A quick history lesson. From 1940-1980:
•Wealthiest paid 70-94% marginal tax
•0 of them went broke from taxation
•0 of them left USA
•All remained exceedingly wealthy
•Manufacturing boomed
•The middle class was 62% of US economy (It's now 40% post 'trickle down scamenomics)
•We had the strongest middle class growth in US History
Let's do that again. Stop protecting billionaires. Start taxing them. #TaxBillionaires
@TootUncommon Well, they ("MAGAheads") would point to how manufacturing jobs were moved offshore since then, and propose fixing that through isolationist tariffs or whatever.
I don't think that's a good idea, for hopefully obvious reasons, but it's not clear a 94% top tax rate would be much better. How much revenue is that going to get us anyway.
Restoring the top tax rate of 94% would get us quite a bit. Companies breaking profit records every quarter would hate it though.
More importantly, it would pressure companies to reinvest profits into expansion and employee benefits like it used to.
Remember when companies provided things like pensions and insurance? Those are all tax write-offs, and it gets them back down out of those top tax brackets.
@QasimRashid I cannot tell you how many conservatives, with marginal incomes even, have told me how crazy I am for wanting über wealthy to pay their fair share. Most common response is, “Well, how many jobs have YOU created?” As if that gives them the right to coast by.
@schfinkes Remind them that 98% of businesses in America have fewer than 100 employees. So they're really talking about 2% of businesses. Moreover, remind them that 100% of billionaire corporations got there with federal tax subsidies and corporate welfare not available to non-billionaires. So they didn't "create" jobs, they also benefitted from corporate welfare. And the LEAST they can do is pay a living wage & pay their blasted taxes.
It's so stupid, too. I hate that the "job creator" title became a thing.
Rich people don't create jobs. Corporations don't create jobs. You know what creates jobs?
Demand for goods and services.
Businesses hire only as many people as they need to fulfill customer demand. They're not creating jobs and handing out money out of the kindness of their hearts. They're betting that they can pay someone $X to create more than $X in value for themselves.
The railing against taxes for social programs is so short-sighted, too. What happens when their greed has shrunk the middle class so much that there's no more customers able to afford their products?
@Sohcahtoa82@schfinkes@QasimRashid They assume that if they can pile up enough money now that's not something they're going to have to worry about?🤷♂️
In Peter Guralnick's extensive biography of Elvis Presley, he recounted the story of a reporter who asked Elvis how he felt about having to pay 90% taxes on his income above whatever the threshold was at the time.
Elvis said, "I just write the check and send it off. Those taxes help people in need."
Too bad more people don't understand the concept of noblesse oblige the same way a rock star who grew up poor in Tupelo did.
Elvis' atitude is welcomed, but the important point here is 90% tax rate!
Meanwhile we live in a different tax rate environment "thanks to the GOP, especially R. Reagan and D. Trump.
It seems that the disastrous condition of our human habitat is inversely proportional to the highest tax rates for Billionaires and corporations.
Not good!
@QasimRashid It’s about time that everyone doing the HARD work, physical labor, etc… get FAIRLY compensated for their hard, quality, work and in a lot of cases, giving up 35 to 40 yrs. of their life only to retire and having to fight for any decent healthcare. Shameful
However, in order to bring the income distribution back to normal, an overhauled inheritance tax, focused on the super-rich, is of the essence to save democracy.
"...possibility of remedying any of the growing evils, but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles: every other correction is either useless or a new evil."
@mlibby@QasimRashid I'm just trying to compare like with like. If the effective tax rate was zero percent then and zero percent now, it suggests that the problem is somewhere else.
What I am finding interesting is not so much that the effective tax burden on the 1% was much higher in the past, but that the difference between the top and the bottom has been getting smaller. The poor are paying more taxes, while the rich are not.
@QasimRashid I mean, It was abusive and unfair, which is enough reason for me to give it a hard no... no one should be taked out of 94% of their income, regardless if they can survive it.
That said, I can pretty much garuntee the whole "0 of them left" and "0 of them went broke" is pure nonsense, you have a source for that?
@freemo that’s not how progressive tax systems (including the now-watered-down one in the US) works. No one paid 94% of their entire income in tax, pre-Reagan - that would have been a flat tax system (which the US has never had to my knowledge), and as you so rightly point out is grotesquely unfair (especially to lower income workers) @QasimRashid
Yes I am well aware how income tax works. But yes as you get father above the 200K bracket the closeryoull get to 94%. So yes you have tax rates abusively high for the rich that can approach 94%, if your rich enough you are effecitvely paying 94%.
@freemo sure. Building on the example from Khan Academy, if I make $10,001 in income, I don’t pay 20% of the total ($2,000.20) in taxes. Rather, I pay 20% of the income that’s in the 20% bracket as tax i.e. 20% of $1, or $0.20. This is equivalent to 0.002% of my total income, not 20%.
The same pattern applies as my income goes up and the higher portions of it “land” in higher tax brackets. I’m only paying that higher tax rate on the marginal income that falls in that bracket. The net effect is that my overall effective income tax rate is always lower than the top tax rate I’m paying - that’s simply how the math works.
@pmonks yes.. that doesnt disagree with what i said.
If you want to talk in math terms.. as your income approaches infinity what does your effective tax rate approach? It approaches the 20%, or in the real world case 94, like I said.
@freemo and as we approach infinity, the remaining 6% also approaches infinity. Maths is fun that way.
But let’s also not forget that:
The 94% top tax bracket you’re quoting only existed for 1 year (1944/45)
To hit that bracket, one had to earn more than ~$3.5 million in today’s dollars
Even today anyone earning that much in any single year is clearly incredibly wealthy, and incurring a high absolute tax rate on the marginal income above $3.5 million doesn’t change that.
@freemo the top marginal tax rate hovered around 90% from 1944 until 1963, and stayed above 70% until Reagan gutted the tax system in 1980.
Respectfully, you’re incorrect regarding the amount. The 1944/45 94% tax bracket was on incomes above $200,000, which in today’s dollars is close to (but slightly less than) $3.5 million.
Finally, I consider unrestricted wealth antithetical to healthy democracy (and also immoral, though that’s neither here nor there), and taxation is one of the few effective mechanisms we have to counter it. To one of the points one of the other commenters here made regarding the wealthy dodging income tax anyway, this is also why I’m in favour of wealth taxes (despite some of their flaws).
Wealth is not a pie, some having more doesnt mesn others have less. So its hard for me to see someone who generates wealth unethical. That say the system does have inequality issues to be addressed.
As for rich people avoiding taxes, i usually find its kore so the other way around, usually the poor and middle class seem to lie, avoid, and cover up taxes when they can far more often than the rich. Id like so find some good numbers on that though, just from what Ive seen.
@freemo I agree that wealth isn’t a fixed-size pie, and that isn’t a point I’m making (or think is especially important). The tendency for wealth to concentrate in the hands of a few if left unchecked, is the point I’m making, along with the demonstrated fact that taxes are one of our best mechanisms to counter this.
I’m also not sure what tax evasion (by anyone) has to do with the original discussion. But let me be clear that I absolutely believe the IRS should be comprehensively funded so that they can go after all tax evaders, whoever they are.
What your missing is these people where wealth concentrates are also the people resonsible for creating much of that same wealth.
So i have no issue with someone having way more wealth than everyone else when that wealth only exists because of thrm in thr first place. It isnt a pie they are stealing more from, they literally are baking the pies.
@freemo trickle down economics (which you appear to be describing) does not work. The impact of cutting (or indeed increasing) tax rates over the last century or so has not been shown to have much, if any, correlation with relevant economic indicators (GDP, job creation, income growth, wage growth, etc.).
I try to avoid memes when engaging in serious discussions, but this one nicely summarises what we’re discussing:
@pmonks No not even remotely related. At no point did i suggest rich people having money or keeping their money was needed to ensure the poorer and middle class people would benefit.
“What your missing is these people where wealth concentrates are also the people resonsible for creating much of that same wealth.”
And not to go off on a tangent, but this isn’t even true. ~50% of the jobs in the US are in small businesses, and 2/3 of job growth over the last 25 years has been created by small businesses. They’re the engine of the economy, not the wealthy.
@freemo are you disputing that you wrote that toot, or are you disputing that your statement in that toot (“these people where wealth concentrates are also the people resonsible for creating much of that same wealth.”) describes trickle down economics?
I wrote the toot, nothing in what you quoted implies there is any trickle down effect or even, as you imply, that they are the only ones generating wealth
“Trickle-down economics and its policies employ the theory that tax breaks and benefits for corporations and the wealthy will trickle down and eventually benefit everyone.”
@pmonks i never said the wealthy "predominately" generate wealth. Yes they are wealth generators, everyone else can be too.
You really are trying hard to ram that square peg in a round hole so you can use your talking points... but again i said nothing of the sort.
Yea that definition you just provide has absolutely no relationshop to what i said. Never said it trickles down, never claimed it benefits everyone to give them cuts or breaks either.
First paragraph:
“What your missing is these people where wealth concentrates are also the people resonsible for creating much of that same wealth.”
And as I said a few minutes ago, this isn’t even true - small businesses contribute more to the economy (i.e. the creation of wealth) than the wealthy do.
@pmonks you keep.quoting that, literally no.where in the quote of mine you keep using did i say or imply what you keep.insisting i said.
Yes they generate much of the same wealth that they wind up walking away with. That is not remotely the same as saying giving them money or tax breaks benefits everyone. I didnt even imply they were the majority of wealth generators, only that thr monry they have in the end they largely generate. Just as the wealth others aquire is largely generated as well.
@freemo as others have said elsewhere in this thread, the wealthy largely obtain that wealth by skimming the difference between the value of what their employees produce, and what they pay those employees. That’s not “generating wealth”, it’s exploitation.
@freemo others in this thread already replied to you with those details. I can go back and dig out their bases if you wish but I (perhaps mistakenly) assumed you wouldn’t be that pedantic.
@pmonks ive already addressed the others or may have them blocked if thry are offiensive.. so no clue if i even saw what your referi g to but if i did inlikely already addresses it.
@pmonks Considering what an abysmal job your doing at even understanding my position when we are having a direct conversation i dont have much faith that yiu successfully followed those side threads at all to be honest.
That said i do remain some hope that you are discussing in good faith... some
@freemo then let me paraphrase what I think your position is, you can correct it, and we can continue from there.
My understanding of your position is:
“The wealthy generate much of the wealth in society in a just fashion, should be allowed to retain most or all of that wealth for themselves, and there are no substantial negative societal ramifications of them doing so.”
Sonfor stsrters most wealth is not genersted justly, not by the rich, the middle class or the poor. People trying to generate wealth at every class bracket are riddled with illegal and immoral activity to get there. So no the wealth generated by the wealthy has tons of unjustice attached to it, but so is the wealth generated by every other class.
They also shouldnt be allowed to "retain most or all" for themselves. While 90%+is quite abusive i hav no problem with more reasonable tax percentage, but no i do t think tax should be at or near 0% for the wealthy.
@freemo ok good clarifications and I’d like to understand more. For starters, what, in your opinion, would be a reasonable tax system, not only for the wealthy but for the entire socioeconomic spectrum?
@pmonks that would create a lot more mess in the conversation than it might be worth.
I personally woukd prefer a progressive spending tax rwther than income. Luxury items have very high tax rates, essentials like food has a low or 0 tax rate. Tax spending not earning, have high tax rates on luxury , creates a more fair and still progressive system.
That said i doubt we could ever get such a system approved and woukd require a complete rework of the tax system and addressing tons of edge cases, so probably best we leave that out of the scope of this discussion.
@freemo how do you avoid hoarding by the wealthy? Recall that almost all of their income is disposable, so disincentivizing spending (as a spending tax would do) reduces their spending (and consumer spending, at least in the US, is a major driver of the economy).
So hoarding. There are a few factors that mitigate it, and depending on what is hoarded it may not be a big deal. The simplest case of keeping cash in a bank account isnt as big a deal as people think since that cash is made availible as loans to others, If everyone is hoarding cash that means the cost of loans goes down and enables easier access to loans (more cash in the bank not moving means it can be lended). So the first aspect is "hoarding isnt as bad as you think"
Second hoarding is less of an issue here because while true it would mean reduced spending on luxury items, there is no sales tax on investments. So it would encourage (particularly due to the lower interest rates) more spending on investments and less on luxury items, rather than money not moving at all... So changing economy so fewer people are buying million dollar cars and that money is spent starting more million dollar business is a good thing.
Third is that there are pressures that encourage spending regardless.. Usually inflation rate means if you sit on money it looses value, this is intentional... So this is another pressure for people to spend their money. thanks to sales tax being high it means they should be encouraged to spend the money but again towards investments, so yea lots of pressures that push towards money flow.
@freemo but that said, I think I see where some of the disconnect is coming from. You view “wealth” narrowly as personal property, whereas I view it as one aspect of the overall economy, and where the question of how it is distributed has profound implications for the health of that economy.
@pmonks No i dont use wealth as personal property. I am using the economics definition of wealth. I usually deal with the advanced mathematical side of economics (having invented some.models myself still used in economics circles). So you can assune im using formal definitions unless i say otherwise.
@freemo so then explain to me how concentrating wealth in a relatively small %age of the population benefits the economy. I’m open to the possibility that I’ve missed an important detail.
@pmonks I never said the wealthy concentrating their wealth is a bad thing either.
Before you work on "understanding it for me" try understanding what my stance is first. You already decided i was wrong yet your responses show you clearly dont even understand what my position is. You have that a bjt backwarss dont ya think?
@pmonks great, like i saidput more time in ubderstanding views other than your own first, before you discount them and assume there wrong. Goes a long way
@freemo ah yes I see it now. For some reason some of your replies don’t show up in my notifications - I have to go back and manually walk the thread to see them.
@pmonks No worries. Like i said it does seem your trying to have a good faith discussion, even if some assumptions are getting in the way. Tbat said i can understand your mistske as the assumptions you are making are probably pretty common for people you have discussed with in the past.
But youll have tonput a little more effort in than usual to understand my stance as i rarelt stick to the usual talking points as i have my own opinions on a lot of things.
@freemo@pmonks Wealth is not interchangeable with profit, it is an accumulation of profit. The profit in any given retrospective timeframe is absolutely a pie. There was only so much to be made, and if we share in that profit and you got more, I absolutely got less.
There is no such thing as a “wealth generator”, only a “profit generator” (and that sounds a good deal less lofty). Whether my profit becomes my wealth is beyond their control.
No one said anything about wealth being equivelant to profit... what are you talking
When i turn a pile of sand i to a piece of glass ive created wealth, i own that wealth, and this is true regardless of if i ever sell that piece of glass or not. It has nothing to do with profit except that selling the glass and converti g the wealth i made into cash .eans i can buy more sand, make more glass, and generate more wealth.
@freemo@pmonks You’re talking about it. You are discussing the idea of taxes being used to redistribute wealth. But they’re (generally) not, they redistribute profit.
Normally, no-one is coming to raid the wealth of the wealthy, just to limit the growth of inequality. However, fail to limit that growth for long enough and people can become dangerously unequally wealthy. So now, people are actually starting to talk about a “wealth tax”. This is a warning sign.
No insaid nothing about taxes redistributing wealth. I only pointed out that the rich people, who got rich by being good wealth generators, shoukd not be taxed an abusive rate in the 90s.
Whether what is abusively taken from them is used to redistribute money is secondary to my concerns at best.
@freemo@pmonks Ok, point taken. Your position still confuses me, though. When you say “good wealth generators” It sounds like you believe that’s a service they’re offering society as a whole. But when I see that phrase all I see is “efficient profit maximisers”. Few individuals are involved in activity that increases the size of the economy and even those that are focussed on increasing their own wealth. So I don’t understand why that should defend them against any given level of taxation.
So no profit maximizers and wealth generators are very different things, though a person may be both.
The reason you dont see them as expanding the economy is because wealth can be destroyed too. You have wealth generators and wealth destroyers and these forces cancel eachother. So overall you may not see the economy grow even kf an individual is generating a lot of wealth
@freemo@pmonks
Middle class earners don't have the type of income to cheat on taxes. Payroll is reported to the government and they know exactly what the majority owes in taxes. Only the wealthy have different tax avenues they can exploit to avoid paying taxes.
Yea thats nonsense. They arent cheating on their taxes as employees. They are usually working under the table or not reporting side income and stuff like that. Everytime you see someome on the street selling food or washing your car or any of the many hard working services people do to make money independently, its almost never reported to taxes.
@freemo@pmonks
If an employee is being paid under the table, that means either the employer is exploiting an undocumented worker or they are paying someone less than minimum wage.
I can guarantee the employer is saving more in taxes than the employee, benefitting once again, the wealthy.
Middle class workers NEED that documentation because it is required to get credit.
@freemo@pmonks And again, the rich don't generate wealth. They generate excess profit derived from the labor of the employee. Wealth is the byproduct of greed.
No thats just completely disconnected from reality. My mom worked under the table her whole life.. She was documented and asked her employer to pay her under the tabke so she could make more...
And yes there is a motivation to show income for loans, but most people working under the table cant get loans anyway.
@freemo@pmonks So your mom was exploited by her employer and saved them a bunch of payroll taxes. Not to mention she missed out on some very important employee protections like unemployment insurance, any type of employer provided health insurance or pension, and workman's compensation. That employer took advantage of your mom and pocketed the difference.
No she was offered a normal job at normal pay. She asked her employer to pay her under table so she could keep her tax money as extra. The employer helped her out. The employer gained nothing so they didnt exploit anything.
That said you are pretending like everyone in the middle class is an a w2 worker and not a 1099 worker. 1099 workers can just skip paying taxes and has little to do with who is paying them.
She asked to miss out on protections, and since the employer doesnt need to provide any sort of health insurance the employer wasnt saving anything.
@freemo@pmonks Employers have to file 1099 forms too. So all the taxes are on the worker and again, the federal government knows what you make if you're a 1099 employee and they will get their taxes.
And again, this is a wealthy breaking the law problem, not a worker problem. The employer holds all the cards in this situation and could choose not to pay her under the table.
@freemo@pmonks@QasimRashid First of all, the top US tax bracket is 7x higher than the Dutch one, and 12.5% less. The "OUTRAGEOUS" Biden proposal to raise the top income tax bracket would still have Americans earning ~€489k paying rates like Dutch earning €35k.
Second, even when top US rates were +80%, almost nobody was paying them. Why? Because the whole point was to redirect income into capital investments.
@freemo repeatedly calling something “abusive” doesn’t make it so, and I hope this conversation is encouraging you to reconsider that dogma with an open mind. @opendna@QasimRashid
@freemo also correct, which is why I haven’t said that. Bringing emotive language into this discussion (either way) doesn’t help us each come to a deeper understanding of the topic. @opendna
You're invoking effective rate, which are effectively meaningless if you exclude VAT/sales tax, health insurance, education, etc. Cutting the top US backet (& cap gains) was paid for by shifting the burden of society, the economy, and the state, to those least able to pay.
@freemo that is incorrect. The Dutch also have a progressive income tax system and the first bracket (9.28% tax rate) is from €0 to €35,742. So your example person would pay €45.38 in taxes (in 2023). @opendna@QasimRashid
@freemo it seems you mixed up the numbers in your post - did you mean €469 (your first number) or €469,000 (your second number)? I used your first number, fwiw.
The second number is clearly for someone wealthy, so a high tax rate is not going to be material for them - they have plenty of income. @opendna
@freemo@pmonks@QasimRashid
Now Dr. Explain to us how tax credits and tax write offs work to lessen the tax burden for the wealthy. Not to even mention the tax deferrals offered in 401ks and IRAs. So the real question is not what is the tax bracket you're in but what is the effective tax rate you actually pay. That's why Buffet says his secretary pays more in tax than he does.
Yes they legally use the writeoffs and other benefits availible to everyone. If there is a specific writeoff you feel is unjust or only applies to the wealthh im open to discuss
@freemo most of these write offs are only obtainable if you’re wealthy though, so no they’re not “available to everyone” in any meaningful way @MikeBon
@freemo for example one can’t claim charitable donation deductions if one is living paycheck-to-paycheck and deciding whether to pay rent or utilities this month - there’s no disposable income available to be making such donations @MikeBon
@freemo not at all. If a wealthy person doesn’t pursue legal loopholes to the tax code (such as charitable dedications), then they would have paid more in taxes. The “charitable” donation has very little to do with philanthropy and everything to do with retaining more personal wealth. @MikeBon
@freemo charitable donations (at least in the US) work by reducing income, which means it can shift someone into a lower tax bracket. That can save substantially more than the amount of the donation. @MikeBon
@freemo the super rich have far more legal tax cheats at their disposal than just charitable donations - mechanisms that (to the original point) are not available to everyone @MikeBon
Simply stating it is so (again) doesnt get us anywhere. Which specific tax loophole do you think is exclusively availible to the rich, happy to discuss
@freemo@pmonks saying exclusively is misleading. They loopholes aren't necessarily exclusive but are designed to benefit the wealthy more so than the non-wealthy. Which ones, you ask? All of them. Again that's why effective tax rates for the wealthy are as low as they are.
I can think of a ton of cuts and benefits you get on taxes for the poor.. still waiting to hear you mention one and how you think it favors the rich. I suspect they exist i just cant think of one off hand.
@freemo you're being purposely obtuse. Again using exclusivity is irrelevant. The greater the wealth the greater the benefit. Effective tax rate is all that matters.
@MikeBon i specifically didnt use the word exclusively.. give an example of a tax cut that benefits the rich and hownit would need to be changed to benefit everyone. Then we can discuss it.
@freemo most business taxes are not available to those not wealthy enough to own a business. The same with the several tax breaks for owning real estate.
@MikeBon you can file as self employed even if you dont have a business in the typical sense. In fact every person who is washing windows, doing odd jobs, etc are all under business taxes, and these are the kinds of jobs we expect the homeless to do.
The idea that 1099 basdd worked isnt an option for the poorer end of the spectrum is nonsense. In fact quite the opposite, most rich people, even if they own the company, are working for tbeir own company as a w2. There are quite a few barriers that specifically prevent the rich from getting tax breaks forcing thrn onto a w2 for their own business.
No one has presented an example where thry are exclusively or favorable towards the super rich. Everyone has access to them.. if you think there is one only the rich can use im still waiting to hear what one you mean
No this example was invslidated because the super rich, as we are discussing dont hover tax brackets by definition. And it isnt saving you money overall except in that edge case.
@freemo you didn’t read the post I linked, assumed it was a different one, and then addressed the wrong point in. If you wish to police how this discussion is conducted then I encourage you to engage with it in good faith and actually read waa is written than jumping to (wrong) conclusions. @MikeBon
@freemo perhaps your client isn’t functioning correctly, so I’ll literally reproduce the text again here:
“for example one can’t claim charitable donation deductions if one is living paycheck-to-paycheck and deciding whether to pay rent or utilities this month - there’s no disposable income available to be making such donations”
This comment isn’t about the wealthy, it’s about the poor. You still haven’t address that point (which was also one of the first one raised in this thread i.e. that these kinds of legal tax loopholes are not available to all).
So it says exactly what i thought it says.. as isaid before its not a tax advantage for the rich or anyone since you spend more in giving donations than you get in tax cuts. So neither the rich the poor nor anyone can exploit it to save on taxes, it isnt a net savings.
@freemo you’re still missing the point: how can someone living paycheck-to-paycheck make a charitable donation in order to access this tax deduction, without neglecting their other financial obligations? @MikeBon
They cant, nor can the rich because it isnt a tax advantage.. spending 100k on charity to save 10k on taxes isnt an advantage to the rich either nor is it a means to save money.
Nope.. both those statements still hold true. I was asking for an example where the rich could leverage loopholes to get out of taxes the poor cant. Since you dont save money by making charitable donations this does not satisfy the premise.
In other words it isnt a tax loophole at all since you cant spend money and walk away saving more than you spend. Since it cant be exploited to reduce your overall costs its not a loophole for anyine
@freemo how does someone living paycheck-to-paycheck afford to make a charitable donation while still meeting their other financial obligations? @MikeBon
They dont, and you really arent listening.. how does a rich person use the loophole to save money? If they make 200 million and spend 10 million on charity in orser to save 1 million in taxes all they did was cost themselves 9 million. So it is not a loophole for the rich or the poor, it isnt a loophole for anyone...
@freemo we’ll get to your unrelated claim about the wealthy not benefiting from tax deductions soon. I’m still more interested in your earlier claim that the poor have equal access to these deductions. Am I right in thinking that in your latest reply you are indeed retracting that claim? @MikeBon
I didnt say thry dont benefit from tax deductions.. if you cant e en listen to the basic things people say enough to repeat what they said accurately how do you expect people to keep interacting with you?
I am not retracting the claim. The poor have equal access to charitable deductions. They engage in fewer of thrm so would use them less, but since its not a loophole or something a person can exploit to save money it isnt relevant to my claim.
Yes everyone has ACCESS to the charitable giving deductions. And anyone who donates to charity is likely to leverage it, and should. But it isnt a money saver and since those two messages were in thr context of loopholes it is irrelevant either way.
There is nothing to detail, you literall just put the total in the little space on your taxes then attach the receipts and itemized list of donations as a form 8283 which you only have to do for amounts over 500 if its under that you dont need to show proof but can still claim it.
If they hav no disposable income and are so poor they can only afford enough food and shelter to live then they dont pay taxes as thry are below the threshold. Therefore they already have 0 taxes and there is nothing to grt cuts on.
@freemo that is incorrect. In the US, for 2022, the filing threshold is $12,950 while the poverty line is between $14,580 and ~$40,000, depending on state.
But I notice that you’re dodging the question you were asked again, which is not approaching this discussion in good faith. @MikeBon
You passed good faith a while ago, as im sure you see why your argument is nonsense...
If you have not donated to anyone then you wont be writing off somethibg you never did. So they have access to the writeoff they just wont use it.. but since using it costs you more than it saves it is moot as has been pointed oit many tines since it isnt an advantage in the first place.
@freemo as have you, by repeatedly dodging the questions you were asked. And since you’re not willing to do that, but instead deflect by changing the subject, let me spell this out for you:
People who do not have disposable income cannot donate to charities as they don’t have the financial means to do so. This is absolutely an issue of “access”, in a very practical sense, and one that the wealthy do not share. Therefore your earlier, and repeated, claims that the poor have equal access to the tax avoidance loopholes used by the wealthy are laughably false. @MikeBon
And as ive responded with cou tless times, since making charitabke donations costs you more money rsther than saving overall it is not a tax loophole or an advantage in anyway. So the fact that poor people dont make donations has no relevancy here.
@freemo that’s not a question of access, but of benefit. You repeatedly claimed that the poor have access to these loopholes, a claim I have repeatedly disputed and that you have repeatedly refused to defend. I’m beginning to think that you know it’s a false claim, but are unwilling or unable to admit that it’s false. @MikeBon
Just to recap you think tbe rich have access to a loophole in taxes the poor dont have because they have the option to spend 10 million giving to charity to say 1 million in taxes them. Somehow being able to loose 9 million total is sone sort of tax loophole they use to keep their wealth...
Okkkkkk.... pretty sure you know yojr talking nonsense
@freemo again, you’re confusing “access” and “benefit”, and I’ve only been focusing on the former thus far. You do understand that these are different things, right? @MikeBon
Call it whatever you want you do understand your stance is nonsense i hope to the original point of rich having access to loopholes that get them out of taxes, which this is not since it isnt saving them money...
@freemo I’m indeed open to the possibility that my stance is nonsense, otherwise I wouldn’t have continued this conversation for this long.
However you’ve done nothing to convince me that that’s the case, in part because you refuse to answer clarifying questions when asked, change the subject at will, and in your latest response appear to think that the meanings of word don’t matter. I’m not sure this conversation has any further value.
@pmonks if you cant see why the rich having the ability to spend 10k on charity to get 1k off their taxes is not a loophole or a way to take advantage then i really dont know what to tell you... you keep trying to muddy the water with semantics and its so obvious it just looks absurd.
@freemo@pmonks@QasimRashid sorry I'm a little behind on this thread, right now. It's just the "cry me a river" over how high my tax bracket is, is a bit over done. Here is a question for everyone, what are the purposes for taxes anyway. If you say to pay for federal policies and programs, well, you been duped.
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