Trump wants a tax break....

Bob001

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theprestige said:
This seems like the same criticism that gets leveled against every right wing administration's tax proposals. And probably several from the left as well.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.
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The accusation should be judged on it's specific merits, and not if it's been lain against others, no?
 
theprestige said:
This seems like the same criticism that gets leveled against every right wing administration's tax proposals. And probably several from the left as well.

ETA: Ah, here we are:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-obama-estatetax-idUSTRE6B664X20101207


https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/12/...-plan-would-spare-many-affluent-families.html

http://nypost.com/2014/10/12/obamas-4-trillion-gift-to-the-rich/
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Perhaps so. Perhaps many or most such plans benefit the wealthy more.

Does that mean that benefiting the wealthy disproportionately isn't a legitimate complaint about a given tax plan? Hell, maybe Obama's tax plan was ****. Maybe that was worth discussing at that time, but we're discussing the current one, aren't we?
 
theprestige said:
This seems like the same criticism that gets leveled against every right wing administration's tax proposals. And probably several from the left as well.
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Probably? You really think so?

If there's one thing which distinguishes left from right it's that the left favour progressive taxation while the right favour regressive taxation - ideally, no taxation on the rich at all because they buy everything they want and do such a great job creating the wealth which makes them rich. Which, of course, means the left are against wealth, but that's the left for you.

I don't think the left has ever suggested reducing inheritance tax, let alone eliminating it. The left is more likely to eliminate inheritance.
 
tyr_13 said:
The accusation should be judged on it's specific merits, and not if it's been lain against others, no?
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It's a question of level of effort. Do I really need to investigate the merits of every presidential tax plan? Especially against such a commonplace complaint?

Bob001 posted a bunch of headlines, but so what? Such headlines are a dime a dozen. If what we're seeing is the status quo, why should I care?

Tax law is decided by Congress, anyway.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.
 
theprestige said:
This seems like the same criticism that gets leveled against every right wing administration's tax proposals.
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In your own words, could you describe the specific criticism to which you are referring? I'd like to see just how far you're attempting to move the goal posts.
 
Trump tax plan for 'average Americans' would mainly help richest 1%, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/29/trump-tax-plan-benefit-richest-1-percent

Donald Trump’s “once-in-a-lifetime” plan to cut taxes for “average Americans” would mainly benefit the richest 1% and deliver only modest cuts for most US households, according to an independent analysis released on Friday.

Trump announced a radical overhaul of the US tax system on Wednesday, claiming the plan would bring relief to middle-class households. But according to a study released by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, the average cut to most households would be just $1,700 by 2027 – and one in four households would actually pay more tax.

Households making more than about $900,000 a year, however, would see their taxes drop by more than $200,000 on average.
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Typical Guardian sleight-of-hand : that's $200,000 over ten years, which is only $20,000 a year, which is like nothing when you're pulling that kind of wedge.

To the average hard-working family, $170 every Xmas makes all the difference.
 
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phiwum said:
Perhaps so. Perhaps many or most such plans benefit the wealthy more.

Does that mean that benefiting the wealthy disproportionately isn't a legitimate complaint about a given tax plan? Hell, maybe Obama's tax plan was ****. Maybe that was worth discussing at that time, but we're discussing the current one, aren't we?
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It's like the story of 'the boy who cried wolf', only there really was a wolf almost every time.

theprestige said:
It's a question of level of effort. Do I really need to investigate the merits of every presidential tax plan? Especially against such a commonplace complaint?

Bob001 posted a bunch of headlines, but so what? Such headlines are a dime a dozen. If what we're seeing is the status quo, why should I care?

Tax law is decided by Congress, anyway.

This signature is intended to irradiate people.
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In other words, you have no idea of the veracity of the claim, but choose to ignore it while stating that you choose to ignore it.

And those are links, not just headlines. The articles in them have reasoning and numbers to back up that reasoning.

And Congress is controlled by Trump's party.
 
Bob001 said:
Trump's tax plan, despited claims of his minions, would be mostly a gift to the richest, including himself.
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This is a lie. The president said his tax reform proposal -- and this is an exact quote -- "is not good for me. Believe me."
 
Cain said:
This is a lie. The president said his tax reform proposal -- and this is an exact quote -- "is not good for me. Believe me."
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Two possibilities:

1. Trump is telling the truth because he doesn't pay any taxes anyway, or

2. He will be seeing a lot more income but it will be exhausting for him to figure out how to spend it all. After you spend your first $100,000,000 in a year you have to be very creative to find anything else to buy. And then the next year you have to do it all over again. Do you think that's easy!?!
 
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Cain said:
This is a lie. The president said his tax reform proposal -- and this is an exact quote -- "is not good for me. Believe me."
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“Believe me” is a sure sign 45 is telling the truth. He is the hardest working, most honest, healthiest, most popular, largest crowd gathering man ever to hold office, after all.
 
TheSupermeerkat said:
“Believe me” is a sure sign 45 is telling the truth. He is the hardest working, most honest, healthiest, most popular, largest crowd gathering man ever to hold office, after all.
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You left out that he is the smartest guy in the room, has great words, the best ideas, hires the best people, will stay in the White House instead of going out to play golf like Obama, will fix healthcare his first day in office, and will release his taxes as soon as they aren't under audit.
 
Once again the Democrats are blowing an opportunity to frame the estate tax debate. The Republicans call it double taxation (supposedly income that has already been taxed) and the death tax, because painting it as evil sounds good.

In reality the vast majority of the time, inheritance, when one is rich, consists of a large proportion of untaxed capital gains. When the heirs sell those assets the basis for capital gains is zeroed out at the time the wealth is inherited. So were the assets to be cashed out before the rich person dies, there would almost certainly be a huge capital gain, and that would be subject to tax the way income is subject to tax (the rates differ).

But inherit those same assets and all that capital gain is simply passed on with a new valuation and any gain zeroed out. The deceased's capital gains taxes are cleared off the books.

Come on Democrats, let your legislators know you see through the ruse of the free pass on capital gains tax. One might think rich Democratic legislators are not interested in exposing the tax evasion for what it is, evasion of capital gains taxes. Maybe because they don't represent the 99% quite as enthusiastically as they pretend to.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Once again the Democrats are blowing an opportunity to frame the estate tax debate. The Republicans call it double taxation (supposedly income that has already been taxed) and the death tax, because painting it as evil sounds good.
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The Democrats lost the battle long ago when they allowed the Repubs to adopt the term "death tax," implying that whenever somebody dies, his family pays a tax. In fact, the inheritance tax exempts the first $5,400,000 of an estate from any tax, and that's after a variety of exemptions and exclusions. Only a tiny percentage of estates incur any tax. It's astonishing that so many ordinary working people are siding with the Repubs about "the death tax."
If an asset is left to a spouse or a federally recognized charity, the tax usually does not apply. In addition, a maximum amount, varying year by year, can be given by an individual, before and/or upon their death, without incurring federal gift or estate taxes:[2] $5,340,000 for estates of persons dying in 2014[3] and 2015,[4] $5,450,000 (effectively $10.90 million per married couple) for estates of persons dying in 2016.[5] Because of these exemptions, it is estimated that only the largest 0.2% of estates in the U.S. will pay the tax.[6]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estate_tax_in_the_United_States
 
Bob001 said:
The Democrats lost the battle long ago when they allowed the Repubs to adopt the term "death tax," implying that whenever somebody dies, his family pays a tax. ...
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Lost a battle is not losing the war. Here's a fresh battle coming up, reframing the argument starts with us spreading the message in the Progressive echo-chamber.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Once again the Democrats are blowing an opportunity to frame the estate tax debate. The Republicans call it double taxation (supposedly income that has already been taxed) and the death tax, because painting it as evil sounds good.

In reality the vast majority of the time, inheritance, when one is rich, consists of a large proportion of untaxed capital gains. When the heirs sell those assets the basis for capital gains is zeroed out at the time the wealth is inherited. So were the assets to be cashed out before the rich person dies, there would almost certainly be a huge capital gain, and that would be subject to tax the way income is subject to tax (the rates differ).

But inherit those same assets and all that capital gain is simply passed on with a new valuation and any gain zeroed out. The deceased's capital gains taxes are cleared off the books.
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The trouble is that explaining all of this requires people to listen to, and to understand somewhat complicated economic arguments - which also happen to run counter to their gut feel which is that they should be allowed to inherit all their parents' stuff without paying tax. OTOH "Death Tax" and "No Double Taxation" are easy soundbites and they absolutely align with today's selfish electorate where the questions are "what can be done for me ?" and "how little do I need to pay for it ?".

IMO the Democratic Party, or any political party who is attempting to get people to delay instant gratification and/or do something which may in part be for the benefit of someone else they don't personally know is fighting an uphill battle.
 
The Don said:
The trouble is that explaining all of this requires people to listen to, and to understand somewhat complicated economic arguments - which also happen to run counter to their gut feel which is that they should be allowed to inherit all their parents' stuff without paying tax. OTOH "Death Tax" and "No Double Taxation" are easy soundbites and they absolutely align with today's selfish electorate where the questions are "what can be done for me ?" and "how little do I need to pay for it ?".

IMO the Democratic Party, or any political party who is attempting to get people to delay instant gratification and/or do something which may in part be for the benefit of someone else they don't personally know is fighting an uphill battle.
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No! No no no, it doesn't require explaining.

Capital gains taxes are being avoided, that's it; it's not complicated.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
No! No no no, it doesn't require explaining.

Capital gains taxes are being avoided, that's it; it's not complicated.
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Sure it requires explaining....

Firstly they need to explain what capital gains are, and persuade people why capital gains should be taxed.

Then they need to explain to people how the process of inheriting avoids capital gains taxes.

You were able to do it very effectively in your post in a couple of paragraphs but here you are dealing with an audience who has some grasp of basic economics and the principles involved. In any case even your succinct explanation is ten times too long for the average member of the electorate who would get bored and/or distracted part way through the first sentence - at least IMO.

OTOH the GOP just has to say "Death Taxes = Bad !"
 
The Don said:
Sure it requires explaining....

Firstly they need to explain what capital gains are, and persuade people why capital gains should be taxed.

Then they need to explain to people how the process of inheriting avoids capital gains taxes.

You were able to do it very effectively in your post in a couple of paragraphs but here you are dealing with an audience who has some grasp of basic economics and the principles involved. In any case even your succinct explanation is ten times too long for the average member of the electorate who would get bored and/or distracted part way through the first sentence - at least IMO.

OTOH the GOP just has to say "Death Taxes = Bad !"
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Come on Don, just pass the word on, estate taxes are not on income that has been double taxed. Huge capital gains income has not been taxed.

It's not complicated.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Come on Don,
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Not may name and never has been....

Skeptic Ginger said:
just pass the word on, estate taxes are not on income that has been double taxed. Huge capital gains income has not been taxed.

It's not complicated.
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I know you don't think it's complicated, but there are a lot of people out there who don't know what a capital gain is or who do know, but think that that they shouldn't be taxed because it represents a tax on shrewd investment - one of the things that Made America GreatTM.

The first job of the Democratic Party, if they want to persuade people on inheritance taxes, is therefore to educate people about capital gains and why they should be subject to taxation. The next job will be to teach people why abolishing inheritance taxes would allow capital gains tax avoidance.

Many (most ?) people have never had to pay capital gains taxes and so IMO they don't "understand" it in the same way that they "understand" income or sales taxes.
 
CapelDodger said:
Trump tax plan for 'average Americans' would mainly help richest 1%, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/29/trump-tax-plan-benefit-richest-1-percent

Typical Guardian sleight-of-hand : that's $200,000 over ten years, which is only $20,000 a year, which is like nothing when you're pulling that kind of wedge.

To the average hard-working family, $170 every Xmas makes all the difference.
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At least their economic adviser Gary Cohn knows that with $1000 Americans can buy a new car or redo their kitchen

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/28/gary-cohn-says-1000-in-tax-savings-can-buy-a-family-a-car-kitchen.html
 
Why would Trump want a tax break?

Because money grubbing is the only game his limited imagination can conceive of, and an old dog can't learn new games anyhow?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
No! No no no, it doesn't require explaining.

Capital gains taxes are being avoided, that's it; it's not complicated.
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It's not even that complicated. Inheritance tax is the only tax the inheritors pay on their windfall, so there's no double taxation.

As for a death tax, if the government wants a piece of my death they're welcome to take all of it and I'll do without.
 
The Don said:
Not may name and never has been....



I know you don't think it's complicated, but there are a lot of people out there who don't know what a capital gain is or who do know, but think that that they shouldn't be taxed because it represents a tax on shrewd investment - one of the things that Made America GreatTM.

The first job of the Democratic Party, if they want to persuade people on inheritance taxes, is therefore to educate people about capital gains and why they should be subject to taxation. The next job will be to teach people why abolishing inheritance taxes would allow capital gains tax avoidance.

Many (most ?) people have never had to pay capital gains taxes and so IMO they don't "understand" it in the same way that they "understand" income or sales taxes.
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Sorry to leave "The" off your handle. :(

Narratives don't rely on complicated explanations, in fact you want messaging to be the opposite.

All one need say is, the double tax claim is a lie, the assets were not taxed before.

And, only a handful of small family businesses or family farms are impacted by the estate tax.

This is a windfall for rich kids, pure and simple.

Those are the messages. Who cares how many people don't understand capital gains? Those messages are truthful, unlike the counter messages which are out-right lies.
 
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thaiboxerken said:
And your point?

Republicans are always trying to get tax breaks for the wealthy.
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I humbly suggest that the Democrats should just invent their own pithy slogan. Instead of "Death Tax", call it the "Greedy Bastard Tax" or something...

You're welcome America.
 
Trump wants us to believe him that he would pay more under his tax plan. But we wouldn't have to believe him if he'd release his income tax information. If he's telling the truth, it should be easy to verify.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Sorry to leave "The" off your handle. :(
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No problem...

Skeptic Ginger said:
Narratives don't rely on complicated explanations, in fact you want messaging to be the opposite.
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You're right, but in this case the Democratic Party needs to shift the deeply held notion that the Death Tax is bad.

Skeptic Ginger said:
All one need say is, the double tax claim is a lie, the assets were not taxed before.
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It's a lie that a large proportion of the US electorate believes is true - even if they don't really understand about capital gains or inheritance tax. IMO those are the most difficult beliefs to shift because they've been created from nothing and don't require evidence to support.

It would be like trying to persuade someone to change religion based on a single, snappy catch phrase.

Skeptic Ginger said:
And, only a handful of small family businesses or family farms are impacted by the estate tax.
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This is a windfall for rich kids, pure and simple.[/QUOTE]

Factually true but that seems not to matter. In the US at least, it seems that being wealthy is something to be proud about and something to aspire to be (as opposed to, say, the UK where ostentatious wealth, and naked ambition is still frowned upon). Those 99% of people who have no risk of incurring inheritance taxes still think that there's a chance that they might.

The issue of inheritance taxes also seem to be very emotional. Here in the UK there's a similar discussion going on. Because of soaring house prices and the comparatively low threshold for inheritance taxes, a large single digit percentage of estates are now paying inheritance taxes.

The rhetoric on the anti- side is that people should be able to pass their houses onto their children without having to pay inheritance taxes. I find this argument disingenuous. If you've incurred inheritance taxes then it's likely that your family has already enjoyed the benefits of growing up in the top quintile. The image presented is of an elderly person passing on the "family home" to their child so that the grandchildren will have a place to grow up and remember gran/granddad fondly.

The likely truth is that the people doing the inheriting are in their 50's or 60's and already (a) comfortably off or (b) have ****** up their life and a slew of money will only help them **** it up better. It's likely that the house will be sold because all the children have their own houses (and associated mortgages) and no one sibling can afford to buy out the others.

The grandchildren are already in their 20's or 30's so all that's going to happen is that gran/granddad's house will go to fund the deposits on their own first homes pricing them out of the range of the rest.

There also seems to be a deep emotional resistance to inheritance taxes which IMO cannot easily be overcome by a simple slogan or catch phrase.

Skeptic Ginger said:
Those are the messages. Who cares how many people don't understand capital gains? Those messages are truthful, unlike the counter messages which are out-right lies.
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So ?

It seems that truth has little or no place in contemporary US (or UK) politics and people would rather believe a lie which aligns to their preconceived notions than a truth which challenges them.


Note: Inheritance tax is one of those things where this forum has caused me to perform a complete 180. I used to think that it was a bad thing but Darat in particular has persuaded me that the ability to inherit is one of those things most likely to make inequality worse.
 
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