Donate Just One
Each Month if You Will
Posted on 08/11/2011 10:28:50 PM PDT by americanophile
Southern California has more millionaires than just about anywhere else in the nation, with L.A. coming in at No. 1, Orange County at No. 4, and San Diego ranking No. 6 in cities with the most seven-figure-plus households in 2008.
So maybe we should feel a little guilty, especially as President Obama and the GOP are headed toward draconian federal cuts, the United States' credit rating is down a notch, and the stock market is diving like a conservative congressman in a bathroom stall.
Because many millionaires and billionaires, it was revealed today, don't pay taxes like you and me:
In fact, many don't pay taxes at all. Now, those familiar with the Mack-truck sized loopholes written into the tax code (example: the wealthy who make their money off capital gains only pay a 15 percent tax rate, if that) shouldn't be surprised.
According to a recently released IRS report (PDF), 1,470 millionaires and billionaires paid zero taxes in 2009.
The report states that donations to charity, investment in government bonds, and taking cash from overseas operations has resulted in a legit, $0-tax bill for these high rollers.
Of course, some Democrats in congress have been trying to eliminate tax loopholes and discounts as part of the debt ceiling debate. But while Republicans are gung-ho to cut federal largess in the name of a solvent Republic, they've been quick to protect those who live largest.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.laweekly.com ...
If we went to a flat tax then they wouldn’t have any loopholes to slip through. Do you think this lefty would support that idea? Did’t think so.
Yeah. I'll bet this jackass pays taxes. He probably gets the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Manipulative reporting. It is based on income taxes... of course, if you earn your living from capital gains, you don’t have income taxes- a complete different game.. the other party is the realization how tiny of a percent of taxpayers this is. ~1500 out of ~300,000,000..
You’re right on both observations, but we lose nonetheless.
I guess this asshat never heard of the AMT.
Did they follow the rules on their deductions, or not?
If they didn’t they should get attention from the IRS.
If they did, a salud. They paid their fair share.
I don’t begrudge them a single dollar they don’t pay to the Feds..
How many of these people are making their money through businesses they started........where they pay taxes through the nose?
Selective reporting.
Agreed, flat tax needed, everybody pays in direct proportion to their gain. Tax due equally on ALL income, no loopholes.
It will never happen. Political hacks would lose their power to reward trinkets in exchange for political funding favors.
So let me get this straight.
There are 1,470 “millionaires and billionaires” who pay no federal income tax. The Democrats, and some Republicans, claim that they need to start “paying their fair share”.
Then there are another 75,000,000 people who also pay no federal tax and many of them don’t even pay payroll tax as they get it back in EITC.
Frankly, I think it’s about damn time to start taxing those 75,000,000.
Wouldn’t vote for a flat tax unless at the same time you have to get rid of the 16th amendment. Or we would end up with a flat tax and an income tax.....
Quick someone alert the indignant rich people to guffaw over this thread.
And many of those 75 million are in the negative as they get refunds and tax credits and welfare.
It’s a lie I tell yah they pay as much as GE and tim geithner does...
all propoganda... don’t believe it.. please...
We should have a flat tax because it’s immoral for the guy that needs to support 3 mistresses a crack habit and a yacht to pay a higher percentage than the disabled vet on the other side of town.
Paris Hilton agrees.
“The report states that donations to charity, investment in government bonds, and taking cash from overseas operations has resulted in a legit, $0-tax bill for these high rollers.”
1. Ok, Rich people don’t donate to charities anymore. I know that some of these Charities they are talking about are
a. The Seria Club....etc..
and some of the people on the list are:
a. Al Gore...
2. cash from overseas operations ... only tax free if the taxes were higher in the originating country or the cash is never repatriated and is maintained in a shelter overseas. Folks, they never brought it back to this country to begin with so it isn’t available to tax.
3. Government Bonds, ok tax um. of course no one is going to buy Government Bonds with such a low return when you get taxed on them. Hey, but it is the Democrats idea, they want to fix that deficit problem, lets let them!
LOL!
AMT only applies to Income, that would affect people that had income and too much of it was given to charities etc..
Many of these rich people just don’t have any income, they have a million or more in assets but no income.
If you win the lottery and you took the lump sum, the first year you would get taxes from hell but every year after that you would be a millionaire not paying income taxes. You simply would have no income and you already previously paid your income tax.
...guffaw.....t/y
1,470 millionaires. If we take a million from each of them it is 1,470,000,000 or $1.47 billion. That ought to pay for our deficit for about a couple hours.
And if they had paid 50% of their income in taxes it would have gone down the same sheetHole that my taxes went down. So, how would that have made the country or me better off?
Oh, the old “misery loves company” play!? Yeah, have the sheep fight amongst themselves to see who the wolves eat last.
And to think that this tactic actually plays with some people.
And what is to be done with the politicians they paid to put those loopholes in the law?
With 235,000 millionaires in the nation this represents about 6/10ths of 1% of the ‘rich class.’ Is it possible that they took losses in other areas?
That seems to be a very low percentage to me.
Why is the hatred and envy being promoted?
You're right.
It's the leviathan PROGRESSIVE tax code that we want to dismantle. Just listen to talk radio, look at GOP debates in the past 20 years.
You hear about replacing the tax code with a "flat" or "fair" tax over and over. Why? There's no where to hide in those proposals. We know the current code is corrupting. We know it's unfair. We want it GONE.
The Left want the existing monstrous progressive tax code because it affords them control, the class-warfare talking point and opportunities for graft.
Some of the candidates on the Iowa debate stage Thursday, like Herman Cain, want a "fair tax."
Almost-was candidate Mitch Daniels wanted to replace the tax code entirely too.
At the barest minimum you hear about massive simplification by removing loopholes and lowering rates as Reagan did so people actually pay the rate they're in and don't waste money on compliance or avoidance.
Democrats defend the code we have. They keep wanting to "tweak" with "higher rates" and "closing loopholes" that they'll just open up elsewhere in exchange for campaign cash and other favors. Look at Obama's "corporate jets" attack line--his own stimulus created it, now he runs against it blaming Republicans!
There's so much theatrics like calling for a "fair share" and "shared sacrifice" in higher taxes on "millionaires and billionaires" (making $200K+) when, as millionaires themselves, they avoid taxation like the plague!
The "rich" are not paying that 35% top rate we have now. They won't be paying at 38% or 90% either.
I've said this for years and I will keep on saying it, "LIBERALS ARE AFTER YOUR ENTIRE WEALTH! IRAs, 401Ks, private pensions, annuities, savings and anything else they can get your hands on."
They will have to do this for health care, medicare, medicaid, SSI and the like. It is the only way they can forestall the final devolution of this country for a few decades.
The bottom rate for the 'progressive' tax code is 15%, if that. We never hear this, do we? We also don't hear much about how EITC effectively turns that 15% into nothing. Hell! not even nothing! It's something because when EITC is finished, they get money back they never even paid in! Oh, wait....it's for the 'pooooorr'....
Yeah....pooorr....a country where 40+ million are on EBT livin the Wally World shopping spree extravaganza (no worries here, I got's the card), a country where 25% of all SS outlays are for SSI and disability (you know, the disability all those lawyers on afternoon TV that say they can help you get it?), a country where upwards of 40% are on the EITC payback program, AFDC, WICs, SCHIP, a country where a large percentage of these 'poor' are on Section 8 housing (where they pay only 25% of their available income for rent? and available don't include EBT, etc)...and on and on and on and on.
And, they want even more.
So if I have $100 million in antiques, art work, real estate, etc., and don't work at all, I should pay income taxes?
Wait. What?
And that's only if it's corporate profits; personal income from ANY source worldwide must be reported and is fully taxable, with at best a credit for the first ~$15,000 in taxes paid overseas (meaning if you paid taxes on the first $100,000 then you don't need to pay US taxes as well).
Uncle Sam demands a chunk of every dollar you personally earn, anywhere in the world, even if you never set foot in the US for the year.
Heck, if you spent more than 183 days over a 2 year period as a VISITOR to the US - not even a worker - then the IRS wants a cut of your income. Even if you're not a US citizen or legal resident!
No doubt about it, Dennis Romero is a Democrat and
he can,t stand to be “Left Out” !!!
So, “Republicans” are “protecting” these 1,470 people?
I want to see names and political affiliations.
And political donations.
How many of the 1,470 millionaires who did not pay taxes are basketball players, rappers, or actors?
No body I now know or have ever known pays no federal taxes. They even tax unemployment payments. I can only assume these no tax people are welfare cheats and food stamp thieves that declare no income thus getting -earned income-refunds. Which bringws to mind the question of how do you get an earned income income when you had no income?
Assuming they mean “income taxes”, there is no indication whether these millionare/billionares were actually WORKING. They may be retired, they may work for free with charity or their church. If they invested in government bonds, they don’t pay tax until they collect the interest, so it would be easy not to pay income tax, if you HAVE NO INCOME.
Fortunately, we don’t yet have a federal WEALTH tax which would drain your savings. It bugs me that newspapers are willing to deceive their own readers like this, and not fully explain the situtaion.
That’s bound to happen when we tax income, not wealth. If the left were truly interested in “taxing the rich” then they would just confiscate saved wealth (investments). Of course, their true interest is in preventing the growth of the wealthy class, and these class envy folks are just useful idiots.
“It is based on income taxes... of course, if you earn your living from capital gains, you don’t have income taxes- a complete different game.. “
True, and I would like to add that if you do earn through investments (resulting in capital gains) then you have already paid the income tax at the time the money was earned as regular income. The 15% is a tax on earnings that use money that was already taxes as the baseline.
The key is “personally earn”, these people don’t personally earn it.
They setup a shell corporation which earns the money and they only take out of the shell what they need.
There isn’t anyway to stop this practice, there is no way to hold an individual personally liable for the earnings of a foreign corporation.
Both you and I know that it is a 60-40 mix, 60% of the income is Dem and 40% is Republican.
I am sure Al Gore is on the list though.
You got it right....that is exactly what they are saying
2. Those filing million-dollar-plus tax returns are different people every year.
3. Many who did not owe taxes had large offsetting losses and legal deductions.
4. Screw you, you Commie bastards.
The fact of the matter is that, based upon net government receipts and net declared income - anyone paying over 18% of their income in taxes is getting a raw deal.
I and the vast majority of working Americans pay over 30%, that makes up for a few thousand millionaires paying less than 3%.
Small price to pay, some might say - to make sure Kerry and his ilk pay less than 5%.
Republicans are too stupid to stick together and talk effectively about reform. But they should agree with the class warfare idiots and propose a fair reform to a 10% tax to everyone - no loopholes.
You are so right.
Why is it difficult for so many to understand the difference between income and net worth?
Taxing citizens because they are millionaires would require that we change the federal tax code to tax people’s assets in addition to income.
Journalists obviously can’t differentiate between the two. They don’t understand the difference between bullets and cartridges or revolvers and semi-automatics.
I think you need to report any interest in any foreign company. And I do know that you need to report any interest or authorization on any bank account that holds more than $10,000 at any time throughout the year - so if you do have a shell corporation it must be reported.
I think the IRS considers also how many own the company; if it is one person or only an family, and it is not a full corporation per US consideration (not an LLC or partnership, but an actual C corp) then you are responsible for tax on all profits. Only an actual C corp style company is tax-deferred; however, many nations do not allow foreign held C corps. They only allow S corps, LLCs, or partnerships.
Even if you can successfully defer your taxes, you still have to report your interest in that foreign company and foreign bank accounts - so the IRS can take a look at what you have around the world...
If you have the money tied up in a shell corporation and that money isn’t actually sitting there and it is invested, the balance is zero.
You don’t work for the company, the company had no income either. it is just a shell.
All profits are paid into it and it just turns it over and invests it again.
You might have to report under some circumstances, but no the income is zero, you have no tax to pay.
So Shell A has Broker B invest in Company C, Shell A has a bank account, but it is always zero. Broker B just receives profit from Company C and reinvests it into Company E.
You don’t work for them, the money never goes into your bank account or even Company A’s.
It is the same thing that happens in the US with your broker account, you don’t work for your broker and you are only responsible for capital gains on your investment.
When you moved the money off shore, you had already paid income tax on it too.
One other thing too, your corporation is the one that has to report as a foreign corporation.
There is an IRS Form for that but they only report if they have transactions with a US Entity during the year. Transfer of assets.etc.... but they don’t, so they don’t, so you don’t have to pay either.
Basically you have a firewall, but you will never be able to touch the money....so it sucks.. but if you are rich, you don’t care...it beats a mattress any day.
Hmmm... I do know you have to report your interest in any foreign company if you own or control over a certain percent (I believe it is 10%), and that you also have to report any interest in any bank account or securities account in which you have ownership or even control, if it contains more than $10,000 per year.
Yeah, not realizing your investment should get you around taxes - but it also means you don’t realize your investment. Using it for overseas spending would be realization and that would be taxable.
If only the US was like the rest of the OECD and money earned overseas simply wasn’t subject to US taxation!
The asset you are reporting would be the corporation. period. It is worth nothing because the money is invested.
You don’t report capital gains. You haven’t sold anything or cashed in any of the stock.
For you to pay income tax, it has to be income, you have to be an employee.
The key information you are missing:
Q. Is an FBAR required if the account generates neither interest nor dividend income?
A. Yes, an FBAR must be filed whether or not the foreign account generates any income.
Notice that you have to report if over 10k, but you may or may not have generated any “income”
Q. What does “maximum value of account” mean (for Box 15 on the FBAR)?
A. The maximum value of account is the largest amount (not the average amount) of currency and nonmonetary assets that appear on any quarterly or more frequent account statements issued for the applicable year. If periodic account statements are not issued, the maximum account value is the largest amount of currency or nonmonetary assets in the account at any time during the year. Convert foreign currency by using the official exchange rate at the end of the year.
Notice it goes literally off the financial account statement. You don’t have an account with a shell company, the shell company is the one that has the accounts.
For you to pay money on this stuff, they would have to tax your assets at their current market value regardless of whether they actually realized a gain or a loss that year, that would be stupid.
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