IdBeCrazyIf
Teach people about deductions.

Easier said than done. There's a reason why being a CPA is a profession.

It's also easy to bully an average citizen into overpaying taxes and skipping some deductions with the threat of audits, penalty fees, and fines/jail time for being 'fraudulent' on the forms.

kronicfeld: Prediction: exactly two people posting in this thread will have any goddamn clue what they're talking about.

Found them!

I'm coming for a piece of your declared income!


O NOES!

NYMoogle

"The last time someone made a death threat against one of my staff, they missed him and hit me."

Also, one of my Senators proudly made that racist remark (about the macaca) out on the Virginia/Kentucky border. Then it turns out said kid didn't need to be welcomed to America since he was from lovely Fairfax county here in the great commonwealth of Virginia. Ahh, Sen. Allen.

/way too much fictional and real politics for a thread about. . .
//oh yeah, taxes bring out the politics.
///fair tax only realy works if poor people need to eat less than rich people.

HELO FARK

I LIKE PIE IF I GET A PIE DO I PAY THE TAX

THNK YOU

Bush has given more federal money to churches than he has to NASA.

Jesus wants rockets.

Government trying to tax damages paid by government for wrongs preformed by government slapped down by government. Ironic?

The sixteenth amendment should be repealed, replaced by a taxation of the states based on their own respective revenues. Also, how do you think the flag would look with sixty-four stars?

I saw some nutjob on a late-night infomercial once spouting off about how there's no law anywhere that actually REQUIRES U.S. Citizens to pay "Income Tax". He further went on to argue that money paid to you by your employer isn't really "income," per se, it's BARTER. You have agreed to a fair exchange of your time and skill to perform some task for a certain amount of money. Like RideAPaleHorse's "you fix my boat and I'll build you a deck" thing.

I bet that guy's in jail now.

I know what I'm talking about!
/Taxlawyer
//estate/gift taxes

untrustworthy: Thats why I love having kids, hell the IRS PAYS me money every year.

//Kids are a lot more expensive than what I get from the IRS for them.. But I still like to call em my little tax deduction.

However, I just heard on NPR, that if you are brown and driving with $124,000 in a cooler, the local sheriff can tax you at a rate of 100%.

MindStalker

No, loans are liabilities (For loanee) assets (For the loaner). When you pay the loans back you RETURN CAPITAL - not taxable. (capital is the money you got in the first place). The interest portion is the only thing that is a taxable event in that instance.

TakeOff
sorry, even your crack income is taxable.

/Tax evasion is a biatch, ask Al Capone
//probably have to use a medium, though

JC

merkinpeeble: the local sheriff can tax you at a rate of 100%.


You forgot the "assrape in jail" tax that usually comes along with that.

5 words: I like toast with jelly.

/I started reading that blog and almost slipped into a coma...

Ok... so lemme get this straight...

We pay taxes before we even get our paycheck

We pay taxes when we spend what's left after paying taxes the first time.

Then come April, we have to pay taxes again?

Sooooo... does that give me the right to tell the fat-arse cop that spends his evenings hanging around the convenience store flirting with the girls to "GET BACK TO WORK YA BUM... WE'RE NOT PAYING YOU TO PLAY GRAB ARSE WITH THE CLERKS!"

Starboard

Actually, the driver wasn't even charged with a crime...

TakeOff: Bush has given more federal money to churches than he has to NASA.

He must be quite generous when the collection basket comes around because that's the only time Bush can give to a church. Congress controls the fed govt. purse strings.

/Unavailable for comment

dogdaze Nothing will clean up our gov't quiker than the Fair Tax.

I would predict that this would be exactly the reason why it will never happen.

/not a comment on Fair Tax

I am not sure if anyone has pointed this out, but:


personal injury =/= bodily injury!



Two totally different types of injury.

Insurance agency owner/Risk manager

Casino winnings shouldn't be taxed? who wins....I should just get a receipt for donating to Indian Gaming, and take that off my taxes.

I definitely don't know what I'm talking about, but I did read somewhere that if everyone (above a certain minimum income) was required to pay a flat 10% with no deductions, that the government would collect much more income than it currently does.

Does anyone have facts on this concept? Especially with regards to not-so-obvious consequences of such a flat tax? Or am I completely misunderstanding this? Edumacate me!

since I had my left lung removed, I've cut my smoking in half!

KaponoFor3: That makes sense -- compensatory damages are, by definition, made to compensate someone for some sort of loss that, but for an injury, would not have occurred. In that sense, the compensatory damages are merely restoring the person harmed to their original position, and not acting as any sort of "accession to wealth" (quoting Glenshaw Glass)

But what if part of the compensatory damages are for potential income that was lost due to something like blacklisting? In that case, some of the compensatory award should be considered income, or in lieu of income.

dogdaze

I just read most of the FairTax FAQ. It seems like an incredibly reasonable idea. It'll probably never happen, but it's an incredibly reasonable idea. I'm going to go find a critique and see if there's any valid rebuttal.

/Is it a bad thing I can't tell if FairTax is coming from a Republican or Democrat?

MindStalker: Kids are a lot more expensive than what I get from the IRS for them.. But I still like to call em my little tax deduction.

Don't even get me started on that one. Damn kids cost all of us money and the parents get a deduction. *grumbles*

"compensate someone for some sort of loss"

Hmm..so if I work, I'm getting compensated for my time...why AM I paying taxes again?

The Great Gazoo

The part would be considered punitive damages, I believe, and be taxable.

/Not a lawyer
//but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express
JC

untrustworthy, lets not turn this into another breeder vs ice pirate flamewar.

sher323,

The taxes paid before you get your check are just advance payments toward what's due in April; it's not a different set of taxes.

Cops are usually paid with property taxes more than income or sales taxes. You do have the right to tell off the cop - that's political speech - but don't expect to get away with speeding by even one mile an hour, OR with "impeding the flow of traffic" by doing the speed limit when everyone else is doing ten over - for a while after you do.

Fair tax will never happen. We would need to have a full-on revolution and disolve the current government to make such a thing happen.

Old laws aren't just wiped away like words on a black board, they have to be amended and that just adds more lanuage and more loopholes. That is why the taxcode is a pain in the butt. Government bodies don't act like the private sector. They are limited to what they can or will do by the statutes that state precisely what they can do.

the opposite of charity is justice: untrustworthy, lets not turn this into another breeder vs ice pirate flamewar.

Then how am I supposed to have any fun?

Psst. "The Money Masters"

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=the+money+masters

Nothing will clean our government up than abolishing The Federal Reserve Bank...

seriously people, watch this movie! you'll never be the same.

Flat Tax already! The stripped down bureaucracy and no shelters or loopholes for the rich would bring in more money.
The IRS wants to now hand over debt collection to private collection agencies. What a nightmare.

That judge is gonna get audited every year for the rest of his life. 8(

I hope everyone here who advocates the "Fair" tax is paying taxes in the highest tax bracket. Because then at least you can be called greedy instead of stupid.

Ghost of Christmas Presents

I just read most of the FairTax FAQ. It seems like an incredibly reasonable idea.

But what about the fact that the cost of things varies greatly by geographic location? Esp that those below the poverty line often pay far more for goods and services than those above? What's to stop people from creating barter networks to evade the tax? What about people who pay cash and therefore don't get charged tax by dishonest shopkeepers? Most importantly, this dumbed-down FAQ says:

"Wealthy people spend more money than other individuals. They buy expensive cars, big houses, and yachts. They buy filet mignon instead of hamburger, fine wine instead of beer, designer dresses, and expensive jewelry."

but what it does not say is that wealthy people actually spend a far smaller PERCENTAGE of their total income on goods like this than middle class or working class people do.

>>>stpickrell>>>

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson

"The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity." - Abraham Lincoln

Few years after Woodrow Wilson signed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, he wrote:

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

/we need to do SOMETHING

Erin_Go_Braghless: ///fair tax only realy works if poor people need to eat less than rich people.

Let's put it this way: I make 1/10 of what my parents make. I shop at the cheap supermarket and cook my own meals. My wife and I rarely eat out. My parents shop at the boutique markets and eat out often. They probably spend 10x what I do on food.

Granted, I know little about the fair tax and it's weaknesses, but I fail to see how taxation based on consumption disproportionately hurts the poor.

/But I'm educable, if your spelling and grammar are up to par.

untrustworthy, lets not turn this into another breeder vs ice pirate flamewar.

I'm sorry...ice pirate???

Credit Cards = TJ & AL rolling in their graves...

EconAtheist:
I steal pocket change from convalescing veterans' clothing.

Is that taxable income?

Yes. The IRS doesn't care if your income was legally obtained or not, they will tax it.

Capone, Lansky, etc, all went down for tax evasion. They didn't pay taxes on their illegal income, after all.

sher3623

Ok... so lemme get this straight...

The company I work for withholds estimated taxes from my paycheck to send off to the government

We pay taxes on goods purchased from what's left of my paycheck after my tax withholdings are taken out.

Then come April, if I owe taxes above and beyond what was already withheld from my paycheck, I have to pay that difference to the government. If the governemnt withheld too much from my paycheck, then I get a refund check for the differnece.

There straightened that out for you.

You only pay taxes when you buy goods in the form of a sales tax, and in April when you owe taxes on assets and income. You can elect to have your company not withhold anything from your paycheck (except for SS and FICA I believe), but you will have nothing to offset what is due come April.

Hercynium -

2006-08-22 05:20:45 PM

How long until the IRS adds a Sgt. STAR-esque chat robot to irs.gov?

"Hero" tag on vacation?

artman
(1) If "the people" had the power to issue money, then I would like to mint myself a million dollars. I am surprised Jefferson did not recall the ruinous inflation of the Continental Dollar and the French Revolution's fiat scheme (where death was the penalty for accepting payment other than Republic money.)

(2) Are you trusting the same Congress that runs $300 billion+ deficits to have the power to create money? While, in theory, Congress adding 5-20% to the money supply per year and using its taxation power as an inflation-fighting tool might work, I suspect we would see the same thing that happened with the Continental Dollar (i.e. ruinous inflation.)

(3) Is Wilson seriously arguing that the period 1883-1913 was NOT an era where "a small group of dominant men" was not making the de facto decisions? In this case, Mark Hanna, Tamanny Hall, JP Morgan, Andrew Carnegie and others might beg to differ.

We must avoid slavishly following the ideas of our founding fathers. Otherwise, I suspect American history by 4000 AD will have George Washington being President for 87 years and teaching us the sacred arts of the alphabet and agriculture before being assumed into Heaven, and the Martyrdom of Abraham Lincoln being a major religious festival.

Yay! I will now use this limited decision to take the position that taxes are unconstitutional on my federal income tax returns and end up living in a van by the river. Then I will get rich telling others to do the same by holding seminars at local comfort inns, and then lose the money by continuing to misread legal decisions.