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Biggest Reform EVER passed thread

PhDeac said:
Can somebody answer my question? Anybody?
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Well America is the largest consumer, so if the companies are elsewhere then they have to ship the goods to the American island, which is surrounded by water. Ocean water.
 
Anybody but palma?

Foreign companies can build facilities here. Seems like everybody knows that except you and Trump.
 
Is A Corporate Tax Cut Really What The Economy Needs Right Now?

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...Their conclusion: Tax increases can hurt a region's economy, but no evidence exists that tax cuts spur growth.

Ljungqvist and Smolyansky say the one exception to that rule is during recessions. When an economy is contracting, corporate profits fall and loans are harder to get. Businesses have trouble getting money to invest. At times like that, a tax cut can be just what businesses need.

There's just one problem. The U.S. economy isn't in a recession right now. It's in the longest postwar economic expansion on record, with very low interest rates and very high corporate profits.

In fact, most corporations have access to pretty much all the money they need right now, says Josh Bivens, director of research at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute. But they're not investing all that much or increasing wages.

"So we have exactly what the corporate tax cut is trying to engineer—really high post-tax profit rates. And yet it has not resulted in more investment. So the idea that we just want to do more of the same thing that has not spurred investment strikes me as not correct," Bivens says.

"We're ... in a time period where we're really awash in capital," says Clausing. "World savings are very high. [Former Federal Reserve Chairman] Ben Bernanke has described this as a savings glut problem. There's just very low interest rates and lots of sources of capital.

"The reason firms aren't investing is because of a lack of investment opportunities, not because they need more tax incentives to do so," she adds.

That points to a much larger and more formidable problem for the economy, one that the U.S. and other advanced economies have struggled to explain.

After a record economic expansion, companies still don't see a lot of reasons to invest out there. Giving them even more money by cutting their taxes, Bivens says, isn't going to address the real problems the economy faces.
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So...what is the real problem?

I’m guessing the need to enhance demand? So how is that done? Creating an economically healthier and more secure middle class? And what policies would help facilitate that....?
 
Senate GOP tax plan causing heartburn for startups

The Senate GOP tax plan unveiled last week includes a provision that would tax stock options and restricted stock units at vesting, rather than when they are exercised (as under current law) or when there actually is a liquid market (as under the amended House proposal).

Why it matters, per Greg Grogan, a compensation and employee benefits attorney with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett: "Employees will owe taxes on 'potential' value on the vesting date of their options before they know whether the option will ever really be worth anything and before there is any cash available to pay taxes."

Not only is such a plan nonsensical in terms of encouraging new company creation, but it's also fiscally dumb.

For example, imagine if all early Facebook employees had been taxed at the time of vesting (at relatively low valuations) as opposed to the time of exercise or sale. Pretty sure that would result in lower tax revenue (while, again, the entire plan might have discouraged people from working to build Facebook in the first place).
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Chris can probably weigh in on this more authoritatively than me, but the most important reason not to tax stock options at vesting is that the value you are taxing would be a complete wild-ass guess if you are talking about a privately held business, especially a startup. The taxpayer can put down anything they want on their return and the IRS will have no ability to challenge it. Therefore they will all put down $1.00. It may score with the CBO as a revenue generator but the net long-term impact will be a negative to the Treasury.
 
By definition, startups in 2017 were not around when America was great, thus we must put an end to them.
 
Generally at vesting, the FMV would be whatever the FMV of the stock is less the exercise price. I would think that the company would have to have some mechanism to determine this since an employee could exercise at any point.

The bigger issue is that you are taxing something before the employee has actually received any hard asset. Say this is a pre-IPO option. Maybe I want to wait until the IPO until I have a market for the stock to exercise.

Say you have a private company where the FMV is just above the exercise price. If there isn't marketability for the stock, maybe the employee wants to wait to expend that money for an asset that has a FMV that is just a bit higher that he can't even liquidate.

Under this, he is going to have to pay tax on that difference anyway.

Say the company hits a rough patch and the FMV is less than the exercise price? Well, tough, you have already been taxed on it at the time of vesting. Say my pre-IPO option is for a company that something happens and the IPO never materializes.
 
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Deacon923 said:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/gop-plan-retains-tax-break-for-owners-of-golf-courses.html

Saw this just now and thought it was interesting. Apparently the fine print of the tax bills eliminate or cap the SALT deduction for individuals, but if you own a pass through business the pass-through can still deduct SALT, uncapped.

Also, the golf-course conservation easements.
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for CA though, the pass through tax rate is 1.5%. It's a very small deduction, so there's not much of a loophole to abuse. In fact, it would seem creating a pass through for that reason would flat out just result in double taxation, I think.
 
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The quickest way to single payer is what the GOP is doing. If they are successful, which they probably won't be, millions will lose coverage and tens of millions will be paying more for less coverage.
 
A comprehensive tax overhaul merged with healthcare legislation. Sounds simple. :rolleyes:

You could spend decades studying those two topics and not be qualified to draft this kind of legislation.
 
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Seems like they're building in an excuse.
 
Demonwolverine said:
A comprehensive tax overhaul merged with healthcare legislation. Sounds simple. :rolleyes:

You could spend decades studying those two topics and not be qualified to draft this kind of legislation.
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It is simple. Cut corporate taxes to 20%, cut the top bracket for individuals by 5%, tell the rubes, they will use their tax cuts to give you raises. Hear the rubes cheer.

Then cancel Obamacare and put 25+M people off health insurance.

Easy...now, take the rest of the day off and head to happy hour!
 
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