Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbie
So you're saying there are no tax shelter offshore countries? So all that talk about Mitt Romney having money there is bullshit? And you're trying to tell me that I can't set up shadow corporations in other countries with a "partner" who lives there and move my money there? Dude...you have NO idea how many ways a good accountant can help you keep your money out of the Federal Govt.'s greedy wasteful hands.
|
That is an enforcement issue, not a policy issue. Tax rates are set as a matter of policy, when people try to find LEGAL ways around them they can be adjusted to close loopholes and fix oversights. When people look for an ILLEGAL way to avoid taxes that isn't a reason to change policy, that's an enforcement issue for the IRS to deal with and there are plenty of very stiff penalties, criminal law tools and other remedies available for the IRS to use in that pursuit.
I have a much better understanding of tax law than you seem to think I have... Confusing an enforcement issue with a policy issue doesn't help you. If as a matter of policy we taxed capital gains at the same rate as income, investment would not suffer a single penny. The IRS is fully capable of enforcing policy.
You started by saying we need low cap gains rates to spur investment, that is not true as a matter of policy. Now you are saying people will cheat... stopping tax cheats is not a policy issue, it is an enforcement issue. People can pay nothing right now and they have less than 1% chance of getting caught. Getting caught and serving serious jail time will continue to be an excellent enforcement tool.
Quote:
|
As for grandma...No, she wouldn't pay "more" if she paid capital gains tax (which she does by the way).
|
That depends on the grandma. If grandma earns 20M from investment income she will end up paying 30% rather than 15%... but the grandma making 20M from investments and the grandma subsisting on 25K per year are not in the same boat financially.
Quote:
|
Also I was looking at Romney and Obama's tax plans. Obama is going to raise all capital gains tax. Romney has proposed leaving it at current rates for the rich and dropping it to ZERO for people like you, me, and grandma. I like Romney's plan on capital gains better than Obama's.
|
Tax free investment is an attempt at getting the same clueless people who just got roasted by the low rate mortgage market to throw their money into the stock market where they can get busted out again by after hours trades and exchange insiders. They aren't doing society a favor by giving incentives for uneducated people to put more of their money in a rigged market. That's like saying "I will give you 15 extra dollars for every 100 you gamble at my casino... but I will also be using marked cards and loaded dice to rig the games." Did I do you any favors by giving you 15 'free dollars' that way?
At the same time 'leaving rates the same for people like Romney' means 'keeping rates 1/2 of what people who work for their income pay on identical amounts instead of counting income as income whether it comes from work or investment.' He is not doing society any favors.
Quote:
|
But I personally think it should be ZERO across the board to further bring businesses BACK to the U.S. instead of driving them away. We aren't getting any tax money from big corporations anyway because of having one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. (General Electric paid ZERO taxes) But if we stopped forcing companies to figure out ways to scam the system...and instead made it profitable to keep money and jobs in the U.S. then we would expand out tax base and job growth.
|
GE is not paying 0 taxes because capital gains rates are 15%, they are paying zero because they WRITE the tax code. Companies like GE do not try to find creative ways to 'hide income' - they know what their income will be from and they lobby to have exclusions written into the code to avoid having them taxed.
Publicly funded elections, no lobbying dollars, overturn citizens united, break up media consolidation, term limits.... that is what will fix things. A few points changed on this one tax or another is like trying to patch a hole in a condom with bubble gum... it may look 'fixed' but do you really want to rely on that?
