Is there any way to make TESC go faster?

[ryoder]

Ok ok one more post...

What income group pays the most federal income taxes today?

The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shoul dered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

Guess Who Really Pays the Taxes — The American Magazine

[skyfall123]

Ryan I'm glad to see you sticking with it, I expect nothing less.

If you go to table 3 here Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power you will see that the same 1% that pay 37% of the taxes also own 34.6% of the wealth in the United States. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we switch to a wealth tax. But the correlation of the percentage they pay in conjunction to their overall wealth does not strike me as grossly unfair.

When you stop and look at the top 400 wealthiest Americans, you see that in 2008 they paid an effective tax rate of 18.11%. Richest 400 Took Record Share Of Capital Gains During Market Meltdown Year - Forbes You remember when Warren Buffet said that he should pay higher taxes since his secretary who made $60,000 paid more in tax (as a percentage) then him?


Everyone knows that the 18.11% was not a wealth tax based on overall wealth.....but combined how much are those 400 worth? Estimates come in at around 1.3 trillion dollars....which is roughly the same as 50% of all Americans combined (as fact checked here) PolitiFact Wisconsin | Michael Moore says 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined Sorry about the Michael Moore reference (I think he's a total and complete d#$%#, but I needed a fact check source)

So if these 400 (who are as wealthy as half of America's citizens combined) paid an effective 18.11% rate (which is reasonable)....the question I have to ask is WHICH OF THE 400 ARE PUBLICLY WHINING ABOUT PAYING TOO MUCH IN TAXES IN RELATION TO THE LOWER 50% OF THE PUBLIC THEY EQUAL IN OVERALL WEALTH?

I don't think any of them are. I know Warren Buffet isn't.....and if the wealthiest, most money savvy people in America aren't complaining about paying their fare share....why for the love of God is someone other than those 400 doing it for them? That is the real question that boggles my mind hilarious

[ryoder]

I can't argue with you Geezer. You are more wise than I am. But I do know that I will never fall prey to those wishing to turn me, a middle class working stiff, against the more productive people in our society.

[ryoder]

Any comments made after 9pm on a weekend are made under the influence of a nice Cabernet or Merlot...

[Yenisei]

I am not suggesting that the wealthy are undertaxed, but anyone who wants to know whether or not the tax burden has shifted towards the middle class should look at IRS stats on effective income tax rates and percentage of all income taxes paid by income quintile, which also show the top 10%, top 1% and top 0.1% back to 1980. They don't indicate a shift in the tax burden to the middle class, although they do indicate a decline in effective income tax rates for all. IMHO, a distinction should be drawn between people who have a high income and the super-rich, perhaps by adding a new bracket above $1 million or raising capital gains rates above 500K.

Mian, everyone who files a return gets the personal exemption whether or not they itemize. Given that state income taxes and property taxes can also be itemized, I find it hard to imagine a scenario where someone with mortgage interest deductions would not be itemizing.

[PonyGirl93]

*knocks* sorry to interrupt the bunny trail, but...

I'm so sick of waiting on TESC!! :\ They have had my CC transcript since 7/2...

Plus I have been having drama with getting enrolled. I called and the lady in the bursar office told me it was settled and I could register, so I attempted to register. Turns out I wasn't actually enrolled in Comprehensive yet, so now they added my per credit cost to my account. Now I have to call them again.

[sanantone]

I'm surprised you had problems with enrolling, but then again, I chose the enrolled options plan and it only took a couple of days to process. I'm not receiving financial aid for TESC. They shouldn't take longer than 6 weeks to evaluate your transcript. Once you're enrolled, you can pressure one of the advisors to evaluate your courses like I did instead of waiting on an evaluator. Or you can submit a ticket through the MyEdison system. I learned that emailing them is a whole lot easier (and you'll get a more accurate answer) than calling them.

[mrs.b]

*knocks* sorry to interrupt the bunny trail, but...

I'm so sick of waiting on TESC!! :\ They have had my CC transcript since 7/2...

Plus I have been having drama with getting enrolled. I called and the lady in the bursar office told me it was settled and I could register, so I attempted to register. Turns out I wasn't actually enrolled in Comprehensive yet, so now they added my per credit cost to my account. Now I have to call them again.

I'm not saying this is the same thing - you should still call to confirm - but I'm looking at my Statement of Account received a few weeks ago with Financial Aid statement, and I was charged enrollment plan fees when I originally enrolled in courses, until one week after the term started when it automatically credited those various charges and charged my account the single Comprehensive fee. It sorted itself after the term started. I'm not sure why it reads like that, but I double-checked the numbers, and the only fee I was charged (after the credits balanced) is the Comprehensive rate.

[dcan]

So if these 400 (who are as wealthy as half of America's citizens combined) paid an effective 18.11% rate (which is reasonable)....the question I have to ask is WHICH OF THE 400 ARE PUBLICLY WHINING ABOUT PAYING TOO MUCH IN TAXES IN RELATION TO THE LOWER 50% OF THE PUBLIC THEY EQUAL IN OVERALL WEALTH?

I don't think any of them are. I know Warren Buffet isn't.....and if the wealthiest, most money savvy people in America aren't complaining about paying their fare share....why for the love of God is someone other than those 400 doing it for them? That is the real question that boggles my mind hilarious

This is something I've really come to consider lately. I drank the republican kool-aid for a long time -- and I'm not suddenly a democrat, both parties are fundamentally broken and corrupted by special interests pushing their own narrow agenda at the expense of the rest of the economy. Hazlitt demolished this narrow economic focus decades ago but nobody listens. The democrats use class warfare to create a welfare state to perpetuate their voting base, and republicans as shills for the wealthy have convinced average middle-class Americans to vote against their own interests and instead vote to funnel wealth upwards instead of retaining it in their own pockets. We would also reduce (not eliminate) the credit bubble/recession cycles like the one we are going through now.

Also, a stunning set of numbers from the CBO: Total negative change in the 2001 projected federal surplus as a result of the Bush Tax Cuts? $12 Trillion

If you haven't already seen it, Dylan Ratigan's two minute "Network Moment" from last week sums it up nicely.

We’ve got a real problem…this is a mathematical fact. Tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America. Democrats aren’t doing it, republicans aren’t doing it, an entire integrated system, banking, trade and taxation, created by both parties over a period of two decades is at work on our entire country right now.

[Yenisei]

Did you actually read your source? This is what it cited from the CBO report:

"According to a recent C.B.O. report, they reduced revenue by at least $2.9 trillion below what it otherwise would have been between 2001 and 2011. Slower-than-expected growth reduced revenue by another $3.5 trillion.
Spending was $5.6 trillion higher than the C.B.O. anticipated for a total fiscal turnaround of $12 trillion. That is how a $6 trillion projected surplus turned into a cumulative deficit of $6 trillion."