Then why, pray tell, aren't the poor getting this financial intelligence and why aren't the self made millionaires the norm, not the exception. Is it, perhaps, because they are the exception?
I'll gladly stick with your list of examplars of self-made billionares. If you advocate a system which affords everyone the same starting conditions of Gates, Dell, Woz, and Jobs I'd be for it.
I, for one, am certainly not suggesting that their should be no advantage to investing, only that there is no compelling reason why income from investments be completely tax free. It is a demonstrable fact that treating it as income does not eliminate an advantage to investment, since we already do and investment continues.
Hey, no argument here. Of course, I have trouble warming up to a philosophy that only the poor should pay taxes because, unlike the rich, they are defenseless.
So I would guess that lottery earnings should be tax free if that ticket was bought with pre-tax dollars. Seriously though, why stop with exempting investment income. We can track the post-tax dollar it's entire life. Why should your employees have to pay sales taxes if they already paid income tax? Why should the grocer that get's your employee's money have to pay taxes on his earnings?
If we instead base taxes on transcations then we don't run into these problems.
Of course, it is really quite irrelevant if taxes are being paid once or twice. Obviously, if companies are surviving and investment continues despite this "double taxation" it is not nullifying incentive. Would it put your sensibilities at ease if we simpy doubled the tax that the company originally pays on the profits and eliminated the tax on the investor? That way things wouldn't be taxed twice, but
My analogy makes no such assumptions or conclusions. We do not work for the government, but clearly the government does require funding. IF the united states really is the land of opportunity where we expect the majority of our populace to attain a better quality of life through hard work and investment, then it is quite reasonable to shift their tax burden from when they are poor to when they are better off.
If the rich are predominately composed of the self-made as you suggest, then what is the objection to aiding their ascendacy to the wealthy class by reducing their taxes as they start out?
Nos, I'll go back and hit this point by point if you like, but it really isn't clear to me what you are arguing. I've not claimed that investment income should be exempt from taxation. I've argued that it should not be taxed at the same rate as income from a salary and that taxing it at a lower rate is not the rich "screwing over" the poor.
Clarify before we waste a bunch of words at each other.
If you buy stock, you no longer have the money. You own a company. When you sell that item, you gain new income. You have money were no money previously existed. That should be taxable. It's new. No matter how you try to spin the truth you no longer have the money when you buy the stock. When you sell the stock you have new money just like a new paycheck brings. And with the new paycheck comes taxation on the new dollars.
You're not being taxed on previous earnings two ore three times. Your previous earnings were spent when you bought the stock. They're gone. You're taxed on new earnings.
You've argued this before. You have serious disconnect with understanding what an investment or an asset is. If that is insulting, it isn't meant to be, it is just the truth of the matter. Trading liquidity for an asset, isn't consuming or spending the money or they would call it such. I don't care to argue you through ignorance. You consider any money coming into your hands to be income and any leaving to be spending. It isn't that simple when it comes to investing.
Buying stocks is just that -- buying stocks. I buy a monitor and expect to get taxed by local/state sales tax. When I resell the monitor I expect to get taxed on the income i gain from its resale... Why should i expect anything else when buying stocks?
Buying stocks is just that -- buying stocks. I buy a monitor and expect to get taxed by local/state sales tax. When I resell the monitor I expect to get taxed on the income i gain from its resale... Why should i expect anything else when buying stocks?
I think simply because that's what he wants, nothing more.
Buying stocks is just that -- buying stocks. I buy a monitor and expect to get taxed by local/state sales tax. When I resell the monitor I expect to get taxed on the income i gain from its resale... Why should i expect anything else when buying stocks?
Again very limited understanding of our financial system. If you were selling monitors, you would get a wholeseller's license which would exempt you from paying sales tax when you buy the monitor from the distributor.
When you sell the monitor, you do not pay any tax either. You collect it from the buyer for the state. The buyer pays the tax.
When you collect a profit on that sale, that isn't necessarily taxed either. First you get to deduct all your business expenses, like the store front you rent, the utilities you pay, the gas for the truck you used to pick up the pallet of monitors, the lease for the truck, etc.
Then if you can show there wasn't any money you spent above all those costs, that is "profit" which is then taxed.
If one of the costs to your business is your salary, it is paid to you in pre-tax dollars from the business. When it is paid to you, you pay the taxes on your salary.
So it seems your expectations are quite wrong as are the understandings that create them.
When you invest, often you are just changing the form of your money. Sometimes you are using your money to borrow or leverage money in the form of a loan.
You buy a house. Your downpayment is 20% of 200,000. You give them $40,000 and get a mortgage for the remaining $160,000.
You moved $40,000 from your savings account to your home. Nothing changed hands. The money still belongs to you only now it is in your home in equity. You have a $160,000 mortgage on a $200,000 home. You didn't spend anything. Your net-worth won't have changed. The only thing that changed is your ability to get at the money or your liquidity.
You could have taken that money and consumed or spent it. Instead you put it in an investment. If you can't understand the difference, then as I said earlier, I'm not going to argue someone through ignorance. Very few people seem to understand what an investment truly is since they buy all sorts of bullshit they call "assets."
Investments are not consumption. Your money is not changing hands, but changing form. If you can't understand that or don't want to, be prepared for a middle class to poor existance.
nick, you pay property taxes on the house, no? When you sell the house, you pay taxes on that money, no? We aren't talking about a business selling houses, we are talking about an individual...
Nos, I'll go back and hit this point by point if you like, but it really isn't clear to me what you are arguing. I've not claimed that investment income should be exempt from taxation. I've argued that it should not be taxed at the same rate as income from a salary and that taxing it at a lower rate is not the rich "screwing over" the poor.
Clarify before we waste a bunch of words at each other.
Since this is the only point you selected to clarify I trust that my responses to your other points were to your satisfaction. This being the case I take it that you don't take issue with my loan analogy, the degree to which Dell, Gates, Jobs, and the Woz are representative or non-representative of the general populace, and the validity of end loading taxes so that the poor pay more only after they have become rich (seeing as how the poor becoming rich is appearantly, in your view, the norm).
With that out of the way, forgive me if I did not address this particular point, but since you like examples consider the following...
Hypothesize that we live in a society were the majority of the poor may be expected to make use of the abundant opportunities and better their condition throughout their life by hard work and smart, educated investing. So to aide them in their early years we decide to delay the bulk of the tax burden until they are better off, thus creating a progressive tax system. Bob and Judy start out poor, save every little penny, forgoing pizza, cable, beer, cigarettes, movies, and all entertainment expenses. They work two jobs each and delay having children until their 30s (despite the increased risks of infertility and down syndrome), they spend their spare time at the library reading books on investment and entrepenurship. Finally starting a business, which eventually turns into a chain, making them rich.
Now, since we gave them massive tax breaks to aide in their rise to wealth we may now start to require them to pay it back. But wait, now that they are rich they no longer depend primarily on direct income, but instead make the bulk of their money from investments.
Are we allowed to tax this income to a degree which recompenses the benefits they received when they were poor and extends the same privelages to the next generation, whatever the tax rate may be or is the income from investment somehow sacrosanct?
nick, you pay property taxes on the house, no? When you sell the house, you pay taxes on that money, no? We aren't talking about a business selling houses, we are talking about an individual...
Well again billy, you need to do a bit of reading. I really don't mean that in a mean way because your questions are legitimate, it's just that the assumptions about the answers are not what people always imagine.
What is the difference between an individual and a corporation?
A corporation is just an artificial legal person. It is a set of papers in a file folder. I own 4 homes and an apartment building as an individual. I could also own 4 homes and an apartment building as a corporation. You file the paperwork and bam, you are a corporation. I could have each corporation own just one building, and own five corporations. In fact this is a common tactic to limit liability. (Hence why you see LLC after so many names. Limited Liability Corporation)
I do pay property taxes, that is true. However so would the corporation. When I sell the house I may or may not pay taxes on it, it depends upon the scenario. If it is my personal residence, the first $500,000 of gains are tax free. If I am selling it to buy another rental property. I use something called a 1031 exchange which allows me to keep and reinvest the gains tax free. If I am taking the money as income to spend and consume with, then I pay taxes on it in the form of capital gains.
The reason I bring all this up is simply to show that the government clearly wishes to promote certain things. This isn't true just under Bush, it is under Clinton as well. Investment is very important to insuring the economy continues to grow. There is often a lot of risk involved and nothing is guaranteed. When you take the gains and reduce them further via taxation, people just decide to risk less (or not at all) or just take safer investments like say, government bonds or CD's.
Since this is the only point you selected to clarify I trust that my responses to your other points were to your satisfaction. This being the case I take it that you don't take issue with my loan analogy, the degree to which Dell, Gates, Jobs, and the Woz are representative or non-representative of the general populace, and the validity of end loading taxes so that the poor pay more only after they have become rich (seeing as how the poor becoming rich is appearantly, in your view, the norm).
With that out of the way, forgive me if I did not address this particular point, but since you like examples consider the following...
Hypothesize that we live in a society were the majority of the poor may be expected to make use of the abundant opportunities and better their condition throughout their life by hard work and smart, educated investing. So to aide them in their early years we decide to delay the bulk of the tax burden until they are better off, thus creating a progressive tax system. Bob and Judy start out poor, save every little penny, forgoing pizza, cable, beer, cigarettes, movies, and all entertainment expenses. They work two jobs each and delay having children until their 30s (despite the increased risks of infertility and down syndrome), they spend their spare time at the library reading books on investment and entrepenurship. Finally starting a business, which eventually turns into a chain, making them rich.
Now, since we gave them massive tax breaks to aide in their rise to wealth we may now start to require them to pay it back. But wait, now that they are rich they no longer depend primarily on direct income, but instead make the bulk of their money from investments.
Are we allowed to tax this income to a degree which recompenses the benefits they received when they were poor and extends the same privelages to the next generation, whatever the tax rate may be or is the income from investment somehow sacrosanct?
In a word. No.
Taxing them at a lower rate is not a "massive tax break." The government didn't aid in their rise to wealth because the government didn't give them anything. The government simply stated out of the way. That is why I said it is a philosophy that wouldn't sit well with the founders. They did not envision an government that was "helpful" by not taxing you punitively. Rather they wanted limited government.
So to recap. Being poor is not a "benefit" that the government gives you. Allowing you to keep your own, earned money is not a "benefit." When you have even more money the government is not entitled to more of it because they choose not to tax you punitively earlier.
All these make assumptions that rights flow from the government and the government not taking them from you is a "benefit." Our rights are inalienable. They cannot be taken or given back later.
All these make assumptions that rights flow from the government and the government not taking them from you is a "benefit." Our rights are inalienable. They cannot be taken or given back later.
I'm working on something right now which I think belongs in a whole new thread, but in brief, before you bring the idea of "inalienable rights" into a discussion of taxes, you have to think quite a bit about the fact that ownership of property and money is essentially a social construct... I'll get more into what I mean by that in a new thread, but suffice to say that I think it would be awfully hard to argue that the difference between one tax rate and another boils down to a matter of inalienable rights.
Our point has nothing to do with resellers. An individual buying stock isn't a reseller, he's an individual. Your analogy is 100% inaccurate.
Our point? Interesting...
Billybobsky was trying to use multiple points where he "expects" to pay tax to show how investment should be the same. The real issue though is his (and I guess hence your) analogy is 100% incorrect because buying a monitor is consumption while buying the company that makes it via stock is an investment.
Likewise, he, you and perhaps a few others on here seem to either have a reading comprehension problem or are practicing some very bad slippery slopes because you all seem to be arguing against investing going tax free, (Hey I pay tax on X, why not on Y) No one here has claimed investing should be tax free, rather that it should not be taxed at the same rate as income. You are welcome to actually address this issue at any time instead of complaining about my pointing out the flaws in Billy's (and I guess now your) analogies.
Bunge, your own position on this is much worse than even the most leftist Democrat you could encounter. Any time the money changes hands, you want it all taxed. Heck even most Democrats would only tax the GAIN. You would tax all the money that changed hands, and even then that only reflects your own misunderstandings about money since it often isn't "changing hands" when buying homes, investing in 401k's and so forth.
I really should get some willpower. I believe I chastized that I wouldn't argue someone through ignorance here. I should get a clue and let your poor money assumptions make you poor.
No one here has claimed investing should be tax free, rather that it should not be taxed at the same rate as income.
What are you saying should be taxed at a lower rate? The increase in the value of an investment, or the profit realized when an investment is sold at a higher price than that at which is was acquired?
I see no particular reason that the latter deserves a tax break. It's income that should be taxed just like any other income, if not at a higher rate because I think the social value of investment is exagerated.
Investment does serve a valuable function in the allocation and distribution of capital, so it's good to encourage it to some extent, but I don't particularly value people sitting around deciding which stocks to buy and sell over people assembling cars or teaching children how to read. In fact, I value investment speculation much less so, and wish society rewarded it less -- or taxed it more.
I haven't explained this as carefully or as fully as I'd like... but I have to go get something to eat now.
I said that simply because we made the same point and it would be presumptious of me to 'take' the idea as my own. It's called humility.
Quote:
Originally posted by trumptman
...buying a monitor is consumption while buying the company that makes it via stock is an investment.
Buying a car is an 'investment' too. It's just a really bad one. You resell the car, you pay tax. That's the way it should be.
Quote:
Originally posted by trumptman
I really should get some willpower. I believe I chastized that I wouldn't argue someone through ignorance here. I should get a clue and let your poor money assumptions make you poor.
Your arrogance is sad.
You can call me ignorant but you don't understand a simple point. You want investment to be taxed less because it's a method of accruing money that you enjoy. You can label anything as an investment and that's the problem with your point. What you want to label as an investment gets taxed less because it helps you.
Wow. You're selfish. What a surprise.
My poor money assumptions? Why are you so close minded to believe that what I argue in an intellectual discussion is how I use my money? You're foolish.
Comments
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
Then why, pray tell, aren't the poor getting this financial intelligence and why aren't the self made millionaires the norm, not the exception. Is it, perhaps, because they are the exception?
I'll gladly stick with your list of examplars of self-made billionares. If you advocate a system which affords everyone the same starting conditions of Gates, Dell, Woz, and Jobs I'd be for it.
I, for one, am certainly not suggesting that their should be no advantage to investing, only that there is no compelling reason why income from investments be completely tax free. It is a demonstrable fact that treating it as income does not eliminate an advantage to investment, since we already do and investment continues.
Hey, no argument here. Of course, I have trouble warming up to a philosophy that only the poor should pay taxes because, unlike the rich, they are defenseless.
So I would guess that lottery earnings should be tax free if that ticket was bought with pre-tax dollars.
If we instead base taxes on transcations then we don't run into these problems.
Of course, it is really quite irrelevant if taxes are being paid once or twice. Obviously, if companies are surviving and investment continues despite this "double taxation" it is not nullifying incentive. Would it put your sensibilities at ease if we simpy doubled the tax that the company originally pays on the profits and eliminated the tax on the investor? That way things wouldn't be taxed twice, but
My analogy makes no such assumptions or conclusions. We do not work for the government, but clearly the government does require funding. IF the united states really is the land of opportunity where we expect the majority of our populace to attain a better quality of life through hard work and investment, then it is quite reasonable to shift their tax burden from when they are poor to when they are better off.
If the rich are predominately composed of the self-made as you suggest, then what is the objection to aiding their ascendacy to the wealthy class by reducing their taxes as they start out?
Nos, I'll go back and hit this point by point if you like, but it really isn't clear to me what you are arguing. I've not claimed that investment income should be exempt from taxation. I've argued that it should not be taxed at the same rate as income from a salary and that taxing it at a lower rate is not the rich "screwing over" the poor.
Clarify before we waste a bunch of words at each other.
Nick
Originally posted by bunge
This is completely wrong.
If you buy stock, you no longer have the money. You own a company. When you sell that item, you gain new income. You have money were no money previously existed. That should be taxable. It's new. No matter how you try to spin the truth you no longer have the money when you buy the stock. When you sell the stock you have new money just like a new paycheck brings. And with the new paycheck comes taxation on the new dollars.
You're not being taxed on previous earnings two ore three times. Your previous earnings were spent when you bought the stock. They're gone. You're taxed on new earnings.
You've argued this before. You have serious disconnect with understanding what an investment or an asset is. If that is insulting, it isn't meant to be, it is just the truth of the matter. Trading liquidity for an asset, isn't consuming or spending the money or they would call it such. I don't care to argue you through ignorance. You consider any money coming into your hands to be income and any leaving to be spending. It isn't that simple when it comes to investing.
Nick
Buying stocks is just that -- buying stocks. I buy a monitor and expect to get taxed by local/state sales tax. When I resell the monitor I expect to get taxed on the income i gain from its resale... Why should i expect anything else when buying stocks?
Originally posted by billybobsky
Nick,
Buying stocks is just that -- buying stocks. I buy a monitor and expect to get taxed by local/state sales tax. When I resell the monitor I expect to get taxed on the income i gain from its resale... Why should i expect anything else when buying stocks?
I think simply because that's what he wants, nothing more.
Originally posted by billybobsky
Nick,
Buying stocks is just that -- buying stocks. I buy a monitor and expect to get taxed by local/state sales tax. When I resell the monitor I expect to get taxed on the income i gain from its resale... Why should i expect anything else when buying stocks?
Again very limited understanding of our financial system. If you were selling monitors, you would get a wholeseller's license which would exempt you from paying sales tax when you buy the monitor from the distributor.
When you sell the monitor, you do not pay any tax either. You collect it from the buyer for the state. The buyer pays the tax.
When you collect a profit on that sale, that isn't necessarily taxed either. First you get to deduct all your business expenses, like the store front you rent, the utilities you pay, the gas for the truck you used to pick up the pallet of monitors, the lease for the truck, etc.
Then if you can show there wasn't any money you spent above all those costs, that is "profit" which is then taxed.
If one of the costs to your business is your salary, it is paid to you in pre-tax dollars from the business. When it is paid to you, you pay the taxes on your salary.
So it seems your expectations are quite wrong as are the understandings that create them.
When you invest, often you are just changing the form of your money. Sometimes you are using your money to borrow or leverage money in the form of a loan.
You buy a house. Your downpayment is 20% of 200,000. You give them $40,000 and get a mortgage for the remaining $160,000.
You moved $40,000 from your savings account to your home. Nothing changed hands. The money still belongs to you only now it is in your home in equity. You have a $160,000 mortgage on a $200,000 home. You didn't spend anything. Your net-worth won't have changed. The only thing that changed is your ability to get at the money or your liquidity.
You could have taken that money and consumed or spent it. Instead you put it in an investment. If you can't understand the difference, then as I said earlier, I'm not going to argue someone through ignorance. Very few people seem to understand what an investment truly is since they buy all sorts of bullshit they call "assets."
Investments are not consumption. Your money is not changing hands, but changing form. If you can't understand that or don't want to, be prepared for a middle class to poor existance.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
If you were selling monitors...
Too bad that's not what he said.
Originally posted by bunge
Too bad that's not what he said.
I buy a monitor and expect to get taxed by local/state sales tax. When I resell the monitor
Too bad you can't find your own glasses....
Nick
If you were selling monitors...
Originally posted by trumptman
Nos, I'll go back and hit this point by point if you like, but it really isn't clear to me what you are arguing. I've not claimed that investment income should be exempt from taxation. I've argued that it should not be taxed at the same rate as income from a salary and that taxing it at a lower rate is not the rich "screwing over" the poor.
Clarify before we waste a bunch of words at each other.
Since this is the only point you selected to clarify I trust that my responses to your other points were to your satisfaction. This being the case I take it that you don't take issue with my loan analogy, the degree to which Dell, Gates, Jobs, and the Woz are representative or non-representative of the general populace, and the validity of end loading taxes so that the poor pay more only after they have become rich (seeing as how the poor becoming rich is appearantly, in your view, the norm).
With that out of the way, forgive me if I did not address this particular point, but since you like examples consider the following...
Hypothesize that we live in a society were the majority of the poor may be expected to make use of the abundant opportunities and better their condition throughout their life by hard work and smart, educated investing. So to aide them in their early years we decide to delay the bulk of the tax burden until they are better off, thus creating a progressive tax system. Bob and Judy start out poor, save every little penny, forgoing pizza, cable, beer, cigarettes, movies, and all entertainment expenses. They work two jobs each and delay having children until their 30s (despite the increased risks of infertility and down syndrome), they spend their spare time at the library reading books on investment and entrepenurship. Finally starting a business, which eventually turns into a chain, making them rich.
Now, since we gave them massive tax breaks to aide in their rise to wealth we may now start to require them to pay it back. But wait, now that they are rich they no longer depend primarily on direct income, but instead make the bulk of their money from investments.
Are we allowed to tax this income to a degree which recompenses the benefits they received when they were poor and extends the same privelages to the next generation, whatever the tax rate may be or is the income from investment somehow sacrosanct?
Originally posted by bunge
Originally posted by trumptman
If you were selling monitors...
Give it up bunge. The point is that resellers don't pay tax when they buy their materials wholesale. Period.
Nick
Originally posted by billybobsky
nick, you pay property taxes on the house, no? When you sell the house, you pay taxes on that money, no? We aren't talking about a business selling houses, we are talking about an individual...
Well again billy, you need to do a bit of reading. I really don't mean that in a mean way because your questions are legitimate, it's just that the assumptions about the answers are not what people always imagine.
What is the difference between an individual and a corporation?
A corporation is just an artificial legal person. It is a set of papers in a file folder. I own 4 homes and an apartment building as an individual. I could also own 4 homes and an apartment building as a corporation. You file the paperwork and bam, you are a corporation. I could have each corporation own just one building, and own five corporations. In fact this is a common tactic to limit liability. (Hence why you see LLC after so many names. Limited Liability Corporation)
I do pay property taxes, that is true. However so would the corporation. When I sell the house I may or may not pay taxes on it, it depends upon the scenario. If it is my personal residence, the first $500,000 of gains are tax free. If I am selling it to buy another rental property. I use something called a 1031 exchange which allows me to keep and reinvest the gains tax free. If I am taking the money as income to spend and consume with, then I pay taxes on it in the form of capital gains.
The reason I bring all this up is simply to show that the government clearly wishes to promote certain things. This isn't true just under Bush, it is under Clinton as well. Investment is very important to insuring the economy continues to grow. There is often a lot of risk involved and nothing is guaranteed. When you take the gains and reduce them further via taxation, people just decide to risk less (or not at all) or just take safer investments like say, government bonds or CD's.
Nick
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
Since this is the only point you selected to clarify I trust that my responses to your other points were to your satisfaction. This being the case I take it that you don't take issue with my loan analogy, the degree to which Dell, Gates, Jobs, and the Woz are representative or non-representative of the general populace, and the validity of end loading taxes so that the poor pay more only after they have become rich (seeing as how the poor becoming rich is appearantly, in your view, the norm).
With that out of the way, forgive me if I did not address this particular point, but since you like examples consider the following...
Hypothesize that we live in a society were the majority of the poor may be expected to make use of the abundant opportunities and better their condition throughout their life by hard work and smart, educated investing. So to aide them in their early years we decide to delay the bulk of the tax burden until they are better off, thus creating a progressive tax system. Bob and Judy start out poor, save every little penny, forgoing pizza, cable, beer, cigarettes, movies, and all entertainment expenses. They work two jobs each and delay having children until their 30s (despite the increased risks of infertility and down syndrome), they spend their spare time at the library reading books on investment and entrepenurship. Finally starting a business, which eventually turns into a chain, making them rich.
Now, since we gave them massive tax breaks to aide in their rise to wealth we may now start to require them to pay it back. But wait, now that they are rich they no longer depend primarily on direct income, but instead make the bulk of their money from investments.
Are we allowed to tax this income to a degree which recompenses the benefits they received when they were poor and extends the same privelages to the next generation, whatever the tax rate may be or is the income from investment somehow sacrosanct?
In a word. No.
Taxing them at a lower rate is not a "massive tax break." The government didn't aid in their rise to wealth because the government didn't give them anything. The government simply stated out of the way. That is why I said it is a philosophy that wouldn't sit well with the founders. They did not envision an government that was "helpful" by not taxing you punitively. Rather they wanted limited government.
So to recap. Being poor is not a "benefit" that the government gives you. Allowing you to keep your own, earned money is not a "benefit." When you have even more money the government is not entitled to more of it because they choose not to tax you punitively earlier.
All these make assumptions that rights flow from the government and the government not taking them from you is a "benefit." Our rights are inalienable. They cannot be taken or given back later.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
All these make assumptions that rights flow from the government and the government not taking them from you is a "benefit." Our rights are inalienable. They cannot be taken or given back later.
I'm working on something right now which I think belongs in a whole new thread, but in brief, before you bring the idea of "inalienable rights" into a discussion of taxes, you have to think quite a bit about the fact that ownership of property and money is essentially a social construct... I'll get more into what I mean by that in a new thread, but suffice to say that I think it would be awfully hard to argue that the difference between one tax rate and another boils down to a matter of inalienable rights.
Originally posted by trumptman
Give it up bunge. The point is that resellers don't pay tax when they buy their materials wholesale. Period.
Nick
Our point has nothing to do with resellers. An individual buying stock isn't a reseller, he's an individual. Your analogy is 100% inaccurate.
Originally posted by bunge
Our point has nothing to do with resellers. An individual buying stock isn't a reseller, he's an individual. Your analogy is 100% inaccurate.
Our point? Interesting...
Billybobsky was trying to use multiple points where he "expects" to pay tax to show how investment should be the same. The real issue though is his (and I guess hence your) analogy is 100% incorrect because buying a monitor is consumption while buying the company that makes it via stock is an investment.
Likewise, he, you and perhaps a few others on here seem to either have a reading comprehension problem or are practicing some very bad slippery slopes because you all seem to be arguing against investing going tax free, (Hey I pay tax on X, why not on Y) No one here has claimed investing should be tax free, rather that it should not be taxed at the same rate as income. You are welcome to actually address this issue at any time instead of complaining about my pointing out the flaws in Billy's (and I guess now your) analogies.
Bunge, your own position on this is much worse than even the most leftist Democrat you could encounter. Any time the money changes hands, you want it all taxed. Heck even most Democrats would only tax the GAIN. You would tax all the money that changed hands, and even then that only reflects your own misunderstandings about money since it often isn't "changing hands" when buying homes, investing in 401k's and so forth.
I really should get some willpower. I believe I chastized that I wouldn't argue someone through ignorance here. I should get a clue and let your poor money assumptions make you poor.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
No one here has claimed investing should be tax free, rather that it should not be taxed at the same rate as income.
What are you saying should be taxed at a lower rate? The increase in the value of an investment, or the profit realized when an investment is sold at a higher price than that at which is was acquired?
I see no particular reason that the latter deserves a tax break. It's income that should be taxed just like any other income, if not at a higher rate because I think the social value of investment is exagerated.
Investment does serve a valuable function in the allocation and distribution of capital, so it's good to encourage it to some extent, but I don't particularly value people sitting around deciding which stocks to buy and sell over people assembling cars or teaching children how to read. In fact, I value investment speculation much less so, and wish society rewarded it less -- or taxed it more.
I haven't explained this as carefully or as fully as I'd like... but I have to go get something to eat now.
Originally posted by trumptman
Our point? Interesting...
I said that simply because we made the same point and it would be presumptious of me to 'take' the idea as my own. It's called humility.
Originally posted by trumptman
...buying a monitor is consumption while buying the company that makes it via stock is an investment.
Buying a car is an 'investment' too. It's just a really bad one. You resell the car, you pay tax. That's the way it should be.
Originally posted by trumptman
I really should get some willpower. I believe I chastized that I wouldn't argue someone through ignorance here. I should get a clue and let your poor money assumptions make you poor.
Your arrogance is sad.
You can call me ignorant but you don't understand a simple point. You want investment to be taxed less because it's a method of accruing money that you enjoy. You can label anything as an investment and that's the problem with your point. What you want to label as an investment gets taxed less because it helps you.
Wow. You're selfish. What a surprise.
My poor money assumptions? Why are you so close minded to believe that what I argue in an intellectual discussion is how I use my money? You're foolish.