Where is the US economy headed?

@parados,

Perhaps you should do some research about the self employment tax and the alternative minimum tax. You are wrong on several points ... though you have through your foolosh rhetoric set yourself up fairly high on your petard.

3 Replies

Don't understand what you all are arguing about on self employment taxes. Here's Wiki's description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-employment

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

I see you are playing your usual crap okie. When you don't have an argument attack your opponent and accuse them of stuff that you have no evidence to support.
No, I don't work for the government.
No, I don't work for a Democratic organization.
No, I don't work for Moveon.org.
I never claimed to be a lawyer

You just love to make stuff up, don't you okie?

So to your way of thinking, asking you questions is making stuff up, parados? If I wanted to make something up, I wouldn't be asking you, I would just make it up.

Anyway, thanks for telling me what you don't do and who you don't work for. I am still curious about what you do. After all, you seem to be so expert on so many things, and I am wondering how you attained your expertise?

Quote:

Why would it make someone dishonest if they don't tell you what they do for a living okie? Do you normally consider people dishonest until they tell you what it is they do for a living? Do you think that is a rational reaction to people?

Do I normally consider people dishonest until they tell me what they do for a living? No, I do not, however if I ask them and they avoid telling me or giving me a straight answer, it does make me all the more curious and suspicious of them. It generally means they are not a very open person, which sometimes translates into a less than honest personality.

Quote:

What makes a person dishonest okie is when they tell repeated lies which is what you have done.

There you go again. Repeated lies? Perhaps you perceive them as such after you have twisted my posts into your own "paradosian" interpretations, parados?

By the way, this thread is supposed to be about the economy, not okie. Is that your goal to divert the unpleasantries of Obama's performance to a focus on a conservative here on this thread, parados? I am not the issue here. The issue is the economy, which increasingly includes how the election will respond to the economic problems under Obama, and what will happen to the economy after November.

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Don't understand what you all are arguing about on self employment taxes. Here's Wiki's description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-employment

There's no argument that I'm aware of. Parados just refuses to consider anything outside his preconceived paradigm,

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

okie doesn't have much of an imagination. Most of what he posts he gets from Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh. He just doesn't have the ability to fact check anything they tell him. Note his repeating the 50% of income goes to pay taxes argument. It's complete and utter hogwash but he was told that by his "heroes" so it must be true.

I don't know where you are getting this, parados. I don't think I have repeated the 50% tax thing very often. Also, it is important to understand here that when I have mentioned it, I think I was referring not to income tax alone, or income tax plus FICA / Medicare, I believe I was referring to the total tax bite out of peoples productivity, which includes all taxes, not only federal income tax and FICA / Medicare taxes, but also State taxes, sales taxes, corporate taxes, gas taxes, phone taxes, excise taxes, car license taxes, special lodging taxes, the list goes on. It is important for you to understand that even the taxes that you do not personally pay, they may also affect your income and they come out of the economy. Example, if a corporation pays taxes, that ultimately comes out of the consumers' or individual taxpayers' pockets as well, in the form of reduced wages for the corporations' employees or in the form of increased prices of their goods and services.

In my searches, I have been unable to find what I believe for sure to be the complete total tax burden in the United States. The following website gives numbers, showing approaching 30% in the U.S. as of 2004, but I am still not totally satisfied that it includes all taxes.
http://www.forbes.com/global/2006/0522/032a.html

This website gives tax freedom day as April 9 in 2010, totalling about 27% of our work income. The website claims it includes all taxes. However, that does not include what it would have cost us to pay for total government, including the deficit that is being borrowed. If that were paid for, tax freedom day would have been May 17, my calculator gives that date about 37.5% of our gdp. Also, in some states, this would be higher than others, that would be an overall average.
http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/jborowski/celebrate-tax-freedom-day-on-april-10th

1 Reply

@parados,

Social Security tax is paid on the first dollar earned. No personal exemption and no standard deduction applies to Social Security or Medicare taxes. Medicare is paid on the first dollar earned - and the last. There is no ceiling on Medicare.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

What was I wrong about george? Perhaps you can enlighten us and do the math for this mythical taxpayer that pays 50% of income in taxes.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

I followed the actual taxes goerge.
Perhaps you weren't aware of this..

Quote:

The social security portion of the self-employment tax only applies to the first $106,800 of income for the 2009 tax year.

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@roger,

Yes roger and that is the way I calculated it. Check my math if you feel I was in error and point out where I was wrong.

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@okie,

There are a lot of things you 'don't repeat very often" or deny you said them okie. How many times would you say is "not very often?" Let's set a benchmark that is objective before we examine the number.
3 times?
5 times?
7 times?
10 times?

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

Which brings FICA and Fed tax to $36,813.25 which is only...
34.7% of income paid in taxes......

"Only 34.7%, parados????
And as I pointed out on a previous post, that may not include what the government spent and borrowed to pay for, rather than charging the taxpayer now. It will come later, count on that, and by the time interest is added, who knows?

And your 34.7% is not even counting all the sales tax, property tax, excise taxes, lodging taxes, phone taxes, and all the other taxes too numerous to mention now, not only by the business in course of doing business, but by the individual aside from running the business.

1 Reply

@parados,

I think you are changing the question. My impression is that okie wrote that his business paid taxes in excess of half its earnings in taxes. I assume he meant all taxes and that most certainly is possible, as I have outlined here repeatedly.

I haven't asserted that all businesses always pay more than 50% of their earnings in taxes, only that some do. Certainly a very large class of individuals & families who run businesses the they operate in addition to other employment do indeed pay in marginal income and self employment taxes more than half of the incomes of their business.

The proposition in question here is ambiguous enough to have several interpretations. I offered you the data for a fairly typical professional services firm and showed you quite clearly that their total tax bill including payroll taxes could easily exceed their post tax net income.

Moreover, I have been factual and cordial throughout, and have avoided the condescending attempts at put downs that you appear to like so much. Perhaps a bad habit resulting from your apparent obsession with using okie as a punching bag.

1 Reply

@parados,

parados wrote:

There are a lot of things you 'don't repeat very often" or deny you said them okie. How many times would you say is "not very often?" Let's set a benchmark that is objective before we examine the number.
3 times?
5 times?
7 times?
10 times?

I don't know how many times I mentioned the 50%. Since you care so deeply, why don't you go dig them up and count them? While you are at it, why don't you actually quote them so that we can see what I actually said in context, not what you made up and imagined? I see no profit in even discussing this further until you present to us what I said exactly about this 50% issue.

By the way, have you found yet a quote that you claimed I said that "Obama hated America"? I know you've probably been fervently looking, have you found it yet?

1 Reply

@okie,

From simple implication, you have suggested as much that Obama hated America, because you claim he is destroying this country.

You need a lesson in logic and common sense.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

I have explained this numerous times, ci. Are you incapable of grasping the concept that a person can have resentments, hangups, as well as a lack of proper respect for the country, but perhaps not have an outright hatred for it? After all, if he really hated it completely, why would he stay here and live here? I have some theories and opinion about that as well, but rather than repeating all of that, this is sufficient to dispell your persistant misrepresentation of what I have said and believe.

1 Reply

@okie,

okie wrote:

Quote:

...a person can have resentments, hangups, as well as a lack of proper respect for the country, but perhaps not have an outright hatred for it?

The words you used (in bold) is not representative of all of your tirades against Obama. Are you now backing away from all of your previous comments about Obama? LOL

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@okie,

With your poor memory and your abysmal logic, why should anyone take your word on anything? Consider how many people have said the same thing to you: c.i., parados, cyclo, walter, me. That is just the short list. If all those people say the same thing, shouldn't you take a look in the mirror?

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

With your poor memory and your abysmal logic, why should anyone take your word on anything? Consider how many people have said the same thing to you: c.i., parados, cyclo, walter, me. That is just the short list. If all those people say the same thing, shouldn't you take a look in the mirror?

Consider the folks who have said the same thing to Okie:

Parados
Cyclo
Walter

(bring on the long list!)

If this group agrees with you then Okie should take pride in the truth of his expressions and not, for a minute, second guess himself.

The arrogance that this post of yours expresses is breath taking.

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

Quote:

#1 Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. In 2010, the United States has fallen to seventh.

george bush served as president during most of the decade in question.

Quote:

#2 The United States once had the highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees in the world. Today, the U.S. has fallen to 12th.

Several nations, India being most notable among them, made significant efforts to improve post-secondary education.

Quote:

#3 In the 2009 “prosperity index” published by the Legatum Institute, the United States was ranked as just the ninth most prosperous country in the world. That was down five places from 2008.

Consider how many jobs were moved overseas or simply from the north to the south.

Shall I go on?

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

I think you are changing the question. My impression is that okie wrote that his business paid taxes in excess of half its earnings in taxes. I assume he meant all taxes and that most certainly is possible, as I have outlined here repeatedly.

I realize you asserted that george. But it would be highly unlikely if not down right impossible for okie to pay $20,000 in taxes and have it be 50% of his income.

Quote:

The proposition in question here is ambiguous enough to have several interpretations.

No, it wasn't ambiguous. We were talking specifically about okie who claimed he paid $20,000 in taxes. You are the one that made an ambiguous argument which I pointed out doesn't add up in the case of okie.

0 Replies

Where is the US economy headed?

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