Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: roo_ster on January 26, 2010, 09:57:04 PM
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I couldn't have made this up if I had tried. It is so beyond parody, any attempt at a parody that comes close to this would be considered over-the-top hyperbole on stilts juggling flaming geese in a fireworks factory.
Read and learn what your self-appointed betters think of you:
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/01/25/too-dumb-to-thrive/
Too Dumb to Thrive
Posted by Joe Klein
Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 stimulus package: nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted. On second thought, they may be right: it's been wasted on them. [jfruser--italics in the original] Indeed, the largest single item in the package--$288 billion--is tax relief for 95% of the American public. This money is that magical $60 to $80 per month you've been finding in your paycheck since last spring. Not a life changing amount, but helpful in paying the bills.
The next highest amount was $275 billion in grants and loans to states. This is why your child's teacher wasn't laid off...and why the fire station has remained open, and why you're not paying even higher state and local taxes to close the local budget hole.
It turns out that what people are really upset about is all that wasteful money that has gone to political public works projects...except that the overwhelming portion of that money hasn't been spent yet. Remember all those "shovel-ready" projects? Well, they didn't exist. The big jobs-creating projects like the rebuilt "smart" electric grid, major highways and fast trains will come on line during the next year. (Although these projects might have gotten greater public support if they'd been chosen by a National Infrastructure Bank--a panel of experts, like the fed--that would have picked them according to their value added, rather than by the bozo appropriators in the Congress.)
So, two thoughts:
1. The Obama Administration has done a terrible job explaining the stimulus package to the American people...especially since there have been very few documented cases of waste so far.
2. This is yet further evidence that Americans are flagrantly ill-informed...and, for those watching Fox News, misinformed.
It is very difficult to have a democracy without citizens. It is impossible to be a citizen if you don't make an effort to understand the most basic activities of your government. It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you're a nation of dodos.
That CNN poll:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/25/poll.stimulus.money/index.html
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So explain this tax relief business. It seems to me that, unless one pays a monthly income tax, a tax relief won't be effective until tax time the following year.
I guess if you are withholding the exact amount you need to pay, you wouldn't really notice this relief immediately.
Figures like that really annoy me, they make it sound like people are getting instant relief. Also the most annoying aspect is the presumption that the gov is entitled to your money, and that you should be thankful you get what you do.
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$60 to $80 extra in my paycheck? Hrrmph.
How do you explain the phone call from the accountant two weeks ago saying we owed an additional 40 grand?
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...especially since there have been very few documented cases of waste so far.
Yeah, those non-existent congressional districts were small potatoes.
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Well, we have a shovel-ready administration, does that count?
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Well, we have a shovel-ready administration, does that count?
=D The internet is now over. We have reached the kill screen.
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$60 to $80 extra in my paycheck? Hrrmph.
How do you explain the phone call from the accountant two weeks ago saying we owed an additional 40 grand?
Must really suck carrying your bag of gold around huh?
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$60 to $80 extra in my paycheck? Hrrmph.
How do you explain the phone call from the accountant two weeks ago saying we owed an additional 40 grand?
Dear leader and uncle Joe have been telling us to watch out for "Fat Cats" like you. How dare you take more than your fair share! That wealth should be spread around!
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Must really suck carrying your bag of gold around huh?
You think it takes bags of gold to owe $40k to FedGov? Any average small business has to put up with this crap.
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You think it takes bags of gold to owe $40k to FedGov? Any average small business has to put up with this crap.
What he means, I think, that many people perceive small businesses, and all business owners, as "the rich". IT's stupid, but they do.
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You think it takes bags of gold to owe $40k to FedGov? Any average small business has to put up with this crap.
Then say my business owes $40k not you personally. Is this payroll taxes, FICA or income tax?
I'd love to have the personal income where my tax liability is $40k to the feds.
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Then say my business owes $40k not you personally. Is this payroll taxes, FICA or income tax?
I'd love to have the personal income where my tax liability is $40k to the feds.
I don't make six figures or anything, but bet my total tax liability to the feds is well over half that. I think my income tax alone is not quite half that. I don't have any little deductions running around though. I am not talking about the balance that I owe, but what was paid in on my check stub year to date. I'll have to look at it again later on.
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I don't make six figures or anything, but bet my total tax liability to the feds is well over half that. I think my income tax alone is not quite half that. I don't have any little deductions running around though. I am not talking about the balance that I owe, but what was paid in on my check stub year to date. I'll have to look at it again later on.
Wife and I don't make six figures either and our fed tax liability before deductions and credits is around $12k. That is not FICA, Medicare, Medicade or state taxes. If you figure those numbers in we pay about about 40% of our gross income in a tax of some sort.
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The next highest amount was $275 billion in grants and loans to states. This is why your child's teacher wasn't laid off got a new Blackberry...and why the fire station has remained open you still have 8 city administrators doing the job of 5, and why you're not STILL being begged to pay even higher state and local taxes to close the local budget hole "save essential services".
Fixed that for them.
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Yep. When the local politicians aren't getting the amounts of taxes they'd like, they always say that they'll have to cut police or fire services, or teachers. They never say they'll have to cut the number of people who tend the flowers in the median strips, or reduce the staff at the office that hands out welfare checks.
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Then say my business owes $40k not you personally. Is this payroll taxes, FICA or income tax?
I'd love to have the personal income where my tax liability is $40k to the feds.
Firstly, that's a crazy level of nit-picking.
Secondly, he said "we."
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Firstly, that's a crazy level of nit-picking.
Secondly, he said "we."
Well he did say an additional 40 grand.
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Biz taxes are estimated and paid each quarter, then things are reconciled at the end of the year and any adjustments are made to bring the estimates in line with the actual amount owed. Well, apparently the quarterly payments we've already made this year were insufficient. So in addition to our Q4 payment we had to make up an additional $40k shortfall from the earlier quarters. No idea how that could be possible, we paid just as much this year as last year, despite doing a lot less business and earning a lot less taxable profit.
Most years we could cover an unexpected $40k expense. Not this year.
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Oh, and when it comes to small businesses, the line between personal and business income becomes quite blurry.
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Yes, it can become blurry. In 1990, after I'd incorporated on April 1, my accountant brought me my tax returns for the year. Because of the timing of the incorporation, I owed $32,000 more in personal taxes than I had anticipated. It was tax on the "profit" from the sole proprietorship for the first quarter. I didn't make a gazillion dollars in personal income.
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I'd love to have the personal income where my tax liability is $40k to the feds.
So what is stoping you?
Are you being oppressed by some vast conspiracy or is it something more personal?
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Truth be told, the stimulus package has been a boondogle. Also, I often wonder how much money is just wasted in taxes that could have been used elsewhere vastly more efficiently.... One thing we'll never know the answer to (atleast scientifically) is how many people didn't start a business because they didn't want to deal with the regulations.
Now, the stimulus package is basically a mortgage on future returns.... that we don't even have a plan for how, or even if it will be payed back.
Where this train stops... no one knows.
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Truth be told, the stimulus package has been a boondogle.
No *expletive deleted*it.
One thing we'll never know the answer to (atleast scientifically) is how many people didn't start a business because they didn't want to deal with the regulations.
I can tell you that my family is uncomfortably close to having to close a longtime family business (a 40 year family business). If the healthcare bill passes or there is anything unexpected when we do the taxes (like what the unpleasant surprise HTG discovered), we'll be shutting our doors.
I can also tell you that I will not be starting a business of my own until the fed .gov becomes less hostile to small businesses. I've got some good ideas kicking around in my head, waiting for me to act on them, but not right now. Not right now.
Also, I often wonder how much money is just wasted in taxes that could have been used elsewhere vastly more efficiently
All of it was wasted. I haven't heard one positive thing from the "stimulus", but I see a hell of a lot of helping out the Democrat loyalists...
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I didn't see the Obammy Boy until now, changed it due to racist overtones.
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Undertones, maybe, but not overtones.
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Undertones, maybe, but not overtones.
ok you're right