The difference is striking and was covered early in the thread.
Yes, actually, assuming that his “work” was actually beneficial. It would mean he contributed to society, we rewarded him with money, which is a promise to give other goods and services later, and then he didn’t use it. So society got something for nothing.
Hard to say.
Right, he’d be taxed on new money he got. This is the difference. It’s the only difference people have pointed out. I’m not sorry your cartoonish vision of your opponents has let you down, but you can’t draw us back into it.
Sorry for being vehement; my relatives have chosen the last two years to suddenly start dying on me, and I’ve had to start wading hip-deep through the legalese of “what the hell do you do with all this crap when there’s no will and no one knows what to do with anything?”
From what I can tell, zero people in this thread are advocating for a wealth tax, but don’t let that get in the way of him railing against all zero of us!
If you’re the one dealing with your relatives’ estates, then they didn’t die without heirs. I think you mean they died intestate.
Investing in municipal bonds helps everyone (well, at least people in that locality) just like paying taxes. I don’t really see how it’s a bad thing when you do that.
I’ve had to deal with the case of “what if they don’t name heirs, but there are, and absolutely no one wants the assets?”, such as, the house. Same net effect from a legal standpoint.
Well I don’t either, but apparently you can find plenty of left-leaning people who call it a “tax dodge,” “loophole for the wealthy,” and even one dipshit financial blogger who called it “like an onshore Cayman Islands bank.” :rolleyes:
In 2004, we learned that Mrs. Heinz-Kerry had pretty much all of her rather substantial fortune in municipal bonds, basically to help Pittsburgh. I don’t remember a lot of complaints, but I’m sure there are some in the US Needs an Enema type sites.
In fact, the articles and clamor have all been about Romney’s 13.9% tax rate related to his income. I’ve seen nothing computing his tax as a percentage of his wealth.
How does it help? A municipality issues bonds to pay for things they can’t afford, because they lack tax revenue. The bonds are then paid back with interest, where the interest is paid for from tax revenue. In essence, investing in tax free municipal bonds is like having a negative tax rate–the interest earned comes from tax payers.
If instead Bricker was paying more in local taxes, the bonds wouldn’t be needed.
I read recently Ross Pero also has most of his vast wealth in municipal bonds. When you think of all the shit around here, maybe the US does need an enema.
ETA Wow, Googling “the US needs an enema” is, uh, interesting.
Good to know, certainly explains a lot the confusion you seem to have with the English language. You may be shocked to learn that those two sentences are not the same.
Then again, you will probably misunderstand that as well and assume I’m talking about unicorns.
