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They have no California derived Income yet this has not stopped California from trying to collect Income Taxes... so much so they have to document their time in and out of the State...
California is quite aggressive in determining who is and who is not a resident. There is nothing at all magical about 6-months-and-a-day. Your "friends" are well-advised to be up to date on the law and meticulous in their documentation.
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Originally Posted by Ultrarunner
Same for my High School friend that went on to the NBA... all it took was one year paying California Taxes as a pro for him to pack up and move to Incline Nevada.
Oh good. More "friend" stories. I never tire of those. What percentage of people play in the NBA by the way? Is it a large enough percentage to make your "friend" in any way relevant to a larger point?
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Originally Posted by Ultrarunner
Anyone can say taxes have no consequence... doesn't make it so.
True enough, but no one has said that in any case. The simple facts of the matter are that the wealthy do not pull up stakes for another state or country over a few cents worth of marginal tax increases. That's what has been said. Taxes otherwise are one of many variables that are taken into account as part of locational decision-making, but they are not actually significant for most working people. People at all income levels do of course tend to retire at some point. They are then advised to consider the tax implications of any contemplated move. Many mess this part up by failing to understand that everywhere pays for public services somehow. The only real way to have low taxes is also to have lousy to non-existent public services. Or to have lots of oil companies nearby that you can tax instead of the people.
It's a shame you can't recognize when hyperbole is used to make a point. Legally speaking, taxes are not extortion, but taxes and extortion are functionally equivalent.
Such complete confusion. They are not even remotely related.
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Originally Posted by Slowpoke_TX
As I previously stated, "we should have only the minimum amount of government necessary to protect American citizens from external threats."
This is the preamble to the US Constitution...
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America.
As you can see, it goes much, much further than you do.
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Originally Posted by Slowpoke_TX
I do not advocate anarchy nor a complete lack of government. I do advocate for a small government, one that is NOT self-serving and that is directly accountable to the citizens who grant its power and authority.
Yikes! Direct democracy is one if the worst of all possible forms of government. Our own founders knew this well and went to considerable lengths to keep the country far, far away from any such notion.
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Originally Posted by Slowpoke_TX
This is exactly what the late President Reagan was referring to when he said "No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size."
Well, it was after the Gipper's time, but Clinton's Reinvent Giovernment initiative (spear-headed by VP Gore) did indeed bring about signifcant reductions in the size of the federal workforce without sacrificing products or service. All undone by Bush-43 of course.
The John Wayne, Marlboro Man mythology of the "rugged individualist" is sappy childish nonsense. but a lot of people have bought into it anyway.
Wage supports and wealth redistribution are necessary in capitalism... that is, if you want to create a society that anyone would actually like to live in.
Slowpoke proclaims that he pays lots of taxes, yet gets no welfare, so he would certainly be better off without taxes. But how much of the total government spending goes to welfare?
Total gov spending: $6.227T
Total welfare spending $0.455T
Percent of total government spending on welfare = 7.3%
So, bitching about 7.3% of our tax budget, that goes to unemployed and poor people with dependent kids.
Wealth gets redistributed in other ways, mainly via wage supports. If you have a professional license then your wage is being boosted. The minimum wage keeps the floor up. A few decades back unions had a huge and positive influence on wages, but that is mostly gone.
Another thing is that too many people for lack of thinking or honesty, believe that there is something holy and sacred about the number of $$$'s they've been able to extract from the economy. I'll use my Dad as an example. Lifetime farmer, pretty small time. Conservative with finances. Managed to accumulate ~$8M in assets so far... just doing what there was to do, no special skill or talent. Hard work part of the year, but a lot of not working much at all. Rather than counting himself extremely fortunate that he accidentally found himself in a highly subsidized, protected, and favored industry, he ******* about having to pay tax on his high income.
You couldn't be more wrong. People are legally obligated to pay taxes, but no person is legally obligated to purchase groceries or restaurant service.
One is biologically compelled to eat and drink. There is nothing voluntary about it. Failure here will have extreme consequences. Meanwhile, childish semantic nonsense earns no points at all. The plain and simple facts are that you will be much more quickly set upon by enforcers for failing to pay for groceries than you will be for failure to pay your taxes. The IRS is in fact quite lenient and flexible about such things in comparison.
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Originally Posted by Slowpoke_TX
You're qualified to speak for no man, with the possible exception of the most government-loving among the Founders, Alexander Hamilton.
LOL! Your understandings of the country and its history are just a convoluted mess.
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Originally Posted by Slowpoke_TX
If government was fulfilling that responsibility, then there would be no need for businesses and non-profits to lobby, nor for private citizens to exercise their right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
You seriously typed that and then hit Submit Reply? One of the first orders of business for any government is to pursue compromise between competing interests.
What I said was that the wealthy do not go hopping from state to state or country to country over a few cents worth of extra taxes at the margin. If you are wealthy, so much money is left over after paying taxes that the taxes themsleves have no material effect on your lifestyle. Abandoning personal, family, professional, educational, religious, charitable, medical and other networks built up over years in a particular location will have a vary serious impact on your lifestyle. Taxes alone simply do not drive individuals or corporations around. To think that they do is to be exceptionally gullible.
I agree in general with wealthly individuals. But businesses are very concerned with taxes and are more than willing (and able) to take special measures to avoid them.
Apple is one of the best examples. All transactions for iTunes are done through Brussels to avoid US federal taxes. Apple runs a hedge fund in Nevada to avoid some California corporate income taxes. And of course many billions of their cash hoard sits in foreign countries to avoid US income taxes.
Apple does have lots of money left over as you say - yet is laser focused on paying the minimum in taxes.
Other businesses with much smaller margins take similar measures.
But it has quite a high MEAN net worth, the ratio between the mean and median being about 6.75-to-1. This suggests that quite a lot of money has been diverted away from the poor and into the pockets of the rich. On quick review, I do not see any other country that has a ratio as high as 6.75-to-1 between mean and median income. We appear to be worst in that category according to these data.
How have we have diverted money from the poor to the rich? There is no money now, and never has been, any meaningful wealth in the "poor." No person with a bar of gold will pick up a peso on the ground. Federal income tax rates (and probably state income taxes too) are zero or negative for the poor and the next group above that.
Wage supports and wealth redistribution are necessary in capitalism... that is, if you want to create a society that anyone would actually like to live in.
Risk-sharing and wealth redistribution are actually among the central reasons why humans began forming socieies to begin with. It's kind of odd that all these ages later, some folks still haven't caught on.
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Originally Posted by rruff
Slowpoke proclaims that he pays lots of taxes, yet gets no welfare, so he would certainly be better off without taxes.
He would certainly be wrong about at least much of that.
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Originally Posted by rruff
But how much of the total government spending goes to welfare?
It can be hard to tell because of all the things that aren't actually welfare that some people try to insist on including in it.
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Originally Posted by rruff
Wealth gets redistributed in other ways, mainly via wage supports. If you have a professional license then your wage is being boosted. The minimum wage keeps the floor up. A few decades back unions had a huge and positive influence on wages, but that is mostly gone.
What's it worth not to die in an auto accident thanks to government-mandated seat-belts and air-bags? How do people like all those free weather reports that are available all day every day? Does anyone benefit from public health research or information about all those economic indicators that the government publishes each month?
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Originally Posted by rruff
Rather than counting himself extremely fortunate that he accidentally found himself in a highly subsidized, protected, and favored industry, he (whines) about having to pay tax on his high income.
You know, I think some people complain about taxes for the same reason that some others play tennis -- they find it entertaining and a good way to work off stress. There certainly isn't any actual sense in the types of things they typically say, so there must be something more to it than just that.
Wealth tax combined with capital punishment for tax evasion.
Obviously, this post has to be intended as a spoof.
But, as with the LGBT lobby's harrassment of small businesses run by people with religious convictions, it does prove that there is a lot of simple-mindedness, resentment and pure damned spite -- down there in the cesspool of the Low Left -- and that there are plenty of completely unscrupulous individuals ready and willing to exploit it.
I agree in general with wealthly individuals. But businesses are very concerned with taxes and are more than willing (and able) to take special measures to avoid them.
Way overblown. And keep in mind that there is nothing immoral or unpatriotic about arranging your affairs so as to minimize taxes. Still, the questions here are over who actually does what and why. In the real world, taxes tend to influence business location decisions in some sort of final-round tie-breaker competition between those locations that have survived all the higher order hurdles. Then you can try to pit the finalists against each other in a tax-break bidding war, but these are again at the margin. What actually influences businesses location decisions is the potential for profitability. Taxes are a part of that calculation, but a small part.
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Originally Posted by hoffdano
Apple is one of the best examples.
No, it is one of the worst, because it is so atypical.
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