Stop allowing republicans to play with our toys!

[drivemusicnow]

Originally Posted by sicksubie

So, punish the wealthy for becoming wealthy?

So you don't agree with the current tax structure (which is a sliding scale, with the rich paying a higher percentage than the poor)

You also wouldn't agree with a sales tax based taxation, as that would mean the people who buy million dollar homes pay more in taxes than people who buy hundred thousand dollar homes. (percentage wise)

You're not going to get a "straight" tax of 12% to everyone. That isn't fair, nor logical. Are you going to tax someone who barely makes enough to live off of ($15k a year lets say) the same percentage of their income as you are someone who earns 30 million a year? No, because the cost of living is similar in both cases.

The problem with a sales tax, is that it would probably make people spend less in general. This is bad for the economy, as you would directly see the tax on all of your purchases, rather than just "not getting" money from their paycheck.

Either way, the current tax system is retarded, but the IRS isn't going to make themselves go away. The ability for change in this nation has become so stagnant that the only people who can incur changes are extremists on both ends of the scale. Common sense loses out to screaming retards.

[WGJ]

"Either way, the current tax system is retarded, but the IRS isn't going to make themselves go away. The ability for change in this nation has become so stagnant that the only people who can incur changes are extremists on both ends of the scale. Common sense loses out to screaming retards."

The truth of this comment makes my heart ache. You may have read in my previous post of the enormity of the tax code...it's actually only 30,000 not 60,000 pages. So what? We're the ADD society. So busy trying to make a good living, take care of our families, be good parents, etc etc. Who the hell has time to do all that and read the tax code?
More important, why do our representatives in the Republican Congress pass tax laws that give Big Oil a $12 BILLION tax break or that allows people making $26 MILLION a yr. a break of $500,000 a yr for the last three years? Buy a Hummer for your business and write half of the price off first year of ownership! Who is standing up for the middle class? What will it take to get a simplified, rational tax code?
WGJ

[WGJ]

of an extremely accurate article on the Tax, this will save you the time it would take to read and analyze all the GAO reports:

The Corporate Tax Dodge

by Cassandra Q. Butts
April 10, 2004


The news that more than 60 percent of U.S. corporations failed to pay
any federal taxes from 1996 through 2000 when corporate profits were
soaring and that corporate tax receipts had fallen to just 7.4 percent of overall federal tax revenue in 2003 – the lowest since 1983 and the
second-lowest rate since 1934 – is an outrage. But it should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to national tax policy over the past few years. The General Accounting Office (GAO) report also found that an astonishing 94 percent of corporations reported tax liability of less
than 5 percent of their total income during the same time period. Corporate
tax dodging has gone on for far too long. But the policies of the Bush
administration have exacerbated the problem by furthering the culture
of tax avoidance by big corporations and creating a pervasive unfairness in
our tax code.

WGJ

[WGJ]

read it and weep...especially if you voted for Bush. That means you did this to yourself...

http://www.americanprogress.org/site...RJ8OVF&b=45142

You have my sympathy...Bush fooled a lot of people.
WGJ

[lhopp77]

Originally Posted by WGJ

read it and weep...especially if you voted for Bush. That means you did this to yourself...

http://www.americanprogress.org/site...RJ8OVF&b=45142

You have my sympathy...Bush fooled a lot of people.
WGJ

Talk about an extreme far left liberal site. I don't know how you have the nerve to quote this site as an authority on things and yet disparage FOX for being slanted when they are in fact pretty fair and balanced.

I will say it again---I would like a link to the GAO REPORT---not some far left liberals interpretation of excerpts taken out of context.

YOU have MY sympathy for being so easily fooled.

Lee

[WGJ]

Like I said the GAO report was NATIONAL NEWS. If you'd ever even seen a GAO report you'd know better than to ask to see it...hundreds of pages long. And obviously these people LIED LIKE HELL with all those easily verified facts. Perhaps you could find a "right wing" rebuttal, if there was one but there isn't. Sorry you were subjected to having to read what a monumental screw up your boy Bush is but the organisation that wrote the report is progressive in that they advocate a new equitable tax code. How about disputting some FACTS instead of the usual Replublican "attack the messenger" crap. Show me that the Gov's collecting taxes from big business, show me we weren't 311 plus BILLION short collecting from big business. The list of Bush gov't screwups is as long as my arm, the underfunding of tax collection is just one of the lesser known aspects of Bush gov't ineptitude and incompetence.
Get real, do some homework and try to rebutt this 2 yr. old report:

While the more recent corporate tax shortfalls may reflect a weaker economy at the beginning of 21st century, much of it can be attributed to both the Bush administration's corporate tax cuts enacted in 2002 and 2003 and the loopholes in the tax code that have allowed corporations to shelter income offshore. The 2002 and 2003, tax bills cost $177 billion in corporate tax breaks in fiscal years 2002 through 2005, $44 billion in 2002, $53 billion in 2003, $64 billion in 2004 and $16 billion in 2005 (all figures estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation). Estimates of the cost of corporate tax loopholes have been projected at upwards of $50 billion a year, according to Citizens for Tax Justice.

Obviously Citizens for Tax Justice is a bunch left wing loonies. How would one ever verify these figures? They just made them up to make Bush look bad!

OK so explain this, (Of course we may be waiting some time for a rebuttal based on facts, because this is accurate, LOOK UP THE REFERENCES YOURSELF!):

The Bush administration's responsibility for furthering corporate tax avoidance also extends to its underfunding of tax enforcement at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). In 2003, an underfunded IRS pursued only 18 percent of the abusive tax shelter cases uncovered by IRS agents. As recently as March 30, the IRS Oversight Board released a special report imploring Congress to go beyond the president's 2005 budget request of a 4.6 percent increase in funding for IRS and detailing what it identified as a consistent underfunding of tax enforcement activities during the Bush administration. Despite the 4.6 percent increase, the report found that IRS's enforcement capability would still continue to decrease for the fourth year in a row because the increase inexplicably ignored $230 million in expected cost increases related to pay raises and other required expenses. The report also found that the Bush budget for the IRS would lead to about a half-million unresolved delinquent tax cases and create a national tax gap of $311 billion or 65 percent of the projected 2004 budget deficit.

From the web site of the California Franhisce Tax Board:
As noted above, experts define the tax gap as the difference between what taxpayers owe and what they voluntarily pay. As of 2001, the IRS estimates the national tax gap to be over $310 billion.

I know, the California Franchise Tax Board is also a radical left wing group...

And last but not least, from those crazy lefties over at the IRS, taken directly from the IRS web site:

New IRS Study Provides Preliminary Tax Gap Estimate

IR-2005-38, March 29, 2005
WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service released preliminary results today from a major research project assessing compliance with the tax laws. The study reveals the vast majority of American taxpayers pay their taxes timely and accurately, but the nation still has a significant tax gap.
The preliminary findings show the gross tax gap — which is the difference between what taxpayers should pay and what they actually pay on a timely basis — exceeds $300 billion per year. The results indicate the nation’s tax gap increased slightly to between $312 billion and $353 billion in tax year 2001. This compares to the old tax gap estimate for 2001 of $311 billion based on earlier studies.
(Gosh, what studies were those?)


The people that got fooled voted for Bush, but we're all getting ripped off.
Thank you and goodnight,
WGJ

[Electrophil]

Originally Posted by lhopp77

Talk about an extreme far left liberal site. I don't know how you have the nerve to quote this site as an authority on things and yet disparage FOX for being slanted when they are in fact pretty fair and balanced.

I will say it again---I would like a link to the GAO REPORT---not some far left liberals interpretation of excerpts taken out of context.

YOU have MY sympathy for being so easily fooled.

Lee

Lee, you crack me up. I really enjoy your threads. I think you are completely full of shinola, and don't believe a word of your crap, but I sure do enjoy it.

Fox is about as fair and balanced as the present administration. It's a puppet mouthpiece, and you know it is. You know it!!

[lhopp77]

Originally Posted by WGJ

Like I said the GAO report was NATIONAL NEWS. If you'd ever even seen a GAO report you'd know better than to ask to see it...hundreds of pages long.

LOL--you did not read my post earlier when I asked for the report. Have I ever seen one??? Well, have you ever been in an agency that was the SUBJECT of one of these GAO investigative actions? I have been in several and am very much aware of how convoluted they are, how they go about doing the investigation, what their motivations are, and how misleading some of the findings can be because of the preceding factors. I am not saying that they are always wrong, but you need to fully understand the area they are looking at before you make a final judgement on the credibilty of the findings. They JUSTIFY their very existence and staffing levels by FINDING supposed problems. I do not even attempt to say that their data is incorrect. The figures will normally be accurate, but the relationships are not necessarily true or a result of cause and effect. If I feel like getting into a long drawn out explanation, I will give you a specific example of first hand experience.

A real short example is the $700 pliers that the Air Force purchased quite a few years ago. They did a scathing report on excessive costs based on materials and manufacturing process costs. Seems ok---right?? And that was all that was reported. What was not mentioned was how the budget system really worked relating to items purchased and research and development costs. The Air Force had to have pliers that were TOTALLY non sparking from either friction sparks or static electricity sparks to be used in refueling aircraft with potential lethal results from ANY sparks. Materials had to be researched and pliers specifically designed for the needs. Needless to say R&D is not free. After the research was done and design was complete--only a few (less than 100) were needed for the 5 year budget cycle. Law requires the military to amortize R&D costs over the first production runs--normally the 5 year cycle. The pliers actually cost less than $100 (which seems expensive but the alloy used was very special and expensive) while the R&D costs were spread over the small production run making the cost appear to be $700. So GAO investigator (inexperienced and lacking total knowledge of the laws and R&D/production system) wrote the AF up for "wasting" $600 for every pair purchased.

I could give you several first hand knowledge examples of the same thing.

Lee

[lhopp77]

Originally Posted by Electrophil

Fox is about as fair and balanced as the present administration. It's a puppet mouthpiece, and you know it is. You know it!!

Robert, I challenge you to the same thing as I did WGJ. Do a survey of say 3 hours of any station you choose on hard news reporting and compare it with FOX. (I don't consider Greta hard reporting or even important topics presented on her show) Show the topic AND who the guests were representing both sides of the issue. Fox WILL have both sides represented---the other station will RARELY have both sides represented.

Like I said--give this task to any 12 year old and you will be surprised at the results--no I take that back--you will not be surprised--you already know it but will not admit it.

You crack me up to that you totally deny reality. I argue with you here because you are so hard head and blatantly blind liberal. I am actually much more realistic and openminded than you assume me to be.

Lee

[WGJ]

Fox even comes anywhere near "balanced". Hello? Who's the new White House Press Secretary? WERE'D HE USED TO WORK?
Still awaiting for rebuttal of tax gap...
WGJ

[lhopp77]

Originally Posted by WGJ

of an extremely accurate article on the Tax, this will save you the time it would take to read and analyze all the GAO reports:

The Corporate Tax Dodge

by Cassandra Q. Butts
April 10, 2004


The news that more than 60 percent of U.S. corporations failed to pay
any federal taxes from 1996 through 2000 when corporate profits were
soaring and that corporate tax receipts had fallen to just 7.4 percent of overall federal tax revenue in 2003 – the lowest since 1983 and the
second-lowest rate since 1934 – is an outrage. But it should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to national tax policy over the past few years. The General Accounting Office (GAO) report also found that an astonishing 94 percent of corporations reported tax liability of less
than 5 percent of their total income during the same time period. Corporate
tax dodging has gone on for far too long. But the policies of the Bush
administration have exacerbated the problem by furthering the culture
of tax avoidance by big corporations and creating a pervasive unfairness in
our tax code.

WGJ

In the first place---weren't 1996-2000 Clinton years??

Do some research and see how many corporations fold the first two years of their existence and NEVER make any profits or pay taxes, of course.

Does the 94 percent encompass all corporations INCLUDING the ones that fold or is it only the ongoing profitable corporations. It can be meaningless unless we know what the 94 percent represents.

7.4 percent of total tax revenue by 2003---give us the actual percentages by all years so we can truly see if this is a significant figure.

Tax liabilities of less than 5 percent of revenues? Is this surprising? The IRS can audit them at any time to determine validity of the taxes---it does not necessarily mean that they are not paying all taxes due

Remember that IRS is a huge agency that is NOT controlled by the President.
In my opinion it should be abolished and a consumption tax instituted.

For a current example---are you aware that with the "HUGE PROFITS" currently reported by Exxon that it is only 10 percent of total revenues. Not a huge profit margin--would you agree?

Just what is the proof of the writers "huge tax avoidance" statement other than her own opinion.

Get real WGJ----HOW IN THE HELL IS THIS "AN EXTREMELY ACCURATE" tax report. I agree that the figures might be very accurate, but the result and cause and effect are total speculation and based on opinion--not fact.

Lee

[WGJ]

"But the policies of the Bush administration have exacerbated the problem by furthering the culture of tax avoidance by big corporations and creating a pervasive unfairness in our tax code."

Now for validation from those "dummies" at the IRS who amazingly use the SAME figures:

The results indicate the nation’s tax gap increased slightly to between $312 billion and $353 billion in tax year 2001. This compares to the old tax gap estimate for 2001 of $311 billion based on earlier studies.

Your "Dummy" was "Preznit" in 2001 wasn't he? And, unfortunately still is, right?

WGJ

[lhopp77]

Originally Posted by WGJ

"But the policies of the Bush administration have exacerbated the problem by furthering the culture of tax avoidance by big corporations and creating a pervasive unfairness in our tax code."

Now for validation from those "dummies" at the IRS who amazingly use the SAME figures:

The results indicate the nation’s tax gap increased slightly to between $312 billion and $353 billion in tax year 2001. This compares to the old tax gap estimate for 2001 of $311 billion based on earlier studies.

Your "Dummy" was "Preznit" in 2001 wasn't he? And, unfortunately still is, right?

WGJ

Cheez---you have to think what was going on for tax year 2001.

For the record--yes, Bush was elected in 2000, sworn in-Jan 2001, 9/11 catastrophy 9/11/01.

Remember the DOT.com bubble burst in 2000. The national economic boom of the 90s came to a halt in 2000 and 2001. Six of the eight quarters for those two years saw a real GDP growth of less than three percent with three of the six quarters showing negative growth. The economy began slowly to improve in November 2001 forward.

Also remember that nearly 300,000 jobs were lost in New York due to 9/11 and nearly 2 million nationwide as a result of 9/11. None of this can be blamed on Bush, but IT DEFINITELY HAD A MAJOR IMPACT ON CORPORATE EARNINGS AND TAXES PAID as shown in your article.

Think man-----don't just take some liberals opinion and figures (even though correct) as gospel. Cause and effect----not as the liberal author implies.

Lee

[Electrophil]

Originally Posted by lhopp77

Robert, I challenge you to the same thing as I did WGJ. Do a survey of say 3 hours of any station you choose on hard news reporting and compare it with FOX. (I don't consider Greta hard reporting or even important topics presented on her show) Show the topic AND who the guests were representing both sides of the issue. Fox WILL have both sides represented---the other station will RARELY have both sides represented.

Like I said--give this task to any 12 year old and you will be surprised at the results--no I take that back--you will not be surprised--you already know it but will not admit it.

You crack me up to that you totally deny reality. I argue with you here because you are so hard head and blatantly blind liberal. I am actually much more realistic and openminded than you assume me to be.

Lee

I'm going to take you up on your challenge, and if wrong, I will openly admit it. It will take some time, for I have a lot of honey-do's I have to get done, work, etc... but if this thread is dead by then, I'll start another or ..(heh.. hijack one )

Even though I'm fully sure of the outcome, I will still be totally objective and document with facts, and let the chips fall where they are.

It still doesn't change the fact that Bush IS responsible for his failures, and should be held accountable. That monkey needs to go to jail.

[WGJ]

lhopp77 et al,
Your position that 2001 is an exceptional year because of 9/11 does not hold up to scrutiny. Here is a direct quote from the IRS abstract Titled:

Actions*GAO-06-453T**February 15, 2006
Highlights-PDF PDF Accessible Text

"The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) most recent estimate of the difference between what taxpayers timely and accurately paid in taxes and what they owed was $345 billion.
Underreporting of income by businesses and individuals accounted for most of the estimated $345 billion tax gap for 2001, with individual income tax underreporting alone accounting for $197 billion, or over half of the total gap. Corporate income tax and employment tax underreporting accounted for an additional $84 billion of the gap. Reducing the tax gap would help improve fiscal sustainability."

Intrestingly, there is no mention of an economic impact on taxes because of 9/11. I thought it a good point but nowhere in anything I've read ( numerous GAO and IRS reports) is 9/11 mentioned. That's just a red herring. Please note the term used is 'underreporting' and nothing about lost income due to 9/11.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE GAO WEBSITE AND TAX GAP ABSTRACT:

http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/summary...T&accno=A46959

So Bush is leaving BILLIONS uncollected and apparently is only now starting to increase the IRS's budget so they can enforce the (insane) tax code. There is more than one mention in both the GAO and IRS reports that a simplified code would improve compliance.

In addition to the red herring fallacy please try avoid these in future:

Plurium interrogationum / Many questions
This fallacy occurs when someone demands a simple (or simplistic)
answer to a complex question.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc:
The fallacy of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc occurs when something is
assumed to be the cause of an event merely because it happened before that event.
For example: The position that 9/11 was a factor in the 2001 tax gap
study. This was also a red herring.

WGJ