<p>“…the rich will always have an incentive to hide their money from Uncle Sam.”</p>
<p>There does not have to be much of an incentive nor do the wealthy/rich need to hide their wealth from Uncle Sam. </p>
<p>Even the less than middleclass will change banks for a 0.1% more in savings interest. Will change loans for 0.1%. Will find a “best” student loan for 0.125%.</p>
<p>“Harvard Prof. Elizabeth Warren said: “There have never been since the Depression so many families standing right on the edge. Families have tightened their belts. They have cut down in every discretionary spending area they possibly can.””</p>
<p>I read one of her earlier books written with her daughter and the interesting thing is they started with single-income households and then discussed a few women entering the workforce to provide more materially for their households including the ability to move to better school districts. These households held a competitive advantage in terms of money but had less to fall back on in the case of emergencies such as taking care of sick relatives or getting a job for short-term financial gain.</p>
<p>Of course competitive advantages often disappear as others figure out to get the same thing.</p>
<p>On schools: fix the families. You’d have to pay college tuition rates with boarding schools to provide an adequate education on an even footing.</p>
<p>The truly rich, those that plan wealth management down through generations, can just hold blue-chip stocks for decades and decades and not have to pay income taxes on these assets until they are cashed in. Or until dividends are paid. That’s a legal method. As we now know, there are illegal methods too, aided and abetted by banks.</p>
<p>On fixing the families, fix the extended families too so that relatives help each other out when needed.</p>
<p>“aided and abetted by banks.”</p>
<p>Add to this, your CPA, President, Congressman, government, real estate agent, mortgage broker, appraiser, neighbor, financial aid representative, relatives both known and unknown, and of course, yourself. And College Confidential. All aiding and abetting. </p>
<p>Left anyone out?</p>
<p>no one has yet mentioned the stagnant alternative minimum tax and how the number of families faced with this huge tax burden is increasing each year.</p>
<p>i think more taxation is not a solution. more fiscally sound spending would be a novel idea.</p>
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<p>That’s interesting, BCEagle. Data released by the Joint Economic Committee bears that out.</p>
<p>According to the report, women are more likely to lose their jobs during downturns, putting the one-quarter of children raised in single-mother families at particular risk.</p>
<p>It’s also discouraging that average pay for women dropped from $15.04 per hour in 2004 to $14.84 today.</p>
<p>OK. so they should pay more taxes. The biggest increases in taxes paid have been when there were tax cuts, so the richest could put their money to use, creating jobs, etc. People say the middle class is shrinking. It is shrinking because it is moving into upper class. There have been more new millionaires created under lower taxes, than with higher taxes. So, more power to them - that is the American Dream - to become more financially successful than our parents. The richer they get, the better it is for their companies, employees, and investors, who primarily are the little guys. I don’t begrudge them a single penny. They worked to get there, and deserve every penny, just as I deserve my money for what I do, and they support the economy far more than I could ever do.</p>
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<p>What do you propose, since most of the federal budget goes toward defense, social security, medicare, and medicaid (not to mention interest on the national debt)?</p>
<p>I find little starting or all that worrisome in those statistics. In 2000 lots of people were making great money in phony baloney Dotcom companies and all the other tech startups and people who made money off of them. That all collapsed soon after as well it should So how we comparing from 2002-2007? Why should we expect the lowlifes in the lowest 10% to be keeping up with the super bright productive people in the top 10%? That’s just a dumb comparison. So half the people have credit card debt. I can’t get too worked up over that.</p>
<p>rich people do alwyas have an incentive to hide their money from the govt but the accountants, banks, etc. all cost money themselves. thus, if the rate is low enough, it is cheaper to just pay the tax–which is why the amount paid tends to increase when it is lowered from high levels.</p>
<p>“Add to this, your CPA, President, Congressman, government, real estate agent, mortgage broker, appraiser, neighbor, financial aid representative, relatives both known and unknown, and of course, yourself. And College Confidential. All aiding and abetting.”</p>
<p>I was specifically referring to the UBS case which has been in the news. I assumed that folks here would be up on that. I don’t know what you in particular, are talking about.</p>
<p>quote from 50: “but the accountants, banks, etc. all cost money themselves. thus, if the rate is low enough, it is cheaper to just pay the tax–”</p>
<p>No true. How would anybody, whether personal or corporate, know what is their tax obligation, without doing the calculation for determining the tax? Since you are already spending the effort to determine that taxes, wouldn’t everyone look for and promote tax credits?</p>
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<p>Why leave it up to the government? If you have extra $$ and want those around you to be better off, check out some charities in your area. They will know, much more than the Federal Government, what the needs are in your community & how best to address them.</p>
<p>If you send your money to the Federal Government, it could wind up being spent like this:
[Taxpayers</a> pay for rep’s big-screen TVs - Jonathan E. Kaplan - Politico.com](<a href=“http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11968.html]Taxpayers”>Taxpayers pay for rep's big-screen TVs - POLITICO)</p>
<p>Or this:
[Citizens</a> Against Government Waste:](<a href=“http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2007]Citizens”>http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2007)</p>
<p>BTW - Here’s a list of senators & their earmarks for 2007:</p>
<p>[Citizens</a> Against Government Waste: Earmark Requests 2007](<a href=“http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=EarmarkRequests_2007_Senate]Citizens”>http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=EarmarkRequests_2007_Senate)</p>
<p>Specifically Obama:
[Obama</a> Announces FY08 Federal Funding Requests | U.S. Senator Barack Obama](<a href=“http://obama.senate.gov/press/070621-obama_announces_3/]Obama”>http://obama.senate.gov/press/070621-obama_announces_3/)</p>
<p>“No true. How would anybody, whether personal or corporate, know what is their tax obligation, without doing the calculation for determining the tax? Since you are already spending the effort to determine that taxes, wouldn’t everyone look for and promote tax credits?”
it costs a lot less to figure it out (especially if its just an estimate) than to move it to bermuda</p>
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ejr1, every part of that statement is false. It is widely disseminated propaganda, and frequently believed because it is repeated.</p>
<p>But it’s false. Tax cuts do not increase revenues over the long term. No actual knowledgible economist - governmental or otherwise - actually supports this canard. And the middle class isn’t “moving into the upper class” - mobility between income strata is lower than ever before. It is true that people tend to make more money as the get older, but the average 30 year old man earns less than the average 30 year old man did 30 years ago. Inflation-adjusted income at the 50th percentile has actually declined over the past 30 years; at the 75th percentile it is stagnant. All increase in wealth in America over the past 30 years has gone to the top 25% of the nation - mostly to the top 1%.</p>
<p>Myths. All myths. But helpful myths to the side that Warren Buffet says is winning the economic class warfare in America…</p>
<p>bz, IMHO, earmarks are a political diversion tactic since they account for less than 1% of federal government spending. </p>
<p>Discretionary items in the 2006 federal budget were 38% of the total. Security-related expenses for the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the War on Terror accounted for half of the total discretionary spending in that year. The rest went to non-security spending, of which more than half went to Health and Human Services, Education, the Veterans Administration and the State Department. </p>
<p>Cutting earmarks may not necessarily reduce government spending since they aren’t usually budget items. Earmarks just direct funds from certain executive agencies to specific projects. Not only that, but many earmarks are worthy. For example, 75% of the foreign operations budget in 2006 came from earmarks—or fully 2/5 of earmarks spending.</p>
<p>That said, I’m not a fan of earmarks. Congressional leaders often use them to reward or punish legislators, and incumbents use them curry favor with donors and constituents.</p>
<p>Like you, I’m all for cutting government spending. It’s just not as easy as it looks on the surface.</p>
<p>Having the ability to reward or punish is one of the few ways leadership can get anything done. It’s already hard enough.</p>
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<p>Median wages have stagnated since the early 80s–not just since the dotcom era.</p>
<p>There’s a great deal that’s worrisome about those statistics, notwithstanding the human and societal costs. The people who can least afford it are building up credit card debt on necessities, which means they’ll have to spend money in the future on interest payments they can ill afford and not on necessities. When these people reach the breaking point–which is happening more and more frequently, according to personal bankruptcy statistics–many of them will turn to government services for help. Judging by a number of posts on CC, it’s evident that many people want to REDUCE funding to the very government services that may provide the only means of putting food on the table for such families. (By the way, the statistics reflect the US middle class and not the “lowest 10%.”)</p>
<p>So, yes, I’d say these statistics are very worrisome.</p>
<p>mapesy - I agree w/ what you said in post #56. Earmarks do represent a small percentage of the total budget. I think it suggests a pattern of waste, fraud & abuse tho’, that carries ove into other aspects of running the government. (see my first link above). </p>
<p>If legislators aren’t tightening their belts regarding earmarks (I think they’re making some progress in that regard this year however), how can they be trusted to “spend wisely” in other areas?</p>
<p>Another factor. Much of the population growth has been in the south which has a much lower COL than the northern US. What happens if you adjust by change in population and location and age? Gross stats can hide a wide range of larger changes.</p>