I want to whine about the West and "woke" generation

[Thomas J]

31 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

IMO it's easy to identify the woke, as they betray themselves every time they  say something that sounds profound but in reality means nothing.

Yes exactly.  There were those who talked about how eloquent Obama was as a speaker.  Yes, he "sounded" good but if you listened to the content it was a series of words articulately to sound profound but his words really said nothing. 

Take the post I responded to and I quote 

much a community values social cohesion and recognizes the benefits of minimizing social inequalities

What the heck is social cohesion.  In terms of minimizing social inequalities, that too is dribble.  I am not the son of Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos so I guess I am a victim of social inequality.  The liberals seem to believe that all outcomes must be identical in order for their to be "equality"  The truth is that there should be equality in opportunity not in outcome.  Those that work hard, study, are entrepreneurs, inventive, frugal etc will and should be those who enjoy the rewards for their efforts.  To do otherwise goes down the path of failed socialism where it is believed you can take from those to produce based on their abilities and redistribute to those who have needs.  Sorry, but human nature is what it is.  Try having two children and telling one of them to mow the lawn for $10.00 and afterwards taking $5 back from that child to give to the other who did nothing and see how that works out the next time you want the lawn mowed. 
 

[Surelynot]

9 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

Yes exactly.  There were those who talked about how eloquent Obama was as a speaker.  Yes, he "sounded" good but if you listened to the content it was a series of words articulately to sound profound but his words really said nothing. 

Take the post I responded to and I quote 

much a community values social cohesion and recognizes the benefits of minimizing social inequalities

What the heck is social cohesion.  In terms of minimizing social inequalities, that too is dribble.  I am not the son of Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos so I guess I am a victim of social inequality.  The liberals seem to believe that all outcomes must be identical in order for their to be "equality"  The truth is that there should be equality in opportunity not in outcome.  Those that work hard, study, are entrepreneurs, inventive, frugal etc will and should be those who enjoy the rewards for their efforts.  To do otherwise goes down the path of failed socialism where it is believed you can take from those to produce based on their abilities and redistribute to those who have needs.  Sorry, but human nature is what it is.  Try having two children and telling one of them to mow the lawn for $10.00 and afterwards taking $5 back from that child to give to the other who did nothing and see how that works out the next time you want the lawn mowed. 
 

True.....I really miss the eloquence and insightful remarks from the 'chosen one'......

 

“I’d like to punch him in the face.” 

 

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue, shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

 

“You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her — wherever.”
 

“I like people who weren’t captured.” 

[wprime]

29 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

IMO every normal child born has equal abilities.  What they end up actually doing is IMO governed by their family, community, society and environment.

It's a bit hard to succeed if one grows up in a mud hut, and never has access to education. Put an Asian in that situation and IMO they will do as poorly.

 

It's ironic, IMO, that the people that appreciate education the most are those that have the least access to it.

 

While you're correct in that the environment they grow up in has the biggest impact, your belief that people are born with equal abilities is false. Healthy twins can be born with equal abilities; Beyond that it comes down to a combination of your parents' genetics and luck.

 

The belief that every healthy person is born with equal abilities stems from a misinterpretation of research showing that genetic diversity within races exceeds diversity between races and therefore, there is no explicit genetic basis for races. Many people (assuming yourself too) took this to mean there are no races, therefore we're all the same, but the research shows the exact opposite is true. It's not because we're all the same but because we're all different.

[Thomas J]

6 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

True.....I really miss the eloquence and insightful remarks from the 'chosen one'.

Well Surelynot he learned that it was more important to "sound profound" than actually say anything that was profound. 

There is no question that his delivery, the cadence, tone, volume etc were far superior to George HW Bush, George W. Bush, and certainly Trump and Biden.  They were on par with Bill Clinton and perhaps better.  Obama's tone sounded "pleasant" to listen to.  But if you were pressed to explain any of his rhetoric you could not do it.  It was a series of words strung together into sentences that sounded pleasant but were incoherent of any meaning. 

In many respects he was like a computer voice recognition program.  He could recite but not truly communicate. 

[ozimoron]

47 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

You are absolutely correct.  Somehow there is this notion that each ethnic group possesses the identical set of abilities.  There is some reason beyond just preference that causes the people from India to be particularly skilled at mathematics, science and computer technology.  I do think however that a huge part of the underachievement in the black community is cultural.  They grow up seeing single parent homes, unwed mothers, drug use, fathers and brothers in prison, the lack of recognition for school achievement etc and they see this as normal and emulate it.  Conversely, the Asian community has traditionally valued keeping the family intact as evidenced by 80% of Asian children being raised in two parent homes.  They push hard their children to excel at education.  I suspect if the black community revered the straight A student as much as they do the persons talents at football or basketball you would have far more black students hitting the school books instead of dropping out of high school.  The dropping out of school pretty much guarantees that their chances of having a career that takes them out of poverty is gone. 

 

You have more or less got it right but there is no genetics involved here, it's purely cultural. Asians and Indians are more family oriented and when mom says study, they study. In the main. In the west we have never known hardship in modern times so the hard work ethic has largely left us.

[Thomas J]

6 minutes ago, wprime said:

While you're correct in that the environment they grow up in has the biggest impact, your belief that people are born with equal abilities is false.

I would agree with you.  I have two children.  My oldest daughter is very artistic but can not do math well.  My younger daughter is like me.  She could not draw a straight line with a ruler, but she is a Certified Public Accountant.  Now both are smart but in different ways. 

Somehow there is little question that blacks have as a percentage of their population a greater percentage of people with athletic ability.  One only needs to look at the makeup of the NBA, NFL, MLB, track & field events etc to see blacks achieve at the highest levels.  To somehow believe that physical gifts of athletic ability are unequally passed but all other abilities are absolutely identical is ludicrous. 

That is not to say that one race is superior it is merely saying that the the attributes given vary to a greater or lesser degree between the ethnic groups.  As previously mentioned, you have a large percentage of those with Indian heritage who are skilled at Match, Science, and Computer Technology.  Now is some of that cultural?  Likely, but it is also true that that same ethnic group even if they are pre-disposed to learning Math, Science, and Computer Technology has to have the innate ability to be good at it.   Case in point, my ex wife is one of the smartest and successful people I have ever met, yet give her a quadratic equation, or an accounting exercise and you might as well given her the problem in Mandorin Chinese.  She just can't do it.  With me, you can give me pencil and paper and ask me to draw a silhouette of a person, and I can't even draw a good stick person.   We are not all born with the same genetic predisposition to be good at everything. 

[Thomas J]

28 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

- just look at who pays taxes in America  in terms of percentage of income.

This shows me how little you actually have researched who pays taxes.  In the USA 47% of the people pay zero income tax.  The top 1% of wage earners pay 40% of all takes while the bottom 90% pay only 39%  And somehow that is not progressive? 

Now as to the statement that we all start out the same is idealistic and unrealistic.  The fact that people were born in the USA alone gives them a huge advantage over 95% of the world's population.   My parents were not Kennedy's Rockefellers, Gates, or Bezos.  Does that make me disadvantaged.  Sure but there is a huge difference between saying that some have a greater advantage versus my social situation makes it impossible for me to succeed.   As previously mentioned huge number of Asian immigrants come to the USA, many impoverished. they did not enjoy a US education, and many were not able to speak English when they arrived.  Yet, they flourish, they study, they work, they save, they start businesses.  That is personal initiative and they faced a much steeper climb than those born in the urban areas of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, or Detroit. 

How do people make it better. The same way they have for centuries.  They work hard, save, and pass the benefits on to their descendants in the hopes of paving a better life for them.  The majority of the immigrants who came to the USA were not wealthy.  They studied, they worked, they got jobs, they educated their children, pushed them to aspire to achieve more than they did, and hence the next generation had it better.  This idea that somehow government can ideally make everything equal is akin to taking water out of the deep end of the pool and pouring it in the shallow end and expecting that will raise the level of the shallow end. 

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193565-what-take-to-be-in-top-1-percent-not-much-you-think

The latest government data show that in 2018, the top 1% of income earners—those who earned more than $540,000—earned 21% of all U.S. income while paying 40% of all federal income taxes. The top 10% earned 48% of the income and paid 71% of federal income taxes

Edited July 1, 2021 by Thomas J

[StreetCowboy]

36 minutes ago, wprime said:

 

While you're correct in that the environment they grow up in has the biggest impact, your belief that people are born with equal abilities is false. Healthy twins can be born with equal abilities; Beyond that it comes down to a combination of your parents' genetics and luck.

 

The belief that every healthy person is born with equal abilities stems from a misinterpretation of research showing that genetic diversity within races exceeds diversity between races and therefore, there is no explicit genetic basis for races. Many people (assuming yourself too) took this to mean there are no races, therefore we're all the same, but the research shows the exact opposite is true. It's not because we're all the same but because we're all different.

But there are no races.  Race is a convenient but simplistic way of aggregating people with broadly similar genetic backgrounds.  It works well enough for the people in the middle of the group, but when you try and draw lines between groups, you find that there is no "between". We could assign arbitrary boundaries, if we could quantify those differences and similarities, but they are qualitative rather than quantitative, and defy such simplification.

 

Let's see if that gets the OP in a tizzy.  Or whether our Thomas struggles with the big words.

 

SC 

[wprime]

44 minutes ago, StreetCowboy said:

But there are no races.  Race is a convenient but simplistic way of aggregating people with broadly similar genetic backgrounds.  It works well enough for the people in the middle of the group, but when you try and draw lines between groups, you find that there is no "between". We could assign arbitrary boundaries, if we could quantify those differences and similarities, but they are qualitative rather than quantitative, and defy such simplification.

 

Let's see if that gets the OP in a tizzy.  Or whether our Thomas struggles with the big words.

 

SC 

 

Yes this is basically true, but some races can be defined genetically with very high degrees of accuracy. E.g. the Andamanese people, Australian aborigines (even West and East Australian aborigines can be distinguished from each other), but even then it's still probabilistic. The longer a race is isolated from the rest of the world, the higher the likeliness of them having more unique mutations. The more unique mutations a race has, the more likely that any individual has at least one and thus that individual can be distinguished with certainty.

 

That being said, even among races that weren't isolated, for most of human existence, distant travel rarely occurred quickly so mutations tend to be geographically distributed. Thus, there are still probabilistically-definable genetic differences between distant groups. It goes on from this that it's entirely possible for Chinese people to on average be genetically better at math than Sub-Saharan Africans, it would just be extremely difficult to prove and kind of pointless.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

On 7/1/2021 at 12:15 PM, Thomas J said:

This shows me how little you actually have researched who pays taxes.  In the USA 47% of the people pay zero income tax.  The top 1% of wage earners pay 40% of all takes while the bottom 90% pay only 39%  And somehow that is not progressive? 

Now as to the statement that we all start out the same is idealistic and unrealistic.  The fact that people were born in the USA alone gives them a huge advantage over 95% of the world's population.   My parents were not Kennedy's Rockefellers, Gates, or Bezos.  Does that make me disadvantaged.  Sure but there is a huge difference between saying that some have a greater advantage versus my social situation makes it impossible for me to succeed.   As previously mentioned huge number of Asian immigrants come to the USA, many impoverished. they did not enjoy a US education, and many were not able to speak English when they arrived.  Yet, they flourish, they study, they work, they save, they start businesses.  That is personal initiative and they faced a much steeper climb than those born in the urban areas of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, or Detroit. 

How do people make it better. The same way they have for centuries.  They work hard, save, and pass the benefits on to their descendants in the hopes of paving a better life for them.  The majority of the immigrants who came to the USA were not wealthy.  They studied, they worked, they got jobs, they educated their children, pushed them to aspire to achieve more than they did, and hence the next generation had it better.  This idea that somehow government can ideally make everything equal is akin to taking water out of the deep end of the pool and pouring it in the shallow end and expecting that will raise the level of the shallow end. 

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4193565-what-take-to-be-in-top-1-percent-not-much-you-think

The latest government data show that in 2018, the top 1% of income earners—those who earned more than $540,000—earned 21% of all U.S. income while paying 40% of all federal income taxes. The top 10% earned 48% of the income and paid 71% of federal income taxes

Google gave you that. Google shows there's different ways of looking at it. Your statistics may be correct but the reason the most wealthy pay the most taxes are because their income and  wealth is so much higher than those on a lower income. The richest 1% pay an effective federal income tax rate of 24.7% and that is a little more than the 19.3% rate paid by someone making an average of $75,000. You could argue that's fair but it's not as progressive as your statistics indicate. Often the rich can lower their taxable income by tax breaks - especially on investments. So they pay tax on income  but that taxable  income is reduced by special rules for investors.  1 out of 5 millionaires pays a lower rate than someone making $50,000 to $100,000. 

 

Your stories of rising from the bottom up to the top are admirable and it is good to work hard and smart to make your money. I can admire someone who achieves that while at the same time feel that people, who do more mundane work, should get enough pay to have a reasonable life. So many Americans are working poor who never get ahead of the game. Maybe they lack a bit of motivation, some might be a bit lazy, but I think someone who works 40 hours a week deserves to earn a decent pay for their job. Not saying communism or socialism but just not the rich and powerful setting the agenda for everyone else.

Take the building industry in Thailand. Workers get terrible pay. Builder makes a fortune. In Australia workers get decent pay thanks to unions. Builder still makes decent money. So it's not just taxes but a range of factors that can just balance the power a bit without taking away the incentive to work hard and achieve success. 

[Thomas J]

On 7/1/2021 at 2:09 PM, Fat is a type of crazy said:

Often the rich can lower their taxable income by tax breaks - especially on investments. So they pay tax on income  but that taxable  income is reduced by special rules for investors.  1 out of 5 millionaires pays a lower rate than someone making $50,000 to $100,000. 

You are mistaking tax rates for taxes paid.  Of the total income tax paid  I repeat paid, after tax breaks, loopholes and whatever other dodges you think exist, the top 1% pay, I repeat pay, 40% of all the tax.  The bottom 90% pay I repeat pay 39% of all the personal income tax.  The wealthy top 1% earn 21% of all the income reported, but pay 40% of the taxes.  The top 5% of taxpayers earn 36.5% of all income reported but pay 60.3%.  The bottom 50% earn 11.6% of all of the income but pay only 2.9% of the federal income tax.   47% of all returns in the USA pay zero, I repeat zero.  That is why it is so disingenuous when the left quotes that any tax cut benefits mostly the wealthy.  Well DUH, it you cut taxes those who pay the most would benefit the most.  Also, unless you are a product of new math, how can you possibly give a tax cut to 47% of the taxpayers who are already paying nothing.  Even if you cut taxes out entirely - 100%  for the entire bottom 50% of all income earners, that would amount to only a tax break of 2.9%.  Which would be less than if you gave only a 5% reduction in taxes to the top 5%.  

Also that lower rate (cow  excrement) is also a half truth.  If I own 10% of Apple I by default pay 10% of the taxes that Apple or any other company I similarly own.  So if Apple pays hypothetically $1 billion in taxes, my share of those taxes is $100 million.  Then if Apple distributes the remaining $900 million to me in the form of a dividend, I get taxed again on the same money.  It would be 21% on income earned at the corporate level, and ordinary dividends top rate is 37%.  So after taxes not including any state or local income taxes the wealthy investor paid indirectly through their company ownership and directly on their personal income tax return a combined 57.1% on that income.  Show me where that secretary or blue collar worker pays anything like that rate.  Ignoring the tax paid by the corporation on that same income is outright lying.  If I am a stockholder, I am an owner, and any taxes paid by that company are in effect paid by me as one of the owners.  The fact that the company wrote that check instead of me on my tax return is irrelevant. 

https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/

[BritManToo]

23 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

Well DUH, it you cut taxes those who pay the most would benefit the most.

The correct way to tax the wealthy is to set a maximum wage (why not) and tax at 100% any amount paid over that level. Include all income, share options, medical benefits, pensions, trust funds, signing fees, golden handshakes, free holidays, conferences, fact finding tours, expenses, company cars/boats/aircraft/houses.

Ownership of property should also be limited to one property per person.

Tax companies in every country they operate in.

 

Lets allow the people at the bottom of the wage scale to get a better cut of the cake.

I think $200,000 would be a fair maximum yearly wage. 

Edited July 1, 2021 by BritManToo

[Fat is a type of crazy]

23 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

You are mistaking tax rates for taxes paid.  Of the total income tax paid  I repeat paid, after tax breaks, loopholes and whatever other dodges you think exist, the top 1% pay, I repeat pay, 40% of all the tax.  The bottom 90% pay I repeat pay 39% of all the personal income tax.  The wealthy top 1% earn 21% of all the income reported, but pay 40% of the taxes.  The top 5% of taxpayers earn 36.5% of all income reported but pay 60.3%.  The bottom 50% earn 11.6% of all of the income but pay only 2.9% of the federal income tax.   47% of all returns in the USA pay zero, I repeat zero.  That is why it is so disingenuous when the left quotes that any tax cut benefits mostly the wealthy.  Well DUH, it you cut taxes those who pay the most would benefit the most.  Also, unless you are a product of new math, how can you possibly give a tax cut to 47% of the taxpayers who are already paying nothing.  Even if you cut taxes out entirely - 100%  for the entire bottom 50% of all income earners, that would amount to only a tax break of 2.9%.  Which would be less than if you gave only a 5% reduction in taxes to the top 5%.  

Also that lower rate (cow  excrement) is also a half truth.  If I own 10% of Apple I by default pay 10% of the taxes that Apple or any other company I similarly own.  So if Apple pays hypothetically $1 billion in taxes, my share of those taxes is $100 million.  Then if Apple distributes the remaining $900 million to me in the form of a dividend, I get taxed again on the same money.  It would be 21% on income earned at the corporate level, and ordinary dividends top rate is 37%.  So after taxes not including any state or local income taxes the wealthy investor paid indirectly through their company ownership and directly on their personal income tax return a combined 57.1% on that income.  Show me where that secretary or blue collar worker pays anything like that rate.  Ignoring the tax paid by the corporation on that same income is outright lying.  If I am a stockholder, I am an owner, and any taxes paid by that company are in effect paid by me as one of the owners.  The fact that the company wrote that check instead of me on my tax return is irrelevant. 

https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/

You make some fair and good points but somehow many companies and individuals pay little or no tax due to tax shelters, dodgy deductions  where the related income from an associated business is declared in low tax countries, and there are a range of ways to lower income through entities such as family trusts. So entities do pay tax on declared net income but they use tax strategies to reduce the  income on which they pay tax. You probably saw how some of the most famous billionaires pay little or no tax while their net worth soars. 

 

On the dividend issue Australia has higher taxes but we do have imputation credits so you get  credit for tax paid by companies on dividends - I concur that that is fair.  One negative is that it is taken too far whereby if you have no tax to pay you get a refund similar to the tax credit which benefits wealthy retirees. It basically meant that the company paid tax and the shareholder got that tax back as a refund so no one paid tax. 

 

As I said too it's not just about tax. 

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Fat is a type of crazy

[kynikoi]

Canada more toxic than US if that was possible.

[Thomas J]

4 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

The correct way to tax the wealthy is to set a maximum wage (why not) and tax at 100% any amount paid over that level. Include all income, share options, medical benefits, pensions, trust funds, signing fees, golden handshakes. Lets allow the people at the bottom of the wage scale to get a better cut of the cake.

 

I think $200,000 would be a fair maximum yearly wage. 

LOL, 

Yes certainly want to limit success.  Using cigarettes and electric cars as  examples, you tax things you want to discourage, and you subsidize things that you want more off.  Capping compensation at a maximum rate is effectively discouraging those who choose to excel at the the most demanding occupations.  After all why encourage brain surgeons, engineers, airline pilots, petroleum engineers, etc.  Having the best and brightest in those occupations is certainly unnecessary.  

The market place determines value.  If electricians are in short supply their compensation goes up and in a short time, the number of people who become electricians goes up as they see the opportunity to make a good income. 

The majority of the truly wealthy are business owners.  Yep discouraging people from going into business is sure a good idea.  Now the fact that they risk their money, time and effort and 20% of them fail in the first year and 50% after 5 years is certainly a risk you want to take knowing you are capped at making $200.000 per year for your efforts, but you could make a guaranteed $100,000 working for government along with a pension and other generous benefits. 

Here is a very simple exercise.  Run a lottery but cap the maximum prize at $1 million and see how many people are willing to risk their money to win the $1 million.  Now run a lottery where the top prize is $500 million and see how many tickets you sell.  The same is true in the economy.  You want to encourage not discourage people from starting businesses and becoming successes, not punish them. 

[Thomas J]

20 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

You make some fair and good points but somehow many companies and individuals pay little or no tax due to tax shelters, dodgy deductions

Again, you are using an apples to oranges comparison.  There is no such thing as a dodgy deduction, or a tax shelter.  There are legitimate deductions passed by the tax code that people use whether that is companies or individuals to lower the taxes they pay.  Is a 401(k) a dodgy deduction, how about child care expenses, moving expenses, state income taxes, number of dependents are they "dodgy"  How about Joe Biden declaring himself to be a Sub Chapter S corporation so he paid less tax.  Is that "dodgy" 





 One talked about company is Amazon who paid little in recent years in income taxes.  Amazon lost billions in its first years and the tax law says you can deduct losses in prior years from current income.  Is that "dodgy"  No they are paying on the "net" difference between what they earned in current years offset by losses in the prior years.  Or are you thinking that companies should only pay when they earn money and they eat 100% of the losses in years that they lose money. 

One way or another after all the deductions, scams, tax shelters, off shore accounts, accelerated depreciation and whatever other delusions you have about people escaping taxes are, the top 1% still pay in the USA 40% of all the personal income tax, and the bottom 90% still pay only 39%.   The issue is not tax rate but hard dollars, who paid the most and that is not the bottom 90% of taxpayers in the USA. 

Now if you want people who really dodge paying taxes, it is not the wealthy it is the people working for cash in the black market.   They are involved in either illegal activities such as drug trafficking or perform labor for cash only thereby avoiding any unemployment tax, Medicare tax, social security tax, or federal, state, and local income taxes.  But it is much more PC to point the finger at Jeff Bezos than it is at the electrician who is hiding his income by being paid only in cash. 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-lowered-his-taxes-in-a-way-that-obama-tried-to-prevent-2019-07-10

Edited July 1, 2021 by Thomas J

[BritManToo]

30 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

Yes certainly want to limit success. 

I would like to limit and discourage the greedy.

Nobody needs to earn more than $200,000 a year.

Taking more is pure greed.

Edited July 1, 2021 by BritManToo

[Fat is a type of crazy]

4 minutes ago, Thomas J said:

Again, you are using an apples to oranges comparison.  There is no such thing as a dodgy deduction, or a tax shelter.  There are legitimate deductions passed by the tax code that people use whether that is companies or individuals to lower the taxes they pay.  Is a 401(k) a dodgy deduction, how about child care expenses, moving expenses, state income taxes, number of dependents are they "dodgy"  How about Joe Biden declaring himself to be a Sub Chapter S corporation so he paid less tax.  Is that "dodgy" 





 One talked about company is Amazon who paid little in recent years in income taxes.  Amazon lost billions in its first years and the tax law says you can deduct losses in prior years from current income.  Is that "dodgy"  No they are paying on the "net" difference between what they earned in current years offset by losses in the prior years.  Or are you thinking that companies should only pay when they earn money and they eat 100% of the losses in years that they lose money. 

One way or another after all the deductions, scams, tax shelters, off shore accounts, accelerated depreciation and whatever other delusions you have about people escaping taxes are, the top 1% still pay in the USA 40% of all the personal income tax, and the bottom 90% still pay only 39%.   The issue is not tax rate but hard dollars, who paid the most and that is not the bottom 90% of taxpayers in the USA. 

Now if you want people who really dodge paying taxes, it is not the wealthy it is the people working for cash in the black market.   They are involved in either illegal activities such as drug trafficking or perform labor for cash only thereby avoiding any unemployment tax, Medicare tax, social security tax, or federal, state, and local income taxes.  But it is much more PC to point the finger at Jeff Bezos than it is at the electrician who is hiding his income by being paid only in cash. 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/biden-lowered-his-taxes-in-a-way-that-obama-tried-to-prevent-2019-07-10

The examples I gave are legal - I did not say otherwise. It is dodgy, from an outsiders point of view, if the tax code does not actively work to ensure businesses and individuals are not using that code to significantly reduce income and therefore  tax.

I am not saying people finding ways to reduce tax are bad, anyone would want to do so, but as Warren Buffet points out - higher taxes on the richest 1% of Americans and changes to the tax code to prevent tax avoidance is a fairer outcome . I don't think a 5 or 10 per cent increase on those earning more than say over $500,000 or $1,000,000 in income per year, and shutting down loopholes that those with the best lawyers can take advantage of, would mean there is no incentive to earn money.  Build bridges and lots of other stuff with the money that the corporations and the rich benefit from the most. 

Of course those outside the tax system, and those not declaring full income from the tradesman plumber to your local restaurant who hide the cash, is a huge issue but that doesn't mean the tax system cannot be made fairer. I feel the tax office should keep hiring auditors until that auditor does not pay his or her way in finding omitted income. 

[Thomas J]

1 minute ago, BritManToo said:

would like to limit and discourage the greedy.

Nobody needs to earn more than $200,000 a year.

Taking more is pure greed.

Well I want "successful" people.  The fact that someone makes $500,000,  $1 million or $500 million does not negatively impact me whatsoever.  However, not having people engage in money making ventures that if successful make them wealthy but create jobs does impact me and society in general.  I have one person in my hometown back in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  He is a billionaire.  So what.  That means he pays hundreds of millions in taxes.  He owns over 300 Walmart type super centers throughout the Midwest that employ over 60,000 people.  That says nothing of the hundreds of thousand of jobs also created from the vendors and suppliers who service those locations.  

Now "what is greedy"   You use the term "greed"  I use the term self interest.  People always operate in what serves their best self interest.  Buyers want to buy at the lowest possible price?  Is that "greedy" because they want to keep more of their money.  Sellers want to sell at the highest possible price, is that greedy.  No   However, if you end up in a society that punishes or limits the money successful people can make you are limiting the number of successes you will have in the country and that impacts society in general.  

If you put people in a situation where the risk taking and effort required to earn exceptional amounts of money is very little compared to the safe occupation, then it won't be worth the risk and they won't do it, and society will be worse off because of that.  

The only reason that George Clooney can make $275 million a year is because people "choose" to let him earn that amount because they feel he provides value.  The same is true for the doctor, lawyer, electrician, pharmacist, carpenter etc.  The market place does a very good job of regulating what people earn compared to what they should. 

[StreetCowboy]

33 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

I would like to limit and discourage the greedy.

Nobody needs to earn more than $200,000 a year.

Taking more is pure greed.

It's not really a matter of need.

 

Nobody needs to drink six pints a night.

 

Nobody needs to go out at night and look at the stars.

 

We all have things we like to do that other people might not choose to do, even if they thought there were benefits.  I would quite like to earn $200,000 a year, but I'm not willing to do the things that I would have to do to achieve that.

I would like to go out and look at the stars at night, but that would mean living somewhere with less light pollution, and I quite like my short commute to work.

You might like to limit and discourage the greedy, but I doubt you are willing to take up the struggle to fight the class war.

 

SC

[wprime]

3 hours ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

You make some fair and good points but somehow many companies and individuals pay little or no tax due to tax shelters, dodgy deductions  where the related income from an associated business is declared in low tax countries, and there are a range of ways to lower income through entities such as family trusts. So entities do pay tax on declared net income but they use tax strategies to reduce the  income on which they pay tax. You probably saw how some of the most famous billionaires pay little or no tax while their net worth soars. 

 

On the dividend issue Australia has higher taxes but we do have imputation credits so you get  credit for tax paid by companies on dividends - I concur that that is fair.  One negative is that it is taken too far whereby if you have no tax to pay you get a refund similar to the tax credit which benefits wealthy retirees. It basically meant that the company paid tax and the shareholder got that tax back as a refund so no one paid tax. 

 

As I said too it's not just about tax. 

 

 

Your comment about famous billionaires paying little to no tax while their wealth soars is misleading.

 

These cases are generally cases where the billionaire has some capital asset such as shares and the shares go up in value causing his wealth to sore. This isn't taxable at the time but is taxable when the asset is disposed of. As a result, their net wealth will decrease by the expected taxable amount as they have a new liability (provision for future taxes). So while yes it's true that they don't pay tax on such, their net wealth decreases by an amount equivalent to the tax.

 

The wealthy retiree situation in Australia is misleading as well. The only way they'd be paying no tax is if their income is extremely low and this can only be used for small amounts (total income cannot exceed A$18200). Beyond this retirees can however use their Super Fund to only pay 15% tax on their equity dividends which means if their equities are fully franked, they will get a 15% refund so the government still gets 15% tax.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

49 minutes ago, wprime said:

 

Your comment about famous billionaires paying little to no tax while their wealth soars is misleading.

 

These cases are generally cases where the billionaire has some capital asset such as shares and the shares go up in value causing his wealth to sore. This isn't taxable at the time but is taxable when the asset is disposed of. As a result, their net wealth will decrease by the expected taxable amount as they have a new liability (provision for future taxes). So while yes it's true that they don't pay tax on such, their net wealth decreases by an amount equivalent to the tax.

 

The wealthy retiree situation in Australia is misleading as well. The only way they'd be paying no tax is if their income is extremely low and this can only be used for small amounts (total income cannot exceed A$18200). Beyond this retirees can however use their Super Fund to only pay 15% tax on their equity dividends which means if their equities are fully franked, they will get a 15% refund so the government still gets 15% tax.

Fair points but when they do sell shares there are discounts on capital gains, no tax on selling home, etc.  Not realising capital gains is just one way the  wealthy can maximise individual or business wealth, with low tax, if they have the best of tax advisors to assist. 

Even the less wealthy small business owner have some pretty nice options through small business tax concessions in Australia, especially for farm land in an ever appreciating market,  and the use of things like family trusts. 

The wage earners and the like have no such advantages.

In the case of the imputation credits it is a fair point  but there were examples at the time of people, say, having a $3 million home, maybe a boat,  and maybe a family trust to spread the  tax, so they can be on a lower income and take advantage of the  credits. The super fund example may result in overall more tax savings but the total tax lost from it is significant.  

It was just maybe of interest to the previous poster, such that refund of imputation credits can be a good thing but in this case, it is helping fund the lifestyle of a certain segment of the population, such as retirees, paid for by the taxpayers of Australia.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Fat is a type of crazy

[thaibeachlovers]

On 7/1/2021 at 4:08 PM, Phoenix Rising said:

I see. Maybe you can educate us as to which countries have gone down hill because of that and in which areas Thailand has done better?

In NZ ordinary people can't afford to buy a house any more, apparently because overseas investors are buying up property. In a country that never used to have homeless people, before corona families were living in cars and garages. Because of corona the government now spends mega millions to put homeless people in motels.

 

I believe that is a situation not unique to NZ.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 6/29/2021 at 3:12 PM, mikebike said:

Do you consider the Canadian colonies at the time "English"... 'cause they were definitely re-educating in Canada.

I wasn't referring to Canada.

[CharlieH]

Enough warnings., derailed and now......

 

CLOSED