Investing Curiouscatblog

Category: Taxes

  • Improvements to the USA Tax Policy

    The USA is currently looking to pass a tax bill. Actually the Republican party has decided to not seek bipartisan solutions so it is the Republicans that are looking to change the tax policy. They wish to call it tax reform but they are reforming nearly nothing. They are mainly moving around tax breaks to different people. The main aim seems to be to reduce taxes without reducing spending which given the huge annual deficit the USA government currently runs that means really this is a plan to shift taxes to the grandchildren of people living right now.

    And within lowering taxes for some people today while placing those payments onto their grandchildren there is a bit of shifting around who will pay what now. Mostly this amounts to lowering the taxes on the rich today – along with some lowering of many people’s taxes that are in the middle class.

    When you run a huge budget deficit (and have a huge amount of debt outstanding) “cutting taxes today” is just shifting taxes to the kids, grandkids and great-grandkids of those avoiding the taxes today. Truly cutting taxes (versus shifting them to a future generation) requires cutting the outstanding debt (which represents future tax increases) in addition to cutting current taxes.

    view of the White House, Washington DC
    The White House, Washington DC by John Hunter. See more of my photos of Washington DC.

    To find reform ideas in the proposals requires using an extremely broad definition of what reform means. There are some attempts to reduce some favors in the tax code now for special interests. But these are minor compared to the goal of shifting the tax burden to grandchildren from those alive today.

    One of the other goals is to reduce the corporate tax rate. This goal doesn’t look so great politically, so they are trying to minimize any focus on this. I think likely a reduction in the corporate tax rate is wise. This is mainly due, not to some principle that 25% corporate tax rate is better than a 35% rate (with all the system-wide effects that results in). Mainly a lower rate is needed when you consider the global economic system and the tax rates of other countries with an understanding of the global economy today. What must be sacrificed to reach a 20% corporate rate seems unreasonable to me, so 25% rate seems more sensible, but at this time they are trying to stretch to a 20% rate (and leave future generations to pay for the difference).

    I support the effort to lower the corporate tax rate. In order to pay for that reducing some deductions is sensible. The plans have some of that and while each tax break has special interests benefiting from them I would support adding to the decreases in deductions. I would go along with a 20% rate if that was necessary, but think 25% or 22% or something would be better.

    The most ludicrous part of the plan is the favors for trust fund babies. Eliminating the most capitalist friendly tax (the estate tax) and providing trust fund babies not only free inheritance without limit but stepping up the cost basis of investments is indefensible (economically indefensible, politically the Republicans obviously feel favors for trust fund babies are wise).

    See my Curious Cat Tax Proposals blog post from 2016 for more of my ideas on how tax reform should be done.

    The current deficit spending is made to look much less bad than it really is due to incredibly low interest rates. Given the inevitable rise in interest rates over the next 30 years the debt we pile on future generations is going to be much greater than it appears in an extremely low interest rate environment.

    There are essentially 4 areas of significant federal spending.

    • interest on the debt – this can’t be changed, it is set by the market
    • spending on the department of defense (including spending on veterans)
    • social security
    • medicare and medicaid

    There is no political will to reduce the costs of social security. I would raise the age at which you can begining taking payments and reduce payments to the rich. But this won’t pass, so that won’t change.

    The Republicans have greatly increased spending by the department of defense so obviously this results in a tax increase (just on our descendants because they chose not to pay for the higher level of spending they voted for)

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  • Curious Cat Tax Proposals

    We have tax plans from the major USA Presidential candidates. I don’t like any of them, though I actually like Ted Cruz’s plan more than the others, but it has a huge problem. His plan doesn’t fund the government he wants, not even just as poorly as we have been doing. He would increase the debt substantially.

    My plan would have 3 parts. I like a flat tax, I doubt it will ever happen, but if we could get one I would be happy. Cruz proposes that (at 10%). I am fine with his proposal to eliminate all deductions but mortgage interest and charity. I would definitely tweak that some – no more than $50,000 in mortgage interest deduction a year and the same for charity. Basically subsidizing it a bit for the non-rich is fine. Subsidizing these for the rich seems silly so I would cap the deductions in some way. I also wouldn’t mind an almost flat tax, say 12% up to $200,000 and 15% after that (or some such rates).

    Cruz’s rate is far too low given the government he wants. The government budget is largely: Social Security, Medicare and Military. Then you also have debt payment which have to be paid. Those 4 things are over 80% of the spending. All the other things are just in the last 20%, you can cut some of that but realistically you can’t cut much (in percentage terms – you can cut hundreds of billions theoretically but it is unlikely and even if you did it isn’t a huge change).

    We are piling on more debt than we should. Therefore we should increase revenue, not reduce it. But if we can’t increase it (for political reasons) we definitely should not reduce it until we have shown that we have cut spending below revenue for 2 full years. After that, great, then decrease rates.

    view of the White House, Washington DC
    The White House, Washington DC by John Hunter. See more of my photos of Washington DC.

    The VAT tax on businesses replacing the corporate tax system is in Cruz’s plan and this is the best option for corporate taxes in my opinion. Another decent option is just to pass through all the earnings to the owners (I first heard this proposal from my Economics professor in College) and tax them on the earnings.

    Increasing the giveaways to trust-fund baby as Cruz and Trump propose is the single worst tax policy change that can be made. I have explained previously how bad an idea this is: The estate tax is the most capitalist tax that exists. The trust-fund-baby favors should be reduced not increased. I would roll back to the Reagan Administration policy on estate tax rates.

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  • Business Taxes

    A business must pay several types of taxes (this posts is focused on the USA). Tax rules often change and keeping up with the rules can be a challenge. Which is why most of us, even small businesses, rely on accountants.

    Three tax important to pay attention to 2016 to are:

    Payroll taxes

    Failure to file accurate payroll taxes or late payments can result in heavy penalties. For deposits that are made a week late, the tax penalty can go up to five percent of the past due amount. Usually the amount of penalty is measured using calendar days beginning with the due date of the tax deposit. The three penalties (failure to pay, failure to file, and failure to deposit) can add up to 33 percent penalties + interest 16 days past the due date.

    Payroll taxes are a huge portion of most people’s pay and those that claim some people don’t pay any tax just pretend paying this tax (which is the highest tax most workers pay) isn’t paying tax. The tax rate is 45.3% (7.65% paid by the employer and 7.65% paid by the employee. For the very wealthy this tax isn’t a huge factor as it is only applied to earned income and earnings above $118,500 (indexed to inflation, so the level increases every year) are excluded. The 7.65% figure includes 1.45% for medicare, that has no income limit (so above $118,500 the employee and employer pay 1.45% – a total of 2.9%).

    Options like MasterTax tax compliance software are available for businesses to help comply with all the rules. Companies can rely on automated software that houses a rules-driven database (updated with the latest rules) with thresholds and frequencies across different jurisdictions. The benefit is a month-to-month actionable calendar that enables you to make timely payments at no extra cost and without requiring third-party support.

    Corporate taxes

    Different corporations have to pay a different percentage of corporate taxes, with penalties for late filing and errors in tax records. For example, a C corporation should file a tax return annually, and the filing deadline comes on the 15th day of the third month after the tax year ends. If the deadline is missed, the business faces a five percent penalty of the unpaid tax, and it goes up to 25 percent after the five month late.

    Some software provide free audit guidance from trained tax professionals to help you understand C-corporation corporate tax requirements. Businesses can also use these tools to file electronic returns and receive fast tax refunds. Some software have integrated notifications that inform you that the IRS has received your electronically filed tax return.

    Gross receipts taxes

    Some states impose gross receipts taxes on businesses like transportation companies. For example, a trucking company will have to pay a tax rate of 50 mills (or 5 cents, $0.05) based on gross receipts from baggage, passengers and freight transportation. Failure to file accurately will result in a five percent penalty per month.

    In a tax filing software, you can create a custom workflow for gross receipts taxes and keep track of deadlines to ensure you’re filing on time and avoiding late filing penalties.

    You will also likely have to withhold income tax from your employees and send that to the state and federal governments. In addition, if you are a retail outlet in many states you will have to collect and forward sales tax to the state (and sometimes local) government.

  • USA Tax Rules When Selling a House

    When you sell your primary residence in the USA you are able to exclude $250,000 in capital gains (or $500,000 if you file jointly). The primary test of whether it is your primary residence is if you lived there 2 of the last 5 years (see more details from the IRS). You can’t repeat this exemption for 2 years (I believe).

    It doesn’t matter if you buy another house or not, that exclusion of up to $250,000 is all that can be excluded (you must pay tax on anything above that amount – taxed at capital gains rates for long term gains).

    photo of a house

    For investment property you can do 1031 exchanges which defers capital gains taxes. Otherwise capital gains will be taxed as you would expect (as capital gains).

    When you inherit a house the tax basis will be “stepped up” to the current market rate. So if you then sell your basis isn’t what the owner paid for it, but what it was worth when it was given to you.

    Related: Looking for Yields in Stocks and Real Estate – Your Home as an Investment – Home Values and Rental Rates

  • Real Estate Tax Compared to Rental Income in Several Cities in the USA

    I was just taking a look at a couple of properties in Zillow and found it interesting how big the real estate tax bite can be. I have 2 rental properties and the real estate tax cost is 15% and 12% of the rental income. At least for my area Zillow underestimate rent rates (the vacancy rate is very low and properties in general rent within days or weeks – at rates 10%+ higher than Zillow estimates on average -based on my very limited sample of just what I happen to notice).

    I thought I would look at the real estate tax to property value estimate and rent estimate by Zillow in Various locations.

    Arlington, Virginia – real estate taxes were 1% of estimated property value and 17.5% of rental estimate.
    Chapel Hill, North Carolina – 1.5% of value and 41% of rental estimate.
    Madison, Wisconsin – 2.4% of value and 39% of rental estimate.
    Flagstaff, Arizona – .7% of value and 9.5% of rental estimate.
    Grand Junction, Colorado – .4% of value and 6% of rental estimate.

    This is just an anecdotal look, I didn’t try to get a basket of homes in each market I just looked at about 1-5 homes so there is plenty of room for misleading information. But this is just a quick look and was interesting to me so I thought I would share it. While the taxes are deductible (from the profit of the rental property) they are a fixed expense, whether the house is rented or not that expense must be paid.

    A high tax rate to rental rate is a cash flow risk – you have to make that payment no matter what.

    In my opinion one of the most important aspects of rental property is keeping the units rented. The vacancy rate for similar properties is an extremely important piece of data. Arlington, Virginia has an extremely low vacancy rate. I am not sure about the other locations.

    I wanted to use Park Slope, Brooklyn, NYC but the data was confusing/limited… so I skipped it; the taxes seemed super low.

    Related: USA Housing Rents Increased 5.4% in the Last Year (Sep 2012) – USA Apartment Market in 2011 – Top Markets in the USA for Buying Rental Property (2011) –
    Home Values and Rental Rates

  • Lavishing Tax Cuts on Ourselves That Our Grandkids Have to Pay For is Bad Policy

    Those that want to continue the policies of the last few decades of policies that tax our grandkids to pay for us living beyond our means seem to have won the day again. Not a surprise; very sad though.

    In my reading stories on the wonderful success of “avoiding the fiscal cliff” seems to amount to passing the George Bush tax cuts again (except this time when in a much much worse budgetary position) and modifying the extent to which the absolute richest benefit from those cuts (so the richest don’t get quite as step cuts as they had been getting but still are getting big cuts from before the Bush tax cuts were made. And the recent trend of treating trust fund babies as the absolute most favored taxpayers was continued (though a few of the absolute richest trust fund babies will have to have some taxes withheld from their windfalls).

    I haven’t read anything about them getting rid of the “hedge fund manager” tax favors. Did they? Did they even bother to change the law so retired managers don’t get the super huge tax favors too?

    On the spending beyond our means issue they seem to have just decided that having the grandkids continue to fund our spending is wonderful.

    If it were up to me I would have continued some of the Bush tax cuts (certainly not for those making more than $200,000 – unless we can cut spending way more than I would guess in which case I would be fine having taxes even for the richest few lowered). I would have continued treatment that reduced taxes owed on dividends and capital gains, though perhaps a bit less than they did. I would cap mortgage deductions (at say $50,000 a year or something).

    I certainly would not have supported such massive Bush tax cuts without large spending cuts. If this level of spending is what we intent to do, we need to pay for it and not just bury our kids and grandkids with huge bills. Without spending cuts I would not have voted again for the Bush tax cuts, which seems to be the main extent of their “solution” (taking a bit of the tax cuts for the wealthiest off the plate but pretty much just passing Bush’s tax cut again).

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  • USA Fiscal Cliff – Better Than Past Behavior

    I am glad we have a “fiscal cliff” to finally get some reduction in the future taxes both parties have been piling on with abandon the last few decades. When you have enormous spending beyond your income, as the USA has had the last few decades, cutting current taxes is just raising taxes on your grandchildren to pay for your spending. Shifting taxes to your grand children is not cutting taxes it is shifting them to future generations.

    If you want to really cut taxes you must cut taxes and not pass on paying for your cuts to your kids. It seems pretty obvious those that advocating cutting current taxes the last few decades were only interested in living beyond their means today and foisting the responsibility to pay to their grandchildren. That is despicable behavior.

    The fiscal cliff is an opportunity to return to a budget that has the generation doing the spending paying the taxes (last seen in the Clinton administration). The fiscal cliff outcome is going to be far from perfect. But the result will be a much more honorable outcome than foisting ever increasing taxes on future generations to pay for our current spending.

    Obviously, if you reducing how much you are adding to your credit card balance each month and start paying your bills that means you don’t get to live off your future earnings today. So you will suffer today compared to continuing to tax the future to pay for your spending.

    I hope the compromise results in spending cuts and an elimination of the Bush generation shifting taxes (cutting taxes on the the current wealthy without spending cuts – so just taxing the future to pay for tax cuts today). It is unlikely the fiscal cliff results in us actually paying for our spending (the best possible result is not an elimination of adding to the taxes future generations must pay but just a reduction in the level of tax increases we are imposing on the future every year).

    Lots of little things should be done to save a few billion (maybe it could add up to $50 billion a year if we are very lucky). But the serious spending cuts have to come from reductions in military spending, reducing waste in the health care system and making social security more actuarially sensible (social security is not part of the fiscal cliff discussions though). Reducing tax breaks also has to happen, unless absolutely huge spending cuts can be found which is not at all likely.

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  • USA Individual Earnings Levels: Top 1% $343,000, 5% $154,000, 10% $112,000, 25% $66,000

    Very interesting USA federal tax data via the tax foundation. Top 1% has adjusted gross income of $343,000; over $154,000 puts you in the top 5%; $112,000 puts you in the top 10% and $66,000 puts you in the top 25%.

    The chart only shows federal income tax data. So the costly social security tax (which is directly based on earned income* so in reality is federal income tax but is handled in a separate account so is consistently not classified as income tax data) for outside the top 5% (income above $106,800 [for 2011] does not have to pay the social security tax) is not reflected in the rates paid here.

    Looking at the data excluding social security is fine, but it is very important to remember the social security (plus medicare) tax is the largest tax for, I would guess, most people in the USA. Social security tax is 6.2% paid by the employee plus 6.2% paid by the company – a total of 12.4%. That part of the tax was capped at $106,800 in income for 2011. The medicare tax is 1.45% of income paid by the employee and 1.45% paid by the employer (and it has no cap). So that totals 2.9% (for the employee and employer tax) and brings the total to 15.3%** for most earned income.

      

    Number of Returns with Positive AGI

    AGI ($ millions)

    Income Taxes Paid ($ millions)

    Group’s Share of Total AGI

    Group’s Share of Income Taxes

    Income Split Point

    Average Tax Rate

    All Taxpayers

    137,982,203

    $7,825,389

    $865,863

    100.0%

    100.0%

    –

    11.06%

    Top 1%

    1,379,822

    $1,324,572

    $318,043

    16.9%

    36.7%

     $343,927.00

    24.01%

    1-5%

    5,519,288

    $1,157,918

    $189,864

    14.8%

    22.0%

     

    16.40%

    Top 5%

    6,899,110

    $2,482,490

    $507,907

    31.7%

    58.7%

     $154,643.00

    20.46%

    5-10%

    6,899,110

    $897,241

    $102,249

    11.5%

    11.8%

     

    11.40%

    Top 10%

    13,798,220

    $3,379,731

    $610,156

    43.2%

    70.5%

     $112,124.00

    18.05%

    10-25%

    20,697,331

    $1,770,140

    $145,747

    22.6%

    17.0%

     

    8.23%

    Top 25%

    34,495,551

    $5,149,871

    $755,903

    65.8%

    87.3%

     $ 66,193.00

    14.68%

    25-50%

    34,495,551

    $1,620,303

    $90,449

    20.7%

    11.0%

     

    5.58%

    Top 50%

    68,991,102

    $6,770,174

    $846,352

    86.5%

    97.7%

     > $32,396

    12.50%

    Bottom 50%

    68,991,102

    $1,055,215

    $19,511

    13.5%

    2.3%

     < $32,396

    1.85%

    Source: Internal Revenue Service. Table via the tax foundation.

    Other interesting data shows that the top 1% earn 16.9% of the total income and pay 36.7% of the total federal income taxes. Those in the top 1-5% earn 14.8% of the total income and pay 22% of the income taxes. Those in the top 5-10% earn of the income 11.5% of the income and pay 11.8% of the federal income taxes. So once you exclude the main tax on income (social security) and use adjusted gross income the tax rates are slightly progressive (higher rates for those that are making the most – and presumably have benefited economically the most from the economic system we have).

    Given that this is skewed by excluding the regressive (higher taxes paid by those earning less – social security is the same rate for everyone except those earning the very most who don’t have to pay it on their income above $106,800 [in 2011]) social security tax I believe we should have a more progressive tax system. But that is mainly a political debate. There are good economic arguments for the bad consequences of too unequal a distribution of wealth (which the USA has been moving toward the last few decades – unfortunately).

    In addition to the other things I mention there are all sorts of games played by those that desire a royalty type system (where wealth is just passed down to the children of those who are rich, instead of believing in a capitalist system where rewards are given not to the children of royalty but to those that are successful in the markets). A good example of the royalty model is Mitch Romney giving his trust fund children over $100 million each. These schemes use strategies to avoid paying taxes at all. Obviously these schemes also make the system less progressive (based on my understanding of the tax avoidance practiced by these trust fund babies and those that believe it is ethical to give such royalty sized gifts to their royal heirs).

    I don’t like the royalty based model of behavior. I much prefer the actions of honorable capitalist such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates that give their children huge benefits that any of us would be thrilled with, but do not treat them as princes and princesses who should live in a style of luxury that few kings have every enjoyed based solely off their birthright. Both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have honorably refused to engage in royal seeking behavior that many of their less successful business peers have chosen to engage in. Those that favor trust fund babies are welcome to their opinion and have managed to get most of congress to support their beliefs instead of a capitalist model that I would prefer so they are free to engage in their desire to parrot royalty and honor the royalty model of behavior.

    * earned income – you also don’t have to pay social security or medical tax on unearned income (dividends, capital gains, rental income…). Again this by and large favors wealthy taxpayers. Everyone is eligible for the same favorable tax treatment but only those that have the wealth to make significant amounts of unearned income get this advantage.

    ** the social security tax has been reduced by 200 basis points (this relief was recently extended) as part of dealing with the results of the too big to fail banking caused credit crisis. So under the temporary reduction the personal tax rate is 4.2% and the total cost is 13.2%.

    Related: Taxes – Slightly or Steeply Progressive? – Taxes per Person by Country – USA State Governments Have $1,000,000,000,000 in Unfunded Retirement Obligations – Retirement: Roth IRA Earnings and Contribution Limits

  • Is the Stock Market Efficient?

    I believe in weak stock market efficiency. And recently the market is making me think it is weaker than I believed :-/ I believe that the market does a decent job of factoring in news and conditions but that the “wisdom of crowds” is far from perfect. There are plenty of valuing weaknesses that can lead to inefficient pricing and opportunities for gain. The simplest of those are spotted and then adopted by enough money that they become efficient and don’t allow significant gains.

    And a big problem for investors is that while I think there are plenty of inefficiencies to take advantage of finding them and investing successfully is quite hard. And so most that try do not succeed (do not get a return that justifies their time and risk – overall trying to take advantage of inefficiencies is likely to be more risky). Some Inefficiencies however seem to persist and allow low risk gains – such as investing in boring undervalued stocks. Read Ben Graham’s books for great investing ideas.

    There is also what seems like an increase in manipulation in the market. While it is bad that large organizations can manipulate the market they provide opportunities to those that step in after prices reflect manipulation (rather than efficient markets). It is seriously annoying when regulators allow manipulators to retroactively get out of bad trades (like when there was that huge flash crash and those engaging in high frequency “trading” front-running an manipulation in reality but not called that because it is illegal). Those that were smart enough to buy stocks those high frequency traders sold should have been able to profit from their smart decision. I definitely support a very small transaction tax for investment trades – it would raise revenue and serve reduce non-value added high frequency trading (which just seems to allow a few speculators to siphon of market gains through front running). I am fine with speculation within bounds – I don’t like markets where more than half of the trades are speculators instead of investors.

    Related: Market Inefficiencies and Efficient Market Theory – Lazy Portfolios Seven-year Winning Streak – investing in stocks – Naked Short Selling

  • Retirement: Roth IRA Earnings and Contribution Limits

    For 2010 and 2011, the most that an individual can contribute to a traditional IRA or Roth IRA generally is the smaller of: $5,000 ($6,000 if the individual is age 50 or older), or the individual’s taxable compensation for the year. You have until your taxes are due (April 15th, 2011) to add to your IRA for 2010.

    This is the most that can be contributed regardless of whether the contributions are to one or more traditional or Roth IRAs or whether all or part of the contributions are nondeductible. However, other factors may limit or eliminate the ability to contribute to an IRA as follows:

    • An individual who is age 70½ or older cannot make regular contributions to a traditional IRA (just to make things complicated you can add to a Roth IRA) for the year.

      • Contributions to a Roth IRA are limited based on income. The limits are based on modified adjusted gross income (which is before deductions are taken). The Roth IRA earnings limits for 2010 are:

    • Single filers: Up to $105,000; from $105,000 – $120,000 (a partial contribution is allowed)
    • Joint filers: Up to $167,000; from $167,000 – $177,000 (a partial contribution)

    For 2011 the earning limits increase to

    • Single filers: Up to $105,000; from $107,000 – $122,000 (a partial contribution is allowed)
    • Joint filers: Up to $167,000; from $169,000 – $179,000 (a partial contribution)

    More details from the IRS website and earning limits details.

    The income limits do not cap what you can add using a 401(k). So if you were planning on adding to a Roth IRA but cannot due to the income limits you may want to look into increasing your 401(k) contributions.

    Related: Add to Your Roth IRA – Add to Your 401(k) and IRA – 401(k)s are a Great Way to Save for Retirement