american ignorance on how our tax system works

[Free Thinker]

Quote from tomdavis:

The only business expense higher than taxes is payroll.

then you have a very profitable business. if you have a one employee business and he is making making 100k and you claim you are paying near 100k in taxes that means that one employee is netting you after expenses north of 300k in income if we use a 33% rate.
you should hire more people.

 

[tomdavis]

Quote from Free Thinker:

then you have a very profitable business. if you have a one employee business and he is making making 100k and you are paying near 100k in taxes that means that one employee is netting you after expenses north of 300k in income if we use a 33% rate.
you should hire more people.

None of the businesses I mentioned is a one-employee business. They range from 4-26 employees.

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from tomdavis:

I don't feel poor because someone has more money than me; nor do I feel rich because I'm wealthier than someone else.

doesnt matter what you feel. is someone who makes more than what 99% of the rest of the world rich?
how about if we use .99%

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from tomdavis:

None of the businesses I mentioned is a one-employee business. They range from 4-26 employees.

still you said you are paying taxes close to payroll. doesnt matter how many employees you use in the equation.

 

[tomdavis]

Quote from Free Thinker:

still you said you are paying taxes close to payroll. doesnt matter how many employees you use in the equation.

I didn't say we were "paying taxes close to payroll."

I said, "The only business expense higher than taxes is payroll."

In other words, if I rank the expenses of the businesses by category it looks something like this:

1) Payroll
2) Taxes
3) Rent
etc.
etc.

In my trading business, taxes are higher than payroll.

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from L-Kabong:

There was an income tax during the civil war. The 16th amendment authorized an income tax, along with the Federal Reserve, in 1913.

Everyone wants services today, many don't wish to pay for them.

I thought you were leaving ET? What with your work being done and all.


http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=252949

 

[L-Kabong]

Quote from Free Thinker:

i detected this same ignorance in some of the righties on et in debates before the election:

For whatever reason, an article titled "Investors Rush to Beat Threat of Higher Taxes" was published by The New York Times despite the fact that it contains a galling bit of stupidity, which could spread like a supervirus to the general public.

It is these three paragraphs in particular:

Kristina Collins, a chiropractor in McLean, Va., said she and her husband planned to closely monitor the business income from their joint practice to avoid crossing the income threshold for higher taxes outlined by President Obama on earnings above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples.
Ms. Collins said she felt torn by being near the cutoff line and disappointed that federal tax policy was providing a disincentive to keep expanding a business she founded in 1998.

“If we’re really close and it’s near the end-year, maybe we’ll just close down for a while and go on vacation,” she said.


This is a stupidity as persistent as it is avoidable. Ms. Collins, chiropractor from Virginia, is among the many people of affluence who have somehow survived without understanding how marginal tax rates work. As always, I am obligated to provide the following paragraph from Dean Baker's post, "Marginal Tax Rates: How To Explain Them To A Five-Year-Old Child" (not its actual title, but still):

The tax system brackets give marginal rates. This means that if the raise bumps you into a higher bracket then you pay more taxes only on the income in the higher bracket. Suppose that the tax bracket for income under $200k is 25 percent, and for income over $200k is 33 percent. If you get a raise that pushes your income from $195,000 to $205,000 then you only pay the higher 33 percent tax rate on the $5,000 that is above the $200k threshold not your whole income. Therefore, there is no (as in none, nada, not any) way that getting more money, and being pushed into a higher tax bracket will leave you with less money after taxes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/20/new-york-times-tax-rates_n_2166967.html

She's an idiot. And she's out there with her moronic husband practicing quackery on people. Pretty soon she'll be posting here, calling you and me idiots and having phone sex with some of the
troglodytes populating this forum.

 

[Free Thinker]

Quote from L-Kabong:

She's an idiot. And she's out there with her moronic husband practicing quackery on people. Pretty soon she'll be posting here, calling you and me idiots and having phone sex with some of the
troglodytes populating this forum.

we finally found some common ground. the evidence indicates chiropractic is quackery.

http://www.chirowatch.com/

 

[Lucrum]

Quote from L-Kabong:

...calling you and me idiots...

You both ARE idiots. Duh!

 

[mrbill]

Quote from Free Thinker:

political realities mean loopholes are next to impossible to close. we have to deal in reality here.
we could cut healthcare costs tomorrow by going to single payer and eliminating the insurance middle man estimated to cost 20%. in reality its not going to happen yet.
example. the government pays 50% more for drugs than it should. that is because when bush gave seniors the drug benefit the republican congress specifically banned medicare from negotiating drug costs. we pay full retail on drugs. how is that sensible?

+1 So damn simple to understand. And, yes, the ignorance of the public regarding taxes is amazing. So many, perhaps 60% or more, actually have Too Much withholding from their jobs. How stupid is that. Oh, I get a refund in April. Well, take the damn money and put it to work, letting the gov't hold it for Nothing is stupid.