would be better or worse for me, personally, except that I believe it would cause at least an initial recession, which would hurt lots of folks, including me.
Here's another way the NRSTers, including you, insult the rest of us - by calling us "status quo lovers." I don't love the status quo. I can think of lots of ways to improve the status quo. Some NRSTers have liked these ideas when I've expressed them, but most brush the ideas aside because it doesn't fit with their agenda.
I don't love the status quo, but neither does the NRST scheme appeal to me. It's a false dilemma to say that I must love one or the other, take one or the other.
The fact is, we may be in the frying pan with the current system, but I suspect the NRST, under current conditions, is the fire.
"Another misunderstanding. I was referring to paying taxes, not the EITC. You have corrected that."
Well, I don't know how you get from what you actually SAID to whatever it is that you actually meant (which is still unclear). This is what you SAID:
"That certainly includes me, I get an undeserved earned income credit, and possibly you."
Well, you don't mention anything about paying taxes. You DO mention something that you called "earned income credit." I googled "earned income credit," and came up with countless links. The first 30 or so all referred to the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is what I thought you were referring to, essentially a negative tax given to working class families with very low incomes.
Investopedia.com defines Earned Income Credit as: "A tax credit for low-income workers, even if no income tax was withheld from the worker's pay."
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/earnedincomecredit.asp
That's all I found when googling.
If you're talking about something else, perhaps you should actually say what it is you meant.
"First, you can't dig that information out of an annual report. What you are looking at is the percent of corporate taxes paid compared, I guess, to gross income, although the taxes are figured on net. Using gross is the only way you can compare that to GDP, which in itself is a deceptive and wrong comparison."
Well, I've actually known Fortune 500 CFOs, and thus, have some direct knowledge. As well, if a company is paying only 1% of its gross receipts in federal corporate income taxes, we may assume that the money it spends to avoid taxes is not significantly higher than that, since, to spend lots more on tax avoidance would give a diminishing return.
As for compliance costs, as with audits, etc., what NRSTers fail to acknowledge is that most of the accounting done for taxes has to be done, anyway, especially in publicly-held companies, as the SEC regulations for accounting are a lot tougher than the IRS regulations. Folks in really big corporations don't usually go to jail for tax evasion. They most assuredly go to jail for violation of securities laws.
Even for my very small, very private business, I know that compliance to thousands of other federal rules, regulations, and laws, ranging from OSHA to ADA to Family Leave Act, shape my business and cost me money to comply far more than the tax laws. As well, most of my tax compliance costs have to do with the accurate accounting of payroll, and the accurate accounting of the sales I make, and the accurate accounting of the purchases I make for my business. Guess what? I have to do all that under the NRST.
"You are confusing household income with taxes paid. With our present system that is not a linear connection. Under the NRST it will be."
You are confusing individual households with aggregate classes by income.
"'Yeah, I agree. And that's part of WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY FOR A LONG TIME (Entrepreneurs taking legal tax breaks.). Even though nominal income tax rates are high, most folks don't actually pay anything close to the nominal rates, even in their brackets.'
"This seems to be suggesting that even though the rich pay a lot of taxes, the dollar sum is not as great as it may appear. That makes it easier for the increased tax payers under the NRST close the tax collection gap."
That's a pretty wild non sequitur.
"Now there is a true example of projections. There is another SQLer that I no longer respond to because anytime his tail feathers get singed he runs to the moderater and cries, Mommy. they are being mean to me. You will be happy to know that I will not bother with you anymore either."
Well, with you NRSTers, the insults are pretty common, and pretty much expected.
"Tell your shrink I said hi. Don't look for an insult there, I intended it as one."
Well, I suppose you don't disappoint.
"If I were to say what I am suppressing I would be banned from even the Smokey Back Room."
Par for the course.
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