Politics

[Lithium]

I was rounding the numbers and doing 'bad estimating' I guess. Here is a scenario to consider:

I sell a computer to a consumer for $1,500.

The consumer pays 8% sales tax of: $120.

Parts for this computer cost me $463.

I pay 8% sales tax on these parts: $37.

My corporation makes a profit of $1,000 on the computer.

Let's say I'm a big corparation and I get taxed 35%, that's $350.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_States

This means I have $650 that I can pay out to myself as a dividend.

Let's say I am a wealthy individual and again get taxed at 35%, that's ~$227.

I get to walk away with $423.

This means on the $1,000 'profit' the government takes 57.7% of it. And that still excludes the tax your suppliers pay, the $37 you lost to sales tax, and the $120 your customer lost to sales tax.

This is why businesses are paying big bucks for lawyers to look for loop holes and moving money OUTSIDE the US.

[Fuse]

This is also a great example of how raising corporate taxes raises consumer prices. You will never pay the tax on the parts - That $463 is actually past onto the consumer, making the $1500 computer $1963, also increasing how much they will pay in taxes on it.

[likwidtek]

Lithium, you don't pay sales tax on goods you're reselling.  It's called wholesale.  When you are a business and you buy from vendors you pay zero sales tax on those goods.  You are however expected to charge the customer sales tax and then give that money directly to your tax agency.  So there's that.  You're also doubling numbers by saying "I'm a guy that's part of a corporation.  The corp gets taxed but I also pay personal income tax."  Those are two totally different things.  Once you incorporate, you're separating your social security number and tax liability from the business entity.  You now have things like stock holders, a board and this huge machine of people.  It has nothing to do with you anymore aside from the stake you have in it that's measure in share percentages.  You are taxed only on gains from say selling stock or dividends gained from profit sharing.  You're confusing some things here.  There are sole proprietorships, LLCs and corporations (different kinds as well).  They're all structured and taxed differently.  


Also not directly related but very much to do with the overall discussion:

[Anamodiel]

The primary purpose of a corporation is to make money. Lots of it. As much as they are legally allowed to under the laws of the United States of America. They aren't in business to "care about average people." If you want an entity that cares about people, find a 501(c)3 and go donate to it. Everything else is in business to make money. Hell, even businesses who donate to charities do it for the deduction on their taxes. My dad didn't successfully run a franchise of 16 Domino's pizza stores back in the '80's to feed people. He did it to make money so that he could support his family, and he did a damn good job of it. He did not get into the pizza business because he cared about people. While part of his business was making sure the customers were happy, that was not his motivation to be successful. Money was. Customer satisfaction was a key to success, but his success was defined by the amount of money he made and the number of pizzas he sold. His success bred further success: he was able to hire more workers and pay them salaries based on how well they performed. Obviously, my dad could not run 16 stores on his own. He had to hire managers and pizza delivery guys and everyone in between. Why did my dad hire people? Was it to show that he cared about people? No, it was because he wanted to make sure his business remained successful and profitable. A by-product of his success enabled others to succeed as well.

My dad made "bundles of money" doing this, and he never exploited his workers. I actually find it unbelievable when I hear businesses "exploit their workers and take away their rights". Businesses have not exploited their workers since the early 1900's when labor laws were nearly non-existent. We have thousands of laws protecting workers in the work place. However, I'm sure this graphic is referring to the exploitation of workers by corporations not paying their workers enough. I'll debunk that right now. In 2007, total compensation of all employees of U.S. corporations was $8 trillion, roughly 57% of the total $14 trillion GDP. After tax profits of corporations was $1.7 trillion. That means that employees of corporations received about 85% of available for distribution corporate funds. Hardly sounds like exploitation to me. Really, they take away their rights? I didn't know a business had the ability to take away the rights of someone. A business has no sovereignty, and cannot take away the rights of someone. The only thing that can take away the rights of someone is the government. If an employee really feels like their rights are being taken away or that they're being exploited, go work somewhere else. We live in a free market.

Why are corporations attempting to influence policy? They don't do it because of some grand conspiracy by Fortune 500 CEO's to oust Obama.  Business pay major bucks to influence policy so that they can better compete in the marketplace. Businesses pay exorbitant amounts of money to lawyers and lobbyists to carve out deductions for them because they feel like they're unfairly regulated against or because there's some policy in the way of them furthering their success. I don't trust a politician to be able to do very much, and most of the time they don't know very much about some of the intricacies of a certain industry that they're legislating for. That's why business hire lobbyists to craft legislation and push for its passage. The lobbyists and the corporations know the intricacies of the industry and can craft better legislation that favors business and keeps from excessively regulating them.

But we're really looking at the problem from the wrong point of view when we demonize corporations for trying to influence public policy through various donations. If our corporate tax code were simplified and most deduction and exclusions were eliminated ("loopholes" for the non-accountants among us), businesses wouldn't have to dump as much money into campaigns. Let me tell you. There are a ton of deductions, many of which were written to help out a variety of businesses. All summer, I worked at KPMG, one of the Big 4 accounting firms in their Fed Tax division. When they're doing the taxes for a client, they start out by creating a proposal for a company and give the amount of hours that the project will normally take. I didn't personally get to work on any major Fortune 500 tax filings, but I know some of those top companies literally have entire offices and thousands of accountants dedicated to working on them for thousands of hours. Our tax code is so bloated that there is a very specialized person who has to navigate it to make sure the corporations are correctly filing. Things need to be simplified.

And, if politics were really controlled by corporations, they certainly would be pushing for an agenda that promoted growth and not higher taxes.

In regards to Tbone's chart, Nocry's right. The effective tax rate goes down because more and more of those making $5 million or more each year are from long-term capital gains, which are taxed at a flat 15%. This is done to promote people investing in the economy so they don't leave it in a savings account. I think the rate, as it stands now for 2013, has been increased to 20%. That's why Warren Buffett's tax rates are so much lower than his secretaries: the money she makes is classified as earned income, and is taxed at her respective tax bracket percentage. See below: (I know the year is 2000, but I assume it has to be similar to 2009)



Transfers are government payouts, such as Social Security and Medicare.

Taxes are not the problem nearly as much as the deficit spending by the government. The 2010 Federal Budget had total requested spending of $3.83 trillion, with the federal deficit forecast to be $1.56 trillion in 2010 and $1.27 trillion in 2011. Total debt is budgeted to increase from $11.9 trillion in FY2009, to $13.8 trillion in FY2010, and $15.1 trillion in FY2011. If we were to take 100% of the income of households above $250,000 (that's everything, all of their net worth), the government would receive $1.412 trillion. That just covers the deficit for one year. Taxing the rich is not going to serve our long-term spending problem.

[Broin]

You are taxed only on gains from say selling stock or dividends gained from profit sharing.

LOL I wish...

And occupy Wall Street is a joke.   If you can't keep your feces off the ground... Your penis in your pants.... Your hands off of everyone elses stuff... and your violence out of the streets then you're a bunch of idiots.

Seriously most of these people are a bunch of rich kids who are the sons and daughters of the hippy class doppers from the 60's.  They are trying to recreate their own free love peace phoney baloney.

Seriously tell the occupy Wall Street jokes to put their pants back on.  Stop sexually assaulting women, stop stealing from each other, stop crapping on the ground, stop shutting down small businesses, stop being bozo's and go home to mommy and daddy.


OH and this.... LOL seriously.

Also not directly related but very much to do with the overall discussion:

Let me explain this as simply as I can.  Corporations donate to all political parties for one specifici reason.  So that the political party in power will leave them the F alone.  

See Microsoft not being a big policital contributor and getting the big Monopoly stick taken to them.  They started donating and that went away...

Unions donate only to one party... Guess who?  I know I know I don't even need to say it.  

The majority of union members are goverment employees.  They are paid by the taxpayers.  Their union dues are mandatory.  Those union dues go to the support of one party despite what the individual members may want.  Hence the taxpayers own money go to support one particualry party through unions.

Hence the Stimulus.  The stimulus was put together to make sure that teachers, firefighters, police, etc., don't lose jobs.  ALL of these people are union members...

The taxpayers paid to keep these people employed for a year or two or hire new members.  ALL those members had mandatory union dues taken out of their pay.  Those dues went to support one particular party.  

Can you now say MONEY LAUNDERING.  Seriously I've sent people to jail for this same type of scheme... But it's okay when it's the goverment doing it....

OR is it just okay when it's the people you like in goverment that does it?

Your stats are off on the Union vs Corp contributions as well.

[likwidtek]

Amazing clip.  ACTUAL journalism!  woo!

[Heironymus]

Is anyone else mildly concerned about S. 1867 SEC. 1031?? in reference to military ability to detain any american citizen on american soil indefinitely without due process if the government sees you as a "potential threat"

It is blowing up online, but of course Faux news and the other big news arent really covering it..

Opinions?

[Broin]

Is anyone else mildly concerned about S. 1867 SEC. 1031?? in reference to military ability to detain any american citizen on american soil indefinitely without due process if the government sees you as a "potential threat"

NOPE

[NoCry]

coveredpersonftmfw.

[Da6onet]

For those interested --> http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s1867pcs/pdf/BILLS-112s1867pcs.pdf

1031 is defined down on page 359

As it's currently defined, I don't have a problem with this bill specifically. Defining who is a terrorist and how we're going to arrest them isn't inherently a problem.

The problem is that the avenues for prosecution of suspected terrorists hasn't been adequately fleshed out, which is why we have these real or perceived problems of civil liberty violations. Part of it is that using the label of terrorist can destroy any person's semblance of rights (such as the sixth amendment). I disagree with Gingrich that there exists a line between criminal law and the war on terror. I think it's better to understand terrorists as murderers with different motivations than murderers we're "used to." The reason this distinction is needed is because so many self-righteous anarchists label themselves political enemies of America or some activist marches on the National Mall and honestly believes our government will arrest them for being a "terrorist."

My message to any socialist/anarchist/Muslim/etc. claiming big brother is out to get them is this, killing people, makes you a murderer. If you're not murdering people, or at least assisting in the murder of people, then you are not, by definition, a terrorist. That doesn't mean you won't be under the eye of some investigatory body, but I would remind you that there are 300 million+ people in the US, and only about 800,000 law enforcement officers. Even if every single FBI agent, NYPD officer or local sheriff were doing nothing but surveillance of US citizens, that's 1 person covering more 375 people.

But I digress, the main point is we need to strengthen language that defines how and when we will prosecute terrorists. Debating the legislation that further defines who or what a terrorist is and how to arrest them is fine, but without a better process, we're just going to have camps of detained people with a trickle pace of trials or out-processing.

One last thing... anyone here from Arizona? How about Michigan? If you don't like this bill, it was written by your senators (McCain seat up for election 2016, Levin seat up for election 2014).

[NoCry]

I have not read the Act, other than the section first cited. I think terrorists or those who support them should lose the protection of the law and it should be an express and permanent loss of such protection - I am not some right wing lunatic.

These people are out to destroy a whole society and any "religion" which does not accord with their own perverted interpretation of religion or law (I am talking of any form of fundamentalism); not just a few people or indeed a few hundred people.

In my book, you take steps down that road, however "preparatory" you lose any right to be protected by the very system you are seeking to take down.

@dag - an act of "revenge" for, for instance, killing the rapist of your child in circumstances that you can not or fail to convince a jury that you were insane or that there was some other mitigation which can diminish your crime from murder to something lesser can not have the same label (murder) as a person who goes out and kills or prepares to kill for so called ideological reasons. As for what Gingrich seems to have said - makes sense to me.

Anyway, back in my box now;)

p.s. "beligerant act" = seems harsh!

[likwidtek]

[Da6onet]

Nice find Likwid.

@ NoCry, I will try to clarify further. We deal with all kinds of murderers, those who do it out of revenge, those who are psychopaths, those who are serial killers, etc. We even deal with mass murderers (people who shoot up their office, Timothy McVeigh, Uni-bomber, etc.). But the reason I bring up the idea of labeling terrorists as murderers is not because I necessarily feel they should be tried the same way other murderers have been tried in the past, rather, by attaching a terrorist to some more familiar measure of evil for Americans will help keep us rational in our reactions to them. I don't want America to turn into a fascist state.

We need an honest conversation about how to deal with this brand of murderers when they're incarcerated. Perhaps some definition between an enemy combatant and a criminal would be helpful. Regardless, there have been religious zealots and political militants for thousands of years now, there are volumes of history from which we can draw on. Come on legislators!

[Subb]

I think, if found guilty, they should be forced to be point man for ISAF patrols in Afghanistan. Oh, and they shouldn't get a detector. If they trigger an IED, then we're one asshole down and none of our guys get injured.

[ReReminiscence]

well Cain is out the others are idiots look like Newt is more or likely going to end up rep nomination.