A Trillion here, a trillion there

[Rocksoup]

Tell us something we don't know. It's difficult to get a budget to balance when the U.S gov takes in about 2.2trillion a year and keeps proposing budgets of 3.5-3.75 trillion a year. All I know is we better do something about it, and fast.

[CatNamedManny]

Sounds like we need more revenue.

[executioner]

No they just need to cut back; when they start looking for more revenue that means their raising taxes.

[gman]

Exactly. If I say, I need more revenue, I can go get another job. As long as I still have the freedom to do so. If Gov't says it needs more revenue, that means raising taxes or finding other ways to confiscate that which isn't theirs. Or they could just print more money, which gives us higher inflation, higher food costs, a higher price at the pump, etc.
Oh wait, I forgot. There is no inflation, and the Gov't can't affect the price at the pump.

[Dan]

I agree with Obama on taxing the rich... they have had to easy for to long.

[gman]

Nope. The rich pay more types of taxes, their income tax rate is higher than the rest of us, and their overall percentage of taxes on revenue is higher than the rest of us.
Sure, the rich can absorb the hit, but the steps they take to do so are what negatively affect those below. The Gov'ts answer is to then try and step in with more handouts to mitigate the effects of higher taxes. No thanks. It's our money, and we should be allowed to spend it wisely, waste it, give it away, or do as we please with it. They shouldn't be allowed to have it. All they know is waste.
The president said we need to eliminate waste and abuse. The VP said we need to spend money to make money. I say their motto is we need to waste more money to stop waste.
George Bush added to the deficit, and he's a progressive donkey clown for doing so. President Obama makes him look pretty thrifty.

[Rocksoup]

We have plenty of revenue. We need to cool it with all these entitlement spending programs. There is no reason why 1/6 of the gdp, per year, from the world's largest economy isn't enough for defense and necessary safety nets for a nation of only 310 mill.

[Dan]

lol, thanks for the laugh g.. with money doors open up for exploit.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... taxes-oth/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD7DCwXR2vY

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/04/1 ... taxes.html

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2012/02/09 ... ss-tax-you

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/1 ... 02234.html

[brent]

No they just need to cut back; when they start looking for more revenue that means their raising taxes.

They won't. They can't tell us the truth about anything. The cuts they make are cuts to increases in spending, not the actually dollars spent. That would be impossible and most unlikely. The programs in many cases still get increases in budgets.

Here is a solution. Everyone in the US, citizen and business, do not pay taxes for one year. What would they do? Throw EVERYONE in jail? It would get their attention.

No programs, PERIOD. Get off your lazyass and get to work! Want to get rid of illegal aliens? Remove the demand. Go to work. No, you may not get rich, but getting rich is not what America is about per se. Freedom is. Being on a program makes you a slave. We are to be slaves to God. It is He who owns us. If you put your trust and welfare into a government, you are taking the crown from Jesus Christ and placing it on the head of the government. This is crazy. I need money. I work for it. I need health care. I pay for it. I need food. I pay for my family to eat and then I eat what is left. It is called sucking it up and being a man. People should try it, instead of being whiney idiots, demanding the government fix their problems, because they are too lazy and too stupid to do anything about it themselves.

If you are on a program more than two years, we are putting you in the military, so you can benefit a cause other than sitting home, doing drugs, making babies to have state aid, etc. No kids without marriage. No marriage without employment or service duty. No income? Lose your kids. There is some motivation. Men in the old days would think about the public humiliation and moral failure of not providing for their families, not to mention leaving them. Remember when divorces were rare and divorced people were kind of looked down upon? Maybe that was a good thing. Now that anything goes, and it is easy to get on a program, the men can run off, do whomever and whatever they want, and me and my taxes will pay for the damage. We need to stop this.

How about exporting unproductive people that mooch? This is extreme. Think about it. We have X amount of land, Y amount of people, and Z amount of money. Some people have GOT to go. How about all of the men who owe child support and aren't in jail? How about emptying out the prisons? All lifers get to fight in the front lines. If they live, they live there. If they die, "Nice known' ya' and you should not have committed a crime to begin with."

People, it is time to think outside of the box. I travel a bit, and I look at bridges and roads all of the time. I have thought about a pictorial book. Our infrastructure is fine...for the 1960s. At some point, all of these old structures are going to fail. At some time, we will have exceeded capacity. We have in some cities. We either need to reduce the people and types of people we have here, or we will have some major issues.

Oh yeah, heard this one? The morons in our Whitehouse want to make child farm labor illegal. That's right. Families cannot do what families have done since creation, and made the children contribute to the responsibilities of the family farm and business. It will be illegal to milk cows, etc. Yes, I suppose there will come a time when having the kids wash dishes and do yard work will be out of the question.

GET THESE FREAKIN' IDIOTS OUT OF THE GOVERNMENT AND WHITE HOUSE! OH MY GOD! HOW BAD DOES IT HAVE TO GET BEFORE WE HEAR THE BIG SQUEAK AND POPPING SOUND OF PEOPLE PULLING THEIR HEADS OUT OF THEIR REARS?

[gman]

A lot of the stuff on Buffett is not detailed or entirely accurate. If he paid income tax, his rate would be the top rate of 35%. His effective rate after deductions and such, would still be higher than mine, which I believe was in the single digits. Buffett is likely only paying capital gains tax on investment income from money he invested after income tax. He's living off the invest income, and not earning a pay check. The capital gains rate is different from income tax rates. The comparison of Buffett to his secretary is therefore flawed. Also, I understand the dude is fighting to avoid paying a billion or some such in back taxes.
I live in state with a flat percentage tax of 3%. No credits, deductions, or other gimmicks. Filing is very simple. If your employer deducts the correct percentage, you will owe nothing, and get no refund. Why is that such a hard concept to apply at the Federal level? It works for many state. Why are more people not behind such an idea? Because IT'S NOT SOCIALIST.

[adpetrafan]

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2012/02/09 ... ss-tax-you

I picked this link at random to see what facts they are "playing with" to create their version of truth.

"If things go as planned, Zuckerberg will exercise $5 billion in Facebook options, and pay federal and state taxes of nearly $2 billion -- making him the largest single taxpayer in history. Sounds like he's a hell of a guy, doing his part to help the cash-strapped public sector.

But in reality, he'll be paying an actual tax rate of about 7 percent -- less than nearly all Americans."

Let's analyze this honestly:

1) Paying 2 billion in taxes on 5 billion in income is 40% - not 7%...
2) Their twisted logic is that he is not paying taxes on stock he has not sold (which is income he did not get), so that is how they claim he is paying a lower rate. It is a lie!
2) They say that 7% tax rate is less than most americans... Although technically correct, MOST people you and I know pay far less than 7%. I paid an effective tax rate of about 3.5% last year. Deductions can really reduce your tax debt... The reality is that more than 95% of americans pay less than 12%. This is not hard information to find, and it proves that stories like this one are being trumped up to perpetuate class warfare for political reasons.

[Dan]

Let's analyze this honestly:

1) Paying 2 billion in taxes on 5 billion in income is 40% - not 7%...
2) Their twisted logic is that he is not paying taxes on stock he has not sold (which is income he did not get), so that is how they claim he is paying a lower rate. It is a lie!
2) They say that 7% tax rate is less than most americans... Although technically correct, MOST people you and I know pay far less than 7%. I paid an effective tax rate of about 3.5% last year. Deductions can really reduce your tax debt... The reality is that more than 95% of americans pay less than 12%. This is not hard information to find, and it proves that stories like this one are being trumped up to perpetuate class warfare for political reasons.

Now I understand why Brent gets frustrated with people on the zone.

[Dan]

[gman]

An article from MSN money that I will quote, pretty much calls BS on the whole video. Money moved or earned offshore, still counts toward your total tax liability. Hiding money offshore and not reporting it for tax purposes is not legal.
The Buffet thing is worn out, and again not accurate.
My income tax rate, filing jointly, was 15%. The effective rate after the child tax credit, mortgage interest, student interest, etc., was much lower.
Buffet's secretary, if she filed single status, had a base rate of 28%. Buffet, if he owed income tax, would have a base rate of 35%, which is definitely higher than his secretary. Most likely, Buffet is no longer collecting a paycheck, and therefore pays no income tax (0%). The 17% rate for Buffet is his capital gains tax rate which is different from income tax, and therefore not comparable. That is the tax rate he pays on the returns he gets from his investments. I'm not sure if there are different capital gains rates, but if the secretary had no investments, like myself and many other Americans, her capital gains tax rate would be the same as mine. Zero percent, which is lower than Buffet's rate of 17%.
How many people don't understand all that and just accept the misleading talking points?
The way to get more tax revenue is to raise rates, or get rid of credits and deductions in the tax code. The question is, should the Gov't get more revenue, or can it do with less? Is the economy better if we let people keep more of their money to put into it, or is the ecomony better if the Gov't takes more money out of it to pay its bills rather than scaling back?
A flat percentage tax, like many states use, would be far better than what we have now, and would be more fair. Why should anyone be punished with a higher tax rate just because they earn more money? Is it right for those on the lower end, who already have a lower base rate, to effectively have little or no skin in the game because the gimmicks in the tax code allow them to get most or all of their tax dollars refunded to them?

2/14/2012 3:46 PM ET
|By Brett Arends, SmartMoney

Why the rich stash cash offshore
Mitt Romney has been criticized for parking some of his fortune in Cayman Islands accounts, but he and other wealthy people aren’t really trying to duck taxes there.

One thing's for sure. Mitt Romney didn't send his money down to the Cayman Islands to work on its tan.

The former Massachusetts governor has been criticized by some for having some of his vast fortune in the Caribbean offshore banking center. Yes, it was politically clumsy. But it was not uncommon, and -- assuming he has filed all the right disclosures -- it was perfectly legal.

But if you're not running for president, and don't have to worry about public relations, what are the legitimate reasons for moving money offshore?

I spoke to Jim Duggan, a partner at Chicago law firm Duggan Bertsch, to get the skinny. He's a tax and estate planning attorney who specializes in wealth management issues for the very rich, and he's been practicing in this area for nearly 20 years

Taxing the rich

He says a growing number of wealthy people are looking into moving some of their money offshore. "The interest in offshore planning has increased basically by a factor of five in the last ten years," he says. Clients want to talk to him about it all the time.

Why?

Contrary to popular opinion, it's not really to save on taxes.

That's because American taxpayers are taxed on their worldwide income -- so if you're making $10,000 (or $10 million) in interest on a bank account in, say, the Caymans or Switzerland, you're getting taxed by Uncle Sam as if you're making it in a bank account here.

It's easy to scoff and assume the rich are hiding their money and cheating. Doubtless some are. But enforcement is tight, and the penalties aren't so much draconian as medieval. They are far more severe than for tax evasion onshore.

And there are plenty of tax shelters available here in the U.S. anyway -- such as trusts in low-tax states, life insurance and variable annuities.

So what are the real reasons the rich are casing the Caymans with their cash?

There are two, says Duggan: Litigation risk and political risk.

Yes: Political risk. Or, as he puts in a nice legal euphemism, "jurisdictional diversification."

Litigation risk is the old reason. You could get hit by a crazy lawsuit here in the U.S. The wealthy are an easy mark, and anything onshore is vulnerable. But the U.S. courts don't have jurisdiction overseas and if you plan things right you have at least some chance of protecting money held offshore, Duggan says. "It keeps you away from our court system and the caprices of our courts," he says.

The new reason, though, is political risk: "Diversification from our government, policies and banking systems," says Duggan. The last few years have shaken faith in our system. Duggan says growing numbers of his clients are worried about the financial system, confiscation -- the whole shebang. "They're concerned about our government and where our society is headed. There's a lot of socialistic tendencies, capital controls, the redistribution of wealth."

Once again it's easy to scoff. Financially, the very wealthy have probably never had it so good in this country. Corporate profits and financial assets are booming. Tax rates on dividends and long-term capital gains are very, very low. But Duggan says the wealthy feel under attack, and government rhetoric is making them nervous.

But there's a problem here. Imagine a future government did decide to confiscate assets. They'd go after the money you held in Switzerland just as much as the money you held in New York, and the penalties for tax evasion would be as medieval as they are now.

The only way to save your money would presumably be to renounce your citizenship and move into exile. Even then the IRS might come after you. Do you want to spend the rest of your life living next to Roman Polanski in France?




Once again, all this makes you see the appeal of holding some gold within a portfolio.

Personally, I don't see any reason to think this administration is going to go after the so-called 1%. Too many policymakers are members of that elite group already -- or they have high hopes of joining after they retire.

[brent]

I have a projected budget, based on what I usually earn.
My budget is adjusted when my income is less than projected. Overages are saved in case of a boo boo.
I do not owe anyone anything.
If we do not have the cash to do something, we do not do it. If we do not have the cash to buy something, we do not buy it.
If I run out of money, I do not print my own, or cash hot checks, because it is illegal and worth nothing.
If I do not pay my bills, utilities get turned off, I lose my house and my stuff.

The US government should do the same thing. It does not. Most people who make these budgets (or refuse to pass a budget like the veto-proof Democrats refused to do) have no sense of reality. The government operates immorally and illegally.