Tonight on KVNU’s For the People…
McCain and Obama square off on taxes. Who should pay more and who should pay less. We’ve got audio from their barbs today.
Should the bikini and speedo be banned in public pools?
Mike Jerman will be with us to discuss
Should landlords in
All of that, your phone calls and more, tonight on KVNU’s For the People!
Listening to the caller that was a tax preparer made me wonder what I am doing wrong! I make well under 80k a year, and after taxes, the income tax that I pay to federal and state is still well above 30%! Who do I need to go to for the rebates that would allow me to break even? (BTW, I do have an accountant do my taxes, so I think they are pretty thorough about what I can get back.)
As far as Obama poo pooing on the “rich elite”, he is obviously playing on the perception that all of the wealthy people are just celebrities or heirs, and not hard working people that made good on their potential.
As far as poo-pooing the fact that rich have to pay higher taxes than the rest of us, I think we need to look at it from the perspective of cost/benefit: Most business establishments offer products or services to others, so lets see if their spending so much to help us poor people is really not of any benefit to our more affluent group of the population.
Simplifying it as much as I can: people need to have some fragment of an education to get any form of a job and earn money to buy services or products offered by businesses. Taxes pay for such edumuhkation. If government does cut education down by de-funding it or letting it sit and rot, then businesses drain potential spending dollars from the pool that feeds them… but hey! it provides cheap labor! Lets see how long that can go on. Then people on both sides need to transport/access these products and services. Somewhere along the line they need to use a road of some sort, and I know that the roads aren’t built for free! Then there are power grids, and all sorts of other pieces of infrastructure like water and waste management, and then law enforcement to protect property of both business and consumer, and military to protect us from foreign invasion (but they are somewhere else right now so I guess we aren’t well protected in that sense) and all sorts of other systems to help connect producer to consumer…
Not to mention that businesses more often than not have their workforce that they most likely want to take care of so that they can make it to work each day and keep the machine of capitalism mixed with socialism running.
Not that I am saying raise taxes or anything… I just get sick of hearing about the poor rich people and how they just have such a heavy burden to bear when they likely benefit the most from the systems they pay for through taxes.
Ryan was dead-on tonight in regards to government getting in the business of swimming pools and such. I also agreed with his position on landlord issue. Ryan, you ready to run for city council again?
Tyson, your accountants might be doing your taxes correctly, but if you’re paying over 30% in tax on income “well under 80k a year” then you’re not tax planning correctly.
For instance, a married household earning 70k a year will pay around $1100 in federal taxes for 2008. It could be much higher, but they take advantage of the mortgage deduction, child deductions and credits, pre-tax insurance premiums and 401k plans, and charitable deductions.
Our tax structure is designed to punish the “rich”, so there’s really no reason for anyone making well under 80k to pay much in income tax.
So no one should count other programs like SS and Medicare/caid as federal taxes? As far as I can see, they are the same thing with a different name. That, and SS will most likely not be around for me to benefit from directly by the time I can use it.
I am working on my tax planning though, so maybe I will see a notable difference soon.
Those are called “payroll taxes” and you’re right, it’s the same thing with a different name. However, it’s calculated differently, and there’s not a whole lot you can do to reduce it, other than to make less money.
irs.gov has a good withholdings calculator that can help with tax planning, and give you some ideas on deductions you can try to qualify for.