OT some insight on real individual tax rates and zipcodes

"Likely?" Got numbers, or are you just weaseling?

"When you figure in SS and MC?" Howcome you didn't "figure in" the SS and MC rate for the "rich" guy?

Just more weaseling? Fudging the numbers to spread your socialist propaganda?

feh. Rich

Read the article

Remember Social Security and Medicare taxes are currently capped at the first 106,800$ of annual earned income.

or eliminating this cap is one of the measures being considered to eliminate the projected SS shortfall.

-- Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).

Ah, the government is forcing taxpayers to pay for a retirement program, but in the goodness of their heart the limit how much you or forced to pay in, same with Medicare. So forget about including SS and Medicare, those are forced savings for later use.

The lower tax rate on capital gains is government admiting that lower tax rates increase economic growth. This is your incentive to save your money and invest it. Remember they already paid taxes on the money invested. Since you now know how the system works, looks like you should strive to be rich. Mikek

(compared to a top

>

As they most certainly limit what you can take out, limiting what you are forced to pay in seems relatively fair.

If you engaged yourself in a little research before engaging your paranoia, Rich, you'd realize that SS and Medicare effectively INCREASE the tax rate even more for the janitor over the rich person. If you figure it in, the absurdity of such low rates for wealthy people looks even worse -- especially if most of their income derives from capital gains. They'll pay the "self-employed" Medicare rate.

Check it out. A damp, warm cloth will take care of that egg on your face. d8-)

>>

Fair only if you don't mind billing the next generation for todays retirees. I think most people retired today get the money they put into SS back in about 4-1/2 yrs, and then live another 10 years. Mikek

Go Fuck Yourself. You made the claim, _YOU_ back it up. I'm not going to do your homework for you.

But I'm sure this is just more smokescreen.

Again, no actual numbers. Yeah, so they're capped. You _still_ didn't give any actual numbers, you're speaking in generalities with nothing to back it up. Typical progressive/liberal/socialist tactics.

Again, Feh. Rich

Your Haldol needs adjusting.

You mean those rich people investing in tax free municipal bonds? If some one pays into social security above the cut off value, would the government accept it, would the government give them a larger than legislated retirement benefit?

Wes

No. He means that "carried interest" isn't taxed as regular income. The "carry trade" gets a preferential rate. The top twenty five hedge fund managers are an example. The top rate is 15 percent at the federal level and their incomes averaged over $900 million each.

No, but you can file for either a credit or refund of the over payment. This used to happen a lot with two income couples. BTDT

Damn, you wingers are intellectually lazy. Ok, I'm going to do your homework for you. It will take me less than ten minutes. I have my timer going now.

Self-employment tax for 2011 is 13.3% -- 10.4% for SS and 2.9% for Medicare:

Once you've made $106,800, there is no additional charge for SS. So George's example of someone earning $1.17 million actually pays 13.3% on his first $106,800, and then 2.9% thereafter. It's a sharply regressive tax, in other words -- the more you make, the lower rate you pay. In the case of the $1.17 million earner who is self-employed, it's 3.8% in self-employment tax overall, which is his equivalent of payroll taxes.

If the janitor is a self-employed independent contractor, he's paying 13.3% of his income in self-employment tax. If he's an employee making, say, $40,000/yr.,

...he pays 5.65% of his wages. The same is true for any reasonable wage he might be making.

So in payroll/self-employment taxes, the rich guy pays 3.8%, and the worker pays 5.65%. (It's more likely that he is an employee, but if the worker is a contractor, he's paying 13.3%.)

As for their income taxes, George pointed out that the rich folk in question paid 14% on their adjusted incomes. The janitor is almost certainly in the

25% marginal bracket if he's single. If he's married, the wife is almost certainly contributing to the family income, because you don't live a normal married life in NYC on $40k:

For a single janitor making $40k adjusted salary, his total federal income tax is 14%:

Total income tax, SS, and medicate payments for the janitor: 19.65%. Total for the rich dude: 17.8%.

Done. 6 minutes, 40 seconds. Plus writing time.

How long did it take you to decide that George was all wrong about the payroll taxes -- even though you had no idea what you were talking about?

Of course. He's baffling you with the facts. As we know, those things cause righties an awful lot of trouble...

Hedge fund, a bit related to futures, I'm a bit sick and tired of having those that don't produce or take delivery being allowed in that balancing act.

Wes

Hedge funds are investment vehicles specifically created in the 70's to avoid government regulation. They invest in whatever they choose.

The investment banking industry gets the same tax treatment, Wes. It's about how you get paid as much as the source. Any income JP Morgan Chase made an the mortgages they wharehoused was carried interest income. Most of what AIG FP paid it's top people wasn't taxed in the US at all. The State of CT got a piece but only because a lot of the London staff maintained a residence in that State. Most of what Joe Cassano made went straight to Aruba, the Channel Islands and the Caymans. Then, the US tax payer footed the bill for his mess.

Pretty good deal if you can get it.

Wes wrote:

Here is a better explanation that uses a private equity fund as its basis.

In a typical private-equity fund, the managers get paid two per cent of assets as a regular fee, plus twenty per cent of the fund's profits. They pay regular income tax on the two per cent. But on their share of the profits, which is called "carried interest," they usually pay only long-term capital gains-even though they put up hardly any of the fund's actual capital, most of which comes from outside investors. The difference in tax rates saves private-equity managers billions of dollars a year, and means that they pay taxes at a much lower rate than, say, your average lawyer. It also means that their taxes are lower than those of people who do the same kind of work, or get the same kind of pay, as they do. A general principle of good taxation is that similar jobs, and similar kinds of compensation, should be taxed the same way: otherwise, the government is effectively subsidizing some jobs over others. But the carried-interest tax break upends this rule. If you manage money for a mutual fund or a public company, you pay regular income taxes; do it for a private fund, and you pay capital gains. Similarly, when a corporate executive gets stock or stock options as a bonus for a job well done, it's generally subject to income taxes; carried interest, which is also performance-related, isn't. Like the rest of us, fund managers are being paid for their labor, but, unlike the rest of us, they get to pay taxes as if they were capital.

6 minutes and 40 seconds is pretty good but you only did half of the task. You did not say anything about the relative benefits from the Social Security taxes. I have not kept up with the way SS benefits are calculated, but as I remember the benefits are calculated on the wages. But the wages up to something like $7,500 count 90 %. The wages from $7,500 to $45,000 count 60 % and the wages over $45,000 count 15%. So the worker making $40,000 get credit for $$26,000 and the rich guy get credit for $38,000. So the one guy payes about 2.5 times as much tax and gets a benefit that is 1.5 times as much.

Dan

Those are not the right numbers, but were close to being right at one time.

Nobody asked. And it had nothing to do with the claims being made.

The subject was Rich claiming that George was distorting the truth about the tax rates because of his "socialist agenda." But the fact is that George was right; the payroll tax/self-employment tax issue makes the relative tax rates between the rich guy and the janitor even more lopsided.

I think that it is part of the discussion. If the janitor paid twice the percentage of the rich man, but got a million dollars a year in benefits. And the rich guy paid in more total dollars but got nothing a year in benefits, I think even you would agree it was relevant.

It is like the woman that agree to have sex for a million dollars but would not for $10. We are just discussing the price.

Benefits have to be considered when one says the relative rates are lopsided. Yes they are, but the benefits are also lopsided in the other direction. The benefits mitigate the fact that the relative rates are lopsided.

Dan

What is relevant is that a large portion of the social security tax that was collected was not spent on social security Instead, it was put in the general fund like income tax

So the whole notion of an exemption for the rich for fICA is a scam since it is really the janitor's FICA paying govt. spending the rich should also participate in paying

And were talking trillions of dollars that Bob the janitor will have to pay again in taxes when the govt. needs the money for Social security

Of course Bob the janitor could have voted against Reagon and the Bushes And avoided being screwed so badly on taxes

But Bob the janitor is as dumb as a box of rocks So he votes for Reagon who tells him "everybody gets a tax cut" But the result of the tax cut is Bob the janitor's withholding goes up and his paycheck gets smaller and he don't have the math skills to know that he is being screwed

Get over it. The SS you pay in is a forced retirement savings account.* It was not designed to pay for other government programs. I think the wealthy pay a pretty hefty share of the tax burden, here's some data for 2008.

The top 1/10 of 1% pay 18.47% of the taxes, that's 0.1% pay 18.7% The top 1% pay 38.02% of the taxes. The top 5% pay 58.72% of the taxes. That seems sick to me 5% pay almost 60% of the taxes? The top 10% pay 70% of the taxes. The top 25% pay 86% of the taxes. 50% of the tax payers pay 97.3%. The bottom 50% pay just 2.7% of the tax burden.

Source;

Mikek

• Most people need to be forced. I may* be better off because I was forced to pay SS, ( because I will probably get out more than I paid in) But those younger than me will not get the same benefit. The system cannot continue to pay out more than it takes in. May*, it just depends on how long I live and how good my investments would have returned if I saved the money rather than pay it to SS.