climber511 wrote:A.Just goes to show how messed up the tax code is.
B.The average guy making 50K a year pays the same rate
A. Correct
B. Wrong. Unless the average guy is single, he isn't paying close to 14%, and if he has kids the max for EITC is over 50K in 2012, so is not only not paying any taxes, he is getting money back to boot.
I'm retired - no kids - no mortgage - no write offs of any kind - standard deduction only. So I guess I need a better accountant - hell any accountant I guess. No real portfolio to manipulate - no real money to "donate" because I needed the deduction - no money to send offshore. I have no way to "game" the system. I invest mostly in groceries.
Look at the rates shown in the chart here - Romney's income level shows 33%. Do I blame the guy for setting up his life to avoid paying higher taxes - hell no - he'd be an idiot not to. A lot of his income is capital gains and various investment incomes etc - taxed at a lower rate than plain wages. But people in the lower brackets are mostly unable to do this. I'm not criticizing the man as much as the system. The system is really messed up.
I have no clue how to fix it of course - but it's broken for lack of a better word.
My economic knowledges is insufficient to truly understand the appropriate tax rates or why the capital gains rate is so much less (I get the double taxation thing but isn't everything taxed multiple times?).
What I think is sadly funny, is where the parties blame each other over a few % point differences in these assorted taxes, The broken system is fully, completely, and totally, a RepubliCrat system.
Mao wrote:Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party
The better story is that in '92 Romney took a ten million dollar bailout from the fed (that is, you and me) to save his consulting business from bankruptcy and himself from mucho embarrassment.
Nowadays he abhors bailouts and thinks failed institutions should be made to close their doors. But when it happened to him, he jumped on that shit like a fat kid on pie. ("Attaboy, just taking care of his people," you say? Nope. The company was still flush with cash, but Romney threatened that if his creditors moved to take his company, he would spend the cash on a last round of bonuses for vice-presidents and above and leave the creditors with nothing but the furniture and Bain's 1000 remaining employees without jobs. To make it all better, the taxpayer got cornholed for $10 mil.)
climber511 wrote:Just goes to show how messed up the tax code is. The average guy making 50K a year pays the same rate.
That guy probably doesn't donate $4M to charity.
Neither does Romney. Essentially all of his 'charitable donation' went to Mormon Inc..
Prove it.
Just over one million does not equal essentially all of over four million. All this proves is that Romney tithes appropriately-- like the Mormon church asks him too.
"Liberalism is arbitrarily selective in its choice of whose dignity to champion." Adrian Vermeule
JasonC wrote:The better story is that in '92 Romney took a ten million dollar bailout from the fed (that is, you and me) to save his consulting business from bankruptcy and himself from mucho embarrassment.
Nowadays he abhors bailouts and thinks failed institutions should be made to close their doors. But when it happened to him, he jumped on that shit like a fat kid on pie. ("Attaboy, just taking care of his people," you say? Nope. The company was still flush with cash, but Romney threatened that if his creditors moved to take his company, he would spend the cash on a last round of bonuses for vice-presidents and above and leave the creditors with nothing but the furniture and Bain's 1000 remaining employees without jobs. To make it all better, the taxpayer got cornholed for $10 mil.)
One of the more knowledgeable business types here can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not how I read it at all. Bain Capital had a problem with paying off its debts (sounds like a Bill Bain problem from the article). So, under Romney, it negotiated with its lenders to accept a lesser amount than what was due. One of those lenders was a bank that was taken over by the FDIC.
That is far from a government bailout to Bain. You can criticize his tactics but this kind of thing happens every day at all levels of society.
Mao wrote:Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party
JasonC wrote:The better story is that in '92 Romney took a ten million dollar bailout from the fed (that is, you and me) to save his consulting business from bankruptcy and himself from mucho embarrassment.WRONG!
Nowadays he abhors bailouts and thinks failed institutions should be made to close their doors. But when it happened to him, he jumped on that shit like a fat kid on pie. ("Attaboy, just taking care of his people," you say? Nope. The company was still flush with cash, but Romney threatened that if his creditors moved to take his company, he would spend the cash on a last round of bonuses for vice-presidents and above and leave the creditors with nothing but the furniture and Bain's 1000 remaining employees without jobs. To make it all better, the taxpayer got cornholed for $10 mil.)WRONG!
One of the more knowledgeable business types here can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's not how I read it at all. Bain Capital had a problem with paying off its debts (sounds like a Bill Bain problem from the article). So, under Romney, it negotiated with its lenders to accept a lesser amount than what was due. One of those lenders was a bank that was taken over by the FDIC.
That is far from a government bailout to Bain. You can criticize his tactics but this kind of thing happens every day at all levels of society.
You've got a pretty good handle on it. One more thing to note is that the FDIC is not funded by the taxpayer. The FDIC receives no Congressional appropriations – it is funded by premiums that banks and thrift institutions pay for deposit insurance coverage and from earnings on investments in U.S. Treasury securities. (FDIC.GOV)
JasonC, like Turd, I hope your stupid ass doesn't vote. Please just stay the fuck home in November, you are an idiot. From the RS article that YOU posted: taxpayers did not finance the bailout
climber511 wrote:A.Just goes to show how messed up the tax code is.
B.The average guy making 50K a year pays the same rate
A. Correct
B. Wrong. Unless the average guy is single, he isn't paying close to 14%, and if he has kids the max for EITC is over 50K in 2012, so is not only not paying any taxes, he is getting money back to boot.
I'm retired - no kids - no mortgage - no write offs of any kind - standard deduction only. So I guess I need a better accountant - hell any accountant I guess. No real portfolio to manipulate - no real money to "donate" because I needed the deduction - no money to send offshore. I have no way to "game" the system. I invest mostly in groceries.
Look at the rates shown in the chart here - Romney's income level shows 33%. Do I blame the guy for setting up his life to avoid paying higher taxes - hell no - he'd be an idiot not to. A lot of his income is capital gains and various investment incomes etc - taxed at a lower rate than plain wages. But people in the lower brackets are mostly unable to do this. I'm not criticizing the man as much as the system. The system is really messed up.
I have no clue how to fix it of course - but it's broken for lack of a better word.
My economic knowledges is insufficient to truly understand the appropriate tax rates or why the capital gains rate is so much less (I get the double taxation thing but isn't everything taxed multiple times?).
The 33% is no where near appropriate. All (or nearly all) of his income is from capital gains. He's not starting out with a 33% marginal rate and doing stuff to get it down to 14%. He's starting around 15% and getting it down to 14%.
But one thing everyone can agree on is that the tax system is severely fucked up. The problem is that un-fucking it would require changes that aren't popular.
"The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all."
Romney is a smart, rich SOB that can run a damn good business, paid more taxes in one year than I will in my lifetime, and gave away twice that.
Obama is highly intelligent and got into and through Harvard law school. He was probably born here, but that doesn't matter to me anyway as I'd want the most qualified guy for the job.
I don't see what verifying any of the above has to do with selecting the next President.
"The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all."
