Discussion Archives:(Chat discussion) Is anyone else frustrated

I'm just getting angry at the inequities in this continually crazier tax code. Just ranting - and wondering when the govt is going to stop giving $$ away to people who are irresponsible and/or lazy

There are only so many crud unskilled service sector jobs to go around. McD's is full of immigrants. Banksters have shut the small business expansion hopes for the economy down.

Wall Street, Citi, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo all got bailed out by these same taxpayers and their execs went right on pigging out on insane bonuses. Why shouldn't the actual people get bailout too?

Probably education is the way out for these young people. So what are the States doing? Cutting education budgets right and left, increasing classroom size, cutting back on class offerings, firing teachers, firing K thru 3 assistants where the early foundation is built.

Whole world's gone nuts and have let the banksters take complete control.

I agree, welfare ought to be removed from taxes. That would allow at least 1/3 of all citizens to not even have to file a tax return. Then we wouldn't be bothered by people wanting RALs etc. They would get their money from the welfare office and we could do 'real' tax returns. The chains would largely be out of business.

You are in NC right, Kevin? You see what they are doing to school budgets? Furlough days. Charlotte talking about firing 10% of their teachers due to budget constraints. Or if not firing them cutting salary by 8%. Most of these people aren't well paid. An 8% paycut on a 38K salary is gonna hurt.

And its all around. The returns I'm doing are showing financial destruction on the household balance sheet at critical scale. Small business income is down 20% on average, small business is still laying off employees, personal returns are showing 3 in 10 households with one or the other spouse laid off and collecting unemployment.

Maybe you guys only deal with elite clients. But mine are suffering, large.

So my frustrations are topped by the economy, the Federal Reserve policies, good paying jobs being outsourced or eliminated, and the banksters shooting everyone in the foot by destroying the velocity flow of money and therefore the economy with it.

Tax code inequities are way down the list.

Where McD's or Walmart? And spent 2 hours worth of daily pay for the gas to get there? And 4 hours worth to pay for child care? and then get told to go home after 6 hours becasue full time employment wasn't available?

buy more and more cheaper and cheaper JUNK

I have no problems with offering a helping hand, it's when it becomes a way of life that it frustrates me. When it becomes generational, when parents teach their young the way to work the system.

And before you go and say that I don't know what I'm talking about. Growing up, after my parents split, my uneducated mother had to be on welfare for a while, then she worked 2 and 3 jobs scrubbing floors to make sure we had stuff. She made sure we, as children knew that less than an 80 average in school was unacceptable. She made sure that college wasn't a choice, that it was mandatory. None of my 6 siblings receive a government handout. I have also worked 5 years as the controller of a poverty agency. One of the Community Action Agency organizations that do awesome work throughout this nation, so I have a soft spot for those that do need the EIC to survive.

I have no issues with the EIC, I do have an issue with the way it's given out. These folks get $9,000 in their hand and it's spent on big screen tv's and all sorts of other goodies that they forego throughout the year and their rent and mortgage still don't get paid. I accept it as a form of welfare and am good with it, but they should take any amounts due to the child credit and EIC if both are there and they should be paid to the taxpayer evenly over a 6 to 9 month period. At least each month their rent is paid.

I agree that these people need the EITC, I just don't think it should be tied to a tax return. I've long advocated a debit card with 1/12 of the EITC deposited each month. Or, Advance EITC (which I understand the IRS wants to do away with because of the cost of doling out this welfare).

So the hard-heartedness comes legitimately.

I totally agree with the 1/12th idea on a debit card.

And I think we would all be better off without EIC-- the IRS estimates that 1/3 of the EIC returns are fraudulent. I'm saying this even though I qualified for EIC in my twenties. I would rather see that money put to good use helping the mentally ill and the disabled, or into cheaper education for our kids. We can't compete globally if we put education last.

Tax Writer

And even if you are highly educated, the large corporations have fixed the Visa law so that your degree is worth much less (H1-B Visa). The H1-B Visa (totally fraudulant visa in practice) has put a huge dent in Americans in computer science programs: why work so hard, pay all this money for school, and have a non-American be allowed in to steal your job or lower your wage? It is sheer insanity what we do to our own people.

Even if you have a fulltime "job" in America today, there is no guarantee that you won't be on food stamps or Medicaid.

The IEC for those with no kids are pretty popular. There are more than a few young people who are over twenty-five and have income that puts them in the EIC range.

The EITC came earlier. Its fathers were, of all people, Richard Nixon and Daniel Moynihan. Somewhere they are rolling in their graves.

Please, I am not making political points, only relaying history.

Exactly. Everybody wants everything cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. Then they wonder why their neighbor lost their job...and those mean corporations closed the plant. Look, you cannot buy a pair of shoes from Wal-Mart for $9 and expect you or your neighbor to make them and still make $45-$50k/year. And also don't be appalled when you learn about the Kathi Lee Gifford sweatshops.

Nothing gets my lather up like the H1B Visa. Most of the Fortune 500 have their fingers in it, and so do almost all large universities, irony of ironies. Great way to get a cheap employee who will work for comparative peanuts.

Law firms have departments just to help companies cheat on this Visa. I am not sure any of them are filed that are not fraudulant, and the government knows it.

Last I heard there were 600,000 slots under this program, and companies were pushing for more, and that's 600,000 AMERICAN workers who will have their wages suppressed, including wages of whole industries (particularly computer science/programming). There is no shortage of American workers in these industries, we don't need foreign help.

This is why Congress needs those Mexicans coming over the boarder; because average Joe can get steamed about the Mexicans, without realizing that his lunch is really being eaten by the H1-B.

Meglo-mart buys the shirt for .50 from country X, sells it for $10.00. Is it cheap, cheap, cheap? No! It should be $5.00, still with a very healthy margin.

Note that the person totally cut out of the deal is the American worker. He traded a manufacturing job with good pay for the chance to work at Meglo-mart, and the chance to buy a $10.00 shirt, when the corporation could still get rich selling it at $5.00.

Free trade is a wonderful thing, if you are that top 1% that owns the majority of shares in Meglo-mart...

We don't sign free trade agreements to help the middle class.

Also, trucking don't pay like it used to, it's not that kind of job anymore. They push the "idependent" trucker now. Sort of like the independent contractor... no benefits, that kind of thing. A lot of truckers today are killing themselves trying to make a buck, and killing other drivers too.

When the middle class goes, America goes. That's why the rich keep building the fences higher in the gated communities (it won't work though).

P.S. That's why we also have a Patriot Act. Remember, the Patriot Act started out with a sunset clause. It didn't sunset.

We don't have the Patriot Act to lock up terrorists anymore, that was beside the point, and readily taken care of. We have a Patriot Act to lock up Patriots one day. Just watch.

As far as health care, that's easy. We can save money right now with Single Payor, National Health Insurance like every other sensible major democracy has. Every study shows that. We don't have it because there is so much money to be made by doctors, and primarily by middlemen like the health insurers (with an extra barrel of cash paid over to the drug companies).

I do agree we have a terrible problem with socialism though. Socialism for the rich. Like bailing out private banks and investment houses on Wall Street to the tune of 2T.

Just had an unemployment audit today with a client. Auditor kept saying client has been filing claims and has paid in for a guy he has never heard of. After a 5-10 minute conversation, the light bulb went off...let me see the SSN. Oh crap...that is Joe's SSN. Joe is from Mexico, but gave my client all of the appropriate documents...13 years ago! This is the first time any agency has even raised an eyebrow. Client calls Joe. Joe fesses up. My client was crushed that he has been lied to for 13 years.

H1B - I used to work in a very specialized industry. They would find THE GUY from UK/Europe that they wanted. Then would begin the process of applying for H1B. I always had to laugh at the wording in the want ad. You might as well cut & paste this guy's resume into the ad. Then add their physical characteristics...must be 5'10", 163 pounds, with red hair, left handed and a speech impediment. The best was the time that the applicant must have this specific list of degrees and certifications. And a red-blooded American from the midwest applied and had all of those degress and certificates. He had better GPA's, test scores, letters of reco from some of the most highly regarded people in this field. It was fun to watch them scramble since the guy from UK had already moved here and was working full-time.

CrowJD & Davidcpa - your comments are eye openers. I was thinking that free trade was a way for us to be compassionate and share our good fortune with the teeming masses in the third world, but I can see there are flaws in that reasoning.

What if we went back to manufacturing, say, good quality toasters here in the U.S.? Then when they broke, we could get them repaired by a local skilled craftsman who we pay a decent amount to, rather than simply throwing it in the landfill and buying another cheap toaster made by workers abroad being paid slave wages. Or get the good quality clothing repaired by the skilled local seamstress rather than buying a new one.

We might not have as many gadgets or clothes, but we might have a better economy.

Of course the problem of enforcing the trade and immigration restrictions which this would require would remain, plus the issue of trying to aid the unfortunate in third world countries.

Our county is boasting a nearly 20% unemployment rate here in Northern CA. Most clients that qualify for EITC are desperately in need of it to survive. There are no jobs popping up in the paper besides for Census takers.

I agree that the downfall to the economy was consumerism itself. The financial system allowed those who could not possibly pay for credit/mortgages to rack up the kind of debts that could never be recovered. I also blame the large influx of student loan debt from the 1990s and early 2000s hitting the 30 somethings that are supposed to be working and spending. Due to huge student loan debt, there is less and less discretionary income left for spending to stimulate the economy. When student loan payments eat up 400-500 a month on top of other living expenses or home mortgages and family expenses, car payment, ect... there is little to "play" with.