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Ban-Crazy

  • #81
My mom owes the government 500K in taxes on inheritance. That includes what my cousin basically stole after he contested the will and said my grandmother was crazy.

BS!

Death taxes or whatever this is are stupid. I don't see why my mom owes the government crap! AND she has to pay the taxes on the money my cousin got (STOLE!)! Why doesn't HE have to pay taxes on that? BS!!!!!
 
  • #82
Estate taxes are a good way to raise money to operate the federal government. A small % of the population owns enough to owe estate taxes, but they have enormous financial and political clout and have snowed a lot of people into thinking that taxing large estates and capital gains and so on is somehow less fair than taxing people who actually work for a living. If an estate owes $500,000 in estate taxes, it's a lot larger than anyone in my family has ever accumulated. And, if the cousin stole from the estate, that's what lawyers are for. A contested large estate is probably the only thing that can turn into a bigger slugfest than a venomous divorce.
 
  • #83
$500,000? Your family must be quite wealthy. People with more money pay more taxes- its only fair
 
  • #84
We did have a lawyer ( a sucky one) and somehow he froze my mothers status as administrator and we couldn't sell all of the delta stock before it plummeted. More wasted money right there. My mother almost lost our house and she decided to concede and give him what he wanted. He said my grandmother wasn't of sound mind and her will was screwed because the woman who witnessed it pled the 5th. We thought she had an iron-clad will and apparently that woman screwed up.

Our family was once poorer than dirt and then my great great grandparents or whomever sunk everything that had into an iron manufacturing business/welding business that lasted for like 3 generations and here comes the government and my cousin and they take a big portion of it away. It's BS.

My mother is going after another lawsuit where my aunt(s estate now that she's dead) embezzeld about 50- 100K from my grandmother and then Travis (by POS worthless... anyway he's my cousin) inherited it(the stolen money)

You know my cousin thought a canoe trip was moor important than visiting my dying grandmother yet he wanted 600K AND GOT IT!!! BS!


I don't think estate taxes should exist is my point. So here is how it is. My grandparents paid taxes on it when they inherited it, and then when my grandmother died now my mother has to pay taxes on money that's ALREADY been taxed? BS! I don't see why we owe the government crap!

FINCH: Yes but i'm not supposed to even be talking about it. My point is that ALL estate taxes are BS. Why does my (or any family) have to pay big brother the money that our past generations earned and accumulated? And i'm not bragging or anything, i don't even like to talk about it because i don't want to be judged, but I'm talking about it to illustrate a point.

And where does that money even go? I bet part of it goes to the BS war that we don't even believe in. What has the government ever done to help us out? I've never heard of the government GIVING away 500K, just taking it. Why should we pay for programs we think are stupid or corrupt? It's OUR money.

Last night my mother was talking about prenupts and me inheriting it and needing lawyers and accountants and stockbrokers to advise me when she dies and sorry if i'm complaining too much, i'm just on edge. For christ's sake i'm 17 and she's only 50! I don't need this crap right now! I don't need to think about her death and her not wanting to give my dad jack squat (she says in case he remarries or dies that she wants the money to stay in her bloodline, and that's just me , save for my crackhead brother who'll get a meager amount of money in a trust because she's afraid he'll squander our families wealth)

Uh, sorry if i'm being a you know what... this is just a lot of stress and they expect me not to talk about it? ugh christ.
 
  • #85
if your grandparents paid taxes on it when they inherited it, why shouldnt you? The money changed hands
 
  • #86
Because why pay taxes on the same thing twice? That just seems stupid to me.

Look at it from my mothers perspective. Why would she NOT feel raped by GIVING the government half a million? AND she's paying taxes on the money my cousin got. Why doesn't he pay them? It's BS.

All I can do is hope very bad things happen to him.

Oh, and he inherited the house we sold to my aunt for rock-bottom price because she had cancer and was running out of cash (we didn't know she screwed over my grandmother at the time).

You know my mother was going to leave my cousin a sizeable sum in her will ? WAS, not after he pulled this crap. And he's stuck up, too. He says our family is of a "higher caliber". That's ****** stupid. He's the only one of us that feels that way.

If stealing money that you don't deserve makes you "higher caliber" I'll happily be rich white trash is all I can say.
 
  • #87
Because why pay taxes on the same thing twice? That just seems stupid to me

The taxes my grandparents paid on things have no bearing on what i have. Your grandparents paid for it- not your mother. Your mother only pays once. Your FAMILY pays twice, yes, but as individuals you pay once. There is a difference.
 
  • #88
Our family shouldn't have paid any estate taxes, no matter who had it at the time.

Ok, I don't want to argue. We'll have to agree to disagree on this matter. No hard feelings, naturally (except for my ******* cousin!)

And I hope that no one who has read this thinks i'm bragging or anything. I'm not, I didn't even want to mention it publicly but I felt that it was a great was to illustrate a point and vent my rage.

Clint, the rich white trash :)
 
  • #89
Of course.

But families are not distinguished as a unit in the tax system, therefor, it sees you as individuals and spouse unions, and treats you as such. This is a matter of disagreement with how the system works (and i do not know anything about it beyond what i have stated anyways, so i couldnt continue if i wished to), so im done aswell.
 
  • #90
I prefer that the government stat out of my life as much as possible. The more laws and regulations that are cast over us, the less free we become as a people. Even if those laws have the best intentions, in my opinion they are not what the founding fathers had in mind when the envisioned our country
 
  • #91
The dutch are the freest people in the world :)

The "Land of the free" Isn't really free.
 
  • #92
Finch money is not suposed to be taxxed twice. So I agree with Clint. Also the government is not supossed to accualy be withholding taxes as it is currently done. The government DUPED society into going to the withholding system we have now by telling them they would not have to pay taxes that one year, but they lied. Yeah you didn;t pay taxes that year, but you paid for the taxes for that year the following year. I learned about it in my government class. We were DUPED. And besides Finch. Estate taxes does double tax that money. If your grandmother made that money she already paid taxes on it. So why should it be taxed again when she dies and passes it on to you? You do not pau taxes on money just given to you do you? Or do you make a note of all the money given to you so you can claim it on your taxes? It is just not right. when your talking about keeping it in the family. I could understand if you earned money as wages, but those to me are nto wages. Its like a gift. Any who this is why I think we should go to the national sales tax. We wouldn't have all this BS and the government would have far more money than they have now.
 
  • #93
I think we need one government and one currency for the whole world. It would really make things easier.

I guess the government considers inheritance "unearned income".
 
  • #94
Why should I pay income taxes to earn what I've earned by age 45 and not if I just inherited it? One I've worked for; the other I do nothing for other than to be born into a wealthier family. It's the same with capital gains, dividends, interest and so on. Income on capital should be subject to taxation just like income on labor is. Even wealth should be taxed because a lot of public spending goes into maintaining it.

As for a national sales tax, one problem is that sales are more volatile than income. CT's tax receipts went through a huge boom & bust cycle when it relied on a higher sales tax with no income tax (pre-1991). It still has a boom whenever those people down towards NYC cash in on their stocks and bonuses, but it's much steadier than it used to be. The other problem with going to a sales tax is that wealthy people spend a lower percentage of their income on taxable things, so a sales tax just shifts even more of the tax burden away from those most able to pay taxes.

Maybe I'd think shielding the wealthy from taxes is good if I thought wealth and income reflect on a person's higher value to society, but no rational person can believe that. I don't know what you make, Josh, but I guarantee your value to society is much greater relative to your income than that of a Wall Street trader. Our economic system is all out of whack, with the guys in suits making much more than the people who actually do everything. There's no plausible way of fixing that, but progressive income tax rates and taxes on estates and capital gains help level the playing field.

And, by the way, people are required to pay taxes on gifts, although there's an amount you can be given tax-free in a year.
 
  • #95
See, IMO, taxes on gifts are ABSURD! That's just STUPID! For me, the estate tax isn't about how much you are inheriting. If you inherit 10K or 100 million, you shouldn't be taxed IMO. This, for me, isn't about shielding the wealthy from taxes, it's about not having an estate tax lol. I say tax the hell out of the wealthy if you want, but make it fair. For me, I don't think taxing inheritance is fair. I remember something where the poor are taxed higher than the wealthy (wish I could remember what that is called) and I think that's BS, too.

I totally agree. The most important people are teachers because they give kids a future. They don't get paid nearly enough.

All this crap about wealth.. jeez I never considered myself "wealthy" I think that the seperation between upper and lower class and social stigmas is pretty bad right now. I say let's all just be friends and help each other out and donate to charity, no matter what we have we can ALL donate a little something.
 
  • #96
Quogue said, "I do think society will be able to cooperate without laws someday, we're still young in our development, dinosaurs were around for how long? Maybe some day people will be responsible and civilized enough to not have to be told what to do, they will do the right thing on their own. I have faith in humanity."

I say, why wait? Let's do an experiment now, where Quogue lives. Unless it's in CT. Let's eliminate all traffic laws, remove all traffic lights, stop signs and even scrub the stripes off the streets. Let's see how well people do the right thing on their own. I say it'll work like an unregulated economy. Some people way out ahead of where they would otherwise have been, others trying to be fair and cooperative, and lots of collateral damage.

Are you trying to insult me and say "not in my backyard" in the same statement?
 
  • #97
Bruce you have No clue what your talking about. You obviously have not read the book and just relied on things you hear on TV. Because that is the same spiel everyone claims that the rich would pay a lesser % of their income, but that is UNTRUE.

OK Let me break it down for you with what I recall from the book OK?

First off EVERY head of household would receive a prebate check from the government each month to cover the taxes they would normally pay on good up until the poverty line. A 4 person household would get more than a 2 person since the poverty line is less than that. OK so there that pays for all the taxes a poor family would need to spend to sustain themselves. SO bamm they pay no taxes on food and cloths because the government already gave them money to pay those taxes.

Second unless it was a new good or service then you would not pay national sales tax on it. You buy a used car No tax. You buy a used home NO TAX!! You buy a new shirt your taxed. You buy a new house your taxed. And the prices of goods already have the national sales tax figured in. So if something costs 5 bucks you do not add the 23% to that 5 bucks it is already figured up into the price. So the way I see it is the poor folks already buy used cars and houses so they would not pay taxes on those. No rich person is going to buy a used car unless it is something they want to restore. No rich person is going to shop at goodwill. The fact of the matter is EVERYONE would be better off. I know from my standpoint if I was not being taxed to death on my paycheck I would be sitting rather pretty. I have a used home and all my cars are used. Smart shoppers like most of the NON-wealthy people are would see a decrease in their tax burden. The wealthy ware not going to cut back on their spending, and they are not going to buy used. So in actuality they would pay MORE in taxes than they currently are paying now. Since you know it and I know it Bruce, they do not pay much in taxes now because they shelter a lot of their wealth.

Now IF we were to do the nation sales tax it would eliminate all corporate taxes. This means the US would become the worlds LARGEST tax shelter for businesses and corporations. Remember when Chrysler and Mercedes merged ( I think it was Mercedes) Any who when they merged they moved the company headquarters to Germany because the taxation was less. If we were to have the national sales tax in place they would have setup shop here because it would have been cheaper to do business here. Bringing with it all the jobs needed at the building.

Lastly Everyone things that this would increase the costs of goods. ANOTHER FALLACY. Those corporate taxes I was talking about earlier, Those companies do not pay it anyway!! It gets passed on to the consumer. So in actuality you are paying around a 22% markup on everything you buy to pay those taxes the government charges the companies. If you take away the taxation on the companies they can lower the price roughly 22%. Then you tack on 23% to pay for the national sales tax and your in essence only paying 1% more for goods and services.

i know what your going to say though. The companies are just going to tack on the 23% and not lower the price since they know people are used to paying. Yada yada yada. Well, this is when the free markets everyone loves comes into play. There was an instance a few years ago. I cannot remember the date, but there was a federal tax on all airline tickets purchased, and congress let it laps. Many companies continued to keep the extra built into the tickets and pocketed the extra money. This went on for a few weeks or so until ONE airline dropped that cost off the tickets to gain market share, and sure enough EVERYONE else dropped the extra tax off to compete.

Now I also believe that 23% national sales tax is a little high, and I believe if it was implemented and worked they could lower it to 10% in 5 years. They would still be making a killing IMO. You have to think of all the money lost to the government due to people working under the table, drug dealers, and tourist. Just to name a few. Everyone who buys a good or service would pay the taxes INCLUDING those that normally skip out on paying taxes. All the illegal immigrants over here not paying taxes but sucking up the resources would pay when they bought something. The tourists would pay taxes when they came over to our country. The people working under the table as construction or farm hands or selling drugs or flea market things would pay taxes when they bought something NEW. Remember the tax would only be on NEW things or services. The government would see a HUGE increase in revenue, and everyone would have less of a tax burden. I know I would.

And Bruce I am around a 50K a year household between my wife and I know. I am middle class I would say. My house is only a 70K fixer upper. The national sales tax would help me a lot. I don't see how it would place more of a burden on the poor when everyone got a prebate check. Even though we are a middle income family we still shop at goodwill and other places. All my cars are used and my house was used. So if I know it will help me then I KNOW it will help people who make less than me. And at the same time the rich would be contributing more and more to the government because they are the ones who have to buy new and the latest and greatest.

It would even help my friend who neglects his house repairs to buy his son a PSP and himself an Xbox 360. He would have extra money to repair his house and still play his games. Since the prices of things should remain about the same, he would be increasing his bring home money.

People really should read the book of the proposed national sales tax and find out all the details before you go spewing back all the stuff said on TV about it. The taxes really only come into affect when you start living above and beyond your means in the first place.
 
  • #99
Heard about that on the radio this morning.... I love NY but.. The politicians are idiots and sometimes abusive or even criminals and end up getting re-elected...
 
  • #100
Quogue, If they can force you to wear a seatbelt, disguising in the form of "It'll save lives!", and take away your choice to live through an accident , or die in one (no seatbelt), then freedom of choice no longer exists. QUOTE]

Heck, what about freedom to get decent medical care. I am sure you all saw the story about the cancer patient whose doctors took him to court when he made the decision to lose traditional medicine and take a holistic approach to healing! Amazing!

I haven't heard anything else about this case (I am really not a TV person, news or otherwise so I tend to miss a lot of information) to see if the holistic approach was working... however... we would never know. They would never let people believe there may be a way they could actually survive by doing anything the natural way. :0o:

This is my area of extreme emotion hehehe
 
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