Greedy Govt

banditrn · Mar 12, 2008

Sorry, HM2 - my family doesn't do 'grey areas' or 'not quite legal'.

allnurses Guide · Mar 12, 2008

And it's going to get worse. Last year my son and a friend formed their own electronics business - they did pretty well - working about 60 hours a week each, they brought in $200,000 - but the govt. took $70,000, That left them each with $65,000, right? Wrong! Because they have to pay their receptionist, and their office rent, etc.
And if certain people win the next election - they want to tax businesses even more - to support all the entitlement programs. Puking ridiculous!

The same thing is happening to us. We have a chipping/logging business and taxes are killing us.

Entrepreneurship suffers . . . . small businesses suffer . . . .

"Puking ridiculous!"

steph

allnurses Guide · Mar 12, 2008

Sorry, HM2 - my family doesn't do 'grey areas' or 'not quite legal'.

I agree with you banditrn.

As to the quote below . . . the government FORCES small businesses to do one of two things . . pay huge amounts in taxes or get further in debt every year by purchasing capital equipment. We either have a big tax burden or we have to buy logging equipment. It doesn't pay to pay your bills on time and run a business . . the government gets you one way or the other. It is so frustrating. :angryfire

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"Effectively, the government applies a different set of tax rules based

on the size of the business. Small business owners are allowed to take many

deductions, such as accelerated depreciation on capital equipment, that are not

generally available to larger businesses . . . ."

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blueheaven · Mar 12, 2008

I have found (for myself) that working more than 24 hours of OT is very good for unca sam, so I limit my self to 2 12 hour shifts a pay (when I work OT)

mizfradd, CNA · Mar 13, 2008

HM2VikingRN, RN · Mar 14, 2008

There was no implication that anyone should go into the grey area of the law. In context of the quote Dean Baker argues quite forcefully that if everyone pays a fair share that taxes could be lowered. Tax evasion hurts everyone in the long run.

Our tax code has really been revised over the last 25 years to encourage wealth accumulation at the very top of the economy by increasing taxes on the bottom 95% of the economy. When it comes to tax issues quite often I think that my pwn beliefs are not heard. In 2001 passing tax cuts for the bottom 95% of the economy wasn't bad policy. Bad policy was passing tax cuts for the upper 5% of the economy without asking "How do we pay for these?" The tax cuts for the upper 5% represent roughly .7% of GDP. The tax cut package as a whole costs about2.4% GDP. SS which benefits EVERYONE needs about .7% GDP to bring it into permanent balance. Tax policy is all about social policy. It is bad social economics to give tax cuts to people who really don't need the help at the cost of those who do.

It would not have harmed anyone in the least to cap the tax relief for the upper 1% and millionaires at the same level as that granted the top 20%.

Especially when you consider the very real needs in education, veterans health and environmental issues.

We could fix SS for the price of the tax cuts for the upper 1%.

The following shows how skewed our tax policy has become:

Domestic "discretionary" items are for head start, school funding etc. The beneficiaries of this giveaway by Pres. Bush and his cronies would have lived just as well with a 35 BN tax cut as they do with the 51 BN dollar cut. The domestic discretionary cuts are from programs that benefit every person on this board either directly or indirectly while very few members of this board attained any real benefits from the tax policies of the past several years.

P.S. Both Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine argued for a progressive tax system in their writings.

HM2VikingRN, RN · Mar 14, 2008

FYI:

Summary: About 6.5 million children under age 18 – or nearly 9 percent of all U.S. children – received part of their family income from Social Security in 2005. They include 3.1 million children who receive benefits as dependents of deceased, disabled, or retired workers and an estimated 3.4 million other children who do not themselves receive Social Security but live with relatives who do.

Social Security benefits often make the difference in lifting children out of poverty. Of the 6.5 million children in families that received Social Security, fully 1.3 million were lifted out of poverty by Social Security income.
Social Security is the most widespread form of life insurance for American families. Almost all U.S. workers – including men and women in the armed forces – have life insurance through Social Security when tragedy strikes. For example, Social Security continues to pay benefits to more than 2,000 children whose parents died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

http://www.nasi.org/usr_doc/SS_Brief_027.pdf