IDK if it belongs here, but NPR had a guy on this AM who manufacturers sporting equipment somewhere in the Midwest, one of the few left. He uses American steel. When they slapped the tariffs on foreign steel, domestic steel skyrocketed in price. It's being a powerful incentive for manufacturers to move production offshore, something economists predicted and Trump and advisors ignored...
That's a pretty silly question, and you know it.
A deduction simply means that the government allows you to not pay taxes on an item as it's being used for some purpose, such as business. He didn't get the plane for free - that's not how write-offs work.
The government didn't pay for the whole plane. It just made it cheaper to own by reducing his overall income tax burden. Also, not knowing the exact period, it's difficult for me to predict the impact of section 179, which allows writing off the entire purchase in the year of purchase. The amount this applies to has been adjusted upwards for many years. This last year, it went up from a half million to a full million for planes. That will cover a lot of income...
Of course, it was rhetorical, as I know it's almost always about other people paying more in taxes.
That's the point - in principle you think it's a good idea that you pay more, but you won't unless you're forced to.
I never said we couldn't do both, I just find it interesting that the 'tax others more' threads are always much longer and more involved than the 'cut FedGov spending' threads (if they exist at all). We need both, but without the reduction in spending, most of us don't want to hear a peep about how much more we should be paying to fund the drunken wastefulness.
It would have been around 2003.
It's not any different than not paying income taxes on the value of the car, as you asked - which is why (and how) businesses everywhere buy their vehicles. Just as a corporate vehicle isn't 'free', the dentist's plane wasn't 'free'. That's entirely the point of the tax code - to help businesses and to encourage spending.
Um, no. I'm asking for it. But we both know it's futile for one soldier to storm the battlefield alone. Which is why your refrain of "if you like the government so much why don't you write them more checks, huh?" is obtuse and unproductive.
For me, it's because these threads consist exclusively of people complaining, with no mitigating ideas being presented. The "listen to Bodhi complain about things" thread is a good example. The reality is that the federal government is absurdly efficient at some things -- the administration of Medicare is far more efficient than administrative overhead in private insurance companies. At the same time, buying toner that never gets used doesn't help anyone but HP. So does the inefficiency relate primarily to purchasing, and not actual program administration? Maybe. But that kind of nuance is never discussed in those threads, which is probably why they don't get much traction from some of us. Too much "moar gubment = bad" knee jerking makes for nonproductive dialogue. IMO.
this is one of the many reasons i didn't listen to neal boortz for very long.
Believe it or not, it's important whether the plane was bought in 2003 or prior. The 179 deduction went up from $100K to $135K during the year. Yes, it was an "above the line" or business expense. He's classifying the other office as his "secondary business location," thereby avoiding the commuting exclusion...
Agree. The truth is usually somewhere in between. There has to be some combination of tax reform in terms of scaling back deductions/reforming the tax code plus federal govt spending cutbacks. Just raising taxes or cutting govt spending alone won’t do the trick I don’t think. As far as taxes I’m of the opinion that if an individual makes >150k per year or a family makes >275k per year those tax brackets should be revised upwards by 2.5% or so as far as federal taxes are concerned. And we should have a national value added tax of 1% on everything and every svc that is purchased/transacted on. As far as the federal govt is concerned I would propose a 2.5% across the board cut in spending.....for each and every federal agency except homeland security, NIH and FDA.....freeze those agencies’ budgets at 2018 levels for 5 years. I’d be curious to know what our national fiscal situation would be at the end of the 5 year period.
It seems to me that if everyone clamoring for higher taxes voluntarily gave them they’d not only help the issue they but they could also show it to be an effective solution, as they claim.
In that case I’d love to see you jump into that thread and share ideas on how we can shrink government spending, as about all I see from you is how to squeeze more money out of those already paying the vast majority of the tax revenue.
Not addressed to me but I’ve shared stories and potential ideas in similar threads over the years several times. I’d be surprised if Charmin hasn’t as well. Congress never rang me up though, maybe slate.com can pass it on for me if I try again? lol
The government spends money like a retarded crack head with a stolen credit card. And many ignore that and say some other guy needs to be taxed more. The retarded crack head appreciates their support.
the obama admin started a lot of initiatives to cut costs and improve efficiency in the federal government. if only he wouldn't have been so arrogant and made everything about himself, maybe we would have been able to appreciate those more.
I've never seen any improvement in the way the government spends money. In fact, the layers of bureaucracy have only increased since I've been here. Many times I've seen a policy filter down that basically says, "in order to make things more efficient we've mandated extra layers of review or additional documentation or whatever." People who work in government contracting must have MBAs, but no efficiency lessons one learns in b-school are ever used. I (and everyone else) have gone to Lean Six Sigma training. We have the certificate, but no lessons are ever implemented. All that was accomplished was to waste my time and taxpayer money. Government is not efficient and can't be. The best that can be done is limit the role of government to shrink the waste.
