Originally Posted by Rochard

You missed the entire point. You made more, you standard of living increased, but you paid more. But at $30/hour your not rich. The point is the rich don't pay taxes.

The rich have their wives drive their expensive SUVs to drop off the kids at their soccer game. The big SUV is a company car - which means the lease is written off, the insurance, and the gas. The rich have big homes, some of which includes an office so they can work from home, and of course they use it to entertain their clients so that's a tax write off - including the power, the internet, the tv cable, etc etc etc etc.... Then the rich don't take their kids to Disneyland. Instead, they go on business trips. Now the rich business man wants to take his wife, which means the kids and the nanny has to come. Setting aside the fact that his nanny is a write off, they go on their business trip to California or Florida where they meet with a potential client - and then the entire vacation, errr, trip, is written off.

When you go on vacation it costs you cash money up front. When the rich go on vacation it's a tax write off.