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Thread: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

  1. #1
    God/dess baer45's Avatar
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    Default Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    • New Cut for rich: 39.6% to 37% for married couple with $600k+
    • Corporations tax from 35% to 21%
    • You can deduct just $10,000 in state, local and property tax
    • Working class (up to $400k) get $2,000 credit per child
    • Inherit up to $22 million tax-free
    • "Pass through" companies get a 20% reduction (up to $315,000)
    • Mortgage interest deduction gets smaller to $750k cap
    • Not changing: student loan deduction, medical expense deduction, graduate student tuition waivers, Retirement accounts


    I like being alone, I just don't like being lonely.




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    God/dess rickdugan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Tax cuts and increased child tax credits for everybody. Love it!

    The rich may be getting a drop in the top rate, but they are also taking a big hit with losing the ability to deduct state, local and property taxes. They are also losing some of their mortgage interest deduction on their home jumbo loans. They also won't get the child tax credit.

    One thing this missed though: Removal of the penalty for not buying a bloated health insurance plan. This is going to help millions, especially young healthy people.

    Needless to say, this is huge. I won't even get into the economy boosting benefits that will be realized by leaving more money in the hands of employers and consumers instead of the government.

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Oh, this also missed the point that the standard deduction is going up a bit. Right now the first 10,400 we make is not subject to taxes between the standard deduction plus the personal exemption. The new bill will get rid of the exemption while increasing the standard deduction to 12,000.

    Married couples currently receive a standard deduction 12,600 and personal exemptions totaling 8,100 for a grand total of 20,700. The new bill will raise that total number to 24,000.

    For people with children, the combination of lower tax rates in almost every bracket, increased standard deductions and substantially increased child tax credits will mean real money coming back to them. But even for those without kids, this will mean more money in the paychecks. In fact, if this is passed in time for the new year, they should see bumps in their paychecks as early as January because withholding amounts will be adjusted down for 2018.

    Good times.
    Last edited by rickdugan; 12-16-2017 at 09:55 AM. Reason: Edited for accuracy

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available


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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    What is the source of that image. OP?

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    God/dess rickdugan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    ^ Right, because we're so much better off now than we were in the 80s, when good jobs were plentiful, home ownership %s were high and the economy was humming at a nice clip. Oh wait...

    We've had 8 years of Obamanomics and we saw how that worked out for our economy. In fact, look around the world and see how confiscatory fiscal policies have worked out for every country that uses them - not good. When companies don't want to be here because of our tax rates and the ones that are here don't want to repatriate overseas capital, it means fewer and lower paying jobs domestically. When the government decides to take more of our money so that they can decide how best to spend it for us, it rarely works out for most individuals or the economy because politicians make spending decisions for political reasons rather than to optimize economic benefits for the most people. This Obamacare monstrosity is Exhibit A for how an even good intentioned government can easily fuck things up at enormous cost in order to achieve political goals, but examples around the globe are too numerous to count.

    This is a massive win for the good guys. We, instead of career politicians, are being given back a bit more power over our own money. Companies will be motivated to create more jobs here and bring more resources back into the country. I am thrilled and I suspect that a solid majority of other hardworking taxpayers will be too.

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    This is why facts are more useful than talking heads' opinions that prey on people's emotions:


    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    good jobs were plentiful
    Reagan left office with an unemployment rate of 5.4%, Obama with 4.8%. Unemployment averages in the years while Reagan was in office was 7.5%, for Obama 7.4%.


    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    home ownership %s were high
    63.9% in Q1 1989 (first quarter Reagan wasn't in office); 63.6% in Q1 2017 (first quarter Obama wasn't in office).


    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    the economy was humming at a nice clip. Oh wait...
    This is probably correct, though the big turnaround from the inherited recession is often overlooked.


    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Oh wait...
    Oh wait... indeed.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    In fact, look around the world and see how confiscatory fiscal policies have worked out for every country that uses them - not good.
    This type of argument is reminiscent of "look at Sweden." The oft-cited example from people who say this type of thing is Norway, except despite its higher tax rates than the US, it has a higher GDP per capita than the US.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Companies will be motivated to create more jobs here and bring more resources back into the country.
    Quick thought experiment: You run a company (Widget Inc), and your corporation's taxes have been reduced leaving you with an additional $20 million in after tax profits without having sold any more widgets. You don't need to make more widgets, should you hire more people? No, it makes no sense from a business perspective, you don't need more employees without more demand for your widgets. Should you give all your widget manufacturers a big raise? No, this also makes no sense from a business perspective; the market value for widget makers is what you're already paying them, and if you pay them more, then your unit manufacturing costs increase and you lose a competitive advantage. This is why wealth doesn't trickle down.

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    ^ As you should know, the unemployment rate alone is not an indicator of employment health. The Labor Force Participation rate grew from 63.9% when Reagan took office to 66.5% when he left. That is a staggering statistic as it shows a phenomenal increase of population participation in the workforce. When Obama left office, it was at the tail end of an 8 year nosedive back down to 62.9%. So today, a much smaller percentage of the population is working to pay for the services consumed by everyone.

    Oh, and Reagan came in at the tail end of a recession too. You don't get to blame a recession after 8 long years. Obama's problem wasn't the recession, but the fact that he created the most anti-business (and anti-growth) fiscal and regulatory policies probably since FDR. The very sudden turnaround in our economic prospects in just one short year should be clear evidence of his negative impact on the economy.

    More cash left in companies means more ability to expand product lines. compete in other markets, engage in more R&D, step up other innovations, etc.,etc. Why tax rates impact these things is because today's earnings cannot be used for tomorrow's expansion because they must be paid to the government instead. Also, capital expenditures are not expensed in the year that they are made, meaning that they must effectively be financed with after-tax dollars. So with all of that said, cuts in corporate tax rates most certainly do "trickle down", especially when you couple this with more money in the pockets of consumers. Also, I don't think that you are really thinking through what it means to have a corporate tax rate that is higher than almost any other industrialized country - it means that companies do not want to move (or keep) operations here. Giving companies back 18%+ of their post-tax earnings is a game changer and will make us much more competitive in the global marketplace.

    Sweden again? Haven't we spent enough time hashing through the differences between a place like the U.S. and a tiny country with less than 10 million people, a homogeneous population and several natural advantages? How about you find a country with a population a bit more diverse and a little larger than the city of Chicago and we can talk. Conversely, when we do look at larger countries, like Russia, China, or even a smaller one like Venezuela, which still has 3 times the population of Sweden...

    But I will agree with you regarding home ownership rates - they did not go up until later. I still credit Reagan with setting the foundation for that, but there is credit to go around with Bill Clinton and GW.

    Oh, and I've noticed that every time you wish to disagree with something, you make a goofy comment about "talking heads" or some other commentator, as if anyone who shares a different view must be getting it from somewhere. It is both a sign of intellectual and emotional weakness as well as a disingenuous argument technique. Be better than that.

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    Angry Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Love that image, dpprk!
    I don't care who says what, or what's printed/online out there..
    The middle class & below are, & will be getting fucked over
    & when the pollution worsens & gets even more so, we all will have to wear masks

    TG for my passport

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    I forgot to mention that the widget example was fundamentally flawed because it treats "demand" as a static concept when, in fact, it is a fluid concept that evolves with changing consumer tastes, available technology, cultural attitudes and due to any number of other factors. The ability to produce more demand through reduced price points, which can be achieved by increasing economies of scale, also exists. Companies that improve and innovate often also increase demand for their products simply by making them better in some way.

    But this is all getting way into the weeds. More money all around is good. Paychecks going up = more consumer spending. Corporate tax rates going down = a greater ability to keep and/or bring assets and companies here from other countries and enable the companies with significant assets already here to grow more easily. A win for the good guys!

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    I'll reply to the rest later, since I'm on my phone, but these two points were just hilarious to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Sweden again? Haven't we spent enough time hashing through the differences between a place like the U.S. and a tiny country with less than 10 million people, a homogeneous population and several natural advantages? How about you find a country with a population a bit more diverse and a little larger than the city of Chicago and we can talk. Conversely, when we do look at larger countries, like Russia, China, or even a smaller one like Venezuela, which still has 3 times the population of Sweden...
    Sweden is not the country I used as a counter example, I used Norway. They are different countries, with different names, and completely different spellings. I just compared your "these ambiguous countries that I won't mention by name are doing ambiguously badly by some metrics I won't disclose" to the well-known empty argument of "look at Sweden" from the last year. Sweden itself was not the country I was citing. That's misinterpretation #4.

    But anyway, you bring up the smaller population, despite the fact that I brought up GDP per capita, which already accounts for the smaller population.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Oh, and I've noticed that every time you wish to disagree with something, you make a goofy comment about "talking heads" or some other commentator, as if anyone who shares a different view must be getting it from somewhere. It is both a sign of intellectual and emotional weakness as well as a disingenuous argument technique. Be better than that.
    First of all, this is what I typed:

    Quote Originally Posted by dpacrkk View Post
    This is why facts are more useful than talking heads' opinions that prey on people's emotions:
    The emphasis is on supporting claims with facts. For the scoreboard, that's misinterpretation #5. [Perhaps not] Ironically, you just disingenuously misrepresented the entire meaning of sentence I typed.

    To my recollection, it's the first time I've used the phrase in a post. I will gladly retract this statement if you find any evidence of having used this phrase dismissing others' viewpoints on the sole basis that I disagreed with them without providing counterpoints (and again based on fact). See the above post, I disagreed with you and gave you the facts/stats.

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    God/dess rickdugan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    I sincerely doubt that I mis-interpreted your inferences about talking heads preying on people's emotions, but if you disagree and would like to elaborate on what you meant by that, please feel free to do so. And ok, it was Norway and not Sweden - Norway is even smaller than Sweden and the same comments apply even more to Norway. The entire Miami metro area has more people than the entire country of Norway, which is a highly homogeneous group of people with several natural geographic advantages that would not apply to a much larger country with a more diverse population.

    Let's not turn this into another incessant series of posts about how your comments are constantly misinterpreted. If you disagree with how your comments are being characterized, then simply feel free to respond with a correction.

    Oh yeah, and as I'll likely end almost any post I make in this thread, +1 one for a win for the good guys, in this case the good guys being all taxpayers, both individual and corporate. In January, politicians have a little less of our money to spend and we will have a bit more. That is a wonderful thing and I suspect is going to make our President much more popular as 2018 roles on.

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Michael Bloomberg: "This bill is an economically indefensible blunder that will harm our future. We CEO's don't need the $. It's pure fantasy to think it will lead to signifcantly higher wages & growth.

    Republican 'deficit hawks' are LTAO as gop's about to tank Obama economy, give a massive dividend to CEO's/shareholders, & do absolutely NOTHING to lower the deficit.
    All by plan, all predictible.

    The Ignore feature is truly a wondeful thing.

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    Duh Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Bernie Sander's crazy plan was to raise taxes on the top 1% to give everyone Medicare-for-all & expand Social Security.

    Gop's plan is to raise taxes on the poor & middle class, cut your Medicare & Social Security, & give all that $ to the top 1%..See how that's better?
    Conservatism has no way to deal w/capitalism.

    "Socialism doesn't work"
    They said, as they tried trickle-down economics for the 10,000th time

    You have failed.
    Last edited by whirlerz; 12-17-2017 at 11:13 AM.

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  27. #15
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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    ^ As you should know, the unemployment rate alone is not an indicator of employment health. The Labor Force Participation rate grew from 63.9% when Reagan took office to 66.5% when he left. That is a staggering statistic as it shows a phenomenal increase of population participation in the workforce. When Obama left office, it was at the tail end of an 8 year nosedive back down to 62.9%. So today, a much smaller percentage of the population is working to pay for the services consumed by everyone.
    The CBO and Federal Reserve Board have attributed most of this to retirement.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    So with all of that said, cuts in corporate tax rates most certainly do "trickle down", especially when you couple this with more money in the pockets of consumers.
    A study was done to see if corporate tax cuts create jobs. They found 92 publicly held US companies that paid less than 20% of their earnings due to deductions and exemptions (i.e. lower than your alleged "game changer" of a proposed corporate tax rate of 21%) from 2008 to 2015. More than half of these companies had shed payroll, and as a group, had a median reduction in payrolls (1%), while the overall economy increased payrolls by 6%. Not surprisingly, CEO pay among these companies increased 18% during this time.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    I sincerely doubt that I mis-interpreted your inferences about talking heads preying on people's emotions, but if you disagree and would like to elaborate on what you meant by that, please feel free to do so...Let's not turn this into another incessant series of posts about how your comments are constantly misinterpreted. If you disagree with how your comments are being characterized, then simply feel free to respond with a correction.
    Combining multiple noncontiguous sentences about the same topic: yes, you did misinterpret it. The point is use facts to support claims. For example, in this very thread, this happened:

    Quote Originally Posted by dpacrkk View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    home ownership %s were high
    63.9% in Q1 1989 (first quarter Reagan wasn't in office); 63.6% in Q1 2017 (first quarter Obama wasn't in office).
    To your credit, you retracted your statement. But still, less than one minute of using Google and reading a graph and you could have found the stat yourself and just not made the initial claim.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    And ok, it was Norway and not Sweden - Norway is even smaller than Sweden and the same comments apply even more to Norway. The entire Miami metro area has more people than the entire country of Norway, which is a highly homogeneous group of people with several natural geographic advantages that would not apply to a much larger country with a more diverse population.
    Concerning the lower population, (again) it's accounted for by GDP per capita. And about the "highly homogeneous" group, despite becoming more racially diverse (due to increasingly net positive migration), its GDP per capita has increased in the last few years.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Oh yeah, and as I'll likely end almost any post I make in this thread, +1 one for a win for the good guys, in this case the good guys being all taxpayers, both individual and corporate. In January, politicians have a little less of our money to spend and we will have a bit more. That is a wonderful thing and I suspect is going to make our President much more popular as 2018 roles on.
    They'll have less of our money to spend, but the spending won't stop. This just increases budget shortfalls and leads to even faster growth of the national debt. The party of fiscal responsibility indeed.

    Quote Originally Posted by dpacrkk View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Oh, and I've noticed that every time you wish to disagree with something, you make a goofy comment about "talking heads" or some other commentator, as if anyone who shares a different view must be getting it from somewhere. It is both a sign of intellectual and emotional weakness as well as a disingenuous argument technique. Be better than that.
    To my recollection, it's the first time I've used the phrase in a post. I will gladly retract this statement if you find any evidence of having used this phrase dismissing others' viewpoints on the sole basis that I disagreed with them without providing counterpoints (and again based on fact). See the above post, I disagreed with you and gave you the facts/stats.
    Following up on this: less than a minute of using Google shows that there's only one thread with a post of mine that also contains the phrase "talking heads," and I wasn't the user that typed it.

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    "The devil is in the details." From the perspective of this mid bracket individual, the "new" tax plan seems like a wash to me. While lower tax rates seem enticing, losing the ~ $4K personal exemption erodes much of the tax rate cut. I recently found out that I'm in an income bracket where I'm going to be hosed in 2018 for certain things, which may even result in an effective loss. Don't worry, I'll still find time to visit clubs.
    I'm right 96% of the time. I don't sweat the other 5% .......................

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    DP, the only real life example of the impact of real tax cuts is the Reagan era cuts and a massive number of jobs - on a relative basis considering our population at the time - were created and labor force participation jumped during that time. Also, the LFPR took a nose dive immediately at the start of the recession while and kept running downward until the economy finally showed some signs of life, at which point it finally leveled off and is now showing some hints of an upward track. All of this makes the notion that retirements alone are responsible for the sudden change in 2009 a bit ludicrous, unless you are a unrestrained believer in coincidences.

    I'm not going to argue the applicability of a model with a whopping 5 million people in a tiny nation with a few lucrative industries that are sufficient to fund all of that largess. I'm also not going to continue a back and forth about misinterpretations - again, if you disagree, feel free to point it out. Also give some more thought as to why one may "interpret" those comments that way - I am not a mind reader and can only respond to what is printed.

    Now one thing I do agree with is the notion that our government will spend irresponsibly regardless of how much we give them. But unlike you, I believe that giving crack addicts less crack and keeping more of our resources in our own pockets is a good thing. However, they actually believe that this will increase taxable economic activity in a way that will more than offset the cost of the cuts, an expectation that they no doubt take away after seeing the effect on tax receipts after the Reagan tax cuts. We shall see.

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    DP, the only real life example of the impact of real tax cuts is the Reagan era cuts and a massive number of jobs - on a relative basis considering our population at the time - were created and labor force participation jumped during that time.
    Kansas Senate Bill Substitute HB 2117: enacted in 2012, with most of the cuts being repealed a few months ago. Because it failed to reach its goals.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Also, the LFPR took a nose dive immediately at the start of the recession while and kept running downward until the economy finally showed some signs of life, at which point it finally leveled off and is now showing some hints of an upward track. All of this makes the notion that retirements alone are responsible for the sudden change in 2009 a bit ludicrous, unless you are a unrestrained believer in coincidences.
    This is just incorrect. The recession started in December 2007 when the participation rate was 66.0%. The drop happened in November 2008 when it went from 66.0% (i.e. the same percentage at the start of the recession) to 65.9%

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Also give some more thought as to why one may "interpret" those comments that way - I am not a mind reader and can only respond to what is printed.
    I'm only asking you to be an English language reader. You are the only person on this board who seems to have this issue.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    But unlike you, I believe that giving crack addicts less crack and keeping more of our resources in our own pockets is a good thing.
    First of all, I never posted this nor anything close to it. Again, two Google searches that took me about 5 seconds to find zero threads that contain a post with the phrase "crack addict" that also contains any post/reaction from me. One thread exists with the word "crack" from the phrase "crack down" (i.e. not any drug reference), while I thanked some other post in the thread. If you want to insinuate that I've ever espoused any belief, give the evidence. [Again, perhaps not] Ironically, this is a call back to an attempt to "prey on people's emotions" where you aren't providing any evidence to support your claim that I ever posted anything about giving federal aid to crack addicts (because there is none).

    Now that that's out of the way: Second of all, I dislike the abuses of social programs, but incidence is far lower than people think and the cost of going out of our way to chase the offenders is higher than the cost of the fraud itself. Some quick numbers about fraud and improper payments: 1.9% unemployment insurance fraud, 3.1% improper payment amount of SNAP ($2.4 B), 3.3% improper payment amount of housing assistance ($1.6 B). Another quick number: 6.7% improper payments of Medicaid ($20.2 B); except this number is cash reimbursements to medical care providers. Chase the professional fraud and you can more than make up for the alleged "crack addicts" many times over.

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  34. #19
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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Quote Originally Posted by dpacrkk View Post
    Kansas Senate Bill Substitute HB 2117: enacted in 2012, with most of the cuts being repealed a few months ago. Because it failed to reach its goals.


    This is just incorrect. The recession started in December 2007 when the participation rate was 66.0%. The drop happened in November 2008 when it went from 66.0% (i.e. the same percentage at the start of the recession) to 65.9%


    I'm only asking you to be an English language reader. You are the only person on this board who seems to have this issue.


    First of all, I never posted this nor anything close to it. Again, two Google searches that took me about 5 seconds to find zero threads that contain a post with the phrase "crack addict" that also contains any post/reaction from me. One thread exists with the word "crack" from the phrase "crack down" (i.e. not any drug reference), while I thanked some other post in the thread. If you want to insinuate that I've ever espoused any belief, give the evidence. [Again, perhaps not] Ironically, this is a call back to an attempt to "prey on people's emotions" where you aren't providing any evidence to support your claim that I ever posted anything about giving federal aid to crack addicts (because there is none).

    Now that that's out of the way: Second of all, I dislike the abuses of social programs, but incidence is far lower than people think and the cost of going out of our way to chase the offenders is higher than the cost of the fraud itself. Some quick numbers about fraud and improper payments: 1.9% unemployment insurance fraud, 3.1% improper payment amount of SNAP ($2.4 B), 3.3% improper payment amount of housing assistance ($1.6 B). Another quick number: 6.7% improper payments of Medicaid ($20.2 B); except this number is cash reimbursements to medical care providers. Chase the professional fraud and you can more than make up for the alleged "crack addicts" many times over.
    1. Do I really have to explain why Kansas, a state with less than 3 million people in the middle of nowhere, might not have experienced the hoped for benefits of a tax cut? Look at the broader picture, including how the U.S. did the last time it cut taxes. Also look at the 2016 and 2017 economic growth of most other low tax states vs. higher tax states.

    2. I'm sure I'm not the only one "misinterpreting" some of the statements that you make, just the only one goofy enough to keep responding to your increasingly painful efforts to simultaneously grasp at straws while also complaining that your previous comments were not properly understood.

    3. The "crack to crack addicts" comment was what we call an analogy and immediately followed a comment about irresponsible spending, which should have tipped you off that I was talking about taxpayer money to politicians.

    Oh yeah, and +1 for the good guys. I am looking forward to a wonderful Tuesday!

  35. #20
    God/dess rickdugan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Quote Originally Posted by whirlerz View Post
    Bernie Sander's crazy plan was to raise taxes on the top 1% to give everyone Medicare-for-all & expand Social Security.

    Gop's plan is to raise taxes on the poor & middle class, cut your Medicare & Social Security, & give all that $ to the top 1%..See how that's better?
    Conservatism has no way to deal w/capitalism.

    "Socialism doesn't work"
    They said, as they tried trickle-down economics for the 10,000th time

    You have failed.
    This was perhaps the most disturbing post in this thread.

    Unless I am missing something, this cuts taxes for almost everyone who pays taxes, rich and poor alike. How is that a bad thing?

    And Socialism doesn't work. The more socialist a country is, the worse off it's people are. Worse though, once you've handed your economic freedom to a government, you also hand over your personal and political freedom. The politicians become the rich ones because they are the only ones with any power. Corruption and misery also become rampant. Even when it starts out well intentioned, it is doomed to failure. Why? Because the motivation to produce (read:work) ceases to be a driving force in a place where one cannot significantly benefit from those efforts, so productivity plummets and, with it, the overall economy. From there, the corruption and misery begin...

    There is a reason that people flock here from all over the world. We have the most dynamic and free economy in the world. Is it perfect? Not by any means - no economic system is - but it is far better than what people in most countries have. This is one of the few countries in the world where food is so cheap and abundant that obesity is an affliction commonly experienced by our poor. This is also one of the few places in the world where one's ability to earn is only limited by one's own limitations. Bill Gates didn't get rich because he had political friends, payed bribes and got the government to force people to buy his stuff. He got rich because he sat in his garage and built software that other people wanted and were willing to pay for. Similar types of stories exist for almost every person who became rich (or their ancestors anyway).

    My wife is an immigrant and she, as well as other of her family members who now live here, routinely laugh at the whiny self entitlement that has developed in so many people here. Frankly, as a small business owner who started with nothing at 20 but two garbage bags with his clothes and a rented room in a slum, I agree with her. The beauty of this country is the economic and personal freedoms that we enjoy, which are tied together at the hip. I can criticize the president in an online blog and then go to college to gain additional training all in the same day. I can start a business here without having to pay anyone off. I can earn a living and support my family without a government taking away 70% of what I make. As my extended family knows all too well, these freedoms are both empowering and precious and they all come from our current system.

  36. #21
    God/dess whirlerz's Avatar
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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Quote Originally Posted by dpacrkk View Post
    Kansas Senate Bill Substitute HB 2117: enacted in 2012, with most of the cuts being repealed a few months ago. Because it failed to reach its goals.


    This is just incorrect. The recession started in December 2007 when the participation rate was 66.0%. The drop happened in November 2008 when it went from 66.0% (i.e. the same percentage at the start of the recession) to 65.9%


    I'm only asking you to be an English language reader. You are the only person on this board who seems to have this issue.


    First of all, I never posted this nor anything close to it. Again, two Google searches that took me about 5 seconds to find zero threads that contain a post with the phrase "crack addict" that also contains any post/reaction from me. One thread exists with the word "crack" from the phrase "crack down" (i.e. not any drug reference), while I thanked some other post in the thread. If you want to insinuate that I've ever espoused any belief, give the evidence. [Again, perhaps not] Ironically, this is a call back to an attempt to "prey on people's emotions" where you aren't providing any evidence to support your claim that I ever posted anything about giving federal aid to crack addicts (because there is none).

    Now that that's out of the way: Second of all, I dislike the abuses of social programs, but incidence is far lower than people think and the cost of going out of our way to chase the offenders is higher than the cost of the fraud itself. Some quick numbers about fraud and improper payments: 1.9% unemployment insurance fraud, 3.1% improper payment amount of SNAP ($2.4 B), 3.3% improper payment amount of housing assistance ($1.6 B). Another quick number: 6.7% improper payments of Medicaid ($20.2 B); except this number is cash reimbursements to medical care providers. Chase the professional fraud and you can more than make up for the alleged "crack addicts" many times over.
    Love it, thank you for the post & info!^

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    1. Do I really have to explain why Kansas, a state with less than 3 million people in the middle of nowhere, might not have experienced the hoped for benefits of a tax cut? Look at the broader picture, including how the U.S. did the last time it cut taxes. Also look at the 2016 and 2017 economic growth of most other low tax states vs. higher tax states.
    I'm slightly curious what you think the population spread in the US is. First, Kansas is well within one standard deviation of the mean, so 68% of states fall within the same range as Kansas's population. Second, I'm guessing you didn't look it up: state revenues dropped (and shortfalls increased), GDP growth was 3.8% in a period of 4 years (compared to 7% nationally), employment increased 2.6% (compared to 6.5% nationally), culminating in state legislature (both houses controlled by the party you wouldn't expect) voted to raise taxes to undo the cuts. Neighboring and nearby states (OK, NE, AR, MO; i.e. in the "middle of nowhere") of comparable population (all within one standard deviation of the mean) experienced more employment and GDP growth.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Look at the broader picture, including how the U.S. did the last time it cut taxes.
    It's been studied: there's no link between top income tax rate and economic growth. Looking at this "broader picture," the "last time it cut taxes," the economy declined after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 before crashing in 2008. Looking again at the "broader picture," the economy grew in the 1990s after tax increases.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    2. I'm sure I'm not the only one "misinterpreting" some of the statements that you make, just the only one goofy enough to keep responding to your increasingly painful efforts to simultaneously grasp at straws while also complaining that your previous comments were not properly understood.
    As you said, you can't read minds, so you can't attest to other posters' thoughts. You're projecting and assuming others are like you. Anyway, I didn't complain about any of those misinterpretations; in fact I find them incredibly amusing. Merely making an observation isn't a complaint.

    Anyway, point out the alleged flaws in logic then. If I was grasping at straws, you would easily be able to disprove a quick list of three points you didn't address: the timeline of the labor participation rate dropping 11 months after the start of the recession and not "immediately," the lack of times I've posted "talking heads," and the study of corporations with lower than 20% effective tax rates having a median shedding of payroll while CEO salaries for the same companies increased. There are more too, including in this post, but those three came to mind first.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    3. The "crack to crack addicts" comment was what we call an analogy and immediately followed a comment about irresponsible spending, which should have tipped you off that I was talking about taxpayer money to politicians.
    Sure, and I misread what you meant. I'm a fair person, so I'll put you on the scoreboard: 6-1. But the point stands, where have I advocated giving more taxpayer money to politicians? You can't type "unlike you" if it hasn't been established that this is a belief that I support. And I've never typed that continuing to pay taxes nor raising existing taxes will suddenly cause GDP growth.

    Quote Originally Posted by rickdugan View Post
    Unless I am missing something, this cuts taxes for almost everyone who pays taxes, rich and poor alike. How is that a bad thing?
    She already answered you in plain English in this thread, but you apparently didn't read it (or misinterpreted it, zing!). Anyway, if somebody doesn't agree with an idea, they won't necessarily suddenly support it when they begin to personally benefit from it. That's not how codes of ethics work.
    Last edited by dpacrkk; 12-18-2017 at 03:04 AM.

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    The Obama administration fudged the statistics for unemployment to make it look better than it is: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.washi...e-by-not-coun/

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  41. #24
    God/dess rickdugan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Quote Originally Posted by dpacrkk View Post
    I'm slightly curious what you think the population spread in the US is. First, Kansas is well within one standard deviation of the mean, so 68% of states fall within the same range as Kansas's population. Second, I'm guessing you didn't look it up: state revenues dropped (and shortfalls increased), GDP growth was 3.8% in a period of 4 years (compared to 7% nationally), employment increased 2.6% (compared to 6.5% nationally), culminating in state legislature (both houses controlled by the party you wouldn't expect) voted to raise taxes to undo the cuts. Neighboring and nearby states (OK, NE, AR, MO; i.e. in the "middle of nowhere") of comparable population (all within one standard deviation of the mean) experienced more employment and GDP growth.

    It's been studied: there's no link between top income tax rate and economic growth. Looking at this "broader picture," the "last time it cut taxes," the economy declined after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 before crashing in 2008. Looking again at the "broader picture," the economy grew in the 1990s after tax increases...

    ...She already answered you in plain English in this thread, but you apparently didn't read it (or misinterpreted it, zing!). Anyway, if somebody doesn't agree with an idea, they won't necessarily suddenly support it when they begin to personally benefit from it. That's not how codes of ethics work.
    I guess I do have to explain why the Kansas example is not meaningful. Kansas has a lot of other natural disadvantages besides the tax rates, including lack to access to ports, a small population with few consumers or potential workers, a small pool of well educated workers due to a less than , few attractions to draw tourists, etc.,etc. So no, dropping taxes alone is not going to be the magic bullet in a place like that. The examples of places with a combination of advantages, taxes being one of them, are places like Texas, Florida, Nevada and Washington (state). See how those states are faring vs. most others and the story over the last few years, especially for Texas and Florida, is simply amazing.

    As far as the economic benefits of cutting taxes, I could likely quote you as many studies that argue that it does in fact fuel economic growth. Some even believe that the Reagan era tax cuts fueled three decades of growth. It certainly makes intuitive sense when you think about things like consumer spending and the velocity of money and have watched companies run to lower tax jurisdictions (citing favorable tax treatment as a primary reason) for the past 20+ years as electronic communication capabilities improved dramatically. But no, they don't stop recessions, which are part of the normal economic cycle. Again though, we shall see.

    As far as that last nugget, I was obviously responding to this: "Gop's plan is to raise taxes on the poor & middle class, cut your Medicare & Social Security, & give all that $ to the top 1%." By saying what I did, I was disagreeing with her by saying that this legislation cuts taxes for almost everyone and, in fact, it does.

    One day away from a huge win for the good guys and a blow to those who would like to control our money and, by extension, other aspects of our lives. I am very excited right now.

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    Default Re: Final 2018 Tax Rate is available

    Quote Originally Posted by dpacrkk View Post

    I'm only asking you to be an English language reader. You are the only person on this board who seems to have this issue.
    Their English is impeccable instead what is going on is a phenomena called ...... Confirmation Bias. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

    You will find people will not read/listen to what you say with objectivity (or put forth minimal effort in listening/reading what you have to say) but will instead pick out bits and pieces of what you say to confirm their theories/beliefs/etc.

    "Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it. Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices." https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...firmation-bias

    "By not seeking out objective facts, interpreting information in a way that only supports their existing beliefs, and only remembering details that uphold these beliefs, they often miss important information." https://www.verywell.com/what-is-a-c...n-bias-2795024

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