> Olin wrote:
>>> It's a different kind of tax Olin....and the average "wage slave" as
>>> you call them is only a wage slave because they are paying taxes in the
>>> first place.
>>>
>>
>> When stock options are used in lieu of actual salary, it's not only "the
>> same," it's a blatant use of lobbying efforts and the will of Congress to
>> circumvent the payment of taxes according to the codes. I'm certainly no
>> economist, but income deferred to stock options sure looks like income to
>> me.
>
> So do you actually know anything about stock options? Seriously,
> there are two types, ISO and NQ. Either type has no value until
> exercised. In the case of ISOs, the difference between what one pays
> and what one sells them for is considered a capital gain, either long
> or short term. The other type, the NQ which seems more common nowadays
> considers the price one pays subtracted from fair market value on the
> day they are sold and considers the result as ordinary income, taxable
> at ones tax rate for that year. My stock options from Tandem/Compaq
> days were ISOs but got mostly converted to NQ with the HP merger. They
> are mostly worthless now, especially the largest block that I was given
> after working many extra hours on a project for almost a year. My cost
> basis would be $79/share....with HP not even coming close for the
> duration. In any case, the Incentive Stock Options (ISOs) were intended
> to reward performance at a time when that was preferred to political
> correctness and back stabbing as a means of advancing through the
> corporate ranks. So, stock options only have meaning if the company
> increases the stock price. Say, Mark Hurd gets a signon stock option
> @ $25 a share for 10,000 shares. The $25 price is the price on the
> day that the options were granted. If Mark Hurd increases the price to
> $50 a share, or it somehow increases during his period for exercise,
> then IF he exercises he will make a pile of money that will be taxed
> either at normal income rates or at 15%% if he gets ISOs. This gives
> Hurd an incentive to increase the stock price. And further, the income
> does not accrue until Hurd sells. He may buy up his shares and not
> sell until years later.
>
Yeah, Joseph, I actually do know something about stock options. They're
worthless until cashed in. And again, what is happening with many CEOs now
is they're being "paid" with those stock options, rather than salary. It
was, is and will always be a way to dodge paying the tax current law
requires.
Not arguing whether they SHOULD have to pay or not, merely arguing it's
avoiding what current law says.
>>
>>>> Seeing as how both conservatives and more than a few libertarians have
>>>> argued for flat taxes over the years at different times, it would
>>>> surely seem the tables have turned entirely, with lower income folks
>>>> paying a significantly higher percentage of their income to taxes.
>>> Well, the trouble with the label libertarian is that anybody can call
>>> themselves one and then go off making claims that a "flat tax" is fair.
>>> By that definition Neil Boortz is a libertarian....even claims the
>>> label. It makes about as much sense as calling Bush a conservative.
>>>
>>
>> Hey, I'm just telling you the arguments that have been made to me by
>> folks who claim to be various things.
>
> Yeah, there's a lot of that going around. That's one reason why I
> ask people to explain what they really mean when they use the labels
> liberal and conservative. People have referred to Bush as a conservative
> and Clinton a liberal and to me those labels don't fit at all.
>
Nope. Nor do either fit Hillary, who began life as a republican, has sat on
the boards of corporations some consider rather nefarious and did, in point
of fact, support the moronic war in Iraq.
>
>> Bush, of course, calls himself a "compassionate conservative," something
>> Goldberg took issue with... not so much Bush, but the "compassionate"
>> part. This conservative pundit called that, "compassionate
>> conservativism" about the scariest thing he'd ever heard of.
>
> Who is Goldberg? Whoopie or Jonah? Somebody else?? It's worth noting
> that if you are referring to Jonah Goldberg, he's one of the staunchest
> of the neo-cons (think PNAC from the AEI) around.
>
Sorry... Jonah, and I mistakenly assumed you'd read or heard of his latest
book that even his partner has panned. He is, most assuredly, a piece of
work.
>>> The inheritance tax is absolutely totally unethical, even by the
>>> standards of the collectivists running this show. A person pays taxes
>>> on his assets his entire life and then when he dies, the ferals claim
>>> to own rights to what he had left over. Sort of flies in the face of
>>> the approach of saving and taking responsibility for one's economic
>>> actions.
>>>
>>
>> Of course it is. And, that's precisely why Texas made the FLOOR for
>> inheritance taxes something on the order of a million bucks several years
>> ago. It's the same in several other states, and has gone up some since
>> then in some places.
>
> Should be $1000 trillion. Besides, what Texas does is
> irrelevant...the inheritance tax is a federal tax.
>
Again, that's as may be. The reality is what it is, and using scare tactics
on folks it'll never affect is, not to put too fine a point on it, wrong on
even more levels than the tax itself.
>>> It's not a minor issue...it's another example of the outright theft
>>> by government that so many collectivists feel is justified.
>>>
>>
>> Joseph, when my mother passed away a few years back, she left a small
>> estate... probably about a hundred grand en toto. That was divided up
>> between my son and myself. Neither of us even drew the slightest interest
>> whatsoever from the State of Texas, the State of Tennessee OR Uncle
>> Sugar. No tax due on that inheritance at all. Not one single penny.
>
> When my mother passed away, we had to write a check for $165K to the
> ferals. At the time, anything beyond $650 was taxed at a 65%% rate. Do
> the math. My mother worked her ass off being in her late teens when the
> depression started and by her death had accumulated significant assets
> by her own hard work and savings. So what exactly did the "collective"
> do to deserve that money (which was in 1989 dollars). She knew the value
> of saving, not getting into debt, investing wisely and so forth. So
> again, why is it that was rewarded by a theft of assets????
>
I guess this makes the third or fourth time I've felt the need to say this.
I AGREE WITH YOU REGARDING the eventual abolishment of the inheritance tax.
Point was, and remains, that for most of us it is no longer an issue. That
your family had to write a check on an estate that is now well under the
floor is also wrong, but it has nothing to do with the law today.
>>
>> You seem so busy calling all who disagree with you "collectivists," that
>> I'm not sure you're paying attention to the issue at hand. When Shrub
>> pushed that that through, it was at the significant insistence of the
>> Walton family with an even more significant amount of lobbying money
>> spent, so they could have more than seventy five billion dollars left
>> over after inheritance taxes. When Shrub brought it up, it might, and I
>> stress might, have affected somewhere between two and five percent of
>> Americans.
>
> The principle is the same if it's $1 or $79 billion. There is no
> ethical defense for the principle of stealing that money, regardless
> of amount upon an individual's death. The reason this is correctly
> labeled collectivist is that people who believe that "the people" have
> some right to an individual's money upon his or her death do so on the
> basis of the collective whole somehow deserving the wealth of others.
> Argue the point...now that I have explained why this is a collectivist
> action, you can refute that if you can.
>
For the fifth (or so) time, I've not argued that the inheritance tax was
right OR defensible. What I've argued is really very simple. Using scare
tactics to benefit one while providing an illusion of protection to many who
won't be affected is duplicitious at best.
>
>> Now, if you want to argue that inheritance taxes should be done away with
>> entirely, I'm all right there with you, but that was NOT what Shrub was
>> arguing. He was arguing that the puny (by comparison) estate of us all
>> was in jeopardy from the tax man, when simply put, that was not and is
>> not the case.
>
> Bush aside, I am arguing principle. Bush does not count. His
> justifications for his actions are pathetic. It seems that you agree
> that death taxes should be abolished, but because Bush did it
> specifically to the benefit of Sam Walton's heirs, does that somehow
> change the principle???
>
And, frankly, Joseph, you can argue principle to the ends of the earth. It
does not change the simple fact that the inheritance tax is still an issue
for a few. You know as well as anybody that political change is abysmally
slow, but there have been improvements on that issue and IMHO there should
be many more to come. But it simply ain't gonna happen by next weekend.
>>> But that's a totally different issue, Olin. In the case of CEOs being
>>> rewarded, it is done with assets of a "private" company, not by stealing
>>> dollars from citizens. And while you keep making the point that these
>>> CEOs are making many times what ordinary employees make, that too has
>>> little relevance to the issue. Each individual employee has made a
>>> decision to work for the agreed upon salary....and he or she is free
>>> to quit. The owners of the company, e.g. the shareholders, are the only
>>> ones who have a legitimate say in stopping such abuses.
>>>
>>
>> And more than a few shareholders are arguing that very thing. And no,
>> it's NOT the same thing. If it were, then bonuses would also be taxed as
>> capital gains, seeing as how they're not a normal part of your
>> compensation? Ever get one? Ever see it taxed at anything other than the
>> going rate.
>
> Bonuses are considered ordinary income. Taxed at the normal rate. The
> NQ stock options are also considered ordinary income. ISOs are taxed as
> capital gains.
>>
>> Sorry, but income is income is income is income, ad infinitum.
>
> So, in effect you are saying that any money made through investments
> regardless of who makes it should be taxed as ordinary income? Should
> people also be paying SS and Medicare on it as well? (by the way, for
> NQ stock options, SS and Medicare ARE deducted).
>
Given that there's a ceiling for SS taxes, that's something of a straw man.
But yeah, what I'm saying is IF you're gonna have a tax system, the only
equitable and honest target is income. Property ain't it, because you and I
both know people, rich and poor, who do not own the first speck of dirt.
Yeah, they pay some through rentals, but there's just no way ALL the costs
of being a landlord always get passed through to the renter. Value added and
sales taxes are even more regressive than property taxes, as they have a far
greater impact on lower incomes.
>
>> If I'm making $100 K, and you're the CEO, knocking down a million a year
>> in stock options, you damned well be paying something other than fifteen
>> percent to my thirty two percent withholding.
>
> Unless things have changed since I retired in 2005, you will not be
> paying 32%% in FIT on $100K. However, between SS and Medicare you and
> your employer will be ponying up over 15%%......
>
My employers have already ponied up their share of SS. The day I retire,
they're done. As for Medicare, I really figure I'm pretty much on my own in
that regard, seeing as how it pays little enough that many things at the
doc's office are not even offered. Insurance? That's a frigging joke, and an
expensive one that doesn't want to ever give anything back, even though
they've claimed they would in the policy they've sold.
