In article <pagemail-030EE0.01323624022008@news.isp.giganews.com>,
Crowfoot <pagemail@swcp.com> wrote:
> > Can you point at actual calculations, as opposed to rhetoric
>
> None, I feel sure, that will satisfy you. What I've read, and will
> undoubtedly read in newer articles in the Times etc. as tax season
> advances, will very likely satisfy me, and that suffices (you may
> continue to subscribe to whatever rules of evidence you choose; I
> don't have to agree, and I don't).
Obviously you don't. You don't even have to agree that 2+2=4, let alone
choose to base your beliefs on evidence. Most people don't, much of the
time--they believe what they want to believe.
>
> Are you seriously telling me that tax havens for the rich are a fairy
> tale?
Nope. Indeed I said the contrary earlier in this exchange.
> Invented by my accountant and my financial advisor, right?
> They're just making up stories to amuse me? And that rich people
> and corporations don't avail themselves of same?
Of course they do. But those don't get their tax burden below that of
people who pay no taxes--i.e., for federal income tax, essentially all
of the poor. Most of the time they don't even get their taxes close to
to zero. The existence of loopholes means that taxes are less graduated
in practice than on paper--they don't mean that they aren't graduated in
practice.
> I would tell you
> the story of my brother in law and his law firm's collapse over tax
> issues, the burden of which fell upon him and other new associates
> because the longtime Boss partner had carefully sequestered his
> massive assets in accounts out of the country which are, deliberately,
> beyond the reach of legal judgments, taxes, or any other penalty
> imposition. If you believe that this sort of thing is rare, you are,
> IMO, wildly naive. I don't need "calculations" based on self-
> serving fake figures to tell me that the individual and corporate rich
> are wonderfully endowed with loopholes of which
> they take full advantage.
That there are loopholes and that people take advantage of them doesn't
answer the question--allowing for all loopholes that exist, what
fraction of people's income goes to taxes, as a function of income. You
have no basis for an opinion on that question--but know what the answer
has to be.
Or in other words, you have no data to support your belief, and if you
saw any data to the contrary you wouldn't believe it.
> Congress regularly churns this stuff to
> the surface, with figures and examples. Look 'em up yourself, but
> don't expect me to waste my time. You are firmly set against being
> persuaded by any evidence proferred. I've gotten entangled in
> arguments with this mindset before, and it's a waste of time -- which
> I do not propose to embark on.
You have offered no evidence--zero. I gave you a link to the IRS
figures, and you ignored it. You know what you want to believe, and you
are determined to believe it.
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
