Mark Davis

Maybe I'm wrong but the no audience thing is going to make it pretty sterile I think. Maybe some of us more in tune with it watch the entire thing but that's just a strange change.

I agree. I wonder if she would leave after sex and not show up with him in public if he upped it to $1500 though.

Trump isn't going to win the black vote in Detroit. The goal would be to try and get 20-25% of even the black male vote. Michigan is going to be one of the closest states and for every black vote he can gain from Biden in Detroit, it's two less new voters he will have to get out to flip the state.

Police have arrested a suspect in the Rachel Morin case. I know everyone will be shocked how this guy got here https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/rachel-morin-murder-suspect-arrest-victor-antonio-martinez-hernandez/

Cuomo led off with this on News Nation the other night. I went to CNN to look for it and it was way way down their page. I'd have thought ISIS having people who have crossed our southern border might have garnered a little more attention. What's worse is it took quite awhile to realize they were here.

I have this vision of a sterile room with dark background because of the no audience rule they wanted. I generally think they did that to help him focus and try to hold it together. Biden always made gaffes but when you watch him speak four years ago and watch him today, you don't see a difference?

And you think Trump people don't want to believe facts or what their own eyes tell them. I actually do hope someone on the inner circle is giving a strong guiding hand. It's the best option.

I actually feel really bad for him. I'm not really sure who is calling the shots these days. I used to believe it was Ron Klain but there's no way someone isn't at least giving a strong guiding hand.

No big deal at the southern border, just your everyday ISIS members who have entered https://apnews.com/article/islamic-state-border-fbi-homeland-security-7088e6f665f095ad38186cafe69bbddd

That guy knew more than any PhD I had in grad school or any person I've ever met in my business career.

38% is the incremental rate. For the record it’s not a rate I claimed for me, even though you stated that as well. The example I gave shows how a dollar would be taxed at that rate and subsequent estate tax rate. You chose to attack it using effective rates, something totally different. I’m not sure how you’d do an example without using incremental rates. Effective rates are a different discussion that require huge amounts of context and other data points that will be different for each taxpayer. Either way, we are way off from where this started on the estate tax and yes I’ll stick to those numbers. But I’ll leave it here as its pointless at this point and Trump is in every response etc.

Good God man. Where did I ever state that people didn't pay at the rates leading up to 38% as well? I've tried to have a respectful discussion but you're making it difficult. I understand the difference between effective and incremental, you have been interchanging your arguments between the two. I'm not sure if you don't understand or you're intentionally changing them to try to "win". Trump isn't even relevant to any of it other than you seem to believe all high earners are doing whatever it is that you claim to know Trump is doing as well. I don't even really know what he's doing on his return, but if you do, that's great. He's still just one person and wouldn't be representative of the overall group.

I walked through an incremental scenario that was the way it would be treated. You seem to be wanting to mix an effective discussion in there which can be difficult. If you want to have an "effective" rate discussion, it would require a huge amount of context that probably would be too confusing to type out here. Things like how much total income do they have, how much is capital gains and are they short term or long term, how much depreciation do they have, do they have loss carryforwards, are they self-employed and have self employment taxes, etc. All those would be on a taxpayer specific basis and is one of the reasons people often argue for a flat tax.

Again, you are mixing terms here. Are we talking "all" or being more than the "only one"? It's a little hard to address things individually given that you are coming at it from two polar opposite ends on the volume of taxpayers effected but I'll try. Your blanket statement that all high earners are avoiding 38% is untrue on it's face, otherwise that tax bracket wouldn't exist. I'd say Trump is more the outlier assuming your statement about his rate is correct, and I haven't looked at it. But yes, there are other people than Trump who have shelters and large depreciation write-offs on their returns. They are not going to be the majority as Trump specifically makes his income from real estate, which has quite a few specialized treatments in the code. I haven't reviewed his return and honestly there's definitely going to be some pretty nuanced items there that would require a tax specialist in that area to analyze, so I'm not even qualified if I had it in front of me. Has his entire return been published so we can even have that discussion? I didn't think it had been.

What does Trump's individual return have to do with incremental rates? I haven't reviewed Trump's return but I'd strongly suspect most of his income isn't going to fall under earned income but more likely capital gains offset by depreciation.

Well, to be clear, I never stated my rate was 38% so I'm not sure where that came from. But you moved the goalposts just a little by slipping the word "effective" in there. I generally talk taxes in terms of incremental dollars earned as do most I know. But incrementally, yes a lot of people's dollars who are going to fall under the estate tax eventually are taxed at 38%. That's before state tax, local tax, etc. And it's also true I'd know quite a few people, namely managing partners, who would pay big money if there was a way around that they haven't figured out.

You have a way of getting out of the 38% fed rate of earned income? I'm a CPA, worked in that and in finance for my whole career. I have a job for you. In fact, I can make you millions on just a contingency basis within a year. All joking aside, you're speaking in hyperbole whether you know it and are intentionally doing it or you have heard it and are parroting it, the tax code doesn't work that way. I'm sorry you have a jaded view of capitalism. There are a lot of countries who have tried other systems. I don't think they work as well. They have people much poorer than we do, and many more of them.

I was coming at it from what would you consider "generational" to mean? Because if there is an estate tax at all, we should exclude those under that I would think. But maybe from your answer you don't believe so. From my view, if someone pays 38% fed, 15% state, they keep 47 cents on the dollar. Then they pass away, that 47 cents becomes 28 cents at a 40% rate. That dollar earned has now had 72 cents taken by the government. It seems excessive and punitive to me. I don't really agree with taxing someone for winning a genetic lottery. We don't get to choose our parents, our country of birth, or if we have genes that give us a terminal disease etc. I don't like the idea of turning to the government to try and regulate that. To me making a great life for your child should be an incentive of our capitalist system. Not everyone is going to agree, but ideologically when people ask why I would vote for someone because of issue A, B, or C often times I look at taxation and capitalism among the most important. I think we need to keep incentivizing success to drive our economy and productivity so that we all can thrive.

I disagree totally, but to be fair I'll ask you the same question, how much is generational and what percentage is enough?

From your lips to God's ears. But in reality it should be abolished. However, like it's horrid kin the AMT, the IRS can't live without the revenue from it now. I would love a way to measure the billable hours and revenue from financial attorneys/estate planners and accountants from those two. The AMT is likely the more insidious of the two because it's not even hitting the taxpayers it was originally meant to target.

Adjust your thinking to $5MM, that's where the estate tax exemption will sit as it sunsets in 2026.

That is your prerogative for sure. If you want to give some of your remaining assets at death to charity, that's a noble thing. But to use the term generational wealth, again we have to be specific. What is that number? Because in the tax code, you have to enact these laws to kick in at certain levels. It's easy to use those terms without putting a number to them, but when you have to put the number on it then it forces you to consider the people you draw the line at. There's a huge difference between someone like Warren Buffett and a ranch family who has one surviving child that inherits farmland and little cash with it. But to be clear, I make no doubt I'm defending all of the folks the estate tax hits. They've been taxed on those funds, they should be able to spend them or leave them as they wish. You aren't starting your argument there though as far as if something has to be taxed. You HAVE taxed them, and at the highest marginal rates I'd assume. Again, how much is enough in percentage terms?

Well said. Certainly given inflation over time, the status of millionaire means less than it once did. But many millionaires are nothing more than people with good jobs who saved well. They are far from CEO's or titans of industry. The estate tax punishes these people versus the people who blew all their money on that latest gadget.

People fail to realize, we could tax "the rich", or 1% at 100% and it wouldn't fix our deficit. People like Elizabeth Warren and her "tippy top" wealth tax, which failed throughout Europe, is an acknowledgement of that. It's no surprise many estate tax fans favor that wealth tax as well. It's the same principle of seizing assets that have already been taxed.

That's not a valid analogy and is a bit telling. You are comparing someone's child keeping the money versus an unrelated third party who is generating earned income. The term "slave job" though tells me you don't really understand the laws and taxation as much as you have a feeling about wanting to punish someone for being a high earner, or more correctly, a saver. I've found through my time that most estate tax fans tend to be envious of what someone else earned. And honestly that's ok, I just see it through the lens of what I can learn as a businessman from them. In some ways that makes me envious in that I want to learn from them and I think it makes everyone better. I'm not championing anyone or anything beyond people keeping what they earned and paid their tax on. If that makes me a fan of the rich, you can call it that. I'm more a fan of capitalism and pretty unapologetic about it. I'll ask you the same question though that I ask all big tax proponents, how much is enough? Give me a percentage where the government shouldn't take another dime of your money.