Social Security Reform

Allowing people to have more control over where their retirement money is invested is another issue that still needs to be addressed. Although in the long term, investing retirement money in the stock market is not as risky as it would seem from the past few years’ performance, I am no more a fan of investing retirement money in the stock market than non-retirement money. There are plenty of other much safer investment vehicles that will be more certain to provide for future years. However, given a choice between the Federal Social Security Ponzi scheme and other alternatives, I would have more confidence in lottery tickets than in entrusting any more money to our incompetent corrupt rulers in DC.

KMK

Another Questionable Poll

I have always been skeptical about public opinion polls for several reasons. The fact that the pollsters slant their questions in such a way as to achieve desired results is a big reason not to trust the conclusions. This poll that claims that a majority of people don’t believe that taxes are too high in this country has its own built-in idiocy. One indicator that the respondents weren’t exactly Mensa material is the explanation that, because they had too much tax withheld from their paychecks and thus received refunds, their taxes aren’t high.

KMK

The latest tax policy of the DemonRats.

Estate Tax Is Still An Issue

With all of the current focus on proposed changes to the income tax laws, such as making corporate dividends tax free, we need to remember that the issue of repealing the estate (aka death or inheritance) tax is still too important to overlook. The threshold for taxable estates will be getting higher each year until the tax doesn’t apply to anyone passing away in 2010. However, the tax will pop back to life in 2011, with a taxable threshold of one million dollars, the same as it is right now.

There are still plenty of people, such as Bill Gates, Sr, who support the concept of having the government redistribute all wealth when people pass on. Whether this endorsement of a plank in the Communist Manifesto means Mr. Gates is a full fledged commie, I don’t know. I do know that such confiscation of personal wealth is wrong. I haven’t heard Bill Gates, Jr. state his opinion on his father’s leftist views; but I doubt he is too worried. He has already protected his wealth through a series of trusts and foundations in the same manner as the Kennedy Klan did to preserve Joseph Kennedy’s bootlegging and stock scam fortune for his descendents. Such tactics have enabled Teddy Kennedy to safely espouse confiscatory taxes on everybody else.

KMK

Poor On Purpose

It is true that there has long been a specialty in the financial arena called impoverishment planning. I must admit that I’ve done my share in helping clients arrange things so that they could qualify for certain government programs, such as Medicaid. I can’t agree with the sentiment of this writer that this kind of thing is an evil scam to rip off the taxpayers.

All most people want is to be treated no worse than illegal immigrants. Is it fair that millions of people from other countries are allowed to sneak into the United States and then receive absolutely free medical care and education for their entire families for the rest of their lives, while people who have lived, worked and paid taxes in this country for 60 or 70 years are not eligible for the same assistance because they happen to own a home or a car?

KMK

Marriage Penalty

Don’t shoot the messenger. Whenever I point out some of the penalties built into our tax system for married couples, I receive a lot of hate mail claiming that I am encouraging people to get divorced just to save on their taxes. That’s not true. I merely point out the facts and let each couple decide for themselves how much extra they are willing to pay for the privilege of being married.

Here are some more of the tax breaks for unmarried couples. If you agree with me that it is insane to penalize people for being married, let your elected rulers know and don’t accept that “we can’t afford to fix it” crap from them as an excuse. If they can afford to give themselves raises and take all of their friends on expensive junkets around the world, they can surely afford to let married people pay the same taxes as single folks.

There is a misconception that the current Bush tax proposals will eliminate the marriage penalty. Not even close. It will allow a small deduction for married couples who both have employment income, similar to the miniscule one we had for a few years. It does very little to balance things out. The only true elimination of the marriage penalty would be to allow people to have their taxes computed in the same way as single people.

KMK

This has always been the case with computers, which is why you shouldn’t buy one that won’t be put to use immediately.

More Complication?

As should be very apparent, I have always supported the concept of eliminating double taxation of corporate income by making dividends paid either deductible by the corporation or tax free to the recipients. Bush’s tax cut proposal to make dividends tax free sounded easy enough at first. That’s why I was disappointed to see this story about possible changes to the plan. Rather than take the simple straight forward approach of just making all dividends across the board tax free to shareholders, they seem intent on adding even more complexity to the tax system for both the corporations and the stockholders by making some kinds of dividends tax free and some still taxable. What a mess this will be for everyone.

Of course, as I have observed for decades, this is just business as usual for our rulers in DC. Never make a one sentence law when a 50 page version will allow more tinkering with people’s lives. You would think that our rulers in DC are doing nothing but thinking up new ways to keep accountants busy with their never ending complicated tax law changes.

KMK

Battling for dividend tax relief