You sound old.

Do they have deals with ATT UVerse, Cox/Charter/You Name it Cable channels, Dish/Direct TV Satellite companies to hook into their systems? That would actually be some coup if they were to be able to integrate into all these systems...will it also act as a DVR? I mean, if they want to be a 1 box fits all, that would be one big requirement I'd guess.

Sure it can play games....but how well does it do the other stuff ?

Except we're far from just barely surviving, while there are people actually struggling. Your indoctrination in individualism does not allow you to see how immoral that is... A little bit of empathy would do you good.

Well, what can I say? There are winners and losers in the world, always has been, always will.

Nothing shy of taking everyones money/wealth, and redistributing so that everyone has an equal share, whether they earned it or not, you are not going to have people that don't 'struggle" as you say.

I certainly hope you aren't proposing that....because at some point, you run out of people willing to work harder and excel, only to have their rewards given to someone that didn't/couldn't do the same work or had the same luck.

Life is a contest....you have to fight to win. Not everyone gets that.

Really so I have a tax lawyer I don't know about?

Much of this stuff is not clearly laid out online. If it was I surely would not want to take advantage of it either.

Wait, are you giving people grief because they took a little extra time and effort to learn what tax laws and breaks are applicable to them? Heck, if anything, people that take the time to truly learn what they are doing, SHOULD get to keep more money, lets reward effort, eh?

I have described in the past what I was able to save using a S-corp to save a good deal on employment taxes (SS and medicare) 100% legally with my companies I've had. I set this up WAAYY before everything was out there on the Web for easy research. I heard about S-corps, and how best to run a self employment business, and did the footwork and research to find out what the best path to pursue for my situation was. Some internet, some phone calls.

Today, it is much easier, with a little effort to find these things out. Heck, if someone was interested, and quit watching American Idol, they could use that time to learn a lot of things...tax laws are just one of them.

And hey, if you don't want to take advantage of it..that's fine, but don't fault others for doing so as long as it is perfectly legal.

Personally, I can't understand why you wouldn't take advantage of it as you mentioned...unless you really think a large, bloated, faceless national bureaucracy can allocate and spend YOUR money YOU earned in a much better, efficient and humane way than you could. Frankly, I'd rather give my extra charity dollars directly to people or entities that "I" vet as being efficient and causes I support.

But, that's just me.

Look if you want to make it fair...redo the tax system. Let's take it all and do it from scratch.

Start with the Feds, minimize it to their constutional level needs (defense, etc...there aren't that many things the Feds are really mandated to cover. That will ease off the need for DC to print and borrow so much money.

Bring most of the taxation back to the states, and the states have more flexibility to tax based on the states needs. I'd be more for a simple flatter (if not flat or fair tax). You make this...you pay % of this, no deductions. And almost no one (except true poverty) would get out of the tax game without a little skin in it. Everyone should pay something, even if it is only a fucking dollar.

Now, that way, everyone pays less, reasonable amounts, then you can feel moral about taxation...and no one gets what you term "unfair" loopholes.

I still don't see doing whatever I possibly can that is legal to keep as much of my money as a moral issue at all, but if you don't like people using whatever they have at their means legally to reduce their taxes, then you should be for extreme simplification, which is fair to everyone, and everyone pays something, and with this set up, overall, less money is required by govt. and power begins to shift, as it should, back to the people.

The solution is simple. Make guns illegal for all men, and legal for all women.

Are you kidding?

I mean, have you been in close confinement with a bitch on the rag with PMS??

Geez, I try to keep all throwable and sharp objects (guns are a given) away from my women pretty much every month till their 'visitor' leaves again for awhile, and some semblance of sanity can return to them.

. I do agree that the banning of guns appears to be an end on its own for these people.

Yep, kinda Like MADD...they use drunk driving as their rallying call, but they would really rather us have prohibition again as a final goal.

2) At the airport, but only about 25% of the time, and ONLY when "opting out" of the naked image scanners.

Funny, for the past few times at the airport, they waved me through the irradiation machines instead of the metal detectors, upon which time I requested a pat down rather than the radiation (even with them telling me there was no radiation), and they took me over for the pat down, but no metal detector when I got the pat down.

I make sure to get to the airport earlier enough every time these days, to request the patdown rather than the radiation machines....wish everyone would start doing that to give the TSA a bit of trouble and maybe have those scanners NOT be something they want to try to send so many people through.

. I think the only thing still holding it back and keeping those jobs in place is voice recognition. (The person in India still seems better than the bot at telling the difference between "yes", "no", and "repeat again".

But on the upside, we the customer, will be able to understand the bots MUCH easier than we currently can the Indian named "Bob" on that support call.

I plan to survive for months and weeks...I fucking leave town when the hurricane come near me.

I generally think of it as a mandated week of random vacation during the summer, at worst, I'm out of town for a few months (Katrina).

I dislike hurricane, but I think I hate tornadoes even more. At least with a hurricane, you get about 3x days warning to get the fuck out of the way.

It's kinda sad to have to spell it out loud... but here it goes: your tax money is used to benefit society; when you don't pay your taxes you are not contributing to society, yet you still benefit from those who contribute - that is immoral. Please, cayenne8, tell me how isn't that obvious?

Sorry, I didn't know I was born obligated to be my brother's keeper.

And for the most part, here we're talking about Federal taxes which has little if anything to do with my use if LOCAL infrastructure and services which I pay for with my local city and state taxes.

But I don't feel any moral obligation to take care of society at large. I am charitable, and give first to family and friends, and then to external charities, but I don't consider that to be a morality issue. I certainly don't see the govt in general forcibly taking my money for other people to be a moral thing.

Furthermore, how can a system where the "I'm gonna get as much as I can (regardless of my needs) and give as little as possible" mentality is the norm be considered moral?

That's just nature at work..survival, I get mine first, etc. Nothing moral or immoral about it, just a fact of life my friend. Human nature since day one.

Because the world is changing and it's no longer socially acceptable to just pay what's legal, it's considered inappropriate to pay less than what people would consider to be a fair amount. If you're paying $1 of tax on $1000 of earnings because you've cleverly nested your business assets overseas in a complex web of tax avoidance schemes, then most people would consider that unfair, even if it is legal.

What world is it that you live in where what you stated is true?

Slashdot is about the ONLY place I've ever come across this sentiment before at all.....

There is a significant difference between taking deductions listed on the 1040 and creating shell companies to hide your income.

If both activities are 100% legal within the current tax law, then I see no significant difference.

I personally take every deduction I legally can take to save the maximum amount of my hard earned money from the tax man.

Most people do...what's wrong with that? What person doesn't take every legal advantage they can?

Let's be clear here - I paid about $165K in federal income tax alone in 2012. So according to you, if I find a provision in the tax code that lets me claim my turtle as a dependent, and knock off $10K from my tax bill, that's okay with you, because hey, it's legal, and I'm *still* paying more than three times what you pay?

Well, yes....what's your point?

Aside from this sentence, I'd never have thought to use the words taxes and morality in the same sentence.

How in the world do you conflate the two topics?