Oligarchy, patriarchy, or other archy....they need my input.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
USA tax granularity getting smaller in 2022
- Thread starter Brickjectivity
- Start date
If a wealthy person generates vast benefits for others there is nothing immoral in that. If for every dollar Bezos makes he produces ten in products or service to others, that is a bargain. And that is quite sustainable.
Partially agreed. But he's not really doing even that much.
He created the company that does so much.
It seems that liberals don't value work that's highly
leveraged, ie, when someone has the smarts & the drive
to organize people & capital to achieve something great.
Amazon, Ford, Apple, etc....they wouldn't exist without
someone starting & growing them. Sure, the creators
merely have ideas, invest some time & money, & tell
other people what to do. They don't personally make
parts, assemble the product, or deliver it. But they
create far far more value than any laborer.
Let me clarify. Building Apple or Amazon or the like is an incredible feat. I believe that innovators like Jobs and Bezos should be rewarded and so should inventors. full stop. Rewarding invention and innovation is consistent with what motivation science tells us.
BUT! Their workers should be paid GOOD wages too. Not "barely sustenance" wages. AND, the innovators must be taxed to account for the heavy use they make of the commons.
@Revoltingest - as I recall you're an engineer? You know our bridges are crumbling. As an teacher I know that our schools are failing. Jobs and Bezos and company ALL rely heavily on the commons for their success.
I think we should reward them and value their work. But they have to do their share to keep society ship-shape. And when they don't do that, they're parasites.
They already pay taxes for the "commons".
You just want more.
As for workers....there is a labor shortage.
If they don't like their jobs, they can seek new ones.
That's what I always did.
Crumbling infrastructure isn't due to companies not
paying enuf taxes. It's that politicians on both sides
of the aisle would rather pursue useless wars.
And really, the crumbling was due entirely to inattention.
Politicians just didn't care about maintaining any of the
infrastructure until things literally fell apart.
As an engineer, I'm always amazed at how government
treats civil engineering, ie, they spend much to build, but
then give no thought to maintenance. Bridges in particular
require continual monitoring, maintenance, & rehabilitation.
A great many fail because of undetected loss of strength
due to corrosion.
Our current tax code isn't working. Agreed on your "useless wars" comment. And to me that's perhaps the most egregious example of oligarchs poisoning everything.
But the fact is that wealth distribution in this country is simply not sustainable. You've got whole generations of young people for whom the dream of owning a house is simply impossible. You've got millions of middle class families going bankrupt due to medical bills. These oligarchs find - usually legal - ways to fleece everyone. Privatized prisons - ugh, it's a new form of slave labor. With this MASSIVE wealth accumulation comes massive power to corrupt, and massive corruption is happening.
Do you really think ANYONE deserves to be worth anywhere near 100 BILLION dollars? I sure don't.
The tax code needs an overhaul.
But you've not offered any well supported criticism or solutions.
I don't think what you believe people "deserve" should apply
to others. If you want to have less, that's fine for you.
But this widespread feeling that people shouldn't have
too much smacks of economic puritanism.
We need a fairer tax structure, & more intelligent spending.
"Deserving" is an intuition, perhaps if an economist said the same thing we could call it an "expert intuition". So let's call it an "expert intuition". It's certainly that more than it is a "belief".
And if - a big if - an individual was really operating ethically on all counts, I wouldn't have a problem. But the fact is that none of these guys are acting ethically on all counts.
You keep trying to twist this into a "liberal" thing or some sort of personality trait of mine. It's neither of those.
How about not trying to make it personal and just look at the economics?
==
So you just said we need a fairer tax structure - hooray! I agree! Got any specific ideas?
No twisting. I ask for answers. None are provided.
The continual unsupported claim that corporations
don't pay taxes is indeed a liberal claim. The claim
deserves some examples & analysis to verify &
understand it if we're to advocate for different tax
policy.
I stand by my claim that you & other liberalsyou just twisted things a few times
won't support your claims about "loopholes"
& taxation. Not one example analyzed.
So you're the better dancer.
I provided a link earlier in the thread that discussed several of the common loopholes. As I recall, a standard dodge of yours is to say something like "I never read links, please summarize for me". Honestly, that sometimes feels like a bad faith response. For example, an idea might be common knowledge in my circles. Just because it's not common knowledge to you, does that mean I have to slow down and educate you?
To take a silly example, let's imagine you and I are discussing some engineering problem and we're talking about what kind of level might be best. If someone else doesn't know about levers, is it reasonable for them to demand that we give citations proving the efficacy of levers?
Since I'm not accusing you of bad faith or dishonesty,
you should consider reciprocating.
If I missed some cogent analysis of real world examples,
feel free to provide guide me to it.
I believe you asked me to enumerate some of the loopholes I'm talking about. There is a link in post #22 and that link will lead to an article, and if you skim down just past the table in the article, you'll find a section that lists some of the more common loopholes these companies are using.
The one "loophole" I remember you citing was deduction
of research expense. It's absurd to claim that shouldn't
reduce one's taxable income.
Are the one's in your link better?
Without my reading a linked article to understand
your argument, could you present your own?
I'd prefer to stand on the shoulders of experts, but here's a little copy/paste from the article:
Clearly, this "tax break" isn't that useful for small and medium sized businesses.
I don't have the details here, but I can say this: In order for our tiny little sole proprietorship to succeed, we do extensive research and synthesis and prototyping. Our CPA said we couldn't take any R&D write offs, not sure why, but I suspect these are also meant for only big corporations.
Our CPA also told us we couldn't do accelerated depreciation.
==
I've just picked a few examples from the article. By no means a complete overview.
I've read thru this piece, & find that responding would be
beyond the scope of posting on RF. Suffice to say that I
see room for reform, but it wouldn't have the effect you
want. I prefer simpler calculations of income, expenses,
& taxes based upon clearer taxable events.
I can't speak to the situation of your inferring this from what
your CPA says. Something seems very wrong. It runs counter
to the understanding that I & others have. R&D is an investment,
ie, a cost of doing business, which should affect net income.
The issue is how the cost is distributed over time, eg, expensed,
amortized, depreciated. The size of the company doesn't matter.
Some resources....
Tax Deductions for Research and Experimental (R & D) Costs
Are you ready for changes to Section 174 research deductions in 2022? | Our Insights | Plante Moran
This implies that you can still depreciate or amortize the expenditure, just not using accelerated depreciation.
It would just change the time distribution of the deduction.
Do you believe that deducting R&D costs is a "loophole"?
Your source is highly biased, & this has me questioning their
analysis of tax & accounting treatments of stock options.
From their Values section....
"To move toward this vision, we promote common sense tax policies that are responsive to our ever-changing economy and that raise revenue in an equitable and sustainable way."
The stated goal to raise revenue results in detraction from the
"equitable" goal. This is seen in their opposition to indexing
capital gains to inflation, ie, currency devaluation.
Regarding a 2019 proposal, they say....
"The White House is reported to be planning to unilaterally adjust the way capital gains are assessed to benefit the wealthiest Americans. The proposal would adjust capital gains for inflation, reducing taxes disproportionately for the wealthiest households who own most assets by limiting their taxable gains to those above and beyond the inflation rate. As ITEP explained in a report last summer, this would add to a long list of unjustified existing tax breaks for capital gains and lead to economically inefficient tax sheltering."
Their professed views & analysis don't consider fairness to
the individual taxpayer, who might or might not be wealthy.
(Capital gains taxes affect us middle class types greatly too.)
Instead, it's about their complaint that the wealthy would benefit.
Some taxes should be reduced because of inflation.
A hypothetical example...
- In 1980 You pay $1,000,000 for stock.
- During 1980-1990: USA experiences 7% inflation every year.
- The 1990 dollar is worth exactly half of a 1980 dollar.
(1/1.07 to the 10th power = 0.5)
- In 1990 you sell the stock for $2,000,000.
But your $2,000,000 in 1990 dollars is only worth
$1,000,000 in 1980 dollars. Because the dollar lost
half of its value, it took twice as many dollars just to
realize the 1980 dollar value.
The IRS would calculate a gain of $2M - $1M = $1M
cuz they treat all dollars of all years equal in value.
Yet the economic value (independent of the currency
used for purchase & sale) of the stock remained the
same, ie, there was no gain in economic value, so
there was no economic profit on sale.
We should not have to pay capital gains taxes on
phantom profit, ie, extra dollars necessary to
account for the dollar's loss in value. If gain were
calculated based upon actual economic gain, this
would be fairer & more realistic.
It would benefit more than wealthy folk. Home
prices cause phantom gain taxation on middle class
people too.
Last edited:
@Revoltingest - thanks for your thoughtful response.
In general I believe that calling out a problem is distinct from having an answer to that problem. Economies and tax codes are quite complex, so I don't harbor any illusions that I have "the answer" to how to fix the tax code. But just because I don't have the answer, doesn't mean the current code isn't a real problem. It seems as though - in your last post - you might be implying that you agree the tax code has some issues?
It's interesting to brainstorm solutions to be sure. I just think we have to be careful to keep calling out the problem separate from having a solution.
In general I believe that calling out a problem is distinct from having an answer to that problem. Economies and tax codes are quite complex, so I don't harbor any illusions that I have "the answer" to how to fix the tax code. But just because I don't have the answer, doesn't mean the current code isn't a real problem. It seems as though - in your last post - you might be implying that you agree the tax code has some issues?
It's interesting to brainstorm solutions to be sure. I just think we have to be careful to keep calling out the problem separate from having a solution.