Taxes

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Money earned through investing is very, very different than what you earn in a bi-weekly paycheck. I don't need to risk any of my personal assets in order to earn a paycheck.

Do you own a business? A person who opens a business takes a huge risk. A person who fishes for a living takes a huge risk. A barber takes a risk. A contractor, plug builder, etc etc. In fact, the risk to them might be infinitely higher than for a person who has 100,000,000 net worth and invest 50 million. They can afford that risk. The argument that investment through the market warrants different rates than earned income is arguable.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Do you own a business? A person who opens a business takes a huge risk. A person who fishes for a living takes a huge risk. A barber takes a risk. A contractor, plug builder, etc etc. In fact, the risk to them might be infinitely higher than for a person who has 100,000,000 net worth and invest 50 million. They can afford that risk. The argument that investment through the market warrants different rates than earned income is arguable.

"Do you own a business?"

Yes, i am part owner of a gold refinery. I don't see the point of that. If i lose the miney I put up, I get to deduct it from my taxable income. That's tax policy that encourages entrepeneurs, and it's smart policy.

"They can afford that risk."

Society cannot afford to make investing not seem like a good gamble. We need ro encourage investors, because businesses need capital to function.

Every decision as to whether or not to invest in a company depends upon a cost benefit analysis, or a comparison of risk versus reward. If you hike the capital gains tax rate, every single investment makes less mathematical sense to take a chance on.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by zimmy

The argument that investment through the market warrants different rates than earned income is arguable.

yup, but it's an argument based on emotion rather than common sense..as you have just demonstrated...I've been self-employed for my entire adult life, I've never considered it to be a risk, let alone a HUGE RISK...just a choice...some good aspects and some not so good...you learn to survive when you are self-employed, I know a lot of self-employed people who are "surviving" right now, they're not collecting unemployment(and don't show up in the phony numbers) ....you continue to argue that what we need to do is take more from some as though that is the solution to our problem, we have never had a revenue problem, what we have is an expansion of the size and expense of government at all levels problem and overpromising that is unsustainable. You didn't answer my question in the other thread re. the spending under the various administrations....if you look more specifically at the the spending you will see that we are going broke funding things that were never mandated as a function of government by the Constitution...you ignored the role of Congress in the spending equation and the effect....you reflect the argument that we see from Democrats every day, which is to continue to rail against anyone that you can pick as a target as someone who should pay more with emotional rhetoric and lots of zeros...completely ignoring the unsustainable spending track that we are on as a nation....

[scottw]

Originally Posted by RIJIMMY

. Loopholes need to be closed

Loopholes...this is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot..probably thoroughly focus group tested to illicit anger particularly with regard to corporations(except the liberal ones) and millionaires and billionaires(except the liberal ones) and which carries credability for some reason while never referring to anything specific...intentionally....

can you name a few?

oh, Jimmy, I forgot to mention, you can also expect to be means tested out of both Social Securtiy and Medicare..it's the only way....

loopholes should be called leghold traps....

politicians create exemptions and incentives to get corporations and businesses, individuals to behave in a way that politicians would like them to behave......

corporations and businesses or individuals take advantage or these ...

time goes by...

the same politicians publically assault corporations, businesses and individuals for unfairly exploiting "loopholes" all the while acting as though they had absolutely nothing to do with it and usually having exploited many of these or gained some benefit themselves...