(04-02-2013 09:30 AM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(04-02-2013 08:17 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(04-01-2013 04:29 PM)gdunn Wrote:  I see both sides.. While I agree $1 Billion is a ton of money and nothing to shake a stick at, it's still only 10%.. Is it right that every year I have to pay about 40% (give or take) of my salary into state and federal and he only has to pay in 10%.. Let me ask this.. Where are they gonna get the most money from? His 10% or my 40%? It sucks, but I can't come up with a cool billion. Can you?

The "only 10%" line just points to the simple fact that some in govt, and here I suppose, believe there is no limit to what someone should pay the govt in taxes. That is scary.

If EVERYONE paid only 10%, then it'd be fine if that is what Zuck paid. But when us 'normal' people pay a higher % than a lot of million and billionaires, then that is not right. If I was only paying 10% in taxes, then I wouldn't care that Zuck only pays 10%. But he pays a lot less (percentage wise) than a lot of others, that is where it is wrong.

Why?

(04-02-2013 08:10 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-02-2013 09:30 AM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  

(04-02-2013 08:17 AM)VA49er Wrote:  

(04-01-2013 04:29 PM)gdunn Wrote:  I see both sides.. While I agree $1 Billion is a ton of money and nothing to shake a stick at, it's still only 10%.. Is it right that every year I have to pay about 40% (give or take) of my salary into state and federal and he only has to pay in 10%.. Let me ask this.. Where are they gonna get the most money from? His 10% or my 40%? It sucks, but I can't come up with a cool billion. Can you?

The "only 10%" line just points to the simple fact that some in govt, and here I suppose, believe there is no limit to what someone should pay the govt in taxes. That is scary.

If EVERYONE paid only 10%, then it'd be fine if that is what Zuck paid. But when us 'normal' people pay a higher % than a lot of million and billionaires, then that is not right. If I was only paying 10% in taxes, then I wouldn't care that Zuck only pays 10%. But he pays a lot less (percentage wise) than a lot of others, that is where it is wrong.

Why?

Why should million and billionaires get to pay a smaller % than us 'normal' citizens? That is just the rich getting richer, while the poor get poorer. Just because they make more money - which in turn means they will pay a higher amount of money in taxes - does not mean they should pay a smaller % in taxes. It doesn't f.u.c.k.ing matter what the final amount is, it matters what the % is. Now, are the tax rates to high? I don't know. But that is not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that it doesn't matter what the final amount is, and that there should not be a ceiling on what the amount of taxes a person pays.

(04-01-2013 04:32 PM)Crebman Wrote:  Somehow, just the principle of it doesn't seem quite right where we pay tons of people to sit on their asses and this guy gets a billion+ taken.

He didn't build that...

(04-02-2013 09:30 AM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  If EVERYONE paid only 10%, then it'd be fine if that is what Zuck paid. But when us 'normal' people pay a higher % than a lot of million and billionaires, then that is not right. If I was only paying 10% in taxes, then I wouldn't care that Zuck only pays 10%. But he pays a lot less (percentage wise) than a lot of others, that is where it is wrong.

He's been taxed multiple times on that money. This 10% is just the most recent taxation. It isn't the last either. When he re-invests that money, the business will get taxed on it, repeatedly, he will get taxed on dividends, and will get taxed when he cashes it in. Whenever he purchases something with it, he will be taxed. If he were to die, the govt. would get close to half.

Should be like double indemnity.
We just have too many damn taxes,
and the "rent" is just too damn high.

(04-02-2013 09:32 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Why should million and billionaires get to pay a smaller % than us 'normal' citizens? That is just the rich getting richer, while the poor get poorer. Just because they make more money - which in turn means they will pay a higher amount of money in taxes - does not mean they should pay a smaller % in taxes. It doesn't f.u.c.k.ing matter what the final amount is, it matters what the % is. Now, are the tax rates to high? I don't know. But that is not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that it doesn't matter what the final amount is, and that there should not be a ceiling on what the amount of taxes a person pays.

Number one, no, that is not the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. For one thing, that's not what's happening, and for another, tax rates are not what's driving it. What's happening according to most analyses I've seen is that the rich are getting richer, albeit at a slower pace than before, while the poor and middle classes are stagnating. That makes sense because the economy is essentially flatlining for the past 15 years or so. Up and down, but basically not going much of anywhere net. Rich and poor don't make their money the same way. The rich can make money one way in good times and another in bad. The poor pretty much need a healthy economy to make money.

Number two, what you're getting out of the "rich" now is about all you're going to get. Why? Because the defining rate for the rich is not the US tax rate but what they have to pay in other jurisdictions. When the tax on US source income gets to be higher than the tax on, say, Irish source income, then the rich move income to Ireland. The poor can't do that. And when the rich do that, jobs go to Ireland with the investment. And that hurts guess who? The rich? A little bit. Maybe they don't make quite as much pretax as they could here, and their money may be hard to access in foreign countries, particularly if they have to jump through some entity hoops to make it happen.

So, if you want to equalize the rates paid by poor and rich, you need to do it by lowering the rate paid by the poor, not raising the rate paid by the rich. You can reduce wealth and income inequality by making the poor richer or by making the rich poorer. Making the poor richer is better. But making the rich poorer seems to be the only trick you have in your bag. But the rich don't like being made poorer, and they have ways to avoid it, so they will. And that makes the poor poorer.

Makes me want to be rich so I can exploit some of these techniques.

I just want to know when the Government is taking over Facebook b/c it's "too big to fail"?

I find it funny that all these millionaires and billionaires were all pro-Obama and wanting to tax the rich and now they're getting hit it's not cool.

There is never going to be income equallity, as there never should be.

(04-03-2013 08:08 AM)gdunn Wrote:  I find it funny that all these millionaires and billionaires were all pro-Obama and wanting to tax the rich and now they're getting hit it's not cool.

Except they're not getting hit.

The only money that the government can truly tax is the part of your income that you need to live on. The rest you can shop around and put wherever is most tax efficient. The problem is that for about 99% of us, there is no rest that we don't need to live on, so we can't do the things that the rich can do with their spare money.

(04-03-2013 08:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(04-03-2013 08:08 AM)gdunn Wrote:  I find it funny that all these millionaires and billionaires were all pro-Obama and wanting to tax the rich and now they're getting hit it's not cool.

Except they're not getting hit.

The only money that the government can truly tax is the part of your income that you need to live on. The rest you can shop around and put wherever is most tax efficient. The problem is that for about 99% of us, there is no rest that we don't need to live on, so we can't do the things that the rich can do with their spare money.

In fact, you can trace a ton of Buffet's wealth to this specific event. You can trace the "roll-up" stock boom (and thus many OTHER people's wealth) under Clinton to this very thing.

It's not that hard to save money without offshore accts, etc. Even people of modest incomes can save. What often happes is those same people live beyond their means and then complain they can't save enough. It takes discipline and isn't easy, but it can be done.