Cain's 9/9/9 plan

[JollyRoger]

9 lies in 9 minutes at 9 campaign stops per day. Great plan.

 

[Antilogic]

@ JR

Retirees = we card; if you are over 50 from this date, you do not have to pay a sales tax.

Yeah, I'm certain this will go over really well with the privacy crowd. Now I have to get carded to buy anything tax-free?

I guess teens wanting to drink won't be the only ones with fake IDs.

 

[BvBPL]

Re: Clothes

My state does not apply sales tax to clothes under a certain dollar amount. An arbitrary $ figure probably as good an indication of "generic" clothes as anything else.

 

[JollyRoger]

The good news for Buffet under the Cain plan is that he wouldn't get taxed on capital gains at all.

9-9-9 in action:

If the "9-9-9" tax plan promoted by Herman Cain, a leading Republican presidential candidate, had been the law of the land last year, Warren Buffett would very likely have paid no income taxes, according to an analysis prepared for Yahoo News and The Lookout by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. At most, Buffett would have paid taxes on just 1 percent of his income.

If the plan is to impose a 9 percent tax, why would Buffett pay only 1 percent--or zero percent? Why so little?

Using information Buffett has released about his total taxable income and his effective tax rate under the current system, Melissa Labant, an accountant with the American Institute of CPAs, said that the bulk of Buffett's taxable income came from capital gains. Cain's 9-9-9 plan would eliminate taxes on capital gains.

According to Labant's rough calculation, Buffett's ordinary income, outside of capital gains, comes to around $4.9 million. At Cain's proposed rate of 9 percent, Buffett would pay around $440,000 in income tax--1.1 percent of the approximately $40 million in taxable income, after deducting for charitable giving and local taxes, Buffett earned last year.

"Last year my federal tax bill—the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf—was $6,938,744," Buffett wrote in an op-ed article in the New York Times in August. "That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income—and that's actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent."

A tax rate of 17 percent is significantly higher, of course, than a tax rate of 1 percent. But even a tax rate of 1 percent is likely too high of an estimate, Labant's calculations suggest. Cain's 9-9-9 plan allows individuals to deduct charitable contributions, and Buffett's charitable giving almost certainly exceeded $4.9 million.

If that's the case, as it appears, then Buffett would have paid no income taxes at all last year under the plan, Labant said.

Income taxes aren't the only taxes Buffett would pay under Cain's plan. There's also that 9 percent sales tax. But this, too, would likely hit him less hard than it would hit less affluent Americans. We can't calculate the exact effect of the sales tax on Buffett without knowing how much he spends each year. But as a general rule, shifting the tax system away from income and toward sales shifts more of the burden onto lower-income Americans. The poor spend a larger share of their earnings than do the rich, because they don't have the luxury of having extra money to save. (Also, Buffett is said to live quite modestly.)

So, if Buffett thinks he's getting off easy under the current tax system, he should try life under Cain's plan. Then he'd really be complaining.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/warren-buffett-likely-pay-no-income-taxes-under-215446867.html

So he question is, did Herman Cain know the implications of his plan or did he not? Neither answer is a good one for Cain at this point.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm sure he knew as much as Steve Forbes did when he made a tax proposal.

 

[jtb1127]

How come more people aren't upset that he was the CEO of a Mafia themed pizza restaurant? It doesn't bug anyone that the founders of the chain associate Italian culture and cuisine with criminals?

 

[GhostWriter16]

I believe capital gains should be taxed precisely the same way as any other income.

 

[Integral]

I believe that capital gains shouldn't be taxed at all.

 

[Core Imposter]

How come more people aren't upset that he was the CEO of a Mafia themed pizza restaurant? It doesn't bug anyone that the founders of the chain associate Italian culture and cuisine with criminals?

How come more people aren't upset that he is Cain, as was the first murderer, and has an eblem of 666 inverted?

I am pretty sure that this will be taken as a sign of the end times by some.

"16And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 18Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

The Revelation
Chapter 13

 

[Formaldehyde]

How come more people aren't upset that he was the CEO of a Mafia themed pizza restaurant? It doesn't bug anyone that the founders of the chain associate Italian culture and cuisine with criminals?

I do find it ironic they would pick a name which would likely cause many Italian-Americans and others from ever stepping foot into their stores, and then wonder why it wasn't doing so well.

 

[JollyRoger]

I believe that capital gains shouldn't be taxed at all.

I believe we should charge a dollar per word tax on articles advocating eliminating capital gains taxes.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I believe that capital gains shouldn't be taxed at all.

I don't actually understand all that, but I'm a weak math student

What my opinion comes down to is this, if the tax rate is going to be ten percent, everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, should be forking over ten percent of the money they make.

 

[Truronian]

What my opinion comes down to is this, if the tax rate is going to be ten percent, everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, should be forking over ten percent of the money they make.

...in which case you are going to have a lot of starving and dying poor people.

 

[Formaldehyde]

There are few countries which have flat tax systems, and none of them are exactly well-known for their economies or their fair treatment of the poor.

BIH [24]
Bulgaria [31]
Albania [32][33]
Czech Republic[34]
Estonia [35][36][37]
Georgia [37][38]
Guernsey [39]
Hungary
Kazakhstan [40]
Iraq [41][42][43] It is not clear how effectively the Iraqi tax is being collected in practice.
Jersey [44]
Kyrgyzstan [39]
Latvia [37]
Lithuania [37][45]
Macedonia [39][46]
Mongolia [47]
Montenegro [48]
Mauritius [39]
Romania [37]
Russia [37][49]
Serbia [50]
Slovakia [37]
Ukraine [37][51]

And even some of those have cutoffs for lower income levels.

 

[JollyRoger]

...in which case you are going to have a lot of starving and dying poor people.

The Cain plan taxes their income at 9% (no deductions except charitable donations) and their spending at 9% (no exceptions for food, shelter, or clothing)

 

[Core Imposter]

And of course to take the issue further if Herman Cain builds on the concept of empowerment zones, tax free used goods and perhaps exemptions from the tax by using point of sale identification, a general database system such as debit cards .....

"9And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, 10The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: 11And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. 12Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus."

Long taught in the Church that the taking of the mark needed to buy or sale, in the hand or the forehead, must be denied even if it leads to starvation and death, of ourselves and our families.

 

[useless]

...in which case you are going to have a lot of starving and dying poor people.

Thing is, they don't really matter, they're not "real", not like the middle-classes.

 

[squadbroken]

Thing is, they don't really matter, they're not "real", not like the middle-classes.

Yes, this has always been something that has disturbed me about American politics. Does "middle class" mean something different in the US or do people just not give a damn about the working class?

 

[useless]

Yes, this has always been something that has disturbed me about American politics. Does "middle class" mean something different in the US or do people just not give a damn about the working class?

You see, the poor and the working class are in that position, because they haven't worked hard enough, if only they pulled themselves up, then they could join the (shrinking) middle class. Because it's really that reptilian and simplistic.

The republicans are pretty much the party of the rich, now. Unashamedly so.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Yes, this has always been something that has disturbed me about American politics. Does "middle class" mean something different in the US or do people just not give a damn about the working class?

I was certainly taught by my conservative parents that "everyone is middle class in America." It's summed up better by a quote from John Steinbeck:

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."