I guess I've never understood people's frustrations with the paying of taxes. I've always looked at it as your dues for living in this great country, which needs a lot of maintenance (shouldn't there be a price to live in this society?). I do understand the inequites and unfairness of taxation with regards to income levels, but as long as we police the world like we have been doing, the tax bill will remain large. I think a lot of people get disgusted paying taxes because they feel there are a lot of leeches out there (FU VR about ND, I've worked all my life), but I just look at those people as accepting an inferior life and taking advantage of something that shouldn't be allowed, if the person is able to work.

Zero, I don't agree with you that the giver should pay the tax in your example. If I won a car, I'd damn well have to pay the motor vehicle excise tax for it.

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If Jeter or the Yankees paid the taxes wouldn't that also qualify as a taxable gift upon which taxes will be owed?

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Confusing???

Surely the Yankees would only pay tax on money earned as most people?

As no money has passed hands between the fan or the yankees how can tax be payable.???

If I have 5 apples which i bought for 1 dollar each and sell 4 for 2 dollars each I would be a dollar down on my 5th apple and would only be taxed on the 4 dollars profit I made.

How can you pay tax on a gift?

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I don't object to the existence of taxes. (Though I do consider some forms of taxes more egregious than others, like, say, any tax whose incidence is based upon a condition precedent of giving.)

What I object to is excessive government spending. The federal government for most of my lifetime has spent almost 30 percent or more of GDP. (And recently, that number has pushed past 40%.) And I am convinced, utterly, that most of that spending represents activities that either (a) are wholly unnecessary -- e.g., the average congresscritter's salary and 90% of its perks -- or could be performed cheaper AND more productively by people who were enabled only to the extent that they are valued in the market rather than enabled only by their ability to coerce compliance with their wishes.

And taxes are the ultimate instrument of that coercion. Government can spend ever increasing amounts in ever increasing interference/distortion of costs and benefits because they aren't subject to the market constraint of having to find people to trade with for what they do. All they have to do is consent among themselves, "on behalf of the governed," and then send out tax collectors to acquire the financing. Or, worse, send out the Fed and the Treasury to decrease the value of the currency in ways that take the financing from those as yet unborn (i.e., the people paying taxes when the debt financing has to be repaid).

Are there things that we need government to do or help with? Sure, Some "maintenance" things that we need even the feds for? Sure. The Marines come to mind. Treaties and foreign policy more generally. Interstate transportation (national highways and navigable waterways. Courts. Some national parks.

But these things are a *fraction* of what taxes pay for. These things are a *fraction* of what government spends on, a *fraction* of what it purports to "need" tax revenue for.

Save for cases of imminent invasion, in my opinion the federal government's ability to tax (and hence to spend) should be capped. (And re: the "imminent invasion" exception, think War of 1812 here, or perhaps Pearl Harbor, not any "threat to national security" that has been trumpeted since, at the very latest, the first decade of the Cold War.) And that ability to spend should not be capped by things as tissue-paper nebulous as "debt ceilings" and "budget resolutions." Or even just by a "balanced budget amendment." Capped by a Constitutional prohibition that says that the federal government can in a year spend no more than a fixed percent of the prior year's GDP.

No, that's not restrictive enough. No more than a fixed percent of the non-government-spending part of the prior year's GDP.

Personally I'd put that "spending ceiling percentage" very low, as in pre-New Deal, pre-WWI levels, at about 10-12% . (In my mind, the real blame for the growth of government lies not with the Obama and the Bush Junior or with any president from Nixon on. Those people have been bozos, each worse than the one who came before in their spending profligacy, but they have profligate in part because their predecessors built the foundations of government doing all the stuff that it does. From Wilson getting us involved in the most destructive war in human history to Johnson's Great Society, they morphed government from its role as a maintenance worker to its current role as primary provider for the family.

We need the government to do janitor tasks and Maytag repairman tasks. We don't need government to be our mommy and our daddy and the payer of allowances.

Unfortunately, the doting grandparents of Wilson and Hoover and FDR and Johnson, followed by the Boomer Era parents of Nixon and Carter and Reagan and Bush Jr. and Obama, have made us so co-dependent we are unaware of our addictions.

So much so that not even "fiscal conservatives" are going to consider my 10-12% figure realistic.

Heck, I'd be satisfied with a spending ceiling of 30 percent at this point.

Not that it'll happen.

I fully expect that percentage to continue to rise. We've become a nation of lemmings, and we're going to end up like the lemmings do.

We're running toward the cliff, all the while pushing the accelerator and calling for more speed.

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Just like any tax that is based upon the payee's wealth rather than his/her income. The government say, "you have wealth of X. I deserve a cut of that. If you don't have cash to pay it, sell it and give me my cut out of the proceeds. And if you can't sell it, give it to me."

Probate has two functions: (i) to ensure the transfer of ownership from gift-giver (the dead person) to the recipients of the gift (the "heirs"); and (ii) to ensure the government doesn't get cheated of its cut. I'll let you decide which you think the government thinks is more critical. Hint: Who gets paid first? Another hint: Who doesn't get paid until the other is satisfied?

Governments have been collecting taxes from wealth a lot longer than they have been collecting taxes from income.

If there's one thing they're unquestionably good at, its finding ways of collecting their cut. And it's an ability that has nothing to do with your ability to pay.

Sorry.

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I'm not complaining or frustrated of the premise of tax, as I said in an earlier post I understand it's value. However, in situations like this, where someone was attending a sporting event, has the thrill of catching a home run ball and graciously returns it rather than being some smuck putting it up on eBay... I think IF he were to be forced a tax because the Yankees GAVE him suite seats for the rest of the year ... I think is wrong.

Again, when I buy my daughter's gifts, they are not held responsible for the tax, I am. And in my opinion, the Yankee's are giving something away, so they should be required to pay the tax. If I bought my daughters suite seats at Yankee stadium, guess who pays that tax? Me, the one GIVING the gift.

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Yep. That is why then these things are paid for by someone else they have to use a multiplier and pay even more than the $14K. I saw a chart when I was in college but I forgot the formula. First of all it depends on what tax bracket you get bumped into, your deductions and it goes on from there. I think they use a multiplier somewhere around 1.35.

It is not unheard of for an employer to pay the taxes on a gift IE: a bonus or a trip or the use of corporate condo.

Whether you like it or not, it is considered unearned income and is taxable. The game show winners fall into this category as well. He will owe something. The Yankees are not obligated to pay his taxes but it would be nice if they did.

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As obnoxious as it may seem, this is just standard tax policy. If you are reroofing your house and a bunch of your buds come over to help you out for free (maybe in exchange for a few brewskis), you are technically supposed to report the value of their labor as "bartering income ." You think I am joking, but you would be surprised at the number of people who have been hit with tax assessments for receiving freebies from their friends or relatives. Your boss gives you one of his deer every fall? That's barter income. Your uncle does your taxes for you? That's barter income. Your buddy lets you borrow his car while he's out of country for a few months? That's probably barter income too.

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Like I said, I understand the reason by taxing, I just feel it's a bit excessive. Which is probably why I don't think about having taxes taken out of my paycheck, then also paying tax on everything I use my paycheck to buy, lol. Obviously, it's not a double whammy, but it feels like it. The majority of our paycheck taxes go to Federal, where as the majority of our spending tax goes to the State. At least, I think that's how it works. I'm not a tax nerd so I dunno.

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Most individuals pay more in state income taxes than they do in federal, and in some states, the state income tax rate is higher than the federal FICA rate too. A lot of it depends on family situation. My father pays way more in state taxes, because he has so many children and Wisconsin doesn't have all the tax credits the federal government offers.

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