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Old 05-18-2015, 07:03 AM
 
1,820 posts, read 1,644,038 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger View Post
Well off people live longer than the poor and end up taking about the same in Social Security as poor people.
Well off people can afford to and hence actually do avail themselves of much better health care. Their problems are diagnosed earlier and treated more aggressively, thoroughly, and effectively.

Low-income workers meanwhile receive SS benefits that are a higher percentage of their pre-retirement incomes than wealthy people do. Benefits are still based however on lifetime earnings. High-earners therefore receive more dollars per month than low earners do.

Maybe you were actually thinking of Medicare.

Quote:
Originally Posted by mysticaltyger View Post
I will say, however, that I do think there's a lot of abuse with disability and they really need to clamp down on that. I have social worker and psychiatrist friends who are more liberal than me, and both tell me they see a lot of SS disability abuse in their respective lines of work.
Old wives tale supported by unqualified anecdotal testimony. In fact, the qualifying process for SS disability is long and arduous. The injustice done in unduly withholding benefits from the great majority of applicants who actually do have disabilities is worse than any injustice that would be done in a few false claims getting by.
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Old 05-18-2015, 01:26 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,801,844 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by mkpunk View Post
Especially when a number of companies get a negative income tax as well.
Report Says 26 U.S. Companies Have Negative Average Federal Income Tax Rate - ABC News
Large companies find ways to a zero tax rate

I find it funny how conservatives and even libertarians complain about negative income tax from individuals but rarely say anything about how companies do it (if anything libertarians claim corporations shouldn't be paying taxes at all.)
ABC news does not know the federal income taxes paid by US corporations. That is not public data. Most corporations consider it a trade secret and do not disclose it. At a major corporation, there are typically only a handful of people who actually know, including the VP of taxes, the CFO, most likely the CEO, a few staffers and the like.
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Old 05-18-2015, 03:14 PM
 
Location: Living on the Coast in Oxnard CA
16,289 posts, read 32,229,651 times
Reputation: 21890
Quote:
Originally Posted by rruff View Post
When have the rich ever left? As in went away and disappeared?

In the 1930s the rich stopped sucking up such a large % of the economy, and guess what happened? Then in ~1980 they started taking more and more again.



I posted a nice cool little fictitious story that offered an example of how the tax system worked. You commented on that story. Your comments had to do with what happened when the rich left as in everyone else would get an increase in pay. I commented that I didn't think that would happen as when the rich take their ball and go home no one benefits. I never stated that the rich left or would leave, just that they have the ability to shop elsewhere when needed. When that happens the working class can suffer.

Now to your comments on the rich taking more and more. They don't take anything. They earn it. Making money is not a zero sum game. Just because one person makes money it does not stop someone else from making money. Saying that the rich took money does not say that they took it away from anyone else.
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Old 05-18-2015, 03:56 PM
 
Location: Ruidoso, NM
5,667 posts, read 6,555,600 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SOON2BNSURPRISE View Post
I commented that I didn't think that would happen as when the rich take their ball and go home no one benefits.
For the last 40 years they have taken profits earned here and moved them overseas, or just sat on the cash or inflated assets. This was enabled and facilitated by changes in government policy. It wasn't high taxes, it was a lack of them! Among other things. How did you suppose that happened? Why did our "government for the people" screw us so blatantly?

Quote:
Now to your comments on the rich taking more and more. They don't take anything. They earn it. Making money is not a zero sum game. Just because one person makes money it does not stop someone else from making money. Saying that the rich took money does not say that they took it away from anyone else.
That was an interesting circle you made. Is merely having lots of money and taking advantage of policies that were surreptitiously altered to greatly favor the massive accumulation of wealth by a few, what you are calling "earning"? It's true that allowing the rich to make more does not *necessarily* cause any problems at all, particularly if they reinvest their earnings in production. But that isn't what has been happening.

Productivity is what increases aggregate wealth. Primarily the intelligent application of technology. The way the rich have been sucking up a greater portion of the pie has not been enhancing our productivity. Considering the level of debt accumulated to keep consumption boosted, it wasn't even a zero sum game, it was negative! I can explain how they in fact stole it, and how it was taken from me and you. With the support of the Fed and federal government. Are you interested?
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Old 05-18-2015, 04:13 PM
 
1,820 posts, read 1,644,038 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty View Post
ABC news does not know the federal income taxes paid by US corporations. That is not public data. Most corporations consider it a trade secret and do not disclose it. At a major corporation, there are typically only a handful of people who actually know, including the VP of taxes, the CFO, most likely the CEO, a few staffers and the like.
Are you sure companies don't put this information in their annual reports and required SEC and related filings? It would seem to me that tax payment information would be a thing of significant interest to investors and regulators alike...
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Old 05-18-2015, 10:17 PM
JRR
 
Location: Middle Tennessee
8,126 posts, read 5,584,145 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Major Barbara View Post
Are you sure companies don't put this information in their annual reports and required SEC and related filings? It would seem to me that tax payment information would be a thing of significant interest to investors and regulators alike...
You are correct on that. You can go to any publicly traded company quarterly/annual report and there will be a section with the tax information. With the big ones you just have to do a bit of digging to find it
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Old 05-19-2015, 01:40 PM
 
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
9,352 posts, read 19,964,180 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SportyandMisty View Post
This is study is with actual, you know, data. With actual analysis rather than "common sense." Your view of common sense would be different from mine, as I do not share your extreme left-wing world view.


Here is a counter-example, also based on actual data:

The massive drop in oil prices and hence gasoline prices at the pump over the last 9 months has been estimated to be the equivalent of a $150 Billion tax cut, which of course disproportionately benefits lower income people. It puts money in lower income people's pockets, which you opine "... typically all gets spent in the economy."

A funny thing happened on the way to reality. Lower income people did not, in fact, spend the lower gasoline and energy price windfall. There has been negligible impact at retailers. Historical data suggests about 95 cents of every $1 in savings at the pump is spent at retail. This time, it just didn't happen, and economists are scratching their collective heads to figure out where that money went.

Robbing a little less from Peter to pay a little more to Paul, most likely....
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Old 05-19-2015, 08:51 PM
 
10,075 posts, read 7,486,764 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by latetotheparty View Post
Robbing a little less from Peter to pay a little more to Paul, most likely....
but I prefer to rob a little from both and buy handcuffs to imprison them into a life of being robbed then they can both suffer equally
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Old 05-19-2015, 09:33 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
13,044 posts, read 13,801,844 times
Reputation: 15837
Quote:
Originally Posted by Major Barbara View Post
Are you sure companies don't put this information in their annual reports and required SEC and related filings? It would seem to me that tax payment information would be a thing of significant interest to investors and regulators alike...
Yes, I am quite sure. This is trade secret information. A handful of companies have disclosed it here and there -- Tim Cook of Apple, testifying before Congress, said (paraphrasing here) "Apple believes it pays the most in federal income taxes of any corporation in America, and we paid XXX." A few days later, a few other major corporations came out & said they paid even more than Apple. But aside from this, most view it as a trade secret.

You can find GAAP provision for taxes in the financial statements, but that has nothing to do with what a corporation actually pays in taxes. Most journalists don't understand the distinction. Financial accountants create that line item without talking to the tax department.

Tax accounting is a very, very different beast from financial accounting. The annual reports & SEC related filings are all based on financial accounting, not tax accounting.

There is a separate set of books for tax accounting -- and separate auditors with separate skill sets to audit them. A corporation pays taxes based on the tax accounting books, and there is no direct linkage from that to the GAAP financial statements.

You cannot just reconcile the two.

Given about 10 years of financial statements and all relevant filings with the SEC and other regulatory entities, and access to various working papers, then some highly skilled forensic tax accountants could reconstruct something that is close to what actually happened. Note these are not garden-variety PWC or KPMG type tax partners, and they do not come cheap.

Moreover, the IRS audits all major corporations continuously - the IRS has staff on site 52 weeks of the year at the corporation, and they never stop auditing. All that auditing creates adjustments for past years all along the way.
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Old 05-20-2015, 05:19 AM
 
5,347 posts, read 7,177,267 times
Reputation: 7158
I can't believe people still believe in trickle down economics. It's the biggest scam since organized religion
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