FYI re the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment

[Steve R.]

What income group actually pays taxes? Let us not forget that in any given recent year ~ 47% of wage earners pay NO INCOME TAX. It's hard to give tax breaks to people who start out at zero. Duh!!!!!!!!!

There is an additional consideration. Many of the low income earners actually pay a negative income tax. That is they pay no taxes and also receive subsidies (welfare) in various forms.

The article below provides some insight into this.

Who pays, and doesn't pay, federal income taxes in the U.S.?

Since 2000, there has been a downward trend in average effective tax rates for all but the richest taxpayers.

www.pewresearch.org

After refundable credits were figured in, taxpayers with AGIs below $30,000 (including those with no AGI or with negative AGI) collectively got back more than $78.6 billion from the IRS in 2020. For taxpayers with AGIs between $1 and $15,000, their average effective tax rate fell to ‑14.8%, from ‑10.3% in 2019, largely due to coronavirus pandemic-related federal relief efforts, some of which were structured as tax credits.

 

[Mike Krailo]

The IRS agents are NOT needed to audit the rich. Those people have special tax breaks which reduce their income because members of the legislature take care of them and unless they have offshore accounts and layers of LLC's (like the Biden's) which are beyond US scrutiny, then their income is hard to hide.

Didn't you mean easier to hide?

 

[moke123]

The IRS agents are NOT needed to audit the rich.

Quite the opposite. Auditing the rich is labor intensive and the extra agents are needed to do so. Take trumps 500+ LLC's for instance. Irs agents don't have the time to comb through all the LLC's. The rich get passed over for the low hanging fruit.

 

[Steve R.]

Quite the opposite. Auditing the rich is labor intensive and the extra agents are needed to do so. Take trumps 500+ LLC's for instance. Irs agents don't have the time to comb through all the LLC's. The rich get passed over for the low hanging fruit.

Biden wants everyone(else) to pay their "fair share", yet Biden uses relatives to hide behind an enormous number of LLC to hide their income. Seems that the IRS is conveniently overlooking Biden's "fair share" tax obligations.

 

[moke123]

Inside the IRS unit taking on America’s millionaires and billionaires - ICIJ

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service is seeking to use an infusion of funding to keep up with the ever-evolving tax maneuvers of the ultra-rich — while staving off frequent political attacks.

www.icij.org

 

[AccessBlaster]

It's hard to imagine the ultra rich would pass rules governing their own wealth. That might explain the need for 85,000 new agents.

 

[Steve R.]

The solution is to simply have a flat tax. The unfortunate reality, is that the politicians and the special interest groups actually want a byzantine tax code with lots of loopholes. This allows "favored" entities to get away with "fraud", while those who are out-of-power (disliked) get nailed for abusing the tax code (that no one can actually figure out).

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Remember the 97% of scientists lie?

Whereas I never lie. Except at the poker table. I've found that statistically, I stay out of trouble better when telling the truth. PARTICULARLY to my dear wife.

 

[Steve R.]

While experts representing the wealthy may construct tax schemes of deep complexity, Rettig says they are good at doing so within the letter of the law.

That is what the tax code is intended to do. It provides deductions that are very complex and that only the wealthy benefit from. Trump has said this more than once. Taking advantage of the tax code is not criminal. The tax code itself may be criminal given how it gives particular people/industries advantages but you have no obligation to pay more tax than the code calls for.

The IRS automatically has fed to it

1. W2 info
2. K1 info
3. Stock transactions
4. Investment account holdings
5. the various 1099 versions

All of these things can be analyzed via computer and matched to tax returns. I'm pretty sure that the banks all report something to the IRS also so they know if you have 30 checking accounts at different banks and they may even know the balance.

So with some not too difficult programming, they can do all this cross matching for a single year and even year to year.

The killer for them is deductions. And small businesses are especially problematic. I've worked for more than one small business where I'm pretty sure that the owner was using the maintenance staff on his own property.

The point of having a Byzantine tax code of "deep complexity" is to have an incomprehensible "law" where subjective manipulation is used to either prosecute if the person is disliked by the current political establishment or allowed to walk free if that person is liked by the current establishment. Computerization, by looking at all the data, then makes it "easy" to ferret out a "target" for alleged tax evasion.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Yep, my automated code has warnings when there is a potential trap for audits. The last time it went off, turned out to be a typo on my part and once I un-reversed the digits, it was happy. I won't actually advertise it, but I've used HRB for over 10 years and never had a complaint except for the time that they left Louisiana out of their list of states from which I could get a State tax add-in. I know my state isn't THAT great, but come on, folks! We pay taxes too!

 

[RogerCooper]

If all politicians and really all of us had to meet the high standards of the mosaic law, there would never be any electable politicians or any good human beings out there. The point is, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Who among us is without sin?


If you like the prices of food and necessities during the trump years and see the difference currently, then you know who's policies screwed the economy up.

If you liked the cost of housing during the trump years and not as much now, then you know who's policies screwed the housing market up.

The worst part is that it's easy to damage the economy and steel from all of us by way of inflation. That hurts poor people the most and rich people the least. You would have to convince yourself that it's not happening by closing your eye's and dreaming good things happening if you are poor.

With all the trillions of dollars spent on policies that do no good for the country, we still don't have an effective way to stop illegal border crossings. Remember each new person that comes into the country and demands food and shelter is a huge drain on the tax payers. Poor American's can see what the illegals are getting financially, and the poorest are suffering because of it.

I have never murdered or stolen or born false witness or committed adultery. Have you? It seems more like the bare minimum for rather than a high standard.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I have never murdered or stolen or born false witness or committed adultery. Have you? It seems more like the bare minimum for rather than a high standard.

Born false witness... that can be taken two ways, you know.

If it is generic, then I have to ask "Does it count when I bear false witness at the poker table?"

But if "bearing false witness" relates to witnessing some facet of religion, it puts a whole new spin on the question. I'm not quite enough of a Biblical scholar to know the EXACT translation and thus know the Biblical difference between "thou shalt not lie" and "thou shalt not falsely profess some knowledge of God or Jesus... (or Allah, I guess would be included.)"?

 

[Steve R.]

What income group actually pays taxes? Let us not forget that in any given recent year ~ 47% of wage earners pay NO INCOME TAX. It's hard to give tax breaks to people who start out at zero. Duh!!!!!!!!!

There is another subtle aspect to who pays the taxes and even the concept of Biden's ludicrous "fair share". This thread has already discussed that a significant portion of the population ~47% pays no income tax, which makes the Biden claim that Trump's tax cut only benefited the rich, which simply makes the claim an issue of (misleading) optics. Moving onto the "new" subtle aspect is the issue of corporate tax rates.

The Biden administration is proposing to increase the corporate tax rate. Biden has also asserted that he would not increase the tax burden for those earning less than a certain amount. The subtle aspect is that increasing the corporate tax rate means that consumers will be paying more for products as the corporations embed those taxes into their pricing. The net effect is that Biden would be causing the consumer (irrespective of income) to pay more in taxes. Moreover, this tax would be regressive, hurting the poor more than the rich, a taxing policy the Democrats claim to oppose.

As a final side note, there is inflation. Biden asserts that he won't raise taxes for those earning above a certain amount. But, as a consequence of inflation caused by Biden's economic policies, wages will rise. Unless Biden makes his commitment adjusted for inflation, people will be paying more in taxes as their income rises.

 

[Steve R.]

Conversely though, when Trump reduced Corporate taxes, none of them jumped on the "let's lower our prices" bandwagon.

Corporation are all about maximizing their profits.
That's were you hope capitalism really works. Corporations lowering their prices to out-compete their rivals.
Look at gas prices (for cars), they pretty much fluctuate in response to the price of oil. Ironically, it seems that many of the gas stations raise and lower their gas prices in unison!

 

[Mike Krailo]

But if "bearing false witness" relates to witnessing some facet of religion, it puts a whole new spin on the question. I'm not quite enough of a Biblical scholar to know the EXACT translation and thus know the Biblical difference between "thou shalt not lie" and "thou shalt not falsely profess some knowledge of God or Jesus... (or Allah, I guess would be included.)"?

Someone commits an obvious crime, doesn't matter what it is but usually it's something significant in nature and involves a court room or some system of justice. If you are a witness to said crime, then if you choose not to say anything about it because you don't want to get involved or because you don't want the person who committed the crime to come for you next, that's baring false witness. If you are questioned by those in the system of justice about what happened, trying to spin it any other way than what you witnessed is baring false witness. The effect of baring false witness affects the accused either positively or negatively so it can cause justice or make you complicit in covering up the crime. Unfortunately, anyone can be dragged into such a situation unwillingly and when the criminal is ruthless, you could fear for your life by becoming a snitch. There is truth about what happened, and there are false recollections about what happened. Think of all the people in a neighborhood who witness gang related crimes and simply refuse to tell the police what happened because they fear for their lives about the retribution that would ensue. Now think about the actual victim of the witnessed crime.

Lying on the other hand is very general in nature and may not affect the outcome of a criminal trial or judgement of a serious crime, but be something less obvious. It could be just general deception to get something from another person or make yourself look better than you actually are by recalling stories about your past history and bragging about fictitious things that you did. It's kind of like baring false witness against yourself. That's exactly what it is. Lying is baring false witness against yourself.

White lies: A stupid example that comes to mind is calling a stroke on yourself in golf when no one else but you sees that you caused the ball to move prior to taking your actual stroke. You take the stroke on the card because it happened and YOU seen it happened. That simple example can be applied to just about anything you can think of in normal life. Being true to yourself is a very powerful thing. In contrast, lying to one's self is a very self destructive thing that leads to bad things happening in your life but could be viewed as something insignificant in order to justify it to yourself (white lies). Interestingly, the commandments do not differentiate this type of lie. But elsewhere in the bible it does.

Proverbs 12:22: “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.” (NIV)

As far as referring to specific religious rules, that's obviously only for those that have chosen to follow those particular rules in question based on their religion. The highest religious authority is God himself.

 

[ColinEssex]

If one 'inflates the truth', isn't the 'inflated' part a lie?
Col

 

[Mike Krailo]

If one 'inflates the truth', isn't the 'inflated' part a lie?
Col

Yes, good observation. That mostly falls under the white lie category, but a lie none the less. If you understand where trump came from, queens new york, you would undersrand how normal it is to exagerate and inflate the truth. Can you imagine telling the truth like jim carry in liar liar? That's not going to go over well.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Part of the problem with "inflating the truth" is that it is a time-honored tradition in many cultures to inflate one's boasts or to exaggerate one's tall tales. (Where do you think we GET the term "tall tales" in the first place?) Think of "fish stories" told by fisherman regarding "the one that got away." Think of the stories of knights of the Round Table and the giants, ogres, and dragons they dispatched. Think of gunslingers in the USA Old West and their stories of all the folks THEY killed in gun battles.

Some of the modern movie depictions of those stories have one thing represented correctly on the big screen. The movies, showing many dozens and approaching hundreds of rounds fired (while hitting no one), shows that the movie is also depicting the story's exaggeration. If that many rounds had actually been fired, the desperadoes would have needed a horse-drawn wagon to hold their ammunition. Not to mention that they would need to rob banks just to pay for the bullets they used.

It's all about pure bravado and extreme self-aggrandizement - but a common part of the culture to brag about one's feats and to inflate the dangers one has faced. Exaggeration and story escalation and inflating the truth are common to Mankind. It's all this modern technology - with its ability to do rapid fact-checking - that is going to aggravate the best story tellers.

 

[Mike Krailo]

Part of the problem with "inflating the truth" is that it is a time-honored tradition in many cultures to inflate one's boasts or to exaggerate one's tall tales. (Where do you think we GET the term "tall tales" in the first place?) Think of "fish stories" told by fisherman regarding "the one that got away." Think of the stories of knights of the Round Table and the giants, ogres, and dragons they dispatched. Think of gunslingers in the USA Old West and their stories of all the folks THEY killed in gun battles.

This just harms the person telling the lie in most cases. However, in situations where the exaggerations affect other people in some negative way, that's when it crosses the line. It all goes back to "do unto others as you would have done unto you". If you enjoy being lied to by your friends, then have at it.

Taking your fish exaggeration to the next level, the guy is in a fishing contest competing against other people for largest fish caught and there are a long list of rules for making sure there is no cheating. There is a monetary prize for the winner. Now this all goes off of weight of the fish, and the guy decides to essentially lie about the weight of the fish that he claims is the winning fish of the competition. It is later determined that the fish is full of lead weights to cause the fish to abnormally be heavier than fish similarly sized. He is then disqualified from the contest. This now crosses the threshold a little into affecting the other people in the contest. So it all depends on the context, but even so, this is more harming himself because now his reputation is damaged because now he is a cheater. See how that works?

Telling a story as if it were true absolutely and fully accurate and it actually isn't, is a lie to one's self. Baring false witness against yourself only changes the perception that others have of you, but doesn't really do much damage to others especially if you enjoy listening to tall tales and are aware that there is an element of exaggeration in there based on the culture.

 

[ColinEssex]

Some of the modern movie depictions of those stories have one thing represented correctly on the big screen. The movies, showing many dozens and approaching hundreds of rounds fired (while hitting no one), shows that the movie is also depicting the story's exaggeration.

Don't forget that a 'six shooter' (I think it's a Colt45) can fire 30 or 40 rounds without reloading.
Col