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Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

forbes.com

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Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#61

Post by acomjean »

lend000 wrote: post #32

If I am understanding this correctly, there is no money flowing to rich Americans, but they will have additional opportunities to deduct losses on their 2020 taxes (basically paying less in taxes after a major stock market rout) that would normally need to be spread over future tax returns indefinitely. However, this will only occur if they took losses, so it is really a discount of ~35% on negative income. This woul…

My understanding is "losses" is kinda vague if you own one of these "pass through" entities you can pay yourself a salary, have the "pass through" business loose money then pass that loss off against your personal income. I'm not a accountant so I might be wrong.

I know a CPA and they have noted that there have been calls from wealthy clients looking for loopholes to save money on taxes, based on the stimulus.

Money not payed in taxes isn't quite the same as getting it back, but in the end its a fair amount of money kept by an idividua and not being sent to the government . Seems kinda shady to me, to put something like this in a bill that's trying to help lower to moderate income individuals financial survive a pandemic.. But I'm old and cynical.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#62

Post by a_wild_dandan »

anm89 wrote: post #46

Edit for definitional clarity: My use of the term socialism here is exactly equivalent here to the term "systems that enable wealth redistribution through legislation" no more, no less. Im not commenting on anything like the ownership of the means of production in society or anything like that. It seems like the whole world is chomping at the bit to enact more socialism but do you think it's homeless people and cashi…

Do any of these statements apply in particular to socialism? Seems to me you could find/replace "socialism" here with any political system and make the same argument.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#63

Post by lend000 »

acomjean wrote: post #61
lend000 wrote: post #32

If I am understanding this correctly, there is no money flowing to rich Americans, but they will have additional opportunities to deduct losses on their 2020 taxes (basically paying less in taxes after a major stock market rout) that would normally need to be spread over future tax returns indefinitely. However, this will only occur if they took losses, so it is really a discount of ~35% on negative income. This woul…

My understanding is "losses" is kinda vague if you own one of these "pass through" entities you can pay yourself a salary, have the "pass through" business loose money then pass that loss off against your personal income. I'm not a accountant so I might be wrong. I know a CPA and they have noted that there have been calls from wealthy clients looking for loopholes to save money on taxes, based on the stimulus. Money…

I believe if you elect to be a pass-through LLC (eligible for this rule change), you cannot pay yourself a salary in the same way as if you were a non pass-through LLC or S-Corp. It isn't as easy to cheat the system as most people think, but there seem to be more opportunities to finagle things the more assets you own.

The fundamental way our tax code is broken is not loopholes, but the actual publicly known tax bracket rates. They should be higher for capital gains, the progressive rate graduation should be steeper, and 500k shouldn't be the highest tax bracket when there are people who make 10,000 times that in a year. It's unbelievable that this isn't the focus of the issue and people are instead harping on wealth taxes and loopholes.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#65

Post by testbot123 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #7
throwaway483284 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In both cases there is 1.7 mil dollars less in public budget, I don't see how this is different.

It's different based on how you view income. Many conservatives view income as "earned" and then taxes as appropriation ("taken away"). Under such a perspective it is only a return of what was originally theirs in the first place. This country is run on deficits/debt so 1.7M less from rich people is not marginally 1.7M less to poor people.

I.E., the same people who have benefited from (and whose wealth was probably grown in) a social system where utilities, infrastructure, schools, etc are paid by tax dollars.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#66

Post by [deleted] »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #52
jimbob45 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered if a five-a-day downvote limit would benefit HN.

Or just make it cost karma. Anyone that down-votes too much would wind up at the threshold for down-voting and be rate limited by their ability to make up-voted comments. It would also render ineffective the strategy of having a bunch of accounts with enough karma to downvote and using those accounts all at once to make comments you don't like dead (the presence of corporate or state controlled accounts employing thi…

[deleted]

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#67

Post by KarlKemp »

anm89 wrote: post #46

Edit for definitional clarity: My use of the term socialism here is exactly equivalent here to the term "systems that enable wealth redistribution through legislation" no more, no less. Im not commenting on anything like the ownership of the means of production in society or anything like that. It seems like the whole world is chomping at the bit to enact more socialism but do you think it's homeless people and cashi…

You’re intentionally mislabeling “not using a crisis to hand out billions in tax breaks to rich people” as “socialism” to extend people’s historic aversion to socialism to this situation.

Do that often enough and you’ll find people quite willing to give this “socialism” thing a chance.

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#68

Post by NicoJuicy »

lend000 wrote: post #32

If I am understanding this correctly, there is no money flowing to rich Americans, but they will have additional opportunities to deduct losses on their 2020 taxes (basically paying less in taxes after a major stock market rout) that would normally need to be spread over future tax returns indefinitely. However, this will only occur if they took losses, so it is really a discount of ~35% on negative income. This woul…

Paying 1.7 million less is the same as earning 1.7 million from my POV.

Don't forget the previous tax break also ;)

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#69

Post by dang »

president wrote: post #41
lend000 wrote: post #32

If I am understanding this correctly, there is no money flowing to rich Americans, but they will have additional opportunities to deduct losses on their 2020 taxes (basically paying less in taxes after a major stock market rout) that would normally need to be spread over future tax returns indefinitely. However, this will only occur if they took losses, so it is really a discount of ~35% on negative income. This woul…

Something really needs to be done about downvote brigading on HN. At least people should be required to provide a reason for the downvote.

Please don't break the site guidelines. They ask you not to post like this for several good reasons, one of which is that it takes time for the voting on comments to settle. Often unfair downvotes get canceled by users who come along, see the situation, and make a corrective upvote. Meanwhile complaints like this one linger on in the thread, gathering dust and adding inaccuracy to offtopicness. They don't garbage-collect themselves.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The guidelines also, for several good reasons, ask you not to post about "brigading" and the like. These perceptions are nearly always imaginary, as the current example illustrates. Everyone sees something they don't like and says "aha! brigading!". Nobody sees it change to the opposite and then says "oh! guess I was wrong about that." I've looked at the data on this closely for years, and the conclusion is that with rare exceptions (and I do mean rare) it is all cognitive bias of the purest form. Cognitive bias plus randomness equals narrative. It also equals noise in HN threads—and it evokes worse from others who have the opposite bias and take it as flamebait against their side.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Some Rich Americans Are Getting Stimulus ‘Checks’ Averaging $1.7M

#70

Post by yareally »

jimbob45 wrote: post #44
president wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something really needs to be done about downvote brigading on HN. At least people should be required to provide a reason for the downvote.

I've wondered if a five-a-day downvote limit would benefit HN.

I think they already rate limit down votes. I think I recall seeing at least a few not apply when I checked as an experiment in the past.

I try to up vote at least twice as much as I down vote. If I down vote a a low quality comment, I try to at least up vote 2 quality ones to offset it.

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