True. but even if not it cuts the legs off of the corrupt democrats and their embezzlement of taxpayer money. It shows voters WHO the democrats are stealing from..
Musk Mulls Sending All Americans $5,000 Checks Using DOGE Savings
- Thread starter volsrocks
- Start date
Stalinists are truly panicking that DOGE is returning money to those it was stolen from....
This is the end of the filthy democrat party.
Years of not paying taxes on his tips. He was just a head of Trump on the issue.
Tips should not be taxed - it's ridiculous.
It underscores why direct taxes are immoral.
Diogenes
Nemo me impune lacessit
Diogenes
Nemo me impune lacessit
I know, but it's a good one. A brilliant move that will eviscerate the Fascist democrats.
Diogenes
Nemo me impune lacessit
I doubt it will happen, and Democrats will never be "eviscerated". If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that prediction, I could start my own party.
Tobytone
Verified User
Um dumbass, most of us do and then some. I'm thinking that the average dumbass libtard drone hasn't paid $5000 in taxes for the last 10 years combined, so I can see why you'd ask that dumbass question, dumbass. lol
The final analysis regarding fraud is not yet in. Discovering the waste is merely the 1st phase of the process. The 2nd phase is tracing if money was used as intended.
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
The concept is as regressive as could possibly be.
Percentage-wise, the poor would pay a colossally higher percentage of their incomes in taxes than the wealthy would .
This is in the first chapter of Economics 101.
Currently the rich have bought the tax code to pay nothing at all. You seek to protect them by ensuring direct taxation which exempts the elite.
You're either part of the elite, or just fucking stupid.
The good thing about a consumption tax is that it taxes people on the hidden economy. And all tourists would help pay for taxes and anyone living here illegally. Also criminals would be paying taxes on their criminals proceeds.
Everyone should have an ownership stake in America. If we have a consumption tax rich people like to spend their money.
If we have a consumption bases tax we each would see how much the government taxes each time we buy anything. If the governments wants more of our money and increases our tax we would see it immediately not in April by some mysterious formula.
Why should the poor pay ZERO and still be able to vote on how we spend our money.
Because they are not slaves owned by Musk.
What if we don't tax housing and food?
So they can vote to tax US but not themselves. Who is the slave now? Remind me.
Diogenes
Nemo me impune lacessit
Tough titty, said the kitty.
Pay up!
The rich do.
For tax year 2021 (filed in 2022), the most recent year with comprehensive IRS data, the top 1% of earners — those with adjusted gross income (AGI) above approximately $561,000 — paid 45.8% of all federal individual income taxes. This group earned 26.3% of total AGI, showing they bear a disproportionate share of the income tax burden.
The top 5% (AGI above roughly $220,000) paid 65.6%, and the top 10% (AGI above about $154,000) paid 75.8% of all individual income taxes.
These figures come from IRS Statistics of Income data.
Including corporate taxes would increase the share attributed to the wealthy since most corporate tax incidence falls on high-income shareholders.
@Grok
Diogenes
Nemo me impune lacessit
There are instances where ultra-wealthy individuals have paid little to no federal income tax in specific years.
A notable example comes from ProPublica’s 2021 analysis of leaked IRS data, covering tax returns from 2004 to 2018.
They found Jeff Bezos paid no federal income tax in 2007 and 2011, and Elon Musk paid none in 2018.
How? The tax code taxes income, not wealth.
If a rich person’s income (wages, dividends, realized capital gains) is low or offset in a given year, their tax bill can shrink, or disappear. Bezos, for instance, reportedly claimed a $4,000 child tax credit in 2011 and offset income with business losses, while Musk’s 2018 return showed minimal taxable income despite his massive wealth tied up in unrealized stock gains.
The mechanisms here are legal and built into the tax code:
- Capital Gains Timing: Wealthy individuals often hold assets like stocks or real estate that appreciate but aren’t taxed until sold. No sale, no taxable income. ProPublica calculated a "true tax rate" (taxes paid divided by wealth growth) for the top 25 richest Americans, finding it averaged 3.4% from 2014–2018, far below statutory rates, because unrealized gains dominate their wealth growth.
- Deductions and Losses: The rich can use losses from businesses or investments to offset income. Real estate moguls, for example, leverage depreciation (a non-cash expense) to reduce taxable income. Donald Trump’s leaked 2005 return showed a $916 million loss carryforward, which could wipe out years of tax liability.
- Borrowing Against Assets: Billionaires often borrow against their stock portfolios instead of selling them. Loans aren’t taxable income. Warren Buffett, whose tax rate was famously lower than his secretary’s in 2011 (17.4% vs. 35.8%), has admitted to this strategy—his wealth grows, but his taxable income stays modest.
- Charitable Deductions: Donating appreciated assets (like stock) to charities avoids capital gains taxes and provides a deduction, shrinking taxable income further.
No.
IRS data for 2021 shows the top 1% (AGI above $561,000) paid an average federal income tax rate of 25.9%, and the top 0.001% (AGI over $77 million) paid 23.1%.
Zero-tax years are outliers, not the norm.
Even ProPublica’s data showed that over the 15-year span, these billionaires paid some tax—just not always in proportion to their wealth growth.
For example, Warren Buffett paid $23.7 million from 2014–2018, but his wealth grew by $24.3 billion, making his tax burden look negligible by comparison.
The tax code’s complexity lets the ultra-rich minimize liability, sometimes to zero in a given year, especially if they’re asset-rich but income-light.
However, "paying nothing" isn’t a widespread dodge for the merely "rich" (say, top 5% or 10%).
It’s more common among the top 0.01%, who have the resources to exploit these provisions. Legislative attempts like the 2021 Build Back Better proposal included a "billionaires’ tax" on unrealized gains to close this gap, but it didn’t pass. As of February 20, 2025, no major overhaul has yet eliminated these strategies.
So, yes, some of the richest have used the tax code to pay nothing in specific years—legally, through planning and loopholes. It’s not fiction, but it’s not every rich person, every year.
@Doge
Diogenes
Nemo me impune lacessit
We don't now.
Let’s tackle this step-by-step: mortgage payments, rent, and food purchases, and whether they’re subject to federal taxation in the U.S. The short answer is no, these aren’t taxed by the federal government.
Here’s the breakdown:
Mortgage Payments
Mortgage payments themselves—principal and interest you pay to a lender—aren’t subject to federal taxation. You’re spending after-tax income, so the IRS doesn’t tax the payment as an event. However, there’s a flip side: if you itemize deductions on your federal income tax return, you can deduct mortgage interest paid on a primary or secondary residence, up to a limit. For loans taken out after December 15, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) caps this at interest on $750,000 of mortgage debt ($375,000 if married filing separately); pre-2017 loans get a $1 million cap. In 2021, about 11 million taxpayers deducted $276 billion in mortgage interest, per IRS data. Principal payments, though, aren’t deductible—they’re just you paying back borrowed money. So, no tax on the payment, but the interest portion can reduce your taxable income if you itemize.
Rent
Rent payments to a landlord aren’t subject to federal taxation either. Like mortgage payments, you’re using after-tax income, and the IRS doesn’t tax that outflow. There’s no federal deduction for rent akin to mortgage interest, though. Renters get no direct tax break on their federal return. (Some states, like California or New York, offer renters' credits, but that’s not federal.) For the landlord, rent is taxable income, but for you, the renter, it’s just an expense, untaxed by the feds.
Food Purchases
Food you buy for personal consumption like groceries at the store and meals at home isn’t subject to federal taxation. There’s no federal sales tax on food purchases; sales taxes are a state and local thing, and even then, most states exempt groceries (e.g., Texas, Florida) or tax them at a reduced rate (e.g., Alabama at 4%). Prepared food (restaurants, takeout) often gets hit with state/local sales tax—say, 8.5% in California—but that’s not federal. The USDA says Americans spent $1.4 trillion on food in 2023, and none of that faced a federal tax at the point of sale.
@Grok