Tuesday, October 26, 2004
tuesday ruminations
Turned on the teevee first thing this morning wondering what SeeBS would have to say about HMXGate. SSDD (same ‘stuff’, different day). Nada, except for Kerry bellowing about the total incompetence of Bush. Then they had an interview with former prez Billy-Bob talking about the voter base, dems and pubs both being about 45%. I’ve got some thoughts on that but it’ll keep.
I got my morning load of humor when I went over to Drudge. 60 MINS PLANNED BUSH MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY FOR ELECTION EVE
Much SeeBS asshattedness. It’s possible that the NYT has saved them from another RatherGate. I especially enjoyed the last paragraph of the article:
“"Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up," the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.”
NYTrogate is a pretty telling video snip from NBC News.
What DID rattle my chains was a dem ad on taxing evil corporations and “the rich”. Obviously those nutjobs are confident in the total ignorance of the unwashed ones. Corporations never pay taxes. Never. Raise taxes on a company, the company passes it along to the consumer. Raise them high enough, the company can’t compete with imports so it outsources production. Where did those jobs go? Raise tariffs to level the playing field? Kinda hard to do what with the WTO and all but those evil overseas companies never pay tariffs anyway. It gets passed along to guess who? ..yep. You. It’s a win-win situation for the bureaucrats, it even gives them endless excuses to continue raising revenue for redistribution. Mean, miserable, greedy corporations, we’ll show them…
Now we get to those “evil rich” that make $200K or more each year. I don’t know how accurate the 70% of new jobs are generated by small businesses figure is but it seems reasonable just judging from years of observation. A lot of them are ma and pa outfits, partnerships, sole proprietorships, and some go the LLC routine if they can stomach the additional raft of paperwork. All of them are going to have to put up with a veritable flood of permits, licenses, OSHA, EEOC compliance, EPA (much more intrusive than you think), workman’s comp, sales tax collection and compliance, inventory accounting and taxes, scads more depending on the nature of the business.
For talking purposes, I’m going to leave out the various incorporations. Practically speaking, incorporating makes sense only if the revenue is over $200K except for manufacturers of consumer goods or has consumer traffic (tort lawyer magnets) in which case, regardless of revenue, a LLC and a huge liability policy should be in place before the shingle is hung out.
Proprietorships get bit bad. Firstly, medical insurance isn’t deductible and for a healthy family of 4, runs over $9,900/year here in Florida. SSI, not deductible, scratch another $13,311 for the government Ponzi scam. It’s truly amazing how many things in the way of capital equipment depreciation/replacement or facility improvements are NOT allowed, can’t come up with a general estimate but from my own experience, runs about 20%. Subtract another $40K from the deductible list.
There are so many “surprise” expenses that can happen, especially with a dual-use facility (prepare for an IRS audit if declared, expect to be denied) that I’m not going to list them, too business specific to generalize.
Let’s see what we have: $200K X 33% = $66K tax owed. Subtract non-deductible business/medical/SSI expenses, $63,211 plus $66K from the net and the proprietor has been rewarded $70,789 for the year providing there haven’t been any FUBARs. God help the poor bastard if a tort lawyer or a particularly aggressive IRS auditor comes a-visiting. Storm damage is also amazingly poorly reimbursed by that wonderful insurance company with the sky-high premiums.
$70K is a pretty nice income for the poor SOB that has spent a good third of his year just fighting his way through the mountains of paperwork without getting a damn thing done. 16 hour days, 7 day work weeks just to TRY and be useful in the little company (wife and kids? What wife and kids?).
Ah, the evil rich. Let’s jack his sorry ass up another 10% per year. It’s only $20K and he can afford it. Betcha we could make it 20% and the hind-gut fermenters that voted us in would just squeal with delight!
Abolishing the IRS is way overdue. Between the unbelievable regulatory bureaucracy and the hopelessly complex tax code, the US is no longer competitive in the world market, it’s not even competitive in the domestic market. It is high time the FairTax, H.R. 25, gets a proper hearing. It has a chance if GWB is re-elected, it has no chance at all under Kerry.
I got my morning load of humor when I went over to Drudge. 60 MINS PLANNED BUSH MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY FOR ELECTION EVE
Much SeeBS asshattedness. It’s possible that the NYT has saved them from another RatherGate. I especially enjoyed the last paragraph of the article:
“"Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up," the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.”
NYTrogate is a pretty telling video snip from NBC News.
What DID rattle my chains was a dem ad on taxing evil corporations and “the rich”. Obviously those nutjobs are confident in the total ignorance of the unwashed ones. Corporations never pay taxes. Never. Raise taxes on a company, the company passes it along to the consumer. Raise them high enough, the company can’t compete with imports so it outsources production. Where did those jobs go? Raise tariffs to level the playing field? Kinda hard to do what with the WTO and all but those evil overseas companies never pay tariffs anyway. It gets passed along to guess who? ..yep. You. It’s a win-win situation for the bureaucrats, it even gives them endless excuses to continue raising revenue for redistribution. Mean, miserable, greedy corporations, we’ll show them…
Now we get to those “evil rich” that make $200K or more each year. I don’t know how accurate the 70% of new jobs are generated by small businesses figure is but it seems reasonable just judging from years of observation. A lot of them are ma and pa outfits, partnerships, sole proprietorships, and some go the LLC routine if they can stomach the additional raft of paperwork. All of them are going to have to put up with a veritable flood of permits, licenses, OSHA, EEOC compliance, EPA (much more intrusive than you think), workman’s comp, sales tax collection and compliance, inventory accounting and taxes, scads more depending on the nature of the business.
For talking purposes, I’m going to leave out the various incorporations. Practically speaking, incorporating makes sense only if the revenue is over $200K except for manufacturers of consumer goods or has consumer traffic (tort lawyer magnets) in which case, regardless of revenue, a LLC and a huge liability policy should be in place before the shingle is hung out.
Proprietorships get bit bad. Firstly, medical insurance isn’t deductible and for a healthy family of 4, runs over $9,900/year here in Florida. SSI, not deductible, scratch another $13,311 for the government Ponzi scam. It’s truly amazing how many things in the way of capital equipment depreciation/replacement or facility improvements are NOT allowed, can’t come up with a general estimate but from my own experience, runs about 20%. Subtract another $40K from the deductible list.
There are so many “surprise” expenses that can happen, especially with a dual-use facility (prepare for an IRS audit if declared, expect to be denied) that I’m not going to list them, too business specific to generalize.
Let’s see what we have: $200K X 33% = $66K tax owed. Subtract non-deductible business/medical/SSI expenses, $63,211 plus $66K from the net and the proprietor has been rewarded $70,789 for the year providing there haven’t been any FUBARs. God help the poor bastard if a tort lawyer or a particularly aggressive IRS auditor comes a-visiting. Storm damage is also amazingly poorly reimbursed by that wonderful insurance company with the sky-high premiums.
$70K is a pretty nice income for the poor SOB that has spent a good third of his year just fighting his way through the mountains of paperwork without getting a damn thing done. 16 hour days, 7 day work weeks just to TRY and be useful in the little company (wife and kids? What wife and kids?).
Ah, the evil rich. Let’s jack his sorry ass up another 10% per year. It’s only $20K and he can afford it. Betcha we could make it 20% and the hind-gut fermenters that voted us in would just squeal with delight!
Abolishing the IRS is way overdue. Between the unbelievable regulatory bureaucracy and the hopelessly complex tax code, the US is no longer competitive in the world market, it’s not even competitive in the domestic market. It is high time the FairTax, H.R. 25, gets a proper hearing. It has a chance if GWB is re-elected, it has no chance at all under Kerry.
