If you eliminate capital gains.

what you should be complaining about is how hedge funds are taxed..they are given the capital gains tax even if they are held less than 12 months..that should be taxed like it is for everyone else..but they have too much clout in congress..

 

It's not an excellent question. Capital gains should be taxed at a much lower rate. Raise the capital gains tax to reflect income taxes and you'll be taking hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, out of the capital market. That would discourage investment and be devestating to the economy.

 

Classic projectionism of another misinformed liberal who has no understanding of how our system works and who fails to follow along during a simple logic-based debate.

More projectionism. It is YOU and people like you who are the greedy ones. After all, I’m just asking to keep my hard-earned money to better the lives of myself and my family, while people like YOU want MY hard-earned money for yourselves. I don’t like people like you and others who pathetically attempt to rationalize the theft of others' hard-earned money. Your greed knows no bounds.

Nope. Most “rich” folk are just average citizens trying to support their families. As always, you have no evidence to support your extremist views.

You are the epitome of liberal projectionism. You actually think YOU’RE winning this debate?! LOL!

More projectionism. I’m the one putting up with your extreme views (without any evidence to support such views), you YOU’RE the one with ”a lot of patience”?! Again, this just makes me laugh.

I guess it’s much easier to refer to me in the 3rd person during a conversation with someone else, rather than actually address my points, right?

You are horribly losing this debate; I consider this an informal concession on your part. You (and Political Ed) are extremely closed-minded and fail to look at the world outside your bubble. At least I entertained your ideology and attempted to explain the errors of your thinking, but you (and others like you) are unable to be swayed by logical debate. You revert to pure ideology and dismiss both facts and common sense. It’s sad that I find most “liberals” are the most close-minded people that I ever come in contact with.

 

First off, You’re right: Probability and feasibility are entirely different things. If you argument is that poor people are indeed “stuck” in their unfortunate station in life, then you need to legitimately show me the obstacles preventing them to work hard and save money for a better future.

Second, I stated that the graphs was misleading by showing that it is not “probable” for someone in the 0-10% group to gain enough wealth to enter the 60-100% group. It misleadingly separated everyone into only two groups: 0-40% and 60-100%. The middle class group was conveniently left out, so it is unknown what percentage of poor people entered the middle class group (40-60%).

Third, these graphs only look at ONE generation, rather than multiple generations. My family, along with very others, were in the “lower class” when we originally immigrated from Europe 3 generations ago, but after 2 generations of hard work and sacrifice, we are now in the upper-middle class and my wife and I earn an income that the Obama administrations considers “rich.”

It’s not my job to defend your argument for you.

I have common sense and a basic understanding of statistics terminology.

You are comparing apples and oranges here. Regarding a poor person’s ability to move into the middle class (or an obese person’s ability to normalize his BMI), the probability merely refers to a simple mathematical formula: (Number of persons who moved from the lower class to middle class) / (Total number of lower class persons). Regarding feasibility, you need to look much more in depth. You need to look at the REASONS why people are and aren’t bettering their station in life. You need to look at obstacles and individual problems. Feasibility is much different than probability in this case.

As an example, let’s say that only 10% of obese people normalize their BMI. This 10% value indicates probability. However, this sheds no light on the feasibility of losing weight. We have no information on how many obese people engaged in proper diet and exercise. We have no information if any used personal trainers or were members of a gym. We have no information if any of them even took daily walks. You see, in this case (and the case with poor people improving their status), feasibility and probability are entirely different, because there are lots of unaccounted variables that affect feasibility.

Regarding SURVIVABILITY of jumping off a tower with no parachute, there are not many unaccounted variables (e.g. there are not many things that the falling jumper can do that will change his odds), and thus feasibility of survival equals probability of survival.

Not in this case. Here, such generalizations are harmful to the uneducated reader, since it will cause them to jump to incorrect conclusions. Why is the middle class strangely removed from the chart?

I stated that the graph was misleading for many reasons that I listed in prior posts. I also stated that feasibility does not equal probability in this case. Please stop putting words in my mouth.

This response is a non sequitur in the context of my original contention. I stated that in your original graph, the middle class was left out, and thus you are only comparing ability of the poor (bottom 0-40%) to move into the rich class (top 60-100%). Why is the middle class (40-60%) not included? This would clearly change the results of class improvement drastically.

Good for you, admitting that you posted sensationalistic information. I, however, prefer more honest tactics. Perhaps this is why you losing this “debate.”

So you are telling me that it’s okay, because you’ve provided “data for the sake of data” essentially. This doesn’t fly in my book. A fair debate requires data that is relevant to the context of the debate. You have provided no such data.

Do you even know what “sensationalistic” means? Clearly not. There is no positive connotation here of the term "sensationalistic". This term is utilized to indicate that you produced “data” that may seem eye-opening to the untrained debater, but I have proved such “data” to be useless in the context of this debate. Who cares if only 4% of the poor become "rich" if we don’t know how many of the poor people become middle class? Wouldn’t looking at the amount of poor becoming middle class be a more logical assessment (and feasible goal) then seeing the amount of poor that become upper class?

Exactly. This further proves my point.

No. I believe that correlation and causation must be proved via coherent data, and not assumed via charts that have nothing to do with the debate.

Nonsensical analogy again (apples and oranges).

*Yawn* More apples and oranges. You clearly fail to understand the concepts of variables and basic research analysis.

I define “biased” as the fact that the data presented is sensationalistic and unrelated to this debate. I fail to see the point that you are trying to make with these graphs, and I have explained that it is logical that the rich will and SHOULD get richer than others, since they have more money to invest. I fail to see how you do not understand this, and I also fail to see why you think this is a bad thing.

 

No. It’s disproportionate because the top 25% pays over 87% of all federal income taxes. Hence the bottom 75% pays less than 13% of all federal taxes. Does that really seem fair to you. This is clearly disproportionate to any open-minded thinker.

Well you are obviously advocating for a distribution of wealth, which is clearly Marxist-thinking.

Are you serious?

If the federal government provides everyone (rich or poor alike) the same protections, and the top 25% pay over 87% of the federal tax burden, while the bottom 75% only pay <13% of the tax burden, that is obviously disproportionate (top 25% pays nearly 7 X more than the bottom 75% for the exact same services).

Well, technically the poor do benefit MUCH more from the federal government if you include food stamps, Medicaid, and welfare (since these programs were made specfically to benefit the poor), but I was just including things like the armed services, Intelligence Agencies, instate roads, postal service, and legal system for the purposes of simplifying things. The aforementioned things do indeed benefit everyone equally.

The only thing that&#8217;s really funny is your failure to understand this obvious fact.

How does it not? Do we (rich and poor) not all live in the same country?

If Iran or North Korea nuke us all, the rich will die just as easily as the poor. Hence our armed services protects the rich and the poor equally, since they protect the COLLECTIVE country, and not just certain classes of wealth. You were really grasping at straws at that one.

Are you serious? We all benefit equally. My mail is delivered the same way as your mail. The chicken breast I bought was transported on the same interstate highways as the chicken breast that you bought. The army protects my life and your life equally. The legislature confers the same rights to the rich and to the poor. Are you getting the picture now?

You are WAAAAAAAAY off topic. We were using money [before] as a measure for benefit of GOVERNMENT services for those receiving specific government services (food stamps, Medicaid), because there is a certain value attached to those services, and those services are only provided to certain members of society (and those members indeed get a DIRECT benefit from those services). I even gave a source that compares the amount of money that people give to the government compared to the amount of money received in services http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr151.pdf . I am still waiting for a response regarding this statistics which entirely destroy your prior argument.

You were way off topic before, and now you&#8217;re in deep space with a statement that has no logical basis. You lost me.

The figures posted are from 2005. It&#8217;s pretty convincing that the &#8220;poor&#8221; are able to afford most luxury items, including a HOUSE.

You present a Gallup Poll, which yields opinion data, rather than concrete data from the Department of Energy and Housing and Development which I provided. Do you think that a simple Gallup Poll is sufficient to debunk concrete evidence collected from government agencies? Try again.

 

It's money you make. And it's not being taxed twice.
So you are saying that when someone earns money, that no matter how many times they invest it, sell, re-invest, sell, re-invest, sell that they should not have to pay taxes on the latter amounts because the original amount was taxed?

I guarantee you that the vast, VAST majority of the income for most middle class families/individuals is income and not capital gains (outside of their family home - which is not taxed).

 

Most 401K plans money is put in before it is taxed.

But when it is spent the money is taxed as income...including the money made on investments.

So how is getting rid of capital gains taxes going to help a 401K shareholder?

And if you withdraw before you are 59 and 1/2 you pay an extra 10% on top of income taxes.

It will only help the Wall Street bunch.

 

And if your 401K looses money you still pay income taxes on it with no way to claim losses.

 

I'm not saying we shouldn't have a capital gains tax, I'm saying it shouldn't be taxed at income tax rates.

There are a lot of prudent middle class and upper middle class investors. Plus, just because a given investor doesn't pay capital gains tax because of 401k etc, doesn't mean they wouldn't be severely affected by a raise in the tax. The economy/market doesn't work in isolation.

Also, a single tax payer making more than 34k a year has to pay 15% on Capital gains. 34k a year is very lower middle class. We're not talking about millionaire investors here.

 

Honest tactics?

Heritage foundation and some pro-fascist Ronnie site; you're the most dishonest tool I've encountered on posting forums in some time. Have you ever even referenced any objective gov data? You didn't even address most of my issues and when you do it's some misdirection like, "non sequitor" "not my job to prove your point" etc.....

If you're stuck, you're stuck. You have yet to show me 1 major federal tax cut over the last 100 years that was beneficial in most points and overall a move forward. I'm sure you'll say it's not your job. That's called acquiesence. Ever notice how your side delves into that kind of debate versus eagerly posting droves of objectve gov data? See, you're a pretty articulate guy, you're just arguing a losing position; get a clue.

Oh, and show me how being a sociopath in politics is a good idea.

 

Are you saying someone that makes 34K in capital gains?

In order to make 34K in capital gains - assuming you are getting a return of about 10% on your investment - means this person has $340,000 in assets.

You must be talking about a senior - because there is NO WAY that the average middle class, American family of 4 has $340,000 (outside of their principle residence) in an investment portfolio.

 

As of right now, Americans with a marginal tax rate of 25% (approx. 34k a year) pay 15% on long-term capital gains. With prudent investments any middle class American can do quite well for themselves in the long run. Jacking up capital gains taxes hurts these intelligent investors as well as the economy. Starting in 2013 everyone will have to pay at least 15% in capital gains.

Also, when you consider inflation, the government is taking nominal and not real wealth gains. It's a tax on a "illusory gain".

 

Cap gains tax revs are insignificant in the big picture, they account for 2-3% of all fed receipts. Let's focus on income tax as a whole, they're more important.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/06/breakdown-of-government-revenue/

 

The thread is about capital gains tax, not income tax. Right now capital gains taxes are relatively low....which is why they don't contribute much to government revenues. However, there's been a push by many Democrats to increase the capital gains tax as a way to get at wealthy investors. Raising capital gains taxes will discourage investment and raise the cost of capital for small and large businesses alike. I'm not looking at it in terms of tax revenue, I'm looking at it in terms of economic impact.

 

If we double the capital gains tax rate, we would see about a $120 billion increase in revenue. This would make a tiny dent in the massive deficit while stifling investment and making it difficult for businesses to expand.

 

Exactly. It would also probably push investors into high dividend yield stocks which would do god knows what to the market.

 

Not likely. Capital gains taxes are levied on speculative market gains. Since very little of the money from speculative markets, less than 0.03%, is made available for business expansion it is highly unlikely that an increase in the capital gains tax would lead to a decrease in direct business investment.

In fact, the opposite is more likely. If businesses are faced with increased taxation on their speculative market activities they may be more inclined to direct their retained capital into growing their business revenues. As it is, it is more profitable and less risky to invest profits in market speculation where capital gains taxes rather than use that money to expand the business, where risks of loss are greater and gains are taxed at a higher rate.

 

Oh, I have an idea, perhaps, and this is so painfully obvious, THE INVESTORS OR PEOPLE MAKING PROFITS THAT FALL UNDER CAPITAL GAINS WOULD REINVEST TO AVOID THAT WHOLE GAINING PART, causing a reinvestment in America as any true patriot would want, and as we all know, the rich are oh so patriotic .

The same with any tax, PROFITS / INCOME ARE TAXED, NOT BASE MONEY, so it incentivizes people to reinvest, stimulating the economy. That's what cracks me up about people whining that rich people are taxed, not directly true, profits are taxed so if a rich person loses money or doesn't make profit, or, a poor person makes a lot of money then THAT MONEY THAT IS PROFIT IS TAXED. This is a concept many people have a hard time with, money isn't taxed as some inventory tax on company shelved stock items, only profits are taxed, so to avoid that a person making profit to where the taxes may eat them up, they simply buy things, grow their company and write off their reinvestments. In the process, they have reinvested in America, grown the job base, terminated unemployment.

The danger to this is that we can have runaway inflation, as the economy would be doing so well that goods and svs cost more, the way to end that is to increase the interest rate. Clinton did this and I bought my house at 7% interest in 1998. Of course as Clinton entered office the Canadian Dollar was 1.21 of theirs bought 1 USD. As he left 1 USD bought 1.58 Canadian Dollar. So as we reinvest, we shelter profits, create job growth, grown our GDP and then grow our dollar so we can travel around the world and even buy foreign goods at cheap prices. But of course the stupid necks in here and in many places of America are so enamoured with tax cuts they can't look at very available historical data to see what I say is accurate, instead walk around mumbling, "Tax cuts, my friends" like some retarded version of that senile ole war hero who wanted to be president. These same morons actually think Reagan grew jobs at a good clip, when in reality it was quite a bit < even Carter while tripling the debt.

Pull your heads out and shut down Heritage, start looking at gov data and by all means, if you can honestly prove that data to be incorrect, I'd love to see it.

 

You're a F'ing genius and I mean that seriously. This is it, the gov advocates being sleezy by keeping cap gains tax low, that way we keep it in the market where most of it goes to capital growth, not GDP growth.

With what you're saying, business profits would go back into a business operations, growing the GDP, employing people and sheltering profits that way.

I read an article a while back that said there are 2 types of investment, I don't have the exact language, but it went something like:

- Capital investment = investing in the stock market which does little to create jobs.

- Growth investment = which invests on main street to create goods and svs, greates GDP growth, deflates unemployment, etc


So that's what you're saying and that is correct, we need to reward investment that benefits us all, not some Wall Street dirtbag and increasing cap gains is a start, albeit a small one, a move in the right direction. I don't care if investor sleezbag buys 10,000 shares of Boeing, when he is likely buying it catch a dollar or 2 growth anyway and then dump, I do care if a guy reinvests in his business, hires 3 people at descent wages and then expands the GDP while providing quality goods or svs. We Americans are so in love with the WS type maggots and then act as tho we're not. Of course most if it is ignorance on the part of this highly uneducated country.

 

People invest in stocks because they expect to make money through dividends and capital gains. If you tax those gains at a significantly higher rate you won't invest, period. Just because the majority of stock transactions take place in secondary markets, doesn't mean raising capital gains wouldn't have a serious impact on primary markets. Investors invest in IPOs because they expect to earn returns through dividends and then by selling their ownership in secondary markets for capital gains. You discourage them by taxing capital gains at a higher rate, there is no getting around that. You're looking at it mainly from the perspective of large existing corporations. New companies need to raise capital to expand and grow the economy. Equity is a vital part of raising this capital. Raising capital gains taxes will make raising capital more expensive. It will force companies to rely on debt for capital, which could raise interest rates. Also, most start ups can't get anywhere close to the capital they need from debt financing.

 

While I agree that Cap Gains Tax revs are meaningless in the big picture, an increase would simply force reinvestment and not profit-taking. We need to force the folks with the cash to reinvest vs profit-take since their pseudo patriotism won't reinvest w/o a gun to their heads. True patriots would reinvest out of love for their country, the uber rich, most of them, don't care about the country as they claim, they just want to extort as much profit as possible while wathcing the country roll into double-digit unemployment.

 

Most investment, esp reinvestment is done as a shelter, low taxes negate the need to shelter, pay the small tax and profit-take, stagnate the economy which drives wages down.

Most stock market investment really doesn't translate to goods production, these companies have the cash to operate w/o it, if not easy credit. These traded companies, most of them, don't need stock investments and they don't translate to GDP growth, not sure you really care tho, but GDP growth translates to job growth and lowering unemployment, diminishing social welfare, etc.