• sturlabragason@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I keep posting the same comment. These people are robbing all of us of our prosperity. We could all be living in utopia…

    Thieves!

    • blindbunny@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      They are deciding our standard of living.

      “This Is What Our Ruling Class Has Decided Will Be Normal” -Aaron Bushnell

    • OberonSwanson@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Meanwhile, my long disabled cousin just started receiving SSI after 2 years of them dragging their feet. 2 months in, he now has them again, requesting pension forms, paystubs for work, unemployment compensation forms and life insurance policies. All things he already reported he never had due to his disability. It’s like they’ve suddenly believed things changed in that time window. The whole system seems to be broken, which might be intentional.

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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    4 months ago

    Warren Buffet is hypocritical piece of shit.

    No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes.

    That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.

    • ObjectivityIncarnate@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      My “true tax rate” is a low single digit number too, if you measure it the same way, and I make ~$50k a year.

      It’s extremely disingenuous to talk about taxes paid as a percentage of income, and as a percentage of total wealth/net worth, in the same breath, as if they are anywhere near the same thing.

      It’s also extremely disingenuous to say someone is ‘avoiding tax’ by not paying tax on their unrealized gains in net worth. He doesn’t OWE any tax on that. NOBODY in the US does.

      This is like calling someone a draft dodger, who was never drafted, lol.

  • Lemming6969@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    How can they offset earnings with investment losses when the maximum is like $3000/year from that method?

      • Lemming6969@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Business loss should not be able to be used against personal income though. Business income and business taxes and business expenses for executives is a whole other can of worms, but that shouldn’t affect “income” and tax offsets.

        • Leeks@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The uber rich spending is generally via “business expenses”.

          For example: Elon doesn’t own his private jets, SpaceX does. When he takes it down to Hawaii for a 15 minute investor meeting followed by hanging out with them for the weekend at the nicest hotels with all the fixings and flys back, that’s all business expenses that he “derived no personal benefit from”, so SpaceX writes it all off as a business expense, thus reducing their tax burden and he never personally gets taxed for it.

          A less egregious example that happens considerably more: a person has a rental property that resides between their normal living area, which they consider the “home office”, and an area of interest they travel too. They go to the area of interest, but make sure to stop by the rental on the way there and back. The milage from the home to the rental is business miles, and thus they can deduct the travel expense from any business incomes.

          I am not advocating for any of those, but it doesn’t really matter if these business expenses are legal because the IRS doesn’t have a great way to determine these minor abuses, and certainly doesn’t have the people power to track it down.