You need to get informed and do some research. Rich people pay the vast majority of the taxes in this country, while there are millions of leeches sucking off the rest of us that actually work. You fail.
Sorry but it's you who is uninformed and fail. Since you're quoting full articles, here' the full excerpt from my link -
***
Before angry voters restore Republicans to power -- in the name of "tea party populism" -- perhaps they should consider just how well right-wing rule worked out for them during the past decade. Last fall a Census Bureau study found that real median household income had declined from $52,500 in 2000, the last year that Bill Clinton was president, to $50,303 in 2008, George W. Bush's final year -- a period during which Republicans dominated Congress as well. Millions of those median households lost their health insurance (and, since the onset of the Great Recession, many of those same families have lost jobs as well).
So most of those middle-class Americans who flock to the tea party demonstrations were big losers during the Bush era. So who were the winners? According to David Cay Johnston, America's premier tax journalist, newly released IRS data shows that the country's very wealthiest citizens -- the top 400 -- marked enormous income gains while paying less and less in taxes. For purposes of comparison, Johnston notes that the bottom 90 percent of Americans saw their incomes rise by only 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with a 399 percent increase for the top 400.
In a single year, between 2006 and 2007, the income of those top 400 taxpayers rose by 31 percent -- from an average of $263.3 million to an average of $344.8 million per year. Meanwhile, Johnston writes, "Their effective income tax rate fell to 16.62 percent, down more than half a percentage point from 17.17 percent in 2006, the new data show. That rate is lower than the typical effective income tax rate paid by Americans with incomes in the low six figures, which is what each taxpayer in the top group earned in the first three hours of 2007." He also notes that the IRS data probably understates the income of the top 400, because of deferral rules enjoyed by hedge fund managers (at least three of whom earned $3 billion or more in 2007).
Johnston's data comes from the latest edition of an annual IRS study of the top 400 taxpayers, which was first made public during the Clinton presidency. When Bush became president, unsurprisingly, he curtailed public access to the top 400 report for eight years. The Obama administration has made the report available this year, but such embarrassing statistics will no doubt be buried again as soon as the Republicans return to power.
****
Note the last paragraph in particular - Bush hid access to just how much the richest earn and how little they pay in taxes. Your dubious article concentrates on the rather broad top 20 percent. I'm talking about the top 1-5%
You need to get informed and do some research. Rich people pay the vast majority of the taxes in this country, while there are millions of leeches sucking off the rest of us that actually work. You fail.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stonefree
And thanks to American tax laws, he'll pay much less of a percentage of his income than teachers (thanks to Bush tax cuts and capital gains codes), yet probably complain and lobby against even the slightest increase his tax rate.
Danvid - Took the words right out of my mouth.
Stone - you need to inform and educate yourself before throwing out accusations. The wealthy pay more tax dollars and a higher percentage of their income into the treasury.
And those 'codes' are called 'laws'. Currently, long term gains are capped at 15%, while any profit earned from options would be taxed as income which for Tim would be close to 35%.
For those of us that own sizeable amounts of Apple stock, we'd prefer LTG stay at 15%. If this rate is raised significantly it effects the spending power of the rich, who also spend more in the economy (trickle down economics).
Stonefree - I DO AGREE that taxation is unfair in the country. Like many, I support a consumption based tax so that everyone pays the same rate based on what they buy and consume. In my opinion, this would spread taxation equally - which is awefully important since Obama is pushing our national debt into a new stratosphere (not that Bush didn't help launch the ship). We're all going to be paying down that debt in the future - and I'd rather it be fairly divided.
You need to get informed and do some research. Rich people pay the vast majority of the taxes in this country, while there are millions of leeches sucking off the rest of us that actually work. You fail.
Biggest absolute amount, maybe, but they damned well should. They get the biggest benefit from the social infrastructure. Try getting that rich without roads, schools, safe water, courts, military etc etc.
The problem is simply that as Warren Buffett says, he pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary does. Spin gross numbers all you want, that's simply not fair... 20% of a person's wages who makes 40K a year hurts WAY more than does 20% for a person making millions. That's why the flat tax scam is such a joke.
BTW, get off your high horse about the leeches... there are more leeches at the top than at the bottom.
BTW, (back on topic) GO TIM!!! Great job last year.
They'll leave. You'll have neither the rich nor the taxes, and still have no desks for those kids. Economics 101. Learn.
CA's problems are too darned entrenched to be solved by stupid, value-destroying, short-term fixes like these. You are already the highest-taxed state in the country (or at least close). Your worst nightmare would be if Silicon Valley decides to pack its bags (as Hollywood already has, and left for places like Vancouver).
If the taxes in California are so bad why are we overflowing with rich people?
Why are places with the lowest taxes the least desirable to live? You think Cook would want to move back to Alabama if his net income went from $21M to $20M? Highly unlikely! California is an amazing place, especially if you have money and it would really take a lot to drive the rich out.
California has high taxes in some ways but in others it doesn't, because of Prop 13.
I'm not saying there aren't leaches at the bottom either. My friend is a nurse and she'd like to have a baby but she can't afford it, meanwhile she delivers babies for immigrants who receive subsidies from the state yet seem to have nice cars and clothes. So some reform is needed of the type that would satisfy conservatives. But that's not the issue being discussed, we're talking about the executives whose earning double every few years yet pay little in taxes.
It takes a lot of education, effort, and risk taking to get to the point where you're making the big bucks. Or reaching the point where you can live handsomely off of passive income. Many people fail, often many times, trying to attain this lofty perch.
When they finally get there, there's a huge mass of people who were unwilling to do what they did to succeed, standing at the sidelines, bitching about their success.
Time and time again, when tax rates are cut, treasury revenue increases. This is a concept that is very difficult to grasp by some.
You need to get informed and do some research. Rich people pay the vast majority of the taxes in this country, while there are millions of leeches sucking off the rest of us that actually work. You fail.
Apple could have run on auto pilot. You could have probably replaced him with 5-10 other senior Apple execs and the results would have been the same for that period. He was a caretaker while Jobs was out. Not saying whether he deserved the bonus or not, but lets not make him out to be the one and only option. Execs are often glorified when in fact most could be replaced.
They'll leave. You'll have neither the rich nor the taxes, and still have no desks for those kids. Economics 101. Learn.
CA's problems are too darned entrenched to be solved by stupid, value-destroying, short-term fixes like these. You are already the highest-taxed state in the country (or at least close). Your worst nightmare would be if Silicon Valley decides to pack its bags (as Hollywood already has, and left for places like Vancouver).
Doesn't CA have something like a 42 billion dollar budget defict? We should get every decent company out of that state and then cut it off and allow it to sink into the Pacific.
It's incredible how quickly this thread has been hijacked into irrelevant discussion of how much tax the rich should pay instead of considering whether Mr. Cook deserved his bonus or not.
Tim Cook has helped Apple to record sales and record profits. Everyone benefits, from the shareholders, the employees with their families and yes, the consumers of the company's products.
Better to have successful, motivated directors than directors which lead companies toward ruin - take Palm and Woolworths UK for example. Redundancies and uncertainties all round...
I think it's well deserved. Tim Cook did a great job holding things together while Steve was gone, as well as Phil Schiler. That goes to show that Apple will survive when Steve decides to retire.
Biggest absolute amount, maybe, but they damned well should. They get the biggest benefit from the social infrastructure. Try getting that rich without roads, schools, safe water, courts, military etc etc.
The problem is simply that as Warren Buffett says, he pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary does. Spin gross numbers all you want, that's simply not fair... 20% of a person's wages who makes 40K a year hurts WAY more than does 20% for a person making millions. That's why the flat tax scam is such a joke.
BTW, get off your high horse about the leeches... there are more leeches at the top than at the bottom.
BTW, (back on topic) GO TIM!!! Great job last year.
Warren Buffet has been getting kooky in his advanced years. He knows he's reaching end of life status.
It's incredible how quickly this thread has been hijacked into irrelevant discussion of how much tax the rich should pay instead of considering whether Mr. Cook deserved his bonus or not.
Warren Buffet has been getting kooky in his advanced years. He knows he's reaching end of life status.
So you're saying Buffett really isn't actually paying a substantially less percentage of his income than his secretary?
For those who say Cook deserved it - why not $35M, $50M or even $100M. How much is too much? If he only got a measley $15M do you really think he'd leave? Why not give more money to the engineers who actually design and build the revolutionary products that Apple creates? Without them, Cook would be nothing. I doubt the highest paid among them gets more than $150,000 a year.
Why not give more money to the engineers who actually design and build the revolutionary products that Apple creates? Without them, Cook would be nothing. I doubt the highest paid among them gets more than $150,000 a year.
PhD in computer science will get you free lobster tail for lunch at Google. Maybe they should all bail from Apple and show Tim who's boss.
Getting back on topic...I think a $22 million bonus is obscene. There is NOTHING Tim Cook does that makes him worth that much money. His contributions to Apple cannot possibly be 100 times more valuable than someone in middle management making a couple hundred grand per year.
Comments
You need to get informed and do some research. Rich people pay the vast majority of the taxes in this country, while there are millions of leeches sucking off the rest of us that actually work. You fail.
Sorry but it's you who is uninformed and fail. Since you're quoting full articles, here' the full excerpt from my link -
***
Before angry voters restore Republicans to power -- in the name of "tea party populism" -- perhaps they should consider just how well right-wing rule worked out for them during the past decade. Last fall a Census Bureau study found that real median household income had declined from $52,500 in 2000, the last year that Bill Clinton was president, to $50,303 in 2008, George W. Bush's final year -- a period during which Republicans dominated Congress as well. Millions of those median households lost their health insurance (and, since the onset of the Great Recession, many of those same families have lost jobs as well).
So most of those middle-class Americans who flock to the tea party demonstrations were big losers during the Bush era. So who were the winners? According to David Cay Johnston, America's premier tax journalist, newly released IRS data shows that the country's very wealthiest citizens -- the top 400 -- marked enormous income gains while paying less and less in taxes. For purposes of comparison, Johnston notes that the bottom 90 percent of Americans saw their incomes rise by only 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with a 399 percent increase for the top 400.
In a single year, between 2006 and 2007, the income of those top 400 taxpayers rose by 31 percent -- from an average of $263.3 million to an average of $344.8 million per year. Meanwhile, Johnston writes, "Their effective income tax rate fell to 16.62 percent, down more than half a percentage point from 17.17 percent in 2006, the new data show. That rate is lower than the typical effective income tax rate paid by Americans with incomes in the low six figures, which is what each taxpayer in the top group earned in the first three hours of 2007." He also notes that the IRS data probably understates the income of the top 400, because of deferral rules enjoyed by hedge fund managers (at least three of whom earned $3 billion or more in 2007).
Johnston's data comes from the latest edition of an annual IRS study of the top 400 taxpayers, which was first made public during the Clinton presidency. When Bush became president, unsurprisingly, he curtailed public access to the top 400 report for eight years. The Obama administration has made the report available this year, but such embarrassing statistics will no doubt be buried again as soon as the Republicans return to power.
****
Note the last paragraph in particular - Bush hid access to just how much the richest earn and how little they pay in taxes. Your dubious article concentrates on the rather broad top 20 percent. I'm talking about the top 1-5%
You need to get informed and do some research. Rich people pay the vast majority of the taxes in this country, while there are millions of leeches sucking off the rest of us that actually work. You fail.
And thanks to American tax laws, he'll pay much less of a percentage of his income than teachers (thanks to Bush tax cuts and capital gains codes), yet probably complain and lobby against even the slightest increase his tax rate.
Danvid - Took the words right out of my mouth.
Stone - you need to inform and educate yourself before throwing out accusations. The wealthy pay more tax dollars and a higher percentage of their income into the treasury.
And those 'codes' are called 'laws'. Currently, long term gains are capped at 15%, while any profit earned from options would be taxed as income which for Tim would be close to 35%.
For those of us that own sizeable amounts of Apple stock, we'd prefer LTG stay at 15%. If this rate is raised significantly it effects the spending power of the rich, who also spend more in the economy (trickle down economics).
Stonefree - I DO AGREE that taxation is unfair in the country. Like many, I support a consumption based tax so that everyone pays the same rate based on what they buy and consume. In my opinion, this would spread taxation equally - which is awefully important since Obama is pushing our national debt into a new stratosphere (not that Bush didn't help launch the ship). We're all going to be paying down that debt in the future - and I'd rather it be fairly divided.
Class dismissed. Have a great weekend.
You need to get informed and do some research. Rich people pay the vast majority of the taxes in this country, while there are millions of leeches sucking off the rest of us that actually work. You fail.
Biggest absolute amount, maybe, but they damned well should. They get the biggest benefit from the social infrastructure. Try getting that rich without roads, schools, safe water, courts, military etc etc.
The problem is simply that as Warren Buffett says, he pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary does. Spin gross numbers all you want, that's simply not fair... 20% of a person's wages who makes 40K a year hurts WAY more than does 20% for a person making millions. That's why the flat tax scam is such a joke.
BTW, get off your high horse about the leeches... there are more leeches at the top than at the bottom.
BTW, (back on topic) GO TIM!!! Great job last year.
see http://mobile.salon.com/opinion/cona...400/index.html.
Really? You quoted salon.com? I think we now know why you seem to be so ill-informed.
Why not quote the National Inquirer or Mad Magazine?
They'll leave. You'll have neither the rich nor the taxes, and still have no desks for those kids. Economics 101. Learn.
CA's problems are too darned entrenched to be solved by stupid, value-destroying, short-term fixes like these. You are already the highest-taxed state in the country (or at least close). Your worst nightmare would be if Silicon Valley decides to pack its bags (as Hollywood already has, and left for places like Vancouver).
If the taxes in California are so bad why are we overflowing with rich people?
Why are places with the lowest taxes the least desirable to live? You think Cook would want to move back to Alabama if his net income went from $21M to $20M? Highly unlikely! California is an amazing place, especially if you have money and it would really take a lot to drive the rich out.
California has high taxes in some ways but in others it doesn't, because of Prop 13.
I'm not saying there aren't leaches at the bottom either. My friend is a nurse and she'd like to have a baby but she can't afford it, meanwhile she delivers babies for immigrants who receive subsidies from the state yet seem to have nice cars and clothes. So some reform is needed of the type that would satisfy conservatives. But that's not the issue being discussed, we're talking about the executives whose earning double every few years yet pay little in taxes.
When they finally get there, there's a huge mass of people who were unwilling to do what they did to succeed, standing at the sidelines, bitching about their success.
Time and time again, when tax rates are cut, treasury revenue increases. This is a concept that is very difficult to grasp by some.
Atlas is already shrugging. Let's not kill him.
Really? You quoted salon.com? I think we now know why you seem to be so ill-informed.
Why not quote the National Inquirer or Mad Magazine?
You think Heritage is a reliable source of info? It's as fair and balanced as Fox News.
You need to get informed and do some research. Rich people pay the vast majority of the taxes in this country, while there are millions of leeches sucking off the rest of us that actually work. You fail.
Please read this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...062700097.html
Last year, Buffett said, he was taxed at 17.7 percent on his taxable income of more than $46 million. His receptionist was taxed at about 30 percent.
For those of you who don't know, Buffet is the third richest person in the world. And obviously his receptionist gets paid less than him.
edit:
I see someone else has already posted this, my bad.
Please read this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...062700097.html
Bobertoq, facts will get you nowhere around here.
They'll leave. You'll have neither the rich nor the taxes, and still have no desks for those kids. Economics 101. Learn.
CA's problems are too darned entrenched to be solved by stupid, value-destroying, short-term fixes like these. You are already the highest-taxed state in the country (or at least close). Your worst nightmare would be if Silicon Valley decides to pack its bags (as Hollywood already has, and left for places like Vancouver).
Doesn't CA have something like a 42 billion dollar budget defict? We should get every decent company out of that state and then cut it off and allow it to sink into the Pacific.
Moderators, it's time to rename this website www.USApoliticaloutsider.com
Tim Cook has helped Apple to record sales and record profits. Everyone benefits, from the shareholders, the employees with their families and yes, the consumers of the company's products.
Better to have successful, motivated directors than directors which lead companies toward ruin - take Palm and Woolworths UK for example. Redundancies and uncertainties all round...
When did Steve Jobs invent immortality?
iGod.
Biggest absolute amount, maybe, but they damned well should. They get the biggest benefit from the social infrastructure. Try getting that rich without roads, schools, safe water, courts, military etc etc.
The problem is simply that as Warren Buffett says, he pays a smaller percentage of his income in taxes than his secretary does. Spin gross numbers all you want, that's simply not fair... 20% of a person's wages who makes 40K a year hurts WAY more than does 20% for a person making millions. That's why the flat tax scam is such a joke.
BTW, get off your high horse about the leeches... there are more leeches at the top than at the bottom.
BTW, (back on topic) GO TIM!!! Great job last year.
Warren Buffet has been getting kooky in his advanced years. He knows he's reaching end of life status.
It's incredible how quickly this thread has been hijacked into irrelevant discussion of how much tax the rich should pay instead of considering whether Mr. Cook deserved his bonus or not.
Moderators, it's time to rename this website www.USApoliticaloutsider.com
Thank you. On the bright side, this thread has convinced me to spend more time on constructive activities.
http://www.heritage.org/research/taxes/wm2420.cfm
May 4, 2009
The Rich Pay More Taxes...
Are you struggling to post the rest of the Library of Congress?
Let's not restrict your bandwidth with seemingly irrelevant posts about Apple Inc. on this website.
Warren Buffet has been getting kooky in his advanced years. He knows he's reaching end of life status.
So you're saying Buffett really isn't actually paying a substantially less percentage of his income than his secretary?
For those who say Cook deserved it - why not $35M, $50M or even $100M. How much is too much? If he only got a measley $15M do you really think he'd leave? Why not give more money to the engineers who actually design and build the revolutionary products that Apple creates? Without them, Cook would be nothing. I doubt the highest paid among them gets more than $150,000 a year.
Why not give more money to the engineers who actually design and build the revolutionary products that Apple creates? Without them, Cook would be nothing. I doubt the highest paid among them gets more than $150,000 a year.
PhD in computer science will get you free lobster tail for lunch at Google. Maybe they should all bail from Apple and show Tim who's boss.