Read about what Eddie Lampert did to Sears and Kmart. Look at the real estate part of it where he sold company-owned properties to himself by using a different company Seritage.
As far as getting a tax refund is concerned, YES people give more of a benefit to the government than themselves, but for some people that’s the only way they save money. I miss the savings bonds from my checks to let me save money BEFORE it gets into my hands – bought a few cars with those savings. But that was before the interest rates were kept artificially low.
Don’t want to sound like a commercial, but you should try Bombas. Not inexpensive, but they donate a pair to homeless shelters for every pair you buy.
Hearing aid batteries for my Mom are something I’ve bought from Amazon often because of availability as well as price. What really stinks is when they use another company as one of their sellers but if I go directly to that other company, it costs more.
The ProPublica article about the ultra-wealthy and their tricks to avoid taxes is sickeningly enlightening. I already knew about the stock options and deferred compensation tricks for the lower capital gains tax rates, but this also pointed out that the ultra-wealthy don’t even pay the capital gains tax because they just use those stocks as collateral to get loans – that’s one of the reasons the interest rates have been kept artificially low.
There are many times that I try to buy something directly from a company and it is cheaper to get it from Amazon. Once I even ended up buying something from WalMart (NEVER been a fan of then either) because that was my only other option.
The most basic economic rule of supply and demand is what is causing much of the inflation. During the pandemic, demand from consumers went down, so companies stopped buying materials like lumber, steel and gas. So the costs went down. Now demand is up and supply is more limited and prices are up.
The Republican “trickle-down” nonsense is false. Companies don’t create jobs or produce goods or do anything useful because they got a tax cut.
Does that only include income? Many of the tax breaks have skirted the rules on taxation by re-categorizing the money that the wealthy get. Somehow they get classified as if they are poor and have no income. Bezos even got a tax credit for his children.
The tax software companies stand in the way of an easy tax system. Considering that most of the documents needed to fill out your taxes is already given to the government, they could provide everyone with “here is what we think your taxes or refund amounts to” and then people could review and adjust. But the tax software companies agreed to provide free software for the simplest returns in exchange for never pushing for that change.
According to the ProPublica article, the Biden plan does not go far enough to address the tax-avoidance by the ultra-wealthy.
The artificially low interest rates are a REAL problem. The CEOs like Bezos and Zuckerberg take a pittance for a salary and then pay themselves in “deferred compensation” which they use as collateral to take out low interest loans.
Liz Cheney (NOT a hero to Dems) voted with Trump more often that her replacement Stefanik. But you have to bow to Trump because he probably has information on the Repubs that his DoJ obtained from Apple phone records.
Tax software information
https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/eric-zorn/ct-column-income-taxes-irs-turbotax-zorn-20210513-e5xpe5gkpnc73gjgmucmns24xi-story.html
Read this article to find out why the tax system has been twisted to unfairly benefit the wealthiest.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
Look at Mitt Romney and Bain which resulted in the demise of Toys R Us. Romney defaulted on a government backed loaned by paying execs bonuses.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-183291/
Read about what Eddie Lampert did to Sears and Kmart. Look at the real estate part of it where he sold company-owned properties to himself by using a different company Seritage.
As far as getting a tax refund is concerned, YES people give more of a benefit to the government than themselves, but for some people that’s the only way they save money. I miss the savings bonds from my checks to let me save money BEFORE it gets into my hands – bought a few cars with those savings. But that was before the interest rates were kept artificially low.