Tax Bill

[bearrock]

On 10/23/2017 at 7:32 PM, nonniey said:

Caught a segment of I believe Amy Goodman's show while driving today and the guy on the show was reflecting the position of some in this forum in regard to the Corporate tax rate. In referencing the 1 year 5% rate proposal for returning money to the US from overseas -  he said it would be better to get nothing (Currently happening) than allow the Corporations "to avoid" the 1.2 Trillion tax at the current rate.

 

Absolutely mind boggling to me.

Corporations parked money overseas because they could find relatively safe tax havens like Ireland and Luxemburg and because they believed they would eventually get another one time holiday like they did during W Bush administration.

 

If you grant them the tax holiday, what's to prevent them from holding out until the next tax holiday?  Also, with Ireland coming under fire from EU, companies that parked funds in Europe may have to bring it back anyway.  Lastly, effective tax rates of corporations are around 18% in US.  Plus, you get credit for foreign taxes paid.  One time holiday of 5-6% is essentially a free return of money from overseas.  Those companies may have to bring that money back anyway from shareholder pressure or disappearing tax havens.  What exactly is the impetus for drastic tax giveway for those corporations right now?

[HOF44]

On 9/30/2017 at 12:34 PM, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Not sure that there is a consensus about what to do with the capital gains tax, but it is an accepted fact that taxing capital gains makes the financial markets much less efficient.  So while, yes, the top 10% pay almost all of it and the top 1% pay most of it, there are very good economic arguments for lowering the rate because the more efficient movement of capital benefits the economy as a whole.   

What if it was time based. Have differing rates, the highest if you hold it under a second, then maybe a day, then the lowest of you hold it longer than that.  

[LadySkinsFan]

5 minutes ago, HOF44 said:

What if it was time based. Have differing rates, the highest if you hold it under a second, then maybe a day, then the lowest of you hold it longer than that.  

 

They already do that, taxed at the individual rate if short term gain, lower rate for long term gain. 

[HOF44]

2 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said:

 

They already do that, taxed at the individual rate if short term gain, lower rate for long term gain. 

 

But it’s 1 rate for under a year.  Trades held less than a second show taxed at an even higher rate. 

[LadySkinsFan]

Isn't the trades of a really short term contributing to a more volatile market? Don't longer term holdings bring more stability?

[HOF44]

46 minutes ago, LadySkinsFan said:

Isn't the trades of a really short term contributing to a more volatile market? Don't longer term holdings bring more stability?

Exactly, millisecond trades do nothing but play the system and can cause runaway markets.  It needs to be taxed at a rate that discourages it. 

[Fergasun]

No one should be surprised by this, but I'm calling it now -- October 26, 2017 -- we are NOT getting meaningful tax reform.

 

Big picture: The GOP wants tax reform to be "deficit neutral".  This means any cut (such as lowering the rate on businesses) must be off-set with a tax increase somewhere else (hence making the lowest bracket 12% instead of 10%).  There are so many things that have already been "taken off the table" -- one was called the "Border Adjustment tax" - below:

Quote

Businesses in the United States would no longer be able to deduct the cost of purchases from abroad, or imports. At the same time, businesses would no longer be taxed on the revenue attributable to sales abroad, or exports.

 

Another was "savings" from the collapse of any Obamacare reform.

 

Thus, to provide tax savings to the rich, the GOP must find the "savings" from the middle class . I've seen proposals which say they are going to double the standard deduction, or increase child care tax credits, for the middle class.  Yet -- all of these things must be "paid for". 

 

At this point, I'm not convinced that these things can be made to balance -- hence we see extreme items like eliminating state and local tax deductions, and changes to 401(k).

 

The main issues are:

1a) The top 1% benefit too much from this tax plan.

1b) Upper-middle class (top 20-2%) end up paying too much for this tax plan.

 

I saw this quote:

Quote

At first blush, raising taxes on this level of income [$100k to $300k] would not be overly problematic, as these taxpayers are probably beyond the upper reaches of what can reasonably be considered "middle class." The problem, however, lies in the the fact that only one in ten of the richest 1% of taxpayers would experience a tax increase under the President's proposal. Any tax bill that increases income on ANY class of taxpayers more than it does the richest 1% is going to be a very difficult sell.

Precisely!  This tax reform that the GOP has proposed in their frameworks is a giveaway to the rich from the upper-middle class. 

 

Do you know why people hated Obamacare?  It was a tax on the middle-upper-middle class to pay for health care for the poor.  Sure, maybe 30-40% of the population getting hit didn't mind, but there is/was a lot of animosity from the remaining 60-70%.  Just wait and see how this same class will react to getting hit with taxes so that we can give more money to the rich. 

 

But hey, there's so many other fires going on with this president. 

[LadySkinsFan]

But this is the class that reliably votes Republican, like my neighbors next door and across the street. One couple, who just retired and moved away, let their house go to foreclosure, now have to depend on the kindness of Republicans that they voted for not to cut their Medicare and Social Security. 

 

These people never learn, and they are highly educated. I guess he will depend on his military retirement, until the Republicans cut that too.

[Jumbo]

economics in general, micro to macro, personal to society writ large, is one of my weakest and least liked topics

 

 

so i ask if you econ-heads here agree with what i hear from some non-partisan types that this blueprint still allows most current corporate loopholes to remain, leaving them getting the proposed corporate rate reduction and still keeping the best loopholes... also seemingly maintaining much of the complexity in the code that supposedly was being purged

 

 

[LadySkinsFan]

Exactly, this is tax cut, not reform or streamlining the tax code. 

 

Corporations and the wealthy still get to take advantage of the tax loopholes afforded to them, while tax deductions for the rest of us are eliminated like 401k contributions and state and local taxes deductions. 

[Springfield]

I haven’t seen anything concrete, but this whole thing is going to **** me over with losing an interest deduction, property tax deduction, 401k.  Sounds like a shifting of where my money goes.

[LadySkinsFan]

They've gotten good at shifting the wealth from the 99% to the 1%. 

 

The first home loan fiasco, the savings and loan fiasco, the next housing fiasco coming up, too numerous to count really. 

 

And people still keep voting for these creeps. 

 

And I don't dismiss the Democrats from this because the benefit from Citizens United and not pushing for campaign finance reform. 

 

But until they get control of both houses of Congress, they can't introduce legislation or at least push it.

 

It will take an amendment to get rid of Citizens United.

[Fergasun]

Just reading that the GOP is not allowing "some" state and local tax deductions (for property taxes). 

 

Great news for those from high property tax states (or states like Texas that collect most from their property taxes).  Oh wait, the lead for the GOP on taxes is from Texas.  Sorry, hard to not be cynical over this. 

 

Why not simply cap *all* deductions instead of targeting some.  This screams the type of "social engineering" that the GOP claims to be against. 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

On 10/28/2017 at 11:02 AM, Jumbo said:

economics in general, micro to macro, personal to society writ large, is one of my weakest and least liked topics

 

so i ask if you econ-heads here agree with what i hear from some non-partisan types that this blueprint still allows most current corporate loopholes to remain, leaving them getting the proposed corporate rate reduction and still keeping the best loopholes... also seemingly maintaining much of the complexity in the code that supposedly was being purged

Yes. Fully.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Sacks 'n' Stuff

[Fergasun]

The simplification just means "put the rich into lower tax rate brackets and the poorest into higher tax rate bracket."

 

Tax code is not really all that complicated...

[Fergasun]

Politico: Ryan Loses Key Ally on Tax Reform after Switch on Breaks

Quote

The National Association of Home Builders on Saturday accused House Speaker Paul Ryan of abruptly reversing course on a mortgage tax credit proposal and announced it would oppose the tax-reform proposal that GOP lawmakers expect to unveil on Wednesday.  The about-face by the housing-industry lobbying group strips Republicans of a powerful ally. Tax breaks for homeowners have long been one of the flash points of any attempt to rewrite the nation's tax laws.  "All the resources we were going to put into supporting are now going to go into opposing the plan," NAHB Chief Executive Officer Jerry Howard told POLITICO.

...
 

Quote

"Under the framework, the mortgage-interest deduction becomes simply a subsidy for the very wealthy," Howard said. "It doesn’t do anything to promote homeownership."

Hah!  I love it.

 

For those confused about the tax bill, here is another way to think about it:

USA will immediately take out a $1.5T loan.  $1.2T will go to the richest in the country.  $0.3T will go to the middle-class and poor.  We will have to pay back that $1.5T over time.  The rich and the poor will not see direct impact of the payback.  The middle class will see an immediate impact.  In 2-5 years, the GOP will start saying, "We are having a harder time paying out Medicare, Social Security, etc. because we also have to pay back the $1.5T in tax cuts that we gave out."  Then they will cut services needed for by both the poor and middle class.  

 

The rich are largely unaffected by spending cuts due to the stress this adds to the Federal budget.

 

GOP act like the richest 10% are "true job creators".  Reality is that that richest 10% have been getting more wealthy over the past 10-15 years -- where are the jobs they are supposed to be creating?  I expect this "job creator" term to be used very prominently.

 

I'm not in favor of tax reform if it will hamstring the budget "grand bargain" in the future -- which it is going to do. 

 

I've always thought the GOP should forget about tax reform and just do the budget "grand bargain" now... unfortunately we know that Trump is trying to help himself and his class....

 

 

[visionary]

 

[LadySkinsFan]

[HOF44]

If they cut out deducting state income taxes paid its gonna screw me. 

[LadySkinsFan]

Wealthy people won't really care because they have the wealth to absorb this loss of deduction. They have other deductions that will offset, deductions that aren't available to the rest of us. 

 

Are you guys getting it yet, we are screwed.

[Riggo-toni]

Adopt Germany's corporate tax code and rates.

As much as I loathe Trump, he's not (for once) exaggerating when he says we have the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, but our tax code is about 3 times longer than Germany's. The tax code is where lobbyists earn their money, and congress turns lead into campaign gold. 

 

Cut the corporate tax rate to 18%, and eliminate 70% of the deductions. Do BOTH, or nothing.Index the capital gains tax to inflation. Very gradually lower the maximum on the mortgage interest deduction, cutting it by about half over the next 20 years - lower it about 2 or 3 percent each year.

[The Evil Genius]

2 hours ago, HOF44 said:

If they cut out deducting state income taxes paid its gonna screw me. 

 

It screws anyone who itemizes (and pays state income tax), right?

[HOF44]

4 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

It screws anyone who itemizes (and pays state income tax), right?

Yes, but if your income is high enough you will end up better off because of a lower overall rate.  Unfortunately middle to upper middle class taxpayers will only get the tax, not the offsetting lower rates.  

[Hersh]

1 hour ago, Riggo-toni said:

Adopt Germany's corporate tax code and rates.

As much as I loathe Trump, he's not (for once) exaggerating when he says we have the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, but our tax code is about 3 times longer than Germany's. The tax code is where lobbyists earn their money, and congress turns lead into campaign gold. 

 

Cut the corporate tax rate to 18%, and eliminate 70% of the deductions. Do BOTH, or nothing.Index the capital gains tax to inflation. Very gradually lower the maximum on the mortgage interest deduction, cutting it by about half over the next 20 years - lower it about 2 or 3 percent each year.

 

This is not entirely true in the sense that the effective tax rate is no where near that high. So while claimed, not sure any corporation actually pays that. Plus, it's just the top tax rate being referenced. 

Edited November 1, 2017 by Hersh

[LadySkinsFan]

Yes, all those available deductions make the effective tax rate for some people/corporations 0%.