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My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

ejroller.com

281–290 of 333 posts

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#281
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. I don't see why we need a step up basis at death. If you want to put it at $10,000 or something just to avoid a lot of paperwork for a de minimis tax loss, that'd be fine. But otherwise the tax basis of an asset should be whatever it was bought for, by whoever bought it.

The problem here is that the buyer is dead and knowledge of the basis may be lost. It could be written down in a safe place, but not known to estate's executor.

That was the historic reason, and it certainly had value. In the information age, I think we could consider requiring the recording of cost basic for assets purchased after some date. (The SEC started requiring brokerage firms to record cost basis a few years back, so we're on the way)

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gift tax exists largely to prevent people from avoiding estate tax by gifting large sums of money just before death. That's why they're linked. If there was an estate tax and no gift tax, people would just give all their money away in the years leading up to death. The gift tax exemption is co-mingled with the estate tax exemption, so you can just think of the gift tax as pre-death estate taxes. As for why we hav…

> As for why we have an estate tax, the general idea is that oligarcies and plutocracies are bad No, the reason we have an estate tax with broad exemptions rather than taxing generational transfers as income is the general idea in the ruling class that oligarchies and plutocracy are good .

The original estate tax rate was over 45%, and the exemption was under $1mil. I think you can make the case that the oligarchs and plutocrats have pushed hard to change that law over the past 15 years. They're succeeding, unfortunately.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#283
post #71

Does anyone have recommendations on how to overcome the resentment I feel against people like the author? I am jealous and frustrated by their advantage, but that opinion is purely negative and doesn't help me at all.

You might find this helpful for providing a different perspective: http://www.globalrichlist.com/

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#284
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the money has already been taxed? I stipulated that it is the SAME money. In both cases, it has "already been taxed" by the person spending the money. Yet in one case, the person receiving the money pays taxes, in the other, they do not.

Yes, but one is a business transaction (exchange of goods or services) and one is not. So i would argue they aren’t the same.

[deleted]

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so, and more importantly, how?

Just one example: An awful lot of people are terrified of being around homeless people. They are just sure the homeless are all drug addicts and thieves. If the street isn't full of smelly, desperately poor people with no home, you don't have to live in terror of being panhandled by them while imagining it will go much worse places than that. If I make the world a better place, I get to live in a better place. Simple…

Mind. Blown.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#286
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet if you even dare to open up the argument that government should try to encourage the types of families and behavior that show the best results for this type of childhood, you'll immediately be drowned out in ad hominem attacks. Even Obama took a lot of heat for saying dad's should help raise their kids. Never mind more seriously statically relevant approaches like waiting until after high school and marriage…

Most of the arguments you refer to are actually thinly veiled racism ("black dads don't care about their kids") and that is the source of antagonism against them. There is more than a little classism behind Obama's remarks, though: he wasn't exactly raised impoverished or by family who were constantly running afoul of a racist, classist "justice" system.

Isn't it also racist to hear someone say "fathers need to be parents too" and jump to the conclusion that the speaker is singling out about black men? There are plenty of fathers of all racists who are skipping out on being parents.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#287
post #71

Does anyone have recommendations on how to overcome the resentment I feel against people like the author? I am jealous and frustrated by their advantage, but that opinion is purely negative and doesn't help me at all.

As someone who has the advantages described but was born in a third world country—I have a perspective that is hard to mesh with other people's opinion of my advantages. Fascinatingly—I've had my own set of difficulties that led to depression and suicidal thoughts. Many of them are family issues. The spectrum of possibilities for feeling fulfilled among humans is just fantastic. Not sure if I have good advice for dealing with the resentment—but the people who helped me get out of the depression were people who could show me that money didn't mean everything. Pretty much all of them came from a lot less. One of them was an orphan from the same third-world country. Who had her brother die in her 20's. And who died from cancer in her 30's. All the best in your journey! Reach out if you'd like. This is something I'd love to understand ever more deeply because I want to teach people to see me for who I am and finding that one thing that really means "Equality of Opportunity" if we can really achieve that.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#288
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or men of any race who get the "walking behind a nervous women while male" treatment when walking around their city at night

Do you think that's unjustified from them? I, as a fairly non-descript white guy, am always worried when out walking near a single female that she might be afraid of me and what I might do and take steps to help alleviate that (walk slower, etc.). I mean, it seems like the most reasonable course of action. Sure, I'm never going to confront/assault/rape anyone, but the 5'2", 110 lbs woman walking in front of me on the…

That actually makes the whole situation far creepier. You go from an unwanted person along her path to literally stalking her until your paths part.

stalk gerund or present participle: stalking: pursue or approach stealthily.

synonyms:creep up on, trail, follow, shadow, track down, go after, be after, course, hunt;More

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#289
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? That's literally the most obvious thing to do as a landlord.

For the same reason a grocery store doesn't charge you more for milk just because you're rich: if they did, you'd simply shop elsewhere. You know what happens if you raise your tenant's rent because you learned they have more money now? They move, and now you're losing money as you are trying to find a new tenant.

Apartments are sticky in the way grocery stores aren't. Moving to another place is expensive (in effort, money and social costs), and while the landlord can't just triple your price overnight and hope you stay, they can raise your rent in increments.

Re: My Parents Give Me $28k a Year

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that even well-known black movie stars occasionally get the "shopping while black" treatment. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/forest-whitaker-fa... Having even absurd amounts of money doesn't make bias just go away.

And yet I bet that 95%+ of American white males would easily, easily, easily make the trade between 'shopping while black' and $28,000/year. I actually wonder if you took the poorest 50% of white males and asked them what poor treatment they would suffer for $28,000/year tax-free - how much would they willing endure? I dare to say quite a lot. >Having even absurd amounts of money doesn't make bias just go away. And h…

You do not seem to be aware of just how bad poverty and inequality has gotten for everyone.

https://www.prb.org/us-inequality-poverty/

Yes, black Americans do have worse outcomes than white Americans.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/psmag.com/.amp/economics/four-f...

However, we should not be splitting hairs over who has it worse or bickering about how to make poor dumb white families pay for the injustices of systemic racism that they had no hand in creating or maintaining.

There are a lot of poor people in America and they all deserve our help. If we continue to pick and choose who we help based on what minority sub-group makes the most noise we will only accomplish division. If the top 1% can increase their wealth by 20%in a year then we can also improve schools, health care, and access to affordable financing for all poor people. Instead we get divisive platitudes that alienate poor whites and never actually help poor blacks.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/02/concen...

We should start by funding public schools equally by head count instead of from property taxes.

https://www.thenation.com/article/how-unequal-school-funding...

Then we should probably end the inane war on drugs, fix healthcare, free the slaves filling prisons that do not pose a danger to society, overturn CU, and build some affordable damn houses.

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