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BillBrasky Memorial Political Chat Thread

Political Chat Thread - All Topics & Rants Welcome

BillBrasky said:
I think that taxing cap gains at lower rates is a form of class warfare and one of the biggest reasons why our income inequality levels are grotesque, however i'm okay with fighting that battle another day because this infrastructure bill needs to be passed. This country is literally crumbling, and any stimulus right now is a good thing.
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But capital gains are something that are attainable enough for the middle class that taxing them at higher rates would be political suicide.

At best you could initiate a phase out of the preferred rate.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
But capital gains are something that are attainable enough for the middle class that taxing them at higher rates would be political suicide.

At best you could initiate a phase out of the preferred rate.
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Once ya get a few million bucks, the rich don't really pay capital gains cause then they just hold onto their stock until death to avoid taxes. So I don't think raising them accomplishes all that much to begin with.
 
Why not just lower taxes for everyone under $1m (or pick your figure), leave everyone from 1m to 100m untouched, and then go like 50% for 100+mm, something like that similar to early 20th century tax structure
 
stugotz said:
Once ya get a few million bucks, the rich don't really pay capital gains cause then they just hold onto their stock until death to avoid taxes. So I don't think raising them accomplishes all that much to begin with.
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Im thinking more about dividends as an income stream.
 
TownieDeac said:
Why not just lower taxes for everyone under $1m (or pick your figure), leave everyone from 1m to 100m untouched, and then go like 50% for 100+mm, something like that similar to early 20th century tax structure
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Because outside of professional athletes playing team sports, almost nobody receives ordinary income of $30M+ per year. If you have income above that amount, it almost always involves significant cap gains and deferred comp.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
Part of the problem is that the IRS is bad at its job and a huge amount of income from Ultra High Net Worth individuals goes unreported.

An IRS report found that the top 1% fails to report 20% of its income.

As a general rule I don’t believe a damn word that comes from the IRS but there were other economic researchers involved in that study.

Another large chunk of UHNW individuals don’t even file returns.
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Are they bad at their job or have the rich just defunded the IRS so they can't do their job. The best investment we can make as a country would be increasing their budget, would probably have a fantastic IRR.
 
Have the IRS contract out to tech companies to give them audit power giving them a 10% cut of any amounts received and someone will use computers and AI to effectively audit the entire countries' tax returns within a decade, and it will balance social security.
 
stugotz said:
Are they bad at their job or have the rich just defunded the IRS so they can't do their job. The best investment we can make as a country would be increasing their budget, would probably have a fantastic IRR.
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10000%
 
But Cav is that ineptitude or a purposefully diverted focus?
 
DeaconCav06 said:
It’s a bit of both. The IRS is underfunded but its audit priorities are not designed to maximize ROI.

I would agree that it needs more funding if it weren’t using its current funds so poorly.
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What are you saying their audit priorities are? I don't know enough to agree or disagree, just curious.
 
DeaconCav06 said:
Well they’re an executive agency that reports to the President (through Treasury) so who would be diverting the focus?

A big problem is understaffing and morale because of the budget cuts and (at certain levels) you’re dealing with people that are only there because they don’t have any better options.

Another issue is that low hanging fruit is attractive to the IRS because it is cheaper for the taxpayer just to pay whatever the government says than fight it. If it chooses an UHNW individual and that person owes $60MM in taxes they’ll pay $10MM to fight it.
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I can't tell if this is serious or not. Republican presidents divert their focus.
 
Sure. Democrat presidents don’t restore their focus because they get so much push back from Republicans.
 
You still seem to think the President operates in a vacuum.
 
Are you really arguing that Obama put all his effort into making the IRS operate in a way that chased down high net worth tax cheats? Because that is a dumb argument to make.
 
I’m saying there has been significant political pressure to kneecap the IRS which is the result of Republicans effectively demonizing the agency over the last four decades.
 
 
Political Chat Thread - All Topics & Rants Welcome

TenaciousKory said:
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It’s as if they’re admitting they’re a fascist party by the process of elimination.
 
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Political Chat Thread - All Topics & Rants Welcome

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DeaconSig said:
Because outside of professional athletes playing team sports, almost nobody receives ordinary income of $30M+ per year. If you have income above that amount, it almost always involves significant cap gains and deferred comp.
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I've always wondered how the ultra-rich actually pay for the super expensive stuff since they don't ever realize real money as income
 
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