Repug tax cut

[boutons_deux]

Senate Republicans Embrace Plan for $1.5 Trillion Tax Cut

Senate Republicans, abandoning a key fiscal doctrine, agreed on Tuesday to move forward on a budget that would add to the federal deficit in order to pave the way for a $1.5 trillion tax cut over the next 10 years.

The Republican lawmakers, under mounting pressure to score a legislative win on taxes,

say a tax cut of this magnitude will stimulate economic growth enough to offset any deficit impact. :lol :lol

deficit-financed tax cut is at odds with longstanding Republican calls for fiscal discipline, including that tax cuts not add to the ballooning federal deficit. :lol

it would then need to align with the House version, which was voted out of committee earlier this year.

That may prove a tricky task, since House lawmakers may be more reluctant to enact tax cuts that would add to the deficit.

only if the bill is not found to add to the deficit after a period of 10 years. :lol

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/us/politics/senate-republicans-tax-cut.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

It's been 6 years PAST the 10-years after the Repug reconciliation tax cut of 2001 which CLEARLY added to the deficit, did not promote growth or job creation, so the 10-year window is pure bullshit

the 2001-2008 Repugs and the tax cuts and spending TRIPLED the national debt.

[ducks]

BREAKING: House Freedom Caucus Supports Trump's Tax Plan

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/09/27/breaking-house-freedom-cause-supports-trumps-tax-plan-n2387396

[Pavlov]

BREAKING: House Freedom Caucus Supports Trump's Tax Plan

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2017/09/27/breaking-house-freedom-cause-supports-trumps-tax-plan-n2387396The lowest federal income tax bracket for individuals will sit at 12 percent, an increase from 10 percent, but will be offset by an expansion of the child tax credit.

Poor people without children pay more?

:lmao

[ducks]

The lowest federal income tax bracket for individuals will sit at 12 percent, an increase from 10 percent, but will be offset by an expansion of the child tax credit. There will be three brackets total, down from seven, with the other two at 25 and 35 percent.

will not pay more pavlov

[Pavlov]

The lowest federal income tax bracket for individuals will sit at 12 percent, an increase from 10 percent, but will be offset by an expansion of the child tax credit. There will be three brackets total, down from seven, with the other two at 25 and 35 percent.

will not pay more pavlovPoor people without children don't get a child tax credit.

will pay more ducks

[ducks]

lets what the deductions are first

[Pavlov]

lets what the deductions are firstWhy raise the rate on the poor at all?

[ducks]

middle class is what democrats and republicans want to lower taxes on

[Pavlov]

middle class is what democrats and republicans want to lower taxes onSo they all want the poor to pay more?

[Chucho]

So they all want the poor to pay more?
Dems moreso.

[Chucho]

To cover Uncle Barry's "spend, baby, spend" spree.

[Pavlov]

Dems moreso.Are they calling for an increase in the lowest tax rate?

[rmt]

The standard deduction will almost double per adult approx. - 6k to 12k single - 12k to 24k married.

[Pavlov]

The standard deduction will almost double per adult approx. - 6k to 12k single - 12k to 24k married.Looks like that's bullshit.


But a document published by Jonathan Swan of the news website Axios shows this is badly misleading — the plan would increase the standardized deductions available to taxpayers by 15% or less.

Meanwhile, taxpayers who still wouldn't take the standard deduction under the Republican plan — those who would instead deduct things like mortgage interest — would pay tax on more of their income than they do now.

Here's the important fine print: "To simplify the tax rules, the additional standard deduction and the personal exemptions for taxpayer and spouse are consolidated into this larger standard deduction."

Here's how that math works. Let's say you are single with no dependents, and you have a moderate income. Currently, you get to take the standard deduction ($6,350) and one personal exemption ($4,050). If you are 65 or older, you also get to take an additional standard deduction ($1,250). That adds up to $10,400, or $11,650 if you're over 65.

The Republican plan would replace all these provisions with a single deduction of $12,000 ($24,000 for married couples.) That's a 15% increase — except for seniors, who get a 3% increase.

And then your first dollar of taxable income would be subjected to a 12% tax rate, instead of the current 10%. But don't worry — the framework says "additional tax relief," as yet unspecified, will emerge for you during the committee process.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/doubled-standard-deduction-gop-tax-143000571.html

[boutons_deux]

Why raise the rate on the poor at all?

"skin in the game" to pay for the tax cuts for BigCorp and the wealthy

[rmt]

Looks like that's bullshit.



https://finance.yahoo.com/news/doubled-standard-deduction-gop-tax-143000571.html

Let's use the average US median salary of $44148 rounded down to 44k for ease:

Current taxes for 2017 (single filer)
44000 - 10400 = 33600 taxable income
0-9325 taxed at 10% = 932.50 tax
33600-9325 = 24275 taxed at 15% = 3641.25 tax
932.50 + 24275 = 4573.75 total tax

Trump's plan
44000-12000 = 32000 taxable income
32000 taxed at 12% = 3840 total tax

As far as I know $3840 < $4573.75

It's a disgrace that this article is being passed around to all the media outlets without some one at least checking the math. I don't believe everything I read, and I always check my math especially when it comes to money.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2016/10/25/irs-announces-2017-tax-rates-standard-deductions-exemption-amounts-and-more/#db6e78570175

[CosmicCowboy]

I suspect I'm better under the current system. Fuck this shit. They give you the rules, you set your whole financial life up under those rules, then they change them.

[rmt]

I suspect I'm better under the current system. Fuck this shit. They give you the rules, you set your whole financial life up under those rules, then they change them.

Sorry CC. It is better for the poor and middle class, but with articles like the one above circulating, they won't believe that it benefits them. They won't do the math themselves and swallow false articles about tax breaks for the rich/more taxes for the poor and middle class.

[CosmicCowboy]

I can still remember '86. Interest rates were stupid but bank and credit card interest was deductible.

Boom.

Your rates were "lower" but personal credit interest wasnt deductible.

Then they raised the tax rate later. Double fuck.

[rmt]

I can still remember '86. Interest rates were stupid but bank and credit card interest was deductible.

Boom.

Your rates were "lower" but personal credit interest wasnt deductible.

Then they raised the tax rate later. Double fuck.

That's why I think real estate is a good option for you. Everything's deductible - no tax on the yearly appreciation until you sell - depreciation (which you don't have to recapture if you leave to kids). Then the only thing you have to worry about is hurricanes :-)

[boutons_deux]

Oligarchy paying the Repug whores for the tax cut (of course, many in Congress and Trash, his Exec are millionaires who would benefit most of all, aka "voting yourself money"), and fuck the $5T addition to the national debt.

Nobody increases the national debt like the Repugs (Reagan doubled it, dubya tripled it).

[boutons_deux]

"Mr. Trash,

who has broken with precedent for modern American presidents by refusing to release his tax returns,

insisted that wealthy people like him would not benefit —

an assertion LIE that seemed improbable for a man who runs

a family-owned real estate empire and

whose children stand to inherit vast sums."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/us/politics/trump-tax-cut-plan-middle-class-deficit.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage&_r=0?utm_source=pdb&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=09282017&variable=992d608214b505003aa04bf10a595031

LIE LIE LIE LIE

[SnakeBoy]

I suspect I'm better under the current system. Fuck this shit. They give you the rules, you set your whole financial life up under those rules, then they change them.

:lol I knew you would be complaining about losing your deductions.

Relax for now, it's just a framework. Ryan will spend October changing it then send it to the Senate that is still working on their own plan. If things go smoothly (which they won't) we won't really have anything to judge until December.

[boutons_deux]

Fact-checking President Trump’s tax speech in Indianapolis



“To protect millions of small businesses and the American farmer, we are finally ending the crushing, the horrible, the unfair estate tax, or as it is often referred to, the death tax.”


The president’s suggestion that “millions” of small businesses and farms are affected by the estate tax is absurd. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-pays-estate-tax), only about 5,500 estates in 2017 — out of nearly 3 million estates — would have to pay any taxes. About half of estates subject to the tax would pay an average tax of about 9 percent. That’s because for a married couple, about $11 million is exempt from taxation.
Only 80 — that’s right, 80 — taxable estates would be farms and small businesses.



“Today, our total business tax rate is 60 percent higher than our average foreign competitor in the developed world.”


Trump exaggerates here. The United States certainly has one of the highest statutory corporate tax rates in the world, currently pegged as high as 39.1 percent when including state taxes. (The federal rate is 35 percent.)

Trump says it is 60 percent higher than “our average competitor in the developed world,” comparing 39.1 percent to the average rate for the other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is 25.5 percent when not weighted for GDP. (It is 31.4 percent when weighted for GDP.)

Congressional Research Service (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41743.pdf), the effective rate for the United States is 27.1 percent, compared with an effective GDP-weighted average of 27.7 percent for the OECD.

The Congressional Budget Office, when it examined the issue (https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/52419-internationaltaxratecomp.pdf), said the U.S. effective tax rate was 18.6 percent, which it said was among the highest of the biggest economic powers


“Americans waste so much money, billions and billions of dollars and many hours each year to comply with our ridiculously complex tax code. More than 90 percent of Americans use assistance to prepare their taxes.”

54 percent of individual taxpayers pay preparers and about 40 percent of individual taxpayers use software that costs about $50 or more.


“A married couple won’t pay a dime in taxes on their first $24,000 of income. So a married couple, up to $24,000, can spend their money on their family, on their children, on what they have to do — so much better.”

So a couple with two children already “don’t pay a dime” on their first $28,800. That’s because they get $12,600 in a standard deduction and $16,200 in dependent and personal exemptions.

“conservatively” estimated in 2016 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2842802) that “Trump’s plan would increase taxes for about 8.7 million families,” but the number could be as high as 11 million under “reasonable assumptions.”


“The tax strategy that Ronald Reagan used to create an economic boom in the 1980s when our economy took off, the middle class thrived. And the family income of all families was increasing more and more, and it was a beautiful sight to behold.”

This is a flip-flop. He was always a fierce critic of the bill, Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986, which he now calls “a beautiful sight to behold.”


“Indiana is a tremendous example of the prosperity that is unleashed when we cut taxes and set free the dreams of our citizens. … All of this is possible because the people of this state have made a decision … [which] included electing a governor who you may have heard of, who signed the largest income tax cut in the state’s history, our very, very terrific person and terrific vice president, Mike Pence.”

Vice President Pence did make the largest income tax cut in Indiana’s history — but he didn’t have a very high bar to overcome, and it was a modest cut.

Indiana’s individual income-tax rate was already the second-lowest in the nation (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/trumps-choice-vp-mike-pence-experienced-tax-cutter) when Pence took office.

state lawmakers raised taxes as soon as Pence left office.


“I’m doing the right thing and it’s not good for me, believe me. … We are also repealing the alternative minimum tax, or AMT.”

from 2005 (http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/trump2005tax.pdf), shows that the AMT increased his tax bill from about $5.3 million to $36.5 million. So at least in that tax year, he potentially could have saved $31 million.
Eliminating the estate tax, meanwhile, is likely to benefit his heirs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/09/28/fact-checking-president-trumps-tax-speech-in-indianapolis/?undefined=&utm_term=.e38f21b55ef4&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

As always, Trash is LYING LYING LYING LYING LYING

[boutons_deux]

I helped create the GOP tax myth. Trump is wrong: Tax cuts don’t equal growth.

The best growth in recent memory came after President Bill Clinton raised taxes in the ’90s.

By the time Ronald Reagan was president, Republican tax gospel went something like this:



The tax system has an enormously powerful effect on economic growth and employment.
High taxes and tax rates were largely responsible for stagflation in the 1970s.
Reagan’s 1981 tax cut, which was based a bill, co-sponsored by Kemp and Sen. William Roth (R-Del.), that I helped design (https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2016/08/15/reaganomics-the-economic-recovery-tax-act-of-1981/), unleashed the American economy and led to an abundance of growth.


Based on this logic, tax cuts became the GOP’s go-to solution for nearly every economic problem.

In reality, there’s no evidence that a tax cut now would spur growth.

The Reagan tax cut did have a positive effect on the economy, but the prosperity of the ’80s is overrated in the Republican mind. In fact, aggregate real gross domestic product growth was higher in the ’70s — 37.2 percent vs. 35.9 percent.

GOP tax mythology usually leaves out other factors that also contributed to growth in the 1980s:

First was the sharp reduction in interest rates by the Federal Reserve. The fed funds rate (http://www.macrotrends.net/2015/fed-funds-rate-historical-chart) fell by more than half, from about 19 percent in July 1981 to about 9 percent in November 1982.

Second, Reagan’s defense buildup and highway construction programs greatly increased the federal government’s purchases of goods and services.

This is textbook Keynesian economics.

Third, there was the simple bounce-back from the recession of 1981-82. Recoveries in the postwar era tended to be V-shaped — they were as sharp as the downturns they followed. The deeper the recession, the more robust the recovery.

how many Republicans even know anymore that Reagan raised taxes (http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/08/news/economy/reagan_years_taxes/index.htm) several times after 1981. His last budget showed that as of 1988, the aggregate,

cumulative revenue loss from the 1981 tax cut was $264 billion (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?item_id=18996&filepath=/files/docs/publications/usbudget/bus_1990.pdf) and legislated tax increases brought about half of that back.

But there is no evidence showing a boost in growth from the 1986 act. The economy remained on the same track, with huge stock market crashes — 1987’s “Black Monday (https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/stock_market_crash_of_1987),” 1989’s Friday the 13th “mini-crash (https://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/13/traders-right-to-be-worried-about-friday-the-13th.html)” and a recession beginning in 1990. Real wages fell (http://www.businessinsider.com/real-wage-growth-new-york-fed-research-2016-9).

Strenuous efforts by economists to find any growth effect from the 1986 act have failed to find much.

Despite huge tax cuts almost annually during the George W. Bush administration that cost the Treasury trillions in revenue, according to the Congressional Budget Office (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/41463), growth collapsed in the first decade of the 2000s. Real GDP rose just 19.5 percent, well below its ’90s rate.

another test of the Republican tax myth in 2013, after President Barack Obama allowed some of the Bush tax cuts to expire, raising the top income tax rate to its current 39.6 percent (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/income-taxes-2014-tax-brackets-102466) from 35 percent. The economy grew nicely afterward and the stock market has boomed — up around 10,000 points over the past five years.

Republicans’ various claims are irreconcilable. One is that the rich will not benefit even though it is practically impossible for them not to

if they had released a complete plan — not just the woefully incomplete nine-page outline released Wednesday

Nor have they signaled that they’ll commit to a viable process. It’s worth remembering that the first version of the ’81 tax cut was introduced in 1977 (https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2016/08/15/reaganomics-the-economic-recovery-tax-act-of-1981/) and underwent thorough analysis by the CBO and other organizations, and was subject to comprehensive public hearings. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 grew out of a detailed Treasury study (https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/Report-Tax-Reform-v1-1984.pdf) and took over two years to complete.

If they again look for a quick, easy victory, they risk a replay of the Obamacare repeal fight that wasted so much time and yielded so little.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/28/i-helped-create-the-gop-tax-myth-trump-is-wrong-tax-cuts-dont-equal-growth/?undefined=&utm_term=.e8e847ad07dc&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

Any word if Repugs plan to kill the "carried interest" scam for billionaires?

[Big Empty]

The only reason I switched my vote to Trump from Hillary was the tax plan. I don't care who pays more or less. All I care about is if I get to keep more of my money instead of giving it to the government

[Splits]

913355261024378880

[boutons_deux]

913355261024378880

Seth is STILL amazed? :lol

[rmt]

Fact-checking President Trump’s tax speech in Indianapolis



“To protect millions of small businesses and the American farmer, we are finally ending the crushing, the horrible, the unfair estate tax, or as it is often referred to, the death tax.”


The president’s suggestion that “millions” of small businesses and farms are affected by the estate tax is absurd. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-pays-estate-tax), only about 5,500 estates in 2017 — out of nearly 3 million estates — would have to pay any taxes. About half of estates subject to the tax would pay an average tax of about 9 percent. That’s because for a married couple, about $11 million is exempt from taxation.
Only 80 — that’s right, 80 — taxable estates would be farms and small businesses.



“Today, our total business tax rate is 60 percent higher than our average foreign competitor in the developed world.”


Trump exaggerates here. The United States certainly has one of the highest statutory corporate tax rates in the world, currently pegged as high as 39.1 percent when including state taxes. (The federal rate is 35 percent.)

Trump says it is 60 percent higher than “our average competitor in the developed world,” comparing 39.1 percent to the average rate for the other members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is 25.5 percent when not weighted for GDP. (It is 31.4 percent when weighted for GDP.)

Congressional Research Service (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41743.pdf), the effective rate for the United States is 27.1 percent, compared with an effective GDP-weighted average of 27.7 percent for the OECD.

The Congressional Budget Office, when it examined the issue (https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/52419-internationaltaxratecomp.pdf), said the U.S. effective tax rate was 18.6 percent, which it said was among the highest of the biggest economic powers


“Americans waste so much money, billions and billions of dollars and many hours each year to comply with our ridiculously complex tax code. More than 90 percent of Americans use assistance to prepare their taxes.”

54 percent of individual taxpayers pay preparers and about 40 percent of individual taxpayers use software that costs about $50 or more.


“A married couple won’t pay a dime in taxes on their first $24,000 of income. So a married couple, up to $24,000, can spend their money on their family, on their children, on what they have to do — so much better.”

So a couple with two children already “don’t pay a dime” on their first $28,800. That’s because they get $12,600 in a standard deduction and $16,200 in dependent and personal exemptions.

“conservatively” estimated in 2016 (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2842802) that “Trump’s plan would increase taxes for about 8.7 million families,” but the number could be as high as 11 million under “reasonable assumptions.”


“The tax strategy that Ronald Reagan used to create an economic boom in the 1980s when our economy took off, the middle class thrived. And the family income of all families was increasing more and more, and it was a beautiful sight to behold.”

This is a flip-flop. He was always a fierce critic of the bill, Reagan’s Tax Reform Act of 1986, which he now calls “a beautiful sight to behold.”


“Indiana is a tremendous example of the prosperity that is unleashed when we cut taxes and set free the dreams of our citizens. … All of this is possible because the people of this state have made a decision … [which] included electing a governor who you may have heard of, who signed the largest income tax cut in the state’s history, our very, very terrific person and terrific vice president, Mike Pence.”

Vice President Pence did make the largest income tax cut in Indiana’s history — but he didn’t have a very high bar to overcome, and it was a modest cut.

Indiana’s individual income-tax rate was already the second-lowest in the nation (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/trumps-choice-vp-mike-pence-experienced-tax-cutter) when Pence took office.

state lawmakers raised taxes as soon as Pence left office.


“I’m doing the right thing and it’s not good for me, believe me. … We are also repealing the alternative minimum tax, or AMT.”

from 2005 (http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/trump2005tax.pdf), shows that the AMT increased his tax bill from about $5.3 million to $36.5 million. So at least in that tax year, he potentially could have saved $31 million.
Eliminating the estate tax, meanwhile, is likely to benefit his heirs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/09/28/fact-checking-president-trumps-tax-speech-in-indianapolis/?undefined=&utm_term=.e38f21b55ef4&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

As always, Trash is LYING LYING LYING LYING LYING

A single filer who makes the average US median salary will pay 19.1% more taxes under the current plan than Trump's plan (see above)

[rmt]

The only reason I switched my vote to Trump from Hillary was the tax plan. I don't care who pays more or less. All I care about is if I get to keep more of my money instead of giving it to the government

Good for you. You'll use it much better than the government.

[SnakeBoy]

913355261024378880

lol and now it's Democrats using the deficits talking point.

[Pavlov]

lol and now it's Democrats using the deficits talking point.Why did Republicans stop talking about it?

[Chucho]

Why did Republicans stop talking about it?

The guy who ran it it up at record rates isn't in office anymore?

[Pavlov]

The guy who ran it it up at record rates isn't in office anymore?Seeing as Republicans controlled most of the budget process for most of that time, no.

Are the Republicans now lowering the debt since they are in control of all branches of government and they said it had to be done?

[ducks]

it will be lower then when trump got in when he leaves after 8 years

[Chucho]

Seeing as Republicans controlled most of the budget process for most of that time, no.

Are the Republicans now lowering the debt since they are in control of all branches of government and they said it had to be done?

If his budget goes as planned, his government spending cuts will lower it.

[Chucho]

Hypothetically, speaking.

[Pavlov]

If his budget goes as planned, his government spending cuts will lower it.How much would the debt be lowered? I'd love to see a link to the numbers he presented.

[Chucho]

How much would the debt be lowered? I'd love to see a link to the numbers he presented.

$3.6 trillion per May reports from when he proposed it.

Fetch your own link, I'm not doing your homework for you. /you.

[ducks]

How much would the debt be lowered? I'd love to see a link to the numbers he presented.

you are a lazy s.o.b.

[Pavlov]

$3.6 trillion per May reports from when he proposed it.

Fetch your own link, I'm not doing your homework for you. /you.The only thing I see is that it balances the budget by 2027 -- meaning it will only increase the debt in the meantime.

[Chucho]

you are a lazy s.o.b.

:lmao

[Chucho]

The only thing I see is that it balances the budget by 2027 -- meaning it will only increase the debt in the meantime.

Straws.

[Pavlov]

Straws.What? Use your words.

[SnakeBoy]

Why did Republicans stop talking about it?

Because they won

Why did Democrats start talking about it?

[boutons_deux]

Betsy DeVos Says She Did Math on Trump’s Tax Plan and It Will Save Nation Eleventy Krillion

https://media.newyorker.com/photos/59cd65801f0b2232b04b2770/master/w_1626,c_limit/Borowitz-Betsy-DeVos-Says-Math-Trumps-Tax-Plan-Will-Save-Nation-Eleventy-Krillion.jpg

WASHINGTON — In a ringing endorsement from the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos said on Thursday that she did the math on Donald Trump’s tax plan and that she estimates it will save the United States roughly eleventy krillion dollars.

“I took out a pencil and paper and figured it out the old-fashioned way,” DeVos told reporters. “I wound up going through a lot of paper, because eleventy krillion has ten hundredteen zeroes.”

DeVos stressed that the eleventy-krillion figure was actually a conservative estimate. “The exact number was between eleventy and ninety-quelve, but I rounded down to eleventy,” she said.

The Education Secretary said that the national debt, which currently stands at more than twenty trillion dollars, would be greatly reduced by the eleventy-krillion-dollar windfall.

“If you subtract eleventy krillion from twenty trillion, you get a number so small it has no name,” she explained.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/betsy-devos-says-she-did-math-on-trumps-tax-plan-and-it-will-save-nation-eleventy-krillion (https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/betsy-devos-says-she-did-math-on-trumps-tax-plan-and-it-will-save-nation-eleventy-krillion)

[boutons_deux]

Trump lies: His “family farmer” who “fears the inheritance tax” is Monsanto’s biggest seed-corn grower

Kip Tom’s Monsanto connection

As for Kip Tom: That 187-year-old farm was a lot smaller when he inherited it from his parents. Two hundred acres. It’s a far cry from that now.

Today Tom, is on the Trump advisory committee on agriculture, was apparently considered briefly for secretary of the Agriculture Department, and is CEO of Tom Farms LLC.

That operation, according to Politico (http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-agriculture/2017/01/kip-tom-a-trump-tower-elevator-ride-and-fresh-ag-sec-questions-218108), makes his farm the largest in Indiana, and one of the largest in the nation, with 20,000 acres spread over seven counties. Tom also operates farms in Latin America.

In 2013, he told an interviewer (http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/features/the-new-hoosier-farmer-is-kind-of-a-big-deal/) for Indianapolis Monthly that his Indiana operation pays out some $10 million a year just on new equipment:

Tom Farms is also one of the top seed-corn producers for global agri-giant Monsanto.

Raising the genetically modified crop requires tightly controlled in-field pollination, plus logistical know-how that only operations like Tom’s can provide.

Making sure each plant is properly detasseled takes two passes by specialized machines, plus a final “rogueing” step, whereby

700 orange-hat–wearing migrant workers from Latin America and Cambodia walk every row of about 5,000 acres and

remove any remaining tassels by hand.


In other words, not anywhere close to a shoestring operation.

If he died this year, his extensive holdings in Indiana would be one of about 50 to 80 family owned farms and small businesses in the whole nation that would owe any estate tax.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that the inheritors of such operations average a tax bill of just 6 percent of the farm or business’s value.

http://redgreenandblue.org/2017/09/28/trump-lies-family-farmer-fears-inheritance-tax-monsantos-biggest-seed-corn-grower/

[Pavlov]

Because they won

Why did Democrats start talking about it?Because the Republicans stopped. If it isn't important to Republicans, why pretend?

[ducks]

Silicon Valley companies may put themselves at odds with President Donald Trump when it comes to social issues like climate change or immigration, but on taxes, the heads of tech companies have been working diligently with the administration to help shape tax reform policies, Politico reported Saturday.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/30/silicon-valley-tax-reform-243318

[ducks]

American Action Network Releases New Ad on Tax Reform

[Chucho]

Silicon Valley companies may put themselves at odds with President Donald Trump when it comes to social issues like climate change or immigration, but on taxes, the heads of tech companies have been working diligently with the administration to help shape tax reform policies, Politico reported Saturday.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/30/silicon-valley-tax-reform-243318

Of course they would, they are among the most notorious tax cheats in the country, as well as some of the biggest slave masters in the world. But trendy Leftists don't care too much about the tech sector so long they get their iPhones every year.

[boutons_deux]

Of course, the entire motivation is exactly that, enrich shareholders

TRUMP ECONOMIC DIRECTOR GARY COHN SAYS IT’S FINE FOR CORPORATIONS TO USE TAX BREAKS TO ENRICH EXECUTIVES (https://theintercept.com/2017/10/02/trump-tax-plan-jobs-economy-gary-cohn/)

Gary Cohn:

So look we’ve heard that numerous times.

If that’s our worst-case scenario, that companies repatriate their money, and they use it for share buybacks and dividends, what happens?

They buy back shares, they issue dividends.

They pay the repatriation tax.

We get another 20 percent tax on capital gains or dividends.

And then the people that get that money back do what?

They reinvest it back in the economy in new investments and new capital. :lol

We’re putting some very enticing rules into the system that will entice people to invest capital for the next five years. :lol

We’re giving people a five-year write-off that they can instantly expense. So look, if that happens, that’s fine.

We know that that money will get invested right back into the economy, :lol

and drive jobs, :lol

drive economic growth, :lol

drive wages, :lol

and drive prosperity. :lol ( only for the Capitalists )


What Cohn is articulating is a version of the theory of trickle-down economics.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Dean Baker is skeptical of Cohn’s explanation of corporate behavior during another tax holiday.

“Cohn’s story on repatriation goes the wrong way for a supply-side tax cut,” he told The Intercept.

“Insofar as the repatriation does lead to more money being paid out to shareholders as dividends or capital gains, and they spend a portion of this money,

it leads to the higher interest rate and less investment story.

Of course, if we feel the problem is the economy doesn’t have enough demand, this is fine, but

the easiest way to generate demand with a tax cut is to give the money to low- and middle-income people who will spend almost all of it.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/02/trump-tax-plan-jobs-economy-gary-cohn/

The tax cut LIES are spreading far and wide.

[Chucho]

Of course, the entire motivation is exactly that, enrich sharedholders

TRUMP ECONOMIC DIRECTOR GARY COHN SAYS IT’S FINE FOR CORPORATIONS TO USE TAX BREAKS TO ENRICH EXECUTIVES (https://theintercept.com/2017/10/02/trump-tax-plan-jobs-economy-gary-cohn/)

Gary Cohn:

So look we’ve heard that numerous times.

If that’s our worst-case scenario, that companies repatriate their money, and they use it for share buybacks and dividends, what happens?

They buy back shares, they issue dividends.

They pay the repatriation tax.

We get another 20 percent tax on capital gains or dividends.

And then the people that get that money back do what?

They reinvest it back in the economy in new investments and new capital. :lol

We’re putting some very enticing rules into the system that will entice people to invest capital for the next five years. :lol

We’re giving people a five-year write-off that they can instantly expense. So look, if that happens, that’s fine.

We know that that money will get invested right back into the economy, :lol

and drive jobs, :lol

drive economic growth, :lol drive wages, and

drive prosperity. :lol only for the wealthy


What Cohn is articulating is a version of the theory of trickle-down economics.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research’s Dean Baker is skeptical of Cohn’s explanation of corporate behavior during another tax holiday.

“Cohn’s story on repatriation goes the wrong way for a supply-side tax cut,” he told The Intercept.

“Insofar as the repatriation does lead to more money being paid out to shareholders as dividends or capital gains, and they spend a portion of this money,

it leads to the higher interest rate and less investment story.

Of course, if we feel the problem is the economy doesn’t have enough demand, this is fine, but

the easiest way to generate demand with a tax cut is to give the money to low- and middle-income people who will spend almost all of it.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/02/trump-tax-plan-jobs-economy-gary-cohn/

http://i.imgur.com/IqbgzTb.jpg

[Chucho]

Gonna try my best to give Boots the Cosmo treatment. No need for any batshit crazies around here.

[boutons_deux]

Grover MoreTwisted

http://www.ozy.com/pov/the-promised-land-of-trumps-tax-plan/81239?utm_source=dd&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10022017&variable=992d608214b505003aa04bf10a595031

[ducks]

President Donald Trump and House Republicans are open to keeping the top tax rates if that is what it takes to pass the rest of their tax overhaul legislation, Politico reported Tuesday.

Several members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus told Politico they were open to keeping the top rate at 39.6 percent rather than reducing it to 35 percent as Trump has proposed.

[SnakeBoy]

Gonna try my best to give Boots the Cosmo treatment. No need for any batshit crazies around here.

Won't do anything to slow down Boo tbh.

Besides I'm doing my best to encourage Cosmo to post more

[boutons_deux]

SENATE REPUBLICANS ARE COMING FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID, THIS TIME THROUGH TAX REFORM (https://theintercept.com/2017/10/04/senate-budget-tax-cuts-medicare-medicaid-health-care/)

Their 2018 budget proposal paves the way for a $1.5 trillion tax cut to be offset by massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare,

president and Republicans are going to try to pay for some of those tax cuts by slashing programs seniors and middle-class Americans rely on,”

The proposed fiscal 2018 budget resolution Senate Republicans announced last week would lead to a $1 trillion cut to Medicaid and $473 billion cut to Medicare over the next decade,

"Donald J. Trump (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump)
(https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump)✔@realDonaldTrump (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump)

I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.
10:38 AM - May 7, 2015 (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/596338364187602944)"

Sanders’s report predicts that if the cuts are applied proportionately,

Republicans in total would cut at least $5 trillion over the next decade from education, health care, affordable housing, child care, nutrition assistance, transportation, and other programs.

“But it’s not only cuts to Medicaid and Medicare,

it is cuts to nutrition programs,” Sanders said.

“The [Women, Infants, and Children] program, designed to provide help to low-income pregnant women and newly born babies, will be cut

when we have more infant mortality, higher infant mortality, than any other country.

Head Start programs will be cut,

child care programs will be cut,

affordable housing programs will be cut.”

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/04/senate-budget-tax-cuts-medicare-medicaid-health-care/

[ducks]

CUT TAXES NOW USA USA USA USA USA USA USA

[boutons_deux]

http://verifiedpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/cunts.jpg

House Republicans Just Used A Shady Trick To Ram Through Trump’s Tax Breaks For The Wealthy

Using every trick in the Republican playbook, the U.S. House of Representatives today passed a complicated $4.1 trillion budget plan (http://thehill.com/policy/finance/354028-house-passes-budget-paving-way-for-tax-reform) for 2018 along party lines,

To shield the deficit-busting plan from a Democratic filibuster in the Senate, the House bill is carefully constructed to allow for a “reconciliation” vote, which means the two chambers legislation will be so similar that it can be passed by a simple majority of Senators.

The House bill is full of expenditures like a big increase for defense and big cuts for programs that help people who are not rich – including

trillions to be taken out of everything from social programs to federal employee pensions. (https://federalnewsradio.com/retirement/2017/10/house-set-to-advance-2018-budget-resolution-with-federal-retirement-cuts/)

The biggest magic trick in the Republicans effort to camouflage what is really happening is that the version just passed calls for a tax overhaul that will cut the national debt.

The House budget passed today also includes a controversial plan to

convert Medicare into a voucher-like program that would kick in for future retirees.

Democrats are incensed over parts of the House bill that would

cut more than $5 trillion over the coming decade (and less in the Senate version), mostly from programs that benefit families, the poor and the elderly.

Even Fox News reports, “Republicans controlling the chamber have no plans to actually implement those cuts.” :lol

this House bill is smoke and mirrors as part of the plan to stuff Trump’s tax plan down the throat of all Americans.


“The spending levels in both the House and Senate plans stand little chance of actually becoming enacted,” reports The Hill. “The House’s planned $621.5 billion for defense spending in 2018 busts through a mandatory spending cap laid out in the 2011 Budget Control Act.

“The motivating force behind the budget measures is the Republican party-defining drive to cut corporate and individual tax rates and rid the tax code of loopholes,” reports conservative-friendly Fox News. (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/05/house-passes-budget-plan-setting-stage-for-tax-overhaul.html)

“The real-world trajectory of Washington, however,” adds Fox News,

“is for higher deficits as Republicans focus on tax cuts,

a huge hike in the defense budget, and

a growing disaster aid tally that is about to hit $45 billion.”


the Republicans see tax reform as the thing that will prove they are not impotent after all, but in the process,

they will screw with everyone who isn’t rich or who runs a big multi-national corporation.


Unless you are a relative of Robert Mercer, one of the Koch brothers, or on the Forbes 400, this is a carefully staged show that will have a very unhappy ending for you and everyone else in the middle and lower economic classes.


http://verifiedpolitics.com/house-republicans-just-used-shady-trick-ram-trumps-tax-breaks-wealthy/ (http://verifiedpolitics.com/house-republicans-just-used-shady-trick-ram-trumps-tax-breaks-wealthy/)

[ducks]

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist Wednesday accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of "lying" with his claims President Donald Trump's tax plan drops rates for the nation's wealthiest while raising them for working class families.

"There are eight rates now," Norquist told Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "They are going to go down to four. The bottom rate is zero. The 10 percent rate goes down to zero. The 15 percent rate goes down to 12. All of the rates come down . . . everybody who pays taxes sees lower rates."

[ducks]

“My Council of Economic Advisers estimates that this change, along with a lower rate, would likely give the typical American household a $4,000 pay raise,” Trump will say, according to a speech excerpt.

Actually, Kevin Hassett, the economist who chairs Trump’s CEA, said last week that if U.S. companies no longer left their foreign earnings offshore, “workers in 2016 would have received a raise of nearly 1 percent.”

“What if these firms didn’t do that for the next eight years?” Hassett said in a speech sponsored by a pair of Washington tax-policy groups. “The median U.S. household income would get a $4,000 real income raise.”

At the same time, though, Hassett said that merely cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent “would boost wage growth almost fourfold,” from about 0.6 percent a year to as much as 2 percent. As a result, it would “provide up to $7,000 of additional income over the medium term,” he said in his speech.

Trump’s administration has tended to emphasize the benefits that corporate tax cuts bring to individuals more than other economists do. For example, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said that workers bear 70 percent or more of the corporate tax burden -- which is expressed through lower wages.

The Congressional Budget Office uses a figure that’s closer to 25 percent.

[boutons_deux]

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/1740681829296633/

[Spurminator]

922245672409198597
922269734778888192
922284838455005190

:lmao

This lying bitch acting like the majority of Americans would get anywhere close to the $4K average.

[CosmicCowboy]

$4000? Damn. Think I will buy a new jet ski. Makin jobs for muricans!

[baseline bum]

922245672409198597
922269734778888192
922284838455005190

:lmao

This lying bitch acting like the majority of Americans would get anywhere close to the $4K average.

Did any reporter bother to ask her what the median American family would get out of this piece of shit plan?

[DMX7]

And how much will the average American lose in Social Security and other benefits when we default after these tax cuts blow an even larger hole in the budget?

[Spurtacular]

The lowest federal income tax bracket for individuals will sit at 12 percent, an increase from 10 percent, but will be offset by an expansion of the child tax credit.

Poor people without children pay more?

:lmao

Why you worried? You just got done saying that whatever the president presents has no sway.

[Pavlov]

Why you worried? You just got done saying that whatever the president presents has no sway.:lol he wants the poor to pay more.

[Spurtacular]

:lol he wants the poor to pay more.

Which won't matter b/c what he presents is inconsequential you said.

[Pavlov]

Which won't matter b/c what he presents is inconsequential you said.The proposed tax cut and the proposed budget are two different things. Don't you know that?

[Spurtacular]

The proposed tax cut and the proposed budget are two different things. Don't you know that?

I do know that. Can you explain the magic that apparently makes a president have sway on a proposed tax cut and not a proposed budget?

[Pavlov]

I do know that. Can you explain the magic that apparently makes a president have sway on a proposed tax cut and not a proposed budget?History. I'll be slightly surprised if a proper budget is even passed. Congress goes without them for years at a time.

You do know that, don't you?

[Pavlov]

"Almost every president's budget proposal that I know of is basically dead on arrival," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said bluntly Monday, just hours before the budget release.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/23/politics/why-trumps-budget-cant-pass-congress/index.html

:lmao

[Spurtacular]

"Almost every president's budget proposal that I know of is basically dead on arrival," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said bluntly Monday, just hours before the budget release.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/23/politics/why-trumps-budget-cant-pass-congress/index.html

:lmao

Obama's political posturing budgets were certainly DOA. But responsible budget outlines that aren't enacted become millstones around the necks of legislators.

[Pavlov]

Obama's political posturing budgets were certainly DOA. But responsible budget outlines that aren't enacted become millstones around the necks of legislators.OK, tell me the last presidential budget that was voted on and passed by Congress.

[boutons_deux]

Trump's Proposed Tax Overhaul Would Give Billions to Trump and Cabinet While Sparking Global "Tax War"

a plan to give tiny little tax cuts to most Americans,

raise taxes on perhaps one in five families and

shower benefits on people who earn millions of dollars a year.

If you make $40,000 to $50,000, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates you'll get

a tax savings of about $8 a week. :lol

If you make an income of $10 million, you're going to save about a million-and-a-half dollars a year.

As much as two-thirds of the tax cuts will go to the 1 percent.

And this fits with a fundamental principle the Republicans have been pursuing for a long time. They don't use these words, but it boils down to:

The rich aren't investing and creating jobs, :lol

because they don't have nearly enough money, and :lol

so we need to get them money. :lol

And the way the Republicans want to get it to them is tax cuts first, and

then, when there's no money because of the tax cuts,

to take away help for children, the disabled, the elderly and the poor.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42348-trump-s-proposed-tax-overhaul-would-give-billions-to-trump-and-cabinet-while-sparking-global-tax-war

[boutons_deux]

GOP House and Senate tax leaders threaten to break Trump’s promise not to change 401(k) rules

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R) on Wednesday suggested that a tax bill he is preparing to introduce could force changes to 401(k) plans and other retirement accounts,

people who have tax-incentivized retirement accounts contribute $200 per month or less, a level he thought was too low. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/10/25/house-gop-tax-leader-threatens-to-break-trumps-promise-not-to-change-401k-rules/?undefined=&utm_term=.8f72f3c8770f&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

yes! Citizens should be forced to hand over many $100s/month MORE so BigFinance can steel $100Ks more in fees.

Trash "promise" ? :lol

[boutons_deux]

Stiffing US Taxpayers on 'Grand Scale,' Fortune 500 Holding $2.6 Trillion Offshore

"As Congress considers proposals to institute a near zero percent tax rate on profits booked offshore by multinational corporations, the findings in this report should give policymakers pause.

The new study discovered that, in total, America's most profitable corporations in 2016 had $2.6 trillion stashed overseas in over 9,000 subsidiaries in various locations, including notorious tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

At least 366 of the 500 companies on Fortune's list "operate one or more subsidiaries in tax haven countries." Furthermore, "30 companies with the most money officially booked offshore for tax purposes collectively operate 2,213 tax haven subsidiaries."


several "particularly egregious examples":



Apple, which "holds at least $246 billion offshore, a sum greater than any other company's offshore cash pile," would owe $76.7 billion in U.S. taxes if this profit was not overseas;
Citigroup, which stashes $47 billion overseas, would owe $13.1 billion in U.S taxes; and
Nike, which holds $12.2 billion offshore, would owe $4.1 billion in U.S. taxes.


https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/10/17/stiffing-us-taxpayers-grand-scale-fortune-500-holding-26-trillion-offshore

Corporate-Americans hide income, evade taxes, but IRS puts Human-Americans in prison for the same.

[boutons_deux]

House narrowly passes budget, paving way for $1.5 trillion tax cut

The budget legislation authorizes special procedures that will allow Republicans to reduce federal revenues over the coming decade by as much as $1.5 trillion without Democratic help.

The bill passed by a vote count of 216 to 212. No Democrats voted for the budget Thursday, nor did 20 Republican

A key holdout bloc consisted of Republican lawmakers from states with high local tax burdens, who have resisted the GOP’s plan to eliminate or at least scale back the income-tax deduction for state and local taxes. Several members of that group threatened to hold up the budget unless their concerns were addressed.

The House Budget Committee crafted a spending blueprint that included a pathway to cutting $200 billion in federal spending over the coming decade,

the Senate version of the budget included did not provide a path for spending cuts and authorized a tax bill that would add up to $1.5 trillion to the deficit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-narrowly-passes-budget-paving-way-for-15-trillion-tax-cut/2017/10/26/49867544-ba50-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.10285d055707

The House budget also blocks Senate Dems from filibustering, so like in 2001, the tax cut will be forced by reconciliation only.

House Passes Budget Blueprint, Clearing Path for Tax Overhaul

“It is a means to an end,” Mr. Yarmuth said,

“a single-minded plan to make it easier to enact tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations regardless of the consequences for everyone else.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/politics/house-budget-blueprint-tax-cut.html

the bloodless (but not death-less) coup d'etat by the oligarchy continues, unstoppably.

[RandomGuy]

Did any reporter bother to ask her what the median American family would get out of this piece of shit plan?

Robert Reich pretty much outlines who gets what.

The $4k is based on rosy economic assumptions that the majority of economists think are not realistic.

What will happen is that any corporate giveaways will not see any new employees or jobs, but corporate America will do the same thing with the new money that they have done with the record profits they have been making: Stock buy backs.

Executive pay is tied to stock price.

Easy way to bump up share price is stock buy backs using profits.

In November 2016, Goldman Sachs’ chief equity strategist David Kostin estimated that, in 2017, S&P 500 companies will spend $780 billion on buybacks ( a new record).

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/share-buybacks-will-return-with-a-vengeance-next-year-2016-11-21

Give them more money, and they will simply buy back a little more than they would otherwise.

No new jobs will be created.

[boutons_deux]

Patriotic Millionaires Blast "Heartless" House Budget

https://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/organizations/screen_shot_2017-05-11_at_5.19.17_pm.png

WASHINGTON - This morning, in response to the House's passage of a budget resolution that would cut nearly $1.5 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid and give massive tax breaks to wealthy individuals and corporations, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires Morris Pearl, former Managing Director at BlackRock, Inc., released the following statement:

"The budget just passed by the House reflects everything the American people think is wrong with Washington.

It is heartless and un-American.

216 Members of the House just voted to hurt millions of vulnerable Americans,

including many of their own constituents,

just to give millionaires like me a massive, unnecessary tax break.

The American people don't want a $1.5 trillion cut to Medicare and Medicaid and

they don't want a huge tax cut for the rich,

but wealthy donors do.

The Representatives who just chose the banks accounts of their donors

over the health and wellbeing of their constituents should be ashamed."

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/10/26/patriotic-millionaires-blast-heartless-house-budget

Repugs have no shame, only have pockets to be filled by the oligarchy

[boutons_deux]

Trash’s $700 Billion Gift to Wealthy Foreigners

Why is Donald Trump planning to give away $700 billion — that’s billion, with a “b” — to foreigners, no strings attached?

the argument goes like this: Cutting corporate taxes would bring foreign capital into the United States, which would raise investment, which would increase productivity, and this productivity would then get reflected in higher wages.

a lot of the corporate income we tax represents monopoly profits — which won’t be competed away even if foreign money comes flooding in — to the sheer size of the U.S. economy, which can’t pull in lots of foreign capital without driving up interest rates worldwide.

In the short run, drawing in foreign money by cutting taxes on profits would lead to a stronger dollar, which would slow the pace of foreign investment (https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/the-transfer-problem-and-tax-incidence-insanely-wonkish/) by making U.S. assets look expensive. So we’re talking about a process that would take many years if not decades.

the stronger dollar would also mean much bigger trade deficits — a consequence of tax cuts that Republicans, strange to say, haven’t advertised, even though the same thing happened during the Reagan years (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=fwWZ).

Realistically, then, the benefits from cutting corporate taxes would overwhelmingly flow into after-tax profits rather than wages,

this in turn means that the main beneficiaries would be stockholders, not workers.

So who are these stockholders, exactly? You can guess part of the answer: We’re talking mainly about the very affluent. Even if we count indirect holdings in retirement accounts and mutual funds,

the richest 10 percent of U.S. residents account for about 80 percent of American-owned stocks (https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/02/perspective-on-the-stock-market-rally-80-of-stock-value-held-by-top-10/?utm_term=.8036d960a2f7), and

the richest 1 percent own about 40 percent.

So we’re talking, as always when it comes to Republican plans, about tax cuts heavily tilted toward the wealthy.

around 35 percent of U.S. equities are now owned by foreigners, triple the level during the Reagan years.

What this means is that around 35 percent of a tax cut from an administration that proudly uses the slogan “America first” — $700 billion over the next decade — wouldn’t even go to Americans.

Instead, it would be a

windfall to wealthy foreigners, who would probably gain a lot more from the tax cut than U.S. workers.

the result would be a huge hole in the budget, which Republicans would try to close at the expense of the poor and middle class.

The budget resolution the House (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/us/politics/house-budget-blueprint-tax-cut.html) and Senate (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/us/politics/budget-vote-senate.html) passed over the last week called for cuts of $1 trillion in Medicaid and almost half a trillion in Medicare.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/opinion/trump-taxes-wealthy-foreigners.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fpaul-krugman&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0

[boutons_deux]

...

[boutons_deux]

A new study shows how little tax the super-rich pay

Wealth inequality may be worse than previously thought

https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/800-width/20170603_WOC829.png

A new study (http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/AJZ2017.pdf) ... tackles this problem by investigating two recent financial-data hoards:

the “Swiss leaks”, a record of bank accounts held at HSBC in Switzerland; and

the “Panama papers”, files that document the use of offshore accounts and shell companies by clients of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm in Panama.

By matching the leaked information with wealth data from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the authors are able to construct the most detailed estimate to date of the extent of tax evasion.

two conclusions.

First, tax evasion is extremely concentrated.

The average Scandinavian household paid around 3% too little in taxes in 2006;

the richest 1% of households, with net assets of at least $2m, underpaid by around 10%.

The truly rich, though, behave truly differently.

The top 0.01% of households, with net assets of over $40m, short-changed the taxman by a whopping 30%.

Second, the numbers imply that previous estimates of wealth inequality, often based on tax data, have understated the problem.

despite the best efforts of a lucrative global tax-evasion industry, Scandinavia’s ultra-rich are paying 70% of their taxes.

https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/06/daily-chart?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/

My bet is the Bishop Gekko refused to release his older tax returns because they would have shown he was caught and amnestied after the HSBC wealth-hiding data was released.

[RandomGuy]

Paul Ryan On Former Trump Campaign Officials Getting Indicted: I Love Tax Reform


“I really don’t have anything to add [about the indictments], other than nothing is going to derail what we’re doing in Congress because we’re working on solving people’s problems,” Ryan said in a Monday radio interview on WTAQ’s “The Jerry Bader Show,” based in Wisconsin.

“People deserve tax breaks,” he said. “Nothing derails us from focusing on that. That’s basically where a lot of our time and attention is focused on right now.”

Ryan’s comments came hours after former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime associate, Rick Gates, were indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 charges, including conspiracy against the United States and money laundering. Gates was an aide to the Trump campaign, eventually serving as deputy campaign manager.

Separately, one of the Trump’s campaign foreign policy advisers, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about a contact with a Russian professor with ties to Kremlin officials.

They will probably try to sneak in more tax cuts for the hyper-wealthy.

Looks like they are fine with debt, as long as they are the ones causing it.

Looks like we need to get some fiscal conservatives in power. Time to vote Democrat.

[boutons_deux]

"we’re working on solving people’s problems,” Ryan said"

goddamn, this Ayn Rand Catholic is worthless sack of shit

[RandomGuy]

Republicans to unveil tax reform next week, revealing plan's winners and losers


The tax reform proposal has been kept so secret that even some Republican members of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee say they do not know its details.

“The problem is that Ways and Means has somewhat been kept out of the loop with details,” Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, told Bloomberg. (Renacci is a member of the committee.) “There are still a lot of hurdles to get it done.”

Super secret tax reform will be shoved down our throats. One can only guess that they want it kept secret because it will benefit the richest people the most, and don't want the blowback.

Great issue for Democrats to run on.

GOP must pass something, and they seem to have settled on tax cuts for the rich as the only option, with no real entitlement reform.

This will explode the deficit/debt, and be easily painted as out-of-touch and elitist, working for the rich at the expense of everybody else.

After cutting payments for Trumpdontcare 1.0, looks like the Trump party has painted itself into yet another corner.

Schadenfreude.

[boutons_deux]

the "deadline" was tomorrow, 1 Nov.

[boutons_deux]

Property tax deal near, Republicans sprint for bill

preserve a federal tax deduction for state and local property taxes, but not income tax payments, potentially removing a major obstacle to progress on their U.S. tax overhaul plan.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax/property-tax-deal-near-republicans-sprint-for-bill-idUSKBN1D0008?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FPoliticsNews+%28Reu ters+Politics+News%29

Blue NY, NJ, CT FIRE types won't like losing the state income tax deduction, but that's the whole Repug point, to fuck the blue states.

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s beloved alma mater eviscerates his tax plan

A new study out of Wharton finds his plan doesn't live up to his promises.

The study, released Monday by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School on Monday, found that the proposed GOP-Trump tax plan would increase the deficit by $1 trillion to $3.5 trillion over the course of the first ten years.

By 2040, the plan would cost between $2 trillion and $10.6 trillion.

According to the GOP budget approved last week, the Republican tax plan is only allotted $1.5 trillion to add to the deficit before violating the reconciliation rules that would allow the Senate to fast-track the bill with 51 votes instead of 60.

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=270483&page=3

will Trash lash back at Wharton, pick a fight with them? :lol

[boutons_deux]

From mortgages to retirement, conflicts engulf Trump tax plan

401(k).

Republicans are eyeing new limits on how much money Americans can pump each year into their 401(k) retirement accounts on a pre-tax basis. Tighter contribution limits would produce new tax revenues for Washington and help Republicans pay for tax cuts they want to push through for high-income earners, corporations and wealthy families' inheritances.

Fund management firms that manage 401(k) plans, Wall Street firms that execute trades for them and the 54 million Americans who have 401(k) accounts could be hurt by such a change.

Mortgages.

Americans can now deduct mortgage interest from their incomes if they itemize deductions. The plan does not call for changing that directly, but it does call for doubling the standard deduction, a separate tax return line that determines eligibility for itemizing. Doubling that would mean fewer Americans itemizing. So, fewer could deduct mortgage interest, leaving the deduction available only to higher-income people.
The National Association of Home Builders has declared its opposition to the Republican plan, saying it would make the mortgage interest deduction "only for the super-rich." The group proposed creating a new tax credit for mortgage interest.

SALT.

Another popular tax deduction is the one for state and local tax (SALT) payments. Republicans are weighing limits on this to help raise revenues to offset the tax cuts they want.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers from high-tax states, such as New York, California and New Jersey, oppose this change because it would hit their constituents hardest.

Real estate interests have fought for an exemption of state and local property taxes that is expected to make it into the bill. They say killing the deduction for property taxes would raise home ownership costs.

Pass-throughs.

Republicans want to cut the tax rate paid by the owners of "pass-through" businesses, such as partnerships and sole proprietorships, to 25 percent from 39.6 percent.

Winners from this would include many pass-throughs that are small, mom-and-pop businesses, but it would also benefit big enterprises, such as hedge funds and real estate partnerships. Losers would be upper middle-class wage-earners unable to channel their incomes through pass-through structures.

Some tax experts warn slashing the pass-through rate could unleash new tax-dodging schemes to enable Americans to do just that: run their personal incomes through pass-through structures such as partnerships, S corporations and sole proprietorships.
Business interest. Another change being evaluated by Republicans is ending or further restricting tax deductibility of business interest. This would mean that business borrowers could no longer write off the interest they pay on their debts, another move to raise new federal revenues.

Businesses have formed a group, called the BUILD Coalition, to oppose the Trump plan's business interest provision. On its web site, the group says "Limiting interest deductibility would hinder businesses’ ability to finance new investments, expansions and innovations, and create new jobs."

Members of the group include Abbott Laboratories, Owens-Illinois, S&P Global and lobbying groups for many private equity firms, farmers, mortgage bankers, real estate investment trusts, casinos and equipment leasing groups.

Deficit.

Not long ago, most Republicans stood firmly against increasing the federal budget deficit and the national debt, but analysts say their tax plan would hugely expand both.

Washington was expected to collect $3.3 trillion in taxes in 2017, but spend $4 trillion, leaving a deficit of $700 billion. Previous deficits have piled up a national debt of $20 trillion.

The Trump tax-cut plan would reduce federal tax revenues by $2.4 trillion in the first 10 years and by $3.4 trillion in the 10 years after that, adding greatly to the deficit and the debt, according to the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.
The plan would give a small boost to the economy, but soon be overwhelmed by the rising economic burden of federal debt, said the center in a study of the plan released last week.

Helping the rich.

The tax plan has struggled since it was unveiled as a rough framework in September with criticism, from Democrats and social activists, that it is a give-away to the wealthy and corporations that hurts or neglects others.

On that issue, the Tax Policy Center study said, "In 2018, all income groups would see their average taxes fall, but some taxpayers in each group would face tax increases. Those with the very highest incomes would receive the biggest tax cuts."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/personalfinance/from-mortgages-to-retirement-conflicts-engulf-trump-tax-plan/ar-AAuhAml

[boutons_deux]

Republicans salivate at chance to strip middle class of health insurance and cut taxes for rich (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/10/31/1711430/-Republicans-salivate-at-chance-to-take-away-middle-class-health-insurance-and-cut-taxes-for-rich)

Because enough is never going to be enough for Republicans, they're going to take a stab at Obamacare repeal in their ‘tax cuts for rich people’ legislation.

They can't repeal the whole thing, but they can try to pile on to the critical blows the law is suffering undert the Trump administration.

That means taking away one of the primary motivators for younger, healthier people to sign up for insurance: the individual mandate (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/cotton-individual-mandate-obamacare-tax-cuts).

"This does not take insurance away from a single person," said Cotton.

"It does not cut a dime from Medicaid or the insurance subsidies.

It simply says the IRS will not fine you if you cannot afford insurance.

And it would save us $300 billion over ten years and even more after that." :lol

The savings would come from these people not receiving subsidies from the federal government to pay their premiums.

That would leave millions of people uninsured not because they don't want to be, but because

having so many healthy people who decide they don't need insurance leave the markets would drive up costs for everyone else's coverage.

So, yeah,

Cotton is lying. It's going to take insurance away from a lot of people.

And as usual, Republicans don't care.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1711430

[Spurminator]

925775581232418816

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s Call For Repealing Obamacare Mandate In Tax Bill Lands With A Thud

President Donald Trump’s Twitter demand (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trump-tax-bill-axe-individual-mandate) Wednesday morning that a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate be inserted in the Republican tax bill came out of the blue—and it’s going over like a lead balloon on Capitol Hill.

The lead author of the tax plan, set to be unveiled on Thursday, as well as moderate Republicans whose votes are crucial for its passage and

conservative allies of the President, say they’re opposed to adding in the mandate repeal this late in the game, and warn that doing so could put the entire bill in jeopardy.

“I want to see that individual mandate repealed. I just haven’t seen, no one has seen, 50 votes in the Senate to do it.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/trumps-call-for-repealing-obamacare-mandate-in-tax-bill-lands-with-a-thud?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20tpm-news%20%28TPMNews%29

[boutons_deux]

Republicans worry their tax giveaway to the rich will be viewed as a tax giveaway to the rich (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/1/1711715/-Republicans-worry-their-tax-giveaway-to-the-rich-will-be-viewed-as-a-tax-giveaway-to-the-rich)

This is rich: Republicans are catching on to the fact that raising the tax rate on the lowest income earners doesn't look good when you're lowering the tax rate on the highest incoming earners.

The Hill writes (http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/358134-gop-senators-fear-bill-will-be-cast-as-gift-to-rich):

Under the framework Republicans are using, the seven tax brackets now in the tax code — including the lowest 10 percent bracket and the highest 39.6 percent bracket — would be collapsed into three, taxing people at 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, depending on their income levels. [...]

But Republican senators fear it will be difficult to explain to voters

why they’re raising the tax rate for low- and middle-income Americans

while cutting the tax rate for the wealthiest.


A Reuters-Ipsos poll released last week found that less than a third of Americans support Trump’s tax plan.


Whatever Republicans release, it will be a disaster to sell. They're talking about bad optics but don't seem to be making the logical leap to bad substance.

And they still have a math problem (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/politics/math-problem-bedevils-republican-tax-rewrite.html?smid=tw-nytpolitics&smtyp=cur&_r=1) they're not even close to fixing.


https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/1/1711715/-Republicans-worry-their-tax-giveaway-to-the-rich-will-be-viewed-as-a-tax-giveaway-to-the-rich

Repugs don't worry about shit except their BigDonor dictates. They don't care if their base is screwed, because their base only cares about Repugs fucking over, crushing LGBT, blacks, brown, immigrants, Muslims, PP.

[boutons_deux]

To Pay for Their Tax Plan, Republicans May Make 401(k)s Even Worse

In whittling down 401(k) contribution limits, Republicans threaten an already-inadequate retirement savings vehicle.

O
One of the many dubious particulars of the Republicans’ new tax proposal is the way they’re considering paying for it: reducing Americans’ ability to save for their retirements through 401(k)s.

The GOP’s plan is to offset the huge cost of tax cuts for the wealthy (http://prospect.org/article/trump-gives-tax-cuts-rich-and-fairy-tales-everyone-else) by

limiting tax-deferred contributions into traditional 401(k)s,

whittling down a benefit that already does too little to help most Americans prepare for retirement.

With this passing of the buck, 401(k) plans themselves are reminiscent of trickle-down economics. Before the rise of the 401(k), pensions dominated (https://www.ebri.org/pdf/publications/facts/0607fact.pdf). By March 2017, just 15 percent (https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/private/table02a.pdf) of private-sector workers participated in traditional pension (“defined-benefit (http://time.com/money/2791222/difference-between-defined-benefit-plan-and-defined-contribution-plan/)”) plans (the rate is much higher in the public sector).

But most Americans don’t actually benefit from 401(k)s.

According to the Census Bureau, only one-third of Americans actually contribute to a 401(k), perhaps because they aren’t signing up for the plan or because they aren’t eligible—or because their employer doesn’t offer a 401(k) plan or any retirement savings plan at all.

The retirement inequality gap is even greater (http://prospect.org/article/how-401ks-have-worsened-retirement-gap) than the income inequality gap.

Approximately half (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/trump-401ks-retirement-savings/543822/) of the tax benefits from traditional 401(k) plans go to the richest 10 percent; just 3.5 percent of those benefits go to those in the bottom half of the wealth distribution.

http://prospect.org/article/pay-their-tax-plan-republicans-may-make-401ks-even-worse

[boutons_deux]

GOP tax reform could eliminate tax break for disaster victims that Congress just expanded

getting rid of deductions that only benefit a few people leads to lower rates for the most people.

eliminates the medical expense deduction,

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/10/02/gop-tax-reform-could-eliminate-tax-break-disaster-victims-congress-just-expanded/716994001/

Repugs are gonna fuck hard and deep a lot of needy people in order to enrich the oligarchy.

[CosmicCowboy]

Damn. Thought there would be a real discussion of the tax bill in here but sadly its just more boukaki fake news.

[RandomGuy]

Damn. Thought there would be a real discussion of the tax bill in here but sadly its just more boukaki fake news.

Hard to have a discussion of a secret tax plan. GOP in congress now doing, and to a greater degree, what they bitched about incessantly when Democrats did it.

SALT deduction is safe though. No way to put that in when they will lose R votes in high cost of living states + united Democratic opposition.

[boutons_deux]

the tax bill is out, any intelligent boukaki from Kosmic Parisite?

[boutons_deux]

It cuts the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% costing $2 trillion―nearly equivalent to their budget cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.\

It eliminates the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)―handing $400 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.

The AMT prevents rich taxpayers like Donald Trump from using excessive deductions and other breaks to sharply reduce or even eliminate their federal income taxes.

It repeals the estate tax, handing $240 billion to America’s 0.02% wealthiest families―similar to the $200 billion in budget cuts they made to education, job training and social services for seniors and children.

[boutons_deux]

House Tax Bill is a Sleight of Hand for Small Business

the vast majority of real small business owners know they already pay 25% or less, and

only the very highest "pass-through" income earners - the hedge fund managers and corporate lawyers - would see a rate cut.

If you look at the big picture, this bill is ultimately giving very rich individuals and big businesses trillions in tax breaks while slashing community services like Medicaid, Medicare and education.

Ultimately, that’s going to drive the cost of living up and reduce the amount of disposable income that’s being spent in Main Street small businesses.”

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/11/02/house-tax-bill-sleight-hand-small-business

[ducks]

Damn. Thought there would be a real discussion of the tax bill in here but sadly its just more boukaki fake news.

[ducks]

Hard to have a discussion of a secret tax plan. GOP in congress now doing, and to a greater degree, what they bitched about incessantly when Democrats did it.

SALT deduction is safe though. No way to put that in when they will lose R votes in high cost of living states + united Democratic opposition.

it is out you fool!

[ducks]

It cuts the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20% costing $2 trillion―nearly equivalent to their budget cuts from Medicare and Medicaid.\

It eliminates the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)―handing $400 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.

The AMT prevents rich taxpayers like Donald Trump from using excessive deductions and other breaks to sharply reduce or even eliminate their federal income taxes.

It repeals the estate tax, handing $240 billion to America’s 0.02% wealthiest families―similar to the $200 billion in budget cuts they made to education, job training and social services for seniors and children.





good more high paying jobs !
the estate tax is illegal why should the same thing be taxed 5 times!

[boutons_deux]

More rich Americans are giving up citizenship to avoid tax

By the end of the year an estimated 6,813 Americans living overseas will renounce their citizenship,

In 2016, a total of 5,411 U.S. citizens renounced their citizenship, up 26 percent from 2015. This year appears to again mark a 26 percent increase.

The number of American citizens renouncing their citizenship began to increase in 2010 and 2011 after the

Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA)

became law.

The law’s aim was to curb tax avoidance by Americans living abroad by asking banks and others holding the assets of American citizens to report them to U.S. officials.

Accounts holding less than $50,000 do not have to be reported under the law, so it mainly impacts wealthy Americans living abroad and those who hold large overseas assets and bank accounts.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/more-rich-americans-are-giving-up-citizenship-to-avoid-tax/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

As with BigCorp, for Americans, maintaining/hiding/increasing wealth beats everything else.

[CosmicCowboy]

Interesting first proposal. Obviously isn't the final bill. Definitely gored some sacred cows.

[CosmicCowboy]

Should make you guys happy. Looks like my taxes will go up.

[AaronY]

Damn. Thought there would be a real discussion of the tax bill in here but sadly its just more boukaki fake news.

Surprised if I read it right they decided ending the adoption credit was a good idea for some reason. If anyone was paying attention would provide ammo for the argument that pro lifers only care about babies when they are in the womb and not after

[AaronY]

Like I know they have to make cuts somewhere but that seems a stupid place to do it luckily no one's paying attention or cares

[boutons_deux]

Christian Taliban / Christian autocrats will be able to dictate to their sheeple which Christian supremacist to vote for.

aka, weaponized Freedom of Religion (to impose Christianity on non-Christians)

The new GOP tax reform bill would politicize churches


amending a part of the tax law that keeps churches from engaging in explicit political advocacy.

Embedded within the bill’s more than 400 pages (https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bill_text.pdf) is a small provision that would change an aspect of the so-called “Johnson Amendment,” a provision of the tax codes that prohibits churches, faith communities, and other non-profits from outright endorsing political candidates.

Under the Johnson Amendment, it is illegal (albeit rarely enforced) for a faith leader to, say, endorse a candidate from the pulpit. Some conservative leaders—including paragons of the Religious Right and Trump’s own lawyer Jay Sekulow (https://thinkprogress.org/sekulow-johnson-amendment-church-state-64ff6138a01d/)—have long argued this law infringes on their freedom of speech or religion.

The GOP’s new bill appears to placate these concerns, using the following language:


“…An organization described in section 20 508(c)(1)(A) shall not fail to be treated as organized and operated exclusively for a religious purpose, nor shall it be deemed to have participated in, or intervened in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office, solely because of the content of any homily, sermon, teaching, dialectic, or other presentation made during religious services or gatherings, but only if the preparation and presentation of such content—
(A) is in the ordinary course of the organization’s regular and customary activities in carrying out its exempt purpose, and
(B) results in the organization incurring not more than de minimis incremental expenses.’’”


https://thinkprogress.org/gop-tax-reform-bill-politicize-churches-215bd7f610c4/

[AaronY]

And mainly no one's paying attention because certain moonbats just screeching autistically through threads and such

[boutons_deux]

BigOil getting Repugs to clobber wind in preference for NG

Republican tax bill hits wind power, solar largely unscathed

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/republican-tax-bill-hits-wind-power-solar-largely-unscathed/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

The states are taking care of shutting down solar, then there will be big tariffs on imported panels

[boutons_deux]

Republicans propose getting rid of tax break for student loan borrowers

The Republican tax proposal revealed Thursday could make it harder for borrowers to pay back their student loans.

As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/tax_cuts_and_jobs_act_section_by_section.pdf), Republican members of Congress are proposing scrapping the student loan interest deduction,

which allows borrowers to deduct up to $2,500 in interest payments on their student loans from their tax bill.

House Republicans claim that repealing the deduction along with other education-related tax breaks could save the government $47.5 billion over the next 10 years.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/republicans-propose-getting-rid-of-tax-break-for-student-loan-borrowers-2017-11-02

[boutons_deux]

BigOil gets much need help

That proposed tax plan would kill the $7,500 electric vehicle credit

The tax plan proposed by House Republicans has hiding in it the repeal of a $7,500 tax credit that has arguably been one of the main drivers of electric vehicle purchases.

Removing the credit would almost certainly adversely affect sales of electric cars just as they are beginning to get affordable to the general public.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/02/that-proposed-tax-plan-would-kill-the-7500-electric-vehicle-credit/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

[boutons_deux]

militant zygotism as dictated by Christian Taliban

The Republican tax plan would allow a saving account for fetuses

Unborn fetuses would be eligible to be beneficiaries of tax savings accounts under the GOP's new tax plan.

That means expecting parents would have the option of opening a 529 savings plan, which sets aside money for college or other higher education, before their child is even born.

Page 93 of the GOP's proposal spells out who counts as an unborn child.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/the-republican-tax-plan-would-allow-a-saving-account-for-fetuses/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[Chucho]

Putting aside money for your unborn child bad. Murdering your unborn child good. Good job, Boots.

[boutons_deux]

Republican Tax Plan Will Kill US Electric Car Market

Xavier Mosquet, a senior analyst at Boston Consulting Group, told Automotive News:


Eliminating the $7,500 credit] will stop any electric vehicle market in the U.S.,

apart from sales of the highly expensive Tesla Model S.

There’s no Tesla 3,

no Bolt,

no Leaf

in a market without incentives.


So why is the U.S. Congress proposing to kill a tax credit for a globally popular new technology that would reduce demand for fossil-fuel burning and cut vehicle emissions?

http://247wallst.com/autos/2017/11/03/republican-tax-plan-will-kill-us-electric-car-market/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FRyNm+%2824%2F7+Wall +St.%29

[pgardn]

We now appear to be uninterested in the deficit.

So Democrats and Republicans on the same page.
Unity.

[boutons_deux]

Donald Trump Stands to Gain Millions from the Republican Tax Bill

despite its complexity, the basic thrust of the bill is straightforward:

the Donald Trumps of the world get caviar;

the ordinary person gets peanuts; and

future taxpayers, who will bear the burden of all the new debt issuance necessary to finance the package, get shafted.

abolishing personal exemptions could hurt middle-class families who have a lot of children.

As could eliminating the deductions for state and local taxes, health-care expenditures, and student-loan interest.

in gauging how the legislation would affect corporations and very wealthy people, we can be definitive: they will benefit hugely.

The measure shifts the burden of taxation in the U.S. from corporations, which are largely run and owned by rich people, to households.

It cuts the top rate on “pass through” business income—the sort of money generated by sole proprietorships, investment partnerships, and S-corporations—from 39.6 per cent to twenty-five per cent.

It cuts the top rate on “pass through” business income—the sort of money generated by sole proprietorships, investment partnerships, and S-corporations—from 39.6 per cent to twenty-five per cent.

fully three-quarters of the over-all tax cuts in the bill are directed at businesses and large estates.

The bill also repeals the alternative minimum tax, which was designed to ensnare rich people with clever accountants and a lot of sheltered income.

In doing so, the bill creates enormous incentives for engaging in tax-evasion schemes, particularly the
conversion of highly paid employees into unincorporated businesses.

when the central proposals of the G.O.P. plan (https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/how-trumps-tax-plan-would-benefit-trump) were already public,

Trump stood to benefit in three different ways

First, consider the abolition of the A.M.T.

According to Trump’s 2005 tax return, parts of which were leaked earlier this year, he paid $38.4 million in federal taxes on income of $152.7 million, which means that his effective tax rate was about twenty-five per cent. But $31.3 million of his payment went to cover his A.M.T. liability. If there hadn’t been an A.M.T., he would have paid just $7.1 million, or about five per cent of his taxable income

Because Trump owns hundreds of unincorporated businesses, he also stands to be a big beneficiary of the new flat rate on pass-through income.

In his 2005 tax return, he declared $67.4 million in income from “rental real estate, royalties, partnerships, S corporations, trusts, etc.” Since pass-through income is currently taxed like salary income, income of this sort would theoretically be subject to the 39.6-per-cent top rate. In actual fact, Trump offset much of this income by itemizing a huge, unexplained loss that was probably carried over from the early nineteen-nineties. But when those carryovers eventually run out, as they probably have by now, Trump will have a great deal of pass-through income to pay tax on. Thanks to the Republican bill, he’d pay a rate of just twenty-five per cent.

Finally, there is the abolition of the estate tax.

To be sure, Trump may have already taken precautions to avoid the estate tax, by, for example, setting up specialized family trusts. But if he lived another ten years and then left his heirs, say, two billion dollars of unsheltered assets, then, under the current system, they would face a federal tax bill of eight hundred million dollars. Under the Republican bill, that liability would disappear.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trump-stands-to-gain-millions-from-the-republican-tax-bill?mbid=nl_Daily%20110317&CNDID=43758549&spMailingID=12284026&spUserID=MTQzNTk4NzA3ODYzS0&spJobID=1280301082&spReportId=MTI4MDMwMTA4MgS2

When politicians can vote themselves money, GAMEOVER.

America is fucked and unfuckable.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs pushing a heartbeat bill

AND

"The House Republican tax reform bill would completely eliminate (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/us/politics/tax-plan-republicans.html) the adoption tax credit,

which has been in the tax code since 1997.

It was a bipartisan achievement (https://lozierinstitute.org/adoptiontaxcredit/) pushed through by former Texas Republican Rep. Bill Archer, who was chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Designed to help cover “reasonable and necessary adoption fees, court costs, attorney fees, and other expenses,”

the credit is available for up to $13,460 per child.

https://theintercept.com/2017/11/03/republican-abortion-ban-adoption-tax-credit/

... AND refusing to fund the child health insurance program.

Repugs and Christian Taliban aren't pro-life, only pro-birth.

[CosmicCowboy]

This bill out of the house is nuts. It cant possibly pass in the senate as is because of deficit limits. It pjsses off multiple special interests. Its like they made up 2018 democrat attack ads "republicans hate (fill in the blank) homeowners,veterans, the handicapped, people with critical illnesses, etc. And reverse engineered a tax plan to meet that criteria.

[baseline bum]

This bill out of the house is nuts. It cant possibly pass in the senate as is because of deficit limits. It pjsses off multiple special interests. Its like they made up 2018 democrat attack ads "republicans hate (fill in the blank) homeowners,veterans, the handicapped, people with critical illnesses, etc. And reverse engineered a tax plan to meet that criteria.

Same thing Ryan tried to do with healthcare. I bet this one has a better chance though.

[boutons_deux]

the proposed bill probably won't be passed in this form,

but it shows the Repug sociopathy, and Repug whores' overriding priority to enrich the oligarchy while screwing everybody else.

[RandomGuy]

This bill out of the house is nuts. It cant possibly pass in the senate as is because of deficit limits. It pjsses off multiple special interests. Its like they made up 2018 democrat attack ads "republicans hate (fill in the blank) homeowners,veterans, the handicapped, people with critical illnesses, etc. And reverse engineered a tax plan to meet that criteria.

Pretty much.

This is where having a bullshit agenda leads to bullshit promises you can't possibly keep.
.

[RandomGuy]

Same thing Ryan tried to do with healthcare. I bet this one has a better chance though.

Marginally. Still will go down in flames in its current form.

[RandomGuy]

We now appear to be uninterested in the deficit.

So Democrats and Republicans on the same page.
Unity.

There are fiscal conservatives on the Democratic side. We are concerned with such things. We just haven't all taken the Norquist blood oath.

[RandomGuy]

good more high paying jobs !
the estate tax is illegal why should the same thing be taxed 5 times!
The estate tax is perfectly legal. It is a law.

Sort of the definition of "legal". :lol

The answer to your question is so that we don't end up with an aristocracy, where being born lucky counts more than merit.

[boutons_deux]

so that we don't end up with an aristocracy, where being born lucky counts more than merit.

the Repug/right wing "originalists" forget, or more likely in their ignorance, never knew, that the FFs, having watched aristocracies in Europe screw the peasantry, were dead set against "primogeniture"

in any case, i'ts too late to save American for Americans, the American form of aristocracy is the top 5% of wealth holders

They, along with BigCorp, have all the power that wealth confers, and are untouchable.

[boutons_deux]

http://verifiedpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/jerks.jpg

Here Are The Ten Worst Ways Republicans Are Attacking Working Families In Trump’s Tax Bill

Below are ten deductions, depended upon by tens of millions of middle-class Americans, that the Trump tax scam would severely limit or eliminate all together:





Limits the State and Local Tax deduction, imposing an unfair double tax on middle class families and undermining the ability of state and local governments to fund priorities, such as law enforcement and education.
Limits the mortgage interest deduction, making it harder for families to buy homes.
Eliminates the student loan deduction, making higher education more expensive.
Eliminates the medical expense deduction, dramatically increasing the cost of healthcare for Americans with disabilities, long-term care needs, and high dental expenses.
Eliminates the deduction for moving expenses to take a new job and taxing employer-provided moving expenses, inhibiting upward mobility.
Eliminates the adoption tax credit — $13,570 per eligible child parents adopt — making adoption even more expensive.
Eliminates a deduction for teachers who purchase supplies for their classroom — an attack on educators that would harm America’s children.
Eliminates the casualty loss deduction, making it harder for Americans to recover from natural disasters — such as flood, hurricane, tornado, or fire — in the event of damage, destruction, or loss of property.
Eliminates the deduction for dependent care assistance, making it harder for families to afford day care, nursery school, or care for aging parents.
Eliminates personal exemptions, which Americans can currently deduct for themselves, a spouse, and dependents and grows with the size of a family.


Make no mistake:

the Trump tax scam will devastate working families across the country.

And 81 cents per day won’t come close to making up the difference.

http://verifiedpolitics.com/ten-worst-ways-republicans-attacking-working-families-trumps-tax-bill/

[baseline bum]

Marginally. Still will go down in flames in its current form.

Really? They kept making the healthcare bill worse every time and it lost by one vote.

[CosmicCowboy]

Really? They kept making the healthcare bill worse every time and it lost by one vote.
The 51 votes are the problem. In order to pass with only 51 votes the plan has to:
1) not raise the deficit by more than 1.5 trillion in the first ten years.
2) cant raise the deficit at all after 10 years.
Even voodoo economics wont get the tax cuts they want within those self imposed guidelines.
They are fucked before they start.

[CosmicCowboy]

They could cut taxes without the other deduction cuts but 10 democrats would have to break ranks and vote with them.

[baseline bum]

They could cut taxes without the other deduction cuts but 10 democrats would have to break ranks and vote with them.

No way 10 Democrats are going to vote to repeal the estate tax and alternative minimum tax, and without that there is nothing in it for Trump.

[baseline bum]

The 51 votes are the problem. In order to pass with only 51 votes the plan has to:
1) not raise the deficit by more than 1.5 trillion in the first ten years.
2) cant raise the deficit at all after 10 years.
Even voodoo economics wont get the tax cuts they want within those self imposed guidelines.
They are fucked before they start.

It works fine if they fuck the middle and lower classes over so Trump can give himself a tax cut.

[Pavlov]

This is really one of the most cynical bills I have ever seen.

[CosmicCowboy]

Why I said this tax cut is DOA.

[CosmicCowboy]

I'm pretty sure I'm better off with the current tax code even having to pay an accountant $800 to prepare a 1/2" thick tax return.

[boutons_deux]

Carried interest, a Trash "promise", untouched

[boutons_deux]

Republican Tax Proposal Gets Failing Grade From Higher-Ed Groups

the bill would eliminate or consolidate a number of tax deductions meant to offset the costs of higher education for individuals and companies,

including the Lifetime Learning Credit, which provides a tax deduction of up to $2,000 for tuition, a credit for student-loan interest, and a $5,250 corporate deduction for education-assistance plans.

The bill proposes new taxes on some private-college endowments and on compensation for the highest-paid employees at nonprofit organizations, including colleges and nonprofit academic hospitals.

The plan would also tax the tuition waivers that many graduate students receive when they work as teaching assistants or researchers.

Perhaps most significant, the bill would result in many fewer people itemizing their deductions for charitable gifts.

Higher-education experts warned that that change could lead to a steep decline in donations to colleges.

http://www.chronicle.com/article/Republican-Tax-Proposal-Gets/241662 (http://www.chronicle.com/article/Republican-Tax-Proposal-Gets/241662)

Ignorant, stupid Repugs want everybody to be like them.

[CosmicCowboy]

We are just damn glad we arent like you, boo.

[boutons_deux]

The GOP Tax Bill Is an Attempt to Destroy Government

Americans need more services, not less.


Republicans hope that the fog of competing claims will cover their tracks. In the midst of the frenzy, remember one thing: this entire project is utterly wrong-headed. Few politicians dare say it, but the reality is Americans are not overtaxed. They are underserved by their government.

American corporations (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/actual-us-corporate-tax-rates-are-in-line-with-comparable-countries) and American citizens (https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/how-low-are-us-taxes-compared-to-other-countries/267148/) are not overtaxed, compared with other industrial nations.

The greatest impediment to corporate competitiveness isn’t what corporations pay in taxes; it is an inefficient, outdated, and increasingly dangerous infrastructure (https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/the-impact/economic-impact/).

For businesses, the best use of public dollars isn’t tax cuts for the rich and big corporations but investments in rebuilding America.

Similarly, America’s workers are gouged far more by inadequate and wasteful public investment than by high taxes.

We pay about two times as much per capita (https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/the-economics-of-the-affordable-care-act) for health care—with worse results and leaving millions of people still not covered.

The costs of educating kids—from pre-K to summer programs to soaring college tuitions and fees—rise far faster than stagnant wages.

For working people,

the best use of public dollars is to invest in Medicare for All, tuition-free college, universal pre-K, and efficient roads and water systems.

Trump and Republicans want to sell tax cuts as key to growth and jobs, but this too is a con.

In using public money to create jobs, the most authoritative assessment—made by Moody’s Mark Zandi, a former adviser to John McCain—is that

investing in infrastructure would produce far more “bang for the buck” (https://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/Senate-Finance-Committee-Unemployment%20Insurance-041410.pdf) in jobs and growth than tax cuts would create.

35 percent of corporate tax cuts (http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/23/news/economy/corporate-tax-cut-foreign-investors/index.html) would go to foreign investors or companies.

Corporate profits are near-record levels, inequality is at record extremes, and interest rates are still low. Corporations don’t need tax breaks. They need customers.

The rich will get more money under the GOP plan, but they’ve already captured so much of the nation’s income and wealth that even the conservative International Monetary Fund has warned that

inequality has reached extremes that are an impediment to growth and jobs (https://www.wsj.com/articles/imf-escalates-focus-on-income-inequality-1394727420).

Once the tax cuts are passed, Republicans will return to hectoring about deficits and debt.

Their budget documents already call for brutal cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the entire range of public services.

As crippling as America’s public investment is today, passage of the Republican tax plan virtually insures that it will get far worse.

the big lies will be exposed.

The rich will clean up; some in the middle class—particularly those with large families—will pay more. Wealthy real-estate operators, investors, lawyers, and accountants will pocket most of the so-called small business “pass-through” tax break.

Repatriation and territoriality will give corporations even more incentive to rig their books to report profits in tax havens abroad.

But the specific outrages are neither as destructive nor as appalling as the entire project itself.

By making it harder to address America’s crippling public-investment deficits,

large tax cuts, if passed, will accelerate this country’s decline.

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-gop-tax-bill-is-an-attempt-to-destroy-government/

summary: oligarchy pays, owns Repug whores to fuck America into unfuckability

[boutons_deux]

BigElectric, BigCoal, BigNaturalGas getting what they paid for

House Tax Proposal Unsettles the US Wind Industry

The House bill proposes worrying changes to the Production Tax Credit that could severely curtail the four-year installation forecast for wind power.

the House bill proposes worrying changes to the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind power that immediately destabilizes tax equity, 80-20 repowering efforts (http://www.windpowerengineering.com/business-issues/80-20-repowering-united-states/) and 80 percent PTC value safe-harboring of turbines, and threatens to severely curtail the upcoming four-year installation forecast if the bill becomes law.

If the Senate must reform the PTC, it would most likely result in the evolution of the credit’s qualification mechanism from a “start of construction” based standard (either through physical work or safe harbor, as shown in Figure 2) to a “date of commercial operation” approach.

If qualification standards are reduced to meeting a 2020 operation date, it would be a nominal boon to the industry.

But, ultimately, leaving the qualification mechanisms alone and avoiding any policy uncertainty or industry recalibration is preferable.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/house-tax-proposal-unsettles-the-us-wind-industry?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GreentechMedia+%28Greentech+M edia%29#gs.gvcuZOs

Wind a great, successful resource for America and job creation, but Repug whores want to fuck it up to pay for oligarchy's tax cuts.

[spurraider21]

the estate tax is illegal why should the same thing be taxed 5 times!
It's actually the exact opposite of illegal

[boutons_deux]

Oligarchy extorting votes for enriching itself

House Republican: my donors told me to pass the tax bill “or don’t ever call me again”

Chris Collins is saying the quiet part loud

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EY89LdWG95dhUqicggJevh_nO-0=/0x0:1120x746/1220x813/filters:focal(471x284:649x462):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57501545/3.22.3.0.jpg

The Republican donor class — i.e., corporate and wealthy America — expects Republican lawmakers to pass a Republican tax bill.

It’s as simple as that.

We know (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/25/16339336/graham-cassidy-republican-donors) donor pressure is a big reason that Republicans kept trying to repeal Obamacare. But they still failed. Tax reform is their next — and maybe last — chance to deliver a big legislative victory. Republicans know it.

“We haven’t repealed Obamacare, so if we don’t get tax reform done, we are in trouble,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said (https://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/the-chairman-s-note?ID=2B7D0572-A972-48B0-8E77-E6402CAF01FC) back in September.

“We might as well flip up our tent and go home.”

So House Republicans aren’t going to sweat the details.

Their donors put them in office to cut their taxes.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/7/16618038/house-republicans-tax-bill-donors-chris-collins

[boutons_deux]

Repugs going after "liberal" "expert" "pointy headed" academia

Tax Bill ‘Simplification’ Is Code for Higher Education Cuts

. In reality, this “simplification” cuts tens of billions of dollars in assistance for students and families, with the savings going to fund tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations.

it is particularly important to understand the bait-and-switch going on because the same tactics are likely to be used when the Higher Education Act is reauthorized, as soon as next year.

The House majority’s tax legislation proposes to eliminate (https://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/20171106-JCT-Description-of-H.R.-1-.pdf) the Lifetime Learning Credit. (The bill also calls for eliminating the Hope Scholarship Tax Credit, which was already replaced (https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/education-credits-questions-and-answers) by the American Opportunity Tax Credit and cannot be claimed anymore.)

It also wants to end deductions for student loan interest and end exclusions for training paid for by employers, as well as tuition discounts offered by institutions to their employees.

The total federal revenue saved from eliminating these tax benefits is substantial—about $65 billion over 10 years (https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=5026).

this plan would streamline the process of claiming education tax benefits. But that’s because

many people will no longer have any benefits from which to choose.

None of the increased revenue from taking away these tax benefits is put back into helping families afford college, participate in career training, or alleviate the burden of their student loans.

Instead, the money goes overwhelmingly to tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-postsecondary/news/2017/11/07/442373/tax-bill-simplification-code-higher-education-cuts/

aka the oligarchy's wealthy wonderful successful Class Warfare on the non-wealthy.

so the non-wealthy go into debt to get an education, then see their $20K loans balloon up to $100K+ with BigFinance's interest and penalties

[boutons_deux]

The GOP Tax Plan Will Destroy Graduate Education

tuition waivers are paid by the college directly to itself, on behalf of the graduate student, and are not counted as taxable income.

Under the new GOP tax plan, however, those tuition waivers would be taxed as regular income, making graduate school an unaffordable proposition except for those already independently wealthy.

In many fields, including the overwhelming majority of STEM fields, tuition waivers are what enable students, many of whom are already deep in debt from their undergraduate days, to afford such a degree.

the new tax plan (for a single filer, which encapsulates most graduate students) claims that your tax bracket is 0% on the first $12,000 of income, 12% on the next $33,000, and that you don't get into the 30%+ range until you're earning more than $200,000.

But effectively, all graduate students not only pay far more than that due to this punitive and unfair accounting, but

the Princeton graduate student pays a higher percentage in taxes than any millionaire (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/03/the-good-the-bad-and-the-money-what-the-gop-tax-plan-means-for-you.html) or billionaire in America.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/11/07/the-gop-tax-plan-will-destroy-graduate-education/#38f4adb13d2f

[boutons_deux]

Trash so DUMB to think Dems are so DUMB

Trump called Senate Democrats to insist his personal finances will ‘get killed’ by GOP’s tax bill

“My accountant called me and said ‘you’re going to get killed in this bill,’” THE BEST PEOPLE!

The president made the call from South Korea, in an attempt to sway the Congressional lawmakers who are currently presenting a roadblock for his party’s tax bill.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/trump-called-senate-democrats-to-insist-his-personal-finances-will-get-killed-by-gops-tax-bill/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

GOP tax-reform writers benefited from offshore holdings

A new international report finds Trump cabinet members with massive offshore investments

President Trump’s inner-circle may be among the biggest beneficiaries of his proposed tax bill that would allow multinational corporations to bring massive offshore holdings back to the mainland at a one-time low-rate.

Several Trump officials — including key writers of the proposed tax reform bill being sped through Congress — have their own investments or were involved in the decision to keep company profits sheltered overseas,



Trump’s chief economic advisor Gary Cohn, who led Goldman Sachs’ purchase of companies from a financial arm of General Motors based in Bermuda.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who led a billion-dollar oil and gas venture in Yemen.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, whose former employer CIT Bank, where he was deputy chairman, financed off-shore private jets for clients.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, whose biotech company setup offshore firms.


Other tax haven beneficiaries among Trump’s inner-circle included in the report are:

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman,

U.S. Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster,

former Trump advisor Carl Icahn,

Trump’s Inaugural Committee Chairman Tom Barrack, and

SEC Chairman Jay Clayton.

The Paradise Papers also revealed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross may have failed to disclosed his business ties to Vladimir Putin’s family during his confirmation hearing,

https://thinkprogress.org/gop-tax-reform-offshore-holdings-aae3b60f62ec/

but but but ... poor people have to "skin in the game!" :lol

Pootin BFF Ross got caught is NOW divesting his HIDDEN investments in Russian company close to Pootin.

[boutons_deux]

GOP tax bill would end deduction for wildfire and earthquake victims — but not recent hurricane victims

The House Republican tax bill would eliminate the deduction for personal losses from wildfires, earthquakes and other natural disasters,

but keep the break for victims of the recent severe hurricanes.

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=270483&page=4

hmm, all the states that are most probable victims of hurricane disasters are Repug red states

[boutons_deux]

Congress Weighs Repeal of Tax Credit for Rare Disease Drugs

A decades-old tax credit designed to spur cures for rare diseases has been so successful that it’s now become a target in the House Republican tax plan.

The proposal under consideration would end the tax breaks for development of what are called orphan drugs.

Ending the credit used by big and small drug companies could save the government an estimated $54 billion over the next decade,

an effort to help offset some of the anticipated losses in revenue if other Republican tax cut provisions become law.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/health/republican-tax-plan-orphan-drugs-rare-diseases.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Repug philosophy,

"if govt actually does something good, that violates our philosophy, so we must stop govt from doing good. NOTHING good from come govt"

[Spurminator]

928641016827203584

... he says like it's a bad thing.

[boutons_deux]

928641016827203584

... he says like it's a bad thing.

It's the ONLY THING

[boutons_deux]

Repugs intend to cut the mandate

CBO: 13 Million More Uninsured By 2027 If Individual Mandate Repealed

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cbo-estimate-individual-mandate-13-million-2027?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20tpm-news%20%28TPMNews%29

[boutons_deux]

Trash LOVES Goldman-Sacks corrupt, predatory millionaires

Big CEOs Are 'Most Excited' About Trump-GOP Tax Cuts, Brags Gary Con

https://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/headlines/screen_shot_2017-11-09_at_1.50.10_pm.jpg?itok=2l5rACW0

President Donald Trump's chief economic adviser and former Goldman Sachs banker Gary Con dealt yet another blow to Republicans' claim that their tax plan will primarily benefit middle class Americans on Thursday,

the Americans who are "most excited" about the GOP's push for massive tax cuts are actually "big CEOs"—

a reversal from his claim just weeks ago (http://thehill.com/policy/finance/352830-top-trump-aide-the-wealthy-are-not-getting-a-tax-cut-under-our-plan) that the wealthy "are not getting a tax cut under our plan." :lol

prompting many to wonder whether he was actually "supposed to say that. (https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/928616059833389056)" :lol

Con went on to claim against all evidence (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/28/i-helped-create-the-gop-tax-myth-trump-is-wrong-tax-cuts-dont-equal-growth/) that "trickle-down economics" is "good for the economy (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/09/gary-cohn-trickle-down-is-good-for-the-economy.html)" :lol

and repeat the familiar line (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/10/18/mnuchin-gives-away-game-its-very-hard-not-give-tax-cuts-wealthy) that the Trump administration and the GOP did not "set out to create a tax cut for the wealthy," :lol

implying that any tax cuts for the rich would be purely incidental. :lol

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/09/big-ceos-are-most-excited-about-trump-gop-tax-cuts-brags-gary-cohn

Holy Shit, America is so fucked.

[boutons_deux]

DelBene: A few questions: Will a teacher in my district who buys pens, pencils, paper for his students be able to deduct these costs from his tax plan under this plan?

GOP: Uh, H.R. 1 would repeal the above the line deduction for teacher expenses.

DelBene: Will a corporation that buys pens, pencils and paper from its workers be able to deduct those costs from its tax returns under this plan?

GOP: Uh, the general deduction for ordinary and necessary business expenses by any business entity is not changed. It need not be…

DelBene: So they would.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/9/1714395/-Congresswoman-Delbene-delivers-powerful-blow-to-GOP-leaving-their-tax-scam-in-the-dust

Corporations are people, but people aren't corporations.

[boutons_deux]

The Republican tax plan takes direct aim against disabled Americans (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/11/1714304/-The-Republican-tax-plan-takes-direct-aim-against-disabled-Americans)

Under the Republicans’ tax proposal, disabled people—and other vulnerable communities—are set to shoulder a significantly greater responsibility for generating federal tax revenue, even as corporations get a substantial tax break. [...]

The provision that will have the most catastrophic effect on disabled people is

the removal of the deduction for out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Currently, if your out-of-pocket medical expenses exceed 10 percent of your adjusted gross income, you can deduct that from your tax bill.

In the Jobs and Tax Cuts Bill, that provision is excised completely.

So if you own a golf course, Republicans want to make sure your taxes are cut.

If you spend a sizable chunk of your income on medical expenses in order to, say, not die,

Republicans want to not only make sure the government doesn't give you the slightest bit of help with your health insurance,

they'll be taxing the money you spend on medical care as well.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1714304

[boutons_deux]

Key Contact With Russians and Stephen Miller, Papadop is demoted to Coffee boy

Papadopolous Lied About Russia To FBI To Protect Trump. (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/10/1714522/-Report-Papadopolous-Lied-About-Russia-To-FBI-To-Protect-Trump)

Trump had publicly denied that there had been any contact between his campaign and Russian officials, and Papadopoulos did not want to contradict the official line, the source said.

Papadopoulos met with the FBI agents investigating those alleged ties shortly thereafter, and he later acknowledged that he lied during that meeting about the timing of certain contacts.

According to federal court filings, Papadopoulos initially claimed his contacts with a professor who had deep ties in Russia “occurred before” he became an adviser to the campaign.

“In truth and in fact,” the filings read, “the professor only took interest in defendant Papadopoulos because of his status with the Campaign.”

Papadopoulos sent emails concerning Putin to at least seven campaign officials.

Clovis, as Trump national campaign co-chairman, encouraged Papadopoulos to fly to Russia to meet with agents of the Russian Foreign Ministry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Foreign_Ministry),

after being told that Russia had "dirt" on Clinton it wanted to share with Trump's campaign.[17] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papadopoulos#cite_note-who.27s_who-17)[18] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papadopoulos#cite_note-NBCNewsPlea-18)[19] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papadopoulos#cite_note-NYTGuilty-19)[20] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papadopoulos#cite_note-20)

This occurred before there was public knowledge of the hack of Democratic National Committee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_National_Committee_cyber_attacks) and of John Podesta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Podesta)'s emails (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podesta_emails), both of which U.S. intelligence agencies believe were carried out by Russia.[21] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papadopoulos#cite_note-KnewofOutreach-21)

Between March and September 2016, Papadopoulos made at least six requests for Trump or representatives of his campaign to meet in Russia with Russian politicians.

In May, campaign chairman Paul Manafort (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Manafort) forwarded one such request to his deputy Rick Gates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Gates_(political_consultant)), saying

"We need someone to communicate that [Trump] is not doing these trips. It should be someone low-level in the campaign so as not to send any signal."

Gates delegated the task to the campaign's correspondence coordinator, referring to him as "the person responding to all mail of non-importance."[18] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Papadopoulos#cite_note-NBCNewsPlea-18)

[T]he “low level volunteer” made several trips overseas throughout 2016, purportedly on behalf of the campaign, making appearances where he was introduced as a Trump adviser.

In April, he traveled to Israel to speak at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, an appearance arranged by the former Israeli ambassador to Greece.

In May, he met in Athens with the president of Greece. In September, he met with officials at the British Foreign Office in London.

During inaugural festivities, Papadopoulos met with advocates for Israeli settlements, telling them “We are looking forward to ushering in a new relationship with all of Israel.”

So this is someone who would have been privy to any matters of foreign policy that this Administration intended to implement. Certainly privy to anything involving their plans for Russia.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/10/1714522/-Report-Papadopolous-Lied-About-Russia-To-FBI-To-Protect-Trump?detail=emaildkre

DEE FUCKING LISHUS

[boutons_deux]

Reminder: Republicans Need 60 Votes to Pass Their Tax Plan

It’s obvious that these deficits aren’t going to suddenly stop in 2028.

That means the tax plan isn’t deficit-neutral after the ten-year window, and that means

Republicans will need 60 votes to overcome a Democratic filibuster. As far as I know, there are only two other options:



Make the tax bill temporary and have it expire in 2028. That’s what George Bush did. But Republicans have said they don’t plan to do this, and making a business tax overhaul temporary is nuts anyway.
Ignore the official estimates and simply declare the bill deficit neutral. However, this is tantamount to killing the filibuster: if the Senate can ignore CBO and JCT estimates, they can ignore the Senate parliamentarian too. That means future Senates can pass reconciliation instructions for pretty much anything and pass them with a simple majority.


The Capitol Hill press corps needs to push back on this and ask Republicans blunter questions about their plan.

Do they think they can round up eight Democratic votes?

Do they plan to have the bill expire in 2028?

Are they prepared to override CBO and JCT deficit estimates?

Do they plan to outright kill the filibuster?

If not, then what are they up to?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/11/reminder-republicans-need-60-votes-to-pass-their-tax-plan/

[boutons_deux]

Ugly Stuff: GOP Tax and Budget Plans Will Destroy Finances of Average Americans With Sick Elders or Family Members With Disabilities

Tax breaks for the rich, while the GOP targets healthcare safety nets for society's most vulnerable.

the GOP will stop at nothing to take away benefits from any person, in any state, who might vote blue.

Both chambers’ slightly differing proposals (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/your-money/how-could-a-tax-change-affect-you.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0) eliminate the current federal income tax deduction for state and local taxes,

hitting hard at blue high-tax states (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/us/politics/facing-math-trouble-house-panel-races-to-adjust-tax-bill.html?action=click&contentCollection=Your%20Money&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article) such as New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California,

and amounting to

a big transfer of wealth to lower-tax red-state America.

In addition, the mean-spirited and brazenly partisan fine print would deny deductions for fire and earthquake victims (https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wildfire-tax-deduction-20171107-story.html) (California), but keep them for hurricane losses (Florida and Texas). (TGB: and LA, MS, GA, SC, NC)

the House bill’s proposal to end a federal income tax deduction for medical expenses (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/health/medical-deduction-tax-bill.html) if those costs exceed 10 percent of one's adjusted gross income.

Should that measure, or some version of it, emerge in the final bill—such as imposing a cap limiting deductions—it would be devastating to households with disabled family members or those who incur high medical costs, such as seniors or children.

“By taking away medical deductions from personal income taxes, the Republican proposal would hurt older citizens with greater medical needs, people with disabilities and chronic medical conditions, and families with children who have congenital or genetic disorders and disabilities,”

“Almost 8.8 million households claimed the medical deduction in 2015. The average deduction claimed was close to $10,000 and the cost of deducting long-term care could be ten times that amount.”

people who pay out-of-pocket for personal care assistants and durable medical equipment would be among those experiencing the most calamitous repercussions,”

https://www.alternet.org/economy/op-tax-and-budget-plans-will-destroy-finances-average-americans-whose-families-have-sick-or

[boutons_deux]

Senate plans disastrous tax on vesting that could kill stock compensation

A proposed tax that charges people as their startup equity vests instead of when they cash it out and actually have money to pay the taxes could wreck how tech companies recruit talent.

a tax on stock options and Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) that applies as they vest, rather than using the existing scheme that taxes stock options when they’re exercised or when the underlying shares are released for RSUs.

As famed VC Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures explains, (http://avc.com/2017/11/dont-tax-options-and-rsus-upon-vesting/)

“What this would mean is every month,

when your equity compensation vests a little bit,

you will owe taxes on it even though you can’t do anything with that equity compensation.

You can’t spend it, you can’t save it, you can’t invest it.

Because you don’t have it yet.”

The proposed tax could prevent wide swaths of tech employees from accepting stock options and RSUs. This breaks the whole incentive structure for top talent to take intense jobs at companies with a risk for failure because there’d no longer be the potential for massive upside.

Companies would have to shift to higher salaries and big bonuses to attract the best employees. But startups often don’t have the cash to do that.

In order to attract talent they rely on equity that’s free to dole out at the time and only worth a lot if the company succeeds.

This could push top product, design, engineering and sales people to work at bigger, established companies that can afford juicy salaries and bonuses.

And with fewer equity-made millionaires and billionaires, there will be fewer people investing in the next generation of startups.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/13/tax-on-vesting/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Seems like something BigCorp would pay Senators to pass in order to protect BigCorp from startups.

[CosmicCowboy]

Senate plans disastrous tax on vesting that could kill stock compensation

A proposed tax that charges people as their startup equity vests instead of when they cash it out and actually have money to pay the taxes could wreck how tech companies recruit talent.

a tax on stock options and Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) that applies as they vest, rather than using the existing scheme that taxes stock options when they’re exercised or when the underlying shares are released for RSUs.

As famed VC Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures explains, (http://avc.com/2017/11/dont-tax-options-and-rsus-upon-vesting/)

“What this would mean is every month,

when your equity compensation vests a little bit,

you will owe taxes on it even though you can’t do anything with that equity compensation.

You can’t spend it, you can’t save it, you can’t invest it.

Because you don’t have it yet.”

The proposed tax could prevent wide swaths of tech employees from accepting stock options and RSUs. This breaks the whole incentive structure for top talent to take intense jobs at companies with a risk for failure because there’d no longer be the potential for massive upside.

Companies would have to shift to higher salaries and big bonuses to attract the best employees. But startups often don’t have the cash to do that.

In order to attract talent they rely on equity that’s free to dole out at the time and only worth a lot if the company succeeds.

This could push top product, design, engineering and sales people to work at bigger, established companies that can afford juicy salaries and bonuses.

And with fewer equity-made millionaires and billionaires, there will be fewer people investing in the next generation of startups.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/13/tax-on-vesting/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Seems like something BigCorp would pay Senators to pass in order to protect BigCorp from startups.



That ship has pretty much sailed anyway. Any tech startup that looks promising is immediately mirrored by google, facebook, amazon, etc that can throw more money at promising ideas than any startup. A lot of those startups are being crushed by mass. The days of jumping onboard a unicorn for a couple of years and getting to be a multi millionaire on the IPO are just about over.

[CosmicCowboy]

You guys remember that movie wher stallone woke up in the future and Taco Bell had won the "restaurant wars" and every restaurant was a Taco Bell? Thats where these huge tech companies are going. They can starve other supply businesses out. Amazon will be going into drugs next and CVS and Walgreens can kiss their asses goodbye.

[SnakeBoy]

You guys remember that movie wher stallone woke up in the future and Taco Bell had won the "restaurant wars" and every restaurant was a Taco Bell? Thats where these huge tech companies are going. They can starve other supply businesses out. Amazon will be going into drugs next and CVS and Walgreens can kiss their asses goodbye.

Yeah CVS is responding by starting a trial home delivery program but Amazon is going to kick their ass. The days are numbered for corporate brick & mortar stores in general.

[boutons_deux]

Bipartisan analysis: Senate bill would hike taxes for 13.8 million people

The assessment by Congress (http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-congress-ORGOV0000131-topic.html)' Joint Committee on Taxation emerged as the Senate's tax-writing committee began wading through the measure, working toward the first major revamp of the tax system in some 30 years.

Overall, the legislation would deeply cut corporate taxes, double the standard deduction used by most Americans, and limit or repeal completely the federal deduction for state and local property, income and sales taxes.

"This bill is not a massive tax cut for the wealthy. ... This is not a big giveaway to corporations," Sen. Orrin Hatch (http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/politics-government/government/orrin-hatch-PEPLT002777-topic.html) :lol LIE

The analysis found that the Senate measure would actually increase taxes in 2019 for 13.8 million households earning less than $200,000 a year.

That group, about 10 percent of all taxpayers, would face tax increases of $100 to $500 in 2019.

There also would be increases greater than $500 for a number of taxpayers, especially those with incomes between $75,000 and $200,000.

By 2025, 21.4 million households would have steeper tax bills.

The analysts previously found a similar magnitude of tax increases under the House bill.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-senate-bill-higher-taxes-20171113-story.html

[boutons_deux]

Republicans Do Their Best To Lose Congress By Adding Obamacare Repeal To Tax Cuts For The Rich

Senate Republicans will add a measure that repeals the individual mandate and cost millions their health insurance to the already unpopular bill cutting taxes for the rich.One week ago, Republicans lost by 54 points on healthcare in Virginia, so their big answer is to double down:

Seung Min Kim (https://twitter.com/seungminkim)
✔@seungminkim (https://twitter.com/seungminkim)


GOP senators were told inside lunch that Finance Rs unanimously agreed to include mandate repeal in the latest version of the bill, I’m told.
1:05 PM - Nov 14, 2017 (https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/930512101948510210)



According to the CBO, 13 million people will lose their health insurance if the individual mandate is repealed. (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/8/16623154/cbo-obamacare-individual-mandate-new-baseline)

The tax cut bill itself will automatically cut Medicare by $25 billion a year:

The absurdity has reached the point where it is almost like Republicans know they are losing Congress next year, so they are going to bundle all of their bad ideas into one bill before they are kicked out of office.

Only the most oblivious of political parties could respond to getting their asses kicked on healthcare by 54 points with a plan to take healthcare away from 13 million Americans.

It is almost like Republicans have given up and are trying to lose the 2018 election.

The addition of the individual mandate repeal to tax cuts for the wealthy is a giant middle finger to the American people.

The bad news for Congressional Republicans is that voters will get the final word next November.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/11/14/republicans-lose-congress-adding-obamacare-repeal-tax-cuts-rich.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

Ivanka Trump's Clueless Defense of Tax Reform Almost Beggars Belief

The first daughter really thinks American families need more Mandarin tutors.

White House adviser Ivanka Trump said on Monday that Republicans were going to pass tax reform so that every family would have the opportunity to have a Mandarin Chinese language tutor like her children have (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlxgYU40Ix8).

“I’m very fortunate to be able to have a lot of help to be able to support me,” Ivanka Trump replied.

“Because I definitely could not have taught her how to do that.”

“And that’s what we’re trying to do with tax reform, :lol

enable more working parents to be able to get the support that they need to be able to thrive as a family,” she added.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ivanka-trumps-clueless-defense-tax-reform-almost-beggars-belief

goddamn, the whole fucking Trash family is dumb as a bag of hammers

More H1b visas for the Chinese to teach American kids Mandarin.

[boutons_deux]

As if the Repug swamp gave shit if they shafted the clown they insulted HUD and blacks with

Ben Carson’s public housing plan would be crippled if the GOP’s tax bill passes

HUD Secretary Carson has touted a program that would be severely restricted by the House’s tax bill.

The GOP’s tax bill would severely curtail its own administration’s plan to solve the country’s $49 billion backlog (https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/PH_CAPITAL_NEEDS.PDF) of public housing repairs.

That estimate doesn’t include repairs related to damage from the recent hurricanes — repairs that could also face serious slowdowns if the House GOP’s plan passes.

The House tax plan would tax private activity bonds —

a tax-exempt funding mechanism that allows developers to borrow money for a host of projects, including affordable housing projects, at low-interest rates.

Lawmakers claim eliminating the exemption would save $38.9 billion (http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/360193-housing-groups-gop-tax-plan-could-hurt-hurricane-rebuilding-efforts) (even as the tax bill would grow the deficit by an estimated $1.7 trillion (http://thehill.com/policy/finance/359353-gop-tax-bill-would-add-17-trillion-to-debt-cbo)).

But housing advocates warn taxing those bonds would make it unnecessarily

difficult to rebuild affordable housing (http://thehill.com/policy/transportation/360193-housing-groups-gop-tax-plan-could-hurt-hurricane-rebuilding-efforts),

including housing destroyed by the recent hurricanes, and

severely cripple the only program that has effectively addressed the backlog of essential repairs for America’s 1.1 million public housing units (https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/chart-book-cuts-in-federal-assistance-have-exacerbated-families-struggles-to-afford).

https://thinkprogress.org/gop-tax-bill-2dfd444b11b6/

[boutons_deux]

GOP Sneaks Creation of Fetal Personhood Into Tax Bill in Giant Giveaway to Anti-Choice Religious Right

The Supreme Court and states have rejected fetal personhood, but

Congress is slipping it into a college savings plan

https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/gop-sneaks-creation-fetal-personhood-tax-bill-giant-giveaway-anti-choice-religious-right

It looks like the Repugs are stuffing so much non-tax cut shit into their oligarchy-fellating proposal that they really don't want it to pass, since these bullshit amendments rack up votes against the plan.

Repugs are going through the motions, pro forma, to pander to their base, then will blame failure on the legislators who vote against.

The oligarchy doesn't give a shit about fetal personhood or personal insurance mandate, or ANYTHING non-oligarchy.

They only want their tax cuts

[pgardn]

So we got Boots spamming sites with a very clear political agenda as always. I stopped reading long ago.

Two versions, admendments still being considered, different economists see different outcomes, a huge F'N mess to figure out.

Where is the Republican spammage? There is plenty out there.

[pgardn]

So here ya go:

Republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate have released versions of a tax bill. It’s virtually impossible to fully understand, let alone keep up with, the flood of proposals, amendments and analyses that continue to pour out. Here are some of the big-picture ideas to keep


At....

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/business/economy/tax-reform-bill.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

A mess. There are so many graphical ways to represent this to make it look good or bad.

[dabom]

So here ya go:

Republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate have released versions of a tax bill. It’s virtually impossible to fully understand, let alone keep up with, the flood of proposals, amendments and analyses that continue to pour out. Here are some of the big-picture ideas to keep


At....

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/business/economy/tax-reform-bill.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

A mess. There are so many graphical ways to represent this to make it look good or bad.

What do you think about trickle down economics?

[boutons_deux]

Robert Reich Destroys Conservative Stephen Moore's Corporate Tax Myth

It's just not true that cutting corporate taxes results in investment spikes.

“We did this in 2004, Steve Moore is acting like we didn’t have an experiment to test this theory.

Under the George W. Bush administration, we did have a repatriation, a tax holiday and what did corporations do with all that extra money?

Did they invest it?

Create more jobs?

No!” Reich rapidly explained.

“They just brought back their shares of stock,

pumped up share prices,

provided more executive pay to the top executives —

we’ve done it and we’ve seen that there are no results."

Moore was undeterred by the facts :lol and carried on with his dubious economic position.

“Explain to me why it’s good for America that

we have a 40 percent tax rate way up here and the rest of the world is at 20 percent down here,”

he responded with gesticulation outside the camera frame. "It just doesn't work for America."

Reich shut that argument down.

“Well, it does because the effective tax rate — that is, what corporations are actually paying — is just about the same as other foreign corporations are paying."

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/robert-reich-destroys-conservative-stephen-moores-corporate-tax-myth


=======================

Mark Cuban says tax rates have almost no impact on investment

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-cuban/mark-cuban-says-tax-rates-have-almost-no-impact-on-investment-idUSKBN1DG0BJ
summary: oligarchy-fellating Repugs are LYING 100% about their tax cut

BigPharma was a big recipient of the $300B repatriated at 5% in 2004, then laid off 40K people. Job Creators! :lol

and of course, corporate investments have wonderfully friendly tax treatment.

BigCorp tax receipts as percentage of total tax receipts are smaller percentage than in other industrial countries.

[boutons_deux]

The Repugs will have to limit their tax bill to 10 years, if they don't, they'll need 60 in the Senate to pass, which is impossible.

No reconciliation power play like the Repugs did in spring 2001, and then relaxed, went to sleep after they accomplished the main reason they wanted to run govt, as "chatter" about an attack, "planes into buildings", was ignored until 9/11.

[CosmicCowboy]

No need to get worked up Boukaki. The tax plans are all DOA. The senate is too fractured to get anything done.

[boutons_deux]

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/11/17/us/politics/17dc-tax1/17dc-tax1-master768.jpg


The House voted to 227 to 205 to approve the bill,

shortly after Mr. Trump came to Capitol Hill to address House Republicans.

Thirteen Republicans voted against the bill, and

zero Democrats voted for it.

The Republicans who voted no were from New York, New Jersey, California and North Carolina.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/us/politics/house-tax-overhaul-bill.html

[CosmicCowboy]

The no's as usual were pre-approved. Classic Washington.

[boutons_deux]

Trump Voters Celebrate Massive Tax Cut for Everyone But Them

https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5a0de5d3cf6a92080ac929ed/master/w_1626,c_limit/Borowitz-Trump-Voters-Celebrate-Massive-Tax-Cut.jpg


WASHINGTON —Jubilant Trump voters on Thursday celebrated the prospect of a gigantic tax cut that will benefit everyone but them.

Across the country, Trump supporters were overjoyed that, after months of gridlock and wrangling,

the man they voted for was about to make Americans other than them wildly richer.

“President Trump has taken a lot of hits from the fake-news media, but he stood his ground,” Carol Foyler, a Trump voter in Ohio, said.

“Today he honored his pledge to the American people, except for me and anybody I know.”

Harland Dorrinson, a Trump supporter from Kentucky, agreed. “When I cast my vote last November,

I said to myself, ‘I sure hope this means that people with a thousand times more money than I have get even more money,’ ” he said. “Promise kept.”

Tracy Klugian, a Trump voter from Minnesota, said that tax cuts for everyone but him are an important step toward making America great again.

“Look at the stock market—it’s been going through the roof,” Klugian, who has no money in the stock market, said.

But some Trump supporters, like Calvin Denoit, of Texas, were more muted. “Tax cuts that completely exclude me and my family are a good start,” he said.

“But, until President Trump eliminates all environmental and safety regulations for corporations that I have zero stake in, I won’t be satisfied.”

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-voters-celebrate-massive-tax-cut-for-everyone-but-them (https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-voters-celebrate-massive-tax-cut-for-everyone-but-them)

[boutons_deux]

'All Out Class War': GOP Bill Cuts Taxes for Private Jet Owners, Hikes Taxes on Students

Increasing taxes on those already drowning in student loan debt to give the rich a tax break denounced as "the height of Republican insanity"

"Soaking broke-ass grad students to pay for a private jet subsidy. All-out class war on the 99 percent."

One provision—crammed in the middle of the latest version of the so-called "Tax Cuts and Jobs Act"—would provide a windfall to the wealthy few who own or lease private planes by exempting them from certain taxes (https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/931279048998899712) related to "maintenance and support," "the hiring and training of pilots and crew," and "administrative services such as scheduling, flight planning, weather forecasting, obtaining insurance, and establishing and complying with safety standards."

Graduate students, however, would not fare so well if the GOP plan becomes law.

As CNBC reports (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/house-gop-tax-plan-could-increase-taxes-for-grad-students-by-400-percent.html?__source=twitter%7Cmain), "[s]ome programs provide graduate students with a modest stipend for food and housing. For instance, Ryan Hill, a fourth-year Ph.D. student at MIT, receives a $30,000 living stipend and a tuition waiver allowing him to forego paying $50,000 in tuition.

He currently pays taxes on his $30,000 stipend, but under the proposed House tax bill, his tuition waiver would also be taxed—meaning he would be taxed as if he was earning $80,000 a year."

In total, the House GOP tax plan would raise taxes by 400 percent on many graduate students, the Harvard Crimson estimated (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/11/14/tax-plan-graduate-students/).

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/17/all-out-class-war-gop-bill-cuts-taxes-private-jet-owners-hikes-taxes-students

[boutons_deux]

Senate Plan Would Raise Taxes on the Poor, a Report Says

The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation said on Thursday that the latest version of the Senate tax bill would effectively raise taxes for lower-income Americans by 2021.

An analysis (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4247444-Joint-Committee-on-Taxation-s-Evaluation-of-the.html) by the nonpartisan committee projected that, if the Senate bill becomes law, Americans earning $30,000 a year or below would pay higher taxes beginning in 2021 than they would if the bill is not enacted.

The projected increase stems from the bill’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that most people have health insurance, a provision that was tucked into an amended version of the legislation this week.

The projections assume that repeal of the so-called individual mandate would result in many lower-income Americans choosing not to buy insurance, and thus not claim tax subsidies that help them defray the costs of health coverage.

As a result, their total tax liability would rise.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/us/politics/senate-republican-tax-plan-poor.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

Who’d Gain From an Estate Tax Rollback: The 0.2 Percenters


https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/11/17/business/17estate1/17estate1-master768.jpg


“Obviously, the estate tax, I will concede, disproportionately helps rich people.”

the estate tax affects a small set of wealthy Americans, applying only when someone leaves assets worth more than $5.49 million to heirs. Together, parents can leave $11 million to their children without paying a penny in estate taxes (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/ten-facts-you-should-know-about-the-federal-estate-tax#_ftn6).

Last year, for example, more than 2.6 million people died (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm) in the United States. Of the estates filed (https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/16es01fy.xls) with the Internal Revenue Service, 5,219 — or 0.2 percent of the total — were large enough to qualify for the tax.

The kind of households that could potentially owe money, however, include Mr. Trump’s,

Mr. Mnuchin’s,

and those of several cabinet members and advisers (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/us/politics/financial-vetting-goes-slowly-for-trumps-wealthy-cabinet-picks.html), including

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos,

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross,

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson,

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao,

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue,

Housing Secretary Ben Carson and

Gary Cohn, chief of the National Economic Council.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/business/economy/estate-tax.html?partner=rss&emc=rss#story-continues-2)(An analysis by the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund (https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2017/10/18/168871/trump-mcconnell-ryan-tax-plan-windfall-president-trump-cabinet/) concluded that the estate tax repeal could

save Mr. Trump’s estate more than $1 billion, and

those of his cabinet (https://www.opensecrets.org/trump/financial-disclosures) members $3.5 billion.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/business/economy/estate-tax.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

Pass-through businesses to see cuts under tax plan: Steven Mnuchin

“Ninety-eight percent of the number of pass-throughs have $500,000 or less of income … those people will get substantial reductions,”

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/pass-through-businesses-to-see-cuts-under-tax-plan-steven-mnuchin/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

Who Really Gets a Tax Increase if the Individual Mandate Goes Away?

On government tables, it looks as if it’s low-income people. But the real losers would be higher up the income scale.

left out of the tax tables is the fact that some higher earners, who look as if they are getting more of a tax cut, will get hit with higher insurance premiums if the mandate is repealed.

It looks as if the tax bill rises for some people who drop coverage.

Here’s why: The subsidies Obamacare offers to low- and middle-income Americans who buy their own insurance take the form of refundable tax credits, a kind of government-issued gift card (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/upshot/trump-picks-a-side-how-tax-credits-would-work-in-a-gop-health-plan.html) that can be used only to buy health insurance.

But if fewer people who qualify for these gift cards choose to buy insurance, the government spends less in tax money for the population that qualifies. The tax scorekeepers count this reduction in tax credits as an increase in tax liability for the group. Individuals would not actually pay more in taxes.

If they don’t buy insurance and don’t get the gift card, is that really the same thing as paying more in taxes? Republicans say it is not. :lol

“This is the result of an assumption about economic behavior that is 100 percent voluntary.”

( :lol Nobody's forced to be unable to afford insurance! :lol You're completely free to be uninsured! Freedom! :lol )

the more expensive health insurance gets, the bigger a tax increase the change appears to be in the government estimates.

Economists think that lifting a requirement for healthy people to buy insurance will tend to make the resulting pool of customers sicker, driving up insurance premiums.

“The credits look more valuable, because the proposal sabotages the health market, and premiums go up,”

Others will have a tax cut but face much higher premiums.

Higher-income people, who don’t qualify for government gift cards, have to pay the full price of health insurance.

Single people earning more than about $48,000, or families of four earning more than around $98,000, earn too much to qualify for any insurance subsidies.

The budget office estimates that eliminating the mandate would drive up premiums an average of 10 percent every year beyond their normal rate of increase.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/upshot/tax-reform-individual-mandate-health-care.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

https://images.dailykos.com/images/469683/story_image/taxhike915.png?1510022590

[boutons_deux]

Impact of the Trump Tax Scam in One Chart

http://www.pensitoreview.com/Wordpress/wp-content/uploads/chart-impact-of-GOP-tax-scam.jpg


http://www.pensitoreview.com/2017/11/18/impact-of-the-trump-tax-scam-in-one-chart/

[boutons_deux]

Orrin Hatch LYING and pissed off for being called, effectively, a LIAR, while Brown pummels him with FACTS.

This remarkable, angry exchange between senators unmasks the GOP’s tax-cut lies

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) engaged in extended sparring with committee chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) over who would benefit from the Senate bill, with Brown insisting that it fundamentally represents a tax cut for the rich and not the middle class. This drew an enraged response from Hatch, even though Brown’s argument was 100 percent correct

Brown claimed that “this tax cut really is not for the middle class, it’s for the rich,” and that the GOP argument about tax cuts on corporations leading to higher wages is just a “good selling point.”

Brown pointed out: “Companies don’t just give away higher wages just because they have more money. Corporations are sitting on a lot of money now. They’re sitting on a lot of profits now. I don’t see wages going up. Just spare us the bank shots.”

All this made Hatch angry.

“I come from the poor people,” Hatch said. :lol such relevance! :lol

“And I’ve been here working my whole stinkin’ career for people who don’t have a chance. And I really resent anybody saying that I’m just doing this for the rich. :lol

Give me a break. :lol

I think you guys overplay that all the time, and it gets old. And frankly, you ought to quit it.” :lol

When Brown pushed back by suggesting that previous tax cuts for the rich haven’t produced the results Republicans are once again predicting,

Hatch silenced him.

Now, Hatch was probably angered by the questioning of his motive — the idea that

Republicans are disingenuously packaging a tax cut for the wealthy and corporations as a tax cut for the middle class.

But whatever is in Hatch’s heart, :lol

this is exactly what the Senate bill does.

It front-loads the benefits for non-wealthy people (https://www.cbpp.org/federal-tax/commentary-senate-tax-bill-revisions-make-its-fundamental-tradeoffs-big-tax-cuts-for-the) by making its various tax preferences and

its cuts to individual income tax rates temporary and

subject to expiration

while making the corporate rate cuts permanent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/11/17/this-remarkable-angry-exchange-between-senators-unmasks-the-gops-tax-cut-lies/?undefined=&utm_term=.38bf1f6ea7c3&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

[boutons_deux]

GOP Tax Bill Is The End Of All Economic Sanity In Washington

If it's enacted, the GOP tax cut now working its way through Congress will be the start of a decades-long economic policy disaster unlike any other that has occurred in American history. (https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fst ancollender%2F2017%2F11%2F19%2Fgop-tax-bill-is-the-end-of-all-economic-sanity-in-washington%2F&text=The%20GOP%20tax%20cut%20will%20be%20the%20sta rt%20of%20a%20decades-long%20economic%20disaster%20unlike%20any%20other% 20that%20has%20occurred%20in%20US%20history)

There's no economic justification whatsoever for a tax cut at this time.

U.S. GDP is growing,

unemployment is close to 4 percent (below what is commonly considered "full employment (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/the-jobs-market-may-be-past-full-employment-heres-what-that-means.html)"),

corporate profits are at record levels

and stock markets are soaring.

It makes no sense to add any federal government-induced stimulus to all this private sector-caused economic activity, let alone a tax cut as big as this one.

by damning the economic torpedoes and moving full-speed ahead,

House and Senate Republicans and the Trump White House are setting up the U.S. for the modern-day analog of the inflation-producing guns-and-butter (https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/guns-butter.asp) economic policy of the Vietnam era.

The GOP tax bill will increase the federal deficit by $2 trillion or more over the next decade (the official estimates of $1.5 trillion hide the real amount with a witches brew of gimmicks and outright lies (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/17/us/politics/accounting-manuevers-republican-tax-overhaul.html?_r=0))

that, unless all the rules have changed, is virtually certain to result in inflation and much higher interest rates than would otherwise occur.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stancollender/2017/11/19/gop-tax-bill-is-the-end-of-all-economic-sanity-in-washington/#f5946f577ef7

[boutons_deux]

Fox News praises Eric Trump for welcoming higher taxes under dad’s plan. (He gets a huge tax cut.)

The GOP tax plan is specifically designed for wealthy heirs like Eric Trump.


https://thinkprogress.org/fox-news-praises-eric-trump-for-welcoming-higher-taxes-under-dads-plan-he-gets-a-huge-tax-cut-ea132bf2125d/

[boutons_deux]

Repugs KNOW their base is nothing but idiots

Republicans in Congress Think You’re an Idiot

The GOP tax bill should be toxic to everyone who is not ultra-rich.

https://www.thenation.com/article/republicans-in-congress-think-youre-an-idiot/

So, CC, tell us again how the just-passed Repug tax cut bill is D O A :lol

[boutons_deux]

Inequality Out of Control: The Average 1% Household Made Over $2.5 Million in the Past Year"Inequality, like a malignant tumor, is growing out of control, and the only response from Congress is to make it even worse."


It's Getting Uglier Every YearThe average 1% household made nearly $2.6 million in the 12 months to mid-2017. Mostly from the stock market. Here's how:

----The U.S. increased its wealth by over $8.5 trillion (see Table 2-4 (http://publications.credit-suisse.com/index.cfm/publikationen-shop/research-institute/global-wealth-databook-2017-en/), mid-2016 to mid-2017).

----The 1% took $3.27 trillion of that (38.3 percent: see Table 6-5 (http://publications.credit-suisse.com/index.cfm/publikationen-shop/research-institute/global-wealth-databook-2017-en/)).

----Each of 1.26 million (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TTLHH) households, on average, took nearly $2.6 million. In greater detail (http://www.youdeservefacts.org/20171120_Analysis.xls), the poor segment of the 1% averaged about $1.44 million for the year, the .1% (http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf) averaged about $7.2 million, and the .01% (http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf) (12,600 households) averaged nearly $65 million in just the past year.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/11/20/inequality-out-control-average-1-household-made-over-25-million-past-year

Repugs still haven't funded Child's Health Insurance (they're mostly black and brown children, so fuck 'em). Gotta enrich the oligarchy first and immediately.

[boutons_deux]

A Vote For The GOP Tax Bill Is A Vote To Cut Medicare

https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5a1301331800001700f6d12b.jpg?ops=scalefit_720_noup scale

If the just-passed House tax bill, its Senate counterpart, or some compromise of the two is signed into law, the

enactment will put Medicare’s future in the hands of Ryan and Mulvaney.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the GOP tax bill will instantly trigger

$400 billion (https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/08705206-dd71-4240-a99e-9f7e0fdc2c55/paygo-medicare-cuts-final.pdf) in automatic cuts to Medicare in the next ten years, including

$25 billion in the first year after enactment alone.

These cuts are the result of a law known as Statutory PAYGO. That law requires an automatic cut in spending when Congress increases the deficit.

The tax bill is, in Donald Trump’s words, “a big, beautiful Christmas present” for Trump’s family and other billionaires.

To be clear:

If the tax bill passes the Senate and is signed into law by Donald Trump, nothing more needs to be done to cut Medicare.

If the House and Senate do nothing,

the cuts take effect immediately after the end of the Congressional session and

get bigger with every passing year.

A vote for this tax bill is a vote to cut Medicare.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-vote-for-the-gop-tax-bill-is-a-vote-to-cut-medicare_us_5a12ff86e4b010527d677ecc

[rmt]

Senate Plan Would Raise Taxes on the Poor, a Report Says

The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation said on Thursday that the latest version of the Senate tax bill would effectively raise taxes for lower-income Americans by 2021.

An analysis (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4247444-Joint-Committee-on-Taxation-s-Evaluation-of-the.html) by the nonpartisan committee projected that, if the Senate bill becomes law, Americans earning $30,000 a year or below would pay higher taxes beginning in 2021 than they would if the bill is not enacted.

The projected increase stems from the bill’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that most people have health insurance, a provision that was tucked into an amended version of the legislation this week.

The projections assume that repeal of the so-called individual mandate would result in many lower-income Americans choosing not to buy insurance, and thus not claim tax subsidies that help them defray the costs of health coverage.

As a result, their total tax liability would rise.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/us/politics/senate-republican-tax-plan-poor.html?partner=rss&emc=rss




Sorry, bou, can't read - guess I'm past my limit. Are you saying that someone choosing not to buy insurance (and paying no penalty) would pay more taxes by not claiming subsidies? That could only be if the subsidies were more than the cost of the policy and they were netting (making money off the subsidies).

[boutons_deux]

Repugs one vote closer to screwing 10Ms of Americans out of health care

Lisa Murkowski Says She’s OK With Killing The Health Insurance Mandate

Projections suggest millions will lose coverage;

the Alaska senator says she simply wants to allow choice. :lol

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lisa-murkowski-health-insurance-mandate_us_5a14e2c4e4b03dec8248f563?utm_medium=ema il&utm_campaign=__TheMorningEmail__112217&utm_content=__TheMorningEmail__112217+CID_d0fa7860 178c0f8b34f34df91b42ce58&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=HuffPost&ncid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__112217

the FALSE Repug fetish of "choice", a shield hiding lies and bad faith, is more important than providing health care and human lives.

[boutons_deux]

https://images.dailykos.com/images/470807/story_image/11-09-2017-mcfadden-KOS.png?1510262237

[boutons_deux]

The Republican tax bill is class war


The Republican donor class and their employees in Congress are barely even attempting to hide the fact that

this tax "reform" is about transferring as much income and wealth to the ultra-rich as possible,

on their direct orders. I

http://theweek.com/articles/738111/republican-tax-bill-class-war

[boutons_deux]

Republican tax plan's 'dynastic' payoff for mega-rich GOP donors (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/24/1716365/-The-Republican-tax-plan-s-dynastic-payoff-for-mega-rich-GOP-donors)

Not only does Donald Trump stand to gain $1 billion in savings (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/trump-his-family-could-save-more-1-billion-under-house-n821491) from the Republican tax cut that House passed last week, major Republican donors will also save a windfall.

Eleven top Republican donors like Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer, the Ricketts, and the Kochs may have collectively made

$205 million worth of political contributions in 2016, but

their payoff, should the House tax plan prevail, will be a cool $67.5 billion,

https://images.dailykos.com/images/473384/large/Screen_Shot_2017-11-16_at_5.57.42_PM.png?1510884618

Over the next 30 years, the really rich billionaire and semi-billionaire baby boomers are going to be

transferring about $30 trillion to their children.

I mean, you're going to have the biggest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history. And if they can eliminate the estate tax and if they can actually wangel things so that there is no capital gains tax, we are creating a dynastic class in America as fast as we possibly can.

Meanwhile,

graduate students will be paying taxes on more money than they actually earn annually (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/16/opinion/house-tax-bill-graduate-students.html)

because the House bill will tax the tuition waver they get for working as class instructors.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/24/1716365/-The-Republican-tax-plan-s-dynastic-payoff-for-mega-rich-GOP-donors?detail=emaildkre

[boutons_deux]

House tax bill is causing uncertainty in L.A.'s homeless housing program

The House bill, passed this month, seeks to generate new revenue by eliminating tax-free bonds that provide low-interest funds for projects such as hospitals, schools and museums.

The tax-free bonds also help lower costs for affordable housing. But more important, if the bill becomes law, it would cut affordable housing developers’ access to a tax credit program that pays for about a third of some projects.

Arcane language in the tax code requires developers who receive the tax credits to finance at least 50% of the project’s cost with tax-free bonds. If there are no tax-free bonds, the tax credits would also be out of reach.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tax-credit-threat-20171125-story.html?utm_source=Essential+California&utm_campaign=a46ecdbac6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_12_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6e35f7f85b-a46ecdbac6-80115881

The Class War of the Wealthy oppressing the non-Wealthy.

[boutons_deux]

GOP Senate adds last-second provision to guarantee Americans NEVER benefit from their tax scheme (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/25/1718463/-GOP-Senate-Adds-Last-Second-Provision-to-Guarantee-Americans-NEVER-Benefit-From-Their-Tax-Scheme)

the Republican-controlled Senate had already tilted the playing field by stipulating that any of its meager, so-called “tax cuts” for middle-class Americans would be phased out by 2026, while the proposed tax cuts for corporations would extend into perpetuity:

The Senate version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made the GOP’s relative indifference to middle-class tax relief especially stark.

In order to comply with arcane budget rules, Mitch McConnell’s caucus had to write a bill that wouldn’t add to the deficit after 2027.

The upper chamber solved this puzzle (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/new-gop-tax-cut-plan-raises-taxes-on-almost-everyone-by-2027.html) by

phasing out most of their bill’s middle-class tax cuts in 2026,

while making corporate tax cuts — and provisions that raised taxes (https://slate.com/business/2017/11/how-one-word-change-to-the-tax-code-could-screw-millennials.html) on a broad swathe of the middle class — permanent.

In a section titled “Revenue-Dependent Repeals,” the Senate plan would prevent some tax hikes on businesses from going into effect in 2026 if tax revenue hit a certain “trigger” level.

In total, businesses would get nearly $120 billion more in breaks in 2026 and 2027 if the trigger goes into effect.


most in the middle class—indeed the vast, vast majority would get absolutely nothing—except hikes on their own taxes:

To review:

Senate Republicans wrote a bill that phases out tax cuts for the middle class in 2026,

while keeping corporate America’s cuts on the books.

They insisted that they wanted to cut taxes on the middle class more,

but fiscal constraints simply wouldn’t allow them to.

Then, they went back into their bill and

added a section stipulating that,

should their bill expand the deficit less than expected — which is to say, should they have fewer fiscal constraints —

then all unexpected revenue should be immediately spent on making corporate America’s permanent tax cuts larger,

even as some middle-class families see their tax bills skyrocket.


The Republican Party is counting on Americans weary of the constant, unrelenting barrage of nonsense and gibberish (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/25/566433478/trump-says-he-passed-on-being-person-of-the-year-time-says-he-s-incorrect) from Donald Trump to tune out their vote on this thing.



https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/25/1718463/-GOP-Senate-Adds-Last-Second-Provision-to-Guarantee-Americans-NEVER-Benefit-From-Their-Tax-Scheme?detail=emaildkre

[boutons_deux]

Ivanka, Louise and the Little Peoplehttps://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/11/26/opinion/sunday/26bruni/26bruni-master768.jpg

"There is arguably no engine of advancement as powerful as a college degree,

so what does the tax bill passed by the House do?

At a time of mammoth student debt,

it eliminates the deduction for interest on student loans."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/opinion/sunday/ivanka-trump-louise-linton-populism.html

[boutons_deux]

The Republican Tax Cut For The Rich Is Careening Toward Collapse In The Senate

Senate Republicans are scrambling as at least 6 Republicans have concerns about the bill that cuts taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and the legislation is coming closer to collapse.

The Washington Post reported: (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/11/26/gop-leaders-in-advanced-talks-to-change-tax-plan-in-bid-to-win-over-holdouts/?utm_term=.d6a06a02c135)

Senate Republicans are seriously considering several last-minute changes to their tax legislation in an effort to mollify wavering members, four people familiar with the discussions said, as GOP leaders seek to keep their members from defecting ahead of crucial votes this week.

There are numerous members demanding changes, and their needs don’t all overlap.

Together, the requests put Republican leaders in a difficult position, as they attempt to accommodate individual holdouts on a one-off basis without losing other members or creating a situation in which the bill collapses under the weight of disparate demands.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/11/26/republican-tax-cut-rich-careening-collapse-senate.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

In Tax Debate, Gift to Religious Right Could Be Bargaining Chip

For years, a coalition of well-funded groups on the religious right have waged an uphill battle to repeal a 1954 law that bans churches and other nonprofit groups from engaging in political activity.

Now, those groups are edging toward a once-improbable victory as Republican lawmakers, with the enthusiastic backing of President Trump, prepare to rewrite large swaths of the United States tax code as part of the $1.5 trillion tax package moving through Congress

a provision to roll back the 1954 ban, a move that is championed by the religious right, but opposed by thousands of religious and nonprofit leaders, who warn that it could blur the line between charity and politics.

The change could turn churches into a well-funded political force, with donors diverting as much as $1.7 billion

( tax deductible "religious" donations! )

each year from traditional political committees to churches and other nonprofit groups that could legally engage in partisan politics for the first time,

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/us/politics/johnson-amendment-churches-taxes-politics.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[boutons_deux]

Republicans worried White House has already doomed tax plan with tone-deaf rollout

the daunting task of passing an already wildly unpopular (https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/gops-new-tax-bill-is-so-unpopular-even-they-hate-it/)tax plan by the end of the year.

According to Politico (https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/26/white-house-taxes-push-democrats-259708), many are worried that the White House has already doomed the tax overhaul with a tone-deaf rollout that featured multimillionaires Steven Mnuchin and Gary Cohn as spokesmen.


Mnuchin didn’t help matters by posing (https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/this-is-crazy-msnbcs-mika-appalled-by-mnuchin-and-wife-flaunting-their-power-by-posing-with-cash/) with a sheet of newly minted dollar bills alongside his wife

Louise Linton — who tenderly fondled (https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/11/steven-mnuchin-and-louise-linton-go-full-scrooge-mcduck) an edge of the sheet of currency while wearing black, elbow-length leather opera gloves.

A CNN reporter found the gloves for sale online for $635 (https://twitter.com/KateBennett_DC/status/931201050446630918).

“No, they are not lined with diamonds, gold or even anti-anxiety medication,” wrote (https://www.mediaite.com/online/steve-mnuchins-wife-handled-sheet-of-cash-in-635-gloves/)Mediaite.com’s Lawrence Bonk.

“They are just gloves. Really expensive gloves that cost half of what an average American pays on rent per month.”

“If you asked us to put together a photo shoot to show this is a taxpayer-funded giveaway to millionaires and billionaires, I don’t think we could do a better job of this,”

Gary Cohn — who is, like Mnuchin, a former Goldman-Sachs executive — flubbed his own pitch for the tax cut bill when he said

the average family will receive an addition $1,000 per year, which they could use to “renovate their kitchen” or “buy a new car.” :lol

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/republicans-worried-white-house-has-already-doomed-tax-plan-with-tone-deaf-rollout/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[pgardn]

Yeah it's all this easy boots...

This is all highly dependent on how you make your income. There are wide range possibilities for almost every income group except the really poor people.

[boutons_deux]

Congress Is Trying to Blow Up Our Elections AND Our System of Charities in One Fell Swoop

The House’s repeal of the Johnson Amendment poses an existential threat to both charities and American electio

By essentially repealing the so-called Johnson Amendment,

a tax provision that bars charities from engaging in partisan politics,

the House legislation frees up big donors to funnel even more unlimited, undisclosed money into campaigns, and,

for the first time, to deduct that money from their taxes.


The bill also threatens the credibility and viability of charitable groups, and would drastically reduce charitable giving—

even as it robs education, housing, and health-care assistance from working families who invariably will turn to charities for help.

list of those lined up against the repeal is impressive:

5,500 charities and foundations (https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/sites/default/files/articles/community-letter-in-support-of-nonpartisanship-5-12-update.pdf),

4,200 faith leaders (https://www.faith-voices.org/intro#readletter), and

more than 100 (https://bjconline.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/11.01.17-Faith-Organization-Letter-Opposing-Politicization-of-Houses-of-Worship.pdf) religious and denominational organizations.

https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/blowing-democracy-and-charities-one-fell-swoop

[boutons_deux]

Senate GOP tax bill hurts the poor more than originally thought, CBO finds

The Senate Republican tax plan gives substantial tax cuts and benefits to Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, while the nation’s poorest would be worse off,

By 2019, Americans earning less than $30,000 a year would be worse off under the Senate bill, CBO found. By 2021, Americans earning $40,000 or less would be net losers, and by 2027, most people earning less than $75,000 a year would be worse off. On the flip side, millionaires and those earning $100,000 to $500,000 would be big beneficiaries,

The main reason the poor get hit so hard in the Senate GOP bill is because the poor would receive less government aid for health care.

health insurance premiums would rise if this bill becomes law, leading 4 million Americans to lose health insurance by 2019 and 13 million to lose insurance by 2027.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/26/senate-gop-tax-bill-hurts-the-poor-more-than-originally-thought-cbo-finds/?undefined=&utm_term=.4390ebe33ff0&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

iow, ALL Congressional Repugs in Congress are voting themselves more money, as well as for their BigDonor.

[boutons_deux]

Trash wants to give Obama a huge tax cut??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVchNC5MJjc&feature=em-uploademail

[boutons_deux]

Democratic leaders cancel meeting with Trump after Twitter attack

Democratic congressional leaders have cancelled a meeting with President Donald Trump after he attacked them on Twitter hours beforehand.

The Republican president said he did not think he could reach a deal with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on funding the government.

The Democrats said they would negotiate with Republican lawmakers instead.

Averting a federal shutdown is just one of this month's big challenges for Republicans, who control Capitol Hill.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42159139

[boutons_deux]

Tax Cuts Don’t Reduce the Debt

From the liberal Wall Street Journal:

Throughout Barack Obama’s eight years as president, Republicans hammered relentlessly at the horrors of debt.

In 2011 they took the country to the brink of default because they didn’t want to raise the statutory debt ceiling.

Last year candidate Donald Trump repeatedly ripped Mr. Obama for doubling federal debt.
Yet in their drive to overhaul taxes, President Trump and his congressional allies are about to make the trajectory of debt even worse.

Financing tax cuts with deficits isn’t the end of the world: There are economic arguments for doing so, which I will get to.

However, Republican leaders aren’t making these arguments.

Instead they rely on a far more tenuous case:

Lower tax rates will unleash so much new economic activity and thus added tax revenue that, contrary to history and mainstream economic opinion, the debt actually won’t rise much, if at all.

It’s a politically convenient face-saver, but it undermines a process Republicans themselves put in place to minimize the abuse of such reasoning.

http://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/taxcuts-637x1024.jpg



http://ritholtz.com/2017/11/tax-cuts-dont-reduce-debt/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Pict ure%29

so the Repugs are lying to us?

and what about BigCorp giving tax cut savings to employees? another lie?

[dabom]

I wonder what the resident republicans think about these corporate tax cuts.
Chris Chucho Spurtacular CosmicCowboy

[Chucho]

Hey dabom! I see you!

[dabom]

Hey dabom! I see you!

I really want an answer. I mean you're republican. Do these tax cuts represent you?

[Chris]

Libertarian Conservative

[dabom]

Libertarian Conservative

So you agree.

[Chucho]

I really want an answer. I mean you're republican. Do these tax cuts represent you?

LOL, no. You're a serial stereotypist. And wrong.

[dabom]

Does no republican know what they want according to taxes.

[Spurtacular]

I wonder what the resident republicans think about these corporate tax cuts.
Chris (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/member.php?u=1656) Chucho (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/member.php?u=20531) Spurtacular (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/member.php?u=49615) CosmicCowboy (http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/member.php?u=207)

I'm no more republican than you are, faggot. Probably less so, honestly.

[dabom]

I'm no more republican than you are, faggot. Probably less so, honestly.

So that would make you Democrat.

[Spurtacular]

So that would make you Democrat.

Neither.

In fact, I'd bet you're a Republican in real life. You just can't own up to it here b/c you're a 43-year old man trying to be a cool kid. :lmao

[dabom]

Neither.

In fact, I'd bet you're a Republican in real life. You just can't own up to it here b/c you're a 43-year old man trying to be a cool kid. :lmao

Can I give you a history lesson. Very short.

The Republican party switched around the 1960's. They became Democrat. It's always been this original north vs south ideology.

A lot of people growing up don't know this.

[Chucho]

Can I give you a history lesson. Very short.

The Republican party switched around the 1960's. They became Democrat. It's always been this original north vs south ideology.

A lot of people growing up don't know this.

:lol


The second myth is that segregationist Democrats bolted to the Republican Party after the Civil Rights Act was passed. In actuality, 20 of the 21 Democrats who voted against the Civil Rights Act remained Democrats and their seats remained in Democratic hands for over 20 years.

[dabom]

:lol

Are you disagreeing with history?

[dabom]

It's hard for people to come to terms with it. I'm not here to make ya switch. Just to enlighten ya.

[Spurtacular]

Can I give you a history lesson. Very short.

The Republican party switched around the 1960's. They became Democrat. It's always been this original north vs south ideology.

A lot of people growing up don't know this.

An oversimplified way of looking at it, tbh. Blacks switched parties in the 60's and 70's; but that had even started in the 20's. This due to the Dems transition to being an urban welfare party; but it wasn't because the Republican positions were so drastically changing.

This history lesson has nothing to do with you leaning republican in real life, tbh. I'll give you a historical reality; both parties are in bed with the corporations.

[dabom]

I'm not for corporate tax cuts. That would be against my interests. The one think that affects the economy and the little guy. The rich make money when it's good times, and buy everything when it's low times. I ask you, which party wants that to happen?

[dabom]

I'm still wondering if any republican has any opinion on anything.

[dabom]

I wonder what DarrinS thinks about these tax cuts.

[boutons_deux]

This is all highly dependent on how you make your income

:lol

[dabom]

:lol
I had to scroll back to see that one. :lol

[boutons_deux]

It Started as a Tax Cut. Now It Could Change American Life.

... Change For The Worse.

far broader ramifications have come into focus, revealing a catchall legislative creation that could reshape major areas of American life, from education to health care.

Some measures are barely connected to the realm of taxation, such as the lifting of a 1954 ban on political activism by churches (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/us/politics/johnson-amendment-churches-taxes-politics.html) and

the conferring of a new legal right for fetuses (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/us/politics/tax-bill-unborn-children.html) in the House bill —

both on the wish list of the evangelical right.

The result is a behemoth piece of legislation that could widen American economic inequality while diminishing the power of local communities to marshal relief for vulnerable people — especially in high-tax states like California (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/business/economy/california-republican-tax-bills.html) and New York,

Economists and tax experts are overwhelmingly skeptical that the bills in the House and Senate can generate meaningful job growth and economic expansion.

a transfer of wealth to corporations and affluent individuals — both generous purveyors of campaign contributions.

By 2027, people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes,

while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut,

we are squandering a giant sum of money,”

“It’s not aimed at growth.

It is not aimed at the middle class.

It is at every turn carefully engineered to deliver a kiss to the donor class.”

it is a return to trickle-down economics,

the trickle-down story has yet to achieve its promised happy ending. (although the oligarchy gets a huge financial orgasm)

The meat of the package is a permanent lowering of the corporate tax rate, to 20 percent from 35 percent,

when corporations get tax relief, they find abundant uses for money that do not involve paying higher wages. They give dividends to shareholders and stock options to executives. They stash earnings in tax havens (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/06/world/apple-taxes-jersey.html).

In 2004, Congress invited American corporations to bring home overseas earnings at a sharply reduced rate, pitching it as a means of bolstering investment. But

the corporations spent as much as 90 percent of their windfall buying back their shares,

The tax cut package, for instance, could trigger rules mandating cuts to Medicare (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/us/politics/republicans-entitlement-programs-deficit.html?_r=0),

“It hurts the most vulnerable, and hurts health care and education, which are essential for a healthy economy.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/business/republican-tax-cut.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

If passed, Medicare will be cut by $25B in January, with cuts continuing indefinitely.

Trash's base of old white people will be screwed, better stock up on the oxycodone while they can.

[boutons_deux]

Here Are the Four Biggest Lies Trump Told in His Final Tax Scam Sales Pitch

"Lies, lies, lies," was how one group described Trump's Missouri tax speech

https://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/headlines/gettyimages-8818592641.jpg?itok=6tWfQFFd

1. The GOP Plan Would Not Help Trump and His Wealthy Friends

Trump insisted that the GOP tax bill is going to cost him a "fortune."

"Believe me," the president said, "this is not good for me."

"I think my accountants are going crazy right now," Trump added. "It's alright. Hey, look. I'm president. I don't care."

2. The GOP Tax Plan Is Anti-Outsourcing

Trump claimed that the Republican tax bill would prevent corporations from sending jobs and profits overseas to boost their bottom-lines.

The opposite is the case, noted Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and others. The GOP plan would actually "encourage (https://twitter.com/CAPAction/status/935977682470408192)" outsourcing,

3. Tax Cuts for Wealthy Individuals and Large Corporations Will Create Jobs and Boost Wages

Trump continued parroting the longstanding GOP "myth (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/28/i-helped-create-the-gop-tax-myth-trump-is-wrong-tax-cuts-dont-equal-growth/)" that tax cuts spur job growth, boost the economy, and lead to higher wages.

But a recent analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded (https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/corporate-rate-cuts-are-a-poor-way-to-help-the-economy-and-most-workers-and) that corporate rate cuts are actually "a poor way to help the economy and most workers—and could hurt them."

As Common Dreams reported (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/29/corporations-admit-investors-not-workers-will-reap-rewards-goptaxscam), business leaders have already conceded that they plan to use the extra cash they are set to receive from the tax plan to reward their shareholders, not their employees.

4. The Bill Is "Great" for the Working Class

Trump repeatedly insisted that the GOP tax bill will be great for workers and the middle class, and not the top one percent.

"The rich people actually don't like me," Trump claimed (https://twitter.com/axios/status/935974942843310080) at the tail-end of his Missouri speech. "The people that like me best are the workers."

But millions of workers likely won't be happy with the Republican plan, given that numerous analyses have shown that the bill would hike taxes on tens of millions of working class families.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/11/29/here-are-four-biggest-lies-trump-told-his-final-tax-scam-sales-pitch

[Reck]

McCain is going to vote for the tax bill. LOL

[boutons_deux]

so-called maverick, a total fraud, getting govt funded cancer treatment, agrees to cut chemo therapy for Americans.

McCain, undergoing cancer treatment, will vote to end cancer treatment for Medicare patients (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/30/1719833/-McCain-will-vote-for-tax-cuts-and-to-end-cancer-treatment-for-Medicare-patients)

"After careful thought and consideration, I have decided to support the Senate tax reform bill."

We know the

tax bill is going to take $25 billion from Medicare immediately, because it will trigger automatic spending cuts

and only part of Medicare won't be shielded.

The part that will be cut is the part that pays for expensive chemotherapy drugs.

The last time these cuts were triggered, cancer patients were denied treatment (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/29/1719511/-The-Republican-tax-bill-will-end-cancer-treatment-for-Medicare-patients). And it's going to happen again.

The last time it was resolved when the government shutdown ended.

This time it's permanent.

And John McCain doesn't care.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1719833

[boutons_deux]

If the GOP gets its way on taxes, the party could doom post-graduate education in the U.S.

both the House and Senate (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-senate-ORGOV0000134-topic.html) reform bills are likely to hurt universities.

Both bills would make it harder to itemize charitable contributions,

an action that could reduce giving to nonprofit universities and other organizations by as much as $13 billion annually.

They also both include a 1.4% tax on investment returns

at private, nonprofit institutions that enroll at least 500 students and have endowment assets in excess of $250,000 per student — a provision that likely will affect the Claremont Colleges.

But the House bill, on the whole, is worse for American higher education.

It would tax tuition waivers for graduate students and university employees.

In the current tax code, the government can tax certain types of fellowship funding but does not tax tuition waivers. The House version of the bill would change that.

Many graduate students struggle to make ends meet. In cities with a high cost of living, their $25,000 fellowships are just enough for rent, gas and food. Removing the tuition waiver exemption from the tax code would increase their cost of living dramatically.

When a $50,000 tuition waiver is included as taxable income, students who take home only $25,000 per year would be taxed as if they made $75,000 per year.

For many students, that would mean a 400% increase in their taxes.

In effect, removing the exemption creates a grad student tax.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-marsicano-grad-student-tax-20171127-story.html#testnws=politicsnow&track=_newsletter_politics-now___________20171130

[boutons_deux]

"By 2027,

people making $40,000 to $50,000 would pay a combined $5.3 billion more in taxes,

while the group earning $1 million or more would get a $5.8 billion cut,

according to the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office."

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/monstrous-details-republican-tax-plan-trump-doesnt-want-you-know-about

[boutons_deux]

The Republican Tax Bill Is a Disaster for Public Schools

The GOP tax plan takes aim at public school funding.

there has been little talk about the potential impact on K-12 education if the Senate bill passes, is reconciled with the House bill, and sent to the Oval Office for splashy signing ceremony.

There are several provisions in both pieces of legislation that would take serious aim at K-12 education at the state and local funding levels.

Reporters and editorials have stressed that eliminating the deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) including property taxes, as in the Senate bill, will heavily impact Democratic leaning states with higher tax burdens, but the

Governmental Finance Officers Association (GFOA) reports (https://www.gfoa.org/sites/default/files/GFOA_SALT_09202017.pdf) that eliminating SALT deductions from the tax code will have a broadly negative impact on tax payers in all states. According to the GFOA findings:



30% of tax units use the SALT deduction.
60% of deductions for earners under $50,000 a year come from property taxes and the loss of the deduction would negatively impact home ownership and price stability.
30% of earners between $50,000 and $75,000 a year use the SALT deduction. 53% of earners between $75,000 and $100,000 a year use it.
Income earners at all levels would see their taxes go up if the SALT deduction is eliminated.


More importantly from a public school perspective:

the loss of the SALT deduction would apply significant pressure on states and municipalities to reduce taxes in order to offset the increases in federal taxes paid by their constituents.

Using the 8th Congressional District in Texas north of Houston as a model, the GFOA estimates that the district would see an increase in federal taxes of $306 million dollars.

Offsetting that with state and local tax decreases could impact $125 million in school funding. Simply put:

education funding is an enormous local and state expenditure, and it would have to be cut in order to provide any relief to tax payers who lost SALT.

The vast majority of K-12 school funding in this country still comes from state and local revenues which would no longer be deductible from federal tax burdens.

https://www.alternet.org/republican-tax-bill-disaster-public-schools

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s Treasury Department is lying about its own analysis of the tax bill

Alan Rappeport’s scoop about the Trump administration lying about its own internal analysis (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/us/politics/treasury-analysis-tax-bill.html?_r=0) of the Republican tax plan deserves to go down as one of the most shocking stories of 2017.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been saying that his team will release a “dynamic” analysis of the Republican tax plan that will reveal its growth-boosting effects to be so incredible that they put deficit worries to rest.

On September 28, he even said that his in-house analysis indicated the bill would reduce the deficit by $1 trillion (http://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/2017/09/28/mnuchin-on-trumps-tax-plan.html) rather than increase it.

Mr. Mnuchin has promised that Treasury will release its analysis in full. Yet, just one day before the full Senate prepares to vote on a sweeping tax rewrite,

the administration has yet to produce the type of economic analysis that it is citing as a reason to pass the tax cut.

Those inside Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy, which Mr. Mnuchin has credited with running the models, say

they have been largely shut out of the process and are not working on the type of detailed analysis that he has mentioned.

An economist at the Office of Tax Analysis, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his job, said Treasury had not released a “dynamic” analysis showing that

the tax plan would be paid for with economic growth because one did not exist.

The big tax cut for business owners and heirs to large fortunes will, in the long run, be paid for by people who are not business owners or heirs to large fortunes.

It may be paid for through the long-term middle-class tax increases that are laid out in the bill.

Or it may be paid for through large cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs.

Or it may be paid for through higher interest rates that raise the cost of new investment to deliver a tax windfall to old capital.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/30/16719238/treasury-tax-analysis

[CosmicCowboy]

I wonder what the resident republicans think about these corporate tax cuts.
Chris Chucho Spurtacular CosmicCowboy
1) corporate tax cuts will not create jobs as claimed.
2) any revenue benefits from lower taxes will probably just be used for stock buybacks
3)The middle class will continue to shrink. White collar jobs will be especially challenged. Technology will continue to destroy society as we know it. College wont save you. The good jobs will be blue collar servicing the technology.
4)The "middle class tax cuts" are a sad joke. The only beneficiarys will be those with the very simplest returns that don't itemize. The upper middle class with more complicated financial lives will get screwed.
5) this is already stinking of bait and switch like '86 was. They will take away deductions in exchange for "lower rates". We will get used to not having those deductions and they will raise the rates again layer. Hell, I remember being able to deduct credit card interest. Bet some of you would like THAT one back.

[koriwhat]

If the GOP gets its way on taxes, the party could doom post-graduate education in the U.S.


[SIZE=3]both the House and Senate (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics-government/government/u.s.-senate-ORGOV0000134-topic.html) reform bills are likely to hurt universities.


[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Lato][SIZE=3][FONT=arial]The Republican Tax Bill Is a Disaster for Public Schools


education system sucks from kindergarten all the way up... no loss!

[DisAsTerBot]

education system sucks from kindergarten all the way up... no loss!

Yeah look what it did to koriwhat

[koriwhat]

Yeah look what it did to koriwhat

lmao!

[dabom]

1) corporate tax cuts will not create jobs as claimed.
2) any revenue benefits from lower taxes will probably just be used for stock buybacks
3)The middle class will continue to shrink. White collar jobs will be especially challenged. Technology will continue to destroy society as we know it. College wont save you. The good jobs will be blue collar servicing the technology.
4)The "middle class tax cuts" are a sad joke. The only beneficiarys will be those with the very simplest returns that don't itemize. The upper middle class with more complicated financial lives will get screwed.
5) this is already stinking of bait and switch like '86 was. They will take away deductions in exchange for "lower rates". We will get used to not having those deductions and they will raise the rates again layer. Hell, I remember being able to deduct credit card interest. Bet some of you would like THAT one back.

Thanks CC. Appreciate the info. I just like to hear what other people think.

[boutons_deux]

The repug deficit is intentional and will be addressed by cutting Medicare Medicaid and Social Security etc and everything else in the safety net helping poor people.

very dumb Little Marco Rubio has admitted it, but the silence of the deficit hawks and Repugs in general proves where they are going

https://crooksandliars.com/2017/11/r...ontent=2158319 (https://crooksandliars.com/2017/11/rubio-says-it-out-loud-tax-cuts-are-first?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=idealmedia&utm_campaign=crooksandliars.com&utm_term=68739&utm_content=2158319)

the debt and deficit are being increased by the oligarchy now to enrich the oligarchy, then the budget losses will be used as a hammer to cripple, destroy Medicare, Medicaid, VA, Pell grants, Social Security, the govt itself, and ANYTHING else that the oligarchy needs to kill to keep enriching itself.

eg "automatic cuts" mean that, if the tax cut passes. Medicare will lose $25B in January, which huge cuts to follow.

[Th'Pusher]

Technology will continue to destroy society as we know it. College wont save you. The good jobs will be blue collar servicing the technology.

WC playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers.

[boutons_deux]

Kim Jong Un Fears That G.O.P. Tax Bill Makes His Plan to Destroy U.S. Redundant


https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5a2179bfdfc38903129e46d5/master/w_649,c_limit/Borowitz-What-Worries-Kim-Jong-Un.jpg

PYONGYANG —Kim Jong Un is concerned that his long-standing plan to destroy the United States has been made totally irrelevant by the Republican tax bill moving through the Senate, a source close to the North Korean dictator said on Friday.

The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Kim fears that his scheme to turn the United States into an uninhabitable hellhole has been to a large extent upstaged by a similar proposal from congressional Republicans.

“You have to understand, destroying America is something that Kim and his family have been plotting for decades,”

the source said.

“To see the Republicans swoop in at the last second and basically steal that idea—it’s got to hurt.”

According to the source, Kim has been watching C-span non-stop, praying that the Republicans’ plan to end life as Americans know it might come undone at the last moment, but he is “not getting his hopes up.”

“After having such a wonderful missile test, he should be on top of the world this week,” the source said.

“Instead, he’s afraid that all his hard work has been for nothing.

He now understands why so many Americans despise the Republicans.”

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/kim-jong-un-fears-that-gop-tax-bill-makes-his-plan-to-destroy-us-redundant (https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/kim-jong-un-fears-that-gop-tax-bill-makes-his-plan-to-destroy-us-redundant)

[boutons_deux]

Flake says he’s helping undocumented immigrants by voting for GOP tax bill. He’s really not.

The bill targets "approximately 1 million DREAMer children and their families, threatening to drive them into poverty," activists say.

The Senate is expected to vote on a tax bill — which was largely negotiated behind closed doors (https://twitter.com/ericawerner/status/936630783707578370) — Friday (https://twitter.com/AmandaBecker/status/936625612378329088) evening, even though

Senators still do not know what they are voting for yet (let alone the public).

While Flake believes he’s protecting immigrants in his deal, the Republican tax bill is disastrous for immigrants.

More than 200 organizations — including the National Immigration Law Center — have urged (https://www.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/oppose-attacks-children-immigrants-2017-11-15.pdf) congressional members to reject the Senate and House tax reform bills, which they called “anti-child and anti-immigrants proposals.”

https://thinkprogress.org/flake-says-hes-helping-undocumented-immigrants-by-voting-for-tax-bill-hes-really-not-e4eaca1e2833/

So the Repugs "have to pass the bill so they can read it?" :lol

[boutons_deux]

Bloomberg Just Caught CEOs Bragging About Trump’s Dirty Tax Plan Secret

refuting Republican claims that tax cuts to corporations will be reinvested in the economy and stimulate economic growth, new job creation, and higher wages.

In an article (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/trump-s-tax-promises-undercut-by-ceo-plans-to-reward-investors?utm_content=politics&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-politics) today, Bloomberg cites Cisco Systems Inc., Pfizer Inc., and Coca-Cola Co. as just three of the companies who have

promised their shareholders that they will be receiving the vast majority of tax savings

that the Republican tax plan is transferring to their pockets at the expense of millions of lower and middle-class taxpayers.

the companies’ CEO’s are on record as saying they plan to use the proceeds from the tax cuts to either buy back shares an increase their companies’s stock prices — and

subsequently the value of their own stock option-laden compensation packages — or

to increase dividend payouts to shareholders.

most corporations are rubbing their hands together in greedy glee at the prospect of an unearned windfall,

http://verifiedpolitics.com/bloomberg-just-caught-ceos-bragging-trumps-dirty-tax-plan-secret/

[CosmicCowboy]

Flake says he’s helping undocumented immigrants by voting for GOP tax bill. He’s really not.

The bill targets "approximately 1 million DREAMer children and their families, threatening to drive them into poverty," activists say.

The Senate is expected to vote on a tax bill — which was largely negotiated behind closed doors (https://twitter.com/ericawerner/status/936630783707578370) — Friday (https://twitter.com/AmandaBecker/status/936625612378329088) evening, even though

Senators still do not know what they are voting for yet (let alone the public).

While Flake believes he’s protecting immigrants in his deal, the Republican tax bill is disastrous for immigrants.

More than 200 organizations — including the National Immigration Law Center — have urged (https://www.nilc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/oppose-attacks-children-immigrants-2017-11-15.pdf) congressional members to reject the Senate and House tax reform bills, which they called “anti-child and anti-immigrants proposals.”

https://thinkprogress.org/flake-says-hes-helping-undocumented-immigrants-by-voting-for-tax-bill-hes-really-not-e4eaca1e2833/

So the Repugs "have to pass the bill so they can read it?" :lol



Boukaki, how do these "200 organizations" know its bad if they haven't read it either?

[TSA]

Kim Jong Un Fears That G.O.P. Tax Bill Makes His Plan to Destroy U.S. Redundant


https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5a2179bfdfc38903129e46d5/master/w_649,c_limit/Borowitz-What-Worries-Kim-Jong-Un.jpg

PYONGYANG —Kim Jong Un is concerned that his long-standing plan to destroy the United States has been made totally irrelevant by the Republican tax bill moving through the Senate, a source close to the North Korean dictator said on Friday.

The source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Kim fears that his scheme to turn the United States into an uninhabitable hellhole has been to a large extent upstaged by a similar proposal from congressional Republicans.

“You have to understand, destroying America is something that Kim and his family have been plotting for decades,”

the source said.

“To see the Republicans swoop in at the last second and basically steal that idea—it’s got to hurt.”

According to the source, Kim has been watching C-span non-stop, praying that the Republicans’ plan to end life as Americans know it might come undone at the last moment, but he is “not getting his hopes up.”

“After having such a wonderful missile test, he should be on top of the world this week,” the source said.

“Instead, he’s afraid that all his hard work has been for nothing.

He now understands why so many Americans despise the Republicans.”

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/kim-jong-un-fears-that-gop-tax-bill-makes-his-plan-to-destroy-us-redundant (https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/kim-jong-un-fears-that-gop-tax-bill-makes-his-plan-to-destroy-us-redundant)





FIFY

[baseline bum]

Collins is supporting it now, so this bullshit is going to happen.