Careful Zed, don’t know if the Trump Team has had a chance to “vet” (heh) all of the SS dudes yet.
This is in response to Grumps’ excellent semi-retirement employment plan from yesterday:
Grumps, perfect for your situation except for one thing; it’s ironic your contract gig is for the feds, because one of its branches (you know which one) makes it living hell on a small business to contract out work to a non-business (individual) who does work exclusively for that business.
Yes, that’s the purpose of a 1099-misc filing but doing so ups a business’s chances of audit about 1000 pct… and who the hell wants that hassle? What they really want (even if the work only lasts one year or less) is for the contractor to be treated as an employee with all the inherent bs of withholding, ss, ins, workers comp., etc etc etc…what a f’n nightmare! Ask me how I know about that shit.
IRS/tax reform is the one yuge plank in the Trump platform that I haven’t seen mentioned much yet. Not complaining, our boy has had a full plate and the scope and initiatve of his actions so far are worthy of our awe. He’ll get to it, no one knows better than he of the incredible, oppressive and repressive effects of the tax system on business, productivity, and as in this example, employment on simplified as-needed employment. The sooner the better though, how long have conservatives been giving lip service to tax reform e.g. flat tax etc. with absolutely nothing to show for it? But all indications are we might finally have found and hired the right “contractor” for the job!
But as I recall Grumps, you are dealing with the Canuckian system, my understanding is that taxation is pretty crushing there too, don’t know if implementation is better or worse in situations like this, though it’s hard to believe it’s the latter.
February 3, 2017 at 12:39 am
John
The income tax is the playground of the Deep State. The system is so Byzantine the only way to go is to hire experts to milk the laws for what they are worth and then have “friends” who can look the other way at the right time.
The burden on us is so onerous I’ve heard we would actually be ahead (perhaps way ahead) to chuck the entire income tax, both personal and corporate, go to a single point retail sales tax and provide a fixed income to compensate for the “regressive” nature of the tax.
You could even couple this with the EBT card and issue the cards to everyone who is a legal resident of the U.S.
I liked the idea because it has several advantages.
1) Illegal residents have no benefits, so if they stay they pay.
2) With a guaranteed income that is not large enough to pay for the amenities job seeking is still desirable.
3) One can afford to hunt for a job by taking on an unpaid apprenticeship without threatening one’s livelihood. The employer gets to try you out while you get badly needed job skills.
4) Elimination of the corporate income tax will both attract corporations from abroad and allow the dissolution of domestic corporations that were founded in the first place to service unneeded/unwanted paperwork and regulations.
I suppose I could go on but you get the idea.
What you are talking about is called “The Fair Tax” and it has at least four other advantages:
1) Income not spent is not taxed, encouraging savings and investing.
2) Income spent is taxed, so even those who work in the underground or criminal economy pay taxes
3) The consumer sees his exact tax bill with every purchase, on the receipt, making it difficult for politicians to raise taxes by raising hidden taxes.
4) The IRS would be gone.
February 3, 2017 at 1:25 pm
Interventor
The IRS would not be gone. Some agency required to collect the tax. However, it would be much smaller and not able to be weaponized.
February 3, 2017 at 5:40 pm
John
The IRS would actually find new life.
It would be their job to verify the cardholders in the name of seeking out tax fraud. The icing on the cake would be that they would also, as a consequence of their activities, have a huge database that could be used to hunt down other types of identity fraud, like bogus voters and their “helpers”.
February 3, 2017 at 8:45 am
tomstockton
Read a newspaper (!) story several years ago, where a university made 100 sets of tax returns, paperwork, etc., and hired 100 IRS folks to prepare the taxes. Out of the 100, there were 84 variations on how the taxes were filed and refunds/billing returned. Tells me something I already knew — the tax system needs a complete overhaul. Probably won’t happen since bureaucracy has already been established — but one can always “hope”! 🙂
My retirement plans were simple:
Save and invest 10% of every dollar that I ever earned.
I started at 13. Never earned more than 50G a year, and that in my 40s.
By the time I hit 40, the amount in my portfolio was… staggering.
I retired at 50 and am living comfortably on far less than the investment income.
I still have the principle to leave my heirs. They’re going to be rich.
SS took 14% of everything (before taxes, actually twice what I invested), wants to pay me $1250 a month with nothing for my heirs when I die.
SS is the worst possible investment.
If you start early, it becomes a habit, or an obsession. Many a time I ate Ramen when I didn’t want to.
February 3, 2017 at 9:14 am
PaulS
Who doesn’t want to eat Ramen, ever?
Love the stuff, wife says I can’t have it as much as I want, not good for me apparently.
I wish I had your thinking earlier in life, but eventually got on track putting 30% away for 15 years, and while it ain’t staggering, it’s nice to be retired in our 50’s, and the lessons learned help keep the budget in line.
Congratulations BTW. 🙂
I avoid that pile of “employee with-holdings” crap by billing the Fed dept by billing for services through my business as an independent contractor. Though the job is technical in nature, and business is photography, it doesn’t matter.
Taxation up here sucks too. With the last budget, my retirement income plus the work income will see over half of my earnings go to one form of taxation or another. Fed and provincial income, Harmonized Sales Tax of 13% on 99% of all goods and services, property taxes, etc. I don’t mind taxes as they pay for the stuff that keeps the world turning, I just hate seeing the waste the ones in control are doing.
Petercat, I’m with you. Started about 30 maxing the investment limits to reduce income tax into RRSP (Registered Retirement Plans) maxing co-pay on corporate plans, good investment guy, and other savings. Wife and I retired at 55, now I’m 59. Kids will do well when we pass, unless my travel bug really kicks in later 🙂
Various flat tax proposals have been around since Reagan (and before, but that’s my benchmark of personal political awareness and activism).
My favorite has always been and still is a “tithe” tax, 10% of every dollar earned by every individual and entity, no deductions, no exceptions, and regressivism be damned (you make llittle you little less, you make a ton you pay a ton of tax). Who among us from burger flipper to tech wizard and megabiz would not be privileged and pleased to pay 10% of his production for the privilege and perks of living, working, and operating in the USA? That would be the end of losing companies to offshore tax havens…and under the listed terms, MORE than enough revenue would be generated to replace ALL forms of taxation at EVERY level…that in itself would encourage more biz!
My least favorite scheme is a national sales tax, called various cuddly names to assuage its onerous actuality, which essentially makes businesses the national tax collector. It’s already bad enough that business is the state tax collector and it’s a nightmare…FL has a 6% rate and the county added 1% which they recently changed to 1.5%, which has to be broken out on the return along with non-taxable amounts, etc…add in the hullabaloo over internet sales and what we’ve got is already a productivity killer, just imagine a whole new huge level of taxation, record-keeping, remittance, etc. laid at the feet of small biz that is already almost regulated out of existence. And then just imagine the twists and turns of avoidance; once the money is in their hands, people and other entities will do everything they can to make sure their purchases do not reflect tax. Fuck that, if anything business needs to be taken out of the tax-collection game entirely and allowed to pay their 10% for their own income like everybody else.
Yes there would still be some form of federal revenue service; enforcement of collections, and methods of distribution would still be necessary and certainly they would be subjected to all manner of gerrymander and carpetbagging…greed springs eternal, always follow the money. But compared to the labyrinth we have now? Piece of cake.
All irrelevant though; as bad as the bureaucracy of tax collection is, what has really stonewalled any fixed simple tax system that would involve a two-line return (1. “what was your total income for 2017?” and 2. “pay 10% of line 1.” )is what I call the tax-avoidance industry…huge corporate legal and accounting firms, charity organizations, churches, real estate companies, and all manner of “investment” tools and loopholes whose whole raison d’ etere is shielding income from tax…and you want to talk about regressive/repressive, what is more regressive than the guy making millions who pays nothing in taxes but huge fees to his various tax avoidance advisers? And what is more repressive than people who make below some arbitrary number not only paying nothing but getting handed a fistful of OPM instead? And guess who those OP are and whose M that is? Who gets the shaft and all of the load? Why, that would be you and me.
Oh, well…like I said it’s been going on for decades -centuries really- let’s give the Artist of the Deal a shot at it…Godspeed DT!
(Sorry Chris, another TL:DR, didn’t plan it that way…zap it if you please.)
February 2, 2017 at 10:35 pm
NotYetInACamp
I like those pups.
Nice pups.
Nice dawggies.
February 2, 2017 at 11:31 pm
Swansonic
Careful when you mention bones – the doggies might only want yours….
February 3, 2017 at 1:17 am
Peregrine John
Agent Smith – I love it.
February 3, 2017 at 1:23 am
Deplorable B Woodman
Agent “Smith” doesn’t need a bone. He needs a wrench to throw to distract the dawggies.
Wish I knew the code to plop a picture here – if that is possible.
Anyhow, here is the URL to a photo from the Berkley “violent protest (as the LSM described it. A riot by any other name is just as destructive.). https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3oewqpUMAA1PQ4.jpg
When banners saying “BECOME UNGOVERNABLE” and “THIS IS WAR” start popping up and Senators call for more and more demonstrations, can a full-on civil war be far behind? Rather than forestall the revolution, did we hasten its start by electing Mr. Trump?
Better to have continued to allow the slow-motion murder of ourselves, our values, and our America?
My friend, WE are the revolutionaries!
If it is war they (think) they want, they shall have it!
By the end of Trump’s first 100 days I believe we will have a mechanism to defeat and or destroy not only the enemies from without but the enemies within, including the bureaucratic cancer within gov that has raised its ugly anti-Trump anti-Republic head. And then, with a full head of steam and the support of 90% plus of the counties…the places where the patriots, and the guns, are.
Did we “hasten” the purge of hatred, racism, and the elitist leftist scourge?
By the Grace of God and by one means or another -their choice!- let it be so.
February 3, 2017 at 11:14 am
The 300
They don’t have the nads for civil war. They’ll keep rioting in liberal-friendly cities where they know they won’t get their heads cracked. A Che t-shirt, beret and surplus field jacket do not a revolutionary make.
February 3, 2017 at 1:03 pm
Kafiroon
As long as the prog govt. of the cities allow the regessives to stay and riot there… Burn Baby Burn!
Once they start moving out of the city center and at the citizens living spaces, it is time to cull the herd.
February 3, 2017 at 5:51 pm
John
I agree.
Let them soil their own nest as they like, but if they flush it’s hunting season.
February 3, 2017 at 8:02 pm
Merle
So be it – let’s get it on while I’m still young enough to participate !!!
February 3, 2017 at 5:33 am
jackdeth72
Why do I get the feeling that Javier is going to wind up selling a few of his Dawggie Prototypes to the Secret Service?
And they’d be worth every cent!
February 3, 2017 at 7:15 am
Paladin
I heard the other day Harley-Davidson pussied out of a Trump visit to the plant in Wisconsin. If I owned a Harley I would be piss off. When is somebody (FBI, local law inforcement) going to set up a honey-trap for these protesters, and round up the whole group? Take them somewhere and get to the bottom of who is organizing/paying for it. Then go after them.
February 3, 2017 at 8:41 am
Bill G
Nobody, here at least, is going to touch Soros.
February 3, 2017 at 9:09 am
Deplorable B Woodman
Not even with YOUR 10 foot pole.
February 3, 2017 at 10:56 am
MasterDiver
The only 10-foot pole I would touch Soros with is a Bangalore Torpedo!
Zar Belk
February 3, 2017 at 11:32 am
John D. Egbert
The winnah!
February 3, 2017 at 1:32 pm
Interventor
Outfitted with rocket motor.
February 3, 2017 at 11:16 am
Fox2!
Trump was at Harley yesterday.
February 3, 2017 at 8:32 am
Crawdaddy Loon
On a different note, and speaking of “rounding up the whole group”, and “honey-trap”, did anyone else see the comments about the Seals mission in Yemen? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=seals%20yemen The mission was planned under Obama and undertaken under Trump, and the commentary has veered into concern that it was a setup against the Seals! Tied in with the obvious actions of other holdovers in government from the Obama administration, does this have ominous import for the future? Curious – and concerned!
February 3, 2017 at 8:51 am
Crawdaddy Loon
Sorry – that should be SEALS!
February 3, 2017 at 8:42 am
Bill G
Cry Havoc! And loose the dawgs of Javier!
February 3, 2017 at 9:11 am
Deplorable B Woodman
Winner of teh interwebz for today.
February 3, 2017 at 10:00 am
WayneM
Ragnar!!
February 3, 2017 at 10:52 am
Todd
I want me some of them doggies!
February 3, 2017 at 11:24 am
Pamela
Does Javier have different protocols programmed into the Dawgs?
Careful restraint to body cavity searches for drug trafficking…
42 Comments
Get along little dawggies, has a whole new meaning……
“Get along, little dawggies,” in a whole new context?
Careful Zed, don’t know if the Trump Team has had a chance to “vet” (heh) all of the SS dudes yet.
This is in response to Grumps’ excellent semi-retirement employment plan from yesterday:
Grumps, perfect for your situation except for one thing; it’s ironic your contract gig is for the feds, because one of its branches (you know which one) makes it living hell on a small business to contract out work to a non-business (individual) who does work exclusively for that business.
Yes, that’s the purpose of a 1099-misc filing but doing so ups a business’s chances of audit about 1000 pct… and who the hell wants that hassle? What they really want (even if the work only lasts one year or less) is for the contractor to be treated as an employee with all the inherent bs of withholding, ss, ins, workers comp., etc etc etc…what a f’n nightmare! Ask me how I know about that shit.
IRS/tax reform is the one yuge plank in the Trump platform that I haven’t seen mentioned much yet. Not complaining, our boy has had a full plate and the scope and initiatve of his actions so far are worthy of our awe. He’ll get to it, no one knows better than he of the incredible, oppressive and repressive effects of the tax system on business, productivity, and as in this example, employment on simplified as-needed employment. The sooner the better though, how long have conservatives been giving lip service to tax reform e.g. flat tax etc. with absolutely nothing to show for it? But all indications are we might finally have found and hired the right “contractor” for the job!
But as I recall Grumps, you are dealing with the Canuckian system, my understanding is that taxation is pretty crushing there too, don’t know if implementation is better or worse in situations like this, though it’s hard to believe it’s the latter.
The income tax is the playground of the Deep State. The system is so Byzantine the only way to go is to hire experts to milk the laws for what they are worth and then have “friends” who can look the other way at the right time.
The burden on us is so onerous I’ve heard we would actually be ahead (perhaps way ahead) to chuck the entire income tax, both personal and corporate, go to a single point retail sales tax and provide a fixed income to compensate for the “regressive” nature of the tax.
You could even couple this with the EBT card and issue the cards to everyone who is a legal resident of the U.S.
I liked the idea because it has several advantages.
1) Illegal residents have no benefits, so if they stay they pay.
2) With a guaranteed income that is not large enough to pay for the amenities job seeking is still desirable.
3) One can afford to hunt for a job by taking on an unpaid apprenticeship without threatening one’s livelihood. The employer gets to try you out while you get badly needed job skills.
4) Elimination of the corporate income tax will both attract corporations from abroad and allow the dissolution of domestic corporations that were founded in the first place to service unneeded/unwanted paperwork and regulations.
I suppose I could go on but you get the idea.
What you are talking about is called “The Fair Tax” and it has at least four other advantages:
1) Income not spent is not taxed, encouraging savings and investing.
2) Income spent is taxed, so even those who work in the underground or criminal economy pay taxes
3) The consumer sees his exact tax bill with every purchase, on the receipt, making it difficult for politicians to raise taxes by raising hidden taxes.
4) The IRS would be gone.
The IRS would not be gone. Some agency required to collect the tax. However, it would be much smaller and not able to be weaponized.
The IRS would actually find new life.
It would be their job to verify the cardholders in the name of seeking out tax fraud. The icing on the cake would be that they would also, as a consequence of their activities, have a huge database that could be used to hunt down other types of identity fraud, like bogus voters and their “helpers”.
Read a newspaper (!) story several years ago, where a university made 100 sets of tax returns, paperwork, etc., and hired 100 IRS folks to prepare the taxes. Out of the 100, there were 84 variations on how the taxes were filed and refunds/billing returned. Tells me something I already knew — the tax system needs a complete overhaul. Probably won’t happen since bureaucracy has already been established — but one can always “hope”! 🙂
My retirement plans were simple:
Save and invest 10% of every dollar that I ever earned.
I started at 13. Never earned more than 50G a year, and that in my 40s.
By the time I hit 40, the amount in my portfolio was… staggering.
I retired at 50 and am living comfortably on far less than the investment income.
I still have the principle to leave my heirs. They’re going to be rich.
SS took 14% of everything (before taxes, actually twice what I invested), wants to pay me $1250 a month with nothing for my heirs when I die.
SS is the worst possible investment.
Well done. Would that my personal experiences allowed me to retain those similar style retirement funds. More the fool I.
If you start early, it becomes a habit, or an obsession. Many a time I ate Ramen when I didn’t want to.
Who doesn’t want to eat Ramen, ever?
Love the stuff, wife says I can’t have it as much as I want, not good for me apparently.
I wish I had your thinking earlier in life, but eventually got on track putting 30% away for 15 years, and while it ain’t staggering, it’s nice to be retired in our 50’s, and the lessons learned help keep the budget in line.
Congratulations BTW. 🙂
I avoid that pile of “employee with-holdings” crap by billing the Fed dept by billing for services through my business as an independent contractor. Though the job is technical in nature, and business is photography, it doesn’t matter.
Taxation up here sucks too. With the last budget, my retirement income plus the work income will see over half of my earnings go to one form of taxation or another. Fed and provincial income, Harmonized Sales Tax of 13% on 99% of all goods and services, property taxes, etc. I don’t mind taxes as they pay for the stuff that keeps the world turning, I just hate seeing the waste the ones in control are doing.
Petercat, I’m with you. Started about 30 maxing the investment limits to reduce income tax into RRSP (Registered Retirement Plans) maxing co-pay on corporate plans, good investment guy, and other savings. Wife and I retired at 55, now I’m 59. Kids will do well when we pass, unless my travel bug really kicks in later 🙂
Various flat tax proposals have been around since Reagan (and before, but that’s my benchmark of personal political awareness and activism).
My favorite has always been and still is a “tithe” tax, 10% of every dollar earned by every individual and entity, no deductions, no exceptions, and regressivism be damned (you make llittle you little less, you make a ton you pay a ton of tax). Who among us from burger flipper to tech wizard and megabiz would not be privileged and pleased to pay 10% of his production for the privilege and perks of living, working, and operating in the USA? That would be the end of losing companies to offshore tax havens…and under the listed terms, MORE than enough revenue would be generated to replace ALL forms of taxation at EVERY level…that in itself would encourage more biz!
My least favorite scheme is a national sales tax, called various cuddly names to assuage its onerous actuality, which essentially makes businesses the national tax collector. It’s already bad enough that business is the state tax collector and it’s a nightmare…FL has a 6% rate and the county added 1% which they recently changed to 1.5%, which has to be broken out on the return along with non-taxable amounts, etc…add in the hullabaloo over internet sales and what we’ve got is already a productivity killer, just imagine a whole new huge level of taxation, record-keeping, remittance, etc. laid at the feet of small biz that is already almost regulated out of existence. And then just imagine the twists and turns of avoidance; once the money is in their hands, people and other entities will do everything they can to make sure their purchases do not reflect tax. Fuck that, if anything business needs to be taken out of the tax-collection game entirely and allowed to pay their 10% for their own income like everybody else.
Yes there would still be some form of federal revenue service; enforcement of collections, and methods of distribution would still be necessary and certainly they would be subjected to all manner of gerrymander and carpetbagging…greed springs eternal, always follow the money. But compared to the labyrinth we have now? Piece of cake.
All irrelevant though; as bad as the bureaucracy of tax collection is, what has really stonewalled any fixed simple tax system that would involve a two-line return (1. “what was your total income for 2017?” and 2. “pay 10% of line 1.” )is what I call the tax-avoidance industry…huge corporate legal and accounting firms, charity organizations, churches, real estate companies, and all manner of “investment” tools and loopholes whose whole raison d’ etere is shielding income from tax…and you want to talk about regressive/repressive, what is more regressive than the guy making millions who pays nothing in taxes but huge fees to his various tax avoidance advisers? And what is more repressive than people who make below some arbitrary number not only paying nothing but getting handed a fistful of OPM instead? And guess who those OP are and whose M that is? Who gets the shaft and all of the load? Why, that would be you and me.
Oh, well…like I said it’s been going on for decades -centuries really- let’s give the Artist of the Deal a shot at it…Godspeed DT!
(Sorry Chris, another TL:DR, didn’t plan it that way…zap it if you please.)
I like those pups.
Nice pups.
Nice dawggies.
Careful when you mention bones – the doggies might only want yours….
Agent Smith – I love it.
Agent “Smith” doesn’t need a bone. He needs a wrench to throw to distract the dawggies.
This could be considered a training exercise.
Or a learning experience.
A teachable moment . . .
Wish I knew the code to plop a picture here – if that is possible.
Anyhow, here is the URL to a photo from the Berkley “violent protest (as the LSM described it. A riot by any other name is just as destructive.).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3oewqpUMAA1PQ4.jpg
When banners saying “BECOME UNGOVERNABLE” and “THIS IS WAR” start popping up and Senators call for more and more demonstrations, can a full-on civil war be far behind? Rather than forestall the revolution, did we hasten its start by electing Mr. Trump?
Better to have continued to allow the slow-motion murder of ourselves, our values, and our America?
My friend, WE are the revolutionaries!
If it is war they (think) they want, they shall have it!
By the end of Trump’s first 100 days I believe we will have a mechanism to defeat and or destroy not only the enemies from without but the enemies within, including the bureaucratic cancer within gov that has raised its ugly anti-Trump anti-Republic head. And then, with a full head of steam and the support of 90% plus of the counties…the places where the patriots, and the guns, are.
Did we “hasten” the purge of hatred, racism, and the elitist leftist scourge?
By the Grace of God and by one means or another -their choice!- let it be so.
They don’t have the nads for civil war. They’ll keep rioting in liberal-friendly cities where they know they won’t get their heads cracked. A Che t-shirt, beret and surplus field jacket do not a revolutionary make.
As long as the prog govt. of the cities allow the regessives to stay and riot there… Burn Baby Burn!
Once they start moving out of the city center and at the citizens living spaces, it is time to cull the herd.
I agree.
Let them soil their own nest as they like, but if they flush it’s hunting season.
So be it – let’s get it on while I’m still young enough to participate !!!
Why do I get the feeling that Javier is going to wind up selling a few of his Dawggie Prototypes to the Secret Service?
And they’d be worth every cent!
I heard the other day Harley-Davidson pussied out of a Trump visit to the plant in Wisconsin. If I owned a Harley I would be piss off. When is somebody (FBI, local law inforcement) going to set up a honey-trap for these protesters, and round up the whole group? Take them somewhere and get to the bottom of who is organizing/paying for it. Then go after them.
Nobody, here at least, is going to touch Soros.
Not even with YOUR 10 foot pole.
The only 10-foot pole I would touch Soros with is a Bangalore Torpedo!
Zar Belk
The winnah!
Outfitted with rocket motor.
Trump was at Harley yesterday.
On a different note, and speaking of “rounding up the whole group”, and “honey-trap”, did anyone else see the comments about the Seals mission in Yemen? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;q=quick;s=seals%20yemen The mission was planned under Obama and undertaken under Trump, and the commentary has veered into concern that it was a setup against the Seals! Tied in with the obvious actions of other holdovers in government from the Obama administration, does this have ominous import for the future? Curious – and concerned!
Sorry – that should be SEALS!
Cry Havoc! And loose the dawgs of Javier!
Winner of teh interwebz for today.
Ragnar!!
I want me some of them doggies!
Does Javier have different protocols programmed into the Dawgs?
Careful restraint to body cavity searches for drug trafficking…