Here’s the deal: Democrats want to raise taxes on “the rich”. They believe that not raising taxes on the “middle class” will spur the economy on, but that somehow — simultaneously — raising taxes on “the rich” won’t hurt the economy in any way. Does that follow? I mean, who do they think employs people>? Other than the government, I mean?
They also believe that extending unemployment benefits is better for the economy than cutting the taxes of “the rich” — the logical offshoot of such thinking being that we’d be a near perfect, flush nation once everyone was unemployed. It’s the “multiplier effect”!
Honestly. People vote for these morons.
Raise taxes on the employers, then the government can spend more to create jobs.
/dem
Why all this concern about money? Pish tosh, man! You just need to marry into it or inherit it…. What do you mean we can’t all be a Kennedy, Pelosi, Feinstein or Kerry?!
Allow people to keep what they earn?! OUTRAGEOUS!!!111!1
You betters know what to do with it. They have plans, you see.
The new Drudge splash is Obama’s suggestion that the Social Security payroll tax drop from 6.2% to 4.2%.
Because the best thing to do will be to shortchange the program going bankrupt the fastest.
How about this, Barack? Cut the budget. Seriously. Slash it.
Then reform Social Security and Medicare. Talk to Paul Ryan for suggestions.
Funny how those rich Democrats never discuss a “wealth tax”, only “income tax”.
there’s a whole party of them
Listening to the A-hole in Chief right now. Narcissism with a dash of self congratulation and delusion folded in right before baking.
He really hates white people with money.
whooppee another 13 months of funemployment
this is our sputnik moment?
we couldn’t be more fucked
Furthermore, Durbin uses the clichéd “laser-focused” line.
Lasers aren’t focused. Idiot.
Didn’t Clinton leave a little sputnik on some chubby girl’s dress?
the sputnik has landed
Te leftists and the MFM are congenitally dishonest when it comes to discussing taxes.
#11 al
Heh.
The democrats support a return to the Clinton Tax hikes.
There. No copyright. Feel free to use that line whenever you discuss this issue.
It’s not “Bush tax cuts”. It’s Bush tax rates. Raise the rates or not is the question at hand.
There are no “cuts” on the table.
I’ve been listening to Hugh Hewitt on my drive home. That man is NOT a rightwinger…he’s at best a center-right with a few cups of pragmatism
And even he is beside himself with rage over the Senate Republicans right now for caving to a TWO YEAR extension of taxes.
What.The.Fuck? Like no one, especially businesses, never plan beyond two years?
What is wrong with Senate Republicans? They can’t stomach fighting even ONE ROUND? They don’t really believe in the limited-goverment principles they mouth??
Time to ratchup the TEA Parties and start getting people to run against these poltroons.
they’re dealing with crazy house demonrats
– I tried to watch Durbin Sunday, but after just a few minutes of listening to him recite the }Progressives play book of class warfare rhetoric I had to shut it off.
– You can actually feel your IQ slipping downward as these fools yammer.
they only thing at this time the rethuglicans can do is try to prevent the crazy herr docktor from killing the patient
What is wrong with Senate Republicans?
They just want to show that negotiating with them is not “almost” like negotiating with terrorists.
PRAGMATISM!
– The Dems are trapped between losing the Left totally, and watching the billowing waves wash over the deck of the Titanic.
– They simply can’t stop themselves. It’s a lose – lose no matter what they do.
– The Reps can just wait them out until January, and then pass a Bill of their own. If the Dems try to block it or Bummblefuck does, either way, it will be the next nail in their 2012 coffin.
Veronique de Rugy and Nick Gillespie argue, quite persuasively from where I sit, that the thing we want to keep (which we’ve had in variable forms for many many decades) is fed. Gov’t spending at no more than 18 pct. of GDP. This is what’s majorly out of whack right now, not tax levels. Cuts on offer must therefore be spending cuts, and no others.
bumblefuck wouldn’t even cut spending to pay for his unemployment welfare
Wait for the wailing and gnashing of teeth and rending of garments is an actual spending cut is ever enacted.
that’s not practical economically or politically. come january boehnerfag and crew have a clean slate to attack O!. and the stock market won’t crash in the meantime
Delaying Tax Vote Could Crash Stock Market
why give them any more crisis that they don’t like to waste?
Even Dems do not believe extending unemployment benefits is better for the economy, they believe that extending this subsidy is better for the Dems politically in the short run.
That’s the way the R’s are going to sabotage the economy to screw Obama over, no doubt right? By agreeing with him on something?
– Well, if a deal is cut the two year thing is ok, IF we take back the gov in 2012. At that point it will all be up for re-extending, with the votes to make it stick.
– When the investment community see’s the assholes are out of power the unemployment will take care of itself, as the economy starts to heal.
How is taking money away from something that is headed headlong to insolvency going to be a good thing?
If this deal is true we are well and truly screwed; it is a complete buy-in to the progressive’s framing. I had a momentary glimmer of hope with the filibuster letter from the 42; the fact that they are even negotiating a deal within this framework shows that they just do not get it.
Probably the same thing that was wrong with them in 1995 when they killed the “Contract with America”. Inside-the-Beltway “pragmatism”.
after this deal America will still be every bit as failshit as it was before this deal
this is a deal what says the status quo is a formula for win
bumblefuck must be immensely pleased with himself
newrouter, assuming that you’re not being sly (and if you are, well played sir!), why is it the Senate Republican’s responsibility to save the Democrats from this crisis of their own making?
– Look, beyond esthetics and noting they’re still playing softball against the electorates wishes, it doesn’t matter what either side does at this point. The economy is going to stay the same at best, or get worse, which is far more probable, until all Dems are out of power in any meaningful way, and the investment groups see a return to a business friendly country.
– All this political manipulation and back and forth doesn’t mean shit until that happens, and it won’t happen until 2012, taxes or no taxes, cuts or no cuts.
let’s say market crashes 12/15. 12/16 sanfrannan says house votes for a $10,000,000,000,000(exageration) “stimulus” because she can. leftoid media go into overdrive propagandizing said effort. why even give these lunatics a chance?
01/01/11 is a new day in what is left of america if we can stop the crazy herr docktor from killing the patient in 12/10 america.
– Because everything they do to deepen the mess is one more notch in the failure belt, and everything they do manage to get through can be reversed or simply not funded, which amounts to the same thing.
BBH
If a mere 5 weeks after the huge, historical “shellacking” Conservatives served up to Leftists the Senate Republicans then dare not go to the mattresses on keeping the line on CURRENT tax rates, why should anyone believe they’ll act any differently in 2012?
They didn’t ONCE take on the Dems in the media over the hysterical, cynical lying about “Republicans want to give money to BILLIONARES!!!”
I want to yank on some studded leather boots and kick flabby GOP Senate asses.
I don’t know if any of you watched the Obama presser for the tax cuts (Hotair has it- Read my lips, no new taxes — until 2013) but what amazes me about his speech is his complete disregard for logic.
He says he doesn’t like giving tax cuts to people making more than $250K, and plans on raising them again in two years so don’t get excited because they aren’t permanent. But then he says that he wants to cut taxes permanently for certain groups, especially for small businesses so they can hire more people.
How many people running small businesses -that could hire enough people to matter- are also making LESS than $250k?
I know he ignores this because he has to adhere to the party line, but it’s just so incredibly illogical that I wonder if even HE gets annoyed with the ridiculousness of what he’s saying.
so what’s wrong with causing the O! for the first time in his life to compromise. the lazy bastard might like it
– Well Dar just what do you think the mood of the electorate will be after 2 more years of this. Tea party for II, with more “kick their asses out”, comes to mind.
because starting 01/01/11 the rethuglicans control 1/3 of the gov’t
why even give these lunatics a chance?
I think it’s time that the daddy party stop shielding the mommy party from the consequences of her actions because the daddy party thinks that is what is in the best interests of the children.
– If we have to take it in the shorts because Bumbblefuck is such a brain dead ideolog that he refuses to see the folly of trying to force investment in a Democratic society, then I want them to fail as hard and as obviously as possible, so that no one over the age of 9 in this country doesn’t understand what a complete and total failure the entire Progressive movement has been.
– That’s the least we should get for our miseries.
no it is making sure the lame duck congress stays lame
oh.
that’s America?
Starting 01/01/11 the House GOP will have the House Dems, the Senate Dems AND the Senate GOP opposing their every move. Mark my words.
We agree, Darleen.
This was an awful deal. The Tea Party just took it in the ass. In exchange for a status quo on tax rates during a recession, they agreed to about $90 billion in spending. Where that money is going to come from is anyone’s guess.
3 years unemployment? 3 years? And an extension of “tax credits” to people who don’t pay taxes? That’s welfare. That’s unfunded welfare, too.
Yippie!
“….AND the Senate GOP opposing their every move. Mark my words.”
– If they do it will make kicking their asses to the curb all that much more pleasurable.
i’ll mark ’em but i just trying to kill the lame duck congress at this point. next year who knows. tea party type people might be engaged in the long haul of this endeavor.
Well, look on the bright side: now at least we have some “certainty” – certainty that the economy will be going absolutely nowhere for at least 2 years…
Yippie! indeed.
I suspect that you’re overestimating the willingness of the House Democrats to follow Nancy Pelosi into the buzzsaw. Maybe I could see the wisdom in resolving the Capital Gains tax issue with a two-years down the road kick of the can in order to avoid the panic selling, but there’s no reason not to go for a permanent extension of the Bush rates and settle on another 10 year extension.
– Bummblefuck could not stop the unemployment checks. If he did he’d have a lot more than Gheys chaining themselves to the WH fence.
– Him and his party started this welfare state. Now if he tries to stop it he’ll have a bloodbath on his hands.
= And its only going to get worse.
that’s what i dislike about this knee jerk crit. from levin et al. – let’s us put a stake through sanfrannan congress. these clowns have all kinds of goodies they want to do in the next 3 weeks. if this keeps 42 rethuglicans in the senate on the reservation for 3 weeks then “mission accomplished”
Jeff, is that extending unemployment out to a total of three years (156 weeks) from the current 99? or is that an additional 156 weeks on top of the 99 weeks of funemployment?
if you want to turn the titantic away from the iceberg be in it for the long haul or be quiet an accept your fate.
the titanic sank three days after it launched I saw it in a movie
“if you want to turn the titantic away from the iceberg be in it for the long haul or be quiet an accept your fate.”
– Turns out the whole thing could have been avoided if the pilot had turned the other way.
– Sound familiar?
Santa – I want CSX2281. That is all. Thank you.
i was thinking train but that’s good too
yes it hit the iceberg OBAMA on her maiden voyage. the woman had a big belt.
I’m inclined to reserve judgment on that until the newly elected Tea Party types are seated. This doesn’t shock me at all, and in fact I’m somewhat hopeful seeing that the current batch held the line on a class warfare based tax hike, given its rather feckless and minority state. What is more spending from this crew? Business as usual.
Come January, I expect blood on the floor…and the walls…and the ceiling…
ot
mr. jeff,
are you following breitbart’s pigford thing? hillbuzz thinks it is the “big thing” come 01/01/11
Before anyone asks the question — I am just going to say here and now that as the Pigford Black Reparations Scam is investigated, many high profile, big time Democrats are going to be exposed as having a great deal to do with this.
Team R will have every chance to pay for the $90 billion in new spending when it does the budget next year
I haven’t been following it every day, newrouter, but I’m trying to keep somewhat current. Thanks for the link.
Ernst —
It’s an additional 13 months on top of the two years.
They vowed not to let any business proceed until they got the tax and budget issues resolved. Half of that is now done.
Now if the GOP can accept a bad deal on the budget quickly, the Dems can introduce all their new business!
not if they have 42 votes for a filibuster.
Keeps the Earned Income Tax Credit and American Opportunity Tax Credit increases from last year’s economic stimulus law, for another $40 billion in tax cuts for families and students.
those aren’t “tax cuts” … that’s straight up redistribution of money where they take money from people who pay income taxes and give it to people who don’t pay income taxes
yea and harry the reid has an impeachment to work on. run out the clock.
Yeah, it’s almost long enough to get a college degree now. I wonder how many young people still living at home are about to transition from 99ers to 154ers.
Progress!
My income depends on the rich spending money… and I’ve had upwards of 50 employees doing the same.
Plus I bought millions of dollars of stuff from local suppliers and I hired subcontractors.
I really don’t care what the rich spend their money on…. I’m just happy they bought a home here and brought the checkbook along
sanfranan’s lame duck or even last years dec. effort for health care is sort like college bball. take fouls, timeouts anything to get that last shot in before the buzzer. so mitch(no mitch as a pres. cand. please) mcconnell is doing the same.
Better yet, if they can stall the budget until next year, we can have the new House write it. It worked for the Dems in ’08.
But first, we’ve got to see if the current House buys the tax deal.
nan is leader of the demonrat party no?
my little brudder got a two-year some kind of something on the unemployment – he’s about to start his student teaching now and then he’s going to teach angry retarded children… it’s a big career change for him
I’m actually rather encouraged by the compromise. The TEA party has been advocating for lowered tax rates which they got in the form of continuation of the current tax rates (no increases on anyone), reductions on payroll taxes, reductions on business taxes, reductions on estate taxes (under current rules would have gone to 55% not 35%), adjustments to the AMT so less people will be ensnared in that crapfest and all they had to give up was unemployment extensions and EITC.
Now none of this is helps re spending side, but I didn’t expect them to tackle that until 2011 anyway. The current crop in the house are not going to do anything but spend, spend, spend and the new congress can start fresh with across the board cuts and other measures that will offset the tax reductions.
The loverly tax commission was all for keeping tax rates high and adding to the taxes. Heavy on increases and we just got the dems to compromise on to very little in increases (except the estate tax which is going up but not at the rate they wanted).
The 11 congress is what is charged with cutting spending and such.
The TEA party said we are Taxed Enough Already and we got that message through. Now to keep the hammer on them to reduce spending back to 08 or 06 levels and the stuff passed today will be paid for plus a bunch of other stuff will be slashed.
The increase taxes and increase spending more assholes in this congress will be gone in less than 30 days. It’s a good thing if we can get the tax relief now and work on the the spending side with the folks that actually campaigned on doing just that. There is just not enough left of this year to bundle the tax reductions and spending reduction offsets into one bill now, but Boehner and Ryan seem to be planning to hit the ground running with those moves once the proper chess pieces are in place.
Don’t know why y’all are whining about this… the TEA party was always about the over taxing and the over spending. They just got a good start on that mission. Plus added bonus of this as a biiiiggg issue come the 2012 election cycle. Which I don’t think O or any dems will want to be advocating on tax increases in the middle of that. Not with the TEA party watching and town halling them again.
so bumblefuck screw sanfrannan fireworks next
It’s worth remembering that this is not the Congress with tea party influence. It’s still the one that p*sed people off enough to start the tea parties. That being the case, I’m rather more favorably than unfavorably impressed.
It also occurs to me to wonder if Obama folded before the Senate Republicans expected. The BHO of October would still be making speeches with his nose in the air. From skimming thread titles on memeorandum, I’d say it’s certainly faster than the leftoids expected (“Tax Cut Deal Includes Monstrous Estate Tax, Dividend Concession”, sez FDL). Delaying actions don’t work if the enemy keeps surrendering too soon.
If the goal of the Republican leadership is delay, to spin the lame duck session out with no real accomplishment, one thing that occurs is the “revenue” definition — what we’re talking about here is a Senate agreement, and it’s about taxes and therefore revenue, and revenue measures must originate in the House. Republicans could get shirty about it on procedural grounds that they can bring up under current House rules… if they do that I’ll be quite optimistic. I’ll even have to upgrade my assessment of them from “cretinous” to “moronic.”
Regards,
Ric
Mine has been sitting on his ass for over a year, and he ain’t looking. An under the table side job here and there to pump up the income volume, and why not coast on that tasty gubmint deposit to this here debit card? Who doesn’t like free money?
we don’t have “victory” until 2013 when pres. palin kills a chicken on the east lawn of the multicutural house.
I’m with newrouter on this one. Get what you can from this lameduck session and keep them from passing as much harmful stuff as possible. Things can always be redone in the new session if there are the votes and a veto can be avoided but that last is the hard nut. Plus by kicking the “Clinton tax hikes” 2 years it becomes a issue just in time for the next election.
his wife is very clear about the acceptable parameters of funemployment I think
Nah, bring the caribou quarters in to process them, live.
– She’ll probably field dress a moose in the rose garden, with the MFM WH gaggle in attendance just to watch some of them have coronary’s.
In a world where not taking people’s money is actually giving them the government’s money, and cause for po’ folks to take up pitchforks, I think I need a drink.
It will become apparent that you are a thieving imbecile, Barcky.
Jennifer Rubin:
I call that a win, even if only a small one. Reid got re-elected. The goal now should be to make the SOB hate to get out of bed in the morning for the next six years.
Regards,
Ric
A House Democrat aide emails the Huffington Post the following:
House Democrats haven’t agreed to anything yet. Any package needs to be thoroughly reviewed and discussed in the caucus.
Pelosi is holding unemployment extensions and middle tax cuts hostage so that liberals can punish job providers… eleventy!!111!!
Looks like Obama has boxed Pelosi into a corner.
AND WTF is with this weather, I was supposed to play golf Wednesday and the high is now only supposed to be 30 deg. In Atlanta… In December.
re: ‘feets
That’s all they wanted to say, really. But they managed to let this get in there:
Make no mistake, higher taxes slow economic growth and maybe even reverse it. Yep. Baracky got one right.
propaganda whore Viv Schiller’s National Soros Radio has news what you can use
these people are fucking mad
Is he learning? He’s never had to face reality before.
They’re religious is what they are.
when they start the cancun thing with a “shout out” to the O!
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/post-carbon/2010/11/cancun_talks_start_with_a_call.html
Liberal fascism akbar!
– “creative science”? Hmmmmmm…..
– “Creative science”….The neo Left creationists!.
– Everyone else just talks about the climate….We create it!
If Ixchel is the deity of the neo Left creationists, Al Gore must be their John the Baptist.
Can one hope AlJohntheBaptist meets the same fate…
/didja notice the initials for the new name smash? Fate, I tells ya. Same fate for both would be gravy.
Cisco and Intel and Dell are among the douchebag companies what are complicit in the “carbon footprint” farce
why does this piece of shit have a job when so many non-pansies are unemployed?
It’s very troubling.
Hmmm, AJB and Al Gore are both boring and repetitive…
He’s employed because as always, fools and their money are soon parted.
Avatar, avatar, Come hither.
I lost my avatar. Oh well. The Bush tax cuts, as well as the tax increases proposed by most Democrats, is less than half of a half of percent of GDP. The amount matters less than the uncertainty. That is the thing killing job growth.
Nice poison pill you have there, Mr. Obama.
Can I has another one ?
Your avatar was caught up in the swirl of resurgent O!bama! euphoria, Rupert, this time generated by the pragmatic Right, who I guarantee will embrace this (and Him).
Be wary of gifts that are ticking.
Oh, and OT, but Elizabeth Edwards’ time is short. May God be with her, because that preening shit-for-brains thinger that is her estranged husband won’t be.
Ernst –
It’s an additional 13 months on top of the two years.
Dkos is confused about this. They have a whole post about those poor “99ers” – WHAT ABOUT THEM???
I was hoping, against hope, that people would realize that both party’s game the system – i.e.: “Repubs – Look at all the tax money we have saved you”, vs the Dem’s “Look at all the money we took from the rich to give to the poor (minus our fee)”. The basic rate isn’t all that different. The spending rates will bring us all down.
And to think I wondered why Old Testament God hated lending money.
If the Dems really do get their fratricide on, I may have to reconsider my opinion of the deal:
Original source requoted from Ace of Spades HQ’s Gabriel Malor.
Oh, but the hates from the d a f t c l a s s are palpable…
Popcorn-worthy, to watch these sorts writhe for a few days.
Oh please, please, please, please, please.
Sen. Sanders Threatens To Filibuster Obama Tax Deal
The Dems HAD to agree to the extensions. Obama wasn’t going to veto, and too many Dems up for election in 2012 saw what happened in early November to back Obama’s idiot play to raise taxes in a recession.
35% estate tax — up from 0% — is a tax hike. Those who claim that we should be thrilled that 35% is down from 55% (where it would have gone if the current rates expired) are buying into the progressive framing, namely that all the extensions are “tax cuts”. The payroll tax cut of 2% — for a year — is essentially an extension of a stimulus perk, and will do NOTHING to stimulate job production. $400 a year? Really? For that, the President was able to secure an extension of his giveaways to those who don’t pay taxes to begin with, and to add an additional year to unemployment benefits, with no money to pay for such things (my bet is, employers will be asked to throw in more — which will actually hurt job growth). The tab for those concessions alone is going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $60-$90 billion of new spending.
In the bureaucratic age of progressivism and entitlements, those “extensions” of essentially welfare giveaways disguised as relief and help measures, are just another several entitlements the GOP is going to have to “take away” to keep from their becoming permanent. The left will demagogue the hell out of them, too.
What I’d like the Tea Party to push for next is a flat or fair tax: once everyone has skin in the game, the likelihood of making permanent the client state the Dems have been building — where nearly half of all people don’t pay federal taxes, and so are permanent Dem voters (every election begins with a 47% Dem advantage?) — is greatly lessened.
And I think the thing could sell as a direct rebuke to the class warfare rhetoric of the left: because “the rich” make more, they’d pay more even if the percentage was the same for everyone. That can easily be equated to a kind of progressive income tax, especially if the code is so simplified, and loopholes closed.
You must have a higher tolerance for blithering foolery than I do serr8d, if you read through that whole thing. I couldn’t even skim through it all.
Thanks a lot for that, serr8d; I think I just lost six IQ points. Dude opens his rant with a story about how working for a giant bureaucracy, doing the bidding of customers who felt entitled to demand any amount of service and give any amount of abuse, managed by lazy, conflict-averse functionaries who refused to do any meaningful managing, and how the whole thing went straight to hell and he responded by no longer giving a shit about doing his job well.
Yes, that’s what he used for his opener.
And what conclusion does he draw from this? That people like me are blinkered racists because we refuse to turn the entire country into what he’s already described as a dysfunctional hell.
It’s the most obvious and tragic cases of cognitive dissonance I’ve seen in years. I almost pity the sorry son of a bitch.
Prolly goes without saying that the first link on his blogroll is Balloon Juice. I shoulda stopped as soon as I saw that.
I skipped past the “parable” (there was a moral to that personal anedote?) and stopped reading altogether when I got to his citation of a TV’ character’s misunderstanding of what Fabius Maximus sought to accomplish when dealing with Hannibal.
[…] last evening that TEA Party types took it in the rear yesterday on the tax compromise, Stephanie writes: The TEA party has been advocating for lowered tax rates which they got in the form of continuation […]
This very thing, as documented by Kurtz, has been the great task performed over many years by the old and graying “New Left”. Working diligently, stealthily, in their guise of community organizers. The “great expense” either obtained by taking control of various foundation boards or foisted upon the public by helpful, hapless politicians currying favor for election.
Except for sometimes.
But: yes, the over-use of that particular cliche annoys me as well.
Lasers can be focused, but so can your eyes, electron beams, etc.
Agreed. But I don’t, speaking only for myself (I’m starting to hate saying that, but not enough to stop saying it yet), have a problem with an estate tax. It’s just a gift tax under another name.
If you’re going to tax all income, then any money arriving on your doorstep counts as income. Personally, though, I’d prefer to see these various tax schemes uncomplicated to the degree possible.
And certainly if you’re passing a business, you should only have to pay tax on the value of that business after you’ve sold it, or assets of it.
Which I guess probably re-complicates things.
The taxes on estates have already been taken, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think the government has a right to any percentage of that money / property. None.
Estate taxes are just another arrow in the class warfare quiver. The revenue is not significant. It’s just a way to punish the rich, and to destroy privately-owned businesses.
Hmmm. If I earn money as a regular employee, and then give a gift of cash to…anyone at all, don’t they have to pay taxes, again, on that already-taxed money?
Doesn’t the same argument hold for wages? Or money that I pay to a handyman to fix my dishwasher?
This is exactly the same thing, I think. Someone has already paid taxes on that money, sure. Just not the person whose lap it’s falling into. Why do we treat inheritance differently from gifts?
That’s a good argument against all income taxes.
For, against, whatevs.
This is more about consistency, really. I personally think taxes are a necessity, but that’s a completely different conversation.
I don’t think you should have to pay taxes on a gift, no.
I don’t think your family should have to pay additional taxes on money that was yours when you were alive — and that you’d already been taxed on.
Your handyman is performing a service. Your gift is an active gesture. Your dying shouldn’t be a punishment to your family and a windfall for the government. The only “lap” money is falling into is the government’s when they steal it from your estate.
Oftentimes that monetary value is in property or land — a farm, for instance. That doesn’t make you cash rich. Should your family be thrown out of the home because you died — and you aren’t cash rich enough to pay the government for the privilege of staying put while they lay claim to your family’s money?
Ok, so you’re for repeal of the gift tax, then. I don’t think I agree with that, but it’s consistent with doing away with the inheritance tax.
Yes, I’ve been thinking about that one for a while. He’s, ostensibly, swapping his time for money of nearly the same value. It’s not clear to me why this is a legitimately taxable transaction and inheritance and gifts are not.
Undoubtedly there’s some key books that I ought to have read on the topic.
I think I dealt with that upthread, but it’s a fair point that the current tax law doesn’t deal with this sort of thing well.
Amen. And don’t think the people with real estates won’t figure a way around this.
Me, I’m going to die broke. I’m not leaving an estate to be taxed. My kids or grand-kids will get the money up front. When my wife finally has enough and leaves my ass for neglect, drunkenness, cruelty and not picking up that goddam sock, I’m not going to contest. We’ll sell the house, I’ll take my half and buy a trailer on a nine acre lot, forty old cars, a pole barn and a wood stove. I’ll raise chickens, turtles and a little pot for spending money and ammo. I’ve got four sons, one of whom wants to be a sheriff, so someone will be around to check on me and get me a ride if I need one (you don’t think any of those cars would work, did you?). He’ll also find my body after I break my tibia trying to pull the frozen tarp out from behind the woodpile in my slippers, carhart jacket and underwear and die of exposure and have my carcass picked by raccoons. He’ll have to call his brothers and the youngest, a Jesuit scholastic in Maryland will be the one who has to tell their mother. He’ll be more upset than she will be, of course. She’ll say, “I thought he’d go of heat stroke… box him up and we’ll cremate him up here. Tell your brother to shoot all those raccoons.” My oldest grandson will make $1600 selling the interior trim off of the seven AMC Eagles he found in my pole barn on ebay, and my trailer and all nine acres will go to a logging company in a sheriff’s sale.
Damn, LMC. I’d’ve thought Mother would have told me I had a twin separated at birth…
Regards,
Ric
[who already has the pole barn and the nine acres, still working on the forty old cars — only nine so far]
You’re living my dream Ric. Except for maybe the getting eaten by raccoons part.
That’s why I keep cats, LMC. The raccoons don’t stand a chance.
Regards,
Ric
I’m a flat tax proponent, Slart. I understand the need for some taxation. But our tax code is absolutely ridiculous — and the government is taking money that it shouldn’t, in a sane society, have any claim to.
So if I put some presents around the Holiday Tree this season, are the kids liable for the taxes?
Of course not.
The key to the inheritance tax is family… family money.
Plus it seems kind of heartless to say: “Hey your dad just died in December and the body is still warm, but it is April 15th we want 50% of everything… NOW”
The rich put stuff into family trusts, the schmuck janitor who squirrels away $1M and leaves it to his kids gets dinged posthumously for 50%
While that process itself is insanely burdensome, labor intensive, wasteful and rife with opportunities to become an unwitting criminal. Yes, flat tax.
I agree, unless you’re exceeding the annual exclusion amount of $13,000 per child.
Also, the tax burden is on the giver, which is ass-backward.
The first million is exempted from all estate taxes, as I read it. But I agree, 50% would be ridiculous. Last year, the exclusion amount was three million or more; it’s worse in 2011 because the estate tax was actually repealed. I don’t know how it was brought back, or who did it.
The estate tax return isn’t due until 9 months after death, so you have a decent grace period.
Look, if you gave your property to your heirs before you died, it’d be subjected to a gift tax. Estate tax and gift tax are consistent with each other, therefore; if you did away one and kept the other you (or your heirs) would be able to circumvent taxation.
But then if you did away with gift taxes, you could just pay people with gifts, and there goes the whole shooting match.
As I understand it, the new death tax is 35% with the first $5 million exempted. While I don’t like it, it’s a hell of a lot better than 55% of everything over $675K.
I don’t really care about the particulars (even as I knew them). I’m against it on principle.
None of that money belongs to the government. None.
, Slart. I understand the need for some taxation. But our tax code is absolutely ridiculous — and the government is taking money that it shouldn’t, in a sane society, have any claim to.
But, if they don’t take our money, how are they going to give it to college kids to pay for their college education?
The lawyers and the statists are the only ones that benefit from the death taxes.
I think that same argument could be made of all taxes, couldn’t it? If so, then how do the basic functions of government get funded?
If not, then please tell me how you’re distinguishing between money that belongs to the government, and that which does not.
You forgot to mention the life insurance companies.
Death taxes do not strike me the same as the taxes you are discussing, Slartibartfast. These earnings have been taxed all along the way, and are now being taxed again, just because someone died and passed their estate on to their family? I guess that just seems fundamentally wrong to many, me included. The government got their share every step of the way, and this seems like adding insult to injury. Gotta run.
But this is exactly how gift taxes work. Is the point you’re making that you shouldn’t have to pay taxes because someone died and left you a bunch of money? If not, I’m not seeing it.
That’s my point. Someone died and left me their money. The government will get a portion of it back when I spend it, or otherwise use it to keep the economy running. Because they have taxes on just about every step of my economic activity.
Getting fucked is one thing. Being raped is something else entirely. It’s about power.
Amanda Marcotte taught me that.
But this is exactly how gift taxes work. Is the point you’re making that you shouldn’t have to pay taxes because someone died and left you a bunch of money? If not, I’m not seeing it.
I don’t understand why someone should be taxed on gifts. Do we not “own” anything? Are we not free to give it to people?
That gifts and inheritance can be taxed really opens the idea that everything and anything can be taxed.
I’m not arguing that everything belongs to the government, Jeff. I’m just trying to understand what is legitimately taxable, in your mind, and why.
You think neither gifts nor inheritance (which, I say, is just a gift that the government has allowed your estate to give after you’re dead) should be taxed. That’s consistent.
Have I got that right?
Now: what’s to prevent people from gaming the system (and evading tax) by trading “gifts” for services?
I’m willing to forgo a little robustness in the tax code in exchange for simplicity & consistency, so I’m more searching for good ideas than telling you what’s right and wrong. At least, that’s the intention.
Granted first, this is a particle torn from its context. Still, here, I think, is where the rubber meets the road and the wear and tear begins.
That’s not the right question. The right question is, how does leaving your family or friends your money when you die come to count as gaming the system to begin with?
If someone wants to die and leave money behind to pay for a plumbing job, well, that’s quite the sacrifice.
Meaning, I guess, that these two things aren’t alike.
As for gift taxes, gift exchanges for services — under the table payments and such — already happen all the time. The problem isn’t prevented by imposing a gift tax. The problem is minimal because it is more convenient to use traditional methods of exchange and payment. So most people do that.
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I think another question that needs to be asked is, “What are the inheritance taxes for?” Are they supposed to generate revenue, as one would expect, or are they to control behavior, as is what happens? If you exempt the first five million dollars from estate taxation, you are obviously not trying to generate revenue, at least not as a first approximation. What you are effectively doing is breaking up family businesses and either forcing a sale or forcing them to become public businesses. I am not sure why that is in the interest of the government.
I disagree with gift taxes as well as inheritance taxes, but if you really want to be consistent, you would count all gifts and all inheritances the same way, and tax them at the same rate (which really should be at whatever the rate would be for the total income of the receiver). The waiver on gift taxes under a certain amount, just like the waiver on inheritance taxes under a certain amount, reveals their purpose clearly, which is to control behavior. It would make more sense to just not tax any income under a certain amount, and then start taxing over that amount, no matter the income source.