Due date for US Federal Income Taxes was today.
My taxes were a quarter of an inch (or more) thick this year. This is just the filing. It includes tax returns for two States and my Federal Taxes.
Almost half of US Households (>45%) pay no Federal Income Taxes.
The top 1% of US taxpayers (remember 45% of households have already been omittted) paid 38% of total Federal Income Taxes.
Top 5% paid 59%. Top 10% paid 70% of total Federal Income Taxes.
Bottom 50% of all US Households who actually paid Federal Taxes paid 2.8% of total Federal taxes paid. This number omits those who did not even pay Federal Taxes.
Source: http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/FF445.pdf
Latest data released by the IRS is 2012.
You can make of this what you will. But the Federal Government runs massive annual deficits. 45% of households pay no Federal Income Taxes. And a very small percentage of those paying taxes foot almost the entire bill.
Is there some other way to get that tax money, outside of making everyone qualify to pay Federal tax? What about the tax paid on things you buy? Or your payroll tax? The government may not get my Federal tax, but enough of what I make goes through other hands than mine. And in many cases, I am sure the government gets a cut.
Well you should become a corporation then you wouldnt have to pay taxes either....remember corporations are people too
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/13/pf/taxes/gao-corporate-taxes/
And even when they do pay taxes their creative but legal accounting get them to around ~25% total tax
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/biggest-corporations-hiding-over-trillion-overseas_us_57100f97e4b0060ccda2c625
Its good to be in business in the US where the middle class is subsidizing these companies with tax dollars!
Worst offenders (I know this is a candidates website but hopefully this will be taken as information only).
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/top-10-corporate-tax-avoiders
Con
Quote from: Con on April 18, 2016, 11:25:46 PM
Well you should become a corporation then you wouldnt have to pay taxes either....remember corporations are people too
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/13/pf/taxes/gao-corporate-taxes/
And even when they do pay taxes their creative but legal accounting get them to around ~25% total tax
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/biggest-corporations-hiding-over-trillion-overseas_us_57100f97e4b0060ccda2c625
Its good to be in business in the US where the middle class is subsidizing these companies with tax dollars!
Worst offenders (I know this is a candidates website but hopefully this will be taken as information only).
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/top-10-corporate-tax-avoiders
There is another way of looking at this in that if US corporations reflected the US tax paying population only 1 in 2 would be paying any income tax.
Con
B. Sanders pays only 13.5%. They must have some good CPA's in Vermont. :-X
I'm a big fan of that postcard-sized flat tax thingy.
I don't care if you don't make much money. Pay up, just like the rest of us dammit.
I'm on board with a flat tax. Everyone pays. No exemptions.
Quote from: Con on April 18, 2016, 11:25:46 PM
Its good to be in business in the US where the middle class is subsidizing these companies with tax dollars!
Worst offenders (I know this is a candidates website but hopefully this will be taken as information only).
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/top-10-corporate-tax-avoiders
Con
GE is at the top of Bernies list, the problem is that it's not accurate;
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/04/warren-ge-pays-no-taxes/
Quote
Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren evoked corporate tax punching bag General Electric Co. in a recent ad, claiming the corporate giant pays "nothing – zero – in taxes" to make a point about misplaced values. But that's not accurate.
We should preface this by saying that we are wading into a heated media debate about the amount of taxes paid by GE, and the most crucial number — the amount paid in corporate income tax — is unknown.
This much is certain: As the New York Times and others have well documented, GE has employed a number of aggressive (and legal) strategies that have greatly reduced the company's corporate tax burden.
But the claim that it pays no federal income tax at all is disputed by GE. Moreover, aside from corporate income taxes, GE pays payroll taxes, state taxes and local taxes. So Warren's blanket assertion that GE pays "nothing – zero – in taxes" is simply inaccurate.
Warren, a Democrat running against incumbent Republican Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, says in her ad, "Today, Washington lets big corporations like GE pay nothing – zero – in taxes, while kids are left drowning in debt to get an education. This isn't about economics; it's about our values."
The claim about GE paying no taxes stems from a March 24, 2011, story in the New York Times headlined "GE's Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether." It was part of a 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning series titled "But Nobody Pays That" by David Kocieniewski.
According to the New York Times story, GE reported U.S. profits of $5.1 billion in 2010 (and $14.2 billion worldwide). "Its American tax bill?" asked the Times. "None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion." The company accomplished this, the story said, due to "an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore."
On April 4, 2011, Pro Publica and Fortune co-published their own analysis of GE's taxes and concluded that the New York Times had left the mistaken impression that GE got a $3.2 billion tax refund, when, in fact, it did not. The company also paid U.S. income taxes in 2010, the authors wrote.
Pro Publica/Fortune, April 4, 2011: Did GE pay U.S. income taxes in 2010? Yes, it paid estimated taxes for 2010, and also made payments for previous years. Think of it as your having paid withholding taxes on your salary in 2010, and sending the IRS a check on April 15, 2010, covering your balance owed for 2009.
GE chief spokesman Gary Sheffer told Pro Publica: "We expect to have a small U.S. income tax liability for 2010." How much? The company wouldn't say.
We emailed one of the story's authors, Jeff Gerth of Pro Publica, a former investigative journalist with the New York Times, and asked him about Warren's claim. Here's what he wrote back:
Gerth, April 23: The fact is that GE's tax returns are not public. The basis for the statement that they paid a small amount of taxes is the company's official statements to the press. The basis for the NYT's original report that they paid no taxes was a reading of their financial statements, which are not the same as their tax returns. I don't know where Warren gets her facts from.
Andrew Williams, a spokesman for GE, told us via email that "there is a lot of misinformation out there about what we pay in taxes, but at the most basic level: we pay taxes and we did not get a refund."
According to Williams, GE paid $1 billion in federal, state and local taxes in the U.S. for 2010. He declined to say how much of that was for federal income taxes, except to say that some of it was.
Williams also pointed to a company press release, from April 17, on taxes paid by GE. According to that release, GE paid an effective global tax rate of 7 percent in 2010, counting money paid "to the IRS and foreign counterparts" in other nations. That rate was particularly low, Williams said, because the company lost $32 billion in its financial business during the global financial crisis.
According to the company release, GE's effective tax rate jumped to 29 percent in 2011. The company paid $2.9 billion in worldwide corporate income tax in 2011, and another $1 billion in other U.S. taxes that year, the release states.
We asked Williams how much of the $2.9 billion in worldwide corporate taxes was paid to the U.S. government, and how much the company paid in U.S. corporate income taxes in 2010. "Like virtually all other companies, we do not break out tax data on a country by country basis," Williams said. "Instead, we disclose our worldwide payments and rates. However, we did pay federal income taxes."
We're not going to weigh in on Warren's larger point about whether corporations like GE aren't paying their fair share. That's up to voters to decide. Again, the company has clearly been aggressive in reducing its tax burden through various tax credits and deductions created by the federal government (one example is clean energy incentives). It also has been creative in moving a good deal of its profits offshore. But Warren overreached with her claim that GE pays "zero" in taxes. The company does pay payroll taxes and local and state taxes. And GE says it also pays federal income taxes. How much? We don't know, and GE isn't saying. Nor is it required to.
— Robert Farley
Well they are obviously not paying what is perceived to be an equitable share since they are aggressively hiding the amount and proportion of taxes paid in the us
Con
Quote from: mirth on April 19, 2016, 05:37:34 PM
I'm on board with a flat tax. Everyone pays. No exemptions.
The trouble with 'no exemptions' is that tax breaks are a tool to manipulate the economy for political reasons. You need to convince the political élite of the provenance of 'no exemptions'.
It's making people pay that is the problem. Lower down the food chain it's harder to avoid as generally the less affluent do pay their taxes, and don't get the advice to hide stuff within a balance sheet, or offshore etc.
Quote from: Con on April 19, 2016, 07:34:39 PM
Well they are obviously not paying what is perceived to be an equitable share since they are aggressively hiding the amount and proportion of taxes paid in the us
Con
It doesn't matter what amount or percentage they pay, it'll never be enough in the Democrats eyes. So it's an absolute no win for these companies to disclose the exact amount.
Every so often, the argument for a federal sales tax comes up, and it makes way, way too much sense to actually be implemented by our gub'mint. The IRS is far too bloated and powerful a group to ever be done away with, though I gotta wonder if the entirety of the IRS was let go, how much in salaries that would save.
I'm sure I'm oversimplifying the federal sales tax thing, but I really think whatever it is (that, or flat tax, or some other alternate plan), it HAS to be a better alternative to this bullshit.
I've always signed up for the most deductions on my paychecks, because come tax time, we get a huge refund check - usually it was upwards of seven or eight thousand dollars. That's a lot better than paying. The last four or five years has really f*cking sucked, as that refund has been as low as $500 and upwards of $1200. This year we might get $1500 though I doubt we will. I can't help but connect this and my insurance being utter shite to the current administration, though these issues run a lot deeper than the Democrats' influence.
I always have to pay in. I haven't gotten a refund since the 80's. My last second job was just enough to pay the increased tax rate for 2 jobs. If I actually got what I earn, I'd be in great shape. Or at least more of it. But then I'd work more and Grog less. So.....
Quote from: Banzai_Cat on April 20, 2016, 08:26:01 AM
Every so often, the argument for a federal sales tax comes up, and it makes way, way too much sense to actually be implemented by our gub'mint. The IRS is far too bloated and powerful a group to ever be done away with, though I gotta wonder if the entirety of the IRS was let go, how much in salaries that would save.
The prez added many thousands of new IRS employees a few years ago. Maybe multiple batches IIRC, tens of thousands, since in office.
The bureaucratic bloat is only going up, as is it's tendency. Sometimes more than others.
Quote from: Con on April 18, 2016, 11:25:46 PM
Well you should become a corporation then you wouldnt have to pay taxes either....remember corporations are people too
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/13/pf/taxes/gao-corporate-taxes/
And even when they do pay taxes their creative but legal accounting get them to around ~25% total tax
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/biggest-corporations-hiding-over-trillion-overseas_us_57100f97e4b0060ccda2c625
Its good to be in business in the US where the middle class is subsidizing these companies with tax dollars!
Worst offenders (I know this is a candidates website but hopefully this will be taken as information only).
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/top-10-corporate-tax-avoiders
Con
Con - some of what you quote is highly misleading.
The USA is about the only country in the world that taxes US based corporations on earnings not made in the USA. As a result of this, and the highest corporate tax rate in the world (35%) the US has had a large number of corporations leave the US. This hurts the US economy and also discourages US investment.
For example, if you were a French corporation money you earned in the USA would not be taxed in France. But a US corporation that earns money in France would be taxed in the USA if the profits ever flowed back to the USA and the stockholders. This is the basis of the "hiding profits overseas" BS that the huffingtonpost is whining about.
I respectfully disagree
I work for a German company and I can tell you now that the taxes they pay are disproportionate to,the us. There are very few areas where there are corporate tax havens such as Luxembourg etc but they do not actually increase the economic wealth of those countries either (see Ireland emerald Tiger). I will have to look for some examples in the economist to back this up but claiming that the us which has subsidized the majority of corporations by providing an educated workforce and a low hourly wage and Work at will environment compared to Europe has higher taxes than the large Europe countries does not take the holistic view of corporate tax payments. Nothing these companies are doing is illegal but I would,like to have over a thousand tax accountants and lobbyists working for me to lower my taxes as well.
Con
Some sources
From the economist 2011
The statutory federal income tax rate for big American companies is 35%. But a study by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, two Washington, DC-based think-tanks, has assessed the tax records of 280 companies from the Fortune 500 list with reliable pre-tax profit reports. Among these companies the average effective tax rate between 2008-10 was only 18.5%. While 71 companies paid over 30% of their profits in federal income tax, 30 enjoyed negative tax rates over the whole three year period. Pepco, an electricity company, had the lowest effective tax rate of -57.6%. Wells Fargo, a bank, received the biggest tax subsidy over the three years of almost $18 billion, and was one of 25 companies which took more than half of the total $223 billion subsidy claimed. In at least one of the three years, 78 firms paid no or negative tax rates, and legally-by writing off capital investments before they actually wear out (known as "accelerated depreciation"), making use of tax deductible stock options and industry-specific tax breaks, and offshore tax havens.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1159.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp623%2Fconradmaher%2FIRS%25202_zpscjl71jpp.jpg&hash=36d3a18d1aab6bea60647a0a9b8279c5cb713bdc)
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1159.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp623%2Fconradmaher%2FIRS%25201_zpscwzpbxir.jpg&hash=17d5cafa3382f4204f3d7c4d69b3c66a5b4b2706)
https://ourfuture.org/fact_sheet/taxes-myths-and-realities
The problem is not that corporations are overtaxed. In fact, compared to our competitors' corporate tax rates, the U.S. rate is low. According to the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the United States' total corporate tax burden ranks 61st of over 100 countries. [World Bank]
When conservatives claim that the U.S. tax rate is high, they're talking about the "statutory rate." But corporations treat the statutory rate as just a guideline—they use offshore tax havens and accounting loopholes to pay much lower actual rates. The tax rate corporations actually pay is lower than the rates of economic competitors such as China (23rd highest tax rate), India (21st), and Mexico (45th). [World Bank] [PriceWaterhouseCoopers]
The U.S. collects less in corporate taxes than other wealthy countries do. Measuring tax collections as a share of GDP is a good way to put a country's tax rate in the context of its economy's size. In the last seven years, the U.S. has collected an average of 2.4 percent of its GDP in corporate taxes—less than the average 3.4 percent collected by other industrialized nations. If laws remain the same, U.S. corporate taxes will be only 1.9 percent of GDP in less than 10 years. [U.S. Treasury Department]
Corporations should pay their fair tax share. American workers increasingly carry more of the tax burden than corporations do. In the 1950s, corporate income taxes accounted for about a quarter of federal tax revenues; now they account for just one-tenth, leaving workers to pay the difference. [Economic Policy Institute]
I also recommend this book. Its a staggering indictment of how the wealthy can game the system.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014F6X8LW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1
Con - effective tax rates are always lower than statutory tax rates. This is true for any tax system that is progressive or has deductions. Your argument about marginal vs. effective tax rates is a straw man argument. My "statutory rate" on my last dollar earned for US income taxes was 28% on regular income. My effective tax rate was 20% on all income earned. This is normal and is part of any tax code.
The tax policy centers you reference are very left wing. For example, why did the data set only include 280 of the 500 US corporations? All publically traded companies have public financial statements. You might look at www.taxfoundation.org which has very hard data.
And you did not address the most important point. The US taxes US corporations on income earned abroad. Other countries do not. This has caused a substantial exodus of large US corporate HQs over the last couple of decades.
Most of the information is from the economist and that is definitely not left wing. Effective rates in Europe are much higher for corporations due to the extensive social and workers compensation required there.
Also the US Corporate taxes are only harvested on overseas profits when they are repatriated back to the Us and even then its under significantly reduced percentages. This has lead to a multitude of ruses such as the following one (also from the Economist) which allows legally these companies to avoid paying these taxes
"Perhaps the most notorious tax-reducing ruse is the "Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich". A multinational (often American) pays itself "royalties" on its intellectual property, routing the payments through an Irish-registered subsidiary, then a Dutch one, and finally another Irish subsidiary that is domiciled for tax purposes in somewhere like Bermuda."
There are many such gaps, and the reason is that the patchwork of national rules and bilateral treaties governing how much tax companies owe, and to whom, is horribly dated. It was designed for the manufacturing age. Business today is increasingly digital, services-based and driven by intangible assets, including rights to exploit intellectual property (IP), from patents to logos. These are easier than physical assets to shuffle from subsidiaries in high-tax countries to those in low-tax ones. In short, they make the old rules easier to game"
This has lead to 2 TRILLION in untaxed US corporate income that is currently stashed overseas and being shuttled around using the above legal loopholes in an obselete tax code. Apparently GE alone according to the same Economist article has $100 billion squirreled away overseas. I actually agree with the Economist that we would be be better off shiffting to a Territorial system and only taxing companies on their earnings in the US but it is wrong to state that they are being unfairly taxed in the US in comparison tot he rest of Europe.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1159.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp623%2Fconradmaher%2Ftaxes%25203_zpsemipdkqs.jpg&hash=f3689d799a6d6e52b905ab336a382dcb24d2515d)
Further looking into this I found the article I was recvalling regarding a holistic view on taxes globally. I have linked it below and copied a graph that shows the following summary
"Since America levies a federal tax of 35% on corporate profits (among the world's highest), this source accounts for a large proportion of its corporate-tax revenue. But European firms pay a lot of labour taxes, so the total tax take from companies is almost identical on the two sides of the Atlantic, at 40-45% of profits. According to the PwC survey, the total tax take from the corporate sector in the developed world has remained at much the same level since 2004."
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1159.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp623%2Fconradmaher%2Ftaxes%25205_zpssh52sgfb.jpg&hash=4f9951087450f2b05381b674ae1ff7c96cd598b0)
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21596672-traditional-ways-raising-tax-do-not-work-well-globalised-world-plucking-geese
Quote from: Con on April 20, 2016, 06:48:17 PM
us which has subsidized the majority of corporations by providing an educated workforce
This is completely false. The education that is provided is financed by local and state governments. Yes, there is some money coming from the fed's, but no where near what the states and local governments are paying.
I should have clarified that better I was talking about federally funded R&D programs at universities
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1159.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp623%2Fconradmaher%2FRampD_zps5we6ilrx.jpg&hash=e343db878537462d073f70b8add2c9e9504e5af7)
http://www.bu.edu/research/articles/funding-for-scientific-research/
If you look at university budgets state and local cover 30%, student loans are 25% (the largest component and also the majority federally funded) and Federal is 18% with the remainder being other.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/get-there/wp/2015/01/05/students-cover-more-of-their-public-university-tuition-now-than-state-governments/
This is a winding road from taxes corporate taxx rates to federal funding of universities and shows how interconnected all these systems are!
Con
Quote from: Nefaro on April 20, 2016, 05:27:46 PM
The prez added many thousands of new IRS employees a few years ago. Maybe multiple batches IIRC, tens of thousands, since in office.
The bureaucratic bloat is only going up, as is it's tendency. Sometimes more than others.
Lord. SO glad Obama is able to leave his stamp of idiocy. Getting rid of a federal employee is next to impossible, if they're incompetent, once they're in...sort of like a weed. (Not that all fed employees are useless; I'm just saying.)
Speaking of the O-daddy, I found this rather funny:
http://www.worldnewspolitics.com/2016/04/19/breaking-kenyan-government-releases-obamas-real-birth-certificate/
What's funny is WNP is pretty much like the Onion, but there were a lot of people getting wood when this "story" broke. ;D
Con:
I think we can agree on a few things.
1] US taxes on overseas corporate profits is having perverse effects.
2] Corporate tax codes are so complex there are perverse effects.
3] US has lower labor taxes, Europe has higher labor taxes.
High European labor taxes have harmed employment. High US corporate taxes on capital have forced US corporations to move operations abroad. Incentives matter. Make something more costly and you get less of it. US has made capital more expensive. Europe has made labor more expensive. The results are highly predictable over time.
I also concur that services and brands are much harder to tax than physical goods. Physical goods are less "valuable" today because of increased competition. But if we had an actual shortage of food or water this would change very rapidly.
Quote from: Con on April 18, 2016, 11:25:46 PM
Well you should become a corporation then you wouldnt have to pay taxes either....remember corporations are people too
As someone once said, "I will believe that a corporation is a person when the state of Texas executes one."