I think the best way to go about it is to get rid of deductions instead of Fing around with the rates. An individual or company pays whatever percent and that’s the end of it. 
 

Tax lawyers and accounts ins are smart enough to figure out getting a different job. 

I'm a poor who just took out a HELOC I guess 😢

1 minute ago, vikas83 said:

Capital gains are taxed, as are dividends and interest. If you're talking about people borrowing against assets instead of selling them, the issue is complicated -- if you pay taxes on that money, then do you get a refund when you pay it back? As an example, I have credit lines against my investments. If I borrow $1mm on the line, and pay $230k in federal taxes under your plan, then when I pay back the $1mm (either voluntarily or when I sell the underlying collateral), do I get the $230k back? You could give a credit against the cap gains taxes on a sale, but plenty of people draw and pay back credit lines against assets. I owe the bank $1mm, not $770k. 

Oh, and then will every poor who takes a HELOC have to pay taxes too? I'm sure they will love that.

Right, it's not an easy topic to dig into. But talking about the wealthy in terms of AGI is misleading.

Bezos holds a net worth in the $100s of billions, but has only "declared" $4b in income (on which he paid just short of $1b in taxes). Borrowing against investments and paying interest that is less than the CG tax that would be applied makes smart financial sense for him. Continually rolling that by paying off old borrowed money with new borrowed money against other assets continues the same practice of avoiding taxes through leveraging assets. 

Financially it's smart. But it's also easy to see how that would be viewed as receiving an income (in borrowed dollars) that is not taxed, and just rolls. 

I have no idea what the answer is. But deferring capital gains indefinitely in this manner while at the same time claiming AGI is what matters isn't being transparent.

9 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

I'm laughing at your statement that Trump is "losing money" because of his political career. It's one of the dumbest things I've read on here in awhile. And that includes Iladelph suggesting Iran is invading New Jersey with stealth drones. 

I’m going off Forbes ranking. He lost net worth every year of his presidency according to them.

Just now, TEW said:

I’m going off Forbes ranking. He lost net worth every year of his presidency according to them.

Mainly because his finances were continually scrutinized.

He was never worth nearly what he stated he was, which is what earlier assessments were based on.

The more that was discovered about his businesses the less he was deemed to be worth. 

This is more about shining the light on the record of a con artist than anything else. 

2 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Mainly because his finances were continually scrutinized.

He was never worth nearly what he stated he was, which is what earlier assessments were based on.

The more that was discovered about his businesses the less he was deemed to be worth. 

This is more about shining the light on the record of a con artist than anything else. 

Trump gave them access to his finances?

1 minute ago, TEW said:

Trump gave them access to his finances?

A judge did.

Just now, we_gotta_believe said:

A judge did.

In each year of his presidency?

18 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

Right, it's not an easy topic to dig into. But talking about the wealthy in terms of AGI is misleading.

Bezos holds a net worth in the $100s of billions, but has only "declared" $4b in income (on which he paid just short of $1b in taxes). Borrowing against investments and paying interest that is less than the CG tax that would be applied makes smart financial sense for him. Continually rolling that by paying off old borrowed money with new borrowed money against other assets continues the same practice of avoiding taxes through leveraging assets. 

Financially it's smart. But it's also easy to see how that would be viewed as receiving an income (in borrowed dollars) that is not taxed, and just rolls. 

I have no idea what the answer is. But deferring capital gains indefinitely in this manner while at the same time claiming AGI is what matters isn't being transparent.

The issue is that it isn't income -- it's debt that has to be repaid. The only way you could try and handle it is to treat the debt as a sale, have taxes paid, and then there would be no tax when the asset is actually sold. But, this would present a new problem -- let's say Bezos borrows against his AMZN stock - it's trading around $225 per share, and let's say he gets a 50% LTV. So he's "selling" at $112.5 per share. So you tax him there, then he sells down the road at $225...and $112.50 is not taxed. On the flip side, if the stock drops to $50, and he can't cover the loan, then what happens? Does he get a tax refund?

Taxing debt proceeds is a REALLY bad idea, and people will scream when it is applied to them (HELOCs, 2nd mortgages, etc.). My personal opinion is capital gains shouldn't be taxed at all, but if we are going to tax them, then it has to be on true sale when all risk of loss is removed. Otherwise, you are opening Pandora's box.

25 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

I'm a poor who just took out a HELOC I guess 😢

Looking forward to buying your house at the foreclosure auction.

8 minutes ago, TEW said:

Trump gave them access to his finances?

Trump lied to me about his wealth to get onto the Forbes 400. Here are the tapes.

this is a guy who was convicted for misrepresenting the value of properties. scrutiny started to uncover how inflated his apparent net worth was since 2015. 

23 hours ago, DrPhilly said:

Listen to the way Bannon frames the overall struggle and how he sets a message aiming for MAGA to hold power.  It is "Working Class" vs. "Elite Woke" with Trump as the savior for the lower class.  He sounds like Warren or AOC when he talks about the United CEO murder, horseshoe like.

Trump would not be in power without Bannon who is basically Trump's architect.  Bannon is a very dangerous individual and he's starting to get really aggressive now in what he says.

 

 

Yep, he is a National Security Threat. 

7 minutes ago, TEW said:

In each year of his presidency?

This is what you originally said, moron. 

Quote

it’s not a grift, especially when he is losing money from his entire political adventure. 

Goalposts stay exactly where they are.

2 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

The issue is that it isn't income -- it's debt that has to be repaid. The only way you could try and handle it is to treat the debt as a sale, have taxes paid, and then there would be no tax when the asset is actually sold. But, this would present a new problem -- let's say Bezos borrows against his AMZN stock - it's trading around $225 per share, and let's say he gets a 50% LTV. So he's "selling" at $112.5 per share. So you tax him there, then he sells down the road at $225...and $112.50 is not taxed. On the flip side, if the stock drops to $50, and he can't cover the loan, then what happens? Does he get a tax refund?

Taxing debt proceeds is a REALLY bad idea, and people will scream when it is applied to them (HELOCs, 2nd mortgages, etc.). My personal opinion is capital gains shouldn't be taxed at all, but if we are going to tax them, then it has to be on true sale when all risk of loss is removed. Otherwise, you are opening Pandora's box.

I don't disagree with any of that (though I think capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as earned income, so I go the other way there - even as someone who benefits significantly from them).

It's not an easy problem to solve. Taxing unrealized gains is not something that works IMHO because the value of it is subjective and variable. My house has nearly doubled in "value" on paper since I bought it, but until someone comes and offers me that money it's just an estimate. How would you fairly tax on that sort of thing? 

Taxing on unrealized gains looks even worse for years the market tanks. Take a correction year of -10% in the stock market and you have the government having to pay out hundreds of billions if not trillions. That's untenable.

My main point though is that if we're saying "the wealthy are paying the most because their percentage of AGI is paid at the highest rate" then we're not being truthful when there are very easy ways for a wealthy person to have "income" borrowed against their wealth without paying taxes. 

47 minutes ago, vikas83 said:

Looking forward to buying your house at the foreclosure auction.

Yeah turns out it's hard to collect enough cash for an addition  with 2 kids and being on parental leave.  Who could have guessed? 😢

Thankfully I have like $300k in equity solely from buying my house in 2019.  Thanks COVID!

5 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

This is what you originally said, moron. 

Goalposts stay exactly where they are.

Yeah, he lost money. Again, according to Forbes.

Just now, TEW said:

Yeah, he lost money. Again, according to Forbes.

Is his net worth higher today than it was in 2016, Yes or No?

Just now, we_gotta_believe said:

Is his net worth higher today than it was in 2016, Yes or No?

Irrelevant question.

Is his net worth higher or lower due to his presidency than it otherwise would have been is the pertinent question. The answer, of course, is lower.

FWIW broadly speaking I'd rather have a system that:

1. drops the corporate rate to 0%. just get businesses themselves entirely out of paying taxes so that we keep business onshore as much as possible. 
2. moderates the income taxes while also synchronizing with capital gains. LTCG should be taxed closer to wages, but all these taxes COULD go down if...
3. we institute a VAT with a moderate rebate for every (say $15k for joint filers and $7,500 for single filers, with $2,500 / child) so that people who spend a lot of money will pay more naturally.

this would encourage business operations domestically, reduce the tax complications around income (earned and unearned) by reducing it and offsetting with a VAT, which would have the benefit of encouraging savings. 

1 minute ago, TEW said:

Irrelevant question.

Is his net worth higher or lower due to his presidency than it otherwise would have been is the pertinent question. The answer, of course, is lower.

Only irrelevant if you're an idiot who doesn't understand the meaning of words. His political adventure did not end, it is still ongoing and it started in 2016. Answer the question, tons o fun.

2 minutes ago, TEW said:

Irrelevant question.

Is his net worth higher or lower due to his presidency than it otherwise would have been is the pertinent question. The answer, of course, is lower.

You have no way of knowing the answer to that question. Pretending that you would just makes you look ignorant.

Just now, JohnSnowsHair said:

You have no way of knowing the answer to that question. Pretending that you would just makes you look ignorant.

There are certainly arguments to be made to answer this question. Pretending there aren’t make you look stupid.

2 minutes ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Only irrelevant if you're an idiot who doesn't understand the meaning of words. His political adventure did not end, it is still ongoing and it started in 2016. Answer the question, tons o fun.

Oh, look, another person who doesn’t understand dates and time. His political adventure did not start in 2016, genius.

1 minute ago, TEW said:

There are certainly arguments to be made to answer this question. Pretending there aren’t make you look stupid.

Oh, look, another person who doesn’t understand dates and time. His political adventure did not start in 2016, genius.

Ok, his net worth in late 2015 vs now. Which net worth is higher?

It would be interesting to look at the same summary for a set of different share %s of the population for the report @vikas83 linked to rather than only the 10% share.  Not that there is anything wrong with the 10% example but the results vs. the other OECD countries will probably show significant changes as the sets change from say 1% thru to say 30%.

btw - I'm assuming that all types of taxes are included, e.g. property, fed/state/local, sales, wealth, inheritance, etc.).

31 minutes ago, JohnSnowsHair said:

I don't disagree with any of that (though I think capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as earned income, so I go the other way there - even as someone who benefits significantly from them).

It's not an easy problem to solve. Taxing unrealized gains is not something that works IMHO because the value of it is subjective and variable. My house has nearly doubled in "value" on paper since I bought it, but until someone comes and offers me that money it's just an estimate. How would you fairly tax on that sort of thing? 

Taxing on unrealized gains looks even worse for years the market tanks. Take a correction year of -10% in the stock market and you have the government having to pay out hundreds of billions if not trillions. That's untenable.

My main point though is that if we're saying "the wealthy are paying the most because their percentage of AGI is paid at the highest rate" then we're not being truthful when there are very easy ways for a wealthy person to have "income" borrowed against their wealth without paying taxes. 

But it works as a relative analysis to other countries since the wealthy abroad do the same thing.