Life And Taxes

[W*GS]

(As a remedy for LABF's socialist State-is-God bull****)

Commentary
Life And Taxes
Yaron Brook 04.17.08, 6:00 AM ET

Your taxes are overdue, if you're just reading this now. But the fact is that every day is April 15 for Jane and John Smith, America’s most tax-savvy couple.

They awaken in their highly mortgaged house (interest deduction), make breakfast for their adopted child (tax credit and exemption), then drive their hybrid cars (more tax credits) to work. John, at his office, signs a contract for solar energy panels (tax credit), but he turns down a promotion that would launch the couple into a higher tax bracket. Meanwhile, across town, Jane signs an application to get historic preservation status (tax credits) for her office building.

Back home that evening, the Smiths write a few tax-deductible checks to charities and then discuss where to put their savings--into a tax-free retirement account, or a start-up business whose income would be taxed at the highest marginal rate? Just before sleep, their thoughts drift to energy-efficient appliance credits and carbon-emission taxes.

Since it's an election year, the presidential candidates are busy figuring ways to add still more carrots to the tax code--so that the Smiths will become still more entangled in a tax policy that fears and distrusts the goals that individuals would select if guided only by rational self-interest.

Tax policy works by attaching financial incentives to a long list of values deemed morally worthy. If you want to maximize your wealth come tax time--and who doesn't?--you must look at the world through tax-colored glasses, "voluntarily" adjusting your behavior to suit social norms and thereby qualifying for tax breaks. In this way, the social engineers of tax policy preserve the impression that you're exercising free choice, while they're actually dispensing with your reason and your judgment.

As an example, consider the choice between buying and renting a home. In a free market, a dollar paid in rent is equivalent to a dollar paid for mortgage interest. But when the federal government offers a mortgage interest deduction--based on some alleged need for an "ownership society"--then each purchase dollar saves a few pennies in tax that a rental dollar does not. So the path to wealth maximization suddenly veers away from renting and toward home ownership.

Over the past century, such social engineering has inflated the nation's tax laws to an estimated 66,000 pages of statutes, regulations and rulings. At the core of this unreadable agglomeration is the most arrogant scheme of all, the progressive income tax. Its basic idea is that the more productive you are, the more you should pay in taxes. If you dare to suggest that penalizing success is neither a moral ideal nor a practical tax policy, you will be told that all such questions must be decided by reference to the good of society.

And now the presidential candidates want to bulk up this already bloated system. For instance, Hillary Clinton wants you to take care of your elderly relatives ($3,000 "caregiver's credit"), Barack Obama wants you to keep your company's headquarters and jobs in America ("Patriot Employer" program) and both Obama and McCain want you to fund more research and development (making an existing credit permanent).

Of course, there's nothing wrong with caring for grandparents, hiring local people or spending on R&D--if a rational thought process leads you to conclude that those choices actually serve the self-interest of you or your company. But government has no right to influence your decisions one way or the other.

Here's the point: Government's job is not to dictate your values but to protect them. In a free country, you choose values and then use your own money as a tool to achieve them. But a value-rigged tax policy reverses this cause and effect--it uses your money against you, bribing you with tax breaks that let you keep some of your earnings in exchange for abandoning your preferred values.

Clearly, we have slid a long way downhill from this nation's founding, when political leaders respected individuals' ability to make rational decisions for themselves about how to pursue their own health, wealth and happiness. Today, it is commonly accepted that Uncle Sam has a right to reach not only into your wallet but into your soul, through tax policies that substitute some version of the "public interest" for your own rational desires.

Of course, tax policy is only one form of "social engineering"--spending and direct regulation are other coercive methods of substituting collective values for private choice. But when it comes to micro-managing our lives, there are two reasons why tax incentives remain one of politicians' favorites.

First, people find comfort in the illusion of self-direction that goes along with tax incentives--they would rather be lured by a tasty carrot than beaten with a stick. Second, tax law is an easy mechanism through which politicians can dispense favors to supporters, as Clinton, Obama and McCain have each pledged to do. Every year numerous pages are added to the long list of politically correct values.

In place of the limitless variety that emerges when individuals plan their own lives in a free society, tax laws strive to impose a dreary sameness--as if every individual should get married, have children, buy a home and save for retirement on a government-approved schedule--and as if every company should look to bureaucrats for the one true path to selecting real estate, equipment, fuels, employees and financing. Such artificial homogeneity has no place in the tax policy of a government dedicated to protecting individual rights.

If government were restricted to its proper functions--police, courts and a strong military to defend individual rights against physical force and fraud--our 66,000-page coercive tax code would be a thing of the past. What's more, a great burden would be lifted, not just from the economy, but from our lives.

Imagine reasserting ourselves as rational, sovereign individuals, whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness include the right to choose values without asking society's permission--and without chasing our own money, like lab rats sniffing cheese, down the twisting corridors of a labyrinthine tax code.

Yaron Brook is managing director of BH Equity Research and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/04/16/yaron-taxes-campaign-oped-cx_ybr_0417yaron.html
[/LIST]

[ScottXray]

(As a remedy for LABF's socialist State-is-God bull****)

Commentary
Life And Taxes
Yaron Brook 04.17.08, 6:00 AM ET

Your taxes are overdue, if you're just reading this now. But the fact is that every day is April 15 for Jane and John Smith, America’s most tax-savvy couple.

They awaken in their highly mortgaged house (interest deduction), make breakfast for their adopted child (tax credit and exemption), then drive their hybrid cars (more tax credits) to work. John, at his office, signs a contract for solar energy panels (tax credit), but he turns down a promotion that would launch the couple into a higher tax bracket. Meanwhile, across town, Jane signs an application to get historic preservation status (tax credits) for her office building.

Back home that evening, the Smiths write a few tax-deductible checks to charities and then discuss where to put their savings--into a tax-free retirement account, or a start-up business whose income would be taxed at the highest marginal rate? Just before sleep, their thoughts drift to energy-efficient appliance credits and carbon-emission taxes.

Since it's an election year, the presidential candidates are busy figuring ways to add still more carrots to the tax code--so that the Smiths will become still more entangled in a tax policy that fears and distrusts the goals that individuals would select if guided only by rational self-interest.

Tax policy works by attaching financial incentives to a long list of values deemed morally worthy. If you want to maximize your wealth come tax time--and who doesn't?--you must look at the world through tax-colored glasses, "voluntarily" adjusting your behavior to suit social norms and thereby qualifying for tax breaks. In this way, the social engineers of tax policy preserve the impression that you're exercising free choice, while they're actually dispensing with your reason and your judgment.

As an example, consider the choice between buying and renting a home. In a free market, a dollar paid in rent is equivalent to a dollar paid for mortgage interest. But when the federal government offers a mortgage interest deduction--based on some alleged need for an "ownership society"--then each purchase dollar saves a few pennies in tax that a rental dollar does not. So the path to wealth maximization suddenly veers away from renting and toward home ownership.

Over the past century, such social engineering has inflated the nation's tax laws to an estimated 66,000 pages of statutes, regulations and rulings. At the core of this unreadable agglomeration is the most arrogant scheme of all, the progressive income tax. Its basic idea is that the more productive you are, the more you should pay in taxes. If you dare to suggest that penalizing success is neither a moral ideal nor a practical tax policy, you will be told that all such questions must be decided by reference to the good of society.

And now the presidential candidates want to bulk up this already bloated system. For instance, Hillary Clinton wants you to take care of your elderly relatives ($3,000 "caregiver's credit"), Barack Obama wants you to keep your company's headquarters and jobs in America ("Patriot Employer" program) and both Obama and McCain want you to fund more research and development (making an existing credit permanent).

Of course, there's nothing wrong with caring for grandparents, hiring local people or spending on R&D--if a rational thought process leads you to conclude that those choices actually serve the self-interest of you or your company. But government has no right to influence your decisions one way or the other.

Here's the point: Government's job is not to dictate your values but to protect them. In a free country, you choose values and then use your own money as a tool to achieve them. But a value-rigged tax policy reverses this cause and effect--it uses your money against you, bribing you with tax breaks that let you keep some of your earnings in exchange for abandoning your preferred values.

Clearly, we have slid a long way downhill from this nation's founding, when political leaders respected individuals' ability to make rational decisions for themselves about how to pursue their own health, wealth and happiness. Today, it is commonly accepted that Uncle Sam has a right to reach not only into your wallet but into your soul, through tax policies that substitute some version of the "public interest" for your own rational desires.

Of course, tax policy is only one form of "social engineering"--spending and direct regulation are other coercive methods of substituting collective values for private choice. But when it comes to micro-managing our lives, there are two reasons why tax incentives remain one of politicians' favorites.

First, people find comfort in the illusion of self-direction that goes along with tax incentives--they would rather be lured by a tasty carrot than beaten with a stick. Second, tax law is an easy mechanism through which politicians can dispense favors to supporters, as Clinton, Obama and McCain have each pledged to do. Every year numerous pages are added to the long list of politically correct values.

In place of the limitless variety that emerges when individuals plan their own lives in a free society, tax laws strive to impose a dreary sameness--as if every individual should get married, have children, buy a home and save for retirement on a government-approved schedule--and as if every company should look to bureaucrats for the one true path to selecting real estate, equipment, fuels, employees and financing. Such artificial homogeneity has no place in the tax policy of a government dedicated to protecting individual rights.

If government were restricted to its proper functions--police, courts and a strong military to defend individual rights against physical force and fraud--our 66,000-page coercive tax code would be a thing of the past. What's more, a great burden would be lifted, not just from the economy, but from our lives.

Imagine reasserting ourselves as rational, sovereign individuals, whose rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness include the right to choose values without asking society's permission--and without chasing our own money, like lab rats sniffing cheese, down the twisting corridors of a labyrinthine tax code.

Yaron Brook is managing director of BH Equity Research and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute.

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/04/16/yaron-taxes-campaign-oped-cx_ybr_0417yaron.html
[/LIST]

What drivel!

If you don't WANT to live in a house, and prefer to rent then do so. If you don't WANT children then don't have them. If your choice is to drive a Hummer, then you can! ( and many do because of the tax write off that that vehicle is eligible for...a rediculous choice). If you choose ( assuming there is a choice there) a homosexual lifestyle you currently are not afforded some of the same rights that other citizens are afforded, in many parts of the country. To my knowledge there is no tax on sexual preference, so perhaps that is an invalid argument. And yet MANY do choose such a life style, even though they are socially castigated for doing so.

We are as free as we WANT to be. Because there is a mortgage interest deduction does not make you buy a house, a hybrid tax credit does not make you buy one, and a deduction for the support of children does not mean you should have them. It compensates for the fact that you are (hopefully)spending more in costs to raise that child (who will possibly eventually be another income (and Tax ) producing member of the society he is a member of). The mortgage credit encourages people to try to accumulate wealth, but if you prefer not to it is your choice to do so. I also don't know of many people who realistically turn down promotions because it would raise ther tax burden, without other reasons (such as cost of living by moving to another area).

Of course taxes are used as a carrot to induce behavior that is viewed as for the general good of the society. Look at the sin taxes....tobacco, alcohol, and possibly drugs. If you want to drink yourself to death you can...but there will be a tax to pay. And a large part of that will go to care for you once you become the DRAIN on services you will become. Why have the tax....when we can let this bum die in the gutter he put himself in! The type of FREE society promoted by Mr. Brook!

In all things there has to be some moderation and surely our tax code needs review. It IS bloated and difficult to understand. As with all forms of beaureaucracy, it tends to perpetuate itself. In many ways a smaller leaner government would be better. But the fact that we CHOOSE to live here (and who says we have to stay here if we don't like it?) means that the services and standard of living we now enjoy, are to a large part paid for by those taxes. The charities that the Smiths write those checks to would mostly not exist if there was not a deduction for giving to them. The Hummer, or Hybrid that they drive , runs on roads built with those taxes and maintained by them.

I suppose a much better system would be to have an equivalent network of privately built toll roads ....that way someone could make a buck or two off our need to drive to work each day to feed that non deductible family. Or better yet, we could all live in huge apartment blocks (that someone else owns) within walking distance of our work. And if we get disabled at that job...well, I'm sure that since there is no more social security or Medicare we can either get out, or one of those charities will gladly take us in.

Is that the kind of society the founding fathers envisioned?

MODERATION in all things!

[footstepsfrom#27]

Here's the point: Government's job is not to dictate your values but to protect them. In a free country, you choose values and then use your own money as a tool to achieve them. But a value-rigged tax policy reverses this cause and effect--it uses your money against you, bribing you with tax breaks that let you keep some of your earnings in exchange for abandoning your preferred values.
If "bribery" can make you alter your values then what you hold dear are not values anyway, but selective choices based on convenience. Hence, you have nothing to worry about.

[Spider]

What drivel!



;D you will get used to W*GS and his eccentric ways .. Like let the elderly defend for themselfs cause he hates to pay Social Security tax , Let the disabled starve...... W*GS is very estranged from reality

[W*GS]

What drivel!

Not at all. Why should the renter pay more tax than the homeowner, all else between the two being the same? Why should the parents pay less than the childless couple, all else being the same?

Using the tax code as a instrument of social engineering is about the bluntest, unnecessarily complicated, and favoritism-prone way to do it.

In all things there has to be some moderation and surely our tax code needs review. It IS bloated and difficult to understand.

That's the understatement of the 21st century.

[...]the services and standard of living we now enjoy, are to a large part paid for by those taxes.

Read the first couple of articles in <a href="http://www.orangemane.com/BB/showthread.php?t=67798">this thread</a> and explain to me again how effectively and efficiently the infrastructure and those services are working.

Is that the kind of society the founding fathers envisioned?

Re-read the op-ed piece, more carefully this time.

[cutthemdown]

For all you power to the poor you should be enraged that home owners get to right off mortgage interest and renters don't get to right off a thing. Hell if that's not slanted to rich people I don't know what is. I mean how many people living below 30 grand a yr in income own a home? How many people that make under 20 grand a yr own a home? I bet the % drops significantly.
Now ask yourself how many people making over 100 grand a yr own a home?

Really if you want a fair tax policy then renters should be able to write of a % of their rent. I mean we all have to live somewhere. Not to mention that rent goes straight into the pocket of some rich dude that bought property. Oh and by the way he won't sell it, he will just keep raising the rent on poor folk. Hell why sell they take all the profit in capital gains.

[Spider]

For all you power to the poor you should be enraged that home owners get to right off mortgage interest and renters don't get to right off a thing. Hell if that's not slanted to rich people I don't know what is. I mean how many people living below 30 grand a yr in income own a home? How many people that make under 20 grand a yr own a home? I bet the % drops significantly.
Now ask yourself how many people making over 100 grand a yr own a home?

Really if you want a fair tax policy then renters should be able to write of a % of their rent. I mean we all have to live somewhere. Not to mention that rent goes straight into the pocket of some rich dude that bought property. Oh and by the way he won't sell it, he will just keep raising the rent on poor folk. Hell why sell they take all the profit in capital gains.

LOL , but trickle down economics ....... the rich worked hard to get their money , why punish them ? ROFL! the middle class has been getting the shaft since Reagan ........

[W*GS]

If "bribery" can make you alter your values then what you hold dear are not values anyway, but selective choices based on convenience. Hence, you have nothing to worry about.

Interesting take. The mere financial consequences of making a choice shouldn't enter into the process of choosing, because if they do, then it's just a matter of convenience?

Explain.

[cutthemdown]

LOL , but trickle down economics ....... the rich worked hard to get their money , why punish them ? ROFL! the middle class has been getting the shaft since Reagan ........

everybody has to house their family and themselves. IMO any money spent on sheltering kids should be a tax write off. To leave it only for homeowners isn't fair IMO. Yes I'm being serious. IMO this is far more important to regular people then what the capital gains tax would be.

[Spider]

everybody has to house their family and themselves. IMO any money spent on sheltering kids should be a tax write off. To leave it only for homeowners isn't fair IMO. Yes I'm being serious. IMO this is far more important to regular people then what the capital gains tax would be.

for the record I agree 100% , but the counter argument is , the government isnt responsible cause you have more kids then you can support ....as I always say a working man has no business voting republican

[cutthemdown]

Yes but then if the dems are so good to working folk why didn't Clinton make a federal renters credit or write off? Why not Carter? Why? Because no politicians give a rats ass about poor people unless it's election time.

[Spider]

Yes but then if the dems are so good to working folk why didn't Clinton make a federal renters credit or write off? Why not Carter? Why? Because no politicians give a rats ass about poor people unless it's election time.

or a republican congress that came out with a Contract on .......err Contract for America

[enjolras]

everybody has to house their family and themselves. IMO any money spent on sheltering kids should be a tax write off. To leave it only for homeowners isn't fair IMO. Yes I'm being serious. IMO this is far more important to regular people then what the capital gains tax would be.

And if you choose not to have kids your left subsidizing those who do? My wife and I pay nearly 35% of our income straight to the federal government (and that's with my wife being a CPA and holding a PhD in accounting!). It's painful to see more than a 1/3 of our wages shipped off to Washington with no real indication of what the hell its actually doing for me. We've worked our butts off to arrive at our income level, but the more we make the less we get to keep. Meanwhile we've already seen tax multiple tax credits (like the earned income tax credit) for folks with kids...

To ask me to further subsidize folks who have made the choice to have kids is insulting. I already pay my fair share for schools, transport, and programs, while things like infrastructure and mass transit that would benefit me remain woefully underfunded.

From my perspective you have it exactly backwards. Your kids consume resources and infrastructure, you should pay more.

[Sassy]

To ask me to further subsidize folks who have made the choice to have kids is insulting. I already pay my fair share for schools, transport, and programs, while things like infrastructure and mass transit that would benefit me remain woefully underfunded.

From my perspective you have it exactly backwards. Your kids consume resources and infrastructure, you should pay more.

Yep! I get nailed on "specials" for property taxes...I have no problem with parks, schools, etc...but why do I have to pay just as much when I don't have kids?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

What drivel!

Drivel (and silly "liberalism = socialism" strawman arguments) are W*GS' stock in trade.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

It's painful to see more than a 1/3 of our wages shipped off to Washington with no real indication of what the hell its actually doing for me.

Ask not what your taxes can do for you - ask what your taxes can do for Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, GE, ExxonMobil, et al. ;)

[W*GS]

Drivel (and silly "liberalism = socialism" strawman arguments)

You're not a "liberal", you're a socialist - you just don't have the balls to admit to it. You're a chicken****, in many ways...


are W*GS' stock in trade.

About all you do is lie. Repeatedly.

[cutthemdown]

And if you choose not to have kids your left subsidizing those who do? My wife and I pay nearly 35% of our income straight to the federal government (and that's with my wife being a CPA and holding a PhD in accounting!). It's painful to see more than a 1/3 of our wages shipped off to Washington with no real indication of what the hell its actually doing for me. We've worked our butts off to arrive at our income level, but the more we make the less we get to keep. Meanwhile we've already seen tax multiple tax credits (like the earned income tax credit) for folks with kids...

To ask me to further subsidize folks who have made the choice to have kids is insulting. I already pay my fair share for schools, transport, and programs, while things like infrastructure and mass transit that would benefit me remain woefully underfunded.

From my perspective you have it exactly backwards. Your kids consume resources and infrastructure, you should pay more.

No I think everyone should be able to write of their rent regardless of whether or not they have kids. I threw in that especially people with kids should get a break. But single people also should get to write off their rent IMO.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt must have had W*GS in mind with this quote from his book entitled "On Bullsh*t:"

Bullsh*tting, as he notes, is not exactly lying, and bullsh*t remains bullsh*t whether it's true or false. The difference lies in the bullsh*tter's complete disregard for whether what he's saying corresponds to facts in the physical world: he "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullsh*t is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

[W*GS]

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

Another canned response from the ****can that comprises LABF's dogma...

[Spider]

And if you choose not to have kids your left subsidizing those who do? My wife and I pay nearly 35% of our income straight to the federal government (and that's with my wife being a CPA and holding a PhD in accounting!). It's painful to see more than a 1/3 of our wages shipped off to Washington with no real indication of what the hell its actually doing for me. We've worked our butts off to arrive at our income level, but the more we make the less we get to keep. Meanwhile we've already seen tax multiple tax credits (like the earned income tax credit) for folks with kids...

To ask me to further subsidize folks who have made the choice to have kids is insulting. I already pay my fair share for schools, transport, and programs, while things like infrastructure and mass transit that would benefit me remain woefully underfunded.

From my perspective you have it exactly backwards. Your kids consume resources and infrastructure, you should pay more.
and so raising the capital gains tax is the only fair and right thing to do ....... I got 6 kids , and they take up alot of infrastructure , but I work my ass off to support them , I think your beef is more with the guys have 4 or 5 kids with 2 or 3 different mothers and not supporting these kids ........

[ScottXray]

Not at all. Why should the renter pay more tax than the homeowner, all else between the two being the same? Why should the parents pay less than the childless couple, all else being the same?

As to the renter...correct....so lets implement a program that stipulates that renters can claim their portion of the taxes paid on their apartment or house as a deduction. Of course this presupposes that they can get enough relief by filing Itemized deductions to make it worth their while to do so. Some states actually do have such rental relief laws. And it also presupposes that no one will raise rents to compensate, when the government at whatever level decides to disallow that deduction (at least partially) for the property owner, since the Renters are really paying that tax. If not then what portion
of the business expense that the owner claims for those taxes should be disallowed? How will the renters know what the tax is on their rental? Of course the business owner will need to inform them of their portion, by law! No simple answers, since the result is loss of revenue to the state, and the owners. The tax preparation companies will love the necessary complication in the tax code that will result!

The single couple not raising children...? Below a certain income point the cost of raising a child definitely exceeds the tax benefit of having one. Ability to pay comes into question. The childless couple in that same income bracket has the benefit of more disposable income, less cost to produce income (which is also somewhat accomodated by the child care credit also, which in no way covers the actual cost of child care), lower health care costs, costs of food, etc. But in general, the deduction is regressive. Above a certain income point it actually makes little difference. It also goes away when the child reaches an age of income producing status (assuming they do). The problem is many people in lower income groups do not "plan" on having those children. The children come anyway, and usually to the income group least likely to be able to deal with them. So a flat rate with no deductions could be done. Are we going to establish federal abortion clinics to deal with the unwanted children that become an even bigger hindrance to their parents? Or make all abortion illegal? Or simply pass a law that having a child below a certain income level is illegal? Hell, lets FINE those people who do so. There are no easy answers!

Using the tax code as a instrument of social engineering is about the bluntest, unnecessarily complicated, and favoritism-prone way to do it.

Yes, but what are the alternatives....Religion? Which religion? Charity?
A total re-write of the tax code to a simple flat tax? No deductions! What do we do about taxing business? Do we set a bottom income level, below which NO tax is paid? How do we deal with the people who do not pay , yet use schools, roads, health care? Fees? A total pay as you go System? Our society as a whole would have to undergo a paradigm shift to do so. It is overly simplistic to believe that ANY system will not have some inequities.


That's the understatement of the 21st century.
AGREED!

Read the first couple of articles in <a href="http://www.orangemane.com/BB/showthread.php?t=67798">this thread</a> and explain to me again how effectively and efficiently the infrastructure and those services are working.

I never said that they were being effective. The roads and bridges, and dams that are in poor shape are an indictment of the systems failure to maintain them. Once again it goes to how ineffectively the government has been using the monies they have received for the maintenance, and how much of those funds has been mis-appropriated to OTHER uses, rather than maintaining the infrastructure which was created by the various governments, and the reduction of federal funds to do so. Do you propose we privatise all these? It has worked so well until now. FEMA is a sterling example of the achievements to be had by turning our public agencies over to private sector contractors. Once again a BALANCE is needed. It has to start with the management of the funds, and not allow the misappropiation of them...by anyone.

Re-read the op-ed piece, more carefully this time.
I did. How we came to be in the mess we are in may be his point, but he offers no alternative REAL world solution. b****ing is easy. I still think he is painting a picture of a supposed FREE market that has very little to do with what the founding fathers intended when they started the revolution. It was not about NO taxes , but taxes without fair representation. An Unjust government. That the people have the right to throw out such a government!
It also supposed that the electorate would have self interest, and proposed a bicameral legislation and an executive branch, along with a court that could rule on the actions and laws committed by the other two branches. In all there was supposed to be balance that offered the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to ALL its citizens. At no point is there any statement that the state(s) have no right to tax the citizenry to provide for the defense and the common good. And no promise of a FREE market. The founders themselves were divided over these issues and the issues of Federal versus states rights. Which in effect is why we ended up with the two party (effectively) system we now have. The role of that government has changed over the 200+ years since, As INTENDED, and allowed for by them. Surely, they would not like some of what our society has evolved into. But the core beliefs they
forged into our constitution are still there!

[ScottXray]

Bump/...the thread post count hasn't updated. sorry

[cutthemdown]

I don't think even one canidate has proposed adding a federal renters credit. You can forgot about it happening. The amount would be staggering. Like I said neither party is for helping the little guy. The democrats talk a good game but when they get in office guess what? poor people are still poor and still being taxed to death right along with everyone else.

[cutthemdown]

let's say half the country rents. thats what maybe 150 million or so people? That would be a lot of lost revenue if the govt let all those people write the rent off before they paid taxes.

[baja]

let's say half the country rents. thats what maybe 150 million or so people? That would be a lot of lost revenue if the govt let all those people write the rent off before they paid taxes.

Well that would sure piss me off I want as much hard earned money as possible going to bombs and bullets to shock & awe those funny looking people in Iraq. Lets kill them terrorists over there so we don't have to kill them here right.

Just look at these weird sand ****ers.

http://www.aztlan.net/du_deformed_iraqi_babies.htm

I mean just look at this.... we are doing them a favor killing them right Bush Boys.

[ScottXray]

let's say half the country rents. thats what maybe 150 million or so people? That would be a lot of lost revenue if the govt let all those people write the rent off before they paid taxes.

You would not deduct the rent, just the tax portion of the rent paid, and the interest the owner used to purchase the property (at least partially). Homeowners don't get to write off their mortgages, just deduct their property taxes, and mortgage interest.

Either way it is based on the fact that those property taxes are paid to other government agencies, usually to support the schools , libraries, police and fire and other agencies that use those funds. The Interest deduction is only for your primary residence and has a lot of rules as to application. It is there because it was initially used to stimulate the population to commit to the long term debt a mortgage was supposed to be used for. The recent junk status mortgages that are causing the current mortgage crisis are ä result of the government allowing the business to "self regulate" itself. The ultimate bad side of a FREE market.

The net result of any change made to the tax code will be to complicate the existing code even more.

Renters should possibly receive at least partially the same consideration as owners, but as pointed out, are you going to remove that deduction from the property owner? Will he raise the rent?

[cutthemdown]

Well that would sure piss me off I want as much hard earned money as possible going to bombs and bullets to shock & awe those funny looking people in Iraq. Lets kill them terrorists over there so we don't have to kill them here right.

Just look at these weird sand ****ers.

http://www.aztlan.net/du_deformed_iraqi_babies.htm

I mean just look at this.... we are doing them a favor killing them right Bush Boys.

you better read all my posts in this thread before you go getting sarcastic changing to the war again.

[baja]

you better read all my posts in this thread before you go getting sarcastic changing to the war again.

Sorry I was having a bad memory moment. I know this is not your fault but you did vote and support Bush.

[cutthemdown]

Sorry I was having a bad memory moment. I know this is not your fault but you did vote and support Bush.

I actually wrote in John Lennon both elections.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Sorry I was having a bad memory moment. I know this is not your fault but you did vote and support Bush.

We'll never know for sure about the vote part, but the support has always been there for all to see, huh?