The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

[Dashinka 24,489]

10 hours ago, moxy said:

So much agreed. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25/hour for the last 12 years, but it's just so greedy that anyone making that might want to actually make a living wage. But talk about Jeff Bezos who will never, ever, ever be able to spend the wealth he's got right now, paying a fair proportion of his wealth, and so many pearls hit the pavement from all the clutching you'd think it was a Batman origin story.

Are you saying there is no opportunity for someone making minimum wage to actually move into a more rewarding position?  I realize the rich are worthless, we need to depend on the government for everything.

2 minutes ago, moxy said:

I won't put words in @laylalex's mouth, but nobody on the left is saying they get to decide that Bezos doesn't need a yacht. Under even the most liberal taxation plan, Bezos could build ten of his super-yachts and never even feel any additional taxation. It would be like finding a few nickels under the couch cushions.

 

In fact... Jeff Bezos is so obscenely wealthy, he could build over 300 of his super yachts, and still be worth 50 billion dollars, and that's not even counting the wealth he continues to acquire. (meanwhile, his employees literally have to pee in bottles to relieve themselves and keep their jobs... but yes, let's put our energy into defending the Lex Luthor man)

 

My personal feeling is that there should be a cap on net worth (basically a 100% tax on anything above some magic number), but even the most liberal proponents of fair taxation on the most wealthy aren't proposing that.

Yep, caps are so effective.

[moxy 1,051]

Just now, Dashinka said:

So then your patriot is potentially a criminal?

What are you even on about? Because moxy used the word "patriot" there must be criminal activity? I think you're giving me a lot more credit than I deserve in terms of shaping the realities of the universe.

[moxy 1,051]

4 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

Are you saying there is no opportunity for someone making minimum wage to actually move into a more rewarding position?  I realize the rich are worthless, we need to depend on the government for everything.

Who is anyone to judge anyone else about why they should be looking for a "more rewarding position"? If someone wants to flip burgers until they retire, who is anyone else to judge? Why is your eight hours of labor worth more than an Amazon warehouse worker's labor?

 

 

Quote

Yep, caps are so effective.

It's a good thing I don't make the laws then, isn't it? As I said, it's a personal belief, nothing more. I don't even have a number in mind for the magical cap. You're safe.

Edited June 10, 2021 by moxy

[Dashinka 24,489]

6 minutes ago, moxy said:

What are you even on about? Because moxy used the word "patriot" there must be criminal activity? I think you're giving me a lot more credit than I deserve in terms of shaping the realities of the universe.

Last I heard releasing a private citizens private tax information is something someone can be prosecuted for.  When NB asked the question who committed this felony, your response was to call that person a patriot.  I assume you were referring to the leaker, if not, then my bad.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Dashinka

[Dashinka 24,489]

5 minutes ago, moxy said:

Who is anyone to judge anyone else about why they should be looking for a "more rewarding position"? If someone wants to flip burgers until they retire, who is anyone else to judge? Why is your eight hours of labor worth more than an Amazon warehouse worker's labor?

 

 

It's a good thing I don't make the laws then, isn't it? As I said, it's a personal belief, nothing more. I don't even have a number in mind for the magical cap. You're safe.

Yes it is. 

 

As to making a career from flipping burgers, that is a personal choice, and that person is rewarded consummate to the skills required.  Should the government re-distribute the wealth for people that makes those types of poor choices?

[yuna628 9,671]

11 hours ago, laylalex said:

I am just always so amazed that the middle class is willing to fight for the super-rich to get even richer -- at their own expense. It's like Stockholm syndrome or something.

Well some in the middle class do get hoodwinked by politicians... but the reality is it's the politicians being paid off that are the ones willing to fight for the interests that they are interested in. The average American is just hustling every day to get by and don't really care that Bezos has 20 yachts. For some though there is the fear that once you say someone doesn't need something, that eventually someone will say YOU don't need something too, and so on and so on.

12 hours ago, laylalex said:

The article is very clear that no crimes were committed by the taxpayers. But personally, as someone who pays less tax on my passive income proportionately than my husband who very much works for his salary and bonus, I find it colossally dumb that the effective rates of taxation are so low. I know that the usual response to this is, "but you can always pay more!" as if that solves the problem because I, as an individual, could always write a bigger check. We have a wealth problem in this country. An improved tax system that can capture wealth in addition to active income is overdue. Believe me, people like me and people far richer than me will not suffer from a little more off the top in order to fund much needed capital improvements to this country's infrastructure.

 

Jeff Bezos doesn't "need" a superyacht. We need roads and bridges and reliable internet access. Food to put in the bellies of hungry kids and teachers to teach them in buildings that aren't crumbling. We need affordable health care and to take care of our veterans with the respect and dignity that they have more than earned. 

The argument of whether someone needs something is kind of irrelevant though. If someone has enough money to pay for something, chances are they will want to buy something with that money. Lots of people could say you don't need that expensive skin cream, the type of car you drive, designer clothes, or even the types of food choices on your plate and give me the money instead. It's about wants, rather than needs... and that's how the economy is relatively set up. I do not care that Bezos owns a superyacht, or 20 of them. We, the consumers, continue to give him money to be able to afford those things, and we've done that ever since he started not being able to afford it way back when. This is the same argument in mega-church lavish lifestyles - where the patrons virtually give up their entire savings so ''Pastor Tammy'' and 'Brother John" can expand an empire of opulence most people can only dream about in exchange for their want of hoping for the same somehow. Buying from Bezos (giving him money to fund his lifestyle) won't get us any richer, but it does get us things those consumers want at any given moment. And those funds that he spends go to fund the making of those products and the funding of those employees making them. That is the heart of capitalism. Now of course I'd be happy to make the argument that he does need to treat his employees better. Lots of companies do. Amazon isn't an exception.

45 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

Bezos built his fortune from the ground up . who are you to decide he dose not need a yacht. Maybe someone will decide i dont really need 2 new cars

We had one of those yachts pass through the other week. Whew, it's about 20 million they said. I dunno, of course it's completely silly, but if that's what they want and they got the money to buy it. How can I judge? I mean I grew up dirt poor, but everyone else in the family was very wealthy. They never gave us a dime and treated us like dirt. And that's okay. I never wanted to be like them. Of course as a kid I dreamed of one day having a pool in a great big house, with koi ponds and my own private video arcade. But that was never going to happen. No sense in saying the rich in my family didn't need those things. They had the money and they could buy whatever they wanted. But they'd never know what it was like to be me, and maybe that's for the better.

Edited June 10, 2021 by yuna628

[moxy 1,051]

1 minute ago, Dashinka said:

As to making a career from flipping burgers, that is a personal choice, and that person is rewarded consummate to the skills required.  Should the government re-distribute the wealth for people that makes those types of poor choices?

You do understand that you already live in a system of wealth re-distribution, right? So "taxing the rich" isn't any kind of new idea, other than we are sick and tired of rich people writing the tax code for rich people. Taxing the rich means making these people live under the same tax code the rest of us live under. That's it.

 

"Consumate to the skills required" is typically something I believe in also. But nobody is saying that a burger flipper should be able to go out and buy a yacht. In my area of expertise, I'm paid pretty well for the skills I bring to the table. But this completely ignores a baseline minimum. Every single person in this country is owed a baseline minimum for the 1/3 of their life that they give up to their employer. That minimum should allow a person to live at some baseline that doesn't require them to subsidize their employer's paycheck with social safety nets. It's the most crass, greedy, and base strategy of companies like Walmart, Amazon, McDonalds, etc, to use taxpayer-funded social safety nets to supplement their employees' income.

[Dashinka 24,489]

1 minute ago, moxy said:

You do understand that you already live in a system of wealth re-distribution, right? So "taxing the rich" isn't any kind of new idea, other than we are sick and tired of rich people writing the tax code for rich people. Taxing the rich means making these people live under the same tax code the rest of us live under. That's it.

 

"Consumate to the skills required" is typically something I believe in also. But nobody is saying that a burger flipper should be able to go out and buy a yacht. In my area of expertise, I'm paid pretty well for the skills I bring to the table. But this completely ignores a baseline minimum. Every single person in this country is owed a baseline minimum for the 1/3 of their life that they give up to their employer. That minimum should allow a person to live at some baseline that doesn't require them to subsidize their employer's paycheck with social safety nets. It's the most crass, greedy, and base strategy of companies like Walmart, Amazon, McDonalds, etc, to use taxpayer-funded social safety nets to supplement their employees' income.

Yes, but that is wealth re-distribution decisions made by the people, not from some government body that thinks they know better for everyone.  If a burger flipper wants to go out and by a yacht, they certainly can, but they will have to make different life choices.  Baseline minimum income sounds a lot like socialism/communism, which of course we know does not work.  Btw, you do know McDonald's restaurants are mostly owned by small independent business people, not some huge corporation right?

 

I know you are all for taxing the rich more, and increasing the corporate tax (the feds way of taxing everyone else).  I doubt anyone can figure out a way to do that with our current congress and keep corporations or people from finding a new way to keep their money.

[moxy 1,051]

For anyone interested, this is a great visualization of wealth. I think a lot of people visualize a billion dollars as just another zero tacked on to a million, no biggie. It's a much, much bigger difference than that. (for starters, you are closer to being a billionaire than Jeff Bezos is to being a millionaire.)

 

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

39 minutes ago, Dashinka said:

Last I heard releasing a private citizens private tax information is something someone can be prosecuted for.  When NB asked the question who committed this felony, your response was to call that person a patriot.  I assume you were referring to the leaker, if not, then my bad.

More weaponizing the IRS by the dems

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

wealth redistribution. I wonder if that has been tried before ?

[moxy 1,051]

In case anyone isn't actually reading the article, this is a pretty interesting infographic.

[moxy 1,051]

6 minutes ago, Nature Boy 2.0 said:

wealth redistribution. I wonder if that has been tried before ?

You do understand that not only do we live in a system of wealth redistribution already, but that every functioning country on the planet operates under a system of wealth redistribution.

 

Taxing the rich means making the wealthiest people in this country pay their fair share. (see the graphic I posted, above) Nobody is saying to tax them unfairly. Nobody is saying to impoverish them. All of the counter-arguments to this are just bugaboos pushed by the ultra-rich to make sure that they continue to get to write the tax code in their favor.

 

If you are against taxation of anyone, cool. But that's a completely different argument.

Edited June 10, 2021 by moxy

[Nature Boy 2.0 8,370]

Bezos gave over 10 billion to charity. Also those numbers dont take into account all the taxes paid by his company and the 10's of 1000's of jobs he provides. 

[Dashinka 24,489]

1 hour ago, moxy said:

You do understand that not only do we live in a system of wealth redistribution already, but that every functioning country on the planet operates under a system of wealth redistribution.

 

Taxing the rich means making the wealthiest people in this country pay their fair share. (see the graphic I posted, above) Nobody is saying to tax them unfairly. Nobody is saying to impoverish them. All of the counter-arguments to this are just bugaboos pushed by the ultra-rich to make sure that they continue to get to write the tax code in their favor.

 

If you are against taxation of anyone, cool. But that's a completely different argument.

Who decides the "fair share"?