Is a Devastating Stock Market Crash on the Way?

[Svartalf]

One rich for how many poor? there will be mass starvation, especially for those who have to eat those women that are all skin and bones and no flesh.

[rainbow]

Sell your shares in Tupperware.

Joan Rivers is to be recycled.

[mistermack]

As far as I recall, the stock market crashed, a few people jumped of a ledge, and then things returned to normal.
People lose money they never really had, and then adjust to reality.

But hey, the flaws in capitalism are not news. And they keep happening over and over because nobody wants to fix it.

My fix would be to tax assets, to pay for welfare, if there is a depression. Simples.
And start right at the top. And cut all tax dodges for foreign tax havens. If you own it, you pay tax. No matter where you live.

[rainbow]

My fix would be to tax assets, to pay for welfare, if there is a depression. Simples.
And start right at the top. And cut all tax dodges for foreign tax havens. If you own it, you pay tax. No matter where you live.

Major flaw. The UeberRich don't have any significant assets. They have access to trusts that keep them jolly, and they pay almost no tax.
Nice little twist on the law, perfectly legal and they pay a fraction of the tax you do.

BTW, when the crash comes, they can deftly move the trusts assets into your pension fund. They cash out, you lose.

Nice if you can afford these legal niceties.

[Svartalf]

Tax trust funds and other asset holders, like foundations...

[mistermack]

Yeh, I said tax assets, not holders of assets. The funds can sort out who loses.

[rainbow]

Tax trust funds and other asset holders, like foundations...

They can always find another loophole, and keep the legislation at bay just long enough to move the money into a fuzzier organisational set.

[laklak]

Waaa! I don't have a trust fund and somebody else does and that's not FAIR! Take their money to give me more free shit! But trust funds are already taxed. Trusts, like businesses, are considered incorporated entities and have their own taxpayer ID numbers and file their own tax returns. The income that initially funds the trust was taxed, and any interest or profit accruing to the trust is taxed. At least in the U.S., I don't know about other places.

[cronus]

Too complicated. A bank is a place to stow stuff, anything sentimental or valuable, and I pay a extra for safe storage. End of. No need for the metrics, leave them to physics geeks guiding a space shuttle around.

[Hermit]

Waaa! I don't have a trust fund and somebody else does and that's not FAIR! Take their money to give me more free shit! But trust funds are already taxed. Trusts, like businesses, are considered incorporated entities and have their own taxpayer ID numbers and file their own tax returns. The income that initially funds the trust was taxed, and any interest or profit accruing to the trust is taxed. At least in the U.S., I don't know about other places.

So no need to squash transfer pricing, tax havens, different scales applying to company versus personal income then? No, not at all. It's all so equitable as it stands.

[laklak]

Corporate taxes in the U.S. are already the highest in the Western world and are higher than personal income tax rates. Tax havens are perfectly legal, as is transfer pricing between related business entities. In fact, the reason there's so much capital flight from the U.S. is that everybody else in the Western world lets corporations keep one hell of a lot more of their profit. The government's own tax regulations are the issue, not corporate greed. Besides, what does any of that have to do with a family trust fund? You're talking apples and oranges. Mistermack was talking about taxing personal assets, not corporate profits.

[Hermit]

I'm not all that familiar with US tax laws, but in Australia corporate tax is a flat 28% of income after deductions for expenses have been made. Personal tax is levied on a progressive scale, and allowances for tax deductions are minimal. The average wage earner is definitely paying way more than a flat 28%. I am reasonably well informed because I've been on both sides of the fence as far as taxation is concerned. I'm also fairly sure that most first world nations have setups similar to ours. So, yeah, all is fair. At least I ought to have said so when I owned and ran a company myself.

[laklak]

Corporate tax rates here are also progressive, from 15 to 35% on the Federal level. Then you've got state corporate taxes and in some cases municipal corporate taxes. If you're an "S type" corporation than all profits pass through to the owners by percentage of ownership and are taxed as ordinary income. Domestic corporations are taxed on world-wide income though they can deduct foreign taxes paid from their gross. Any medium to large corporation will hit the 35% level, which is why so many U.S. companies move overseas.

Individual or family trusts are generally taxed at capital gains rates, which vary between 0 and 25%. It's a horrendously complicated system and usually requires a tax accountant to figure out. One of the biggest reasons for a trust is limitation of liability in our absurdly litigious society. We've fashioned a rod for our own backs. The answer is not to tax personal assets or close all "loopholes", it is to scrap the entire system and rebuild it form the ground up. It's absurd that a huge corporation making billions can pay no taxes yet I can't deduct the cost of a new air conditioner for a rental property from my gross income.

[Hermit]

Any medium to large corporation will hit the 35% level...

At 35%, the United States has the highest nominal top corporate tax rate in any of the world's developed economies. However, the average corporate tax rate in 2011 dipped to 12.1%, its lowest level since before World War I, largely due to the great recession and a bonus depreciation tax break

Yes, there's always the theoretical rate. As I mentioned, in Australia it's a flat 28%. In practice, no corporation pays that. Many pay less than a quarter of it, and some basically nothing.

[Tero]

No worries. SOLD MY STOCK.