Pass-Thru Income Deduction • Hacker News Board

Re: Pass-Thru Income Deduction

#91

Post by joelrunyon » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 5:09 AM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #86

joelrunyon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure people will feel "fleeced" since most people (~80%) are getting a tax cut - https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/business/tax-bi...

They'll only feel fleeced when the follow-up cuts to Social Security and Medicare get felt. Republicans have been very careful to say that only the benefits of current recipients of those programs won't see cuts. The rest of us who aren't yet retired will take a pretty huge hit in retirement. That's where we're being fleeced. Perhaps the people who look at a tax return as free money from the government won't feel fle…

> Perhaps the people who look at a tax return as free money from the government won't feel fleeced

It's not a tax return, it's a tax cut. That means the government is taking less money from me (not giving me more money). I don't know anyone under 35 that's actually counting on SS on being there for them (not saying they're happy about, but most realized 10+ years ago that it's not gonna happen). That was a reality before this happened.

Re: Pass-Thru Income Deduction

#92

Post by snotrockets » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 6:58 AM UTC

techsupporter wrote: post #84

snotrockets wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a problem here: one of the goals of taxation is to encourage certain behaviors (like creating new employing in a low-employment region, or saving for retirement) and discourage others (like smoking). You remove this important policy tool, offering no other tool to replace it.

I don't see that as a problem. It's the old "it's a feature, not a bug." Using the tax code as a cudgel for social change has, in my view, more downsides than upsides. On the one hand, exempting retirement savings is probably a good thing (making it easier for people to provide for themselves in their later years). But, on the other, exempting the cost of owning housing is probably not a good thing (encouraging spraw…

Assuming you can rewrite the code to be simple is hubris.

Every non trivial system gets more complex with time, as you discover more and more edge cases, similar to software, and as we all finding out now, a rewrite would replace a known set of issues with an unknown set of issues.

Re: Pass-Thru Income Deduction

#93

Post by curun1r » Thu, Dec 21, 2017, 10:10 AM UTC

joelrunyon wrote: post #91

curun1r wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll only feel fleeced when the follow-up cuts to Social Security and Medicare get felt. Republicans have been very careful to say that only the benefits of current recipients of those programs won't see cuts. The rest of us who aren't yet retired will take a pretty huge hit in retirement. That's where we're being fleeced. Perhaps the people who look at a tax return as free money from the government won't feel fle…

> Perhaps the people who look at a tax return as free money from the government won't feel fleeced It's not a tax return, it's a tax cut. That means the government is taking less money from me (not giving me more money). I don't know anyone under 35 that's actually counting on SS on being there for them (not saying they're happy about, but most realized 10+ years ago that it's not gonna happen). That was a reality be…

I meant that more as a description of people who don't understand finances. Anyone who knows anything realizes that a tax return is returning you your own money. But some people treat it like a windfall rather than a restoration of their own property.

Those kinds of people are the ones that don't think far enough ahead to realize that what's being taken from them, retirement, is much more valuable than what's being given to them, a small tax cut. But anyone with an actual retirement plan should be furious because those programs--that we've paid into for our entire working careers--will be supplying us with significantly less than they would otherwise.

Yes, we've known that Social Security isn't going to be enough on its own ever since Bush II replaced all the money with IOUs, but until this tax cut, there was a reasonable expectation that those programs would survive in some form and augment our 401(k) and IRA accounts. Now, we're basically on our own. And with the Republican unwillingness to deal with health care, we'll likely be left to fend for ourselves in that area...convenient since that's the most expensive part of life when it comes to medical expenses.

But hey, the 0.01% got it rough and need some tax relief, right?

Re: Pass-Thru Income Deduction

#94

Post by pascalxus » Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 6:25 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #57

pascalxus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, this bill mainly helps those earning less than 315K per family If you're making a big salary working for tech, your not as well off as you think. You may be earning x10 more than a the average "poor" person, but after income taxes, sales tax, property tax, etc, it's barely x5 to x6. And if google forces you to live on the penninsula, then your living costs are x5 to x10. I'm sure there are plenty of hig…

Granted, everything about this is in constant flux but... I thought the child exemptions were back in and stronger than before? Also, are you getting value out of living on the penninsula? If so, is it worth the cost you're paying? If not... move. There are plenty of companies outside of SV and now quite a few of the companies there have very flexible remote working options. As for your 10x income being reduced to 6x…

It's because that's the intersection of value that an employer is willing to pay for and people are willing to work for. If everyone was paid exactly the same, then there probably wouldn't be any doctors because they'd never break even on their medical school payments, etc. Higher wages is society/capitalism's way of incentivizing more people to go into that area. there's greater need there. By paying more, more people are willing to join that occupation.

It seems weird to take the fruits of someone's labor. I mean, if you can make your bed twice as fast as I can, I don't demand that you come over and make 1/3 of my bed.

And if you grow your crops, but do it much better, yielding more fruit, it would be wrong of me to take a 1/3 of your crops.