Do rich people pay taxes?

In reply to barefootskater :

Haha I haven’t got that one before.  Usually I get, ‘That’s a bold strategy Cotton’.

Nick Comstock said:

Now what they do with those taxes are beyond my control. Once they have that money they decide the best way to spend it, not me as it's not my money anymore. It's theirs. I certainly would like to see it used for things I agree 100% with however that's an unreasonable expectation. So that money I paid may be used for welfare or war in places we have no business being in or paying off strippers (that's a joke people) but it's beyond my control. It's not my money anymore. 

So just because I'm fine with things being taxed differently in no way means that I agree with welfare. But again the government does and it's beyond my control.

You may choose for govt actions to be beyond your control, but it is the foundation of our society to have some faith in the representative process.  While I will be the first to admit the system has some (possibly fatal) flaws, it is still the system we have to live with.

In reply to Cotton :

Just cause you believe it doesn't mean it's true! $250k a year should set you up quite nicely to retire early and keep a nice standard of living. If it doesn't you're doing something wrong.

STM317 said:

frenchyd said:

dculberson said:

$250k in annual income is top 3% of household income in the US. Anyone consistently making that kind of income is rich. If they've made it for several years and are not wealthy then they are rich and foolish with their money.

I’m sorry but $250,000 a year won’t get you in my neighborhood. Well not on the prime pieces anyway.  Well it will if you actually earned 10 times that but only paid taxes on $250,000   

By your own admission, your neighborhood is way above normal. You seem to consider yourself middle class, when you're actually part of the wealthy elite that you rant about. Your minimum estimated value of your home puts your net worth higher than 90% of Americans. Before any other savings or assets. You are the wealthy elite that you so frequently rail against!

You rant about kids inheriting wealth from parents, but you don't seem to realize your own kids have enjoyed many of the privileges of wealthy kids: college paid for, a hefty inheritance when you're gone, eX pensive travel, etc. If you're really serious about your stance on inherited wealth, then why leave your kids with anything? Liquidate everything and donate it to charity.

You spend a lot of time complaining about billionaires, basically because they have things that you don't, and you don't like that. An actual middle class person will have the same complaints about you that you have about the billionaires. And a lower class person is going to have similar complaints about the middle class person, who complains about the millionaire, who complains about the billionaire. There's always somebody with more,mane there will always be people that think that's unfair. There will also be people that choose not to complain, and instead work their hardest to climb up a rung or 2 on the ladder of society. 

Bingo.

alfadriver said:

In reply to racerdave600 :

No, it doesn't.  Go look closer at the gross majority of events at Wall St- most of the sales are trades- which gives companies no money at all.  The only time they ever get money is during the initial stock offering or if they direct sell some of the company owned stock.  

Trades between two people mean nothing to companies.  

I very much understand that it's a source if "income" to my 401k, too, but one has to bear in mind that it's a gamble that someone will eventually pay me more for what I own than what I paid for it.  Which isn't really that secure.  Look closely at companies that have value to Wall St- they are not the biggest companies with the highest revenues and solid 100 year performance.  Good financial logic does not apply for stocks.  It's more gambling with information than wise finance.  

The fact that we have our retirements invested in Wall St does not make that any better.

I've lived through boom and bust with our stock.  And in the "bust", where our stock bottomed out at ~$1, we still had cash flow to invest and make stuff.  It's barely different now that the stock price is 10x that

It would be great if most of what Wall St does was funding companies, but that's such a small part of what happens, it's not even funny.  And don't get me started on derivatives....

All I want is an even playing field for all kinds of income.  Stocks and bonds earnings should not be any different than my salary, or even gambling income.  Should all be the same.  That will very much even the effective tax rate on the higher incomes, where it is now not.

I'm all about incentives and I'll take the tax advantages while I can but the LTCG rates vs tax brackets don't really make much sense in the grand scheme of things. I've always rationalized it as a way for politicians  to say "hey look how much I'm taxing the rich (40%) which the rest of us plebians are like  "hell yeah good job" not realizing that the rich aren't paying those rates anyway because they are paying 15 to 20%. What I would rather see would be marginal rates come down and no long term capital gains. Or at least a way to differentiate between LTCG that are investments in business and property and just holding stock. 

In reply to Cotton :

I've definitely read your posts in my head in Cotton Hill's voice 

Ian F said:

Nick Comstock said:

Now what they do with those taxes are beyond my control. Once they have that money they decide the best way to spend it, not me as it's not my money anymore. It's theirs. I certainly would like to see it used for things I agree 100% with however that's an unreasonable expectation. So that money I paid may be used for welfare or war in places we have no business being in or paying off strippers (that's a joke people) but it's beyond my control. It's not my money anymore. 

So just because I'm fine with things being taxed differently in no way means that I agree with welfare. But again the government does and it's beyond my control.

You may choose for govt actions to be beyond your control, but it is the foundation of our society to have some faith in the representative process.  While I will be the first to admit the system has some (possibly fatal) flaws, it is still the system we have to live with.

Let's say that you and I both, well let's go ahead and include every single person who has ever posted on this message board all agree that we want the government to oh let's say not go to war with Russia for instance. So we all call our Representatives and get our friends and family to do the same. But the government goes ahead and votes to go to war with Russia. There's nothing that any of us can do about it. Same with welfare. Same with the current health Care laws. Same with everything the government touches. Once that money is out of our hands and into theirs and we voice our opinions about how it should be spent that's all we can do. The government does what the government wants. 

Like it or not most of those things are out of our control. I may be the only one but I do believe the government does act in our best interest. Or at least tries to. But to alfadrivers point there is a huge difference between being okay with paying taxes and being okay with every single thing the government decides to do with that money.

I'd like to offer a different definition of wealth other than net worth, or income, or anything else that has been discussed. 

I spent a decade as a development worker on the World stage.  We worked in Haiti, and Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, and China, as well as Europe, and other developed areas. 

The definition of wealth used by that organization was this:  Wealth is what determines how far you can see into your own future. 

We worked with people who couldn't see a week into their own future. They didn't know how they would feed their children, or if they would starve to death within a week. Heck, we worked with people who couldn't see 4 hours into their own future to know where their next meal was coming from. 

I suspect most of the people on this board can see into their own future for about a year or more. Some have retirement plans in place and can see several decades into their own future. Some are very wealthy, and can see into the future of their children and grandchildren. 

There is no one on this board who has a right to claim poverty. 

In reply to Enyar :

Well it kind of depends on how early,  that standard of living, etc, right?  I mean if I want to live in Santa Monica, drive a Lambo,  and retire at 40 it’ll look a lot different than if I want to live in rural Alabama and drive a corolla.  Plus a lot depends on what all that 250k went towards.  Let’s consider 250k after taxes, retirement, charitable donations,benefits, etc,  then what if you live in an area with a high cost of living, have kids,  a nice house,  a couple of car payments, and on and on? I know couples with 3 kids in private school....when they told me what that cost annually I almost choked.  So yeah,  I’m sure plenty of people probably feel rich and can set themselves up on 250k a year and others feel like they’re barely scraping by.  It’s all relative.

In reply to SVreX :

You made a post about hourly pay earlier in this thread that I wanted to touch on but never did. 

I worked for a company that paid production pay. I got a percentage of whatever my crew produced that week. As a foreman I was paid 5% my two crew guys were paid 2.5% each. The salesman was paid 10%. I really feel like that is a better way to go about things. It incentivizes the hard workers and weeds out the slackers. It doesn't hurt that I was consistently bringing home double what I currently am either.

SVreX said:

  Wealth is what determines how far you can see into your own future. 

I like this a lot. I may have to steal this bit of wisdom. 

Cotton said:

In reply to Enyar :

Well it kind of depends on how early,  that standard of living, etc, right?  I mean if I want to live in Santa Monica, drive a Lambo,  and retire at 40 it’ll look a lot different than if I want to live in rural Alabama and drive a corolla.  Plus a lot depends on what all that 250k went towards.  Let’s consider 250k after taxes, retirement, charitable donations,benefits, etc,  then what if you live in an area with a high cost of living, have kids,  a nice house,  a couple of car payments, and on and on? I know couples with 3 kids in private school....when they told me what that cost annually I almost choked.  So yeah,  I’m sure plenty of people probably feel rich and can set themselves up on 250k a year and others feel like they’re barely scraping by.  It’s all relative.

Just because you can't do exactly what you want to do forever doesn't mean you're not rich. The things you described as "what ifs" are all expensive because they're things that .. guess what .. rich people do. You have to be rich to do them in the first place. Having the ability to choose to live in a high cost of living area, have a nice house, and kids that you send to private school, and car payments on high end cars are all signals of what? That's right, wealth or at least a high income, and being rich.

You're orders of magnitude beyond average income and ability to generate wealth at $250k/year. If that doesn't pretty much define rich, I'm not sure what does. There are levels of rich just like there are levels of middle class and levels of poor.

In reply to dculberson :

Okay, being rich to you means, among other things, nice house,  nice schools,  nice cars.  Hell,  maybe you’re right.  I just see it differently,  that’s all.   Based on this thread alone it obviously means different  things to different people.

In reply to Cotton :

Hell, based on this thread I feel I make less than some of you pay in taxes in a year 

Nick Comstock said:

In reply to SVreX :

You made a post about hourly pay earlier in this thread that I wanted to touch on but never did. 

I worked for a company that paid production pay. I got a percentage of whatever my crew produced that week. As a foreman I was paid 5% my two crew guys were paid 2.5% each. The salesman was paid 10%. I really feel like that is a better way to go about things. It incentivizes the hard workers and weeds out the slackers. It doesn't hurt that I was consistently bringing home double what I currently am either.

Most of my working career I was a salesman. The last few decades I was paid a salary as a bonus because I’d built a reputation for sales success.  No matter how big the salary got my commission always exceeded it and most years I made more than my boss or even the owner of the company.  

However that doesn’t come easy. Most days I started before dawn and finished near midnight.  Yes    I was a good provider but there were a lot of events my children did or were in that I missed entirely.  Understandably they bonded much better with their mother than me. Because of that lack of bonding it’s a rare week that I see my grandchildren in spite of our close proximity. 

No alienation just busy life’s led.  Success demands a price and that appears to be my price. I know upon my passing I’ll be morned  and missed. But I wish now I could have found a little more time in my workday. 

alfadriver said:

Nick Comstock said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

At the risk of getting sucked into this and I've tried to stay out as it's been made clear to me that my opinions are not welcomed here I will say this, I am of the opinion that what a man does with his wealth is his business and I expect nothing at all from him and I do not feel he is under any obligation to do anything whatsoever for the betterment of society. 

It's not an issue of how they spend their money (and relatively speaking, they don't spend nearly enough, but that's another issue), I read Gameboy's issue is how they earn it.  

Our economy is pretty much 100% people spending money on stuff, right?  A consumer society.  

So why is it rewarded that the CEO's of companies take their manufacturing out of the country for even lower labor rates?  Over the really long run, the loss of consumers will hurt the economy as a whole.  But decisions at the top are so focused on "shareholder value" that they loose sight of the long run, and only shoot for the time that they are getting stock options as CEO.  And it's pretty clear that the top part of the companies have been getting pretty consistent raises well above inflation when the workers income is pretty flat.

Remember how controversial it was for Henry Ford to give the $5/day salary.  But it did two things- it stabilized his workforce (which was the real reason for it) and added a huge number of consumers for his product.  

The other thing that is really odd to me, which I posted before, why does unearned income get a lower rate than earned income?  Income is income, and should be considered equal.  When you bias taxes to one kind of income, you naturally bias people to want to work in that general area.  Forgive me for asking, but I never have seen how Wall Street actually contributes to the economy as a whole, given that it's trading value of stuff that is not useful to anyone other than people who want to trade value.

People should earn income, not just get lucky.  And earning income adds to the overall value of taking stuff, transforming it into something more useful, and selling it.  

Do what you want with your earned money.  But earn it morally.

I can agree with you that income is income. Although we do have “sin” taxes which are higher for things like alcohol and cigarettes. So effectively our society says that gambling your income ( through stock betting) is better than working for an income. 

Ian F said:

In reply to frenchyd :

Or maybe a different analogy. 

What is better for the economy - 100 people buying $500 Whirlpool refrigerators or 10 people buying $5000 Sub Zero refrigerators?

Good question. In the end which puts more money into society?  I honestly don’t know 

Wait isn’t Whirlpool made in Puerto Rico? I know Sub Zero/Wolf are made in America. 

I didn’t go with Sub Zero but I did go with Wolf. Not my choice, SWMBO’s decision. 

Cotton said:

In reply to Enyar :

Well it kind of depends on how early,  that standard of living, etc, right?  I mean if I want to live in Santa Monica, drive a Lambo,  and retire at 40 it’ll look a lot different than if I want to live in rural Alabama and drive a corolla.  Plus a lot depends on what all that 250k went towards.  Let’s consider 250k after taxes, retirement, charitable donations,benefits, etc,  then what if you live in an area with a high cost of living, have kids,  a nice house,  a couple of car payments, and on and on? I know couples with 3 kids in private school....when they told me what that cost annually I almost choked.  So yeah,  I’m sure plenty of people probably feel rich and can set themselves up on 250k a year and others feel like they’re barely scraping by.  It’s all relative.

The part I bolded is the key. A person may not feel they themselves are rich/wealthy/whatever but if your income or net worth is more than a very large percentage of the population, you're objectively rich. Our perception changes as our "normal" changes. But the statistics don't lie either. If you make $30k/year, you might think of "rich" people as having a $250k house. When you get a $250k house, the goal posts move, and now a "rich" person might have a Ferrari. When you buy a Ferrari, the goal post moves again, and now you have to have a lake house to be considered "rich". But then you buy a lake house, and you still consider it "normal", so you have to own a private plane to be considered "rich".

There's nothing wrong with wanting nice, expensive things. But understand that nobody really sees themselves as "rich" even when they objectively are just because there's always somebody with more. If you want to continue accumulating assets until you can sustain a luxurious lifestyle indefinitely that's your prerogative. But you have to understand that buying all of those fancy things, and supporting that extravagant lifestyle all has opportunity cost. Any time I make a major purchase, I do a mental calculation to determine how much longer I'll have to work to justify the cost. That helps me to keep things in check as retiring early and doing whatever I want with my time is more important to me in the long term than buying that new shiny thing. It also keeps me from conspicuous consumption and falling into the mindset that it's never enough.

STM317 said:

Cotton said:

In reply to Enyar :

Well it kind of depends on how early,  that standard of living, etc, right?  I mean if I want to live in Santa Monica, drive a Lambo,  and retire at 40 it’ll look a lot different than if I want to live in rural Alabama and drive a corolla.  Plus a lot depends on what all that 250k went towards.  Let’s consider 250k after taxes, retirement, charitable donations,benefits, etc,  then what if you live in an area with a high cost of living, have kids,  a nice house,  a couple of car payments, and on and on? I know couples with 3 kids in private school....when they told me what that cost annually I almost choked.  So yeah,  I’m sure plenty of people probably feel rich and can set themselves up on 250k a year and others feel like they’re barely scraping by.  It’s all relative.

The part I bolded is the key. A person may not feel they themselves are rich/wealthy/whatever but if your income or net worth is more than a very large percentage of the population, you're objectively rich. Our perception changes as our "normal" changes. But the statistics don't lie either. If you make $50k/year, you might think of "rich" people as having a $250k house. When you get a $250k house, the goal posts move, and now a "rich" person might have a Ferrari. When you buy a Ferrari, the goal post moves again, and now you have to have a lake house to be considered "rich". But then you buy a lake house, and you still consider it "normal", so you have to own a private plane to be considered "rich".

There's nothing wrong with wanting nice, expensive things. But understand that nobody really sees themselves as "rich" even when they objectively are just because there's always somebody with more. If you want to continue accumulating assets until you can sustain a luxurious lifestyle indefinitely that's your prerogative. But you have to understand that buying all of those fancy things, and supporting that extravagant lifestyle all has opportunity cost. Any time I make a major purchase, I do a mental calculation to determine how much longer I'll have to work to justify the cost. That helps me to keep things in check as retiring early and doing whatever I want with my time is more important to me in the long term than buying that new shiny thing. It also keeps me from conspicuous consumption and falling into the mindset that it's never enough.

I think the definition of rich isn’t important because as you point out it’s subjective. 

I believe that taxes should be based on income and not on subjective things like rich/ poor.  

Mind you all of my life I’ve been careful to follow the tax rules carefully and most years my taxable income was tiny. Only now in my retirement is the taxes approaching something I feel is fair.  ( I’m paying a much higher percentage now  than my working years).  

Yep you got that right! Like Warren Buffet I believe the tax code puts too much burden on the workers and not enough on the wealthy. 

In reply to frenchyd :

What I meant, was that our perceptions of ourselves change, and are more or less subjective. But that doesn't mean that a general definition of rich/poor is very subjective. If your net worth is top 10-15%, then you're objectively rich, even if you don't feel like it.

We are not currently taxed on subjective things like rich/poor as you suggest. We are taxed on very objective, concrete numbers. One of the largest is earned income as it's currently defined. If an individual can set themselves up in a position to have very little earned income, and therefore pay less in taxes that's their prerogative. The person that can survive on unearned income might be a billionaire with a helicopter. They might also be a former teacher that invested every spare cent for decades and now lives in a very modest lifestyle and therfore doesn't need a ton of income from massive investment assets. Is it fair to punish them both? Which one is going to be affected more by increasing the tax on unearned income? If we tax unearned income the same as income tax, then what incentive is there to invest? Why risk that money at all if it's going to be taxed just as earned income would be?

If you're just saying that the current system is unfair, that's not very influential coming form a person with your level of wealth. It's like Lebron James complaining when he doesn't get every single foul call to go his way. You've had it very good for a long time, and are currently better off than at least 90% of Americans. Don't complain to us that the game is rigged when you've basically won.

frenchyd said:

Nick Comstock said:

In reply to SVreX :

You made a post about hourly pay earlier in this thread that I wanted to touch on but never did. 

I worked for a company that paid production pay. I got a percentage of whatever my crew produced that week. As a foreman I was paid 5% my two crew guys were paid 2.5% each. The salesman was paid 10%. I really feel like that is a better way to go about things. It incentivizes the hard workers and weeds out the slackers. It doesn't hurt that I was consistently bringing home double what I currently am either.

Most of my working career I was a salesman. The last few decades I was paid a salary as a bonus because I’d built a reputation for sales success.  No matter how big the salary got my commission always exceeded it and most years I made more than my boss or even the owner of the company.  

However that doesn’t come easy. Most days I started before dawn and finished near midnight.  Yes    I was a good provider but there were a lot of events my children did or were in that I missed entirely.  Understandably they bonded much better with their mother than me. Because of that lack of bonding it’s a rare week that I see my grandchildren in spite of our close proximity. 

No alienation just busy life’s led.  Success demands a price and that appears to be my price. I know upon my passing I’ll be morned  and missed. But I wish now I could have found a little more time in my workday. 

It can be a problem for workaholics. There were some other issues however the main reason I left that company was my wife begged me because she was tired of being a single mother. I worked seven days a week for months at a time with one day off then back out again. Many many nights in hotels hours from home. The first three years of my son's life happened over phone calls and texts.  I made the choice to not work as much but I did get a taste of what you are talking about. 

STM317 said:

In reply to frenchyd :

What I meant, was that our perceptions of ourselves change, and are more or less subjective. But that doesn't mean that a general definition of rich/poor is very subjective. If your net worth is top 10-15%, then you're objectively rich, even if you don't feel like it.

We are not currently taxed on subjective things like rich/poor as you suggest. We are taxed on very objective, concrete numbers. One of the largest is earned income as it's currently defined. If an individual can set themselves up in a position to have very little earned income, and therefore pay less in taxes that's their prerogative. The person that can survive on unearned income might be a billionaire with a helicopter. They might also be a former teacher that invested every spare cent for decades and now lives in a very modest lifestyle and therfore doesn't need a ton of income from massive investment assets. Is it fair to punish them both? Which one is going to be affected more by increasing the tax on unearned income? If we tax unearned income the same as income tax, then what incentive is there to invest? Why risk that money at all if it's going to be taxed just as earned income would be?

If you're just saying that the current system is unfair, that's not very influential coming form a person with your level of wealth. It's like Lebron James complaining when he doesn't get every single foul call to go his way. You've had it very good for a long time, and are currently better off than at least 90% of Americans. Don't complain to us that the game is rigged when you've basically won.

But I just followed the rules.  The rules are rigged.  They benefit people with wealth not those trying to get wealth.  

Remember, “ All men are created equal”?                   It doesn’t say except for those who aren’t rich. 

Enyar said:

In reply to Cotton :

Just cause you believe it doesn't mean it's true! $250k a year should set you up quite nicely to retire early and keep a nice standard of living. If it doesn't you're doing something wrong.

The math on this is not as nice at it feels. Say you make $250k, and you're "frugal" and live off 75k of that. Pay about $75k in taxes, and invest $100k. Numbers are just to make math easy, so work with me. 

The commonly used 4% rule says that you can withdraw 4% in perpetuity, roughly, again, work with me, so you'd need 25 times that 75K, or 1.875 million which wold be 18 years of savings. But growth, so maybe 13 years? Still, most people I know don't start making that until their early 40's and that seldom gets them retiring before their mid 50's at the earliest, and only if they've planned well which most people I know who make that kind of money don't. They keep saving at about the same rate they've been saving at. 

So SHOULD $250k a year set you up for a very comfortable early retirement? Yes. Does it? From my experience with people who make that, not really. The people who retire "rich" all have a big lump sum in there somewhere, usually from the sale of a business. 

Nick Comstock said:

In reply to Cotton :

Hell, based on this thread I feel I make less than some of you pay in taxes in a year 

But by your own admission, there's nothing wrong with that.  In 2017 I paid substantially more in taxes than I've made in past years.  Granted, that was with me leaving some money on the table as I didn't take all of the charity deductions I could have.

In response to your previous comment - yes - the Govt will do what it's going to do - but elected officials also know what they do isn't necessarily without consequence. If enough people disagree with past decisions they don't get reelected. Just as if they make decisions against their corporate overlords, they get less campaign funding. These realities tends to temper the decision making process and this applies to pretty much everything they do from spending to tax laws. 

My whole point to this - if we don't like the current tax laws, we DO have some power to force change through promoting and electing officials who follow our views.  But patience is required.  Nothing our govt does is quick or easy to change. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Enyar said:

In reply to Cotton :

Just cause you believe it doesn't mean it's true! $250k a year should set you up quite nicely to retire early and keep a nice standard of living. If it doesn't you're doing something wrong.

The math on this is not as nice at it feels. Say you make $250k, and you're "frugal" and live off 75k of that. Pay about $75k in taxes, and invest $100k. Numbers are just to make math easy, so work with me. 

The commonly used 4% rule says that you can withdraw 4% in perpetuity, roughly, again, work with me, so you'd need 25 times that 75K, or 1.875 million which wold be 18 years of savings. But growth, so maybe 13 years? Still, most people I know don't start making that until their early 40's and that seldom gets them retiring before their mid 50's at the earliest, and only if they've planned well which most people I know who make that kind of money don't. They keep saving at about the same rate they've been saving at. 

So SHOULD $250k a year set you up for a very comfortable early retirement? Yes. Does it? From my experience with people who make that, not really. The people who retire "rich" all have a big lump sum in there somewhere, usually from the sale of a business. 

Saving at 100k/year, you should cross the 200k mark 11 years in.  So that is 11 years until retired at $75k, assuming they haven't saved a penny prior to that.  That is also assuming no employer match, not taking advantage of HSA (no taxes at all), etc.

The reason people making that don't retire early is that approximately 0% of them live off $75k/year.  Spend what you make, its the American way.

Just for a frame of reference - the average median household income in the us is $56k.

Nick Comstock said:

Ian F said:

Nick Comstock said:

Now what they do with those taxes are beyond my control. Once they have that money they decide the best way to spend it, not me as it's not my money anymore. It's theirs. I certainly would like to see it used for things I agree 100% with however that's an unreasonable expectation. So that money I paid may be used for welfare or war in places we have no business being in or paying off strippers (that's a joke people) but it's beyond my control. It's not my money anymore. 

So just because I'm fine with things being taxed differently in no way means that I agree with welfare. But again the government does and it's beyond my control.

You may choose for govt actions to be beyond your control, but it is the foundation of our society to have some faith in the representative process.  While I will be the first to admit the system has some (possibly fatal) flaws, it is still the system we have to live with.

Let's say that you and I both, well let's go ahead and include every single person who has ever posted on this message board all agree that we want the government to oh let's say not go to war with Russia for instance. So we all call our Representatives and get our friends and family to do the same. But the government goes ahead and votes to go to war with Russia. There's nothing that any of us can do about it. Same with welfare. Same with the current health Care laws. Same with everything the government touches. Once that money is out of our hands and into theirs and we voice our opinions about how it should be spent that's all we can do. The government does what the government wants. 

Like it or not most of those things are out of our control. I may be the only one but I do believe the government does act in our best interest. Or at least tries to. But to alfadrivers point there is a huge difference between being okay with paying taxes and being okay with every single thing the government decides to do with that money.

It's almost like the protesting teachers of West Virginia and Oklahoma would disagree with you. 

Make the idiots afraid they are going to lose their cushy job and they change their tone. Hell look at Boehner now backing weed since he has a financial interest in it.

frenchyd said:

STM317 said:

In reply to frenchyd :

What I meant, was that our perceptions of ourselves change, and are more or less subjective. But that doesn't mean that a general definition of rich/poor is very subjective. If your net worth is top 10-15%, then you're objectively rich, even if you don't feel like it.

We are not currently taxed on subjective things like rich/poor as you suggest. We are taxed on very objective, concrete numbers. One of the largest is earned income as it's currently defined. If an individual can set themselves up in a position to have very little earned income, and therefore pay less in taxes that's their prerogative. The person that can survive on unearned income might be a billionaire with a helicopter. They might also be a former teacher that invested every spare cent for decades and now lives in a very modest lifestyle and therfore doesn't need a ton of income from massive investment assets. Is it fair to punish them both? Which one is going to be affected more by increasing the tax on unearned income? If we tax unearned income the same as income tax, then what incentive is there to invest? Why risk that money at all if it's going to be taxed just as earned income would be?

If you're just saying that the current system is unfair, that's not very influential coming form a person with your level of wealth. It's like Lebron James complaining when he doesn't get every single foul call to go his way. You've had it very good for a long time, and are currently better off than at least 90% of Americans. Don't complain to us that the game is rigged when you've basically won.

But I just followed the rules.  The rules are rigged.  They benefit people with wealth not those trying to get wealth.  

Remember, “ All men are created equal”?                   It doesn’t say except for those who aren’t rich. 

 

 

So, you followed the rules, and amassed 7 figures in assets. But the rules are rigged to prevent people from amassing lots of assets?

You've had an expensive boat and a fancy lake house. But it's rigged against you? You've had vintage race cars. How is it rigged again? Those are rich man's toys and by "following the rules", you were able to obtain all of them. Based on previous posts, I know that you've lost a lot of what you once had, and that has to be frustrating but you've still got a net worth in the 90th percentile or higher. It would be pretty tough for me to be frustrated about that end result and the path that you took to get there.

If you're frustrated that your wealthy neighbors pay a lower rate of income tax than you do, you could always sell your home, buy a less expensive place and invest the rest. 3/4 of a million in an investment account will generate plenty of unearned income for you.