Yet you fail to explain or refute what I wrote.

I notice you also failed to respond to my explination of how your statement is flawed, I understand that you don't wish to accept the facts because it means you are incorrect and you don't wish to be incorrect. Once you exceed 200k those benifits you say the rich get does not exist. Congress says once you make 200k or more you don't need the breaks the poor get. It is easy to look up, since it is a public law. Not to jump onto the your retarded bandwagon but if you don't get the deduction then you have to understand simple math, $20 is more than $0. Your argument falls apart because you claim the rich are getting something they don't get and using that as your point that the tax system is unfair to the poor. If a person is paying 35% taxes they get no deductions. Next time you look up on line look up AMT alternative minimum tax, so even if you owe no taxes based on your income and deductions you have to pay the AMT which wipes out your deductions. This added tax kicks in at 200k earned income. Also, you don't get 20 cents on the dollar or 35 cents on the dollar with you deductions. you get a percentage of that 20 cents or 35 cents back not the full amount back.

I will give you an example if you make 31k a year plus you own a business IRS takes $2,900 from you. With that business if I claim that I have $10,000 in business expenses and no profit I will get back $2,900 that is 600 less than 35% if I make 75k and have 10k in business expenses and no profit I get back 7,900 dollars. If I make 200k and have 10k in business expenses and no profit I get a tax return of $500 Where is my 35%? If I make 210k and my business had 10k in business expenses and no profit, I get a tax return of $0 because my adjusted gross income is over 200k.

Since I gave no insult I hope you can answer me without insult.

what is this fucking X, give me an EXAMPLE! you can't because it doesn't exist!

Relax my friend, He can not give an example because he already has, to the best of his ability. He is repeating crap he read somewhere but does not understand it so to get by he is being as indistinct as possible in hopes of saying that you and I are too stupid to understand basic math. Read what I wrote above and you can see he does no know what he is writing about.

Nothing retarded about that. But what makes you think that the government is giving you something in this case? They are just taking less from you. It always was your money in the first place.

Since too much tax was collected up-front, based upon legislated regulations, they end up refunding the over-payment later. I wouldn't call that being given something. I'd call it getting MY money back!

I can't speak for Andrew, but here's my definition of poor:

It is when you have no assets to liquidate, and -

- you can't feed yourself or your children the minimal amount necessary for healthy living.

- you can't afford minimal shelter for you and your family.

- you can't provide clean clothing that more or less fits for your children and keeps them warm and dry.

- you lack the minimal resources required to obtain better employment. This includes clothing, transportation, communications (phone, internet, fax, mail, etc)

It is not when -

- you have to take the bus to work because you can't afford a car.

- you can only afford one vacation per year.

- you have to sell cherished assets in order to take proper care of your family.

- you have to use the library computer to look for work.

- you can't afford some non-necessity of life that you would like.

- you can't afford to sustain your past habits (smoke/drink/drugs).

- you have to buy food at the grocery store, walk 1/2 mile home, cook your dinner for yourself, and clean up afterwards.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

I think you are being too generous, I am classified as living in "poverty" according to USA government standards...

- you have to take the bus to work because you can't afford a car.

- I have my own car.

- you can only afford one vacation per year.

- I don't take any vacations. its a waste of money

- you have to sell cherished assets in order to take proper care of your family.

- never had to do that.

- you have to use the library computer to look for work.

- ha, I have SEVERAL computers. on a 60$ a month 20mbps/5mbps fiber connection (FIOS)

- you can't afford some non-necessity of life that you would like.

- well... I can't really afford a 200$ 60GB super fast SSD right now, or an i7 rig upgrade... but I have just ordered a used Q9400 CPU from ebay for 165$, I will swap it for my Q6600 and sell mine (for about 130-140$ from what i am seeing on ebay), the total cost of 25$ will be balanced by my electricity savings from going from 65nm to 45nm CPU, which amount to about 9 watts less on idle for those SPECIFIC MODELS according to benchmarks, at about 5 hours an average a day it should save me almost 20 dollars a year. while being 15% faster than current CPU. Sure its not a 400$ i7 upgrade (for another 20% or so over the Q9400) but you know what, I can live with that.

- you can't afford to sustain your past habits (smoke/drink/drugs).

- Ha, I never touch those things... but yes this is definitely an issue for the "poor". My first job while still in highschool was at a kwikkar... I was doing minimum wage then... most my coworkers were having problems making their child support payments yet went through 2 packs of smokes at least a 6 pack of beer a day... they often burned more money on those three DURING WORK than I actually made. so i can understand how easy it is to be "poor"... lets see, 10$ a day on smokes, 365 days a year, thats 3650$ a year on smokes... add beer... add child support... add illegal drugs... whoops they are POOR... oh they still gotta buy that HD TV of course...

- you have to buy food at the grocery store, walk 1/2 mile home, cook your dinner for yourself, and clean up afterwards.

- Only reason I stopping paying a maid is because it was bothering me to have a stranger go through my stuff... 100$ a month was entirely doable. well ok, i was also trying to save money... Its not fun but I clean after myself now.

That's pretty much a more eloquent version of what my answer would have been:

The closest I have ever been to being poor was when I shared a room in a hostel with three others while trying to find a job. And no, I didn't have a mobile phone. I went to the post office to call companies if I didn't call in person.

I am still very good friends with the hostel land lord who helped me a lot.

And my first flat mate was one of my room mates from the hostel as well.

I didn't get any government money during that time. I was too busy finding a job and didn't have time to figure out how to apply for aid.

I had my own business, I could afford the rent on the property but not the rent for an appartment so I slept in the car wash, my food budget was 75 cents a day. I could afford one large grape drink and a package of zingers. I did this for a year and a half until buiness imporved for me to share and apartment with two other guys, Winters in Kansas City were not the best when living in a carwash with no heat. We slept on the floor, and pooled our money so we could afford two meals a day. They were my first two employees. That is right the rich employer took advantage of his employees. 40 years later I am the badguy because I own several businesses and pay my employees well. With the tax situation the way it is I will have to start letting people go unless business improves, I have already told them the bonuses I paid last year might not happen this year. My newest employee got a 2800 dollar bonus after taxes (I paid the taxes). She really liked working for me but now I might have to let her go. To add insult to injury I get told that I get some sort of kickback from the government of 35 cents on the dollar.

Now THAT'S getting closer to "poor".

At least I had a bed.

I had a board on top of two 55 gallon drums it was 10 inches wide, no blankes or pillow.

Luxury!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13JK5kChbRw

btw, as a funny aside... my employer of 2008 had me down as a "contractor" and gave me a 1099 instead of W2... i had to pay quite a lot in taxes despite making a pittance, and that also means no unemployment... I haven't received a cent from the government, but i have been paying it. despite being so called "poor"... maybe if i stopped working, had some illegitimate children, got a drug habbit or two...

I can't wait to be rich, I can buy all the things I have ever wanted but never had, friends, a mother who will claim me in public.

Your suggestion is on that caued most of Europe to have second thoughts about the government taking care of everyone. The rich people started to bail out of the country because of the high taxes. Once they lost a majority of rich people the governments could not pay for all the things they promissed. President Obama is makeing the same promisses that Europe tried and failed 3 decades ago. The real problem is that if the government took all money earned by rich people in a single year it only ammounts to 56 billion dollars. Our president has already commited us to spend 13 trillion dollars this year. Where is the money coming from to pay for it? We have reached the tipping point where the government is spending more than it makes or could possibly make and there are few countries willing to lend us the money to fill the gap. NY State raised taxes on the rich and they started moving out of the state meaning that now they don't get any money from those that left. My companies live within their means, the government should learn to do the same thing.

Hmm looks like it was the first one afterall...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_deduction - wow, what do you know? Tax deductions do exist!

Lost the one argument so decided to try a different one?

On 16th July 2008 at 14:56 and 34 seconds, Joe gave $10,076.23 in cash to his local church that was providing relief to disaster victims in Illinois. Joe earns $250,000 a year in his job as a plumber.

Meanwhile on the 13th of July 2008 at 15:23 and 29 seconds, Jill gave $10,076.23 in cash to her local church that was providing relief to disaster victims in Illinois. Jill earns $25,000 a year in her job as a plumber.

Guess who was given the most money by the government as a result of their donation.

If Jill made $25, 000.00 then she paid zero taxes, and was returned everything she paid into the system. Sounds like she made a bad choice giving away a huge portion of her money. So you want to reward people this irresponsible?

Joe seems prudent, giving within his means, but he'll pay far more taxes anyway.

Being 2008 years old you should get it by now.

There you have it, absolute proof of the thickness of aeortar's skull - neither was 'given' any money by the government.

And?  A tax deduction isn't some loophole.
 

Neither.  The government didn't give either any money.

ok.. so joe paid taxes on 240K, jill paid taxes on 15K... and? (lets forget about the whole "no deductions if you make over 200k thing)...

IT IS NOT GIVING if they just take less then you would have OTHERWISE... Joe STILL pays much more then jill in taxes, both percentage wise and in absolute dollar amount... so how was he given money? he was merely taken from less than they otherwise "intended"... wow, I must be the most generous man on earth, I give so much to homeless people, every time I see one I consider beating him up and robbing him of everything he owns, including his clothes, and yet I decide not to in the end which in your world means I am "giving" him money, clothes, and food and a half drunk bottle of booze.

I paid 1400 Euros for dental treatments last year.

Of those 1400 roughly 50% were covered by my insurance.

The remaining 705 Euro could be deducted.

I filled out a Web form on the Irish tax office's Web site and a few days later 288 Euro appeared on my account.

That means that I was able to deduct those 705 at my 41% tax rate and ultimately overpaid taxes since I was originally taxes for income which I didn't owe taxes for (because that income went towards dentists' bills).

The tax office paid me back MY MONEY a few months after they took it from me.

At what point did the government GIVE me money?

You still have failed to refute what I wrote.

I went to the site and saw nothing that proves your point.

The answer is neither. At best each one gets back 25% of the donated money as long as it does not exceed their income. All te donations do is adjust the gross income before it is taxed. Poor Jill gets only what was withheld not a penny more. Poor Joe reduces his adjusted gross income but because he went over the 200k threshold he has to pay the AMT which will add another20k or so in taxes.

What you fail to understand is that it is not the government's money it is thier money and the refund is the over payment of taxes. Are you suggesting that a tax refund is the government giving people money?

Then who did? Without that donation the money would be used by the government to fund something (say a new road, or a bankers job), but because of that donation the government lets Joe spend it instead. Or are you just arguing semantics, that is, either that because the government hasn't sent Joe a cheque for that amount (instead prefering to make things far simpler by just netting off the amount they owe Joe against the amount Joe owes them) that they haven't given it to him, Or that even when Joe gives that money to the government it is still his not theirs, and so he can't be given what is already his and you'd instead use some other phrase to describe how he ends up with $3k more money to spend.

Regardless of what semantics you try to argue though, Joe now has ~$3k more to spend thanks to the government. Jill meanwhile gets ~$1k more to spend thanks to the government, even though they both gave the same amount of money. Joe gets more to spend as a result of the amount spent than Jill because 3>1.

I don't know why I bother trying to explain this to you when you seem to have such difficulty with even the simplist of concepts, but here goes:

You go to your local shop which offers a 'buy now, pay next week' service, and you buy $100 of food. After buying the food, you go and give $10 of it to a homeless person. The next day you go to that shop and the owner comes out, applauds you for how you helped the homeless person, and gives you $5. Now just so I can see what part of this you're not understanding, there are two scenarios. A: you tell the owner he can just put the $5 against the $100 you owe him to make things simpler, so that now you owe him $95. B: You take the $5 in cash and thank him.

Now, would you accept you have been given money in either of those situations?

and without me robbing them homeless people would use their money to buy food and drugs... I just keep on giving to the homeless by not robbing them.

and if joe DONATED THE MONEY he isn't spending it, its not his anymore.

Choosing not to take from someone as much as you COULD have taken is not the same as giving. The money was inherantly JOE's, not the Government's. You assume all money belongs to the government, and however much it lets you keep is however much it GAVE you.

It is not semantics, it is a fundamental difference.

He's spending the money on someone else. You really will argue anything, won't you! Anyway I've had enough - I've no desire to waste any more of my time trying to explain the most basic of points to someone displaying an intellect little above that of a gnat. Argue all you want about whether giving someone money is actually giving them it, or at what point the ownership of that money changes, but at the end of the day the rich person gets $3 more to spend to the poor person's $1. If you still can't see how that $3 is more than the $1, you need your head examined.

Based on this statement I think you believe that money belongs to the government and they let us have it. In reality the money is ours, we earn it. through a social compact we agree to pay our fair share of the government in order to protect us where we can not protect ourselves. It is still our money and we send representitives to Washington in order to administer our money. They don't let us have money we let the government have money to do specific things.