Page 1 of 8 12345 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 110

Thread: Most Americans should be done paying their taxes by now,

  1. #1 | Top
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Posts
    41,835
    Thanks
    3
    Thanked 22,004 Times in 13,819 Posts
    Groans
    0
    Groaned 3,035 Times in 2,831 Posts

    Default Most Americans should be done paying their taxes by now,

    well, except for one, who we know doesn't pay tax, "that makes me smart," so you got to wonder whose lifestyle in the swamp you are going to be funding this year; Pruitt's, Carson's, Munchin's, Zinke's, or even the Don's with his million dollar golf junkets to Florida each weekend

    "Believe me folks, believe me, it's going be tremendous"

  2. The Following User Says Thank You to archives For This Post:

    evince (04-18-2018)

  3. #2 | Top
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    62,747
    Thanks
    3,722
    Thanked 20,308 Times in 14,057 Posts
    Groans
    2
    Groaned 649 Times in 616 Posts

    Default

    Because Democrats or liberals don't go out of their way to use all the tax laws to their advantage? Is that your argument?

  4. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to cawacko For This Post:

    Callinectes (04-18-2018), Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  5. #3 | Top
    Join Date
    Nov 2016
    Posts
    41,835
    Thanks
    3
    Thanked 22,004 Times in 13,819 Posts
    Groans
    0
    Groaned 3,035 Times in 2,831 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by cawacko View Post
    Because Democrats or liberals don't go out of their way to use all the tax laws to their advantage? Is that your argument?
    There is a difference between using tax law and hiring an army of accountants and attorneys to manipulate tax law for your benefit, it's called civic responsibility

  6. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to archives For This Post:

    Bourbon (04-18-2018), evince (04-18-2018)

  7. #4 | Top
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    62,747
    Thanks
    3,722
    Thanked 20,308 Times in 14,057 Posts
    Groans
    2
    Groaned 649 Times in 616 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    There is a difference between using tax law and hiring an army of accountants and attorneys to manipulate tax law for your benefit, it's called civic responsibility
    So you really do think liberals and Democrats don't hire army of accountants and attorneys to help with their taxes? Interesting. I understand as a liberal you would like to believe it not to be true but you could not be more wrong.

  8. The Following User Says Thank You to cawacko For This Post:

    Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  9. #5 | Top
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    8,490
    Thanks
    796
    Thanked 3,180 Times in 2,409 Posts
    Groans
    376
    Groaned 244 Times in 225 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    well, except for one, who we know doesn't pay tax, "that makes me smart," so you got to wonder whose lifestyle in the swamp you are going to be funding this year; Pruitt's, Carson's, Munchin's, Zinke's, or even the Don's with his million dollar golf junkets to Florida each weekend

    "Believe me folks, believe me, it's going be tremendous"
    Actually our personal taxes are still sitting here beside me because I forgot to mail them yesterday, or more specifically, I forgot to take them with me when I was rushing out the door to an appointment. Won't be penalized though as I pay estimated taxes and had a bunch extra taken out in December so I get a little back.

  10. The Following User Says Thank You to Irish Exit For This Post:

    Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  11. #6 | Top
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    62,747
    Thanks
    3,722
    Thanked 20,308 Times in 14,057 Posts
    Groans
    2
    Groaned 649 Times in 616 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    There is a difference between using tax law and hiring an army of accountants and attorneys to manipulate tax law for your benefit, it's called civic responsibility
    Do you and Bourbon think Buffett is doing his civic responsibility here?


    Warren Buffett’s Nifty Tax Loophole


    Warren Buffett is fond of saying his tax rate is lower than his secretary’s. He does not publicize his tax returns, but for the tax year 2010, he paid $6.9 million on taxable income of $39.8 million, according to partial disclosures he made in 2011.

    What is astounding about those numbers is not the 17.3% tax rate, but that Buffett’s $39.8 million of taxable income is only about 0.05% of his reported net worth ($71 billion according to Forbes, which put him third on its list of the 400 wealthiest people in the world for 2015).

    Proportionately, that’s like someone with an ever-expanding net worth, currently $10 million, reporting taxable income of only $5,000 and paying a federal tax bill of only $900.

    So, how does he do it? Buffett’s principal holding is an economic interest of about 20% of Berkshire Hathaway, the huge conglomerate he has been building since the 1960s. It has a market value of about $350 billion. Berkshire hasn’t paid any cash dividends since 1967. Rather, the company accumulates its prodigious after-tax income ($19.9 billion in 2014) and cash flow ($32 billion in 2014) to get bigger by buying companies, lots of companies. Among its large recent acquisitions were Lubrizol, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, and a shared acquisition of H.J. Heinz.

    The Berkshire Model is to buy companies rich in cash flow with histories of paying dividends, then cancel those dividends and retain the cash flow going forward for future acquisitions.

    HOW MUCH TAX is Warren Buffett able to avoid by fixing Berkshire’s dividend at zero? The dividend yield of the Standard & Poor’s 500 is about 2%. The price/earnings ratio of the S&P 500 is about 18. Thus, for the S&P 500, approximately 30% of earnings are paid out to shareholders. These dividends are taxable at a current maximum rate of 23.8%.
    If Berkshire followed the average of the S&P 500, it would have paid out about $6 billion in dividends in 2014, and Buffett’s share would have been about $1.2 billion.

    At a 23.8% tax rate, that would have given Buffett a tax bill of $280 million, or about 40 times the taxes he said he actually paid in 2010.

    Thus the Treasury has been getting exiguous tax revenue from one of its wealthiest citizens. Buffett is virtually immune to higher individual income-tax rates, while he promotes higher rates for other rich people, who may have a net worth a hundredth of 1% (0.01%) of his own.

    Since, according to his publicly stated plans, Buffett intends to leave the bulk of his estate to charity, his estate won’t be paying much tax, either.

    The Buffett Loophole and the Berkshire Model are allowing one individual to build one of the great American fortunes while avoiding individual taxes. Talk about someone not paying his share!

    FOR 2014, BERKSHIRE ITSELF recorded a provision for $7.9 billion in taxes, most of which was “deferred.” In fact Berkshire, like many other companies, is able to defer much of its taxes, in its case $61 billion. This is money it acknowledges it owes the government but has yet to pay.

    Deferred tax liabilities are the difference between taxes that will come due in the future and what the company owes today. Accounting rules require this difference to be recognized as a liability, but it ultimately acts as a sort of “float” that the government allows companies in the midst of an acquisition—which Berkshire almost always is.

    In 2012, the year before it was acquired for $28 billion by Berkshire (and a Brazilian partner), H.J. Heinz paid more than $600 million in dividends. Those dividends were taxed and provided revenue to the U.S. Treasury. After the acquisition, the dividends stopped. Tax revenue from those dividends stopped.

    In 2010, the year before it was acquired by Berkshire for $9 billion, Lubrizol paid $90 million in dividends. After the acquisition, the dividends stopped, as did tax revenue on the dividends.

    In 2009, the year before it was acquired by Berkshire for $44 billion, Burlington Northern Santa Fe paid $546 million in dividends. After the acquisition, the dividends stopped, as did tax revenue on the dividends.

    LAST YEAR, Berkshire entered into what became known as a “cash-rich split-off” that, according to the New York Times, might have allowed it to avoid $1 billion in taxes. Berkshire traded its stock in Procter & Gamble, which carried a low cost basis of $336 million, for P&G’s Duracell unit plus $1.7 billion in cash, a total value of $4.7 billion. The point was to reduce capital-gains taxes that would have been due on a sale of Berkshire’s P&G stock.

    It seems that Buffett and his businesses are serial deprivers of tax revenue to the U.S. Treasury. Yet that does not deter him from loudly advocating higher income tax rates for others.

    However unethical the Buffett Loophole and the Berkshire Model may seem, however much they may appear to be gaming the tax code, no one has claimed they are illegal.
    Now consider Section 531 of the Internal Revenue Code, which imposes a 20% tax on the accumulated but undistributed income of a corporation. And Section 532 of the Code states that the tax shall apply to “every corporation…availed of for the purpose of avoiding of the income tax with respect to its shareholders…by permitting earnings and profits to accumulate instead of being divided or distributed.”

    The Buffett Loophole and the Berkshire Model provide clear examples of the purpose of Sections 531 and 532. Buffett and Berkshire are accomplishing precisely what the code is trying to prevent: shareholders getting away without paying taxes.

    Enforcement of these two sections has been sporadic, subject to the judgment of the Internal Revenue Service. An official commentary on the code, Federal Tax Coordinator 2d, D-3003, states that, for enforcement of the accumulated-earnings tax, “Congress did not want the taxing authorities second-guessing the responsible managers of corporations as to whether and to what extent profits should be distributed or retained, unless the taxing authorities were in a position to prove their position was correct.”

    CAN THE IRS CONTEND that Berkshire’s purchase of Duracell was not essential for its Heinz holding, for its Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, or for its core insurance businesses? Of course.

    Can the IRS see that by looking the other way it has unreasonably feathered Buffett’s nest, allowing him to avoid paying reasonable taxes? Of course it can. It chooses not to see anything.

    The relationship between the Wizard of Wall Street and our president is symbiotic. The two scratch each other’s back at the expense of the commonweal. How nice for our president, who is so eager to spread the wealth around, to have one of our richest citizens militating for higher taxes on the rich. How nice for Buffett to play to an adoring crowd of wealth-spreaders. How strange that it’s not his wealth that they are spreading around.


    https://www.barrons.com/articles/war...ole-1428726092

  12. The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to cawacko For This Post:

    Bigdog (04-18-2018), Stretch (04-18-2018), Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  13. #7 | Top
    Join Date
    Feb 2018
    Location
    Lansing Ks
    Posts
    33,801
    Thanks
    3
    Thanked 14,475 Times in 9,946 Posts
    Groans
    0
    Groaned 1,099 Times in 1,011 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    There is a difference between using tax law and hiring an army of accountants and attorneys to manipulate tax law for your benefit, it's called civic responsibility
    And one lib here doesn't have the responsibility to take care of his own mother

  14. The Following User Says Thank You to volsrock For This Post:

    Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  15. #8 | Top
    Join Date
    Dec 2016
    Posts
    28,635
    Thanks
    26,355
    Thanked 14,217 Times in 9,773 Posts
    Groans
    563
    Groaned 604 Times in 571 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    well, except for one, who we know doesn't pay tax, "that makes me smart," so you got to wonder whose lifestyle in the swamp you are going to be funding this year; Pruitt's, Carson's, Munchin's, Zinke's, or even the Don's with his million dollar golf junkets to Florida each weekend

    "Believe me folks, believe me, it's going be tremendous"
    "Why Are Fewer Americans Filing Taxes This Year?
    The IRS has received fewer returns so far this year than it did at the same time last year.
    Here's one possible explanation.
    Maurie Backman (TMFBookNerd) Mar 11, 2017 at 4:26PM
    Nobody enjoys filing taxes, but a considerable number of Americans are most certainly putting them off this year. According to a recent IRS analysis, more than 5.5 million fewer Americans have filed tax returns this year than they did at the same point last year. In fact, the number of returns received this year has gone from 66.7 million down to 61 million, representing an 8.5% drop. And while some of the decline might boil down to good old procrastination, there may be another reason at play."



    Our citizen President works for us ... for free.
    "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
    — Joe Biden on Obama.

    Socialism is just the modern word for monarchy.

    D.C. has become a Guild System with an hierarchy and line of accession much like the Royal Court or priestly classes.

    Private citizens are perfectly able of doing a better job without "apprenticing".

  16. The Following User Says Thank You to Bigdog For This Post:

    Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  17. #9 | Top
    Join Date
    Oct 2016
    Posts
    19,400
    Thanks
    1,745
    Thanked 6,394 Times in 5,099 Posts
    Groans
    1,397
    Groaned 908 Times in 849 Posts
    Blog Entries
    1

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    well, except for one, who we know doesn't pay tax, "that makes me smart," so you got to wonder whose lifestyle in the swamp you are going to be funding this year; Pruitt's, Carson's, Munchin's, Zinke's, or even the Don's with his million dollar golf junkets to Florida each weekend

    "Believe me folks, believe me, it's going be tremendous"
    According to FileLater.com, the number of business tax extensions run at around 5.5 million each year. That’s 5.5 million business owners who, for one reason or another, have not had time to get their return in before the due date. They needed a tax extension to make sure they had everything in order.

    That’s all well and good, but what about personal tax extensions? According to sources, 2007 saw just below 9.5 million personal extensions filed. In 2009 that number was all the way up to just over 10.25 million. Clearly, more people are figuring out extending the time they have to file is the way to go.

    https://www.irs.com/articles/how-man...tax-extensions

    Oops

  18. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Cancel 2018.2 For This Post:

    Bigdog (04-18-2018), Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  19. #10 | Top
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    7,863
    Thanks
    98
    Thanked 4,219 Times in 3,171 Posts
    Groans
    0
    Groaned 239 Times in 227 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    well, except for one, who we know doesn't pay tax, "that makes me smart," so you got to wonder whose lifestyle in the swamp you are going to be funding this year; Pruitt's, Carson's, Munchin's, Zinke's, or even the Don's with his million dollar golf junkets to Florida each weekend

    "Believe me folks, believe me, it's going be tremendous"
    Most yes, because most people have relatively simple tax situations. Those with more complex tax situations tend to extend. This has to be the biggest nonstory of the year.

  20. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Superfreak For This Post:

    Bigdog (04-18-2018), Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  21. #11 | Top
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    7,863
    Thanks
    98
    Thanked 4,219 Times in 3,171 Posts
    Groans
    0
    Groaned 239 Times in 227 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Kacper View Post
    Actually our personal taxes are still sitting here beside me because I forgot to mail them yesterday, or more specifically, I forgot to take them with me when I was rushing out the door to an appointment. Won't be penalized though as I pay estimated taxes and had a bunch extra taken out in December so I get a little back.
    Actually, the IRS extended filing to today, because they had an online glitch last night.

  22. The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Superfreak For This Post:

    Bigdog (04-18-2018), Irish Exit (04-18-2018), Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  23. #12 | Top
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    8,490
    Thanks
    796
    Thanked 3,180 Times in 2,409 Posts
    Groans
    376
    Groaned 244 Times in 225 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Superfreak View Post
    Actually, the IRS extended filing to today, because they had an online glitch last night.
    Crap now I have to wait until tomorrow. I like being a bad boy rule breaker

  24. The Following User Says Thank You to Irish Exit For This Post:

    dukkha (04-18-2018)

  25. #13 | Top
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Delray Beach FL
    Posts
    114,796
    Thanks
    124,726
    Thanked 27,281 Times in 22,620 Posts
    Groans
    3,768
    Groaned 3,239 Times in 2,979 Posts
    Blog Entries
    3

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archcriesalot View Post
    well, except for one, who we know doesn't pay tax, "that makes me smart," so you got to wonder whose lifestyle in the swamp you are going to be funding this year; Pruitt's, Carson's, Munchin's, Zinke's, or even the Don's with his million dollar golf junkets to Florida each weekend

    "Believe me folks, believe me, it's going be tremendous"
    "When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."


    A lie doesn't become the truth, wrong doesn't become right, and evil doesn't become good just because it is accepted by a majority.
    Author: Booker T. Washington



    Quote Originally Posted by Nomad View Post
    Unless you just can't stand the idea of "ni**ers" teaching white kids.


    Quote Originally Posted by AProudLefty View Post
    Address the topic, not other posters.

  26. #14 | Top
    Join Date
    Jul 2017
    Posts
    43,479
    Thanks
    12,574
    Thanked 23,756 Times in 16,563 Posts
    Groans
    249
    Groaned 1,622 Times in 1,532 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    There is a difference between using tax law and hiring an army of accountants and attorneys to manipulate tax law for your benefit, it's called civic responsibility
    no. it's called filing taxes.
    The tax code is the problem - the "lawyers and accountants" are the symptomatic response

  27. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to dukkha For This Post:

    Bigdog (04-18-2018), Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

  28. #15 | Top
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    8,490
    Thanks
    796
    Thanked 3,180 Times in 2,409 Posts
    Groans
    376
    Groaned 244 Times in 225 Posts

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by archives View Post
    There is a difference between using tax law and hiring an army of accountants and attorneys to manipulate tax law for your benefit, it's called civic responsibility
    Sometimes you need that army, especially if you find yourself in need of a tax ruling. With the major overhaul, the IRS is going to have to redo hundreds of forms and schedules and be inundated with a new wave of tax ruling applications and they will be working off a relatively unchanged budget, so this is going to be a messy year to have to deal with them.

  29. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Irish Exit For This Post:

    Bigdog (04-18-2018), Truth Detector (04-18-2018)

Similar Threads

  1. paying taxes is patriotic, right?
    By SmarterthanYou in forum Current Events Forum
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 02-15-2017, 09:06 AM
  2. Is paying taxes one of the duties of a citizen?
    By Guns Guns Guns in forum Current Events Forum
    Replies: 6
    Last Post: 07-03-2012, 04:14 PM
  3. 47% of Americans "weasel out of" paying taxes
    By Guns Guns Guns in forum Current Events Forum
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 04-01-2011, 05:21 PM
  4. 47% will not be paying Federal Income Taxes
    By TuTu Monroe in forum Current Events Forum
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 10-07-2009, 10:18 AM
  5. Replies: 17
    Last Post: 07-23-2008, 10:49 PM

Bookmarks

Posting Rules

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •