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White House Tax Plan Would Ask More of Millionaires

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I happen to think he has a valid point that past higher tax rates did not remove the incentives for folks to get rich and make money.

I'd like to see one instance of somebody saying "Gee, being rich would be nice, but the taxes make me want to stay poor." Who says this? I'd think a higher income is enough incentive if that's what you're after.
 
How many social problems have been solved by the 14.6 TRILLION debt the govt. has generated? You think that govt. compassion is about how much money can be spent or actual results generated? Actual results generated means no longer needing govt. services.

I don't care who controls most of the wealth, why do you? You don't seem to know or care what they do with their money and that is sad. You stereotype every rich person by the ILLEGAL actions of a few and that doesn't give you a lot of credibility. Until you know how much the rich give to charities your speculation is just that, speculation.

I care for a very simple reason.

There has never been, and never will be, a poor tyrant.

And the primary activity of tyrants that negatively impacts those they tyrannize is the accumulation of wealth and power.

Tyrants force people to work for them. In the form of rents or taxes.

They may just want to tell others what to do, but it costs MONEY to satisfy that desire, in the form of wages to men with weapons and their overseers.

You know, that magic formula that keeps showing up where 1-2% lead another 15-20% to exploit the other 80%.

Everywhere that it sucks for most to live follows this model.

I will not apologize for objecting to this country conforming to this model.

Nor will I miss an opportunity to point this out.
 
As I've previously shown, your chart did not include the effective tax rates, nor did it address the cuts that have been made since in investment returns and Estate taxes.

If you feel that taxes for the rich were lower in the 50's and 60's, I guess that would mean you would have no problem returning to those rates, is that correct?
Top Earners Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says
By Ryan J. Donmoyer - Feb 18, 2010
Top Earners Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says (Update1) - Bloomberg
The 400 highest-earning U.S. households reported an average of $345 million in income in 2007, up 31% from a year earlier, IRS statistics show.

The average tax Rate for the households fell to the Lowest in almost 20 years.


The figures for 2007, the last year of an economic expansion, show that the average income reported by the top 400 earners more than doubled from $131.1 million in 2001. That year, Congress adopted tax cuts urged by then-President George W. Bush that Democrats say disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

Each household in the top 400 of earners paid an average tax rate of 16.6%, the Lowest since the agency began tracking the data in 1992,
the Internal Revenue Service statistics show. The top 400 paid $23 billion in taxes in 2007, up from $18 billion a year earlier, and a bigger amount than any year since 1992.

Their average effective tax rate was about Half the 29.4% in 1993,
the first year of President Bill Clinton’s administration, when taxes were increased. The top 400 earners reported an average of $46 million of income that year.

Income ‘Exploded’

The statistics underscore “two long-term trends: that income at the very top has Exploded and their taxes have been Cut dramatically,” said Chuck Marr, director of federal tax policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based research group that supports increasing taxes on high-income individuals....
 
I care for a very simple reason.

There has never been, and never will be, a poor tyrant.

And the primary activity of tyrants that negatively impacts those they tyrannize is the accumulation of wealth and power.

Tyrants force people to work for them. In the form of rents or taxes.

They may just want to tell others what to do, but it costs MONEY to satisfy that desire, in the form of wages to men with weapons and their overseers.

You know, that magic formula that keeps showing up where 1-2% lead another 15-20% to exploit the other 80%.

Everywhere that it sucks for most to live follows this model.

I will not apologize for objecting to this country conforming to this model.

Nor will I miss an opportunity to point this out.

Who are the American tyrants?

Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? Soros? The late Steve Jobs?

Can you get more specific?
 
Because Wall Street isn't a scam even though there are some scammers on Wall Street. We have laws to protect investors, so enforce the laws and stop blaming everyone else. Nothing forces you to invest in Wall Street and if you do no one forces you to buy a particular investment so stop blaming everyone else for your failure and everyone else's that you want to blame Wall Street for. Where does personal responsibility lie in your world? If not capitalism, what?

Sorry but your daughter is an idiot because I doubt that she even knows what she is protesting. Instead of wasting her time there do some good and give all her money away so stop with the BS. What purpose does the protest do and just think how that protest is going to look on their resume.

Just exactly what the **** do you mean by that last sentence?
 
Buffett's Obama-fellation is worthless

first of all the group he whines about is less than 1000 people

"Deloitte in 2011 estimated that there were 10,541,0000 US dollar millionaires in the United States."

Millionaire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



secondly it deals with marginal next dollar rather than actual effective tax rates

Wrong again, what Obama seeks to change is the effective tax rates:

"Behind the arguments of Mr. Obama, Mr. Buffett and others about the inequity of the tax system is the difference between taxpayers’ marginal tax rate, popularly known as their tax bracket, and the effective tax rate they end up paying after subtracting for deductions, credits and other breaks.

The marginal tax rate is the percentage paid on the last dollar a person earns. The current system has six marginal tax rate percentages — 10, 15, 25, 28, 33 and 35 — and each applies to a progressively higher amount of income. In theory, a wealthy filer pays the lower rates on income within each bracket, but the bulk of their income is taxed at the top 35 percent rate. Middle-class taxpayers generally pay marginal rates of 15 percent or 25 percent.

But investors like Mr. Buffett pay no more than 15 percent on most of their income because that rate applies to capital gains, dividends and “carried interest,” which is the compensation paid to hedge fund partners and investment managers like Mr. Buffett.

Another reason many wealthy Americans pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes is that the Social Security payroll tax does not apply to income above $106,800; most people do not reach the cutoff and pay the tax on all their income.

Counting income and payroll taxes, Mr. Buffett has said he paid an effective tax rate of 17.4 percent for 2010 compared with an average 36 percent rate for many employees of his company, Berkshire Hathaway."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/us/politics/obama-tax-plan-would-ask-more-of-millionaires.html?pagewanted=all


third to pay an effective rate of 18% you are making far more than what secretaries get paid

Yeah, that's the point, those making more that are paying a lesser percentage of their total income in taxes.

fourth, it ignores actual dollars paid

Yes, investment income is taxed at a lower rate. The proposal is to increase the amount taxed on investments so that the rich are not paying a lower tax rate than the middle class.

fifth, Even Buffett rejects the "Buffett plan"

Wrong again, you are distorting the interview that notion originated from. As Buffett said, he wrote the tax plan. He does reserve the right however to see how Congress might rewrite his proposal.


In summary, it is very impressive how you number your points, all of which proved untrue unfortunately. But please do try, try again.
 
Why would you call me names simply because I like something in a post? I happen to think he has a valid point that past higher tax rates did not remove the incentives for folks to get rich and make money. Who can argue with the historical record? Why is that something that makes me a coward?

Because he responded to something I posted in response to you and also because you know that I was not referring to tax rates as per the income tax. You seem to have run away from the position you took regarding allowing people who have accumulated assets to pass them along to their children.

The other person whoever/whatever he is, I am less interested in as it just likes to argue for the sake of arguing but seems to have little grasp.
 
As to Catawba, I have no idea where you are coming from so any further response would be meaningless.

I was responding to your earlier claim:

Take away that motivation and you take a lot of energy out of the American spirit.

I pointed out that taxes were much higher in our past for the wealthy and yet it did not reduce the motivation or the energy of American spirit. We in fact had the strongest middle class in our history.
 
Can we assume that spending would remain the same as in the 50's and 60's as well?

Taxes were both higher for the rich and spending was lower. If we wish to reduce our debt, that is what we will have to get closer to.
 
I was responding to your earlier claim:



I pointed out that taxes were much higher in our past for the wealthy and yet it did not reduce the motivation or the energy of American spirit. We in fact had the strongest middle class in our history.

Not sure why I keep this up but once again I am not talking about current tax RATES. I am talking about the ability to accumulate wealth and transfer that to our children if that is what we want to do.

I also think it is too simplistic to talk about talk about tax rates and growth rates decades past. There are all sorts of things that impact the growth in the economy, tax rates being only one of them. So to point to something like a different marginal tax rate 50 years ago and point to a different result in out overall economy is not worthy of debate.
 
Who are the American tyrants?

Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? Soros? The late Steve Jobs?

Can you get more specific?

Merely a clarification as to why wealth concentration disturbs some people.

A counter to the meme that nothing bad can come of overconcentration of wealth.

Many speak of tyranny. Few speak of the nuts and bolts of tyranny. Particularly those who often speak of tyranny.

If I was an aspiring tyrant, that's what I would do.
 
Tell me what purpose it serves to have your daughter protesting Wall Street instead of doing her job taking care of the sick and truly helping the poor.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

Do you recognize the 1st Amendment? She has every right and a responsibility to stand up for what she believes in even if I did not agree with her and even if you do not agree with her, I under stand why some would be concerned with the occupy wall street movement, I understand why the rich, why Wall Street, why bankers and many others including the Chinese would be concerned.

When our involvement in Viet Nam was starting I went I did not have to I asked to, why? the protests were going on and I wanted to know why we were there, I never challenged the protestors right to demonstrate against the war, I did not like it much that people going to college were able to avoid their duty to country I mean the colleges would be there when and if they came back, the fact that many rich kids could avoid duty to country is just one reason I think the rich should pick up more of the tax burden, worst then that was rich kids sat at home while the children of the poor died fighting for their country.

I will bet that the rich are really concerned about the demonstrations and should be
 
Because he responded to something I posted in response to you and also because you know that I was not referring to tax rates as per the income tax. You seem to have run away from the position you took regarding allowing people who have accumulated assets to pass them along to their children.

The other person whoever/whatever he is, I am less interested in as it just likes to argue for the sake of arguing but seems to have little grasp.

I am sorry if my thoughts offended you. Another poster mentioned that the higher tax rates on the wealthy did not and would not discourage people from making money. I think that is correct.

Perhaps I am old and feeble and can not keep track of who is posting to you who posted in reply to someone else and had so and so in mind when they posted to you. I deeply apologize to you if I slighted you or your argument.
 
Not sure why I keep this up but once again I am not talking about current tax RATES. I am talking about the ability to accumulate wealth and transfer that to our children if that is what we want to do.

Estate taxes are just another of the taxes cut since we began the 30 year experiment with trickle down economics. The Estate tax, before it was cut, did not end motivation for people to do well. There is absolutely no evidence of that claim. One of the problems resulting from that cut, in addition to lowering revenues needed to help prevent debt, is that it concentrates wealth in fewer hands so that our economy loses the consumer base with money to consume that is needed to make our economy tick. We should have learned this before, after the Great Depression, but as with all those who refuse to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.



I also think it is too simplistic to talk about talk about tax rates and growth rates decades past. There are all sorts of things that impact the growth in the economy, tax rates being only one of them. So to point to something like a different marginal tax rate 50 years ago and point to a different result in out overall economy is not worthy of debate.

History has much to teach us in avoiding mistakes already made. We saw how the combination a high disparity of wealth between the classes combined with unregulated speculation led to the Great Depression. And from history we see there is no indication that raising taxes on the wealthy, each time it has been done, has either hurt the economy or increased our debt.
 
Some extremely wealthy Americans - led by Andrew Carnegie back in the days of the gilded age robber barons - have enthusiastically endorsed estate and inheritance taxes. They do NOT prevent people from passing wealth onto their children. That is still done. They simply have to pay a reasonable tax on that action.
 
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So the banks writing loans that they knew people couldn't afford wasn't their responsibility? Where is the bank's responsibility in all this? Was someone forcing them to do this?

Writing a loan is one thing, signing on the dotted line is another. To blame the banks solely is ridiculous. Banks got their money by bundling the loans and selling them to Freddie and Fannie, both govt. agencies.
 
Great it is noted that you would prefer the tax rates on total income of the 50's and 60's. We will see what we can do to get them back up to that point for you!

I didn't expect you to understand the post. Amazing to me how you have so much passion for more money going to the Federal Govt. I am sure the govt. gets that extra check from you each year, right?
 
Earlier you blamed the Republican repeal of Glass Steagall Act on Clinton, because he signed it into law. Since you felt Clinton was to blame this would indicate that you have the realization that it was a bad thing, no?

Just tired of the blame Bush crowd which you seem part of.
 
I'd like to see one instance of somebody saying "Gee, being rich would be nice, but the taxes make me want to stay poor." Who says this? I'd think a higher income is enough incentive if that's what you're after.

many of the rich haters miss the point

the point is-a system where only the rich are expected to pay more and more tax is one which encourages all the other citizens to demand more and more goodies because they are never given the proper feedback or charged enough for those goodies to dis-incentize their cravings for more government spending.
 
Top Earners Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says
By Ryan J. Donmoyer - Feb 18, 2010
Top Earners Averaged $345 Million in 2007, IRS Says (Update1) - Bloomberg


Your schtick is to blather on and on about the top 400. WHEN AND IF SOMEONE IN THE OBUMBLE ADMINISTRATION actually limits their soak the rich class warfare crap to the TOP 400 then maybe all this nonsense about the top 400 would actually matter.

what is really disgusting is using what the top 400 have or do or pay in taxes to justify jacking up taxes on those making a couple million to a few hundred thousand.
 
I care for a very simple reason.

There has never been, and never will be, a poor tyrant.

And the primary activity of tyrants that negatively impacts those they tyrannize is the accumulation of wealth and power.

Tyrants force people to work for them. In the form of rents or taxes.

They may just want to tell others what to do, but it costs MONEY to satisfy that desire, in the form of wages to men with weapons and their overseers.

You know, that magic formula that keeps showing up where 1-2% lead another 15-20% to exploit the other 80%.

Everywhere that it sucks for most to live follows this model.

I will not apologize for objecting to this country conforming to this model.

Nor will I miss an opportunity to point this out.

Good Lord, Man, you are in the wrong country, no one forces you to work for a tyrant, no one put a gun to your head to work for anyone. I was looking for a job when I found the job I had for 35 years and earned every dime I made. Tell me why you think it is your right to tell me what I should do with the money I earn and where I should spend it? Explain to me how spending in the name of compassion that has never generated compassionate results is better use of taxpayer dollars vs. giving that money directly to the poor.

Forgive me but I will file this post of yours where it belongs, in the circular file beneath my desk. It really is sad to see people like you having the attitude you have. That entitlement mentality that you seem to have will certainly be successful for you in the future.
 
"Deloitte in 2011 estimated that there were 10,541,0000 US dollar millionaires in the United States."

Millionaire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia





Wrong again, what Obama seeks to change is the effective tax rates:

"Behind the arguments of Mr. Obama, Mr. Buffett and others about the inequity of the tax system is the difference between taxpayers’ marginal tax rate, popularly known as their tax bracket, and the effective tax rate they end up paying after subtracting for deductions, credits and other breaks.

The marginal tax rate is the percentage paid on the last dollar a person earns. The current system has six marginal tax rate percentages — 10, 15, 25, 28, 33 and 35 — and each applies to a progressively higher amount of income. In theory, a wealthy filer pays the lower rates on income within each bracket, but the bulk of their income is taxed at the top 35 percent rate. Middle-class taxpayers generally pay marginal rates of 15 percent or 25 percent.

But investors like Mr. Buffett pay no more than 15 percent on most of their income because that rate applies to capital gains, dividends and “carried interest,” which is the compensation paid to hedge fund partners and investment managers like Mr. Buffett.

Another reason many wealthy Americans pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes is that the Social Security payroll tax does not apply to income above $106,800; most people do not reach the cutoff and pay the tax on all their income.

Counting income and payroll taxes, Mr. Buffett has said he paid an effective tax rate of 17.4 percent for 2010 compared with an average 36 percent rate for many employees of his company, Berkshire Hathaway."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/us/politics/obama-tax-plan-would-ask-more-of-millionaires.html?pagewanted=all




Yeah, that's the point, those making more that are paying a lesser percentage of their total income in taxes.



Yes, investment income is taxed at a lower rate. The proposal is to increase the amount taxed on investments so that the rich are not paying a lower tax rate than the middle class.



Wrong again, you are distorting the interview that notion originated from. As Buffett said, he wrote the tax plan. He does reserve the right however to see how Congress might rewrite his proposal.


In summary, it is very impressive how you number your points, all of which proved untrue unfortunately. But please do try, try again.

NO ONE PAYS AN EFFECTIVE INCOME RATE OF 36% IN THE USA Given that 35% is the highest marginal rate. If you count all federal taxes maybe the top payers are close to that but its not the middle class. we posted the stuff and the top effective federal rate is around 30% and that is those in the several hundred thousand to a few million

NOT THE MIDDLE CLASS
 
Good Lord, Man, you are in the wrong country, no one forces you to work for a tyrant, no one put a gun to your head to work for anyone. I was looking for a job when I found the job I had for 35 years and earned every dime I made.

and there goes all logic and reason.
 
Estate taxes are just another of the taxes cut since we began the 30 year experiment with trickle down economics. The Estate tax, before it was cut, did not end motivation for people to do well. There is absolutely no evidence of that claim. One of the problems resulting from that cut, in addition to lowering revenues needed to help prevent debt, is that it concentrates wealth in fewer hands so that our economy loses the consumer base with money to consume that is needed to make our economy tick. We should have learned this before, after the Great Depression, but as with all those who refuse to learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.





History has much to teach us in avoiding mistakes already made. We saw how the combination a high disparity of wealth between the classes combined with unregulated speculation led to the Great Depression. And from history we see there is no indication that raising taxes on the wealthy, each time it has been done, has either hurt the economy or increased our debt.

History shows that if you subsidize dependence, sloth, and parasitic behaviour you increase it which is what the dems want since that corresponds to increased dem voters
 
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