Define "nice"?

A person trades their skills/labor for money which in turn is traded for goods and services.  What goods and services a person can acquire is dependent on the value of their skills/labor which is decided by society as a whole by our voluntary purchases.

It's none of my business what a poor person does with the money they make any more than it's my business what a rich person does with their money.

The suggestion that the government - the people with a monopoly on the legal use of violence - should forcibly take money from one person to give to another based on a subjective definition of "nice" is frightening.

Thats what I want to know too, so far I only see anecdotes, and no specific examples.

I just got my pay slip from my agency.

I get them once or twice a month.

According to it I paid 33% taxes on my income for the two weeks covered.

My flat mate only works half-time (I don't blame him, he's on a student visa) and pays no taxes at all.

How is that fair? Where exactly is the money that the government allegedly "gives" to the rich (me compared to my flat mate)?

Ok, I was thinking that if I make 10 million dollars and wish to donate 9 million to charity, I simply donate the whole 9 mil.

Then the remaining million is taxed, so I get 500K and the government takes 500K (just making up numbers here)...

Are you saying that If I make 10 mil and want to donate 9 mil id be taxed for 10 mil, aka 5 million, and end up losing 4 million dollars total that year? (or have to choose and donate less money).

If so than this is even WORSE and means the argument of it as a loophole is more rediculous...

Charity is a loophole when you can donate 1 million dollars and end up paying 1.5 million less in tax.

AKA, earn 10 mil, with no charity pay 5 mil in tax, with donating 1 mil pay 3.5 mil in tax, so you keep 5.5 mil instead of just 5 mil....

THAT is a loophole.

If the government gives tax relief at the marginal rate to people when they spend money on a particular area (charitable donations are a common example) and you have progressive marginal rates, then a rich person gets greater relief than a poor person. So if the marginal rate for a rich person is 35% then for every $1 that person spends on the qualifying area they get to reduce their tax bill by $0.35. A poor person spending that money however would only get to reduce their tax bill by say $0.20 for every $1 they spend. Hence the rich person is being given a greater benefit than the poor person.

and the reason I said children that time was primarily because I hoped maybe it would help you understand how there might actually be situations where you'd want to give money to someone you know (as well as the fact that in some tax jurisdictions transfers to children will not be exempt).

Then I'm not sure you do understand the concept. It [shifting some of your income to someone else to result in less tax paid] wouldn't exist if you didn't have proportional tax rates. Similarly managing to class income as capital gains/capital gains as income wouldn't provide a benefit if the tax rates were the same for both income and capital gains. Meanwhile since taxes will allow expenses (for business) to offset income, if you can get something you are spending money on classed as such an expense you can also save tax. Hence that wouldn't exist if taxes were based on revenue rather than profit. To take the US as an example, you have a progressive tax system with differing tax treatment of income and capital gains, and businesses are taxed on profit rather than revenue.

so... let me get this straight...

If the government would tax a "rich person" 35$ out of a 100$, which he instead donates and pays no tax, and it would have taxed a poor person for 20$ out of 100$ but he chose to donate it so he didn't get taxed, that is "giving the rich more money than the poor"? Are you retarded? do you need someoen to help you use the bathroom? can you feed yourself?

And you can't shift income to your spouse or children as easily as you say, nor is shifting income to another person a loophole.

What do you mean by tax relief? You mean like a tax cut? That's not the government giving me money. That's the government confiscating less. 

You presume that all wealth is owned by a tyrannical government in which it decides how much of that wealth it doles out to people.

If that is indeed your premise, we really have nothing to discuss.

Anyone who owns a big screen TV and a mobile phone is _not_ poor.

I know because I was once poor and I didn't own a TV or a mobile phone, I couldn't afford either.

I am positive that I would have noticed if there had been a (morally acceptable) way to own all these things without working hard and becoming rich.

That is exactly what I am saying. I used to own an accounting firm and once you cross the 200k bracket you have to be very careful what you do with your money or IRS takes a healthy wet bite out of your butt. This is why most wealthy people own a business of some kind. Take Rush Limbaugh for instance. He signed a contract where his company makes 100 million a year for the next 4 years, that company pays him a salary. He can then make donations in the name of the company for the company to get a tax break, his employees give him a tax break of a sort, and so on. I am willing to bet his salary is somewhere around 190k a year. His company owns some of his cars, his jet, his homes.

You need to check out the tax codes, once you reach a certain income you don't get any of what you wrote above. It starts to diminish at 200k becaue of the AMT and all deductions that you get go away at a million dollars. If you made ten million dollars and gave it all away to qualified charities, you would still owe taxes on the ten million dollars earned. The interest on your mortgage, something poor people can deduct from their taxes is not available to a person that earns a million dollars a year. The only thing I see that is progressive is the amount of money you lose as you earn more. The tax bite gets progressively bigger. The only way to beat this is to do like the Kennedy family does and park thier millions in offshore banks. Funny how the Kennedy's are worth over a hundred million dollars but pay no taxes. But I forgot they are in politics and write the laws that keep people from doing what they do.

You are allowed to make a once in a lifetime gift of up to 200k to a spouse or your child tax free. After that you pay and the spouse or child pays taxes on anything you give them.

I can see by this statement you will never be rich, I am not cutting you down I am just stating a fact. If you tax on revenue rather than profit all business will go bankrupt in three to five years. If that is the case why go into business? There is the cost of doing business, To make a dollar I may have to spend three dollars because we are in a down cycle. I have to have a computer, I have to have a car, I have to have a telephone, To get started in a business it could cost me 15k and I won't see a profit for three years, by deducting the cost of doing business I break even and can keep the business going, if I paid taxes on money earned I go broke. That means I can't buy a computer, a car, a phone, or gas. The economy goes into the toilet because no one can buy anything and people lose jobs. This is what is happening now. Because of the new administration business people are afraid to spend any money until the new tax code comes out. They are getting rid of employees because they are trying to keep thier business afloat. We are seeing panic in the form of unemployment numbers. It is not that the economy is bad it is fear that the stupid ideas you are using might be used by the new administration so all growth and expansion stops until they see what will happen next. The reason the economy was growing so quickly under the Bush administration is because business people were not afraid that the government was going to take so much money from them in order to help the poor. The best way to help the poor is to let business make a profit. We hire people, those people spend money, more tax dollars come in because everyone is working. Working people buy things which causes other business to hire people to make the things people want to buy. I work in real estate, among other things and homes are still being bought and sold, rented and leased. The housing bubble burst and now it is almost fixed and the government has not done anything to help it. It will as with all business self correct usually in under a year. By the time legislation comes out the problem is already fixed. The bail out money did nothing to help the situation only hurt it. To try to save a few thousand jobs they fixed the problem and lost 4 million jobs. Why would you want to fix a problem like that?

I can see by this statement you are an idiot and/or can't read or comprehend (I'm erring more towards the latter at the moment). I am not cutting you down, I am just stating a fact. In your defence though, general reading comprehension doesn't seem to be a strong point on these forums given the number of times people seem to have completely misconstrued what I've been saying.

No but I'm starting to wonder if you are given your inability to understand the simplist of concepts. If you spend $100 on X, the government will give you more money if you are rich than if you are poor (with rich and poor being based on taxable income). For some reason, you are having great difficulty understanding that getting $35 is more than getting say $20. There's nothing retarded about pointing out that $35 is more than $20.

Yet you fail to explain or refute what I wrote.

I notice you also failed to respond to my explination of how your statement is flawed, I understand that you don't wish to accept the facts because it means you are incorrect and you don't wish to be incorrect. Once you exceed 200k those benifits you say the rich get does not exist. Congress says once you make 200k or more you don't need the breaks the poor get. It is easy to look up, since it is a public law. Not to jump onto the your retarded bandwagon but if you don't get the deduction then you have to understand simple math, $20 is more than $0. Your argument falls apart because you claim the rich are getting something they don't get and using that as your point that the tax system is unfair to the poor. If a person is paying 35% taxes they get no deductions. Next time you look up on line look up AMT alternative minimum tax, so even if you owe no taxes based on your income and deductions you have to pay the AMT which wipes out your deductions. This added tax kicks in at 200k earned income. Also, you don't get 20 cents on the dollar or 35 cents on the dollar with you deductions. you get a percentage of that 20 cents or 35 cents back not the full amount back.

I will give you an example if you make 31k a year plus you own a business IRS takes $2,900 from you. With that business if I claim that I have $10,000 in business expenses and no profit I will get back $2,900 that is 600 less than 35% if I make 75k and have 10k in business expenses and no profit I get back 7,900 dollars. If I make 200k and have 10k in business expenses and no profit I get a tax return of $500 Where is my 35%? If I make 210k and my business had 10k in business expenses and no profit, I get a tax return of $0 because my adjusted gross income is over 200k.

Since I gave no insult I hope you can answer me without insult.

what is this fucking X, give me an EXAMPLE! you can't because it doesn't exist!

Relax my friend, He can not give an example because he already has, to the best of his ability. He is repeating crap he read somewhere but does not understand it so to get by he is being as indistinct as possible in hopes of saying that you and I are too stupid to understand basic math. Read what I wrote above and you can see he does no know what he is writing about.

Nothing retarded about that. But what makes you think that the government is giving you something in this case? They are just taking less from you. It always was your money in the first place.

Since too much tax was collected up-front, based upon legislated regulations, they end up refunding the over-payment later. I wouldn't call that being given something. I'd call it getting MY money back!

I can't speak for Andrew, but here's my definition of poor:

It is when you have no assets to liquidate, and -

- you can't feed yourself or your children the minimal amount necessary for healthy living.

- you can't afford minimal shelter for you and your family.

- you can't provide clean clothing that more or less fits for your children and keeps them warm and dry.

- you lack the minimal resources required to obtain better employment. This includes clothing, transportation, communications (phone, internet, fax, mail, etc)

It is not when -

- you have to take the bus to work because you can't afford a car.

- you can only afford one vacation per year.

- you have to sell cherished assets in order to take proper care of your family.

- you have to use the library computer to look for work.

- you can't afford some non-necessity of life that you would like.

- you can't afford to sustain your past habits (smoke/drink/drugs).

- you have to buy food at the grocery store, walk 1/2 mile home, cook your dinner for yourself, and clean up afterwards.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.