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I'm circling back around to read the comments and this is a very good point. However, while the coverage that an employee gets is much more expensive for the employer to pay out than it was 20 years ago, the coverage (including much more $ that the employee has to pay for deductibles and out of pocket expenses) is almost always inferior to what it was 20 years ago. Health insurance is a farce nowadays. Every year it seems the coverage gets worse for more money. Time and time again, everyone that I've spoken to has this exact experience.
You also have add Social Security and Medicare (which equal 7.65 percent), property taxes (which in some areas can be many thousands of dollars a year on even a modest home), car taxes, sales tax, and a higher tax rate for some unprotected classes of people, such as a single filer who has to pay a much higher rate a married couple on the same income. It can add up quickly.
I agree with you. It is also not the employer taking it on the chin and paying the increases themselves, that is silly. The employees portion of paying their health care benefit rises as the premiums rise. My niece pays $945 a month as her share of her employer "provided" health care for her family. Young single women I work with pay $245 a pay for just themselves. And they all say it is crappy insurance with high co-pays and limited options. I pay for my own health care because I work per diem, but I asked about it because I was considering going full time but after my polling decided it was definitely not worth taking the lower hourly rate. I'd probably end up paying half what I now pay anyway, and it sounds like a worse plan than mine.
Corporate profits are at record highs, employees pay more than ever for their health insurance which rises and rises while wages stay the same. The idea that businesses can't afford to raise wages due to health care premiums is absurd, the costs are shared.
[quote=JonathanLB;52358428 The tax system is way too complex. Reduce taxes but close all of the loopholes so that everyone pays something who makes above X amount of money or whatever[/QUOTE]
The complexity of tax returns is not the loopholes (which there are very little of) or tax laws. People use software and don't have to bother. The real problem is arriving at your taxable income. This is where legitimate deductions come in. No software can figure it out without you doing lots of work and book keeping. It will never change even with a flat tax unless everyone is taxed on their gross.
That’s basically exactly what I’m saying. I benefit from this massively full disclosure because of my investments but it’s amazing that in my business all income would always be ordinary income no matter what I do. My dad’s business of real estate has depreciation and capital gains tax rates to offset enormous portions of taxes. Is it any wonder that’s such a great business to be in? If people had this explained to them in college and needed the money (I already had my passion) they’d all be in real estate lol.
YES, this. This country treats wealth very, very well. It treats income very poorly.
Relative to wealth, yeah, it's treated poorly. On the other hand, it treats income better than just about any other developed country does. We pay lower tax burdens on income than all but a few developed countries and have correspondingly less social welfare. My effective tax rate is right around 30%. Marginal sucks, yeah, I'm paying 49% there but there's a lot of exemptions so the effective isn't so bad.
The complexity of tax returns is not the loopholes (which there are very little of) or tax laws. People use software and don't have to bother. The real problem is arriving at your taxable income. This is where legitimate deductions come in. No software can figure it out without you doing lots of work and book keeping. It will never change even with a flat tax unless everyone is taxed on their gross.
Yeah, takes me about 40 hours to do the bookkeeping on my taxes. If I was more organized I'd have been doing it throughout the year, but usually I just make a wild stab at estimated and don't do anything until February as far as bookkeeping goes. The actual taxes are simple. Takes about an hour, and it's way more complicated than most people's. Even there though software makes it easy as it generates things like the depreciation tables, let's me know what I can 179 and what I can't and so on. The vast majority of time is getting the numbers to put into the software. Once I have those numbers it's simple enough software or no. I use it but you don't really have to and particularly if you have to pay for it is pretty poor value. It's just by the time I get through the numbers I just want it over. It only saves 30 minutes or an hour of time to use the software and efile versus paper forms so the $145 for state and federal is actually pretty expensive for what it does. For a regular W2 employee with not a lot going on it's cheaper and does less but same deal.
Who are you to determine what someone else "needs"? Are you certain that someone else wouldn't think you have "too many" of some particular item? What, precisely, is the harm caused by someone owning two yachts instead of one?
At the very least displays a lack of imagination by both poster (especially poster) and probably the owner. Reasons I give for the poster would be they consider the ownership of two yachts as something to crow about as some sort of achievement. If true, what it displays is the applauding of greed and somehow concluding the ownership of two yachts as something to aspire to.
I mean it could be a yacht and a helicopter but two of the same items only rings hollow.
That’s basically exactly what I’m saying. I benefit from this massively full disclosure because of my investments but it’s amazing that in my business all income would always be ordinary income no matter what I do. My dad’s business of real estate has depreciation and capital gains tax rates to offset enormous portions of taxes. Is it any wonder that’s such a great business to be in? If people had this explained to them in college and needed the money (I already had my passion) they’d all be in real estate lol.
All in real estate? Perhaps not quite. All very well in times of low interest rates and easy loans, but come a down turn in the economic conditions and punters flounder, real estate agents and business's close down in number and/or lay off staff. Very market dependant.
All in real estate? Perhaps not quite. All very well in times of low interest rates and easy loans, but come a down turn in the economic conditions and punters flounder, real estate agents and business's close down in number and/or lay off staff. Very market dependant.
Not always, no. Maybe you’re confusing residential housing sales with general real estate. My dad hasn’t sold houses in 40 years. He has developed senior living, apartments, office buildings, even housing communities but the downturns he has survived them all from high interest rates in the 80s to the recession. He did tell me recently he feels like a soldier who watched most of his unit injured or killed over the years - people he knew in the business who went under, people who took big steps back, etc. There is good fortune involved no doubt but you also have to make the right moves and have good intuition.
His apartments were doing fantastic during the recession and I’d argue overall business was unaffected for him. More renters meant more occupancy, senior living depended on the market / city, but with interest rates going from 6.5% or so in 2006-07 to 4% he refinanced so much debt that it saved massive amounts of money. There’s always a silver lining if you have the cash and the business sense I think. I still wish I had any cash when the market hit 6,900. I remember being on the phone with my accountant that day saying it can’t go much lower, maybe a bit, but it has to go up a lot in the next few years or there won’t be an economy left and money won’t be our biggest concern. Sure enough stocks doubled within a few years. I had money in the market already so all that did was recover 90% of my losses. I had no more cash otherwise I’d have thrown it all into a market fund or heck bought some of those super cheap houses with cash. Grrr.
My dad apparently sold the other yacht by the way - we go on it every July 4th to watch the fireworks but not this year. I think that thing also had too many problems. So there are ya happy?! It’s still silly to talk about how many of anything you can have. Should each person only have one car?! I don’t know any wealthy person with one car. Yet you can only drive one at a time.
Two identical homes on the same street... both 3 bedroom 1 bath.
One is a family of 3 with assistance paying $80... mother, son and daughter.
Next door is a family of 6 paying $1200... mother, father, 3 kids and grandma...
Housing would never allow recipients to be under housed...
But, if you are paying your own way it matters not.
It does boggle the mind when you figure all that is available assistance wise to a family with minor children "Plugged In" to the system.
In 35 years of property management... I have only 4 cases where a family left assistance... and many where it becomes generational...
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It’s still silly to talk about how many of anything you can have. Should each person only have one car?! I don’t know any wealthy person with one car. Yet you can only drive one at a time.
