36 replies to this topic

[...]

Over 90% of the GDP growth since Obama was captured by the top 1%.

Piketty and Saez?

You can't be serious.

Their 2003 study is rubbish. It was based on IRS tax numbers that ignore (by their very nature) so many things it's not even funny.

For instance, many hundreds of billions in income to the lower quintiles for stuff like food stamps and Section 8 housing subsidies, etc., etc., etc. ad nauseam that don't show up on any tax return. Nor do most Social Security benefits. That's more hundreds of billions.

For another instance, reported income is drastically affected by tax shifting due to income tax law changes. I won't bore you with 25 paragraphs of detail, but their "study" was purely politically motivated junk. Sort of like the one economist in 100 who will try to convince you with some equally bogus "study" that increasing the minimum wage doesn't harm job prospects or actual employment for entry-level employees.

Try this for a dose of reality and some facts: http://www.cato.org/...tary/top-1-what

The Huffington baloney is nothing but an extrapolation of the Piketty/Saez junk. Garbage in, garbage out. BTW, both of them are self-admitted socialists. Does that surprise you? It probably surprises most Huffington readers.

Guess what else? There has been very little if any change in income distribution over the last 30 years. Income inequality is about the same as it's always been and always will be. That is has significantly changed is propaganda concocted out of whole cloth to be served up to a gullible electorate for purposes of inciting class envy.

The richest 1% made 4 times more money in 2013 to eradicate the WORLDWIDE poverty completely.
Tax them at 90%.

Really?

IRS data says that there were 145,579,530 returns filed for 2011. AGI of 500K or more was reported on 879,476 returns, the top .6% of all returns filed.

Total taxable income on those returns? 1.078 trillion. Total income tax paid on those returns? 305.1 billion. That's about 28.3%. A 90% tax rate (assuming incorrectly that it would ever be collected) would have resulted in another 665 billion in taxes.

Which is about 100 bucks per head for the rest of the world. That's not gonna do it. Never mind that it would never be collected if the entire rest of the world was a tax haven. Adding in the other top .4% ain't gonna do it either.

http://www.irs.gov/f...soi/histab3.xls

You're oh-for-2.

BTW, income tax rates here were once over 90%. Nobody paid them, there were tons of ways to avoid doing so. Want to raise marginal rates back up to 90%?

Watch people, or at least their investments leave in droves. See France, and they only want 75% over a mill. Those and their money who are still here will exert less effort. Incentives matter. Period. No matter what.

The proof of that proposition is that we've collected about 20% in income taxes on personal income, give or take no matter what the highest rate was. You can look it up. It's a fact. Reduce rates, you collect more than you thought you would. Increase rates, you collect less than you thought you would.

Money goes and stays only where it is treated well, or at least isn't harassed incessantly. We would be well advised to pay attention to that fact and ignore political hacks like Reich and everyone else peddling similar tripe.

[arbman]

Tax them at 90% and see how they reinvest all that money through their corporations to avoid paying their income taxes, it will create more jobs than any incentives the govt can come up with. The multiplier effect of the debt is disappearing while the mountain of debt is accumulating. I disagree with most of your stats. If the taxes had been raised, the govt spending must then actually reduce because the govt would not be collecting as much taxes. You said it.

[...]

So, you disagree with facts? I give up. I can't argue with gibberish.

[James Quillian]

Lets back up. What is it exactly that you are claiming is a fact? I read all of your posts and simply don't see anything that would qualify as a fact. Some of the stats you site might be accurate but I can't see any connection between those and the conclusions you are trying to draw.

So, you disagree with facts?

I give up. I can't argue with gibberish.

Edited by James Quillian, 03 January 2014 - 01:16 PM.

[AChartist]

One crux of the matter is, tax on labor is illegal. I have seen the US code and the subsequent ignored SCOTUS ruling on it in early 1900's.

The tax law, US code to this date states that only foreign income, income of non-resident aliens, and passive gains is taxable.
Some argue that the Code may allow all business income but the individual labor is never taxable.
The bottom line is only gains are taxable, US Code.

Labor is not taxable. Labor is an equal exchange of labor for money there is not gain, nothing taxable.
Dont quote all this it is a gist of what I read a while ago. Basically a passive gain is the only thing legally taxable US Code, and reaffirmed by
SCOTUS.

Those that tried to bring code into court got put in jail with keys thrown away because the seal over the bench says,
no law shall be tried in court, you cannot bring code into court. There are over 40k irs political prisoners in jail.

The bench is a private commercial entity operation under color of law by consent of those that volunteered to be
dual 14th ammend citizens.

There is only one lawful constitutional common law court in the country and it is not the private commercial
court called supreme court.

See this to get the the crux and then it goes from there, get the book.
http://pacinlaw.us/p...n_by_Design.pdf

Its all fraud but you cant do anything about unless you want to be a martyr rotting in jail.

For me I will exit, need a few years to do it right.
Hope to purchase the foreign property next year but need the time and money to travel to locate it. I have found a source to help
the transactions but that costs money too.

However foreign real estate income is not taxable, if I mortgage a place, pay an agency to rent it out, that income pays the
mort on it and is not taxable. This is one of their loopholes they leave for them. Only them understand the difference in Law
and coporate statue called color of law (statute) and that is why they are the .05%.

The richest 1% did not make 4x the money...... They stole the money. There are good reasons for taxing the rich heavily but none of those reasons have anything to do with fairness. It does make sense to levy the heaviest taxes on the group that benefits the most from big government. That is the upper 1%. It is also possible to tax that group to such an extent that they use their power and influence to reduce the size of government. As it is the upper 1% lobby constantly for more spending which of course serves to rig the markets they operate in. Lets be clear about who the 1% are. They are the few with the political clout to position themselves above the law. It is always a mistake to think that subsidies to the poor will in any way correct the lopsided income distribution. The income distribution will normalize if the theft is stopped. In an honest economy the upper 1% tend to end up with 12-14 percent of all income and that is fine.

The richest 1% made 4 times more money in 2013 to eradicate the WORLDWIDE poverty completely.

This is just in one year, [edit: and this is not revenue, actual profits after taxes].

Tax them at 90%.

[...]

One crux of the matter is, tax on labor is illegal. I have seen the US code and the subsequent ignored SCOTUS ruling on it in early 1900's.

The tax law, US code to this date states that only foreign income, income of non-resident aliens, and passive gains is taxable.
Some argue that the Code may allow all business income but the individual labor is never taxable.
The bottom line is only gains are taxable, US Code.

Labor is not taxable. Labor is an equal exchange of labor for money there is not gain, nothing taxable.
Dont quote all this it is a gist of what I read a while ago. Basically a passive gain is the only thing legally taxable US Code, and reaffirmed by SCOTUS.

Those that tried to bring code into court got put in jail with keys thrown away because the seal over the bench says, no law shall be tried in court, you cannot bring code into court. There are over 40k irs political prisoners in jail.

The bench is a private commercial entity operation under color of law by consent of those that volunteered to be dual 14th ammend citizens.

There is only one lawful constitutional common law court in the country and it is not the private commercial court called supreme court.

LOL. Wasn't there already enough gibberish on this thread?

What you just trotted out is a good laundry list of tax protester rubbish.

Every single statement you made, without a single exception, is totally and completely false. It's all made-up stuff from people who invent reasons to justify their belief that they shouldn't have to pay income taxes.

99% of the Internal Revenue Code is well-settled law. All of the stuff you mentioned are what are called "frivolous arguments." None of this junk works. Ever. In any court. Not once. Asserting any of it on a tax return or in court will get you penalized, sanctioned and perhaps imprisoned.

[...]

What, not even an attempted defense? I respond to tax protester nonsense because it's dangerous stuff. The usual silliness from Reich is just bad economics. Tax protesters are people who have decided that they don't like paying income taxes, and, by golly, they're going to rationalize their actions, come hell or high water. Even though they know nothing about the law, they fancy themselves to be legal experts and do "research" on the interwebs to try to "prove" their delusions. Their problem is that they don't know what they're doing. This takes a number of forms: 1) While they sometimes intentionally misquote court decisions, usually they just lazily quote court decisions that someone else has conveniently modified or misquoted so as to misrepresent the meaning of the decision. And so the junk quotes get propagated, ready to be vacuumed up by the next gullible true believer who also can't be bothered to check the source. 2) They rely on dissenting opinions (you know, the side of the court that lost) as if they were majority opinions because they like the words that seem to agree with their nonsense. Never mind that dissenting opinions have no legal meaning or impact. 3) They quote a court decision which has no legal effect because it has been overturned in part or entirely on appeal, or by a later court case. 4) They misread a law or laws, contrary to established precedent and insist that they are right and all previous courts were wrong. 5) They insist that their interpretation of a word or words or phrase is right, even though it has been consistently ruled otherwise, usually for many decades. Irwin Schiff is a good example. Amongst many other delusions, he thinks only corporations can have taxable income. I remember him spouting his nonsense back in 1979-1980 at investment conferences. He has now gone to federal prison 3 times for his tax "theories." 1978. 1985. 2005. Failure to file. Tax evasion. Filing false tax returns. Aiding and abetting the filing of false tax returns by others. Conspiracy to defraud the US. Tax evasion (again.) At his latest trial an examination of his mental fitness was conducted. It concluded that he suffered from mental illness, but nothing that would prevent him from understanding the nature of the charges against him. In the '80s, he tried to exert a "diminished capacity" defense in a civil trial for taxes due. Even he admits that "I might be wrong about this." He was convicted (for the 3rd time) of federal tax felonies and will probably die in prison. Now, that's stubborn. Not to mention stupid. There's a long list of delusional tax protesters who have been sent up the river for years, sometimes 10 or more. Schiff alone is responsible for 11 people convicted of federal felonies due to following his nonsense. Plus a few of his former employees. There's a very, very long list of people who have been whacked for 5K for filing a frivolous return by the IRS. And many, believe it or not who have been whacked for 30-40-50K for filing a batch of frivolous joint returns (husband and wife - 5K each) covering a few years. And that's after the IRS says "Look, this return you filed is frivolous, and if you don't withdraw it within 30 days we're going to fine you." Which is what they say to everyone who files a bogus return. Wanna be stubborn and delusional? You'll be fined. Any federal court, including the Tax Court can impose up to a 25K sanction for frivolous litigation. This usually happens after the IRS audits a bogus return and the delusional taxpayer tries to delay the consequences by starting litigation in the Tax Court. Judges are usually very reluctant to do it but if you persist with nonsense after being specifically warned against it, the judge will come down on you with both feet because you are wasting the court's time and resources. Tax protesters remind me of traders who just know that they are right and the market is wrong. Both usually wind up broke. But, only the tax protesters run the risk of also having to pay IRS penalties and/or being sanctioned by courts and/or being criminally charged and going to federal prison. This sort of nonsense has resulted in a lot of ruin, sometimes total ruin -- both financial and personal. My free advice? Don't believe it and don't do it.