The US Government Hates Success
In the mail yesterday I received a letter from the IRS, regarding the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. Here is a quote of the first paragraph of this letter :
Dear Taxpayer,
We are please to inform you that the United States Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which provides for economic stimulus payments to be made to over 130 million American households. Under this new law, you may be entitled to a payment of up to $600 ($1,00 if filing a joint return), plus additional amounts for each qualifying child.
That sounds pretty cool, right? An extra $600 isn’t really going to stimulate me to make any purchases, but I’m definitely not going to say no to it. Oh wait, maybe I have to. Here’s a quote from the bottom of the letter :
For taxpayers with adjusted gross income (AGI) of more than $75,000 (or more than $150,000 if married filing jointly), the payment will be reduced or phased out completely).
They might as well have replaced that line with :
If you’re successful at all, you don’t deserve anything. We’d rather give it to individuals that make $3,000 a year and would stimulate our economy by spending the $600 on drug money.
Honestly…what is it with the U.S. government hating on successful people? I understand that those who have a much lower income could use the money to pay off debt or whatever, and $600 isn’t enough to save me; maybe pay off 0.01% of my taxes. Really though, it seems like our government does a swell job at trying to reward those who haven’t accomplished much in their life. Maybe it’s not that, maybe it just seems like the government does a swell job at penalizing wealthy individuals for their success.
It is absolutely absurd how much of a higher percentage the rich pay in taxes. People look down upon the saying “the rich will get richer”. That quote is completely true, and that’s what should happen. If someone has the drive, motivation, and guts to take a risk and start their own company, then more power to them when they succeed. People shouldn’t cry because they chose to go to college and chose to work a 9-5 job in a cubicle for the rest of their life.
The argument against this is “well how many rich people out there are rich from just scamming and lying?” Ok, how many in the middle/lower class scam/cheat/lie/sell drugs just to put food on the table and nothing more? Plenty. There’s rotten fruit on every tree, that doesn’t mean you should chop down the entire tree.
This “economic stimulus” plan is just more icing on the cake. Let’s give money to those making less than $75,000 gross per year, and to the successful let’s just keep taxing the hell out of them. For those of you who are uninformed or are just getting into the world of self-employment, here are what federal tax rates look like :
A person who has a highly successful business ($349,700 income) is paying 25% more in taxes than somebody with an unsuccessful business. The government punishes the successful by taking over 1/3 of their profits. This isn’t even counting state tax, so let’s jack it up even higher.
ABSOLUTELY ABSURD.
Every single time I think about it, I get sick to my stomach. If a person is paying more, they’re naturally going to be paying a lot more in taxes even with a fixed percentage. Someone making $10,000 would pay $1,500 in taxes, while someone making $500,000 would pay $75,000. That’s still 50x as much. But the government likes to take advantage of the successful and jack the metric up to 116x as much, $175,000 in taxes. I would say that’s the biggest negative when entering into the lucrative world of online business.
All in all, this post was one big rant about the government, and if you’re anything like me (pretty much if you’re making money online in the US), you can understand my feelings on the subject.
Let’s go lose some money fellas, we’ll get $600 for it.
Actually, I think it is you that is missing the point. There are three fundamental reasons why you are completely off base. First of all are you really naive enough to believe that the money actually goes to the poor to help them improve their quality of life? The money that we give to our pathetic government all goes towards funding war, weapons development, and immigration control–hardly helping anyone is it? Secondly, if they were to give it to the poor, how do you think that would turn out? I’m all for helping poor people, but what they need is HELP not money. Clearly, they don’t know how to handle the money they receive or they would be able to–slowly but surely–work their way into the middle class. The poor need education, and programs to help them learn to be intelligent with their money. Without that, even giving them the money is a bad decision. Finally, you have to realize that this concept makes light of this nations founding cornerstone–capitalism. I understand that it’s important for the rich to support the development of their country, but just by having their money, they are indirectly doing that through the pursuit of their own interests–ala the ‘invisible hand.’ Paying such an absurd rate of taxes to keep throwing money at the poor is no different than communism–we just don’t want to look at it that way.
fairtax is what we need! fairtax.org check it out. Huckabee is the only one supporting it.
we need huck or paul
I agree with the essential premise of your article. I am highly trouble by your statement connecting poor people with drugs. There are many highly educated, highly ambitious people that are poor. To whom much is given much is required
“An extra $600 isn’t really going to stimulate me to make any purchases”
The gov’t know that successfuly people think just like you, that’s why they don’t give you the economic stimulus money. They give it to the people who will blow it…which usually is the lower income people…which is why they are alway broke. If the gov’t want to do something productive they need to be teaching money managment and hard work ethics in schools.
Found this site through WF –
Great post, its ironic how i work for eFile
More info on Economic Stimulus.
Focusing on making money is one thing. Focusing on making a difference is another. What do you contribute to the world besides advertising Juan? It looks like you could benefit from a little higher education yourself considering you don’t know to CAPITALIZE or use the integrated spell checker.
Little twits who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
College for was awesome… S——-g girls, raging parties, life long friends, educated brain and football scholarship… Yea, that sucked. Something you will never understand or experience. Four and a half of the best years of my life. Here I am right beside you making money online the only difference is I have a portfolio of rental property which not only makes money but provides a chance to help less fortunate tenants and time to volunteer at church.
So stay in your basement you jealous little man, write your crappy ads and your lame landing pages, and contribute nothing substantial to the world. You suck.
That’s right, I said it… You suck.
even though i always loved your posts, i have to disagree with you on this one.
this isn’t about penalizing the rich or poor or what. you are just not getting the $600. treat it as a gift you can afford to your fellow Americans and give yourself a pat on the back.
lol, you guys don’t understand the tax system
if you make $500,000k, you pay 10% for the first $11,200, 15% from $11,200 – $42,650 and so on..
so the calcs in the blog post are rubbish..
What was so controversial about that post? I fully agree, except it’s not true poor people sell drugs. Smart people sell drugs and they sell them without getting caught and become rich. Poor people who sells drugs usually get caught quickly and go to jail and stay poor forever.
Taxes are the worst thing ever on a successful person, but it’s pretty easy to pay less by incorporating.
I think your post title should be “Government Hates Hard Workers” because the U.S. government is certainly for the corporations.
If you are familiar with early political philoshopy such as Hobbes and Locke, you’ll know that government was created by the wealthy to protect their property from the crazy poor people -the rich man’s nightmare.
Of course you all realize you will probably be taxed on that $600 next year….
so true! Go McCain!!!
Flat tax = Fair tax.
By Jeremy Palmer
Thats the best comment on this blog.
Govnerment does take from the successful way to much. I don’t look forward to the Democrats taking the white house and removing the tax breaks from stock dividends.
I want more tax cuts let alone the tax cuts that need to be made pernament. Even a middle class guy like me knows this stuff.
However…….
If this was a blog about taxes, I would be OK with this kind of post. But this is not that kind of Blog. Unlike us little people you with all you money can enjoy a lot more tax deductions. I’ll be taxed next year for that $600, but you can dump a ton in tax shelters.I will also unsubscribe from this blog just like like Daniel. Because you have to be the wienest affiliate marketer there is. I swear for some one soo smart you sure are stupid.
OH come on guys, do you know who’s a whiner? You are, you are unsubscribing because he said something you don’t agree with? Yeah that’s how you’re like huh, not facing the situation just avoiding it any way possible. And you’re saying he’s immature? I bet you wouldn’t say that if he was 60! Who do you think you are telling him what’s right and wrong, you’re just a bunch of stupid, naive humans.
All we do here is express our thoughts not convincing each other of our beliefs.
Why should rich pay more in %? Are you greedy and you envy them so you want them to pay more …
Poor are poor, they have hard lives but money from government won’t help them, they need to change their thinking …. Whatever you gonna say I’m stupid anyway
all this bickering about taxes is useless since we still have to pay them, no matter how illegal or wrong they may be. wanna pay less tax? Vote Ron Paul in 2008 and help him abolish this IRS, the Fed, and all the other monolithic monsters of the US government. Watch “America: Freedom to Faciscm” on Google Video if you want to be enlightened on the legality of the income tax.
Starting to disgust you? stop reading. I’m sure you mean “starting to make you jealous”
Well said, Michael….well said.
lawl. Paul Why would you even care? Stop whining u lil bitch.. and go make some money.
Both of my parents are poor. They both feel they are somehow being wronged by one thing or another. They waste all their energy on this way of thinking and believe me they are not alone. Are there road blocks on the way to wealth? Sure. Does it do you any good to whine about it? Not that I’ve seen. Over the last two years I’ve been focused 100% on what I can do about it myself. Not what the government “owes” me, not what I “deserve” to be given. I’ve doubled my income. I’m well on my way to doubling it again. Love the site, way more useful then the stimulus package in my book.
>Are you kidding me? Corps don’t pay their fair share? We have the second highest corporate taxes in the world.
No they dont. Create enough tax deductions to make your reportable income less than $50K/year.
You then get taxed at 15%. The rest of the middle class and upperclass will pay 30%-40%.
Shhh…remember congress and the lawmakers know about this…and are utilizing it to the max!
Paul – I agree wholeheartedly. The U.S. government hates success because the majority of the country is composed of unsuccessful people who hate success (it’s called jealousy).
Everyone who thinks that it’s fair to tax the rich more needs to read a book called “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. It’s about what happens to the world when the top 1% – the “atlases” who hold the world on their shoulders – get fed up with the hate and ingratitude they receive from government and from the masses and decide to go on strike. In addition to this, it’s an excellent moral defense of capitalism – something we don’t see much anymore. Too many capitalists have accepted a utilitarian code of ethics and don’t know how to properly defend their system anymore… and we wonder why we’re going socialist. Let me quote from one of the best sections of the book, where a corporate owner is on trial and gives his defense:
“I could say to you that I have done more good for my fellow men than you can ever hope to accomplish-but I will not say it, because I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of my property or their destruction of my life. I will not say that the good of others was the purpose of my work-my own good was my purpose, and I despise the man who surrenders his. I could say to you that you do not serve the public good-that nobody’s good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices-that when you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the rights of all, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction. I could say to you that you will and can achieve nothing but universal devastation-as any looter must, when he runs out of victims. I could say it, but I won’t.”
“It is not your particular policy that I challenge, but your moral premise.”
“If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own-I would refuse, I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being’s right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!”
Now there’s Truth. Go read the book – it’ll change your life.
If i get a $600 refund I put it in the bank. A poorer person would spend it and stimulate the economy.
If life was really fair you would get paid based on the benefit to society that you create. Affiliate marketing provides little value.
Also, taxes in the US are some of the lowest of anywhere that you’d want to live.