patrick.net

I was thinking beyond estimating carbon settings. A quick logic program like that could allow someone planning a meeting to put in different locations to minimize overall travel costs, or a project manager might have to capture costs for a job code so the software is an auditing tool, there are all kinds of accounting uses with modifications to the concept.

I'm not sure that such a tool would be appropriate as auditing. There's some nuance to how meetings are scheduled that a computer program cannot capture (how much should you value a CEO's travel time versus a VP of sale? IT Director?). I would welcome a non-travelling scheduler that automatically look at individual calendars to recommend scheduling times.

astrid said:
Are there any stated or implied goals in addition to tracking carbon emission savings derived from video conferencing?

Whoa, great ideas all, glad you like it. I got the idea around 7.30 this morning, when I was half-jokingly responding to something Randy said. But then it just stuck with me so when I got in (and half the team were taking friday off), I just kinda started coding it.

The only 'stated/implied' goal was to see what we were saving with all this online meeting stuff. Didn't really think too far ahead of that. I like the Prius-meter concept - will try to hook up the data to a meter-widget. I thought about capturing time-savings as well, but wanted to keep this focused on 'pure-carbon', and also something I could bang out in a day.

SP

Astrid, I'm sure you know that Outlook does what you are talking about. Basically you can view everyone's schedules together to block out a chunk of available time for a meeting request.

@SP and all

Awesome! This kind of data and calculations are very useful. The problem is certifying those credits to actually be a real asset is a tremendously complicated, expensive and time-consuming process.

But if anyone has any great front-end solutions you should contact me (and keep an eye on my blog, and from there our "official" blog). At some point soon we'll be looking for folks with end-user applications to sign up as affiliates, partners, etc. And if you happen to be a RoR "playa" (no, actually a serious software engineer/developer with lots of pre-RoR experience developing hard core apps), then I'll try to hire you.

Malcolm,

That's where I got my idea from, though I was thinking of a tool for social networking or for larger 30+ person events where eyeballing would not work too well.

This could be particularly useful is Google can capture the certain information automatically from Outlook and feed it to Google Calendar (can it do that already, just wondering...). That opens up a lot of social networking possibilities with friends and people outside of one's company network.

-is
+if

Interest is deductible in both scenarios. Interest is a business expense. This is not a subsidy in any sense of the word, it is a hard cost of doing business

Exactly Malcolm, that is what all these people who are advocating for the elimination of the mortgage tax deduction don't realize: homeowners would just form a corporation that would own the property and then rent it back to the homeowner. Businesses can deduct the full cost of doing business, including interest costs, so this would be a wash. It would be a great boon for accountants and lawyers, to set up all the new corporations that would spring up.

Jimbo,

The state-tax federal-tax nexis is a tricky issue. On one hand, it's unfair to ask taxpayers to pay taxes on income they don't have and on the other hand, it's an incentive for the state to creep their tax collection away from sales tax and poach from federal tax revenues.

I'm pretty sure such a corporation would fail the business purpose test and it would be plenty easy to prevent people from taking advantage of such a loophole.

Zephyr, your tax analysis leaves out the 2/3 of taxes collected that are not income taxes. Payroll taxes, sales taxes and use taxes are all regressive and fall most heavily on the lower 90%. Property tax and investment taxes fall on the middle class and wealthy.

You make the assumption that the only way to recover the lost revenue by eliminating the mortgage interest deduction is to raise income tax and I think that is a huge (and mistaken) assumption.

I think at the very least, Jimbo is saying that when the tax code becomes too punishing people get creative. What comes to mind is what I was saying earlier which is now that regular interest isn't deductible the financially sound thing to do is move all your debt onto your house to deduct the interest. This is contrary to the reason public policy favors MID because instead of having real home ownership, these screwups end up just using their house as an interest loophole instead of paying their loans down. There will always be loopholes, and the more complicated we make the tax code, the more inefficient the whole thing becomes.

Malcolm,

US taxes are not very high by recent historic standards. It's not the absolute tax rate that motivates people to seek tax shelters but comparative rates. Getting an exemption or deferral is like getting in on a hot IPO, it's not really about the money. There's ego involved.

You don't find paying around half your income in taxes high by historic standards? I believe England has their high bracket at about 40%, and they actually have healthcare included, and somehow manage to pay the government's bills.

15% SS gotta count employer cont since it is your pay (AKA Self emp tax)
20-35% Fed
9% State
1% Dis.
7% Sales tax
(Depending on your home, your prop taxes can easily be another 5-10% or more of your income.)

I'm not really sure what you mean by ego in tax avoidance strategy. I think it is just human nature in someone's self interest to minimize taxes. Generally I do the same, but I look at taxes as a cost of living, and I make adjustments to how I live depending on the tax ramifications. I think I can relate somewhat because I think people who do anything to avoid taxes become idiots when they spend more avoiding them than just paying them. People doing 1031s recently are idiots in my opinion because the loss in value of staying in real estate in general is far more than the taxes on gains they would have paid in the first place.

I'd caution you about the tax rate propaganda trap. Yes, at times in history there were brackets up to 90%, those were imposed on the very wealthy, but for the average Joe, it seems that taking 30-50% has always been the norm. No matter how they jugle the numbers, you will always be paying the same. Smoke and mirrors.

Even though there is always room for improvement, I don't want to be construed as being anti-anygovernment because even at current rates, for what we get as a country, the average tax payer does get a fair value in exchange for what they pay in taxes. It is actually the very rich who should be pissed off but their upper rates at least are 'historically low.'

Sorry to drag on, but I also just though of the example at hand being smoke and mirrors. Yes 'rates' might have been higher in the past but again, almost everything was deductible including ALL interest which is how we are on this topic. Some people are so fucked now that if you allowed all interest to be deducted they wouldn't owe any taxes.

Malcolm,

US taxes are not 50% of total gross income. (England also has VAT, which adds about 20% to consumption costs.) In the US, Income taxes don't cut in until a certain point and SSI cuts out around $100K. Self employed people typically get to itemize a lot of things that W-2 jobs do not allow, so I'm not going to weep for that extra $7K that you may have paid out.

Do I wish I was paying lower taxes? Sure. But at what cost to the society I live in?

As for ego. I know of too many people who buy too much house/car because they can stick the tab on the taxpayer. Even though the cost to them is still much higher than buying a cheaper house/car.

"As for ego. I know of too many people who buy too much house/car because they can stick the tab on the taxpayer. Even though the cost to them is still much higher than buying a cheaper house/car."

This just doesn't make sense to me. Even leasing an expensive car, you still pay sales tax on the payment. The more expensive home you buy, the more you pay in property taxes. I don't understand how you can say someone buying something which creates jobs and opportunities as well as generating tax revenue is sticking it to the taxpayer.

Your other points are true but irrelevant to the average taxpayer since they never outgrow social security. You might reflect that when I started working in the late 80s the cutoff was 30K for social security, it is now like you say above 100K. Most people don't earn that, but they did used to earn 30K in the 80s. Basically like I said, you can play with the numbers but you do pay about half which is the historic norm. One rate goes up, one goes down, it's politics.

Now, when you take the distribution, as a percentage because yes SS does cut off, you are now left with a regressive tax table which is where I have a problem because you are correct about the higher brackets. Someone earning say 500K a year in wages can tweak the system to get their actual percentage below someone earning 80K per year. This is not a subsidy, or sticking it to anyone, it is a broken system, somewhat compensated by AMT but that is a cluster f_ck of its own.

I think this illustrates why I will never become a Democrat, even though the ideals of equality, opportunity and fairness are inline with my beliefs. There can never have a discussion on social policy, or government roles without the immoral direction of someone wanting to punish someone else for being successful. It's like no one realizes when you mold the system that way, it then becomes ever more difficult to attain wealth. Why is wealth viewed so negatively here?

"15% SS gotta count employer cont since it is your pay (AKA Self emp tax)
20-35% Fed
9% State
1% Dis.
7% Sales tax
(Depending on your home, your prop taxes can easily be another 5-10% or more of your income.)"

This is another reason I cashed out my San Jose home and moved to Boise. I live on the interest of the cashout of that SJ home, so no more FICA/Medicare payments, ID state tax maxes at 6%, 6% sales tax, lower property tax.

ID did what CA alledged to do with Prop 13. The selling point of Prop 13 was to "keep seniors from getting kicked out of their houses". The problem is that Prop 13 exempted EVERYONE, including corporations. ID property tax law exempts payment via a sliding scale those seniors who fall below several terraces of income level. For the rest of us, there's a $100,000 homeowner exemption on the assesed value of a primary residence...compare that to the silly $7,000 homeowner exemption in CA. Since a $300,000 house here is a McMansion, that exemption really means something.

My family lived in CA since the 1860's, but I didn't really understand how burdensome was the tax situation until I left and discovered how others live.

The point being I'm living better not working here in Boise than I was working long hours and making a HAHA in San Jose. Surely that should in the long run put downward pressure on BA houses - having the option to just go almost anywhere else.

I did the same Dennis. When given the choice I don't believe most people would participate in the system, but they have to. Work to live, you know it. Passive income is the way to go, now I will only take a job if it is interesting. But yes, I took my gains, paid the taxes no 1031 for me right now, paid my house off, and live off of passive interest income. I guess I am subsidized since I don't pay social secuirty or self employment income tax. I am my own example. I guess I am sticking it to the taxpayer by not earning wages and paying extra taxes.

I don't know how most people do it. A lot of guys my age have a divorce, and child support to worry about, as well as some judgement following them around from job to job as well. Factor those in as well, and now you have an Al Bundy situation. "Out of this dollar, I just earned myself a nickel!"

Another aspect of the foolishness of the 1031 exchange at present is the Democrat's threat to bump the cap. gains up from 15% to around 30%. You should take your lumps now: it may only get worse in the future.

Justme,

If you want to calculate the fuel efficiency of aircraft you may have to average fuel consumption by flight. That is, engine start to engine shutdown fuel consumption for a statically large enough sample. Your sample would be affected by aircraft types, altitudes, profiles, and even direction.

Although as you say, fuel consumption in the climb to cruise altitude is much higher than cruise itself, this is balanced somewhat by the desent phase. So, for long enough flights, cruise fuel consumption may be a close enough estimate of relative efficiency, especially if an enroute climb/desent is used.

But that estimate of relative consumption may be useless for your purpose.

Altitude: At a given indicated aispeed,, a flight at 39,000 ft will consume less fuel and have a much faster true airspeed than a flight at 31,000 ft.

Direction: A typical flight from California to New York has a 50 knot tail wind from the jet stream, while the New York to CA flight will have to fight the 50 knot headwind. So, flying east gives a 100 knot advantage for the same fuel over flying west. Other factors that influence fuel consumption would be differences from "Standard Day" in reference to outside air temp and atmospheric pressure.

I do not think you will get what you are looking for by examining generic aircraft performance data. The same plane with the same takeoff gross weight can have very different fuel consumption on different flights depending on altitude flown, direction flown, mission profile (gradual verses rapid climbs and desents, flying at most economical speed vs meeting a schedule), and other factors.

"I think this illustrates why I will never become a Democrat, even though the ideals of equality, opportunity and fairness are inline with my beliefs."

Malcom,

I though Democrats were more concerned with equality of "outcome" verses "equality, opportunity, and fairness".

I think that is the perversion. It would be OK if everyone were rich but the outcome has to be the same and since not everyone can be rich, outcome isn't equal, so the rich guy has to be brought back down, but then no one else can be rich either.

I would register as a Democrat if they would (as a group) relinquish their self appointed right to judge whether people have more than enough, and stop their self appointed role of allocating resources that belong to someone else.

Airplane guys: the low mileage should be viewed as a per person or group per vehicle mileage. .3 miles per gallon sounds terrible, but that is .3 miles per gallon/X hundred people. If each person had a car, or each 2 people represent a car, the mileage starts looking pretty good, plus it is a single source of pollution instead of all spread out, and it is high up.

Malcolm,

My allegiance is not with the Democratic party. I associate with the Dems because the GOP is such an appalling alternative and 3rd parties in this country are a bunch of wankers. The Dems are a lesser evil, a much lesser evil compared with the alternatives.

You, on the other hand, will continue to vote Republican even if they do appalling things. You'll say you would vote (D) if XYZ happens, but then you'll raise the bar and say the Dems haven't done enough. I've seen way too many people like you already. (End of discussion).

My (ever-changing) standpoint on government is that government should primarily serve three purposes:

1. Enforce property rights, including property rights to intangible property such as life and freedom from harassments. Not absolute right - I do not believe that a book/album should be released into the public domain for non commercial after 20 years, w

2. Provide for public goods - national defense, public education (I favor the Continental approach), public health, policing, roads.

3. Provide some level of subsidies for quasi-public good such as university research and solar panels. Taxation for negative goods such as carbon emission and driving tall vehicles during rush hour.

There are studies in progress which indicate global climate change is driven by sunspot/solar wind suppression of cloud formation.

Henrik Svensmark's work on cosmic radiation/cloud formation and Tim Patterson's (unrelated) research on historiology of ocean sediments - both still in progress - show solar activity correlating with known climate change events, episodes and eras.

Before we get too keen and too expensive about carbon footprint, let's be sure we know what we're doing?

"You, on the other hand, will continue to vote Republican even if they do appalling things. You’ll say you would vote (D) if XYZ happens, but then you’ll raise the bar and say the Dems haven’t done enough. I’ve seen way too many people like you already. (End of discussion)."

Astrid, your tone is borderline offensive. I don't try to size you up, please don't be so rude.

So was yours when talking about the Democrats. You had no problem painting them with a very broad stroke.

I did not turn this particular discussion political, you did.

But I don't get personal, that's the difference. I don't ridicule your beliefs, or try to predict what you believe or what you would do if....

I'll be happy to say some bad things about Republicans if you want. I wouldn't even call what we have representing us right now real Republicans. I am currently registered as Independent FYI.

Though I do apologize for this half completed sentence:

"Not absolute right - I do not believe that a book/album should be released into the public domain for non commercial after 20 years, w"

I meant to type: Not an absolute right - I do believe that a book/album should be released into public domain for non-commerical usage after 20 years and commerical usage after 40.

Malcolm,

On reflection, yes, I came across too strong. I should not have said that sort of thing, period. Though I still don't see how my response was disproportionate to your statement. If you don't want to be sized up based on your opinions, consider them more carefully.

For the past seven years, I've seen people who complain and complain about the Republican party, but then refuse any support to Democrats because of their broad and ill-informed prejudices against the Democratic party, without bothering to learn what the Democratic party actually offers.

To say that the current democratic party is a bunch of egalitarian pacificist is to ignore reality. That socialist fringe has never been more than a fringe, and for you to paint me and other Democrats (many of whom were liberal republicans before they turned away from the current GOP in disgust) all as egalitarian know-it-alls is offensive.

When I paint with a broad stroke, I'd like to think it at least comes from a good deal of thought, reading and personal experience; that I'm ready to embrace alternate opinions if those arguments are compelling. Did you do the same before painting Democrats with your broad stroke?

I have a longer response in moderation. The primary response is:

I'm sorry it turned personal and will watch myself a bit closer, but the rest stands. (I also find your characterization of Democrats pretty personal too)

The corollary is:

In online discussions - when choosing between niceness and what I perceive as truth, the latter is much more imporant.

Malcolm Says:
Different Sean:
You understand that income tax taxes income right?

um, yes?

The point is that in Oz a property investor adds on their rental income to personal income, and deducts mortgage interest and other expenses from their personal income. If their investment expenses outweigh their rental income, then the Tax Office owes them a refund at their top marginal rate on the difference.

It was my belief, based on reading, that not all countries allow you to claim tax breaks on rental properties against *personal* income, but you had to treat the investment as a separate income producing entity. However, this could be wrong -- what is the position in the US on MID on investment properties? (You can also count the HOA, council rates, asset depreciation on fittings, etc as deductible expenses in the same fashion.)

Hence, many investors were encouraged (by gurus) to buy investment properties knowing they would make a loss on the income for 20 years, but that the Tax Office would bail them out at up to 50% or so of their loss (depending on their top marginal rate -- the more money you make, the more the Tax Office will refund you, in a perverse irony. Since adjusting the margins recently, tho, it's more likely to be 33%, thus discouraging tax-effective investment in property.) Further, the Treasurer halved capital gains tax, purportedly to benefit buying and selling of stocks, but the reality was that most people stampeded to property, believing yet another hurdle had been taken down to speculating.

The other thing that saves speculative investors who invest at a loss (or 'negative gearing crazies' as called by the SMH economics editor) is inflation. Eventually, the fixed dollar value of the original mortgage attenuates as the dollar inflates, although you've also had to pay interest on the loan throughout. After a decade or two, the mortgage amount is worth about the average annual salary instead of 10x the average salary, or whatever happens... Plus rental amounts have gone up with inflation also... so property investors are really playing a waiting game with inflation for the most part, knowing that inflation is almost inevitable in any economy...

"The point is that in Oz a property investor adds on their rental income to personal income, and deducts mortgage interest and other expenses from their personal income. If their investment expenses outweigh their rental income, then the Tax Office owes them a refund at their top marginal rate on the difference. "

Right, that's called a business loss, that's how it works here. A net loss on a rental comes off of your adjusted gorss income tax.

"Hence, many investors were encouraged (by gurus) to buy investment properties knowing they would make a loss on the income for 20 years, but that the Tax Office would bail them out at up to 50% or so of their loss (depending on their top marginal rate — the more money you make, the more the Tax Office will refund you, in a perverse irony. Since adjusting the margins recently, tho, it’s more likely to be 33%, thus discouraging tax-effective investment in property.) Further, the Treasurer halved capital gains tax, purportedly to benefit buying and selling of stocks, but the reality was that most people stampeded to property, believing yet another hurdle had been taken down to speculating."

You're killing me.
Yes, here as well you can lose money on a rental indefinitely and deduct it, but come on, the notion of someone deliberately losing money on something for 20 years is a bit of a stretch. You need to come and meet some Americans to really understand the pettiness here. The best way to get someone to overpay on a house is to tell them that they are benefiting a landlord by paying rent, and vice versa, the quickest way to get someone to sell a house is to tell them they are subsidizing a renter. BTW what you describe is basically a private rent subsidy, so why would anyone be against that as a matter of policy?

But I'll help you do the same as the gurus. For every dollar you send me for the next 20 years, I will send you back 50 cents.

All kidding aside, here you don't even need it to be an investment property, you can claim a second residence and deduct that interest as well straight off the top. I'll patiently await the knee jerk outrage before I explain the thinking behind the 2nd residence rule, although I know there are people here smart enough to know the reasoning.

To elaborate on my 1st post because this is more an ideological discussion since facts aren't in question. Like gambling, you have to take the losses with the wins. The state can't have an income tax that only taxes the profit without allowing for the losses. I'm really struggling with the notion that somehow when a loss is applied against income it is somehow a subsidy by the state. Frankly that thinking scares me, but I realize there are two points of view here. Mine is that the state derives it's powers and revenues from taxes paid from wealth, whereas the other point of view is that everthing starts out as belonging to the state, and the state takes what it deems a fair amount. The latter is distinctively un-American.

"everthing starts out as belonging to the state"

This was the norm throughout history. Pharoes owned all land, property and people. The Moi of Hawaii likewise owned all property. Each time a new Moi came to power, all property (even the huts) was redistributed. This same theme prevailed for every "divine right" king and "beloved" emperor and is even present in modern times by those going by "General Secretary," "Dear Leader," or "Commandante."

The idea that people can own their own lives and property is a relatively recent and localized phenomenen.