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Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income

Centinel said:
And that rate is lower than what a mechanic would pay on his LTCG?
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Typically working class people don't have LTCG, so it's a moot point.
 
AdamT said:
Typically working class people don't have LTCG, so it's a moot point.
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But if they did have any capital gains, would their tax rate on LTCG be higher than what the millionaire pays on his LTCG?
 
Centinel said:
But if they did have any capital gains, would their tax rate on LTCG be higher than what the millionaire pays on his LTCG?
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No, but it's a moot point, because they don't. It's like saying that it would be fair if taxes on Bentleys and Aston Martin's were half the rate of taxes on Hyundais and Kias, because nothing's stopping middle class people from buying Bentleys and Aston Martins.
 
AdamT said:
No, but it's a moot point, because they don't. It's like saying that it would be fair if taxes on Bentleys and Aston Martin's were half the rate of taxes on Hyundais and Kias, because nothing's stopping middle class people from buying Bentleys and Aston Martins.
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No, it's not like that at all. There's nothing stopping middle class people from buying a few shares of stock or a handful of Mercury dimes. And they would pay no higher rate on their LTCG than the millionaire would on his LTCG.
 
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AdamT said:
Yeah. So?
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So your analogy is inaccurate. LTCG tax is a tax on any investment, no matter what the price. If a middle class worker invests in some junk silver, he will pay no higher rate on his LTCG than the millionaire would on his LTCG.
 
Centinel said:
So your analogy is inaccurate. LTCG tax is a tax on any investment, no matter what the price. If a middle class worker invests in some junk silver, he will pay no higher rate on his LTCG than the millionaire would on his LTCG.
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It's a distinction without a difference. Let's say a middle class person can also get a tax break by buying a Bentley floor mat. The point is that the break on LTCG, for all intents and purposes, only benefits the wealthy.
 
haymarket said:
I do not want you to pay any higher rate than anyone else in your income bracket. Why would you think that?
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that is not an honest claim and misrepresents what I have said

I should keep exactly the same amount of my next dollar as you or anyone else
 
AdamT said:
It's a distinction without a difference. Let's say a middle class person can also get a tax break by buying a Bentley floor mat. The point is that the break on LTCG, for all intents and purposes, only benefits the wealthy.
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No, it benefits anyone who makes a LTCG. Anyone, rich or poor can make an investment.
 
Centinel said:
No, it benefits anyone who makes a LTCG. Anyone, rich or poor can make an investment.
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and that is the issue

the attacks are based on who derives benefits rather than the legitimacy of the benefit

In other words envy towards the rich
 
Centinel said:
No, it benefits anyone who makes a LTCG. Anyone, rich or poor can make an investment.
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Yes, I think we've also established that, and we've also established that, IN REALITY, it is only the wealthy who have enough disposable income to earn significant income from capital gains.
 
TurtleDude said:
and that is the issue

the attacks are based on who derives benefits rather than the legitimacy of the benefit

In other words envy towards the rich
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A) it's not an "attack", and B) the point is simply that the tax primarily benefits the wealthy. If you can't even admit that bog-obvious fact then it's pretty hard to have a discussion about it.
 
AdamT said:
Yes, I think we've also established that, and we've also established that, IN REALITY, it is only the wealthy who have enough disposable income to earn significant income from capital gains.
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so amount should determine whether LTCG should be treated differently? It all comes down to class envy. no one has come close to demonstrating a SOUND economic reason for treating LTCG the same as STCG
 
AdamT said:
A) it's not an "attack", and B) the point is simply that the tax primarily benefits the wealthy. If you can't even admit that bog-obvious fact then it's pretty hard to have a discussion about it.
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that has absolutely no relevance to the reasons why LTCG are taxed differently nor should it
 
AdamT said:
Yes, I think we've also established that, and we've also established that, IN REALITY, it is only the wealthy who have enough disposable income to earn significant income from capital gains.
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Whether a person's LTCG is large or small doesn't matter. The tax on capital gains is percentage based. If one earns a couple bucks from investing in some junk silver, or if one earns a million dollars from investing in equities, the tax on each dollar earned should be the same. Otherwise, it's just not fair.
 
TurtleDude said:
buying the votes of the many with the coins of the few
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Nothing about what you say about buying votes makes sense. The fact of the matter is, is yes indeed lower income people by percentage did vote for Obama over McCain last election:

income.jpg

However, many of those people are younger anyways and tend to skew towards the democratic party anyways, and a good portion likely still live with their family and/or are in college. In reality the vast majority of voters have had some college or graduated and make $40,000+ a year ie lower middle class and up so what is those that voted for Obama over McCain making $200k or more getting out of it other than him backing down on letting the Bush tax cuts expire for them?
 
So Obama is appealing to whom by whining that the rich don't pay their fair share?
 
TurtleDude said:
that has absolutely no relevance to the reasons why LTCG are taxed differently nor should it
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Of course it's relevant to the reasons LTCG are taxed differently. The wealthy pay good money to secure tax advantages, and this is certainly one of them.
 
TurtleDude said:
So Obama is appealing to whom by whining that the rich don't pay their fair share?
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I'm not sure I am asking you. If rich knew that their taxes were to go up, then why would they have voted for him over McCain? Maybe he bought their votes too? When this next election comes up, and the results are similar between Obama and Romney are you going to blame the "millions" of poor people working at McDonald's then too? Fact of the matter is the poor, or people that would take great advantage of social programs make up roughly 18 to 37% (I suppose depending on the area you live in what could be classified to qualify for these programs) of last elections votes and not all of them voted for Obama some actually voted for McCain.

That brings me to the point of my original post, could someone explain what the census qualifies as poor or low-income?
 
AdamT said:
Of course it's relevant to the reasons LTCG are taxed differently. The wealthy pay good money to secure tax advantages, and this is certainly one of them.
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Yeah we have big tax advantages-that's why us in the top one percent earn 22% of the total income yet PAY 40% of the income tax. we pay more income taxes than 90% of the country and we sure don't use more government BENEFITS than those 90%

Seems to me if we had all the power you claim, we'd be paying between one and 22 percent of the income tax (one being our share of government services, the other being our share of the income)
 
TurtleDude said:
Yeah we have big tax advantages-that's why us in the top one percent earn 22% of the total income yet PAY 40% of the income tax. we pay more income taxes than 90% of the country and we sure don't use more government BENEFITS than those 90%

Seems to me if we had all the power you claim, we'd be paying between one and 22 percent of the income tax (one being our share of government services, the other being our share of the income)
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That's the effect of the rich getting richer. Even though they're paying at a lower rate, they're paying more over all because ... THEY HAVE ALL THE MONEY! :lol:

In constant dollars, in 1974 the average income of the top .1% was about $1 million dollars. In 2007, it was about $7 million. So of course if you're seven times richer you're going to pay more in taxes, even if your tax rate is half what it was before. But you're going to have that much more left over. The rich whining about paying so much in taxes is like someone whining because his suitcase of gold bullion is soooo heavy. Boo hoo.
 
Alright I read an actual decent article on it and poor is considered under $45k for a family of four which yeah that would be pushing it in quite a few places so that is a bit crazy. What is even more interesting is the bottom earners on average make less than they did back in the 70s while the top earners make more.

Also while it is true that the rich may pay more in federal income taxes they do not in payroll, state, or local taxes in fact by a percentage of income when combining all of these in most cases someone making $60,000 a year will pay more than someone making $200,000 a year. This is of course not considering any tax advantages either person can benefit from but if a person makes $200k a year in many cases we can assume that person is able to invest money more freely and therefore gets more tax advantages through that.

Let's use something else as an example. Say a person making $20k gets all of their federal back at the end of the year. That person will inject that money back into the economy therefore, pays sales tax, as well as helps create jobs. This person also will not get their payroll tax back, most cases local, and in most cases will only get a portion of state back. These people also typically use up less resources as a whole than the rich do.
 
AdamT said:
Yes, I think we've also established that, and we've also established that, IN REALITY, it is only the wealthy who have enough disposable income to earn significant income from capital gains.
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You'll never convince the extreme far right that shill for the rich that the majority of the country has caught on to their investment income shell game, until November that is.
 
haymarket said:
So make us understand Turtle. Give us some logical and good reasons why the United States of America should have as its tax policy for all Americans, a preferential rate for long term capital gains that is different that the income tax on normal wages and salary.
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I can think of a couple of reasons offhand.

1. the money is already taxed at a nominal 35% rate.
2. we want capital to flow into America as opposed to out of it.
3. capital is incredibly fungible and
4. the rest of the modernized world has been undercutting us because they want capital to flow in from us.

it's not a matter of wanting to favor one set of people over another. it's a matter of wishing to favor America over other nations, and wishing for America to grow.
 
TurtleDude said:
that is not an honest claim and misrepresents what I have said

I should keep exactly the same amount of my next dollar as you or anyone else
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How is it not an honest claim for me to say I do not want you to pay any higher rate than anyone else in your income bracket?
 
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