silverscreenselect wrote:
I pay taxes on the income I make and then pay taxes when I transfer that money to Walmart to buy products. Walmart pays taxes on the money it makes from that sale and then their employees pay taxes when Walmart pays them a salary or their shareholders get taxed when Walmart pays them a dividend. In any case, the money is taxed when it changes hands. Sometimes one party pays it; sometimes the other but it gets taxed on every single transaction, so why should the passing of money through an estate be any different?
First you need to present the facts in a logical and reasonable format.
(note to anal retentive types: I did all the below math in my head, once, as I was going down the page, and is not meant to be 100% accurate or even reflective of Walmart's ratios. Its just a strawman model.But if it bothers you, go ahead and correct/edit)
First - Your employer has deducted the income they paid you from their earnings so they did not pay taxes on that money they got from their customers, you did. So lets start with the $100+$5 sales tax you pay Walmart.
Walmart does not pay taxes on the $100.
They deduct the $8 they paid their employees to stock the item, check you out, and bring your cart back into the story. The employee will pay taxes that $8.
From the $92 left,
-Walmart pays $1 in employment taxes for match the employees' portion of some and provide them unemployment insurance.
-Walmart pays $3 in rent, utilities, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance on the building you shopped at.
-Walmart pays $5 in logistics to unload the product from the suppliers trucks, pay workers in the distribution center, pay for and maintain the distribution center, and transport the products to your store.
-Walmart pays $42 to the suppliers for the product itself
-Walmart pays $2 to suppliers, for logistics, rent, and store employees to purchase and stock items that get shoplifted (yep, you pay for that)
-Walmart pays $10 at the corporate level for management, corporate HQ, accountants, lawyers, and others because if they don't work at HQ they'll work at the store and that would suck.
-Walmart pays $8 to TV networks to advertise
Walmart will report $100 in revenue and $79 in expenses (this does not account for non-cash or pre-paid stuff, lets not complicate)
Walmart will pay taxes on $21 of what you gave them for your purchase. Somewhere up the chain, the buck (literally stops there) and someone else pays the income tax on their net earnings. The money is not taxed twice....yet.
Walmart then pays the government $7 in taxes and puts the remaining $14 in the bank.
They only need $10 of it, so they distribute $4 to their share holders of this after tax (corporate tax rated) money.
Now the shareholders report that $4 and pay tax on it (paying tax on already taxed money).
Then the shareholder dies and those dividends, if the shareholder hasn't spent it all going to the movies or flying around the country playing cards, gets Estate taxed. Taxed a 3rd time for no reason other than it didn't get spent.
Now, you seem to have a REAL problem with sales taxes, because you're paying taxes with money that's already been taxed, once. Seems a bit hypocritical to be for the Estate tax then.
..what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms.
~~ Thomas Jefferson
War is where the government tells you who the bad guy is.
Revolution is when you decide that for yourself.
-- Benjamin Franklin (maybe)