Taxing the rich more? How about making companies bring money back……

[Coronita]

Gotta love anyone who makes the argument about taxing W2 “rich” people more…..

Meet the new masters at the helm. Same as the old masters at the helm. Not gonna do shit…

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-tech-giants-stash-overseas-233526584.html

We often talk about the staggering amount of cash some of the biggest multinationals are holding, so I want to take a peek at that, courtesy of some of the top names in tech.

Specifically, I spent some time searching the latest SEC filings to see just how much cash some major techs have in overseas bank accounts where it’s not subject to U.S. taxes.
Here’s a snapshot: Percentage-wise,(MSFT) near the top of the list, with 87 percent of its $66.6 billion outside the U.S. (CSCO) not far behind at 83 percent of its $45 billion, (ORCL) at 80 percent of $31.6 billion, (AAPL) at 68 percent of $121.3 billion, and (GOOG) at 64 percent of $45.7 billion.
Why is all that cash over there? It’s not necessarily because they’re hiding it. A big part of the reason is that they’ve become global growth stories.
When Microsoft sells product overseas, the proceeds naturally go into an overseas account. The money doesn’t come to the U.S. unless Microsoft needs to buy something here.
This is actually a big issue for a company like Cisco, where John Chambers has been very straightforward about saying if the feds let him bring this cash to the U.S. without a big tax bill, he’ll hire in the U.S. If not, he’ll hire a lot less.
Also, there’s the acquisition wrinkle: Cisco used to do nearly all of its big acquisitions in the U.S.
But as domestic targets have gotten more expensive and the proportion of Cisco’s cash it’s generating outside the U.S. remains steady at about 80 percent, it’s harder to buy anything big. Not only does Cisco have to look at the purchase price of its target, it has to add another 30 percent or so to factor in the cost of repatriating the cash.
Chambers said just last week that Cisco has gone too long without a big acquisition. Given the dynamics here, you’ve got to wonder: Does that mean he’s about to make a major overseas buy?

[ctr70]

25% of the top income earners in the U.S. pay 90% of the income taxes. Isn’t 90% enough??? I just can’t see why Obama wants them to pay MORE and MORE. Isn’t that enough already?

I would rather see corporate taxes go up, prop 13 repealed and the mortgage deduction go away before raising income taxes on our innovators and high achievers. At least you can choose to not own real estate. You don’t have a choice with income taxes.

[CA renter]

[quote=ctr70]25% of the top income earners in the U.S. pay 90% of the income taxes. Isn’t 90% enough??? I just can’t see why Obama wants them to pay MORE and MORE. Isn’t that enough already?

I would rather see corporate taxes go up, prop 13 repealed and the mortgage deduction go away before raising income taxes on our innovators and high achievers. At least you can choose to not own real estate. You don’t have a choice with income taxes.[/quote]

How about leveling the playing field and taxing ALL income at the same rates instead of just “punishing” workers (especially W-2 slaves)?

Thoughts?

[ocrenter]

[quote=ctr70]25% of the top income earners in the U.S. pay 90% of the income taxes. Isn’t 90% enough??? I just can’t see why Obama wants them to pay MORE and MORE. Isn’t that enough already?
[/quote]

This does seem like an alarming statistics, doesn’t it, ctr?

But the problem here is the top is increasing their income while the bottom is stagnate, so how do we increase the bottom’s share of the tax burden when it is the top that is increasing their income?

For example, if the top 1% increase their income by 10% in the same year that the rest of the 99% grew by 0.2%, how should we increase the tax burden of the bottom?

Here’s another scenario, the top 25% holds 87% of the wealth in this country. So how can we hold the other 75% accountable for that 13% of wealth?

And when a government is trying to go after more revenue, which of the piece of pie should it go after? the 13%? or the 87%.

I don’t have the answer. But seems to me the government is just going after where the money’s at. whether that is right or wrong it is up for debate.

[ocrenter]

The bottom line here remains: the W2 professionals are the easy prey. With no ability to stash their cash outside of the country, yet considered “rich” by the huge and growing underclass, this group is the perfect low hanging fruit for the government seeking funds.

[SK in CV]

[quote=ocrenter]The bottom line here remains: the W2 professionals are the easy prey. With no ability to stash their cash outside of the country, yet considered “rich” by the huge and growing underclass, this group is the perfect low hanging fruit for the government seeking funds.[/quote]

huh? Only a miniscule % of w-2 professionals would be hit by a tax hike. The logic in this comment is divorced from reality.

[ocrenter]

[quote=SK in CV][quote=ocrenter]The bottom line here remains: the W2 professionals are the easy prey. With no ability to stash their cash outside of the country, yet considered “rich” by the huge and growing underclass, this group is the perfect low hanging fruit for the government seeking funds.[/quote]

huh? Only a miniscule % of w-2 professionals would be hit by a tax hike. The logic in this comment is divorced from reality.[/quote]

Low hanging fruit does not mean high yielding fruit. The truly high yielding fruit is that top one percent. But the gov certainly has its work cut out for it to go after that.

[meadandale]

[quote=CA renter]
How about leveling the playing field and taxing ALL income at the same rates instead of just “punishing” workers (especially W-2 slaves)?

Thoughts?[/quote]

Well, I’d argue that taxes on wages are too high, not that taxes on investment income is too low.

If unlike the majority of the wage slaves, I’ve been smart enough to set aside some money and invest it rather than spend myself into debt, why should I have to pay the government half of any return I make risking MY OWN MONEY?

[SK in CV]

[quote=meadandale][quote=CA renter]
How about leveling the playing field and taxing ALL income at the same rates instead of just “punishing” workers (especially W-2 slaves)?

Thoughts?[/quote]

Well, I’d argue that taxes on wages are too high, not that taxes on investment income is too low.

If unlike the majority of the wage slaves, I’ve been smart enough to set aside some money and invest it rather than spend myself into debt, why should I have to pay the government half of any return I make risking MY OWN MONEY?[/quote]

Kind of a straw man argument. No one has suggested half.

[livinincali]

[quote=ocrenter]
Low hanging fruit does not mean high yielding fruit. The truly high yielding fruit is that top one percent. But the gov certainly has its work cut out for it to go after that.[/quote]

The top 1% took home 1.5 trillion income in year 2010. Of that they paid 354 billion in taxes. For an effective tax rate of 23.39

The top 10% took home 3.6 trillion in income and paid 670 billion in taxes. For an effective tax rate of 18.46

The top 25% took home 5.4 trillion and paid 827 billion for an effective tax rate of 15.22.

The thing is that the top 1% takes home about 20% of the income while the top 10% takes home about 50% of the income while the top 25% takes home about 67% of the total income.

With a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit each year the numbers say that if your going to fix the problem with revenue you probably need to go after the top 10% and more likely the top 25%. It’s just a numbers game where the super rich don’t have enough to take to fix everything. I think that’s the biggest problem that people don’t understand. They think the rich have enough to tax to keep all the spending programs they are in favor of in tact, but the rich don’t actually have that much.

[meadandale]

[quote=SK in CV][quote=meadandale][quote=CA renter]
How about leveling the playing field and taxing ALL income at the same rates instead of just “punishing” workers (especially W-2 slaves)?

Thoughts?[/quote]

Well, I’d argue that taxes on wages are too high, not that taxes on investment income is too low.

If unlike the majority of the wage slaves, I’ve been smart enough to set aside some money and invest it rather than spend myself into debt, why should I have to pay the government half of any return I make risking MY OWN MONEY?[/quote]

Kind of a straw man argument. No one has suggested half.[/quote]

Dividend taxes are going to be 43%. That’s pretty close to half.

Capital gains rates are going to be almost 25% (20% plus the 3.8% ObamaCare bonus).

[no_such_reality]

[quote=ocrenter][quote=ctr70]25% of the top income earners in the U.S. pay 90% of the income taxes. Isn’t 90% enough??? I just can’t see why Obama wants them to pay MORE and MORE. Isn’t that enough already?
[/quote]

This does seem like an alarming statistics, doesn’t it, ctr?

But the problem here is the top is increasing their income while the bottom is stagnate, so how do we increase the bottom’s share of the tax burden when it is the top that is increasing their income?

For example, if the top 1% increase their income by 10% in the same year that the rest of the 99% grew by 0.2%, how should we increase the tax burden of the bottom?

Here’s another scenario, the top 25% holds 87% of the wealth in this country. So how can we hold the other 75% accountable for that 13% of wealth?

And when a government is trying to go after more revenue, which of the piece of pie should it go after? the 13%? or the 87%.

I don’t have the answer. But seems to me the government is just going after where the money’s at. whether that is right or wrong it is up for debate.[/quote]

You have to go after both.

The reason is really simple. If you don’t, you continue to have people demanding more more more because it’s free to them.

In the end, I only see three ways out of this for us as a country.

1. We figure out how to get the every increasing portion of our low skill population to have value added skills that qualifies them for something more than being a package picker at an major online retailer warehouse. There’s roughly 7 billion people on the planet that can do that job.

2. We institute ‘living wage’ rules and enforce them and accept the economic impacts of it and reduction in consumption.

3. We hyper-inflate our way our and accept the normalization of our standard of living with the rest of the world.

I prefer #1, I suspect we’ll get #3.

[SK in CV]

[quote=meadandale][quote=SK in CV][quote=meadandale][quote=CA renter]
How about leveling the playing field and taxing ALL income at the same rates instead of just “punishing” workers (especially W-2 slaves)?

Thoughts?[/quote]

Well, I’d argue that taxes on wages are too high, not that taxes on investment income is too low.

If unlike the majority of the wage slaves, I’ve been smart enough to set aside some money and invest it rather than spend myself into debt, why should I have to pay the government half of any return I make risking MY OWN MONEY?[/quote]

Kind of a straw man argument. No one has suggested half.[/quote]

Dividend taxes are going to be 43%. That’s pretty close to half.

Capital gains rates are going to be almost 25% (20% plus the 3.8% ObamaCare bonus).[/quote]

For the vast majority of people, the taxes on dividends and capital gains won’t be anywhere near those levels. For 98% of couples with income under $300K, it will be much less.

[Coronita]

I’m not really sure taxing people (any people more is really gonna solve any budget issues)…

Spending problem, no?

[meadandale]

[quote=flu]I’m not really sure taxing people (any people more is really gonna solve any budget issues)…

Spending problem, no?[/quote]

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/75-percent-obamas-proposed-tax-hikes-go-toward-new-spending_666067.html

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