Anonymous wrote:Interesting fact: the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes in this country

Another Interesting fact: the bottom 50% pay 0% of the taxes in this country

Anonymous wrote:So Trump is like 75,000,000 other Americans who pay no income taxes.



As a CPA I can professionally tell everyone here that >99% of DCUMers have absolutely no idea how business or high wealth taxes work, yet will jump to whatever conclusions they see fit.

Look at amazon as an example. Every letter to shareholders they advocate for “maximizing the present value of future cash flows” (if you don’t know what that means you have no hope of understanding Trump's tax returns).

Ultimately it is a strategy to reinvest cash flows into future earning potential to avoid paying income taxes. Amazon as a company had negative net income but was still worth hundreds of billions of dollars due to generating massive future free cash flow.

At some level, if you have positive net income as a business, you don’t know what to do with your money and are happy to waste some on tax. That sums up trumps tax returns - he doesn’t want to waste any money paying taxes.

Reading New York Times attempt to analyze trumps tax returns is like reading a toddler try to interpret Benjamin Graham. NYT's hack job is pure cringe worthy. They aren’t even consistent on how they talk about depreciation and never even mention what free cash flow even is.

To all the democrats out there - this ain’t it chief. Of course this will never get brought to light with a free and fair counter argument published in the NYT, because discussing gritty aspects of the US tax code is a snooze fest. Gotta sell the hyperbole and outrageous headlines.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting fact: the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes in this country

Another Interesting fact: the bottom 50% pay 0% of the taxes in this country

So that makes Trump in the bottom 50%

Yes, because he’s broke. Fake Billionaire. Told ya!! That’s why he was hiding his taxes, not even for the crimes or hiding that he didn’t pay any for years. He’s embarrassed that he’s broke as a joke. Loser.

Anonymous wrote:I could care less about Trump's taxes as an individual. But I love what he has done for us.

Anonymous wrote:Interesting fact: the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes in this country

Another Interesting fact: the bottom 50% pay 0% of the taxes in this country

https://theintercept.com/2019/04/13/tax-day-taxes-statistics/

The bottom 50 percent of Americans pay just 3 percent of federal income taxes. That’s less than the top 0.001 percent — just 1,400 taxpayers or so — who pay a bit over 3 percent of all federal income taxes.

Liberals see these numbers and think: This can’t possibly be right. Yet it is. All of the above is completely accurate.

Conservatives love these numbers, because the implication is clear: The libs want to soak the rich, but the rich are already soaking wet. And now fringe extremists like like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want the government’s grasping hand to take even more from the heroic job creators who are generously supporting the rest of us!

So what’s going on here?

The answer: This is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. It’s shameless but effective propaganda, which is why the people with the most to gain from it pay propagandists to spread it widely. Anyone pushing this is trying to fool you, and you should ignore anything they say on any subject.

There are two main aspects to the deception.

First, these numbers refer only to federal income taxes. Both the federal and the income part are important.

The income tax is not the only tax collected by the federal government — far from it. Just half of the taxes collected by the federal government come from the income tax. About a third come from payroll taxes — which fall much more heavily on working people, since they’re largely levied only on the first $130,000 or so of earned income.

This means the rich pay a far lower payroll tax rate than regular people. A nurse making a salary of $50,000 per year pays (counting both the employee and employer side) 12.4 percent in OASDI taxes (for Social Security and disability insurance). But a sitcom star making a thousand times that, or $50 million a year, will pay the 12.4 percent only on the initial $130,000 of their salary, working out to a total OASDI tax rate of just 0.03 percent on their $50 million. And because OASDI taxes are only levied on earned income — meaning, money you make from a job — a billionaire investor with a $50 million annual income from dividends and capital gains will pay exactly zero percent in OASDI taxes.

Then there’s the fact that it’s not just the federal government that taxes Americans. There are also many, many state and local taxes: State income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, and more. Some of these, such as sales taxes, are actually regressive — i.e., the less money you make, the higher tax rate you have to pay.

Second, the wealthy naturally pay a disproportionate share of federal income taxes because they make a disproportionate share of the country’s income. In other words, these numbers to some degree demonstrate exactly the opposite of what those who use them claim: They’re not an indication that the superrich are beleaguered, but are in part a sign of America’s staggering wealth inequality.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting fact: the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes in this country

Another Interesting fact: the bottom 50% pay 0% of the taxes in this country

So that makes Trump in the bottom 50%

Yes, because he’s broke. Fake Billionaire. Told ya!! That’s why he was hiding his taxes, not even for the crimes or hiding that he didn’t pay any for years. He’s embarrassed that he’s broke as a joke. Loser.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting fact: the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes in this country

Another Interesting fact: the bottom 50% pay 0% of the taxes in this country

So that makes Trump in the bottom 50%

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Anonymous wrote:For everyone saying this is all totally legal and normal (which is far from evidence and you know it), there is still a big problem here, which is that teachers and nurses and construction workers shouldn’t be paying ten times more in races every year than a purported billionaire. If Trump really cared about the American people, his tax law would have been focused on closing loopholes and easing the burden on middle income Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, rather than further enriching himself at their expense.

Cheer for him all you want, but don’t fool yourself for a minute that he cares about you. He thinks of you all as useful idiots, nothing more.

+1
The "accountants" on this thread are either too in the weeds to see the big picture, or are desperate Trump supporters.

Don't democrats value the opinion of experts? Imagine if someone said that climate scientists are too in the weeds to see the big picture, or are desperate Democratic supporters.

Sorry, are you saying Trump doesn't pay a tiny fraction in income taxes of what teachers, nurses and construction workers pay? Please give me your expert opinion. I'm just a lay person so I don't know if I can understand this fundamental point.

If you admit to being ignorant, then perhaps be a little more modest and less accusatory towards people who know more than you on the subject matter. No one is saying everything that Trump has done with regards to taxes is perfectly fine - just that we don't have enough information to conclude one way or another. It is common and normal for wealthy people, especially those in real estate investments, to use depreciation and other mechanisms to lower/manage their present tax payments. This does *NOT* absolve them from the need to pay taxes on gains, just delay them to future years. The mere fact that Trump paid little to no taxes in two years says *NOTHING* about how much taxes he will eventually have to pay on those gains. This is like a climate change denier pointing to two cold winters and saying "aha! see! there is no global warming!"

The tax will be due, sooner or later. Trump can only delay it. The only escape is death, but that's another topic.

Anonymous wrote:Interesting fact: the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes in this country

Another Interesting fact: the bottom 50% pay 0% of the taxes in this country

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could care less about Trump's taxes as an individual. But I love what he has done for us.

What concrete things has he done for us?

Owned the libs.

He's not rich enough to own the libs.

Anonymous wrote:Interesting fact: the top 10% pay 90% of the taxes in this country

Another Interesting fact: the bottom 50% pay 0% of the taxes in this country

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For everyone saying this is all totally legal and normal (which is far from evidence and you know it), there is still a big problem here, which is that teachers and nurses and construction workers shouldn’t be paying ten times more in races every year than a purported billionaire. If Trump really cared about the American people, his tax law would have been focused on closing loopholes and easing the burden on middle income Americans who are struggling to make ends meet, rather than further enriching himself at their expense.

Cheer for him all you want, but don’t fool yourself for a minute that he cares about you. He thinks of you all as useful idiots, nothing more.

+1
The "accountants" on this thread are either too in the weeds to see the big picture, or are desperate Trump supporters.

Don't democrats value the opinion of experts? Imagine if someone said that climate scientists are too in the weeds to see the big picture, or are desperate Democratic supporters.

It would be weird if people were getting their information on climate science from anonymous posters on DCUM.

I don't think the PP's point was complaining about the anonymity of DCUM.

Oh that was definitely a big part of what I was saying. That's why I put "accountants" in quotes. Plenty of DCUMers like to your their credentials, but most readers are smart enough to take that with a grain of salt.

Think what you will, I don't speak for others but I myself am not here to look for your approval or acknowledgement. I'll share what I know and hope it help others come to a more informed opinion. You may choose to ignore facts and logic if you want to, it doesn't bother me.