Posted on 11/19/2017 7:21:30 AM PST by wildwoodla
The House has now passed its version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Senate is still working on the final details of its reform package. The Senate plan improves on the House bill in many places and misses important opportunities elsewhere. Here are the differences you need to know about:
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
‘True, provided you pay enough state and local taxes, including property taxes, to exceed $24,000. Everything over that $24,000 would now be taxed, whereas before it wasn’t.’
Excellent explanation, thank you again! You are way better than any stinkin’ chart, lol! I’m really struggling to understand if all this is a good thing or not. Feeling fortunate to be in a lower tax state (for now). So you, on the whole think these reforms are a good thing overall? Without knowing what the final bill will look like, of course.
>>Responsible citizens provide for their own retirement.<<
Have you considered the possibility that “responsible citizens” realized long ago that some people would not be able to save for retirement and that it made sense for a responsible citizenry to set up a system by which at least a basic retirement income would be guaranteed for all who paid into it?
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m conservative and see a lot of problems with Social Security. But your assessment seems to leave out the possibility that laws can be passed by “responsible citizens” that will affect us all. Not everything responsibly done has to be done by an individual acting outside government.
That said, I’m in no way trying to defend the current mishmash of legislation we currently live under. It’s a godawful mess.
Very helpful. THX
>>I’m here to expose their hypocrisy.<<
But you’re not exposing any hypocrisy. What you are doing is avoiding the reasoning that a marriage generates an economic unit with two working spouses. How they choose to divide their labor in that arrangement is none of your or my business.
Yet you would penalize them if one chose not to earn a formal income, apparently because doing so would, from what you claimed, simply generate more tax dollars, thereby lowering your own tax bill.
That’s not hypocritical? Forcing two people to earn their “income” the way you decide they should, while all the time claiming that personal responsibility is paramount?
‘The only two options that would truly be tax reform are:
1) Flat Tax
2) FAIR Tax’
The thing that scares me about this is what the swamp creatures will do with it over time. None are interested in cutting taxes or reducing spending. On top of that, the VAT tax. I know, I know, there hasn’t been any chatter about that in quite a while, but I suspect it would follow very soon after with Flat tax, fair tax creeping up & up & up. Yikes.
‘The only two options that would truly be tax reform are:
1) Flat Tax
2) FAIR Tax’
The thing that scares me about this is what the swamp creatures will do with it over time. None are interested in cutting taxes or reducing spending. On top of that, the VAT tax. I know, I know, there hasn’t been any chatter about that in quite a while, but I suspect it would follow very soon after with Flat tax, fair tax creeping up & up & up. Yikes.
“I don’t see how my deducting taxes I’ve already payed is a burden on you.”
I agree wholeheartedly and that’s the very point of my oblique postings.
Yes, on the whole I think it’s a good approach, but I think they should be clearer in explaining that the child tax credit is intended to offset the loss of the child personal exemption. If they did that, it also wouldn’t have to be as large.
For example a $4,000 personal exemption saves $1,000 in taxes at the 25% rate, so a $1,000 tax credit would replace it, since a credit is applied to your taxes owed. (If you owe $5,000, it would be reduced to $4,000, and if you owed nothing, you’d get $1,000 back for each child.)
Maybe that’s what they’re doing with the $1,600 number in the House bill, but trying to protect everyone, since a 40% rate would equal a $1,600 credit (40% of the $4,000 child exemption)
I view the House bill as having two main goals. For business, cut taxes primarily. And for individuals, simplify the process primarily.
So we get some significant simplification and businesses get significant tax cuts. Then business booms as a result and individuals benefit from the increase opportunities that result. (This is the part liberals definitely don’t get, or at least deny strenuously.)
“How they choose to divide their labor in that arrangement is none of your or my business.”
It is my business when only one of them receives a W2, but they get to deduct twice as much from the income of a only one working spouse.
I am forced to subsidize that arrangement.
HA, you be messin' with me :-)
>>“I don’t see how my deducting taxes I’ve already payed is a burden on you.”
I agree wholeheartedly and that’s the very point of my oblique postings.<<
So if your state legislators have spent like drunken sailors and provided you with all sorts of personal amenities along the way, you “agree wholeheartedly” that the rest of us should let you pay less federal tax, thereby subsidizing that drunken sailor spending.
I think we’re getting to the point where you need to stop calling everyone else a hypocrite.
” that the rest of us should let you pay less federal tax, thereby subsidizing that drunken sailor spending.”
So, if you and the ‘ol lady go out and get drunk and wind up married, with kids, the rest of us have to subsidize that irresponsible behavior?
SandyInSeattle wrote: “Thanks for the link. My percentage goes down 9%. More than makes up for losing SALT.”
I would also be losing SALT and the mortgage deduction. But, with the increased standard deduction, my tax bill goes down about 18% in both the house and the senate bills.
Another great feature is that I won’t have to spend a couple of days using turbo tax.
I appreciate your posts here to help clarify the issues.
You’re smarter than that and just being thick-headed in this case because you have no reasonable argument to counter the fact that a marriage is one economic unit. Even when a couple doesn’t marry, common law awards a non-working spouse many rights granted to a married spouse after a suitable passage of time in the arrangement.
You continue to refuse to address the main point that how they choose to divide their labor in the marriage is their own business, and not yours.
Simple answer: I have nowhere stated that I supported the tax break for having children.
And you have nowhere justified demanding that both of us work for a wage, instead of letting us decide how to divide our own labor according to our wants and needs.
You understand it just fine. Yes this does mean that you will be taxed on taxes. Most states already tax the taxes you pay Federally. The corresponding argument is that by increasing the standard deduction you’ll pay less, so who cares? I don’t buy it because what that will do is insure that upper middle class taxpayers, but not the investment and political class, will pay more. Plus the plain truth is we’re shifting taxes from fairly large corporations to individuals. Political arsenic, but it seems the gop wing of the uniparty wants to lose in 2018 anyway.
Politics is a scam and we’re suckers for playing.
‘Yes, on the whole I think it’s a good approach, but I think they should be clearer in explaining that the child tax credit is intended to offset the loss of the child personal exemption. If they did that, it also wouldn’t have to be as large.’
Wow, very well explained, thank you! You are exactly right they could better explain everything better & this would also offset the braying of the donkie party as well. Sometimes, I feel like non-explanations are intentional on both sides to muck it all up so they can all throw out ridiculous headlines instead. I look at this stuff & it’s as clear as mud. Thank you again for well written, thoughtful examples. I really appreciate the better understanding of all this from you posts!
‘You understand it just fine. Yes this does mean that you will be taxed on taxes.’
Oh good, at least I understand some of this stuff, lol! I have not heard anyone say anything about taxing taxes & thought I must be monumentally confused because that’s what it looks like to me. I’m also totally baffled that the GOPe can’t seem to get anything done. This seems to be a once in a lifetime chance & they are blowing it big time. I’m beginning to think that is intentional.
“Even when a couple doesn’t marry, common law awards a non-working spouse many rights granted to a married spouse after a suitable passage of time in the arrangement.”
But they cannot file Married, Filing Jointly.
Unless married, or they have filed official paperwork that is the equivalent of marriage.
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