Romney pays 15% taxes

Evo

Giving to a church that will grow rich off of most of it as opposed to giving to a charity that will use most of it for work that benefits society, yeah, I guess I don't consider giving money to super wealthy churches the same as giving to charity.

Why do you think we vote for people instead of running for office?

Pengwuino

The people at the bottom, as shown many times on this forum, pay next to nothing in federal taxes.

I find capital gains taxing a little stupid to be honest. It's money already taxed, it goes back out into the world to hopefully create some jobs by investment, comes back, gets re-taxed, goes back out, gets re-taxed, over and over and over. Hell, assuming these are long-term capital gains taxes, all these investments were something we should be praising in our society - long term investments, not day trading nonsense.

Evo

well, except that the bulk of his investments are in tax free Cayman Islands.

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_ne...eveal-and-omit

This isn't about risk taking or investing in US companies and stimulating the economy as some people in this thread have suggested, it's about tax shelters. I want to remind members that making false claims is a violation of the rules. In other words, before you make a claim, reasearch it and post a valid source.

Pengwuino

That's always been a fishy area, but I still find capital gains taxation to be stupid.

Evo

Yeah, but this is about Romney, not the average American.

And to members, let's not go off topic into a discussion of taxes unless it is about Romney.

And everyone needs to read the P&WA rules, which aren't being followed here by some members (not you Peng).

turbo

Romney should pay income taxes like the rest of use, regardless of how the income is derived. I'm all for a reduced-rate on capital gains, but only if the investment is held for a significant length of time, on a par with the length of time that normal Americans have to hold Savings Bonds.

obafgkmrns

Sounds like your actual pique is that Romney's rich, you're not, and you want the Government to rectify the situation.

Char. Limit

Uh-huh. You're gonna need a lot more evidence than that for your so-called "argument" to fly.

Evo

I haven't said anything like that. Not even a good attempt at a strawman fallacy based on what you quoted.

russ_watters

I don't think you really want to go down either of those roads, turbo:

First, if you're worried about people reducing their taxes via deductions increasing the burden on the rest, then you bring into play the 47% who bring their burden down to zero via deductions.

Second, this has nothing to do with separation of church and state. Romney's individual charity choice is his, not the government's.

russ_watters

I am in favor of closing this loophole for the rich (working age people who derive their income from capital gains), but don't trust liberals at all on the issue. Getting a clear definition of "rich" is like nailing jello to a wall: the 99% is the new buzzword, but I've never seen a tax proposal that didn't reach much further down in defining the "rich".

CAC1001

Most people pay SS and Medicare taxes on 100% of their income because those are systems that are supposed to be what you pay in, you get paid out. If they did this for very high incomes, then you'd get people who don't need SS or Medicare getting very large SS and Medicare payments, which wouldn't be too popular. If one makes the high-earners pay into SS and Medicare while putting a cap on how much in benefits they receive, then SS and Medicare become a de-facto welfare program, which opens up a whole other can of worms.

Isn't this over-generalizing though Evo? There are churches out there that use their donations to help the community and there are also some very rich, very money-grubbing charities out there. A lot of the money many charities raise gets poured into raising more money, not into helping anybody. The big charities have investment funds, engage in extensive marketing/campaigning/fundraising, and hire top-of-the-line CEOs to run them. For many charities, the goal is not to help anyone anymore but rather to self-perpetuate the charity.

rcgldr

Also there's a cap on social security, once you make a bit over $106,000 (USA), you stop paying any FICA (social security) taxes, a regressive tax bracket that goes from 6.25% (now 4.25% with tax cut) to 0%. Eliminating the FICA cap would greatly help the social security system from going bankrupt.

Other than IPOs, most of the money invested in the stock market just moves back and forth between investors. Occasionally companies will buy back their own stock to prop up stock prices; who gains when this is done? The only jobs created by most of this activity are related to the financial industry, like the brokers that make commisions off of stock trading.

Evo

That's why I was specific "churches that keep most of the money" meaning most of the money they collect does not go to charitable work, and "charities that give most back to benefit society", as opposed to the ones that keep most of it. For example, a church "charity" could fall into the category of giving most back to society. I apologize if I didn't make that clear. I knew what I was thinking.

CAC1001

Ahh, okay

russ_watters

So are you in favor of completely separating the pay-in from the pay-out? I wouln't imagine SS fans would be in favor of that, since eliminating the connection means people may not get back what they pay in....

...or do you just want to do that for the rich?

rcgldr

The study on this included two options. This is a quote from yahoo article (the orignal link is broke, but I saved the quote):

Modify the Social Security tax cap. Workers pay into the Social Security system on earnings up to $106,800 in 2010. About 83 percent of worker earnings were subject to Social Security payroll taxes in 2008. If all earned income above $106,800 annually were subject to Social Security contributions but did not count toward benefits, Social Security's projected deficit would be completely eliminated. If the higher income counted toward Social Security benefits, about 95 percent of the shortfall would be absolved. Other ideas: apply a new Social Security formula to earnings above the current cap or raise the amount of the income cap to apply to 90 percent of all worker earnings.