Re: Obama's Remarks on Retirement Security

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:42:54 -0700 (PDT), allan.sanger@xxxxxxxxx
wrote:

On Jun 20, 9:00 am, Rumpelstiltskin


<snip>


The audit itself for me would be a nightmare, like doing
taxes in the first place, but longer.

The first one was a piece of cake - it was earlier in my career and it
wasn't too onerous to come up with the documentation. The second one
had to do with the rental properties and it was a bit more complicated
in that in the mid 90's the IRS took a slightly different view on what
constitutes a business and what constitutes investment.



After watching my 90-year-old landlady trying for months
to get rent from a renter who didn't pay her for six months
until she finally got him out, and who always hid from her,
there's no way I'd want to get involved in rental property
unless I had people to completely handle the renting for
me.



<snip>


One big problem with initiating a consumption tax of course
is that people who have already saved money have already
paid non-consumption taxes on that money, so with
consumption taxes they'd be paying again, whereas new
money would only be taxed when it was spent, not when it
was earned. I guess that's all peanuts compared to the
collapse of the dollar, though.

Thats a problem that can be solved. I don't think it involves a
tremendous amount of money relatively speaking and asking for a refund
wouldn't be any more difficult than filing a tax return.



That would be fair, but it's quite a lot of money nationwide.
I'm not so sure the government would, or reasonably could,
go for it.

Most of the money I haven't used since I retired is deferred
compensation, on which haven't yet paid taxes, so that would
be no problem for anybody if I cashed it in after income taxes
were eliminated and consumption taxes initiated.

There's still plenty that I have paid taxes on though, and
I definitely would want to file something to get the tax money
on that paid back, even if I had to hire somebody to do it.
My per-capita liability for the National Debt is $30,000, and
I'd be asking more than that back in taxes I've paid on
money that I haven't spent yet. I don't think that's a terribly
unusual a situation to be in. If hypothetically everyone were
in the same position, we'd more than double the National
Debt if we refunded taxes paid on unspent money to
everybody.




Another problem is that consumption tax does nothing to
tamp down what I have called the "parasitic" effect on
society of great and of inherited wealth. England has rid
herself of most of her parasitic "aristocracy". She did that
with inheritance taxes ("Death taxes" as they are called
under some propaganda constructs). England would still
have those worthless parasites drinking everybody else's
blood, if there were only income and consumption taxes.

Inherited money does mean much until you spend it.



Then give it to me! I'll say "Thank you" and even send
candy to everybody who gives me some of their
inheritance money.

I always thought I really should have been born rich,
since I'm so much better suited to the carefree life of the
obscene voluptuary (Vonnegut's phrase), than I ever
was to working for a living. One of my old roommates
got kicked out of his prior roommate's place because
he was, in the words of his Marxist roommate, a
"bourgeois parasite". I thought that was an ideally
harmonious roommate arrangement, a bourgeois
parasite and an obscene voluptuary.




<snip>
The piddling interest I lose thereby isn't
worth having to plan for and remember the quarterly
payments.

Another job for my tax guy.


Yes, but I don't have a tax guy, and it would
probably be more trouble (and annoyance) than
it's worth for me to have one.


.

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