It's Ameri-can, not Ameri-can't you commies.
Only true supermen are fit to be Americans. You useless eaters, immigrants, and lib s head to the ovens.
It's Ameri-can, not Ameri-can't you commies.
Even if the US dropped its taxes less than other countries, how would we get around the fact that they can outsource for cheaper worldwide? That seems a more pressing issue to me.
Are you saying the free market can't find a way around that?![]()
Yes
Do you understand how the free market typically works in rental property?
Lets say I am an apartment builder and want to build a new 500 unit complex.
My company pays me and all my employees a salary that we pay ordinary income tax on. These salaries are paid out of "profits" the company makes.
We locate the property, determine the design, estimate the cost, and then if all the numbers make sense we borrow the money to build the project.
We then lease and manage the property until it is at full occupancy and has a proven track record. At that point it will have a verifiable proven income stream.
We then market that property (with us continuing to manage it for a fee) to insurance and investment companies that are looking for a reasonable given rate of return on an investment. The value of the property is determined by the monthly income and calculations of future income within the life span of the project.
We take the money they paid us, pay off the interim construction loan, and hopefully have money left over to pay salaries and overhead.
If we don't, we go out of business.
They are making a LONG TERM HOLDING investment that will be influenced by inflation. If they know that when they sell the property in 20 years for dramatically "cheaper dollars" the paper "numbers" may show that they made a huge profit, when in fact, in inflation adjusted dollars the property is worth the same or less. Then, if taxed as ordinary income the government takes HALF of this fic ious income, the investment fails to yield the return that was anticipated.
If they ANTICIPATE that the government is going to take half of the fic ious profits in 20 years, then the only way they can make their necessary and reasonable rate of return is to either pay substantially less for the property initially (impossible because the costs of construction are greater than what they need to pay) or substantially raise rents to make up the difference.
One sure result of eliminating the cap gains tax for long term investors is you kill construction of new rental units and the price of existing units skyrockets dramatically.
Last edited by CosmicCowboy; 04-01-2011 at 11:24 AM.
What about a luxury consumption tax? I'm not really sure how to go about describing it, except that it would have to be based to on price of the service/good purchased. You know, tax a Lexus purchase but not a Ford Focus purchase for example (I think that exists now no?). Extend that idea to hotels, clothing, etc. How much revenue might that generate?
The US already tried that and found that it was a job killer in the areas that provided those "luxury" goods. It was repealed in 1993.
There are already taxes in place that do that essentially. "ad valorum" or based on the value of the item do that.
You may also want to look up Value Added Tax systems. Interesting concept.
Personally, I think it is half a dozen of one and six of the other.
I used to oppose them out of hand as requiring too much in conversion costs, but I have come to view our current system of income tax with so many loopholes and giveaways to various interests as far too costly.
They did that with yachts some years back and nearly killed the USA manufacturers when the rich bought them from overseas markets.
thanks all. Looks like I have some homework to do on this. It's just not my forte. There's a dusty macroeconomics book lying around here somewhere.
CC, ignores that the economy and all income grouups did wonderfully well from 1945 to 1975, with vastly higher taxes, esp for people with access to enough capital to build rental property..
The disaster UCA finds itself in is not a Act of Mysterious Nature, unforseeable, unfathomable, incomprehensible. I say it is a powerful as force of nature, like a tsunami, it is irresistable, unstoppable.
The UCA disaster was created and sustained by Repug/VRWC low-tax policies (for the rich) and deregulation policies (for the corps and capitalists).
The pie is not limited, but the bigger the pie becomes incrementally, the more the increases goes to the the top 1%, fantastically so.
Here's a "CSI: UCA" crime story that explains clearly when the crime was committed, by whom, and why and how the crime continues non-stop.
Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer -- And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class
Three Big Clues
Clue #1: Hyperconcentration of Income
Clue #2: Sustained Hyperconcentration
Clue #3: Limited Benefits for the Nonrich
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/150378
And with the changing global economy, and world trade... Things changed now, didn't they?
Only someone as bat crazy as Boutons would compare 1945-1975 to 2011.
Can you compare across eras? Kinda like comparing athletes across eras isn't it?
Yes, you can compare because tax and regulatory policies were very different 1945 - 1975, and the article is saying that is the reason since 1975, esp since St Ronnie, that the top 1% has taken almost all the gains in national wealth while the lower 95% has stagnated in real terms.
"d with the changing global economy, and world trade... Things changed now, didn't they?"
CC isn't making that argument. His argument is strictly tax policy.
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