Give us >250K households a little break here. My taxes are already borderline too complicated for self-preparation. The forms and papers seem to pile up at an exponential rate to the investments that you accumulate. I can’t even tell you what I’d be paying in 2008 taxes within a 10K margin of error under current IRS rules; I doubt anyone is going to go and grok both candidates’ plans fully enough to run the numbers thrice, one under status quo, one under McCain, and one under Obama, which is the level of specificity you seem to be asking for.
So people like me, who make about $35K a year and are living paycheck to paycheck, would pay more in taxes proportional to their income than people who make $350,000 a year? Why do you want to tax consumption, as that is what drives the economy?
It may have been a while since you’ve made $25K a year. That’s not much at all anymore. I make a lot more than that and still qualify for food stamps and medicaid on my children.
Thought I’d throw in this tidbit for the ‘$250k is not all that rich’ crowd. The 2007 U.S. Census includes information on household income quintiles. Here you can see that the bottom income of the top 20% households is $97k, the bottom income of the top 5% households is $174k. I humbly propose that if you earn more than 95% of the US households you are rich (not necessarily insanely wealthy) regardless of where you reside.
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Dividends are not paid as a percentage of the share value, they are paid as an absolute dollar amount per share
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Dividends are paid in cash, not in stock. You may have directed the account holding your shares to automatically reinvest the cash back into the same stock. You are not required to do this.
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You really did have a gain.
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This is not really any different, for tax purposes, than taking some of your salary and using it to invest in stocks. You still have to pay taxes on your salary, even if the stock investment heads south.
And generally speaking, the absolute value paid does not go down. If ABC Inc has a $1.00 per share dividend, they will move heaven and earth to continue to pay a $1.00 a share dividend, even if they stock price tanks due to poor performance. Companies do NOT like to reduce dividends, because they attract more people to the stock when the price is low and therefore the dividend yield is high (also, lowering your dividend is a good way to put your stock in the toilet, something corporate senior managers and boards really don’t benefit from).
Just found this. When I tried it, it said that at my income it would be a wash, but can some of you try it with your upper-incomes and tell us the result? Thanks.) They also link to a WaPo story that goes into a little detail.
I’d save $481 under Obama, and pay $456 more under McCain.
I tried it for all the possible salaries as a single person with no dependents.
Oddly, the bottom two brackets ($10k and $15k) save more in absolute terms than $25k-$50k. Then there’s a range around $100k who’d pay more under Obama, then you go back to getting a tax cut all the way to $250k+, at which point you don’t again.
So, if that thing is accurate, if you’re filing as a single and you’ve got no kids, you should (economically, at least) vote for Obama unless you make around $100,000 or over $250,000.
Thanks for the correction. Had to correct new accounts a couple of times when dividend reinvestment didn’t get through. You’re right, of course; that’s just how I’ve conditioned myself to view my investments. shrug
My head knows that. All my heart feels is the kick to the balls; I’ve not reached that Warren Buffet zen-state. Money lost, even only on paper, still hurts a lot, as all the homeowners who are upside down on mortgages know.
Taxes, however, aren’t based on if you “feel” you are better off than before, or if you are “emotionally ready” to hand over your hard earned (hard won, hard invested) cash over to the government. If they were, I’m not sure we’d fund much in government. Taxes are structured to be “fair” when we really can’t agree on what “fair” is - so there is a lot of compromise. But to be fair, we DO try and be as objective as possible - dividends are objectively measurable.
I don’t think McCain supporters (or, more accurate to your OP, anti-Obamists) will vote for not-Obama because of taxes out of any knowledge of specific tax increases… i.e., I don’t believe people are thinking, “well, if Obama was only going to raise my taxes by $8,000 a year, I’d vote for him, but $10k? forget that!” and voting for not-Obama.
My guess would be that they are more opposed to the general idea that Obama is flat-out telling them he’s going to charge them more in taxes, and McCain isn’t. Not to say that he won’t; everybody remembers “read my lips.”
But it acknowledges that the Republicans are taking less of it from me.
Everyone also remembers the President who said that, and who had huge public approval ratings, going down in defeat because he reneged on that promise.
Which suggests it’s not likely to happen again. (At least in a first-term president, I’ll cynically add.)
Which only means that you can offset against other capital gains (if you have any), or a small amount against income, thereby saving 15% capital gains tax plus your state tax. So you “only” lose about 80% of the fall in value.
Actually that’s pretty much what the people at the party I was at last night specifically said.
I’m wondering if one candidate or the other will actually create an environment where it’s more likely for me to make $250,000 a year. I mean what the hell do I care about the tax rate if there are no jobs?
Also…I’m curious as to what those over $250K people do…because I’ve been thinking about a career change.
The silence is persuading me that what we’re seeing here is simple greed, or in the case of people not yet making a quarter million per annum, either naive optimism gone wild or a very loose grasp on reality. If I’d gotten a few honest estimates (i.e., “I figure it would cost me $ 4,000 next year to have Obama elected,” ) then we would know the price of patriotism, integrity, country first, etc.
Household income - two income family with investments…
You can carry over the loss to subsequent years/ Believe me, I did a lot of this after the bubble burst. I just recently used up all my losses.
As for me, I’m getting pretty close, but don’t mind paying some more taxes to try to heal the growing inequality, which is hurting the country in lots of ways. If Obama’s cut, and other methods, drive up demand I’ll make far more on an improving market than I lose on increased taxes.
Not a lot of people make over $250K a year…period.
The people at the party I was at last night pretty much all do (including my GF and I combined). But we all work in finance or technology in New York City. Anyhow, while we were sitting around on some swanky Upper West Side roof deck with our wine and cheese crapping in our golden toilets, most of them were thinking it would cost us like half our income to have Obama.
Realistically, neither candidate is terrible and both are probably full of shit. So people vote with their pocketbooks.
Damn right, and proud of it.
/s/ Greedy SOB
I (my spouse and me) made about $300k last year, probably incrementally more this year. I don’t have a problem with paying taxes on what I make, either now or under Obama. What ever happened to everyone in this country pitching in to make thinks better? We’re at war, right? Shouldn’t everyone, even me, sacrifice?
In any case, I expect under Obama I’ll pay (percentage-wise) about what I would have payed in taxes in the '90’s, which is less than I would have in the '80’s, and is a great deal less than I would have payed in the '70’s. If rich folk (me!??) could man up 20 years ago, why should I do less now?
Anyone who fears tax increases under Obama is a schlemiel – taxes will increase incrementally, big deal, but will be much much less (percentage) than what was payed 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Man up!