We MUST Keep The Mortgage Interest Deduction - Page 9 - New England Patriots Forums

***shmessy*** · 11-30-2012, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IllegalContact

LOL...... you're incapable of carrying on a coherent conversation.....try again

Another "Oh yeah, sez you!" post by Illegal Contact who can't tell economics from ergonomics.

Some of us are actually having a discussion on the subject. Why don't you run along and do something stupid to get banned again or start another childish thread about how the Mods are picking on you here.

We'll stay over here at the adults table.

PatsFanInVa · 11-30-2012, 10:30 PM

Shmessy, what's your agreement for halving the corporate rate?

IllegalContact · 11-30-2012, 10:30 PM

Hehe.....Internet tough guy alert.....don't be angry......it doesn't help

Quote:

Originally Posted by shmessy

Another "Oh yeah, sez you!" post by Illegal Contact who can't tell economics from ergonomics.

Some of us are actually having a discussion on the subject. Why don't you run along and do something stupid to get banned again or start another childish thread about how the Mods are picking on you here.

We'll stay over here at the adults table.

***shmessy*** · 12-01-2012, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatsFanInVa

Shmessy, what's your agreement for halving the corporate rate?

Halving it or even eliminating it all together.

The US has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. And much of our corporate income goes overseas.

Zero taxation and zero deductibility for corporations may be an answer. Many of our corporations pay little or no taxes already but have to jump through a myriad of hoops to do so.

Why not have a low or zero corporate tax rate and tax compensation to anyone as it leaves the corporation. So an American gets taxed based on his or her own income tax rate for any compensation, monetary or material received from the corporation and a foreigner gets his or her payout only after it goes through an automatic tax. Tax the individual, not the corporation.

This would hopefully combat much of the offshoring we have seen over the past few decades.

On personal income taxes, a progressive scale with deductions only for charitable donations (and narrow the definition of 501c3's) and primary mortgages. Make it so simple that the accounting and legal profession is greatly lessened

No nation ever accounted itself or litigated itself to prosperity.

We spend too much time accounting and litigating, not enough building.

PatsFanInVa · 12-01-2012, 01:22 AM

O.k.
Here's the CBO budget #s on where the taxation is...
CBO | Individual Income Tax Receipts and the Individual Tax Baseâ€”August 2012 Baseline
It seems that personal income tax is projected to be about 1.1 trillion for 2012.

Corporate income tax (tab 4) seems to be about .24 trillion (actually 235 billion.)

Your proposal (and we'll assume it's phased in, etc.) will end up adding either .12 trillion or .24 trillion to the revenue we'd need to collect from individuals (just freezing the tax receipts at 2012 levels.)

The actual #s from 2011 scale pretty well to the same math. The upshot is, that's an individual tax hike of 10% (to cut the corporate rate in half). So if we applied it as a flat increase to our graduated income brackets, if you're in the 10% bracket you're now in the 11% bracket. If you're in the 35% bracket that gets you to 38.5% -- that's assuming we don't build in any further progressivity in how the corporate share is replaced.

Or should we be adding a couple hundred billion more per year to our debt?

With the battle cry of "cut it in half but close the loopholes," at least you could claim you're going to be revenue neutral, just with different winners/losers. But eliminating it altogether just raises every individual's taxes by 20% of the previous tax burden.

Do you think it more likely that
a) Our Congressmen and Senators actually vote to increase everybody's taxes by 20%, or that
b) They put it on the credit card, like with all the previous tax cuts?

To coin a phrase: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

PFnV

***shmessy*** · 12-01-2012, 01:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatsFanInVa

O.k.
Here's the CBO budget #s on where the taxation is...
CBO | Individual Income Tax Receipts and the Individual Tax Baseâ€”August 2012 Baseline
It seems that personal income tax is projected to be about 1.1 trillion for 2012.

Corporate income tax (tab 4) seems to be about .24 trillion (actually 235 billion.)

Your proposal (and we'll assume it's phased in, etc.) will end up adding either .12 trillion or .24 trillion to the revenue we'd need to collect from individuals (just freezing the tax receipts at 2012 levels.)

The actual #s from 2011 scale pretty well to the same math. The upshot is, that's an individual tax hike of 10% (to cut the corporate rate in half). So if we applied it as a flat increase to our graduated income brackets, if you're in the 10% bracket you're now in the 11% bracket. If you're in the 35% bracket that gets you to 38.5% -- that's assuming we don't build in any further progressivity in how the corporate share is replaced.

Or should we be adding a couple hundred billion more per year to our debt?

With the battle cry of "cut it in half but close the loopholes," at least you could claim you're going to be revenue neutral, just with different winners/losers. But eliminating it altogether just raises every individual's taxes by 20% of the previous tax burden.

Do you think it more likely that
a) Our Congressmen and Senators actually vote to increase everybody's taxes by 20%, or that
b) They put it on the credit card, like with all the previous tax cuts?

To coin a phrase: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

PFnV

The one (huge) hole in your assumption is that you're not taking into account the ADDITIONAL CORPORATE PRESENCE that would occur if corporate taxes were halved or eliminated. Your asumption is that there would merely be the SAME amount of corporations in the US as currently. In actuality, this reduction in corporate taxes would cause a HUGE increase and inflow of businesses to America - - businesses that are now in the Cayman's, China, Phillipines, among other places.

Now add to that the additional EMPLOYMENT (jobs) that would be created due to the increased amount of businesses existing or returning companies (jobs that will have TAXABLE INCOME).

It wouldn't be a net loss of .12 or .24 trillion at all. The additional tax on production from these corporations in transit to the millions of additional individuals they are compensating or paying out gains or dividends to would be several multiples of the numbers you are quoting.

***shmessy*** · 12-01-2012, 01:49 AM

My above post is just step one in a two step strategy. Step two is to vastly increase the number of H1B Visas for advanced degree holding immigrants. Actively recruit the best and the brightest from all over the world instead of holding quotas by region and culture.

In this regard, I am completely in favor of what the House Republicans are proposing. It should not be based on nationality at all. It should be a blind criteria for economic benefit to our country. Unfortunately, the Senate Democrats are blocking this for racial and cultural quota reasons.

PatsFanInVa · 12-01-2012, 09:44 AM

Shmessy, will leave alone immigration policy for now.

I figured the counter (re: corporate tax) would be the "growing revenue pie," one of those solutions everybody discounts when it opposes their point of view and embraces in support of their point of view. (Obviously, that means me too.)

My problem with ideas on what will cause growth is tied to objective documentation. There is a mountain of evidence that when your problem is demand, stimulus has a positive effect acting as a bridge to the next period of growth. Lately, in an apparent effort to support a sky-is-falling outlook for U.S. prospects, we've heard the mantra that all meaningful growth is over, which is either laughable on the face of it, or the death knell of the Western world, pay your money take your choice.

I agree with you that growing the economy will necessarily be the solution of backing our debt away from the 100% GDP level, which just happens to be roughly the level where debt/GDP becomes a structural drag on the real economy (according to all the Smart Guys I read.)

I also understand the mechanism by which more corporate-friendly rates are supposed to attract more business to the U.S.

So let's make you Senator Shmessy, and I'll be the Senator from Virginia. Let's look closer, and play lets-make-a-deal.

In the abstract, there are companies that would rather pay 50% of the taxes and pay them to the U.S. Do those companies represent a doubling of tax receipts -- that is, the amount necessary to make the strategy budget-neutral, in the absence of growth? Not only don't I think that's the case, I think we already capture an outsize slice of corporate headquartering based on a combination of historical infrastructure/workforce advantage, nigh criminal leniency in corporate bankruptcy laws, and proximity to the world's largest (in money terms) single market.

So, if you agree that receipts won't double based on re-location for tax purposes, we have to think that the increased economic activity will do the trick. That part is predicated on the cost of doing business making it attractive for corporations to move operations to the U.S., not just re-flag the corporate entity.

So, Senator Shmessy, here's the deal I propose:

Even if you believe that the economic activity will come here, I want to tie that corporate tax cut to corporate employment of U.S. nationals.

So, if you move your headquarters staff here, you end up with say 100 American jobs. Let's say your total workforce is 100,000. So you've moved .1% of your jobs to the U.S.

On the other end of the spectrum is a company with 100% U.S. employment.

So let's take that 50% tax break and multiply it by the percentage of U.S. employment. 100% U.S. employment is the 50% corporate tax rate cut. The company that moved .1% of jobs, gets .1 x 50%, for a tax break of .05%.

In the world you describe, we should believe that the cut in rates will necessarily cause U.S. employment (and with it, of course, revenues.) Okay, makes sense. But what if the taxes are being paid here because they're cheaper, but transnationals just take the tax break, move here on paper, and go on their merry way? That won't end up being a net win.

What I want to build in is insurance that we get the U.S. economic boost at the broad level, rather than just help to juice the bottom line for all businesses big and small. I have no problem with fat and happy execs and shareholders, I just want to bring the rank and file along with them for once.

As is obvious, this scheme of things encourages any new U.S. startups, most small businesses, etc. -- because the smaller the company, the less likely it is to be transnational in nature.

But when we're talking about competing for U.S. jobs among the transnational set, the only way to build in that jobs advantage is to condition the tax break on employment in the U.S.

(PS, if the mechanism of percentage of employed workforce can be gamed, a deduction-per-U.S.-employee version is another option.)

What say you?

PFnV

***shmessy*** · 12-01-2012, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatsFanInVa

In the abstract, there are companies that would rather pay 50% of the taxes and pay them to the U.S. Do those companies represent a doubling of tax receipts -- that is, the amount necessary to make the strategy budget-neutral, in the absence of growth? Not only don't I think that's the case, I think we already capture an outsize slice of corporate headquartering based on a combination of historical infrastructure/workforce advantage, nigh criminal leniency in corporate bankruptcy laws, and proximity to the world's largest (in money terms) single market.

PFnV

Here's where you lost me, PFiV. The corporations are NOT paying the corporate tax rate now anyhow. If we halve the rate but eliminated all deductions, they'd be paying MORE revenue to the government (but saving on the accounting, etc.). And there would be more of them. EoDB = Ease of Doing Business.

Right now the wealth is going to an industry that produces nothing - - accounting. Cut out the middle man. People can say what they want about government (and they will) but even government builds highways and infrastructure that no accounting firm ever did.

***shmessy*** · 12-01-2012, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatsFanInVa

So, Senator Shmessy, here's the deal I propose:

Even if you believe that the economic activity will come here, I want to tie that corporate tax cut to corporate employment of U.S. nationals.

So, if you move your headquarters staff here, you end up with say 100 American jobs. Let's say your total workforce is 100,000. So you've moved .1% of your jobs to the U.S.

On the other end of the spectrum is a company with 100% U.S. employment.

So let's take that 50% tax break and multiply it by the percentage of U.S. employment. 100% U.S. employment is the 50% corporate tax rate cut. The company that moved .1% of jobs, gets .1 x 50%, for a tax break of .05%.

In the world you describe, we should believe that the cut in rates will necessarily cause U.S. employment (and with it, of course, revenues.) Okay, makes sense. But what if the taxes are being paid here because they're cheaper, but transnationals just take the tax break, move here on paper, and go on their merry way? That won't end up being a net win.

What I want to build in is insurance that we get the U.S. economic boost at the broad level, rather than just help to juice the bottom line for all businesses big and small. I have no problem with fat and happy execs and shareholders, I just want to bring the rank and file along with them for once.

As is obvious, this scheme of things encourages any new U.S. startups, most small businesses, etc. -- because the smaller the company, the less likely it is to be transnational in nature.

But when we're talking about competing for U.S. jobs among the transnational set, the only way to build in that jobs advantage is to condition the tax break on employment in the U.S.

(PS, if the mechanism of percentage of employed workforce can be gamed, a deduction-per-U.S.-employee version is another option.)

What say you?

PFnV

This second area, while interesting, CANNOT be divorced from my immigration idea, however.

It's a chicken and egg situation.

You want to give corporations tax incentives to hire Americans. I'm sorry but I completely disagree with your statement that "But when we're talking about competing for U.S. jobs among the transnational set, the only way to build in that jobs advantage is to condition the tax break on employment in the U.S".

No! The BRAIN is the advantage in the 21st Century, not the bribe.

Why can't our nation operate like an Ivy League School or a corporation?

I want to make Americans better suited for employment - - either through training or targeted and increased H1B Visas for the well-trained.

This is better for our nation and doesn't tie the corporations into hiring less trained people merely for tax breaks. Let the corps hire the very best. Let's HAVE the very best workforce to begin with!