2018 Taxes
- Thread starter Cyclone06
- Start date
The reason taxes are complicated is because they have to be. We want to encourage people to do certain behaviors so we offer tax incentives. We want to discourage people from doing certain behaviors so we penalize via taxes.
Ironically, this is exactly the opposite of government spending which generally rewards bad behavior with money.
...and for the debate above, a potential lack of deductibility will have zero effect on my giving. I recently heard Bernie Sanders gave a whopping 2-3% of his income to charity according to his taxes. I would have figured he would give 20% or so. I guess he thinks that is generous.
Ironically, this is exactly the opposite of government spending which generally rewards bad behavior with money.
...and for the debate above, a potential lack of deductibility will have zero effect on my giving. I recently heard Bernie Sanders gave a whopping 2-3% of his income to charity according to his taxes. I would have figured he would give 20% or so. I guess he thinks that is generous.
Kinda, people are not going to give a dollar to save 10-20 cents on taxes. Giving 100 dollars to the local food bank to get that 10 bucks back on taxes is not why someone would donate.
Seriously? Other than independently wealthy individuals with more money that they could ever use, very few people could financially handle giving a massive 20% of their income to charity. That is a ton.
What a ridiculous post. Typical partisan nonsense.
A flat income tax would result in a regressive taxation system on the whole. Terrible idea, both fiscally and morally.
Yep me too. For once all my deductions didn’t matter and the standard was higher. Still had to do all the work because of my wife’s business if not I could have done them in 5 mins. Might next year because unless our situation changes we’ll be using the standard deduction again.
Yeah except Bernie gave a 2.26% average over the last decade with the highest single year coming in at around 3%, not 20%. Try reading. Bernie's income also comes from being a politician (book deal). Typical politician hypocrisy. Simple numbers are not partisan. And you do not need to be anywhere near independently wealthy to give 20%, you just have to decide what your priorities are.
A million articles on this, but I linked just one.
https://theresurgent.com/2019/04/16/bernie-is-a-one-percenter-who-is-stingy-with-charitable-giving/
I was forced to itemize. My state tax form forces me to use the state standard deduction if I use the federal standard deduction. My itemized deductions were about the same amount as my federal standard deduction, $25,800 I think. The Nebraska standard deduction is about half that amount. So I had to itemize on both State and Federal just to get my full deduction from the State. I wondered if other states create that same dilemma.
My reading comprehension was fine,but apparently yours sucks. I was making fun of your brain dead partisan argument about how someone should donate 20% of their income to charity. That is freaking ridiculous, very few can afford that.
Let’s first: stop the personal attacks and name calling not a reason to ever go personal on here. Second, we have the cave, you want to get political, go to the cave. Most of us don’t want to hear this stuff anymore.
I didn’t bring up Bernie’s Charitable Contributions.
Criticize the Person responsible for bringing that up. flycy.
You could of done without the name calling but when you dont have much resort to the names.
Such a great thread till the cave folks showed up. Cave dwellers, stay in the cave!!!
Income isn't really important to someone who is really rich. The net worth can far outpace their income. They could easily give many times their income but not every year.
I agree, we should never go to a total flat tax system, I favor a progressive tax system with few to no deductions. You earn it, you are taxed on it. Simple for everyone, and every dollar earned is taxed at the same rate on progressive scale. . Get rid of investment income taxed at a lower rate.
Any deduction that is given should apply to everyone or no one, I use my vehicle for driving to work, but I cannot deduct mileage, even though I drive 42 miles each way. My brother bought a new pickup last year, and can deduct it off his business, even though he does not use the truck for his business. Its his go to town truck, just like farmers have. Total BS.
Just semantics, true not by definition a federal income tax but a tax that goes to the federal government based on your income.
But people mistakenly think a federal “income tax “ cut will mean a reduction in SS and Medicare tax.
Are you saying Bernie (who the post you're replying to is referencing) isn't independently wealthy and couldn't afford to donate 20% of his income?? Keep in mind this is the same guy who thinks the 'rich' should pay more of a fair share than they are.
Do you honestly not see the hipocracy of someone with those views donating 3%?
They have to be complicated for basically three circumstances...
(1.) You are trying to use the tax code to further some policy goal and disguising what should be its own program/expenditure as a tax expenditure. Having a program rebating you ~20% the cost of your health insurance when you fill out a form and send it in with a copy of your policy to HHS is the same thing as allowing you to deduct the cash-equivalent value of your health insurance through your employer from your income. We just treat tax expenditures and programs differently, even if they both end up doing the same things in reality.
It is functionally a way to make what should be government spending and subsidies look like a tax cut. It is a marvelous accounting trick when you think about it like that.
(2.) It is just good, old-fashioned regulatory capture from the barnacles making money off the complex system. DC is littered with a lot of smart people who spend their careers, either as attorneys, lobbyists, or working for accounting firms, basically trying to figure out what large corporations should pay in taxes and/or trying to make it so they pay less in taxes. The complex system is their livelihood yet a minor, seasonal annoyance to the rest of us. They have all the incentive in the world to fight tooth-and-nail to keep it complicated, while the rest of us just have to sigh over the annoyance of the byzantine system that we have.
(3.) As you said, it is hiding the true cost of government from people. People might feel differently if they got one fat bill that has everything on it -- payroll, income, property, sales, and all other taxes, including inflation -- altogether at once, instead of having to make a very concerted effort to really figure all of this out. Few people can. Fewer actually do.
Sounds like rich people in general give less percentage to charity than the poor.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/36561381
