The capital gains tax is NOT a loophole, the capital gains tax is the same for everyone at 15%. The laws' intended for everyone to pay at 15%. You might argue that people who has more investments benefit more from this. But a loophole is when someone to using it for something that's not what it originally intended for. If people are doing what the law intended for them to do, then its NOT a loophole. If you are writing off the vehicles that are not being used for business, then that's cheating on your income tax, if you get audited, you will pay.
Well yeah!!!???? People work hard to make money for what? A large part of the reason is to help their kids get a good education? Sounds like you want a communist country.
It is a loophole that was put into the law specifically. Only the very rich have the opportunity to derive maximum value from this law, the VAST majority of us will not derive much benefit from it at all, and as such, it allows the very rich to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, thus it is a loophole in my book. Per investopedia... Loophole - A technicality that allows a person or business to avoid the scope of a law without directly violating the law. The "scope" of the law is our progressive income tax. It is intended to allow for the people who make more money to pay a larger percentage of their income. However, the "capital gains" tax is simply a redefinition of what would otherwise be defined as "income" and is thus a loophole that was inserted specifically to allow the richest among us to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Many other people (I will not dispute the 50% figure t "m" j threw out there) are able to take advantage of the loophole, but do not receive even close to the same marginal benefit as someone whose entire income is derived from capital gains. Again, this is a loophole that was inserted specifically into the law to allow actions that would otherwise be prohibited. Just because it is written in the law does not exclude it from being a loophole.
No, but how hard exactly has Paris Hilton "worked" for her money? I will not dispute that her parents may have busted their a$$es to make the money that they did, but you should acknowledge that there were many advantages afforded to them by the system we call America. They made good on these advantages and the estate tax is part of what insures that these advantages will be available for future generations to benefit from.
Wrong, The "scope" of the law in this case is capital gain tax rate at 15%, simple as that. That is no ambiguity, nothing subject to interpretation.
It was originally defined in tax law and since it was defined, the rich have lobbied for and received over a 2/3 reduction in their tax rates since the income tax was introduced. As a result, more and more of the tax burden is being borne by the lower and middle classes and things like our educational system and infrastructure are suffering for it. And this is a result of the greed exhibited by those who do not feel like paying their fair share.
Did you read the Investopedia definition of "loophole?" There does not have to be ambiguity in order for it to qualify as a loophole. A law written to allow some people to avoid paying a larger share of taxes is a loophole, period.
Coporations are able to declare themselves not subject to US taxation. Multi-billion $$$ conglomerates such as Accenture, Haliburton, Tyco, etc. set up off-shore operations to avoid taxation; they all make profits > 100s of millions $. One of the earmarks to the Homeland Security Act was that non-US taxpayers (such as Accenture, Haliburton) can participate in US Government contract funded by US taxpayers. These non-taxpayers are profiteering off US taxpayers.
So why don't we make the tax code really progressive. So tax 0% for people makes 100k or less, tax 1% for people makes 200k, tax 2% for 500k and tax 95% for people makes over 10Million. That outta make it really fair, we will call it the "Andymoon" tax code.
# 102 is way late. tj called Webb (a guy who has killed more communists than tj has met) a commie in post # 8.
Teddy has some thoughts... As a matter of personal conviction, and without pretending to discuss the details or formulate the system, I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on all fortunes, beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed upon death to any individual – a tax so framed as to put it out of the power of the owner of one of these enormous fortunes to hand on more than a certain amount to any one individual; the tax of course, to be imposed by the national and not the state government. Such taxation should, of course, be aimed merely at the inheritance or transmission in their entirety of those fortunes swollen beyond all healthy limits. Every man holds his property subject to the general right of the community to regulate its use to whatever degree the public welfare may require it. It is no limitation upon property rights or freedom of contract to require that when men receive from government the privilege of doing business under corporate form ... they shall do so under absolutely truthful representations ... Great corporations exist only because they were created and safeguarded by our institutions; and it is therefore our right and duty to see that they work in harmony with these institutions. Materially we must strive to secure a broader economic opportunity for all men, so that each shall have a better chance to show the stuff of which he is made. No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so that after his day's work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life with which we surround them. We need comprehensive workmen's compensation acts, both State and national laws to regulate child labor and work for women, and, especially, we need in our common schools not merely education in booklearning, but also practical training for daily life and work. We need to enforce better sanitary conditions for our workers and to extend the use of safety appliances for our workers in industry and commerce, both within and between the States. No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered – not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective – a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate. The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity, when exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. The men of wealth who today are trying to prevent the regulation and control of their business in the interest of the public by the proper government authorities will not succeed, in my judgment, in checking the progress of the movement. But if they did succeed they would find that they had sown the wind and would surely reap the whirlwind, for they would ultimately provoke the violent excesses which accompany a reform coming by convulsion instead of by steady and natural growth. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man's making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have themselves called into being. (He sounds a little like Webb... or is it the other way around?)
I wouldn't call the LTCG tax a loophole. It is a pretty transparent regressive tax within our overall tax code. Maybe there is some good reason to consider it as something different than just ordinary income (and it might be wise to encourage LTGC over STCG for stability in markets or something), but 15% rate seems awefully low in the scheme of other taxes.
Fun stats, according to a recent Northwestern study: Between 1966 and 2001, pretax wage and salary increase after inflation: Median - 11% 90th percentile - 58% 99th percentile - 121% 99.9th percentile - 236% 99.99th percentile (13,000 highest-paid workers) - 617% 1966-2001 - 10% of workers saw their income rise at least as fast as economy-wide prodctivity. 1997-2001 the top 1% captured far more of the real national gain in wage and salary income than did the bottom 50%.
I'm not sure what side your'e on? The "rich" will always build wealth faster than the poor. The rich make money via capital, the poor via wages. The velocity of money will always be higher.
However, there was a time where this was regulated to avoid the massive income disparities we have seen lately. Seems like the rich want to change the laws to suit themselves at the expense of the American Dream that everyone else should have the opportunity to take part in.
