Right, @doschicos , but it takes a little bit of effort to find that information (not much effort – GIYF), and the teeniest bit of critical thinking. Which gets back to the title of the thread. We are in an era where education has been massively defunded, where a debt-free college education is unattainable for the majority of Americans, where science and simple facts are frankly disbelieved and even ridiculed in many quarters, and where “intellectual” is a dirty word. In that environment, it’s easy to convince a lot of people of just about anything.
Actually, the structure of this statement is not economically sound or correct because the net effect of the other way is a country I guarantee you definitely would not want.
Power brokers are not paying taxes because they are cheats of some kind; they are not paying taxes because they are the ones taking the risks to build companies that employ the people that pay taxes and because of their funding of government.
The power brokers do not pay taxes because of: 1) write-offs from losses of companies, which fail and those losses are deducted from their gains, and 2) the government (foreign ones too) sells tax-free bonds that funds government pensions and other government services.
People forget that government produces nothing the average person needs to buy, but it does create and sell one thing that wealthy people can purchase, i.e., bonds. And that is the primary way your government runs a deficit and ever mounting debt. It is simply that 99.5% of people are not wealthy enough to buy those financial products the government depends on to function.
Do people not get that your government runs a deficit and increasing debt not because power brokers are not paying taxes, but because your government depends power brokers to purchase the tax-free bonds the government eagerly created to fund itself? I guess not.
But, more importantly, the power brokers are the ones who hold the debt that allows the company that provides your job to even exist. That person is already putting their money at risk to provide you a job. It might seem stupid to some to bite the hand that feeds you since they do not have to fund the loans that allow your company to function.
In contrast, 95%+ of job personnel and production are expendable - meaning, it is easy to find another person or way to fulfill that need. And more interesting still, 99.5% of jobs requires no risk of personal capital at all; in fact 99.5% of people have a job to provide them capital.
Fundamentally, the power broker is doing a whole lot more for the economy by actually risking and spending his already made capital (which he does not have to spend and risk) to create bigger and better companies.
What I find truly fascinating is people rail against the wealthy and the power brokers never understanding that it is those same brokers who back the loans that bank gives to companies so these people have a job.
And the alternative to not having power brokers who take massive risks? Much less economic growth, fewer jobs, and much less government services because bonds would not be bought and government would be forced to live within its means.
Therefore, the answer is yes - this is the kind of country that people want, however, they are not economically adept enough to understand it.
So you are claiming one of the primary reasons that the .01% doesn’t pay taxes is because they buy US government and municipal bonds?? I think not.
@awcntdb, I worked in the risk business. That was my career. I worked in the financial markets.
People who take risk can pay taxes on their rewards. 
The economic stystem will be fine. 
Everybody is expendable… Which is a good thing because everybody is going to die.
“Whether numbers are accurate or not, whether statistics are specious or not, is not particular to one administration, one political party. It’s naive to believe so.”
Most definitely. They all frame it however they choose, to make themselves look favorable, to make an advantage for whatever they are deciding to do at the time. All of them. You have to interpret things for yourself, to figure out what is truthful.
“When looking at numbers like unemployment numbers, its best to look at trends rather than nitpicking about very specific numbers. They are always getting revised anyway. Bottom line, our country’s employment situation is much better than it was in 2008 due to a variety of reasons.”
And thank God for that. It was awful.
One of my favorite sayings is If you torture a statistic long enough, it will confess to anything.
Well, at least you said think because clearly you do not know. However, one way to guarantee you never get wealthy is to believe dumb stuff!
I suggest you check the the primary income source of, for example, John Kerry’s 01% wife, based on her 2004 tax returns. So you think she is the only .01% person to use such instruments? Yeah, you probably do believe that she is the only one doing this and figured it out.
Emphasis mine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/16/politics/campaign/16teresa.html?_r=0
If the primary reason the top .01 percent don’t pay taxes is because they own tax free munis, they aren’t taking much risk.
There goes the risk argument.
There is no shortage of risk takers.
I’m very well versed on investment options having made a career of it. Thanks though for insinuating that I’m dumb, @awcntdb. I’d be happy to compare investment knowledge, experience, and credentials with you, any time.
First off, government and municipal bonds are far from some hidden secret known only to the .01% (and you). They are used by many, many American households. Second, there are many ways that the super wealthy shelter their income, including tax havens and shelters, trust fund structures, hedge funds and their tax treatment, overseas accounts, and sundry other loopholes and structures. Frankly, John Kerry’s wife’s $5MM yearly income is fairly small potatoes compared to a lot of the .01%.
@doschicos, it’s fun to be told we don’t know something by people who don’t know. Lol
These comments fit well with the thread.
Coming back full circle to the beginning of the thread, @dstark.
Such a shame I’ve wasted years of education and decades of experience, plus all that time getting all those abbreviations I can trot out after my name on a business card because I’m too dumb to know that secret (shhh!) investment trick of not paying taxes on government and municipal bonds. Never mind that Turbo Tax asks every taxpayer about it yearly.
@doschicos, lol!
Not to mention that interest rates on munis have decreased significantly since the days of 2003. If Theresa Heinz Kerry were still as invested in munis today, her income wouldn’t put her in the top 1%, much less .01% for comparable amounts. Also, I’m sure that she and many other wealthy spouses whose husbands have White House aspirations might have planned their income tax return disclosures with some foresight. What was the point of trotting out that example? Were it only that simple, huh?
" What was the point of trotting out that example? Were it only that simple, huh?"
Ah, I’m sure you recognize the drill, @AttorneyMother. One side brings out their examples of ultra wealthy sliding out of paying taxes by talking about Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, and Mitt Romney. The other side brings up the Kerrys, the Clintons, and George Soros. Each side never addressing their own ultra wealthy low tax rate payers.
It’s similar to one side lecturing on about God and family values, while cheating on their wives. The other side thundering on about people not paying their fair share, talking about how unfair the tax dodges are—while using every means possible to do the same thing, and parking their million dollar yachts in a neighboring state to avoid personal property taxes.
Both sides doing actions that are legal, but completely hypocritical. Same old hyperbole.
Busdriver11, there is another side. The side that actually knows things.
@busdriver11, Well, then perhaps it’s appropriate of this thread. Q.E.D.
“Busdriver11, there is another side. The side that actually knows things.”
Yes, and that is the side that I would like in office, but fat chance of that going to happen. What a fantasy, people who actually know things, and don’t let their political preferences or greed for power blind them.
For sure, AttorneyMother. quite appropriate!
At the K-12 school level, if the school is public, then the person does depend on the government. For non-public schools, the person depends on parents being able to afford private school tuition, or be able to home school (which may mean foregoing other paid work) – meaning that circumstances of birth (e.g. into wealth or poverty) can have a significant effect on whether a school is available. In addition, the quality of the public or private school can vary significantly, something which the person has little or no control over (choices are mainly parental choices, usually constrained by parental finances, though not all parents make good choices even when they have the financial capabilities).
Much of the 47% pay payroll taxes (nominally for Social Security and Medicare). Of course, since this is quietly deducted from paychecks before net pay is delivered (yes, the pay stubs show the amount of these taxes, but who looks at that line of their pay stub that often?), it does not get the visibility of the federal income tax, where Americans everywhere have to fill in forms to remind them of how much tax they are paying.
And of course, many of those 47% have paid federal taxes for decades, before they retired. But most everyone should know that.