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scott <sco### [at] laptop com> wrote:
> > At least you pay only that VAT when you buy a car. Here in Finland you
> > pay something like 98% in taxes when you buy a car (which means you have
> > to pay almost double of the car's original price).
> Why doesn't everyone in Finland go to do another EU country to buy their car
> then?
Because when you bring the car to Finland you have to pay the taxes
anyways.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> Because when you bring the car to Finland you have to pay the taxes
> anyways.
In the US they're clever. They don't call it "sales tax". They call it
"use tax". So you can't go to a state without sales tax, buy a car or
boat or something, and avoid paying your home sales tax.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Chambers wrote:
> ...I got in an argument with a fellow about fare collectors. Anyway,
> that's not the interesting part.
>
> What really made me stop and think was when I realized that most
> everyone agrees that things "should" be "fair", but disagree what "fair"
> means.
>
> To one camp, "fair" means that everyone pays the same price for the same
> service. Ie, a gallon of gas costs Donald Trump the same X dollars as
> Joe Blow next door. Since it's X for both guys, it's "fair".
>
> To the other camp, "fair" means that everyone pays the same *percentage*
> of their income for certain goods. I pay X% of my income in taxes for
> the benefit of good roads(1), and the Donald pays the same(2) X%. Since
> X is the same, it's "fair".
Donald Trump would *love* to pay the same percentage of his income in
taxes as I do. His proportion of taxes vs. income is much higher than mine.
Such proposals as your opponent advocates could only appeal to someone
so lacking in self-confidence that the only joy they can hope for is the
neurotic joy of sticking it to people who are more fortunate.
"They're the party of the rich!"
"Then sign me up! I'm tired of being poor!"
Regards,
John
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Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Because when you bring the car to Finland you have to pay the taxes
>> anyways.
>
> In the US they're clever. They don't call it "sales tax". They call it
> "use tax". So you can't go to a state without sales tax, buy a car or
> boat or something, and avoid paying your home sales tax.
>
Depends on the state, since individual states implement sales taxes.
For instance, Washington State has a sales tax. Oregon doesn't. Lot's
of Washintonians who live on the border do their shopping in Oregon as a
result.
--
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com
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Chambers wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>> Because when you bring the car to Finland you have to pay the taxes
>>> anyways.
>>
>> In the US they're clever. They don't call it "sales tax". They call it
>> "use tax". So you can't go to a state without sales tax, buy a car or
>> boat or something, and avoid paying your home sales tax.
>>
>
> Depends on the state, since individual states implement sales taxes. For
> instance, Washington State has a sales tax. Oregon doesn't. Lot's of
> Washintonians who live on the border do their shopping in Oregon as a
> result.
But if you buy something big, like a car or a boat, and take it back to
Washington, when you try to register it to use it, they'll charge you a
"use tax". That's what I'm saying. They couldn't charge you a sales tax,
because you didn't buy it in their jurisdiction. But they can charge you
a use tax for driving it there.
In theory, this is true of most everything. In practice, they can only
catch you if you're required to tell them you bought it. It is, for
example, why it's illegal to bring cigarettes into New York without
paying for New York tobacco stamps, and the same with liquor in
Pennsylvania.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Chambers wrote:
>
> (3) I wish the Democrats would get over their "Robin Hood" mentality and
> figure this out.
>
OK. (1)
The biggest "entitlement boondoggle" in the history of the world is the
idea that some people are entitled to grab everything within reach and
are then entitled to hang onto it. Baloney. It's never been that way
in the history or prehistory of the world, and it isn't that way now.
"Wealth" (2) is also called "privilege" because that's what it is--a
privilege.
Privilege isn't about the cream rising, it's about being good at getting
and holding on and about being in the right place at the right time. (3)
If Bill Gates had been born in Kenya, he'd be outstanding in his
field--actually out standing in his field, leaning on a spear, and
counting his cows. If Oprah Winfrey had been born in Kenya, well, hell,
she'd be dead by now--uppity woman, anyway. But Bill and Oprah had the
_privilege_ of being born in a place where they could amass wealth and
power and _privilege_ and I'm damned if I can see why they shouldn't pay
for that privilege. (4) There ain't no such thing as a free lunch for
rich folks, either.
Back in the halcyon days of Ozzie and Harriet and Ward and June, the
uppermost income tax bracket paid something like 90% (5) Oddly enough,
the rich folks didn't all just roll over and play dead--they kept right
on doing what they did and building stuff and inventing stuff and making
lots of money and so forth. And meanwhile, we all got NASA and the
interstate highway system and a whole buttload of new school buildings
and so on.
The proper function of government is to standardize or purchase the kind
of infrastructure that can't practically be gotten piecemeal, and taxes
are the proper mechanism for that process. (6) Taxes are _not_ the
proper mechanism for making public servants (7) rich, or for declaring
war on the rest of the planet, or for increasing the divide between rich
and poor or for obliterating the middle class (which, in the long run,
is the ultimate source of the rich folks' wealth, as well as the poor
folks' hope of not being poor anymore.
Aaaaaaah, there's nothing like a good rant!
--Sherry Shaw
(1) Actually, I'm a Pie-Throwing Anarchist who votes Democratic. But
I'll bite.
(2) By which I mean wealth down at the far-right, skinny end of the
bell curve.
(3) The three most intelligent and hard-working people I know are all
teachers; needless to say, none of them is wealthy.
(4) Yep, poor example; both Bill and Oprah give a lot of their money
away. But they're at the top of their respective heaps, so I'm using
them anyway.
(5) By the way, the part most people miss is that it's n% of Adjusted
Gross Income, not just income. You have to look at the exemptions,
deductions, credits, etc. (If you want to know if your taxes have
really been going up or down, you need to plug this year's data into
last year's forms, and vice versa.)
(6) Beyond that, governments should be caged, muzzled, and injected
with Haldol whenever possible.
(7) Read "public masters"; yep, I swiped that from Mr. Heinlein.
--
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}// TenMoons
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Sherry Shaw wrote:
> "Wealth" (2) is also called "privilege" because that's what it is--a
> privilege.
I know a fair number of wealthy people. If you took away all their money
today, they'd all be wealthy again in a few years or less.
> If Bill Gates had been born in Kenya, he'd be outstanding in his
> field--actually out standing in his field, leaning on a spear, and
> counting his cows.
And that's why Kenya is a poor country.
> _privilege_ of being born in a place where they could amass wealth and
> power and _privilege_ and I'm damned if I can see why they shouldn't pay
> for that privilege. (4) There ain't no such thing as a free lunch for
> rich folks, either.
No, there isn't. They pay huge amounts of taxes. The top 1% of the
taxpayers in the USA pay something like 50% of the taxes.
> (4) Yep, poor example; both Bill and Oprah give a lot of their money
> away.
Actually, I read an interesting article that basically argued that
without people who are so rich they couldn't possibly spend all their
money, you wouldn't have anyone who would be forced to invest, so you'd
get very little improvements in the lives of those with only enough to
live on. Basically, everyone's hand-to-mouth, until you get people rich
enough they can't use it all, at which point that has to flow back into
the economy as investment.
> (5) By the way, the part most people miss is that it's n% of Adjusted
> Gross Income, not just income. You have to look at the exemptions,
> deductions, credits, etc.
And you have to look at AMT.
Why do you think there are all those deductions? Because congress can't
resist taking bribes to make up deductions for their friends.
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Darren New wrote:
> Sherry Shaw wrote:
>> "Wealth" (2) is also called "privilege" because that's what it is--a
>> privilege.
>
> I know a fair number of wealthy people. If you took away all their money
> today, they'd all be wealthy again in a few years or less.
>
Right. That's what they're good at. Kinda my point.
>> If Bill Gates had been born in Kenya, he'd be outstanding in his
>> field--actually out standing in his field, leaning on a spear, and
>> counting his cows.
>
> And that's why Kenya is a poor country.
>
Precisely. It's circular.
>> _privilege_ of being born in a place where they could amass wealth and
>> power and _privilege_ and I'm damned if I can see why they shouldn't
>> pay for that privilege. (4) There ain't no such thing as a free lunch
>> for rich folks, either.
>
> No, there isn't. They pay huge amounts of taxes. The top 1% of the
> taxpayers in the USA pay something like 50% of the taxes.
>
Whoa...hard to know where to start. Source of figures? And
relationship of top 1% of the taxpayers to top 1% of incomes...?
>> (4) Yep, poor example; both Bill and Oprah give a lot of their money
>> away.
>
> Actually, I read an interesting article that basically argued that
> without people who are so rich they couldn't possibly spend all their
> money, you wouldn't have anyone who would be forced to invest, so you'd
> get very little improvements in the lives of those with only enough to
> live on. Basically, everyone's hand-to-mouth, until you get people rich
> enough they can't use it all, at which point that has to flow back into
> the economy as investment.
>
IRAs. Pension plans. Savings bonds. Why do you think people have to
be "forced" to invest? People invest to make money or to secure their
futures, not because they can't think of anything else to do with their
money. And, if everyone's either too rich to spend their money, or else
living hand-to-mouth, where's the middle class?
>> (5) By the way, the part most people miss is that it's n% of Adjusted
>> Gross Income, not just income. You have to look at the exemptions,
>> deductions, credits, etc.
>
> And you have to look at AMT.
>
Which, oddly enough, tends to hit the middle class way worse than the
upper class.
> Why do you think there are all those deductions? Because congress can't
> resist taking bribes to make up deductions for their friends.
>
Well, yeah. (But then there's the EIC...not too many Congressman and
their friends getting that...)
--Sherry Shaw
--
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}// TenMoons
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Sherry Shaw wrote:
> Right. That's what they're good at. Kinda my point.
I guess I quoted the wrong part of your screed. It *is* the "cream
rising" if you define "cream" as "capable of creating wealth." It isn't
just "being in the right place at the right time", but knowing what
place you should be in when.
>> And that's why Kenya is a poor country.
> Precisely. It's circular.
I guess I'm not following why you seem to be complaining, if that's what
you're doing.
>> No, there isn't. They pay huge amounts of taxes. The top 1% of the
>> taxpayers in the USA pay something like 50% of the taxes.
>
> Whoa...hard to know where to start. Source of figures? And
> relationship of top 1% of the taxpayers to top 1% of incomes...?
GIYF.
http://www.house.gov/jec/news/news2006/pr109-94.pdf
I was slightly off. The top 5% pay 50% of the taxes. The top 1% pay only
a third of the taxes.
And it's apparently getting more skewed:
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6
> IRAs. Pension plans. Savings bonds. Why do you think people have to
> be "forced" to invest? People invest to make money or to secure their
> futures, not because they can't think of anything else to do with their
> money.
Some do, yes: Those who don't have more money than they know what to do
with. Those who *do* have more money than they could possibly spend
invest because it's that or burn it in the fireplace. :-)
> And, if everyone's either too rich to spend their money, or else
> living hand-to-mouth, where's the middle class?
My distinction is between people who could spend all their money (on
personal material goods) and those who couldn't. I'd expect everyone in
the "middle class" could certainly find something to spend their entire
life savings on.
When you have more money than California, it's hard to spend it all.
> Which, oddly enough, tends to hit the middle class way worse than the
> upper class.
It does now, yes. In truth, the really rich people don't actually own
that much money, which is how you get away from AMT. Bill Gates doesn't
have all that much money. He has a whole bunch of Microsoft stock, and
*Microsoft* has a whole bunch of money. And Bill Gates has a whole
bunch of credit.
(OK, yes, Bill Gates has lots of money. But hopefully you follow what
I'm saying there.)
--
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
"That's pretty. Where's that?"
"It's the Age of Channelwood."
"We should go there on vacation some time."
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Darren New wrote:
> It *is* the "cream
> rising" if you define "cream" as "capable of creating wealth."
>
Ah, that's my problem. I keep defining "cream" as "having a brain and
using it in some productive way" or even as "being a decent person."
>
>>> And that's why Kenya is a poor country.
>> Precisely. It's circular.
>
> I guess I'm not following why you seem to be complaining, if that's what
> you're doing.
>
No, just observing. It's like real estate--"location, location,
location"--not something over which Bill and Oprah had any particular
prenatal control, just incredibly good luck.
>
> I was slightly off. The top 5% pay 50% of the taxes. The top 1% pay only
> a third of the taxes.
>
Again--what is the relationship between any individual's _taxpayer_
percentile and _income_ percentile? (And don't those figures paint a
lovely picture of the gap between the filthy rich and the dirt poor?)
>
> Those who *do* have more money than they could possibly spend
> invest because it's that or burn it in the fireplace. :-)
>
> ...When you have more money than California, it's hard to spend it all.
Which leads to a bizarre, sideways-to-the-topic speculation: Is it
actually possible to have more money than you can spend? I've heard
this description of extreme wealth for roughly forever, but I can't say
that I've ever seen it analyzed in any way. Is this a real condition,
or is it like that business about not being able to march all the
Chinese past a given point? You could calculate/guesstimate the amount
of income per day or second or whatever (and the amount of expenditure
necessary to reduce that amount consistently), but how do you calculate
potential expenditures? In a world that has space tourism and Japanese
toilets, this could be a problem. Not actually trying to change the
subject, just slightly distracted by a shiny thing. ;)
> In truth, the really rich people don't actually own
> that much money, which is how you get away from AMT. Bill Gates doesn't
> have all that much money. He has a whole bunch of Microsoft stock, and
> *Microsoft* has a whole bunch of money. And Bill Gates has a whole
> bunch of credit.
>
> (OK, yes, Bill Gates has lots of money. But hopefully you follow what
> I'm saying there.)
>
Yep. Of course, that Microsoft stock *smells* a lot like money... ;)
But it has to make you wonder--weren't the people who designed the AMT
aware of that particular point?
I *like* arg-- erm, "discussing" with you--ye're rat smart. ;)
--Sherry Shaw
P.S.: Sorry it took me so long to get back to an interesting
discussion--the so-called Real World keeps intruding on my Me-time,
dammit. The other day, I looked out in the yard and thought, "Hmm, the
ice storm left quite a lot of tree limbs lying around, but then the last
couple of floods carried some of them away...but the the tornado left
some new ones behind." OK, that's wacky even by Missouri weather
standards. I keep expecting to look out and see giant steaming piles of
glowing neon-colored sparkly horse doo, from the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse riding overhead.* And then there's school.
*<Pratchett reference> I imagine Binky's is silvery colored, with blue
and clear glitter. </Pratchett reference>
--
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}// TenMoons
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