Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do well. I am not complaining and feel very fortunate to have two very good paying careers. But we just did our end of year tax analysis with our CPA and our effective tax rate when adding federal plus DC taxes is 45% (36% federal, 9% DC and DC is only "low" because a lot of our income is through a DC C-Corp which is taxes slightly lower at 8.5%).

45% of our income going to taxes. Nearly half of what we take home. And yes -- we are utilizing every single tax strategy under the sun available to us and work with a very good CPA.

So let's change the complaint from "tax the rich" to "tax the billionaires" because the regular rich are playing PLENTY in taxes already. Sigh.

+1

Always have said that---when you add in State taxes, many of us are paying 45%+ on the majority of our income. yes, the first 400K is taxed less, but if you are earning $1.2M, majority is being taxed at the 45%+. Add in medicare tax (almost 2%) and you approach 50%. yes we make a lot, but not in the billions range. It's all wages and interest/dividends (and some Cap gains). So no way to "hide" the income. We are paying plenty, it's the really wealthy who manage to avoid it, as well as corporations.

Sounds like it would benefit you to get rid of the capital gains loophole.

Different poster, but I would love to get rid of the no capital gains tax on inheritances loophole.

Heck, I'd love to get rid of estate taxes at the fed and state level. Until then we will use trusts and gift all our kids/their spouses/grandkids/etc $18K from each of us yearly to spend it down (not that it will help much)

What you are doing, which is spending money and putting it into the economy, is one of the reasons there are estate taxes. Estate taxes are a good incentive to spend. It also prevents dynasties where it could end up that a couple of hundred family dynasties have hoarded so much money that it has a negative impact on the economy.

You forgot the incentive to give to charity as another way to avoid so many taxes. Most people would rather give to a needy organization before they give it to the government.

Don’t forget to pay for all educational expenses for children and grandchildren. It’s the best deduction they offer.

Definately will fully fund all grandkids (and future generations) for education. But will still continue to gift the max to each family member yearly

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lord help us if this country ever embraces socialism on a national scale. But it will be fun to watch what happens in NYC when those uninformed voters found out the hard way that nothing is free.

God forbid we end up like the socialist hellholes of New Zealand, Norway or Holland.

Those countries are not socialist. They have free market economies with some social programs. Try harder.

Also those countries have relatively small homogeneous populations (but that is slowly changing for the worse). Norway’s oil wealth funds their social programs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lord help us if this country ever embraces socialism on a national scale. But it will be fun to watch what happens in NYC when those uninformed voters found out the hard way that nothing is free.

God forbid we end up like the socialist hellholes of New Zealand, Norway or Holland.

Those countries are not socialist. They have free market economies with some social programs. Try harder.

We’re making about $800K/yr income from our Roth IRAs. Completely tax free. I could care less what the tax brackets are. The key was maxing out Roth contributions as soon as we started having earned income, Backdoor Roth contributions, and Mega Backdoor Roth. Invested heavy in individual stocks within the Roth and hit a few out of the park. Knowing how to analyze companies comes in handy.

Anonymous wrote:Lord help us if this country ever embraces socialism on a national scale. But it will be fun to watch what happens in NYC when those uninformed voters found out the hard way that nothing is free.

God forbid we end up like the socialist hellholes of New Zealand, Norway or Holland.

Lord help us if this country ever embraces socialism on a national scale. But it will be fun to watch what happens in NYC when those uninformed voters found out the hard way that nothing is free.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do well. I am not complaining and feel very fortunate to have two very good paying careers. But we just did our end of year tax analysis with our CPA and our effective tax rate when adding federal plus DC taxes is 45% (36% federal, 9% DC and DC is only "low" because a lot of our income is through a DC C-Corp which is taxes slightly lower at 8.5%).

45% of our income going to taxes. Nearly half of what we take home. And yes -- we are utilizing every single tax strategy under the sun available to us and work with a very good CPA.

So let's change the complaint from "tax the rich" to "tax the billionaires" because the regular rich are playing PLENTY in taxes already. Sigh.

1. Don't live in DC.
2. Nope.

-- someone who works in tax policy

“Nope”?

Great, glad our tax policy folks have such great arguments as to why people should be giving away half their income in taxes. I feel a lot better now.

Actually you should be contributing 92% at the top bracket, the way you would have in the early Eisenhower administration. When America was “great”!

-Historian of tax policy

A selective historian I guess. There were plenty of deductions and loop holes so effective tax rates were about half of that.

https://city-countyobserver.com/did-people-really-pay-91-tax-rates-in-the-1950s-if-not-what-was-the-reality-compared-to-today-the-claim-that-the-top-1-of-earners-in-the-1950s-paid-a-91-tax-rate-is-based-on-the-statutory-top-marg/

The high rates also triggered very high rates of (perfectly legal) tax avoidance, especially in the Hollywood community.

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nocera-tax-avoidance-20190129-story.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do well. I am not complaining and feel very fortunate to have two very good paying careers. But we just did our end of year tax analysis with our CPA and our effective tax rate when adding federal plus DC taxes is 45% (36% federal, 9% DC and DC is only "low" because a lot of our income is through a DC C-Corp which is taxes slightly lower at 8.5%).

45% of our income going to taxes. Nearly half of what we take home. And yes -- we are utilizing every single tax strategy under the sun available to us and work with a very good CPA.

So let's change the complaint from "tax the rich" to "tax the billionaires" because the regular rich are playing PLENTY in taxes already. Sigh.

1. Don't live in DC.
2. Nope.

-- someone who works in tax policy

“Nope”?

Great, glad our tax policy folks have such great arguments as to why people should be giving away half their income in taxes. I feel a lot better now.

Actually you should be contributing 92% at the top bracket, the way you would have in the early Eisenhower administration. When America was “great”!

-Historian of tax policy

Eisenhower was a communist.

Of course—notoriously so. ALL the suckers and losers who won WWII were.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do well. I am not complaining and feel very fortunate to have two very good paying careers. But we just did our end of year tax analysis with our CPA and our effective tax rate when adding federal plus DC taxes is 45% (36% federal, 9% DC and DC is only "low" because a lot of our income is through a DC C-Corp which is taxes slightly lower at 8.5%).

45% of our income going to taxes. Nearly half of what we take home. And yes -- we are utilizing every single tax strategy under the sun available to us and work with a very good CPA.

So let's change the complaint from "tax the rich" to "tax the billionaires" because the regular rich are playing PLENTY in taxes already. Sigh.

1. Don't live in DC.
2. Nope.

-- someone who works in tax policy

“Nope”?

Great, glad our tax policy folks have such great arguments as to why people should be giving away half their income in taxes. I feel a lot better now.

Actually you should be contributing 92% at the top bracket, the way you would have in the early Eisenhower administration. When America was “great”!

-Historian of tax policy

Eisenhower was a communist.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do well. I am not complaining and feel very fortunate to have two very good paying careers. But we just did our end of year tax analysis with our CPA and our effective tax rate when adding federal plus DC taxes is 45% (36% federal, 9% DC and DC is only "low" because a lot of our income is through a DC C-Corp which is taxes slightly lower at 8.5%).

45% of our income going to taxes. Nearly half of what we take home. And yes -- we are utilizing every single tax strategy under the sun available to us and work with a very good CPA.

So let's change the complaint from "tax the rich" to "tax the billionaires" because the regular rich are playing PLENTY in taxes already. Sigh.

1. Don't live in DC.
2. Nope.

-- someone who works in tax policy

“Nope”?

Great, glad our tax policy folks have such great arguments as to why people should be giving away half their income in taxes. I feel a lot better now.

Actually you should be contributing 92% at the top bracket, the way you would have in the early Eisenhower administration. When America was “great”!

-Historian of tax policy

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing income is stupid if you don’t touch wealth.

What they should be doing is this: Reduce income taxes on the middle and UMC. Top income bracket should still be ~50% but that shouldn’t start until well over $1M/year.

Make up for this by getting rid of the long term capital gains rate, and make it impossible to borrow against your assets to avoid triggering a taxable event (at least tax the hell out of this).

People who are sitting on capital, not working an honest 9-5 for their money, should pay for it.

Tax then hell out of second, third, and fourth homes as well. Property taxes should be in excess of 3% for anyone owning multiple houses.

Why should my taxes be HIGHER for a 2nd home? If anything, I'm not using the resources 100% of the time in the area, so I'm already paying "extra". But you don't get to charge people more for how many homes they own (most don't own more than 2)

You don’t get to charge people more for how many they own, yeah that’s my point. We should do that. It would fix a lot of the problems in our society if more people stuck to owning a single house and you didn’t have all these institutions treating housing like an investment. People who underutilize housing should pay much extra for the privilege of doing so. If you’re wealthy enough to own multiple properties while most young people can’t even own one, you should be able to afford higher property taxes.

nope, nope nope!

We don't live in a socialist/communist society. I own two homes. I already pay full taxes on both, despite only being able to take advantage of one at a time. I only used one for schools, so I'm contributing fully but never using the other's school system (I don't mind). For us it's not an "investment" it's a desire to have one place in the city and one in a more relaxed/rural area. Also, there would be easy ways to get around it. We would just have 2 different LLCs and put a home in each one. Then we would only "own" one place legally.

Also, neither of my homes would be something someone could purchase if they were struggling to own a home. Not at all.

You probably don't pay full taxes on both. You're only paying income taxes one place. And you're not paying the full amount in either place, since you're splitting your time and purchases between locations.

State does not have income tax, both homes are in same state (within 1 hour), so I pay full property taxes in both, I spend at both to maintain both properties (I maintain even if I am not physically present as that is the smart way to do it). But yes I do split my "local purchases" between the two. However, I spend more in both places than the average person spends in an entire year, so I'm fully contributing.

That'swhat you are failing to see, that it's the higher income people who actually spend $$$. We contribute far more than most. Full property taxes, yet don't use those services much as we are split between the two and don't have kids in school anymore, so that is what 60% of taxes are used for.

My ex BIL and SIL decided it would be a super idea to buy two vacation homes, one in a winter place and one in a summer place, and collect the timeshare income against maintenance.

I remember SIL telling me "they had done the math" and only needed to rent out the properties for X weeks to make X mortgage. And that would pay for college.

They have all college kids now, they still own the properties, none got sold, Grandparents are paying for college for all of them. Also my ex had to give his brother 100K a few year ago straight up.

GREAT FINANCIAL PLAN

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing income is stupid if you don’t touch wealth.

What they should be doing is this: Reduce income taxes on the middle and UMC. Top income bracket should still be ~50% but that shouldn’t start until well over $1M/year.

Make up for this by getting rid of the long term capital gains rate, and make it impossible to borrow against your assets to avoid triggering a taxable event (at least tax the hell out of this).

People who are sitting on capital, not working an honest 9-5 for their money, should pay for it.

Tax then hell out of second, third, and fourth homes as well. Property taxes should be in excess of 3% for anyone owning multiple houses.

Why should my taxes be HIGHER for a 2nd home? If anything, I'm not using the resources 100% of the time in the area, so I'm already paying "extra". But you don't get to charge people more for how many homes they own (most don't own more than 2)

You don’t get to charge people more for how many they own, yeah that’s my point. We should do that. It would fix a lot of the problems in our society if more people stuck to owning a single house and you didn’t have all these institutions treating housing like an investment. People who underutilize housing should pay much extra for the privilege of doing so. If you’re wealthy enough to own multiple properties while most young people can’t even own one, you should be able to afford higher property taxes.

nope, nope nope!

We don't live in a socialist/communist society. I own two homes. I already pay full taxes on both, despite only being able to take advantage of one at a time. I only used one for schools, so I'm contributing fully but never using the other's school system (I don't mind). For us it's not an "investment" it's a desire to have one place in the city and one in a more relaxed/rural area. Also, there would be easy ways to get around it. We would just have 2 different LLCs and put a home in each one. Then we would only "own" one place legally.

Also, neither of my homes would be something someone could purchase if they were struggling to own a home. Not at all.

You probably don't pay full taxes on both. You're only paying income taxes one place. And you're not paying the full amount in either place, since you're splitting your time and purchases between locations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing income is stupid if you don’t touch wealth.

What they should be doing is this: Reduce income taxes on the middle and UMC. Top income bracket should still be ~50% but that shouldn’t start until well over $1M/year.

Make up for this by getting rid of the long term capital gains rate, and make it impossible to borrow against your assets to avoid triggering a taxable event (at least tax the hell out of this).

People who are sitting on capital, not working an honest 9-5 for their money, should pay for it.

Tax then hell out of second, third, and fourth homes as well. Property taxes should be in excess of 3% for anyone owning multiple houses.

Why should my taxes be HIGHER for a 2nd home? If anything, I'm not using the resources 100% of the time in the area, so I'm already paying "extra". But you don't get to charge people more for how many homes they own (most don't own more than 2)

You don’t get to charge people more for how many they own, yeah that’s my point. We should do that. It would fix a lot of the problems in our society if more people stuck to owning a single house and you didn’t have all these institutions treating housing like an investment. People who underutilize housing should pay much extra for the privilege of doing so. If you’re wealthy enough to own multiple properties while most young people can’t even own one, you should be able to afford higher property taxes.

nope, nope nope!

We don't live in a socialist/communist society. I own two homes. I already pay full taxes on both, despite only being able to take advantage of one at a time. I only used one for schools, so I'm contributing fully but never using the other's school system (I don't mind). For us it's not an "investment" it's a desire to have one place in the city and one in a more relaxed/rural area. Also, there would be easy ways to get around it. We would just have 2 different LLCs and put a home in each one. Then we would only "own" one place legally.

Also, neither of my homes would be something someone could purchase if they were struggling to own a home. Not at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing income is stupid if you don’t touch wealth.

What they should be doing is this: Reduce income taxes on the middle and UMC. Top income bracket should still be ~50% but that shouldn’t start until well over $1M/year.

Make up for this by getting rid of the long term capital gains rate, and make it impossible to borrow against your assets to avoid triggering a taxable event (at least tax the hell out of this).

People who are sitting on capital, not working an honest 9-5 for their money, should pay for it.

Tax then hell out of second, third, and fourth homes as well. Property taxes should be in excess of 3% for anyone owning multiple houses.

Why should my taxes be HIGHER for a 2nd home? If anything, I'm not using the resources 100% of the time in the area, so I'm already paying "extra". But you don't get to charge people more for how many homes they own (most don't own more than 2)

You don’t get to charge people more for how many they own, yeah that’s my point. We should do that. It would fix a lot of the problems in our society if more people stuck to owning a single house and you didn’t have all these institutions treating housing like an investment. People who underutilize housing should pay much extra for the privilege of doing so. If you’re wealthy enough to own multiple properties while most young people can’t even own one, you should be able to afford higher property taxes.