TAX POLITIX
The Politics of Taxes
Capital Gains and the Wealthy
The concept of an American President (Obama) going after people making a lot of money and paying a relatively low tax rate on it was particularly naïve; it displayed an absolute lack of familiarity with how people get wealthy. As a CPA, I can attest to the fact that the most common way people accumulate massive wealth is either by a huge amount of hard work (creating a successful business) or selling an asset (an invention, real estate, etc). Many people who file tax returns with large amounts...
Abuse to the Taxpayer by Public Service Employees
Taxpayers have been long bamboozled into making generous commitments to the retirement systems of public service workers. All over the country, in all levels of federal and state governments, these defined benefit plan pension plans have proven to be vastly untenable. To sustain the plans in their current arrangements and cover the obligations that have already been promised, the rest of society will be compelled to contribute to the retirement of those public service workers via higher taxes....
The Danger Time Between 65-80
Everyone thinks he can retire at age 65. It’s an American ideal born in the last century with the rise of unions, the defined benefit plan, and generous pension systems. In reality -- especially due to advances in health, medicine, and nutrition -- many people have great capability to continue to work and contribute to society and themselves until 70-80. And they should, because they need to. There is a crisis of affordability looming. Besides the enormously wealthy, for the most part no...
Why We Need to Eliminate the AMT
We need to eliminate the AMT from the tax code entirely. Here’s why: The Alternative Minimum Tax (“AMT”) presents hardships to the practitioner as well as the taxpayer who prepares his own return by, as its name implies, imposing a second tax calculation mechanism on taxpayers. It serves virtually no useful purpose, other than the raising of an ever-increasing amount of tax revenue. But it has become very clear in recent years that this AMT tax revenue is not coming from just the taxpayers who...
The Wealthiest Already Pay Their Fair Share: The AMT
The Democrats have continuously claimed that they are looking out for America’s middle class by keeping the tax rates the same for them while seeking to raise rates on the wealthiest Americans who need to “pay their fair share”. This assertions serves to deflect attention away from the one policy that is already the mechanism for ensuring that the wealthiest pay more. What is it? The AMT. The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) currently serves virtually no useful purpose, other than the raising of...
Treat Social Security Like a True Retirement Plan
Entitlement reform is necessary for the fiscal health of this country, but it is something that no one wants to talk about, much less tackle. How can we begin? How can we open up the conversation and the possibility to reform and improve our social security system? One step in the right direction would be to treat Social Security as a true retirement plan, and not as a wealth transfer system that it currently is. This could begin with reclassifying the payroll tax. The majority (6.2% out of...
Social Security: Not a Tax
Whenever tax reform, tax packages, or tax changes get discussed and debated, the focus is always on “the middle class.” While this sounds noble, the reality is that the middle class already pays very little in taxes. The majority of the middle class “tax bill” is actually Social Security -- which is not truly a tax. For example, my son made about $35,000 last year. He paid $1,500 in income tax and $4,500 in Social Security. But contributions to the Social Security system should not be viewed...
Trump’s Elimination of Obamacare Tax Gouging Should Not Be Considered a Tax Cut
I’m sick and tired of reading over and over again in places both liberal and conservative that Trump’s (as well as the Republican’s) proposed tax reforms are going to give the lion’s share of the cuts to the top 1%. The entire concept is totally distorted. In fact, nobody has been talking about the series of tax changes that occurred when Obama and his Democrat cronies passed the Obamacare increases. These raised the Bush tax rates on only the wealthiest from 36% – 39.6 % and then again...
Robert Mueller Should Resign
The appointment of Former F.B.I Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel for the Trump-Russia investigation seemed like a decent choice for the task. I had only heard good things about Mueller and looked forward to getting to the bottom of whether or not there were actual, illegal ties between Trump’s campaign and Russian officials. Unfortunately, by one single action, Robert Mueller has now revealed himself as a person unfit to be special counsel. This action was his selection of Andrew...
France Finally Wises Up About Wealth Taxes
Over the past 15 years, France's tax on the wealthy has resulted in a capital flight of 35 billion euros ($41 billion). 10,000 wealthy have left the country over it, which currently applies to personal assets of more than 1.3 million euros. Noting the substantial loss, France will amend their budget so that the tax will be levied only on real estate, thereby exempting "other forms of wealth such as shareholdings in companies" in the coming year. I wrote about this phenomenon as it was...
TAX
Tips
Obamacare and Tax Returns: 21 Helpful Pages of IRS Filing Instructions
The IRS is getting ready for Obamacare to be accounted for by every citizen. For completing this section of your tax form, the IRS has published 21 pages of instructions, as well as long forms and tip sheets. For Americans who do not have...
Thinking Ahead For the Twilight Years
They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. That expression is also applicable to persons in their 80s -- they go in like a lion and out like a lamb. As they start going along in those years, their ability to discern and filter...
Another Obamacare Cost: The Penalty Fee is Coming
If you are one of the millions of Americans who declined health insurance and decided to pay the fee tax fine penalty, be aware that it will be a part of your 2014 tax calculations. The penalty for 2014 is relatively cheap, a means to transition...
Treasury Issues $1 Trillion in New Debt to Pay Off Old Debt, Despite Record Revenue
Even though the government is bringing in record revenue, its spending is still outpacing its intake. CNS News did an analysis of Treasury Statements, and revealed that the Department of Treasury is currently operating like a Ponzi scheme: "The...