Rationalskepticism,lol part III.

[Hermit]

You too can conform your earnings to take advantage of tax reduction opportunities offered by the government. Just because you don't know how to do so, or don't want to bother to do so doesn't make doing so immoral or illegal.

That is total bullshit. I owned and ran a tiny business for 15 years, so I can tell you from personal experience that I could legally minimise my tax liability in ways that is impossible for a wage earner on the same income. The opportunities increase with the size of the business too. Someone very close to me employed 25 people in hers. When she showed me what she could do, I was totally amazed. All legal too. Then there is a former classmate of mine. Four years ago he sold one of his companies for $289 million dollars. He reckoned paying income and company taxes is all but optional.

[Seth]

You too can conform your earnings to take advantage of tax reduction opportunities offered by the government. Just because you don't know how to do so, or don't want to bother to do so doesn't make doing so immoral or illegal.

That is total bullshit. I owned and ran a tiny business for 15 years, so I can tell you from personal experience that I could legally minimise my tax liability in ways that is impossible for a wage earner on the same income. The opportunities increase with the size of the business too. Someone very close to me employed 25 people in hers. When she showed me what she could do, I was totally amazed. All legal too. Then there is a former classmate of mine. Four years ago he sold one of his companies for $289 million dollars. He reckoned paying income and company taxes is all but optional.

Er, if you want to be able to minimize your taxes, start a business. Duh!

[Hermit]

You too can conform your earnings to take advantage of tax reduction opportunities offered by the government. Just because you don't know how to do so, or don't want to bother to do so doesn't make doing so immoral or illegal.

That is total bullshit. I owned and ran a tiny business for 15 years, so I can tell you from personal experience that I could legally minimise my tax liability in ways that is impossible for a wage earner on the same income. The opportunities increase with the size of the business too. Someone very close to me employed 25 people in hers. When she showed me what she could do, I was totally amazed. All legal too. Then there is a former classmate of mine. Four years ago he sold one of his companies for $289 million dollars. He reckoned paying income and company taxes is all but optional.

Er, if you want to be able to minimize your taxes, start a business. Duh!

Most people don't have the aptitude for it. How are you doing with your taxi business, by the way? I haven't heard about your success on that front for a while now.

Nor should people be required to do that in order to minimise their tax liability. The tycoons ought to be paying their personal taxable gains using the same scales that apply to employees.

[Brian Peacock]

For productive class read monied class. For many their 'productivity' is an inherited resource. The wealthy always say they earned their money on merit, and indeed that their access to that resource denotes that fact outright. The principle being avoided here, the one outlined by the IMF and others, is that securing and enhancing the concentration of wealth in the monied class is detrimental to the wider economy - not that this seems to bother the rich of course. You don't have to be a political liberal to accept the evidence, just as you don't have to be a political conservative to ignore it.

Fuck the "wider economy" and the IMF and others. They are just thieves cloaked in government power and nothing else and they need to be taken out of the equation entirely. If it ain't yours, it ain't yours and nothing you can say can justify using the Mace of State to steal what you want from someone else. It's theft plain and simple and people need to defend their right to the fruits of their labor and their property with whatever degree of force is required to fend off thieves.

Moralising outrage still doesn't make up for the fact that the trickle-down wet dream is detrimental to the economies on which we all depend.

[JimC]

Seth, I think you need to realise that your particular views on economics and politics are not immutable truth, inscribed on tablets by some god of economics and handed down to you in you (dressed in robes of a prophet) as a bush consisting of several copies of Das Capital burned with a lurid glow...

They are political and economic opinions, ones that have a right to compete in the marketplace of such opinions, and to be adopted or ignored as the population as a whole makes various political choices over the years. My opinions are subject to exactly the same fate; currently, in Oz, there are many aspects of the way our rich little piggies dig their snouts deeper in the trough that irritate me, and I will vote and argue given my opinions, but I will not spit the dummy if my opinions are not those of the democratic majority. I certainly realise that attempting to force such opinions on the population is a very dangerous idea indeed...

Now, I just know you are going to have a hissy fit at the very word "democratic" (which itself speaks a lot about you), but you well know that modern, democratic countries have a wide range of institutions such as common law and other legal institutions which makes it very difficult for a "crazed majority" to turn society upside down. Why, that even includes your precious constitution - one of many systems of checks and balances, but not holy writ...

Suck it up, princess - your precious libertarian position has only moderate traction in your gradually fading American empire, and very little indeed in the rest of the civilised world...

[mistermack]

Why? Because you want the dead man's money? It's not yours, so fuck off with your support of government-sponsored thievery. That estate has been taxed and taxed again, every single year that the decedent was alive. Why should an additional tax be imposed just because he died?

Because it's income. And everyone pays income tax.
If I pay income tax on income that I worked for, you can pay it on money that you got for nothing.

Is that too complicated for you?

Money is always taxed and taxed again. When it changes hands. You don't like tax, so you call it thievery.
It's not, it's legal taxation.

At the moment, people inheriting money get a huge tax break. I would end that, and tax them the same as the people who worked for their money.

[laklak]

The problem wage earners have as opposed to business owners is they're not allowed to deduct expenses from income in most situations. However, our IRS is working diligently to change that by making it impossible for small business owners to deduct many normal operating expenses. This is presented as an attempt to "close loopholes" and make the system "more fair:. What it does, of course, is force many small business owners to close shop. Why should that landlord get to deduct the cost of a new air conditioning unit from his rental income but you, Mr. Average Homeowner, can't deduct the cost of yours? It's not FAIR, I tell you! Specious nonsense, but it plays well to the pig ignorant voters. What Mr. Pig Ignorant Voter does not understand is the concept of "risk".

[Hermit]

The problem wage earners have as opposed to business owners is they're not allowed to deduct expenses from income in most situations. However, our IRS is working diligently to change that by making it impossible for small business owners to deduct many normal operating expenses. This is presented as an attempt to "close loopholes" and make the system "more fair:. What it does, of course, is force many small business owners to close shop. Why should that landlord get to deduct the cost of a new air conditioning unit from his rental income but you, Mr. Average Homeowner, can't deduct the cost of yours? It's not FAIR, I tell you! Specious nonsense, but it plays well to the pig ignorant voters. What Mr. Pig Ignorant Voter does not understand is the concept of "risk".

Hopefully, that attempt by the IRS will fail. Can you point to any IRS documentation to the effect that this is their intention?

In Australia the test for tax deductibility is that an expense is incurred in order to gain or increase revenue, but the scope for doing that is massively larger for someone running a business than a wage earner. If I was employed as a process worker at ABC Plastics Extrusions Pty. Ltd, for example, the fuel and other transport costs involved in getting to and from the factory would not be tax deductible at all. If I was acontractor to ABC Plastics Extrusions Pty. Ltd. I could automatically use up to 20% of my total fuel, depreciation, maintenance, insurance finance, insurance, registration etc costs as tax deductions without even providing a single invoice or any other documentation. The Australian Tax Office accepts your word, no questions asked. All legal - and unfair. Because that loophole is legal I of course took advantage of it along with many others.

[Seth]

You too can conform your earnings to take advantage of tax reduction opportunities offered by the government. Just because you don't know how to do so, or don't want to bother to do so doesn't make doing so immoral or illegal.

That is total bullshit. I owned and ran a tiny business for 15 years, so I can tell you from personal experience that I could legally minimise my tax liability in ways that is impossible for a wage earner on the same income. The opportunities increase with the size of the business too. Someone very close to me employed 25 people in hers. When she showed me what she could do, I was totally amazed. All legal too. Then there is a former classmate of mine. Four years ago he sold one of his companies for $289 million dollars. He reckoned paying income and company taxes is all but optional.

Er, if you want to be able to minimize your taxes, start a business. Duh!

Most people don't have the aptitude for it.

Or the desire and motivation. But how is that anyone's problem but theirs?

How are you doing with your taxi business, by the way? I haven't heard about your success on that front for a while now.

I'm making about half of what I expected. Competition is up a lot and expenses are high. I may have to go back to dispatching.

Nor should people be required to do that in order to minimise their tax liability.

Oh, I agree. They shouldn't have any income tax liability at all.

The tycoons ought to be paying their personal taxable gains using the same scales that apply to employees.

Take that up with Congress, which is the body that sets tax law. It's neither illegal nor immoral to take advantage of beneficial tax laws. In fact it's good citizenship to do so because doing so deprives the government of tax revenues, and the less tax revenue the federal government has, the less it can fuck with everyone's life.

If I had it my way the IRS would be abolished tomorrow and the income tax would be eliminated completely, as it was supposed to be back in 1919, after the debts for WWI were paid off.

[Seth]

For productive class read monied class. For many their 'productivity' is an inherited resource. The wealthy always say they earned their money on merit, and indeed that their access to that resource denotes that fact outright. The principle being avoided here, the one outlined by the IMF and others, is that securing and enhancing the concentration of wealth in the monied class is detrimental to the wider economy - not that this seems to bother the rich of course. You don't have to be a political liberal to accept the evidence, just as you don't have to be a political conservative to ignore it.

Fuck the "wider economy" and the IMF and others. They are just thieves cloaked in government power and nothing else and they need to be taken out of the equation entirely. If it ain't yours, it ain't yours and nothing you can say can justify using the Mace of State to steal what you want from someone else. It's theft plain and simple and people need to defend their right to the fruits of their labor and their property with whatever degree of force is required to fend off thieves.

Moralising outrage still doesn't make up for the fact that the trickle-down wet dream is detrimental to the economies on which we all depend.

Only because the Marxist Progressives can't keep their grubby fingers out of people's pockets. It's their meddling that makes things go wonky. Otherwise it works just fine.

[Seth]

Seth, I think you need to realise that your particular views on economics and politics are not immutable truth, inscribed on tablets by some god of economics and handed down to you in you (dressed in robes of a prophet) as a bush consisting of several copies of Das Capital burned with a lurid glow...

How did you find that out! I was told not to reveal that yet!

They are political and economic opinions, ones that have a right to compete in the marketplace of such opinions, and to be adopted or ignored as the population as a whole makes various political choices over the years. My opinions are subject to exactly the same fate; currently, in Oz, there are many aspects of the way our rich little piggies dig their snouts deeper in the trough that irritate me, and I will vote and argue given my opinions, but I will not spit the dummy if my opinions are not those of the democratic majority. I certainly realise that attempting to force such opinions on the population is a very dangerous idea indeed...

It's always more credible when your opinions are supported by actual economic facts, one of which is that Marxism/socialism doesn't work and cannot work, as a matter of pure mathematics and human nature.

Now, I just know you are going to have a hissy fit at the very word "democratic" (which itself speaks a lot about you),

Yes, it does speak a lot about me, particularly my reverence for individual liberty and my disdain for collectivism, and I'm fine with that.

but you well know that modern, democratic countries have a wide range of institutions such as common law and other legal institutions which makes it very difficult for a "crazed majority" to turn society upside down.

And yet: Greece.

Why, that even includes your precious constitution - one of many systems of checks and balances, but not holy writ...

Depends on your religion.

Suck it up, princess - your precious libertarian position has only moderate traction in your gradually fading American empire, and very little indeed in the rest of the civilised world...

True enough. And I hope that I die before the inevitable crash and ensuing global mire of human misery and death that always follow socialism's rise happens here. I'll be laughing my ass off at you from the Great Quantum Foam at that point.

[Brian Peacock]

Take deep breath and find your happy place. It's all sounding a bit frantic there.

[Seth]

Why? Because you want the dead man's money? It's not yours, so fuck off with your support of government-sponsored thievery. That estate has been taxed and taxed again, every single year that the decedent was alive. Why should an additional tax be imposed just because he died?

Because it's income.

Um, no it's not "income." It's personal private property.

And everyone pays income tax.

And the decedent paid income tax on all his or her income in the year it occurred. How, exactly, does the event of dying turn private property owned and held by the decedent into "income" pray tell?

If I pay income tax on income that I worked for, you can pay it on money that you got for nothing.

Is that too complicated for you?

Different issue entirely. What you are ignorant of (as is so often the case) is that the estate tax is not imposed on the heirs to the estate, it is imposed on the estate of the deceased before it is distributed to the heirs, based on the fair market value of the decedent's assets at the moment of his or her death. The heirs don't pay an income tax, the estate pays a tax on the owner of the property simply for dying. It's a bald-faced theft and redistribution of wealth of someone who can't defend against it because he's dead. It's precisely and exactly and ONLY a punitive action taken by Marxist Progressive cocksuckers who wanted a "legal" excuse to pillage the fortunes of the wealthy industrialists of the 1900s when they died for no other reason than they didn't like the fact that they had more than other people. It's pure undiluted Marxist redistribution and nothing else, and it contributes almost nothing, proportionally speaking, to the economy. It might fund fifteen minutes of government operations. But it destroys families, family businesses and it impoverishes and robs from the grieving relatives of the deceased without any pity or concern whatsoever.

It's as evil a fucking law as has ever existed.

Money is always taxed and taxed again. When it changes hands. You don't like tax, so you call it thievery.

That's because it is thievery.

It's not, it's legal taxation.

No, it's thievery cloaked in law. There's a difference. An immoral practice is not made moral by the declaration of a legislature that it's "legal." Hitler's genocide of Jews and others was not rendered moral merely because the German government passed a law saying it was okay to exterminate people.

Taxation can be exactly the same and have exactly the same degree of moral turpitude as Hitler's genocide and saying that it's "legal" doesn't change that one little bit, it just provides a compelling reason to remove those in power who do such evil things from power and replace them with people of high moral character who will refuse to engage in immoral activities entirely.

At the moment, people inheriting money get a huge tax break. I would end that, and tax them the same as the people who worked for their money.

Of course you would because you're jealous and envious of their wealth and you want to steal it from them using the jackbooted thugs of the State to do so. That's no surprise at all.

[Brian Peacock]

What Seth refers to as 'their wealth', which is really nought but an act of accountancy, a carrying over from one generation to the next, is a social convention I'll grant, but appeals to tradition do not amount to very much and the principle of the matter is not addressed by his contumelious denigration of his objectors. If, either by some freak of nature or by some structural instrument, everybody started off in life in pretty much the same situation, with pretty much the same access to resources, with pretty much the same range of opportunities before them, then personal attributes such as aptitude, talent, skill, determination, and diligence etc would render individual merit a function of what one achieved, where success was determined by action over a appeals to tradition borne of a sense of entitlement, where honours and plaudits were bestowed by common consent over demands for default deference and respect. I'm reminded of some of what Paine had to say on the ills of heredity...

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

...and although he's talking about the hereditary rights of Kings here the same notions can be said to be in play for those who inherit wealth and the elevated social position the talisman of their unearned wealth brings with it. And yet, the core plea, that a certain person deserved by to start life hoisted to the top of society and afford the rights and privilege of that elevated position, not by the merits of their own deeds but on the basis of the accident of their birth, does not sit well with those who would otherwise maintain that each of us are individually responsible for the position we find ourselves in and responsible for what we make of the compliment of opportunities and vicissitudes with which we must inevitably contend.

[Seth]

What Seth refers to as 'their wealth', which is really nought but an act of accountancy, a carrying over from one generation to the next, is a social convention I'll grant, but appeals to tradition do not amount to very much and the principle of the matter is not addressed by his contumelious denigration of his objectors. If, either by some freak of nature or by some structural instrument, everybody started off in life in pretty much the same situation, with pretty much the same access to resources, with pretty much the same range of opportunities before them, then personal attributes such as aptitude, talent, skill, determination, and diligence etc would render individual merit a function of what one achieved, where success was determined by action over a appeals to tradition borne of a sense of entitlement, where honours and plaudits were bestowed by common consent over demands for default deference and respect. I'm reminded of some of what Paine had to say on the ills of heredity...

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

...and although he's talking about the hereditary rights of Kings here the same notions can be said to be in play for those who inherit wealth and the elevated social position the talisman of their unearned wealth brings with it. And yet, the core plea, that a certain person deserved by to start life hoisted to the top of society and afford the rights and privilege of that elevated position, not by the merits of their own deeds but on the basis of the accident of their birth, does not sit well with those who would otherwise maintain that each of us are individually responsible for the position we find ourselves in and responsible for what we make of the compliment of opportunities and vicissitudes with which we must inevitably contend.

I must disagree. It is and has always certainly been the intent of parents to make their children's lives better and more prosperous than their own, which is why they work and sacrifice to generate wealth they can pass along to their children. This is hardly an ignoble motive for accumulating wealth. The notion of passing on an estate is an entirely different thing from hereditary succession of kings. The hereditary successor rules as king for life regardless of how apt or inapt he is at ruling the kingdom, absent regicide. The progeny of wealth accumulators only receive wealth, not privilege or power. For them to succeed in passing on yet more wealth to their children, they must properly steward the family fortune and not squander it away on petty indulgences. If they do squander their fortune, then they, unlike a hereditary monarch, end up in the gutter swigging Thunderbird out of a bottle in a paper bag and pissing themselves when they pass out.

Accumulated wealth passed on to one's heirs does not guarantee either position or privilege, merely the opportunity to not have to start every new generation from zero in some idiotic Marxist notion of "fairness." Is it "fair" to a penniless pauper that Paris Hilton gets to spend a year's average wage on one night at a club in Manhattan? Probably not, but since when is life "fair" for anyone? Paris' exuberant and ostentatious spending does, however, employ plenty of people to feed her narcissistic behaviors, and by all accounts her sycophants and servants do pretty well and at least aren't on the dole. However, if she succeeds in frittering away her fortune with nothing left for her children, if she ever has any, then she will end up as trailer trash somewhere just like anybody else. Her name doesn't entitle her to anything that her family has not earned, unlike hereditary succession.