It is fallacious at best to set me up as a strawman who suggested that no ones taxes will go up.
I laid out every possible situation under which someone’s likely tax bill for 2018 would actually increase their taxes (see numerous questions above) and I was told then that none of those applied.
If none of the situations asked about above apply then there is no way that someone’s federal taxes will project to be higher in 2018 then they would have been if the tax code had not changed.
They can’t both be true, the math on that is clear.
Actually they will be paying more because they are getting far less out of government for their taxes. Subsidies to tamp down healthcare costs are gone, companies are using their increased income to cut back on jobs in the developed world, public assistance is being slashed, budgets for agencies which safeguard working interests of the middle/working class are practically gone.
President Pigphucker’s tax plan led directly to a dramatic increase in my healthcare premiums of nearly 50%. So I am earning less and seeing no savings in taxes or value in the cuts.
Whilst I don’t want to send you into a tizzy my dear, maybe sit down with your husband and ask him to have a think for you, hmmm? I mean, if this Fine Gentleman thinks ur doin it rong, maybe he’d better just check those there adorable chicken-scratchings before you send 'em across to mean old Uncle Sam.
Here’s the thing - I would HAPPILY pay more taxes. I’m not anti-tax, by any means. But I want to see an increase in public services. I want to see a universal single payer system. I want to see free public college (or at least more heavily subsidized). I want to see our infrastructure fixed. I want to see a robust public welfare system that actually helps people get on their feet. I will gladly pay a larger portion of my paycheck to see that happen. But that’s not what my modest tax hike will gain me. It’s going to gain me more of our public monies going into the accounts of corporations, through tax cuts for them and in the forms of privatized public services. It’s going to continue the murder of innocent people around the world. It’s not going to help my friends, family, and neighbors who are struggling to get by every day. I don’t want to pay any more taxes if it means the rich continue to get richer and the poor continue to suffer.
I wouldn’t want to commit any logical fallacies in the midst of my sarcastic mockery, so I’ll revise.
Here’s the questions you asked:
Do you live in a high tax state? (Answer was no)
Do you have a residence that has high property taxes? (Answer was no)
Has your income increased greatly? (Answer was no)
Do you have many itemized deductions? (Answer was, “do I really need to send you my tax returns”)
Since all the tax calculators hold income to be equal for comparison, I can ignore the question of increased income.
I picked a state with low state taxes (that is, one of the states with zero income tax).
I picked an income under $100,000.
I entered $0 property tax.
I used the tax calculator you linked.
I got a tax increase.
It took me less than one minute of research on google to figure out how to accomplish this. It did involve itemized deductions.
Based on this, I can only assume you took, “Do I really have to send you my tax returns?” as a “no” rather than a “I’m exasperated with you trying to interrogate me to validate for yourself that my taxes went up when you could instead simply believe I’m not lying when I say my taxes went up.”
For some reason, you felt that the idea that a specific individual who self-identified as having increased taxes needed to be questioned even when you know a variety of circumstances that would create that result. When you didn’t have all the information you needed to make a determination you assumed they were wrong rather than accepting that you didn’t have the information.
So yes, I mocked you for being incredulous that someone’s taxes might have gone up, because you acted like a person who was incredulous that someone’s taxes went up.
I don’t understand how anyone is unable to see that the gutting of public services and the ever-growing wealth disparity between the classes is not only unsustainable, it’s detrimental to our society as a whole.
Some people like to make comparisons to places like Venezuela and Brazil, saying that our rich will eventually end up like theirs; barricaded in heavy fortresses, protected with armed guards and totally outnumbered by the starving masses.
I say that they won’t simply because of the ‘American exceptionalism’ facade.
Too many people bought into the whole carrot and stick routine, wholeheartedly; believing that if 'they just worked hard enough one they’d be rich too. ’
But that false promise is never coming to fruition; if someone isn’t rich already, then it’s likely that they never will be… and that reality is becoming more and more apparent. So is the resulting resentment, even if much of it is misplaced.
The overall game-plan may be to keep dumbing the people down, distracting them, while quietly eroding the civil liberties and rights our country is supposed to be built on, until finally everyone who isn’t part of the elite ends up incarcerated; but I strongly suspect that things will come to as head before they get that far - especially if the ‘bread’ runs out before the “circuses” are over.
It shows you how to do what I said I did on a graph. Look at a pink box. Put the numbers in the pink box into the tax calculator you linked.
You know that some people’s taxes are going up. You said it was unfair of me to suggest you didn’t. You listed circumstances in which people’s taxes would go up. I told you I got taxes to increase using one of those circumstances. Yet it’s still hard to believe?
I know that some people with high itemized deductions will have their taxes increase.*
Person on the internet said that according to tax calculators a person with high itemized deductions would have their taxes increase.
DEMAND PROOF!
What kind of mental compartmentalization results in that sequence?
* ETA: I think you know this based on the fact that you asked it as a question to determine why someone’s taxes would go up. But, like I said, you then decided they must have made a mistake despite them not telling you this wasn’t true. I assumed that’s because you assumed their refusal to answer your question meant they were wrong (rather than that you were being overbearing). I honestly don’t know what to think now.
It’s more that the rich honestly don’t care. They think we’ll be nice poor folks rather than like our counterparts in the rest of the world where the rich constantly fear getting kidnapped or worse. And having to live in bunkerized enclaves like those pictures out of Sao Paulo where there’s literally massive walls separating a poor neighborhood from a rich one. The rich in the US really don’t understand how blessed they are not to have to vet private security beyond seeing if they got their licenses in order. In a way, I want them to keep up the pressure. I want them to make everyone desperate enough to go full on French Revolution. Maybe then they’ll learn. But history should’ve done that for them, so maybe I’m being too optimistic here.
There’s only one place that is true and it is over $100K/year for a single filer. Doesn’t quite fit the narrative.
Why all this?
For me it is simply a logic puzzle. The offered fact pattern did not make sense given the bounds of the problem.
For almost all people this tax cut really is a tax cut. There are some edge cases where that isn’t true,but I covered those. (And for the folks who aren’t high earners who are getting a tax increase they are, by and large, paying an effective federal tax rate of less than 10%. If a few hundred dollars a year is crumbs…)
Let me step in and request that no one further insinuate posters are acting in bad faith. If the conversation here really is going into individual’s taxes, let’s please not assume they are making the numbers up in the first place. Refuting such claims would require more personal information than I am comfortable having on the BBS (and indeed, more than anyone should have on the BBS).
That’s baffling to me. I think it’s a good guess that the majority of people who share tools like that don’t understand them. That’s the whole reason they are interested in the tool and why they think others would be interested in the tool. They are saying, “I didn’t know how the tax plan would affect me, this tool helped me, so I thought other people might be interested too.” A smaller subset of people sharing such tools are saying, “If you are wondering how the tax plan will affect you, I know a lot about the tax plan and can tell you that this tool is legit.” Is it insulting that I don’t know the level of tax expertise a person on the internet has by their pseudonym?
I wondered if you understood the tools you linked because by saying “numbers or didn’t happen” you challenged my assertion that I got the results I claimed to, when a very basic understanding of the tools would allow a person to replicate my results easily. I described the process in it’s entirety: find pink box on Washington Post graph; type information in pink box into other tool.
This is the sequence that confused me:
I used the tools you provided to find an edge case.
You keep saying you know it is possible to do so.
You demanded proof that it was possible to do so.
You say these taxes are a logic puzzle for you. For me this conversation is a different kind of puzzle. Why would someone demand proof of a result they already know to be true and that they could replicate within a minute?
I’m pretty sure it’s a mystery I’ll take to my grave.
