Obama's Assault on Dividends.

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Dammy, Feb 22, 2012.

  1. Dammy Well-Known Member

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  2. FluffyMcDeath Well-Known Member

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    It's just a tax on unearned income. Nobody works for those dividends except the workers who don't get them.
  3. Dammy Well-Known Member

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    What if it's a employee own company?
  4. FluffyMcDeath Well-Known Member

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    You'll still end up with more money than from just your pay-cheque. But, let's face reality. The regular Joe's aren't the ones living off of dividends. Just imagine if the ruling elites had to work for a living. Sure is hard to take over the world if you have to spend your day working for a living instead of spending the day buying politicians with the proceeds of your investments.
  5. Glaucus Well-Known Member

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    They sure can. In our field it's quite common for a developer to work as a contractor. You basically incorporate yourself. You're the director and you give yourself shares and you pay yourself dividends. One person corporations do exist, and one person corporations tend to earn the money they make.
  6. FluffyMcDeath Well-Known Member

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    Well, yes Mike, there is that. But you know why they take the money out as dividends, don't you. :)
  7. Glaucus Well-Known Member

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    Of course I do. My point was just that it's still earned. You certainly don't need dividends to cheat the tax man.
  8. Dammy Well-Known Member

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    It's not like regular Joe's 401K or pension plan is tied into dividends or anything. God knows what would happen to the entire world economy if they were depending on such funding to add to their meager Social Security checks, if that still exist by that time, for food or anything.
  9. FluffyMcDeath Well-Known Member

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    That is almost completely true depending on how many decimal places you care to use. 70% of financial assets are owned by 1% of the population. The top 400 richest people in the US have more financial assets than the bottom 155 million. Changing how dividends are taxed will affect the little guy almost not at all but the guys at the top are going to notice - and that's why they want you to object and spend PR dollars on getting you to help them stop this.
  10. Dammy Well-Known Member

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    Actually, between IRAs and 401Ks, the US Joe and Jane Sixpack have $9.5T of investments.
  11. FluffyMcDeath Well-Known Member

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    What? About thirty grand for each man, woman and child in the US? Ho, ho - those people are making out like bandits. Why aren't they all on the French Riviera living off of their dividends?
  12. Dammy Well-Known Member

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    Because it's tied up in retirement accounts, they can't touch it else huge taxes are levied against them. So it breaks down to an average of $120K per married couple and that is extreme amount of money to retire on? Have you seen what the American Social Security checks are like? Canada's must be whopping huge if you think that normal people can live off it in their retirement and not be in poverty.
  13. FluffyMcDeath Well-Known Member

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    Seems like I wasn't using enough sarcasm last time. No matter - let's look at the numbers.

    So, let's imagine that you and you spouse have 120k - and let's suppose that it is all in dividending stock, and let's assume that you get a 5% dividend annually - that's $6000. Does it matter if it is taxed as dividend income or regular income? At that level of income you won't pay Federal taxes either way.

    However, I think that you will find that the median family has very much less than 120k socked away.

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