That's is interesting, Victor. Russo ran for president a couple of years ago as an independent.

I don't like the income tax, and I HATE the estate tax (death tax) which always seemed like a violation of the 4th amendment (unlawful search and seizure). But, I don't much care for what I saw in the intro of the film (didn't watch it all -- this is not a 5-minute deal). Seemed to have at it's heart an anti-capitalist message, a conspiracy theory mentality, a sky-is-falling tone, and this-country-stinks motivation. I would love to abolish the income tax, especially in light of today's story that Congress is considering yet another income tax surcharge, similar to the AMT, fueled by class envy, but guaranteed to soak just about everyone eventually, just as AMT has done. However, I don't think that this is really what this film is trying to accomplish.

What I wish for instead, would be a movie that provides motivation for real tax reform, of the type we had in California with the Jarvis amendment (prop 13) back in the 1970s, or the Regan tax cuts of the early 1980s. Both made HUGE differences in the economy. However, it is a lot easier -- a LOT easier -- to do a "we got trouble right here in River City" riff, than pull off the inspirational "shining city on a hill."

P.S. If you want to see a much more entertaining film that builds nicely on fantasies and half truths about the documents at the core of our country's founding, go see "National Treasure." It has all the psycho-babble, conspiracy theory stuff of this "documentary," but enough good sense to not take itself seriously. I have now read several dozen reviews of this film, and have a pretty good idea of what it is about. Intriguing stuff, but don't let yourself take it too seriously.

John, the first 5 minutes or so does flow like a conspiracy theory speech, but its a little better with interviews in the document

Prop 13 has been hailed for a long time as "real tax reform."

It lowered the annual property tax from about 4% to about 1%, which made a big difference with California home prices.

Unfortunately the property tax was a local tax that went to pay for schools, county hospitals, and other local priorities. With Prop 13, the tax rate wasn't just cut by 75%, it was made a state tax (with some very minor district add-ons as usual). To prevent the schools etc. from having to close, the State of California promised to toss them the equivalent moneybags as before...(today this is a huge untouchable item in the budget with very limited oversight).

So what happened after the "75% tax cut?"

The property tax valuation was only assessed on the purchase price, so people who originally bought a home in Mandeville Canyon in Brentwood for $30,000 now paid about 1% of this amount, i.e. about $300, even though the home had gone up in value to $1,500,000.

So their contribution to the local schools and county health care went from $1200 per year to $300 per year. Pass the Dom Perignon!

What about those who didn't own homes yet, or needed to move? They were finding that because the property taxes had dropped by 75%, people could afford to buy more expensive homes, which immediately drove prices up and prices doubled and tripled, until the net cost for home owners was the same as before.

The only difference was that the schools lost their local funding source, and now have to be paid out of the State's General Fund. This is also considered Sacred Money, Untouchable, Not Negotiable, so California has astronomical income taxes, reaching 9-10% in the higher brackets, with a surcharge on top of that proposed annually.

So a great tax reform, that Prop 13!

It could go to history with other buck-passing tax cuts such as the current Federal tax cut for the wealthy, paid for with major cuts in federal funds to the states so they have to hike their taxes. But that's their problem :O)

Of course the states are also cutting their contributions to the counties, and municipalities are forced to compete with each other for sales tax revenues, begging WalMart and other big box retailers to come in and bulldoze their land so they can replace lost tax revenue.

The Reagan income tax cuts were the last "real" tax cuts I've seen. They solved a real problem: income tax rates going up to 90% that provided a massive distraction for people, making it more worthwhile to focus on sheltering income from taxes than on maximizing income.

You could also ask why the U.S. has the second highest corporate income taxes in the world (after Japan). That is certainly not the most urgent problem to solve right now, but it is ridiculous.

Since we're OT, I agree that we need income tax reform. Not the kind of "reform" that guts necessary social services, like propositon 13 did, or that speeds the redistribution of weath upwards, like the Bush tax cuts did, but the kind of reform that promotes social equality by requiring those well off enough to have more than they need to fund the necessary services that their less well off fellow citizens cannot afford.

And don't get me started on the estate tax. Why should wealth be passed on from generation to generation, anyway? I think there is a higher social use for the money....

Oh yeah, I also think that income redistribution is a legitimate use for an income tax, just so you know where I'm coming from.

John, you're opinion of the film is inaccurate as you did not watch the entire piece. Russo goes to great lengths to document the issue from both sides.

You've done yourself and other who read you comments a disservice by passing judgment on a 2-hour piece by watching the first five mintues.

u've done yourself and other who read you comments a disservice by passing judgment on a 2-hour piece by watching the first five minutes.

I watched five minutes, but read several dozen reviews. It is true that I cannot render final judgement without watching all of it, but I also am pretty sure that I am correct.

If every thought or judgement required first-hand experience, we'd all be limited to discussing things we saw or experienced. 99% of everything any of us talk about comes from information gleaned from others, not from our own direct experiences. That includes this film, by the way. I would assume that you didn't actually try to determine whether the Federal Reserve and the IRS are actually private entities, as is claimed.

that speeds the redistribution of wealth upwards, like the Bush tax cuts did, ...

For what it's worth, if you'd like to actually look at the tax receipts since the Bush tax cuts, what you will find -- and this happened when Reagan cut taxes -- is that total tax receipts have gone UP -- A LOT. And, no, this money did not come from increased taxes on the poor people. It came from the fact that the wealthy took the incremental money they had as a result of lower taxation, invested it, and then earned a far higher return, on which they then had to pay taxes, albeit at a lower rate. It is unfortunate that this process has been so falsely, cynically, eroneously -- and successfully -- portrayed as the "trickle down" effect. The only reason deficits are shrinking -- despite the horrendously bloated spending in Washington under both parties -- is these increased tax receipts from the "wealthy."

And don't get me started on the estate tax. Why should wealth be passed on from generation to generation, anyway? I think there is a higher social use for the money....

You hit a raw nerve with that one. I have spent the last two years settling my parents estates. As executor, I had to -- within nine months -- give the Federal and two state governments 55% of everything my two parents accumulated in their lifetime. That is 55% of their homes, their possessions, their bank accounts -- everything. When you make those class envy statements, perhaps you are thinking of Paris Hilton. Get that image out of your mind. This will affect almost everyone that reads this, and it has NOTHING to do with the idea of stealing from one class and redistributing it to another. And who the hell or you or anyone in the government to say that my dead parent's money should be used to pay for the war in Iraq? Yes, remember, once the government has its hands on your money -- or your dead parents' money, it will NEVER be spent the way you think it should.

because the property taxes had dropped by 75%, people could afford to buy more expensive homes, which immediately drove prices up and prices doubled and tripled, until the net cost for home owners was the same as before.

Well, not really. If you remember, the whole reason Prop 13 passed was due to the fact that housing prices in California had skyrocket at more than 2X the national average for most of the 1970s. Older people who had lived in their homes for forty years and were on fixed incomes couldn't afford the skyrocketing tax bills.

As for people in wealthy areas paying little tax on hugely expensive homes, that is certainly true as long as they don't sell and buy a new home and also as long as they don't remodel. As one who has remodeled, I can tell you that your home is definitely reassessed.

I'm not over-taxed, I'm under-served. And my elected officials would rather spend money blowing up health clinics in Iraq than paying for health insurance here.

The only reason deficits are shrinking -- despite the horrendously bloated spending in Washington under both parties -- is these increased tax receipts from the "wealthy."

I thought I saw a GAO analysis about two months ago that indicated otherwise, specifically that the "shrinking deficit" was a product of "creative accounting" that is going to come back and bite us in the [bacon] later.

The concept that easing a stranglehold allows people to be more productive is certainly true, but our Federal income tax system has gotten so incredibly convoluted it is difficult for many people to see where they are getting squeezed the most.

I'm fearful that somebody will suggest to replace all this complexity of the Federal income tax and all the bazillion deductions with a Federal Consumption Tax instead. No deductions, no H&R Blockhead, all savings accumulate tax free.

Why am I fearful? Because what will inevitably happen is that the National Sales Tax (that's what it really is) will be implemented, but the Federal income tax won't be scrapped, and then we'll have both! Thanks everybody!

The issue of Estate Tax isn't as clearcut as proponents and opponents like to make it. Proponents like to "soak the rich," but they don't think about family businesses and family farms that may have been built up over a long period of time, with the owners not being able to take out a lot of money, because they choose to grow and improve for the welfare of their employees and their country. Should they now be punished and have all this taken away from them?

And the opponents don't talk much about the fact that there is a fairly beefy exclusion today to avoid many cases of this problem, so it's not quite as bad as it's often presented.

So what to do?

Easy.

Let's study the country known as The Bulwark of Socialism, Sweden.

Hmmm. They have completely eliminated the estate tax for the reasons mentioned. If my understanding is correct, they have even eliminated most property tax. And the corporate tax is far lower than in the U.S.

Perhaps this is because they have privatized the Postal Service, and the Amtrak equivalent, fired the entire Department of Education because they knew a hopeless case when they saw one, and a lot more.

Now, if Sweden is the Bulwark of Socialism..., what does that make us?

:O{~}

Here we go again...

It must be Friday, and the Vegas Board monitor is home having a well-deserved pizza and beer. Time to do some serious Bush-Bashing!

As an aside, I grew up in SoCal and remember the 1970's and 80's well. Up until 1974 or so, the cost of housing in LA was about the same as the national average. From that point onward it skyrocketed way beyond the average growth curve. I have an old LA Times chart somewhere.

For years I refused to buy property, figuring out that what went up had to come down. Funny thing is, it never did. Finally, in 1987, my wife insisted we buy SOMETHING, so we got a tiny little house in Westlake Village (near the Malibu mountains, about 45 minutes W of LA) for $206K. I told her that if the house went up $25K over the next 2 years, I'd take her to Hawaii for a vacation. Turns out we sold that little house for $325K about 18 months later and came up here to Oregon.

LA has a stellar climate and I love the freeways (maybe because I know them like the back of my hand) but I'll never go back there to live. Certainly to visit.

Each of you have missed the point. IT'S NOT ABOUT BUSH. IT'S NOT ABOUT TAXES ALONE. It's about GOVERNMENT. It's about the primrose path this country is being led down.

It's about a government for the People that has forgotten who and what the People are.

It's about the erosion fo our FREEDOMS and INDEPENDENCE.

How does it go...? There are none so blind as those who will not see?

If you really want a sense of how the U.S. government (and many local governments as well) are impinging on your freedoms, forget the income tax. Take a look at "Security and the Constitution" and "Urban Warrior," two extremely well-done documentaries at this site:
http://www.etspictures.com/documentary.html

No online footage, but there are transcripts available.

Or, take a look at the American Civil Liberties Union campaign to get Congress to restore habeas corpus at:
https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?pagename=june_home

Or, go read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/09/1526251

Income tax? That's the least of my worries.

The top 1% of earners pay over 36% of all Federal Income Taxes

The top 25% of earners pay over 84% of all Federal Income Taxes

The top 50% of earners pay nearly 98% of all Federal Income Taxes

And the Bush tax cuts were "tax cuts for the rich?"

Those "rich" people are paying over a third of all federal income taxes!!! I'd say they are paying more than their fair share.

Jeez almost half of this country doesn't even pay any federal income tax.

History has shown time and time again that tax cuts spur the economy and produce greater revenue for the Fed.

JFK understood this and it worked then. Worked for Reagan and it worked for Bush.

I have a lot of issues with Bush but taxes is about the only thing I am really with him on.

Income tax issue is a black hole....... fed tax court will pack your bags for the local vacation spot call "white-collar" prison, make too much noise and they will let you have roommates......

One must remember that congress( and only congress) can and does limit what type of cases that the fed courts can hear, of course, the US Supreme Court is excluded but does not any "power" over congress in reality. all fed branches, state governments are too dependent, like a drug addict, to change. A fix tax rate for all would be the simplest and probably the fairest in the end, but political and progressive stewards do not want to lose the influence / control over the masses.

Estates taxes are a cruel progressive device for "removing" assets with no consideration of how hard the individuals have worked to earn them. The big joke here is that all / most of the progressive congress that believes that more estate taxes are a good thing, are firm believers in patents, it rights, copyrights... big on book deals, those "vacation" weekend education meetings, 31% credit interest rates on late payments, .....etc...

Isn't the issue here not the merits of income tax but the pure and simple fact that they have no legal basis?

Let me see if I've got this right. Assuming what the doco exposes is correct and so far no one is able to prove it isn't then for around 90 years the population of the USA has been forced to pay a tax that doesn't exist. A non existant law has been enforced through state legislation, your homes and property broken into at gun point, your assets seized and some of you imprisoned as common criminals.

I'm kind of dumbstruck that a country where everyone seems to know their rights and can get pretty vocal on insisting on them isn't up in arms (literaly) over this. Forget Bush, Clinton, Vietnam and WMDs, this seems way bigger than all of those put together and it goes way back before any of them.

Comparing JFK's cuts to Reagan's and Bush's is disengenous. Saying they are worked is something more than that

JFK cut the top tax rate from 90% to 70%. How national debt went down during his term. The way to measure impact of national debt is by % of GDP? Why do it this way? Because if two people are both $25,000 in debt does it mean the same thing? No. Say one of the them is me and one of them is someone who is having to pay the estate tax. $25,000 is a much bigger portion of my net worth that it is for someone who just inherited a multimillion dollar estate.

So here is the nation debt as % of GDP for every innaugural year since JFK
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/pdf/hist.pdf page 126

1961 55%
1965 47%
1969 39%
1973 36%
1977 36%
1981 33%
1985 44%
1989 53%
1993 66%
1997 66%
2001 57%
2005 64%
2009 66%

So did the Reagan and Bush tax cuts work? Under Reagan's two terms the debt went up a whopping 20% due to deficit spending And the term after him, it went up another whopping 13% even when Bush I tried to deal with the debt. That's because the interest of the debt just kept growing and growing. Under Bush II the debt went from going down to going right back up %10. If Reagan's example holds true the worst effects of Bush's deficit spending will come after he leaves office.

The public debt chart at Wikipedia shows the sharp increases in the public debt this century are due to 4 causes, WWI, WWII, the Depression, and terrible tax policy/deficit spending.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

The deficits is not going down after Bush's tax cuts, they are going up, a little more slowly. Supply-side economics never works. Most of JFK's economic policies were on the demand side. This is because the tax cuts without reducing spending always means gigantic increases in debt and a raising of interest rates across the economy. (When the government has to borrow money, the cost of borrowing goes up for everyone.)

The debt ceiling has been raised 4 times under the current administration
I think it may have to be 5 times before the summer comes.
My googling says the current limit is $8.97 trillion and our current debt is $8.85 trillion. So if the debt limit has to raised again in the next few weeks, ask yourself if the tax cuts are working

You hit a raw nerve with that one. I have spent the last two years settling my parents estates. As executor, I had to -- within nine months -- give the Federal and two state governments 55% of everything my two parents accumulated in their lifetime. That is 55% of their homes, their possessions, their bank accounts -- everything. When you make those class envy statements, perhaps you are thinking of Paris Hilton. Get that image out of your mind. This will affect almost everyone that reads this, and it has NOTHING to do with the idea of stealing from one class and redistributing it to another. And who the hell or you or anyone in the government to say that my dead parent's money should be used to pay for the war in Iraq? Yes, remember, once the government has its hands on your money -- or your dead parents' money, it will NEVER be spent the way you think it should.

This will affect almost everyone who reads this
That is simply not true.
There is a $2 million credit against lifetime gifts/estate transferance currently. The government says this affects less than 2% of estates and less than 0.5% of folks who die. (A spouse pays no estate tax when inheriting the other spouse's wealth.)

So unless you got $2 million in gifts from your folks, you don't pay a dollar in estate tax on the first $2 million. Hence no estate tax.

If the estate is $10 million you inherit this year, you would get $5.6 million after the tax.

The estate tax was instituted after the Robber Baron Age and is intended to prevent accumulation of wealth in hands and the creation of a permanent aritocracy.

busterkeaton, I believe to you failed to research the your posted information very well, googling is ok but actual hard facts are useful if you are calling someone a liar. ------ Congress has approved a schedule that increases the amount an individual can leave to heirs tax-free to $2 million in 2006-2008 and to $3.5 million in 2009. In 2010, it will supposedly be repealed altogether. ------- note that Johnmeyers stated ---"I have spent the last two years settling my parents estates" that could imply the deaths in 2004 or 2005. I doubt John considered that his parents' death date a critical point in his point about estate taxes. Buskerkeaton I do not agree with some of your views, but you usually are more professional in your posting when you are challenging someone. Selecting overlooking estate tax date of enforcement was low. And if you were not trying to do a political slam on John by way of spinning -- I offer an apology.

In 2010 it's repealed for one year. Suspended is a more accurate term.
In 2011 it comes back, however, then the exemption is back down to $1 million.

But it doesn't matter what date I picked because the estate tax does not affect the majority of taxpayers nor will it ever. It doesn't affect the majority of estates nor will it ever. It certainly does not affect the majority of deaths. It's never affected more than 5% of estates. That was true in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006. It will never affect more than 5% of estates. The law will be changed to include a higher limit well before it hits 5% of estates. As I pointed out, it currently affects less than 2% of estates according to the IRS.

I stand by all the facts I stated. Also note, I did not call John a liar.

If the current Republican party wanted to raise the point where the estate tax or the AMT kicks it. This could be fixed within a week. But they don't want to fix it. They want to keep trying ways to kill it. Hence this nonsense with the estate tax in 2010 or trying to say the Bush tax cuts were only temporary because we had a surplus. Their strategy on the AMT is they don't want to change it as it starts hitting more of the upper middle class, they want to use that as a well to bring a grounswell to kill it. As long as Club for Growth, Grover Norquist, Rove and others have power in the party, bad tax policies will follow. Republicans who are concerned about the deficit have been utterly marginalized within the current party.


Here's the rates for the estate tax.
Year Max. Estate Tax Credit Max. Gift Tax Credit Max. Unified Rate
2002 $1 million $1 million 50%
2003 $1 million $1 million 49%
2004 $1.5 million $1 million 48%
2005 $1.5 million $1 million 47%
2006 $2 million $1 million 46%
2007 $2 million $1 million 45%
2008 $2 million $1 million 45%
2009 $3.5 million $1 million 45%
2010 Tax Repeal Tax Repeal 0%
2011 $1 million $1 million 50%
2012 $1 million $1 million 50%
2013 $1 million $1 million 50%


Addendum
As of last month, there is a proposal to change the above.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the revenue loss over the next ten years for full repeal of the estate tax would be $370 billion. Even Bush’s own Treasury Department says that repeal of the estate tax will reduce federal revenues. The Treasury Department puts the loss at $340 billion. Yet Republicans supporting a repeal of the estate tax still falsely claim that it's repeal would pay for itself.

The Tax Policy Center (Brookings Institute/Urban Institute) calculated the loss at $750 billion. No problem. Republican mentality is to borrow more money from countries like China and to raise the cap on the deficit expected to grow to $12 trillion by 2011. That is DOUBLE what it was when Bush took office in 2000. The interest associated with the loss by repealing the estate tax is around $250 billion. That would make the national debt increase by $1 trillion over the next ten years.

Other Republican falsehoods are that the estate tax repeal would benefit small businesses and farms. The American Farm Bureau was asked to name ONE farm had gone bankrupt because of the estate tax and they couldn't.
Same with the Small Business Council of America. The CBO confirmed this as well. Even the 2005 CBO report found that if the current exemption level of $2.0 million had been in place in 2000, only 123 farm estates and only 135 family-owned businesses nationwide would have owed any estate tax. The number of taxable farm estates drops to 65 nationwide at a $3.5 million exemption level, the level that takes effect in 2009. The number of taxable family-owned business estates falls to just 94 under the $3.5 million exemption.

The benefit goes where all Republican legislation goes. To the wealthiest 1-2 % of the nation at the expense of the rest of the public. Right now the estate tax among other "burdens" on the wealthy prompt the wealthiest to use charitable contributions as a means of offsetting their taxes. That benefits everyone.

Most of the legislation the Democrats have introduced to undo past Republican (anti-public) legislation passes through the House because the House has a healthy Democratic majority. When it gets to the Senate, because the Democrats only have a 51% majority the Republicans filibuster EVERY BILL. That requires a 60% vote in the Senate to bring cloture to the filibuster. When Trent Lott was elected Republican minority whip this past January some of the news media CORRECTLY reported that he held "teaching sessions" with some of the newer Republican members of the Senate to teach them how to use the filibuster to STOP the Democrat's legislation.

After the Republian party actually began USING the filibuster as a method of stopping all Democratic legislation from getting past the Senate the news media completely DROPPED the term "filibuster" from their reporting and began using phrases like "the NECESSARY sixty percent vote to pass the bill" and the "usual" 60 votes to pass legislation in the Senate and the "REQUIRED" sixty votes to pass legislation in the Senate. They completely DROPPED the term "filibuster" from their reporting. In other words, further dumbing down of the American public to protect Republicans.
In the end the news media will blame the Democrats for nothing getting done in Congress. In fact they blamed the Democrats before the 2006 election,during the 2006 election, and after the 2006 election.

The news media even LIED about why the Democrats were elected in 2006 and The Associated Press conducted the exit polls. In other words the news media even LIED about their own exit polls.
The number ONE reason people voted for Democrats was because of Republican corruption. Iraq was SECOND. But because that reason says that Republicans are more corrupt than Democrats the news media decided to claim that Iraq was the number ONE reason and continue to lie about it because they can blame the Democrats for not getting us out of Iraq in the 2008 election.
If you listen to the news media reports they never say that Republicans have ANY responsibility or obligation when it comes to Iraq. It's all about the Democrats and their failures. Corruption on the other hand so far has yielded around 9 Republicans and ONE Democrat (indicted not convicted yet) who cancels out the nine Republicans in terms of media reporting. I doubt that 2 percent of the public even know that Republican corruption trumped Iraq when it came to people's votes in Nov 2006.

Unless one watches the sessions of the Congress LIVE on C-Span as I do, one will NEVER know from the false news media reports what is actually going on in Congress and who is REALLY at fault for the lack of progress on anything the majority of the public wants done.

John

Gentlemen (and Ladies, if any are present),

While most of you have stated your points eloquently, as a group, you have missed the point completely. Many of you are arguing about the income tax from an uninformed point of view.

This is no great fault of your own doing. Our country's institutions (Church, Education, Government, Media and Business Community), have worked to great lengths to keep us all in the dark about the true nature of the income tax. If you were able to incorporate an accurate understanding of what the income tax is, and to whom it applies, I have no doubt many of the opinions on this post would be changed.

If you are interested in FINALLY being informed as to the true nature of the Income Tax, as well as learning how to protect yourself from the rapacious arms of the Federal and State governments, then please read the work of PETER HENDRICKSON.

You can find his book, Cracking the Code, the Fascinating Truth about Taxation in America, from doing a simple internet search.

I have read the book and found it to be one of the most empowering experiences of my life. And I have used VEGAS to create internet reports on the book (so this community can check that out, too).

I encourage you to read the book, as the greatest CIVIC DUTY any American can do at this time....much more powerful than voting in elections.

If you watch my vidoes on the book, please do not pre-judge the BOOK itself.

You can find my videos by internet searching the word, UNLEARNING. Just find the videos section and enjoy. They were all done with Sony Vegas.

Happy Sunday!

Patrick Mooney

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070502/UPDATE/705020483/1003