All trump did was the same thing he always does...

http://i66.tinypic.com/lh40o.jpg

That's because the Republicans are just as big of liars as the Democrats. They ALL overspend. :(

I'm no expert...but it seems that back when the U.S. went off the gold standard and started printing money with nothing physical to back it up, it laid the groundwork for what we see today.
A govt. that is bloated and taking in over 3 TRILLION dollars a year in revenue...and spending over 4 trillion.

I'm just not sure how much longer that can sustain itself.

Trump & the GOP taxed the poor to give the rich a tax break. You ignore that and spread blame to everyone, you are that daft. The Democrats voted AGAINST the tax scam... and you ignore that. Shameful

Truth be known... It was never Trumps tax plan.
The republicans had been working on this since before trump made his party nom.

And Robbie, if you check, you will find once we came off the gold standard, we tied the dollar to the price of oil.
Technically, our money is backed by oil now.

If you watch the currency exchanges and understand the oil markets a bit, it becomes clear how complex our dollar's value is determined.

This is why Russia and Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and some others have wanted to get off this OIL/Dollar standard.
Everyone that needs to buy oil, needs to buy dollars to do it.
At least with OPEC Countries. The original intention was to stabilize the oil price, which it did do, and also artificial property value in the states.

The dollar is still backed by gold. Just not 1 to 1 and now you can't demand gold from dollars at a federal reserve bank.

Your never going to get either party to come clean on spending. So I think the right thing to do is insure they are spending it on "YOUR PRIORITIES" among anything else they might spend it on. You will not receive what you fail to ask for.

I really want to hear from someone in the 70-150k income bracket to see how they made out.
Especial if they have a LLC.

Amazon pay $0 on record profits of $11B

Hmmm.... How do I get one of those tax breaks ?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazo...180337770.html

The company reported $5.6 billion in U.S. profits in 2017 and paid $0 last year as well.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/VN...500.png.cf.jpg

I've never thought of it like that. Technically isn't our dollar not backed by anything? Just a "system of floating rates"?

No matter what...the govt. just prints money. And of course "borrows" money (it's never gonna get paid back) creating the giant deficit.

The whole damn thing is insane.

The politicians long ago figured out that they could just make it an unlimited amount of money to spend and began enriching themselves by funneling astronomical amounts of money back to their cronies.

That same article also says this:
"Amazon pays all the taxes we are required to pay in the U.S. and every country where we operate, including paying $2.6 billion in corporate tax and reporting $3.4 billion in tax expense over the last three years,"

It's confusing. Did they pay "zero" or 2.6 BILLION in taxes?
Or is this third party company that is looking at Amazon's public records saying that they HAVE been paying taxes but won't have any for the year 2018?
The article also says that the companies being looked at by the "Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy" all say their findings are incorrect.

money worldwide in this days is not backed up from anything. actually the gold in fort knox nobody have seen in the last 30 years and even IF it would be seen you would not know to who it belongs to. Germany wanted to check their gold there a few years ago and it have been denied. so all they know is that they have theoretically a few hundred billion in gold there.

unfortunately money is a good today and the value is depending on supply and demand.
as there are many international trades (including oil) are still made in dollar, there is always a high demand on it that makes it quite stable.

it is a fairly tale that governments can simply print money as money supply would automatically decrease the value of a currency and increase inflation.
this is why countries do have debt.

it is also not generally a bad thing if a country do have dept - it is just a question how much and how fast the debt is increasing. look at japan - their total debt (total = private, government and companies) is at around 400 % to GDP what looks insane when you compare it to the 233% of the USA.
so HOW can that work there and why it is dangerous in the USA ?

the answer is very simple: japan lends the money from the japanese and US borrows the money from foreign countries. the foreign dept to GDP is USA is 100% and in japan 50%.
China´s foreign dept to GDP is only 9%. so if a country borrows from it´s own citizens, tha payback plus the interest will run right back into this country. if a country borrows from other countries the payback and the interest will strength the foreign nations gross income.

if you look at the dept situation in US under this aspect you will see the real problem.
last month the US credit rating from moody´s have been downgraded the first time in decades because of this problem. that means that it will become more expensive for the US to lend money outside and with a lower tax-income and higher spendings in things like a wall or military spendings (what will not bring any profit but additional costs) it will be impossible to pay it back.

the oxymoron in MAGA is that the country that depends mainly on foreign nation´s capital wants to lead. this is the same as when a bank gives a unsecured credit to someone and this someone wants to become the manager of this bank.

nope - it is not that simple.
a government can not stop to spend money - not even theoretically.
if they would do that the whole world would be owned within 10 years from 10-20 people.

imagine what would happen, if everybody in the world stop to spend money.
no cash flow at all. this would break the circulation what we know under the name "economy". economy is nothing else than big a river what is feed by the water from it´s spring. but the spring delivers actually the same water again and again - so the most important thing is that the water in the river have to find a way back into the spring.

this is actually the main reason why taxes and the government spendings from that are important for an economy. government spendings can even go targeted into the market because our big river in this example is actually the sum of many small rivers with many small springs. when the water in the river is low it is even legit to "borrow water" to fill the springs up.

as you see in this example any kind of prosperity is made from the same ammount of water. and this is the tricky part in it. it is kind of a perpeduum mobile that uses the same energy again and again but have to spin faster with each cycle.
this efficiency CAN ONLY be realized with globalizing and optimized by using geo-local circumstances and competition.

economy is a very very complex thing and here is also the problem. as voters usually do not know about this complexity, they are voting for "easy answers" - but there are no easy answers.

I never paid a fucking income tax in my life and tax authority never harrased me... learn to hide...

What Robbie said.

Total tax paid for a year, once filing is complete, is the significant number.

Getting money back or sending it in, at that time, just shows how close estimates were and has ZERO to do with whether someone got a cut.

So many pissed off Trump supporters losing so many deductions.

I had asked the same question when I seen the data.
That chart represents Federal Income taxes only.
Not knowing their situation for state taxes ?
And in some states, a incentive tax deduction can exclude you from local school taxes, like Pa, but Ohio does not allow this. So each state has it's own rules for local exceptions.
And I am not sure if they are referencing taxes (all) even outside the US when they state what they are paying out. But those fed taxes in that chart are verifiable correct.
So watch the what and how they say it to muddy the water.

Yes, plenty of confusion on taxes, so I am always skeptical from some of the junk I have checked on myself.
I had listened to Exxon Mobil make the statement and somewhat complaining many times, that they pay more taxes than any US company.
It could be true depending on how you want to count the marbles.

But it really isn't correct to say it that way and here is why.
Exxon counts all the money shelled out to land owner rights on federal land as taxes (royalty money for oil on public lands that goes to the treasury, it's taxpayer money, it's taxpayer land, it's taxpayer royalty).

So, it would be true that they probably give the US government more money than any other company, but it's not all in taxes. Probably much less than half of it is taxes.

Now that I have said that, you may understand why I always pay attention to 'how they say it'
because if you 'listen to the news rather than watch it' you pick up on selective use of words that are used to create a smoke screen of a lie. It's not really a lie, just very misleading.
I got pretty good at this 20 years ago. politicians do it alot, company's too.
There is always more questions to be asked when they are not using what you would think is 'normal wording'. Gets my attention immediately.

Oh... and remember when any of them say how much they pay in sales taxes that is not so. They collect sales taxes from you and pay the state.
Company's especially retailers, do not pay sales taxes.

Seriously, dude, it's just math, not a matter of opinion. What deductions were lost beyond certain entertainment expenses and the maximum itemized deduction on a very new mortgage for a wildly expensive house?

local taxes deductions

Bingo. And that tax deduction gave the "green light" to a few states to overtax the fuck out of their citizenry.

Basically the 2 states affected the most are New York and California. Trump's "revenge" on those "blue" states. lol

I don't know how people stay in either New York or California. New York's state and local and property taxes are outrageous.

Again the local taxes deduction changes, as I understand them, primarily impact only high income people. What annual income are you considering to be so downtrodden they need more of a break than they will get with caps on local tax deductions? Keeping in mind that people whose income derives from business activity, as I understand it, are getting new breaks.

Disclaimer: hire a professional accountant and have them tell you whether you are doing worse or better and what the broader impacts are. Don't learn accounting principles from agendized news and GFY.

I don't believe in discrimination with taxes. Everyone should pay the same rate at all levels.
But also give everyone a 17k personal deduction + 4k per dependent to be fair.

Anything less is class warfare.
So complex have the filings come to be, most can't tell when a particular class is getting the better deal. That is the way they want it.

Why are you lying again?

On your federal tax return you deduct any state & local taxes you paid the previous year.

The IRS changed its local & state tax deductions for certain states Trump wanted to target to pay more for 2018; California, New York, etc. You dope.

IRS issues notice on state and local tax deductions

"The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service issued a notice today stating that proposed regulations will be issued addressing the deductibility of state and local tax payments for federal income tax purposes. Notice 2018-54 also informs taxpayers that federal law controls the characterization of the payments for federal income tax purposes regardless of the characterization of the payments under state law."

I see it the "old fashioned" way.
People who get money from the govt. but don't pay ANY taxes are getting a so-called "better deal".

People who are employees and have their taxes taken out of their check each week and think they are high on the hog at the end of the year when they get a "refund" are sheep.

True middle class business owners (like myself) are getting a MUCH better deal through this lowered tax rate. I'm an LLC corporation since 1998.
Already this year I have re-invested new money in my business. Bought a brand new camera (the awesome Canon xf-705), new lights, and also a brand new wireless system for the audio.
Bought 2 new cars as well.
And don't get me started about the thousands of dollars I blew on music equipment for my band just since Dec. :(

And no, I didn't buy it with my "tax break". I bought it because the economy is roaring and we are making money. My confidence is up...as it is in the rest of the country's consumer confidence, far above anything over the last decade.

All of that adds up to charging up the economy. Which was THE point of the tax breaks...along with creating the right business environment to create new and HIGH PAYING jobs.

In my opinion...we are ALL getting a "better deal" because of the obvious common sense benefits to economic growth.

Now the 44% of Americans who pay NO Federal Income Tax? Of course they want those of us who do pay to pay MORE!
My opinion of that? Fuck them.

Clearly you don't have money or investments.

You are really fucked in the head saying our economy with increased inflation in 2018, and negative growth of -2.8 percent and failing auto & electronics industries due to Trump's tarrifs is "roaring".

I'm not even going to mention the stock market. Well oh 1 link

2018 was the worst for stocks in 10 years

Now go back and take Trump's cum in your mouth minion.

Dollar drops after retail data shows U.S. economy is continuing to slow

Robbie, you know we could argue till the moon turns orange with pink dots and neither of us will really know who is paying the bulk of the taxes. But the IRS shows us it has been those in the middle.
We can't begin to talk the complexity of corp taxes.
Only personal taxes.

That's why I say it should be the same rate for everyone at all levels.

I can't find a real justifiable reason to discriminate with the rate.
Want to help the poor. Increase the standard deduction and everyone gets the same treatment.

But many discussing these issues are not separating biz tax vs personal itx.
So not everyone here is taking the same color orange. Many are not familiar with biz taxes or only as a proprietor. Not Corp or LLC.

But I will say for as long as we can subsidize farms and oil company's, we can subsidize people too.
I would like to get rid of all those subsidies. tax everyone the same. Stop this class warfare.

I've never understood why there should be a "progressive" tax.

A flat tax would be fine with me.
And of course under a certain yearly income...no taxes at all. The poor can't pay tax when they are barely getting by.

I'd say personal income tax should be a flat 15%. You net a hundred grand a year...cut the govt. a $15,000 check. You net a million a year...cut the govt. a $150,000 check.

As for corporate tax...I'd say make it ZERO. Make the United States THE place to set up your business and hire people.
But that's just my opinion.
I'm sure that there are lots of people right here on GFY who don't have two nickels to rub together and pay minimal tax that just want to tax the fuck out of corporations and "the rich".

And the way you see the results of that are to take a look at companies fleeing high tax states and moving to states with NO state income tax.
Works the same way on a Federal level.

Companies have been moving shit out of our country, and instead of our govt. lowering corporate taxes in the past and luring businesses in...they simply created new tax laws to "chase" that money in other countries.

I know that when my taxes are lower...I have more money to spend (duh). And that's exactly what I do.

Robbie, i hope you realize that some country's offer a subsidized -0- taxation to get those company's to locate there.
And congress has passed legislation at least twice in the last 20 years that allows tax advantage to those 'multinational' company's that move their headquarters outside the US.
And there are plenty of other reasons for most of that movement.

A quick story,
A solar panel manufacture in the 90's who made the best cells in the industy was bought-out by BP just as they were building one of the most advance manufacturing facilities ever.
One of their competitors decided to beat this arrangement with just as good of tech, they needed to move production to China.
Once that company took the high tech manufacturing technique over there and made for some stiff competition, others moved as well because if they didn't, they were done.

Then, BP moved there manufacturing over there as well about 6-7 years ago. no choice by then.
So that advance facility in Virginia sits empty and a transfer of tech has been made and nobody can really compete with Chinese manufactures.
But I could not understand the reasoning. these were highly automated plants so it was not about labor at the time and that was what was being said about it.
It was incentivized by the Chinese government.


Taxes are only high by perception. You are not counting the benefits of being in that country. And only high when you compare them to someone who is lower.

What a benefit when the banks/oil company's were storing oil in tankers of the African coast to JACK the price of oil 12 years ago and we had to send the US military to defend them. And they like to complain about their tax rates ...
Go Figure !

If corporate taxes were -0- , they would ask us to pay them to create every job.
That is just how it works.... MORE MORE MORE

As the auto co's were making record profits year over year, they bake those margins in for the next year and if they do not make them yet again, they would claim they are loosing money hand over fist. Inflation is built into American manufacturing via profit levels and margins

Another Trump voter vows she never vote Republican again

Trump supporters didn't realize Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act meant tax cuts for the 1%

Colorado woman's $8,000 tax bill leaves her in tears

Where does it say she is a Trump supporter?. News Flash. Colorado is a heavy Democratic state. You take stupid to a level no one else can achieve.

Colorado is not a "heavy democratic state", it's a purple state with a 3rd registered dems, a 3rd registered repubs, and a 3rd independent.

This group of Americans will most likely get the biggest tax refunds

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/21/this...perts-say.html

Families with kids will likely see the biggest refund

The majority of taxpayers who usually take the standard deduction may see more money in their pocket, but this does not necessarily mean it will show up in their refund

The median household income is $50k to $70k, varying by state. Average standard deduction is now $24k, right? That IRS link caps the itemized deduction for state and local taxes at $10k. So that means there are mathematically zero middle income households getting taxed higher. For example, in order to pay $10k+ in taxes in California, a household would have to earn more than $107k in income. So, at $107k, that is still fully deductible.

The median home price is $200k. The most likely so-so interest rate is approximately 5%. That means the interest rate deduction on an average home is less than $10k. As $10k is less than $24k, that indicates that middle class Americans have no need to itemize and pay less in taxes with this plan. For it to be worth itemizing, a home would have to cost like half a mill and be owned for less than 3 years for this to be a minus.

So, did some people lose under the new plan? Possibly yes for people who are high income and do not make their income from business and do not make their income from sales and who own very expensive houses that they have only owned for a short time.

So are folks really crying for people with six figure cubicle jobs, which have none of their compensation tied to performance, and who recently purchased super expensive homes in high income tax states?

Do the math.

So, people nee to add the $30 a week or so to the total return they are getting... For a true refund amount. I don't mind getting less back as I got it during the year, and to Gov didn't hold it. What you need to look at is how much did you make, your taxable income, and how much your amount of taxes is....

I'm pretty sure when you have to explain that to people...then you are talking to people who have no clue. Don't waste your time. I've tried for years to talk sense to them. They aren't interested in that. They are only interested in fighting and arguing on the internet.

Is it too much to ask that the equation be like

2+2=4

And not

2+2=giraffe

Exactly. The question is how much is the tax burden, not how much did the government borrow without paying interest and then give back in a refund.

A list of the few deductions erased by the Trump administration for 2018

The standard $6,350 deduction.

Personal exemptions.

Unlimited state and local tax deductions.

A $1 million mortgage interest deduction.

An unrestricted deduction for home equity loan interest.

Deductions for unreimbursed employee expenses.

Miscellaneous itemized deductions.

A deduction for moving expenses.

Unrestricted casualty loss deduction.

Alimony deduction.

Deductions for certain school donations.

Deductions from tax extenders.

We all know that the larger political issue here is expectations.
For many voters, they were told it was a big tax break for them.
We all (at least I did) knew that for the lower and middle class, it was a lowering of withholding for that weekly 'feel rich' via more expendable income from a paycheck.
(same as has been done twice before in my lifetime anyway)

Many folks spent as normal, that extra money at Christmas as they expected to pay back with their 'expected normal refund'.

So you have a poor perception from voters on both sides of the political spectrum.
You are not going to repair that perception before the next presidential election. But they can demonize the other side. I'm not sure how but I know they are creative folks.

But truth be told, now these taxpayers are probably going to be in longer term hawk with their credit cards. So spending will go down for the near-term while they pay them down over a longer period, and so the economy takes a dip with less expendable income.

Right wrong or indifferent on the taxes, it's not going to work out well politically for the republicans but trump has taken credit for making these tax breaks so the party can just blame him even though they were drafting them before trump won his party nom.

So, however it came to be that Amazon, the fastest growing and now largest retailer, pays nothing in federal tax on $11B in profits, it just has bad optics no matter what the reason is.

If Wall-Mart has something similar, it's going to look really bad.

After all, someone has to pay for the infrastructure that makes these folks biz a success.
And that is the only part that burns my ass when we hear the best biz's paying no taxes.
Capitalism is suppose to serve democracy, not own it.

In all honesty Trump supporters were expecting a larger than usual refund, as promised by Trump and his "booming economy" and well publicized "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017"

Now they're being told by the GOP that they were stupid for not doing something they were never told to do, increasing their withholdings. There's nothing worse than telling your constituents that they were too stupid & poor to take advantage of tax cuts for the extremely wealthy.

I showed with clear math above that the few people not getting a tax break are those with six figure incomes not based on sales, performance, or entrepreneurship. Even in that pool of people, they are probably still getting a break, unless they recently bought an extremely expensive house with a low downpayment.

Please give me ANY example, with actual math, of how someone making less than six figures could end up paying more in taxes.

Why should poor and middle class people be handing out year long loans to strangers?

PS the way stock compensation for employees is handled is one of the main ways Amazon avoided certain taxes and that was Bill Clinton legislation. The other biggie was by investing in R&D, which both D and R administrations have supported.

Please show me where I said people were paying more in taxes.

You, and I, both know that I said nothing about people paying more tax.

I'm not sure why you're playing that shell game with me.

My post clearly outlined people's expectations vs results.

I've also posted here several times the list of deductions people are no longer able to make due to Trump's scam "tax cut".

People like us have accountants we don't have to worry about this. Trump's constituents are not like us and they don't have accountants and they do worry about this and they are paying more and they expected to pay and that's your parties problem do to your parties failure.

Trump supporters were expecting a tax break, in their mind that means more money at the end of the year.

Instead Trump supporters are getting a tax penalty, in their minds, by paying more at the end of the year.

Now your party is fucked due to poor messaging to it's core constituents. Oh well, not so superior after all :winkwink: