Trump's tax returns

[Bob001]

Exactly. You need someone to make you pay more taxes. You aren't going to do it of your own volition.

You'll vote for more taxes, even on yourself, but you won't pay them voluntarily. That's... weird.
....

Why weird? Why should anybody put himself at a disadvantage to anybody else? The point of regulation, taxation etc. is that the same rules apply to everybody for the common good. If you want to argue that the government should operate on voluntary contributions, or fees should be charged for every service provided, that's a different discussion.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Anything on Eric's testimony to the NY attorney general?

 

[JoeMorgue]

The highlighted is news to me.

Yeah and like everybody, you didn't think to look all that hard. Because really thinks they don't pay enough taxes, or at least they don't let it bother them that much.

Me, you, a bum of the streets, a doctor, a lawyer, Bezos. We all pay the same. "What they make us pay."

Trump is a tax cheat which is different no matter how you slice it.

 

[Pixel42]

In all seriousness, I have in the past declined to contribute to things like appeals for facilities for schools because that's what I pay tax for. I'll happily pay more tax to provide better facilities, but if my fellow citizens vote otherwise they need to suffer the consequences. If the gaps are filled with voluntary donations, they won't see any need to vote differently next time.

 

[Aridas]

The highlighted is news to me.

I'm in a similar situation as Pixel42, just to poke at myself. Also, I won't claim that the highlighted is specifically surprising to me, albeit just because I've occasionally heard of, for example, Trump's salary donation claim, but I have no idea what's going on with the mechanics of it and, in general, I tend to spend about as little time dealing with taxes as I can. There's also the matter of, as happened recently for me, local tax refunds being sent automatically when I pay what I'm asked to pay. If I was given the option, I would probably be happy to redirect that check to help fund something, rather than go to the trouble of depositing it manually - given me, though, I've just completely forgotten/not bothered to deposit similar checks in the past, though.

 

[3point14]

Yeah I've used similar arguments in the past and I agree mostly, the simple fact that literally nobody pays MORE taxes then they are literally forced to kind of settles the whole "Fair share" argument for all time.

I don't want to send up a signal flare to get the Internitarians in here with their "All taxes are theft!" chant going but taxes do always seem to be something everyone agrees "other" people should pay more of, and even the few who claim they are willing to pay more of their "fair share" never seem to be in a hurry to do it until someone makes them which... yeah kind of tips everyone hands a little doesn't it?

This argument annoys me greatly. I earn bugger all. I'd happily canavas for more taxes on me. I've voted for more taxes on me.

The 'you don't really mean it if you don't voluntarily pay more than is required' argument is just bizarre.

I think the country needs more money for welfare, social housing and healthcare. A substantially higher amount than I can afford to throw into the pot voluntarily out of my own pocket. What I can throw in makes absolutely zero difference. What all those earning what I earn (as I said, pretty much bugger all) and more can throw into the pot would make a difference.

I think I, and anyone else, can canvass for higher taxes and not fall foul of your weird ethical conundrum and without disadvantaging themselves financially in order to for you to believe what they're saying.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Yeah and like everybody, you didn't think to look all that hard. Because really thinks they don't pay enough taxes, or at least they don't let it bother them that much.

Me, you, a bum of the streets, a doctor, a lawyer, Bezos. We all pay the same. "What they make us pay."

You're making excuses. That argument only works if "they" make us all pay the same. Most tax discussions have historically boiled down to how to define "the same," whether it be the same fraction (flat tax) or the same lifestyle burden (wealth tax or highly progressive income tax brackets).

It's only been in the last two decades or so that "the same" started to mean "the same ability to hire a high priced income tax attorney to hide your wealth." Overseas banking loopholes are available for rich and poor alike! Tell me, sir, is that not the definition of equitable?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Anything on Eric's testimony to the NY attorney general?

He sat via video-link, but I can't find any reporting on what was actually said.

 

[Joe Random]

This argument annoys me greatly. I earn bugger all. I'd happily canavas for more taxes on me. I've voted for more taxes on me.

The 'you don't really mean it if you don't voluntarily pay more than is required' argument is just bizarre.

I think the country needs more money for welfare, social housing and healthcare. A substantially higher amount than I can afford to throw into the pot voluntarily out of my own pocket. What I can throw in makes absolutely zero difference. What all those earning what I earn (as I said, pretty much bugger all) and more can throw into the pot would make a difference.

I think I, and anyone else, can canvass for higher taxes and not fall foul of your weird ethical conundrum and without disadvantaging themselves financially in order to for you to believe what they're saying.

IMO it's even simpler than that. I've said in the past I'm for higher taxes on people like me (including me personally) if it were to fund the sorts of things I feel we should be funding. Stronger social safety nets, improved infrastructure, and - most importantly - health care. The thing is, if on my next return I simply write them a big check that extra money which I'd be willing to pay won't in fact go to the programs I want funded.

Having nothing to do with what anyone else is paying, me handing the government more than they say I owe won't pay into the programs I want my tax dollars going to.

 

[Mader Levap]

I do not see any contradiction between "I support higher taxes" and "I don't pay more than I owe". Point is that to make measurable difference, many people must pay more, not just me.

You buy civilization with taxes. Various libertarians and other people like that are simply parasites, wanting to enjoy perks of civilization without paying for it.

 

[Leftus]

I've certainly voted for a party whose manifesto would result in me paying higher taxes.

Awesome. Care to define what a "fair share" is?

 

[Leftus]

Nobody would agree on everything. But I think you might find common agreement that deductions and exemptions should be limited, that people in similar circumstances should be treated similarly, that people who earn more are benefitting more from living in our society and should pay more, and it should all be transparent. One of the suspicions we all have is that somebody else is getting a break that we can't get.

And the last big tax law included thousands of pages with notes handwritten in the margins. The legislators who passed it didn't understand it themselves, let alone the rest of us. That's not the way to do sensible tax policy.

I don't need common agreement, just a definition of the term "fair share." Limited deductions doesn't define anything. What is the limit? People in similar circumstances also does not answer the question either. Since the term is used, almost exclusively at someone else. Who they presume is not paying their "fair share" and can never define it.

 

[SezMe]

And that's the problem with taxes, very few people understand them enough.

Like real talk. Do I, on some real deep and honest emotional level, think that I personally, pay enough taxes?<snip>.

That's a fair answer which, as a side benefit, higlhights the difference between you and the anti-tax fanatics on the right. They've bought Reagan's "9 dangerous words" so they don't recognize the value they get from their taxes. They're the ones who want to privatize everything because the government ***** up whatever it does.

There is a major difference in the pretty fundamental way to view politics, government and - the easiest to bitch about - taxes by the left and right.

 

[Bob001]

I don't need common agreement, just a definition of the term "fair share." Limited deductions doesn't define anything. What is the limit? People in similar circumstances also does not answer the question either. Since the term is used, almost exclusively at someone else. Who they presume is not paying their "fair share" and can never define it.

I can't find a cite, but I recall reading that one of the Koch brothers -- one of the richest men in the world -- was involved in a legal dispute with a contractor, and he told a reporter "We just want what's fair." The reporter asked "Well, how much money would you consider fair?" His answer: "All of it."

There's no scientific formula for "fair." But most people would say that "fair," in a society that at least gives lip service to core principles of equality, would mean that the people who make the most and benefit the most from living in America should pay the most tax. That means a lot of individual judgments about exemptions and deductions and credits contained within the world's most complex tax code, which largely favors capital over labor. So yes, from the perspective of most of us, "fair" means some people would pay more. It would also mean that the laws would be enforced aggressively, to ensure that people do pay whatever the law says they are supposed to pay.

Studies show that the wealthiest are more likely to avoid paying taxes. The top 0.5 percent in income account for fully a fifth of all the underreported income, according to a 2010 study by the IRS’ Andrew Johns and the University of Michigan’s Joel Slemrod. Adjusted for inflation, that’s more than $50 billion each year in unpaid taxes.

https://www.propublica.org/article/...nal-revenue-service-global-high-wealth-audits

 

[Segnosaur]

I don't recall this being mentioned anywhere...

From: CNN
The Manhattan district attorney can obtain President Donald Trump's tax returns a federal appeals court ruled, dealing the president another setback in his effort to shield his tax returns from prosecutors but the case is heading to the Supreme Court in a further delay of the investigation....the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals broadly rejected the President's arguments that the state grand jury subpoena to his long-time accounting firm for his financial and tax records was overly broad and issued in bad faith....The panel of three judges dismissed the president's lawsuit with prejudice, which means he cannot revive it on these grounds.
...
Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for the President, said Wednesday that they would ask the Supreme Court to stay the ruling....Five Supreme Court Justices are required to agree to grant a stay...If the Supreme Court doesn't grant the stay it is possible Trump's lawyers would still ask the court to hear the case on the merits, but at that point the subpoena would be enforced and the documents turned over to investigators.

Trump of course would probably want his new supreme court boot-licker to be confirmed before the case hits the supreme court. Trump lost the first time in the supreme court over his tax records by 7-2, so even with a new justice, he'd still have to convince 2 other justices to side him.

 

[Ziggurat]

I do not see any contradiction between "I support higher taxes" and "I don't pay more than I owe".

True. The contradiction is between "I don't pay enough in taxes" and "I don't pay more than I owe." Not everyone who supports higher taxes makes the former claim, but some do. What people who support higher taxes but don't pay more than they owe really mean is that they support higher taxes on other people. They may be willing to pay more themselves in order to accomplish that, but for the most part they don't actually believe they themselves should pay more. That's quite rare indeed.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

True. The contradiction is between "I don't pay enough in taxes" and "I don't pay more than I owe." Not everyone who supports higher taxes makes the former claim, but some do. What people who support higher taxes but don't pay more than they owe really mean is that they support higher taxes on other people. They may be willing to pay more themselves in order to accomplish that, but for the most part they don't actually believe they themselves should pay more. That's quite rare indeed.

No, that's nonsense.

The UK collected £623.36b in taxes in the tax year 18/19. Say I paid £1m in taxes and I decided, out of a sense of civil duty, to double that. How would that affect that figure? It wouldn't. It would make no difference to it at all. You'd need an extra decimal point for it to even register.

OTOH, if they increased all taxes by 0.1%, then that'd be an extra £623m, or £0.62b.

A single person paying a lot extra is pointless, even if they're rich. There's no contradiction between "I don't pay enough in taxes" and "I don't pay more than I owe", because they're fundamentally different scenarios and conflating the two, frankly, displays a remarkable lack of understanding of how taxes work.

 

[3point14]

True. The contradiction is between "I don't pay enough in taxes" and "I don't pay more than I owe." Not everyone who supports higher taxes makes the former claim, but some do. What people who support higher taxes but don't pay more than they owe really mean is that they support higher taxes on other people. They may be willing to pay more themselves in order to accomplish that, but for the most part they don't actually believe they themselves should pay more. That's quite rare indeed.

This is some Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged ******** that assumes that everyone is, at heart, a selfish git. It's a bollocks argument.

 

[Leftus]

There's no scientific formula for "fair." But most people would say that "fair," in a society that at least gives lip service to core principles of equality, would mean that the people who make the most and benefit the most from living in America should pay the most tax.

They already do. The lion's share, too.

What you want to do is have them pay more and rather than call it greed, you pretend there is a "share" they have to pay and they are not paying their portion of it. Without having to define how much a share is worth.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It used to be understood that great success is only to a small degree the result of personal accomplishment and mostly due to luck and circumstances.
That is why the rich traditionally see an obligation to give back to their community.