patrick.net

Different Sean:

You understand that income tax taxes income right? Your post about landlords requires me to explain something as a recent landlord. An investment property is viewed as a small business. In the States and here in San Diego specificially you actually even get a business license per unit. Rental income is taxed in the same way as your net paycheck here, or the same as if you open a flower shop. Rental income, or flower shop income is calculated the same way, gross sales, minus expenses leaves net taxable income.

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. The discussion here is about MID because in the states individuals can deduct mortgage interest which is leftover from when the tax code allowed all interest regardless of who it was paid to be deducted. This was because interest is a real cost to income both individual and business, just as a casualty or loss. It is fundamentally wrong to tax interest income, and not allow a deduction for interest expense, the result is a bizzare point of view now that says income tax should apply to an expense, that's not income tax that's basically an IRS shakedown.

surfer-x Says:
July 6th, 2007 at 1:37 am
"Now I would be quite happy to “stick it to” guys like Surfer-X.

and I’d be quite happy to stick it to your fat fucking wife, that is if I were a pig fucker. Now go fuck off boomer, don’t you have a car show to go to?"

That's the funniest thing I've seen all week.

Randy,

That sounds exciting and I look forward to following the discussion. I am particularly interested to hear about ideas for viability in a no carbon tax scenario -- that's probably 5X more viable than a properly imposed carbon tax.

RandyH said:
We’re working on just such a product right now.

I just (i.e. since this morning, in lieu of real work, natch) wrote a small RoR program to track meetings and miles.

The model I used is that for every online meeting spanning N locations, with P1+P2+...+PN people in various locations, I calculate the smallest cumulative distance all of those people would have to travel in order to gather in one place. The algorithm to do this currently sucks a bit (approx NLogN), but will do for v0.1. :-)

Each online videoconference then gets C$ equal to the number of miles avoided divided by the length of the meeting in minutes.

If I get more time, I want to add other metrics to track the dollar-value of the meeting, etc. so we can get a better handle on carbon-savings per dollar of value add.

Official launch was around 12.15pm today. I even got a couple of neighboring teams excited enough to start putting their hours in. Time to go grab a well-deserved snack...

SP

Cool product SP. I can envision a few different cost accounting and resource management applications for something like that.

SP,

That's really cool!

You might have to price exhaust per unit to make it a meaningful accounting tool. Are there any stated or implied goals in addition to tracking carbon emission savings derived from video conferencing?

On the other hand, it would be a snazzy add-on to your company's (free?) online work productivity suite. Toss in a calcultor for travel time saved and this could get quite mesmerizing very quickly, much like the Prius MPH meter.

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....