Notes on Tax Reform, 2017

Our review of the new tax bill led by US Republican party.

On ‘tax cuts to corporations’

The tax cuts to companies are said to attract international businesses, to create a base here.

Broadcom (AVGO) is already taking advantage of this – moving ‘back to’ the US.

They employ 7,000 American workers, and want to hire many more thousands of American workers being paid top salaries.

https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Broadcom/salaries

This is what we want to see. It will most certainly boost GDP in the United States, and provides returns back to their shareholders, 90% of whom are in the United States.

GDP growth is correlated with growth in the stock markets, and stock markets are easily and equally accessible to all American households, indiscriminate of ethnicity or any other construct of social prejudices.

A portion of those jobs, should benefit historically underserved American communities who are more likely to suffer from employment discrimination — though there is no evidence of concentrated recruitment efforts yet, like there was during the Great Migration.

Apple alone has a quarter-trillion sitting in banks overseas. These tax cuts, are good first steps to bring back that money. It CAN be invested into small businesses and hiring new talented employees.

However, taking purposeful actions to Eliminate poverty is still completely missing from the national dialogue.

Creating jobs is a moot point, when “unemployment” is virtually zero, and supposedly at all time lows, and does nothing to reduce homelessness.

On the estate tax

Recently, we have shifted our perspectives against large inheritances. That said, our time in Washington, has shown us that governments do not spend most wisely to put the largest number of people to work domestically. So, we’re big supporters of reducing any taxes, including estate taxes.

On the flip side, we’d also like to see incentives given to those HNW benefactors and heirs to encourage them to invest directly into small businesses owned by economically disadvantaged people. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/13/124.104

On budget deficits

We want to see the elimination of Budget deficits and big gov’t debts.

Overspending is not attractive, not sustainable, and it is being done only to perpetuate and cement the standing wealth gaps.

Budget deficits (the extra $1T being spent beyond the $3T in tax revenues) could be explained, if it went DIRECTLY into hiring people from low-wealth families. But exactly why do the rich need more $$$? It just doesn’t make sense to concentrate more in the hands of the few.

$3T in tax revenue = $100k jobs for 30m people. There’s enough cash to go around to everyone. Why sequester it into the hands of a few??? It just doesn’t make sense….

On the national debt

When low wealth people are asked, “who should be responsible for paying off the national debt, the rich or poor?”, the common resounding answer is “put the burden on the rich”.

On follow up, when asked “so when you become a multi billionaire, are you willing to GIFT the government with your estate to pay off the debt”, the common resounding answer is “definitely not”.

It becomes terribly hypocritical, for low wealth people to seek to impose financial requirements on HNW people, that they themselves would be fundamentally opposed to implementing IF/WHEN they became a HNW person.

80% of federal government tax revenues come from Income taxes. By reducing taxes on higher income people, leaves them with the choice and decision to do what they want with their wealth. If you CHOOSE to pay off the national debt either directly through a “gift” or through employing economically disadvantaged people, then that is a choice you may make.

The national debt will not be paid off IF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, do not want the debt to be repaid.

On homeownership…

The tax benefit for $500k homes (cut in half from $1m), can go down again in our opinion to $250k. Nobody NEEDS a big house, so yes, cut the tax benefit.

And if you want to FIGHT for a house in a crowded city (DC, NYC, Silicon Valley, Seattle), you’re obviously not hurting for dollars, and generally do not need the tax benefit. Again, our principles boil down to determining who NEEDS the money, and who doesn’t.

On education….

We have long been quite bearish on the prospects of formal education, and therefore firmly believe in taxing the universities. They’ve grown too large for the alleged benefit being provided to society.

Education is freely available through public libraries and this little thing called the “search engine”.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=search+engine&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1970&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Csearch%20engine%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bsearch%20engine%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSearch%20Engine%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSearch%20engine%3B%2Cc0

If people want to buy education, they may…. going through government is completely unnecessary, for loans, tax deductions, or any other type of credit for “training”.

And just like anyone can buy education or find it for FREE at will, similarly, anyone seeking to sell their knowledge can set up an academic course, sell their course on their own website, and publicize it using social media and email list to supportive friends — presuming they have constructed something useful their friends want to learn.

No middle man (aka, “University”) is needed. A wordpress website, paypall account, and a few free plugins is all that’s necessary. pH14 Plan website, is proof that.

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Author: pH14 Plan Staff

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