Should Make a Lively Discussion

[2firfun50]

My feeling about 535 of them:



If our Congress could get their act together it would matter not who was in the White House.

The first dog/cat could "paw" sign and we would be great!!!!!!!!!!!

[fickman]

One more thing. This "carried interest" ain't cool at all. I can get a lump sum retirement check in the mid 6 figures. The catch, I have to pay 35% up front to use it to start a business. Mister investment banker can pay 15% capital gains on the same check and spend it however they want. Or create a paper company, invest in it and pay no taxes at all. Mister Ryan has reportedly voted against "fixing" this rat hole.

How can that law is still on the books??? Obama was in power for two years with a Democratic House and Senate. . . surely he would've stood up for fairness and fixed it himself by now!

Do you see a consistent push to close loopholes in his record? What bills did he introduce as a Senator to close loopholes?

Obama's budget proposal this year was voted down in Democratic-controlled Senate 99-0. It really sounds like he's really got a plan to fix the things that upset you. . . what a leader!

[The Annoyed Man]

To answer your question about concealed carry: Since you referenced a business, and not a government building, my answer is that it is ethically wrong to enter with your weapon. Why do I answer that way? You understand the intent of the sign and the right of the business owner to post his business. If you enter, you have violated that owner's right, irregardless whether the sign meets the pure letter of the law. You may never be noticed, but you should know in your heart that you just did something unethical.

I'll bite...... do you honor gunbuster signs? If you don't, then don't call me unethical for taking lawful advantage of legal exceptions in the tax law. And by the way, I reject that ignoring gunbuster signs are unethical. The law is very clear about access for handicapped persons in public businesses. The business owner not only does not have the right to exclude the handicapped, he must spend money to make sure that his business is accessible. The law is very clear about CHL and 30.06. If the store owner does not follow the law, he may not exclude me from the business.

[Heartland Patriot]

Not all legal behavior is ethically correct behavior. And this applies to all political perspectives.

You get it. One set of rules for everyone.

You can take advantage of the same set of rules. I see no ethical dilemma in using a legal means of reducing one's tax burden, if the allegation is even true.

Is it "legal but immoral" if somebody sets up their business as an LLC to avoid personal liability and protect their house or savings?

My Answer: Nope, everyone can do it! Not limited to the investment bankers and such.

Is it "legal but immoral" to carry a net operating loss forward or backward to lower another year's taxes?

My Answer: As long as any legitimate business can do it.

Is it "legal but immoral" to sit on a $60 billion fortune for one entire year (no income, no investment, no interest) to avoid the U.S. productivity tax?

My Answer: You betcha on the immoral part. There isn't anything right about sitting on a $60 billion fortune when someone may be able to make good use of that money putting people to work and provide the owner a fair return. The only thing more worthless than an unloaded gun is lazy money.

Is it "legal but immoral" to be a middle-income Joe and use children, 401k investments, home interest payments, and healthcare spending accounts to lower one's taxable income for the year?

My Answer: No problem, all middle income Joes' have a chance at that one. However watch out for the sky high taxes you will have to pay when you need the money, especially if you are still working.

I'm all for a simplified tax code with a lower rate and fewer deductions, but while we have the current system in place, it'd be foolish not to use it as written.

I agree, the code is wrong. But notice my consistancy in the thread. If everyone can play, its ok. If you need a million and up to play that ain't cool.

One more thing. This "carried interest" ain't cool at all. I can get a lump sum retirement check in the mid 6 figures. The catch, I have to pay 35% up front to use it to start a business. Mister investment banker can pay 15% capital gains on the same check and spend it however they want. Or create a paper company, invest in it and pay no taxes at all. Mister Ryan has reportedly voted against "fixing" this rat hole.

Are you saying you have a middle 6-figure retirement awaiting you? Why, if you do, then you must be one of those dirty 1% people the news keeps telling me about! Seems like the Democrat Party wants you to pay a little more than 35%, you know...so you're kicking in "your fair share".

[74novaman]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... ped-locat/

What a immoral, tax dodging jerk! I can't believe what an immoral person he is for following current tax code. This story just shows the sort of low life, only cares about money Capitalist scum that he truly is!

[74novaman]

Are you saying you have a middle 6-figure retirement awaiting you? Why, if you do, then you must be one of those dirty 1% people the news keeps telling me about! Seems like the Democrat Party wants you to pay a little more than 35%, you know...so you're kicking in "your fair share".

Is this the same guy that said he prostituted himself to the military industrial complex for 35 years? Shouldn't you feel bad taking that blood money?

[WildBill]

Democrats have been trying for years to kill this tax advantage. Critics say the private equity managers are simply performing services and should pay the individual income tax rate, not the lower capital gains rate.

Do you really believe this? This stereotype has been around for many years.
There are just as many wealthy democraps as republicans. Neither want to pay more taxes than are legally required.

[smoothoperator]

I can get a lump sum retirement check in the mid 6 figures. The catch, I have to pay 35% up front to use it to start a business. Mister investment banker can pay 15% capital gains on the same check and spend it however they want. Or create a paper company, invest in it and pay no taxes at all. Mister Ryan has reportedly voted against "fixing" this rat hole.

That's a false statement. The truth is an investment banker who takes a lump sum retirement check under the same conditions as you is subject to the same tax rates as you. So is an engineer, a machinist, or a secretary. Spreading lies does not help your cause nor your credibility.

[2firfun50]

To answer your question about concealed carry: Since you referenced a business, and not a government building, my answer is that it is ethically wrong to enter with your weapon. Why do I answer that way? You understand the intent of the sign and the right of the business owner to post his business. If you enter, you have violated that owner's right, irregardless whether the sign meets the pure letter of the law. You may never be noticed, but you should know in your heart that you just did something unethical.

I'll bite...... do you honor gunbuster signs? If you don't, then don't call me unethical for taking lawful advantage of legal exceptions in the tax law. And by the way, I reject that ignoring gunbuster signs are unethical. The law is very clear about access for handicapped persons in public businesses. The business owner not only does not have the right to exclude the handicapped, he must spend money to make sure that his business is accessible. The law is very clear about CHL and 30.06. If the store owner does not follow the law, he may not exclude me from the business.

Ok Tam, yes I do "honor" gunbuster signs. I turn and walk away. I honor the sign by not spending any money there, ever.

I have no complaints with any tax deductions for small businesses provided the benefit is available to every small business. My complaint is the "special" rules that you need a few million to join. I have no problem with large investors, provided the money is invested in a manor that has real risk associated and just might create jobs. When money is ratholed overseas, just to hide it, I have a problem with that type of "investment". That is not a investment in Americas future.

Hopefully, your small business will be very successful. Be able to provide a few jobs with real benefits and make plenty for your family.

[Slowplay]

All I have to say is: George Soros (hedge funds, carried interest, funding the left), Warren Buffet (structures own comp to avoid earned income taxes, panders to class-warfare statists), and Timmy Geithner (put in charge of Treasury after being outed for not paying his legally owed taxes, no penalty imposed)...hypocrites all.

[74novaman]

All I have to say is: George Soros (hedge funds, carried interest, funding the left), Warren Buffet (structures own comp to avoid earned income taxes, panders to class-warfare statists), and Timmy Geithner (put in charge of Treasury after being outed for not paying his legally owed taxes, no penalty imposed)...hypocrites all.

No, no, no. You can only be an immoral, tax dodging hypocrite if you're on the right.

[The Annoyed Man]

To answer your question about concealed carry: Since you referenced a business, and not a government building, my answer is that it is ethically wrong to enter with your weapon. Why do I answer that way? You understand the intent of the sign and the right of the business owner to post his business. If you enter, you have violated that owner's right, irregardless whether the sign meets the pure letter of the law. You may never be noticed, but you should know in your heart that you just did something unethical.

I'll bite...... do you honor gunbuster signs? If you don't, then don't call me unethical for taking lawful advantage of legal exceptions in the tax law. And by the way, I reject that ignoring gunbuster signs are unethical. The law is very clear about access for handicapped persons in public businesses. The business owner not only does not have the right to exclude the handicapped, he must spend money to make sure that his business is accessible. The law is very clear about CHL and 30.06. If the store owner does not follow the law, he may not exclude me from the business.

Ok Tam, yes I do "honor" gunbuster signs. I turn and walk away. I honor the sign by not spending any money there, ever.

I have no complaints with any tax deductions for small businesses provided the benefit is available to every small business. My complaint is the "special" rules that you need a few million to join. I have no problem with large investors, provided the money is invested in a manor that has real risk associated and just might create jobs. When money is ratholed overseas, just to hide it, I have a problem with that type of "investment". That is not a investment in Americas future.

Hopefully, your small business will be very successful. Be able to provide a few jobs with real benefits and make plenty for your family.

Well you're certainly free to give those noncompliant signs the recognition they do not deserve, but it also means that there are very VERY few places that you can do certain kinds of business. I have yet to walk into a bank in Texas—name the brand—that does not have one. Am I supposed to stop banking? Not at all. I assume that the banks, which employ plenty of lawyers and know exactly what they are doing, post those signs for the peace of mind of the ignorant. If they really wanted to exclude CHLs, they're smart enough to post 30.06 signs. But they don't. The message to me is, "enter and be welcome." But you go ahead and honor those signs. No skin off my nose as long as you don't mind the added inconvenience.

The thing is, people from those of little means to those of very great means invest money to increase their wealth, not out of some kind of altruistic need to service society. That particular artifice is the invention of those who are angered by their exclusion from the ranks of the very wealthy. What is moral for the poor is no less moral for the rich, and visa versa. Morality is free standing and is not dependent on the financial means of the individual in question. It is nice when a very wealthy person uses some of their wealth to make opportunities available to the less wealthy, but, is is not an ethical requirement for legitimizing their own wealth, or legitimizing how they use their wealth. Further, investors, whether they are small guys like me, or big guys like George Soros, move money in and out of different positions all the time. I told you about this in one of my PMs. Money is always moving back and forth between cash and equity according to market pressures/opportunities. So when a big investor moves millions into a cash position, it is no different than when a little guy like me does. If the rich guy has the wherewithal to set up an account in the Caymans and keep his money there tax free while it is "resting," I have no problem with that. There is no law barring me from doing exactly the same thing. Exactly the same thing. The only difference between him and me is the proportionate cost of doing it. The cost and hassle are greater for me, measured as a percentage of my total wealth, than it is for him. But if I want to do it........if you want to do it.......there is nothing stopping either of us from doing it. It's merely a question of whether or not you or I think it is worth the effort.

As far as the opportunities that wealth affords, well, I can't afford a Rolls Royce either, but I don't think the rich man is immoral because he chooses to buy one.

The bottom line is, whose money is it? Wealth belongs to the people that create it. My money is mine. It does not belong to the government. Liberalism stands on the principle that money belongs to the state. The state allows you to keep a portion of it in exchange for your efforts. Conservatism stands on the principle that money belongs to the individual that earned it, by whatever means, and that taxes are confiscatory in nature and are therefore to be minimized as much as possible. The former is counter to the founding principles on which this nation was created. The other is in harmony with those principles. There are tens of thousands of stories of people who start life in poverty with none of the hereditary advantages of wealth but who go on to create great wealth for themselves. There is literally NO social obligation to behave in a selfless altruistic way so long as the behavior is legal. Such gestures as the wealthy do perform are entirely from their own initiative, but for the less wealthy to view it as an obligation is no more obnoxious than if the wealthy were to view such efforts by the less wealthy as a social obligation.

If the law allows a person to "rathole" (as you put it) cash outside of the country where it is protected from predation by the state, then God bless them for having the brains to take advantage of the opportunity. I too hope that my business increases to the point where I can someday provide jobs, but that is NOT why I am in business. I am in business for me and mine, not for you and yours. I owe no obligation to society to create jobs, and actually, as I have written on these pages before, I will intentionally provide no jobs so long as government fiscal policies punish me for doing so. I have and will continue to use independent contractors, who will then be subject themselves to the same kind of confiscatory policies that I am.....rather than to carry those confiscatory obligations for them. Then, MAYBE, they'll wake up and vote conservative to get those policies changed. So when a rich person squirrels their money away offshore, they're just doing the same thing as I would do—protecting their accrued wealth from fiscal policies which punish them for being rich.

At the end of the day, THAT is what drives class envy: the less affluent want to see the more affluent punished for their affluence, so that the less affluent don't have to feel so bad about having failed to attain it themselves. Politicians are all too eager to cater to that because it gets them votes. And the government which is made of of those same cynical politicians is all to carry the punishment out because it funds the programs which bring in more "victim votes." That is a political philosophy which is evil at its core. The politicians who cater to it are evil in their core. Governments which engage in it are illegitimate at their core. The victim mentalities which demand it are deluded at their core.

I am not by any means a follower of Ayn Rand. I think she was a sociopath. But, one doesn't have to be a randian libertarian to see and understand the insanity of this country's fiscal policies and tax code. And because the policies and code are insane, the only RATIONAL thing for an investor at any level to do is to maximize his profits to the extent the law allows, and to minimize his exposures to the extent the law allows. Trying to make the eminently rational into something immoral is on its face and in its bones, irrational.

[Oldgringo]

TAM wrote:
...the only RATIONAL thing for an investor at any level to do is to maximize his profits to the extent the law allows, and to minimize his exposures to the extent the law allows...

What's the problem?

[The Annoyed Man]

TAM wrote:
...the only RATIONAL thing for an investor at any level to do is to maximize his profits to the extent the law allows, and to minimize his exposures to the extent the law allows...

What's the problem?

There IS no problem; but 2firfun50 objects to certain of those lawful tax strategies. I was pointing out that in a free market economy, those are totally legitimate strategies and there is nothing immoral about them.....no matter how hard he attempts to argue that there is.

[Oldgringo]

TAM wrote:
...the only RATIONAL thing for an investor at any level to do is to maximize his profits to the extent the law allows, and to minimize his exposures to the extent the law allows...

What's the problem?

There IS no problem; but 2firfun50 objects to certain of those lawful tax strategies. I was pointing out that in a free market economy, those are totally legitimate strategies and there is nothing immoral about them.....no matter how hard he attempts to argue that there is.

Yep, that's what I thought you said.