I have to give it to very rich people. They surely are inventive, at least some of them, when it comes to avoiding paying taxes.

The New York Times describes a delicious boondoggle (Help for Bad Times Now Helps Rich) by which, if you own an insurance company that collects less than $350K or so in premia, you can make it non-profit, but keep monies made on investments. This obscure provision, to assist insurers during downturns and help them grow, was little used until 1986, when Congress modified it to allow single individuals (as opposed to mutual holders) to start these "companies."

Supposedly the IRS has been approving tons of them every week...with the result that some people and corporations have now avoided hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes! The article notes that the IRS focuses on smaller tax abusers, and has moved very slowly to confront these folks even when whistle-blowers have pointed them out.

So why on earth would we need to cut taxes EVEN MORE if there are already gross loopholes like this that ALREADY allow rich people to avoid taxes (hundreds of millions of dollars worth), when working-class and middle-class people and small businesses shoulder a far higher tax burden because of the regressive tax laws. Shouldn't they be progressive and regressive? Wouldn't that help the economy even more?

And if quite a few individuals and corporations are not having to pay taxes and can invest the money to "grow" the economy, and if we are to assume that they are doing so (since if we cut taxes more they will do so even more, right?) in Dennis Hastert's words, why isn't it blooming???

[ March 31, 2003, 09:04 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

Investment news, part two.

States may aid Philip Morris over appeal

I don't believe everything Robert Kiyosaki says,

http://www.richdadsseminars.com/robert/

but where I believe he is correct: A LOT of being rich/wealthy is about following certain rules, certain ways.

In order to be rich/wealthy I think one has to step outside of preconceived notions about how personal wealth and money are created.

Of course, personal preferences and abilities for certain tasks, the history of one's nation, race, luck, and personal drive come into play, but if there didn't exist rules and laws, people would just travel casinos and bank the profits.

All that said, the insurance company efforts does seem grandiose... eek! eek!

[ April 01, 2003, 12:31 PM: Message edited by: bluebird48234 ]

Some nice boring taxtips....

If you itemize... You can give up to $25 a week to a church without a receipt. IRS can neither prove/disprove you did it, you just better belong to some church.

Ask for a receipt at the goodwill, they are often left blank for you to fill in the Fair Market Value.

Not that i advocate cheating, but it's there for eveyone if you chose to do it.

Yes, and, what does this have to do with this discussion of tax evasion by the super-rich, who are still whining because they have to pay taxes??? Even under Clinton--yes, that man--numerous corporations found ways to avoid paying ANY FEDERAL TAXES, except on transactions, at all. Enron, let us not forget, in the first year of Bush's presidency, before its spectacular bilking of California's citizens and business and its even more humongous collapse, paid almost NO taxes and STILL got a huge free giveback from Bush under his tax package. If the people and corporations that have the means to pay taxes skirt doing so, why should working-class and middle-class people, who pay a larger proportion of their incomes in taxes--all taxes and fees, from federal and state income to sales taxes, etc.--have to keep shouldering the burden? It's disgusting.

http://www.simplejoe.com/article-david-ber...o-pays-most.htm

Fantomas, you probably already know that this is characteristic and a feature of the American way.

Otherwise, how could Lynchian classism be maintained throughout the generations?

*Do you think that America would have sent elite, mostly White America to "target" Iraq?

*Certainly Iraq is not the only resources-rich nation whose president would, given the chance, would tell GWB to "put it where the sun don't shine". Hussein, unfortunately, is a Arab president of color, who speaks as such. Therefore, he gets targeted. I doubt that, in our lifetimes, a president from Eastern Europe, Australia, Scandinavia or even Turkey would be pursued the way Hussein has been pursued IN ADDITION to the propaganda campaigns against the race of the president in question.

Even President Clinton (the most likely head of state) did not step in and intervene where Rwanda was concerned, and he has lived to regret it.

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All that said, there ARE many American people of color, non-WASPs, and non-Whites who, by virtue of circumstances, wit, education, and fortutude, have "made it". This does not, nevertheless, negate the existence of the system they had to survive to BECOME wealthy or MAINTAIN the family's wealth.

[ April 03, 2003, 05:15 AM: Message edited by: bluebird48234 ]

Uh oh, both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate want to know more about this bit of shamelessness.

NY Times: Tax Shelter Draws Attention

Excerpted:

"The newly released documents show that in 2000 and 2001 one of Mr. Kellogg's insurance companies, IAT Reinsurance, avoided $78.6 million in federal taxes on its profits.

All told, during the six years from 1996 through 2001, IAT Reinsurance escaped $189 million of taxes on $539.6 million of investment profits.

Another of Mr. Kellogg's companies, SLK Reinsurance, escaped taxes of $1.3 million on profits of $3.7 million in 2000 and 2001, the documents provided last night showed.

Tax-exempt insurance companies were allowed by Congress in 1954 as a way to help farmers and others having a hard time getting insurance. The companies were supposed to be tiny: Congress allowed the exemption only if the insurance companies collected less than $350,000 in premiums.

But there is a loophole: Congress did not limit the assets these insurance companies could own and invest free of taxes. So the companies simply collect a small amount in premiums for a small amount of insurance. Then they set aside as reserves far more money than would ever be needed to pay claims, and invest that money tax-free."

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Figures. I am sure that there are A LOT of laws that are now obsolete; yet, they stay in because American power wants those laws for criminal (or is that read: "barely legal"?) uses.

[ April 04, 2003, 04:44 AM: Message edited by: bluebird48234 ]