House Announces Impeachment Inquiry against the President.

[AKDoug]

We paid less taxes also. I think most people paid less federal tax. Some people got caught at tax time owing the IRS because they're wage earners and the IRS withholding schedule was changed. Lots of people declare every deduction they can for withholding purposes on their pay and got hit at tax time. They paid less tax but paid more of it at tax time. What you want withheld matters at tax time. If your income is from some sources other than an employer, withholding doesn't matter because only the distribution amount goes to the IRS, not the taxes owed.

We don't live in a state with an income tax nor do we borrow money so what the fed does with interest deductions doesn't concern us.

I guess we'll have to wait to see if Trump's tax cut did anything for the economy. I think there's about a 50/50 chance of a recession in 2020. At least that's what economists are saying. Probably won't affect us much one way or the other.

I see where you're coming from. I've schooled my employees on the fallacy of a large tax return, so most of them are pretty reasonable on their withholding deductions. The blow was lessened among my employees considerably because of this. I also made it a point of showing how much more take home pay they got per check. I pay myself as an employee of my corporation, so I saw an increase in take home as well. Because I live in a fairly low tax state, and don't have high medical expenses, I don't ever itemize my deductions. In 25 years I've never been able to itemize more than the standard deduction.

The news media has been so negative over the last three years, I don't trust them to report anything positive. I wonder if there is a consensus among economists about this pending recession, or are they just choosing to quote the ones that believe it's going to happen.

[Borderland]

I see where you're coming from. I've schooled my employees on the fallacy of a large tax return, so most of them are pretty reasonable on their withholding deductions. The blow was lessened among my employees considerably because of this. I also made it a point of showing how much more take home pay they got per check. I pay myself as an employee of my corporation, so I saw an increase in take home as well. Because I live in a fairly low tax state, and don't have high medical expenses, I don't ever itemize my deductions. In 25 years I've never been able to itemize more than the standard deduction.

The news media has been so negative over the last three years, I don't trust them to report anything positive. I wonder if there is a consensus among economists about this pending recession, or are they just choosing to quote the ones that believe it's going to happen.

I think one would be better served by not listening to economists banter. I haven't changed anything regarding my investments. 50/50 means it could go either way which is an economists way of saying I don't know.

[JDD]

Just so we are clear, that would likely be a very interventionist administration. Mattis is very popular on this forum and probably deserves a lot of the accolades. However, make no mistake - Mattis would keep a strong American troop presence in the ME for the foreseeable future, he would maintain current troop levels in Europe, and his approach toward NK would likely be less “conciliatory” than Trump’s. Haley is also a Hawk.

In other words, Mattis/Haley would look very similar to Bush/Cheney. I’m not saying that is a bad thing, but many of us who deployed in the Bush administration would likely see our kids deploy to the same dirt in a Mattis Administration...

Strongly agree.

I just finished Mattis's book. It is very well written, although if anything, I think you understate his approach. I don't know that "hawkish" is the best term, I think "dedicated to follow-through" would be the pithiest way I could articulate his views. He listed a few leadership failures in the senior level of the administrations of both President Bush and President Obama, and many of them revolved around a lack of clear decison making and goals at the senior level - he favors deceive action and does not shy from consequences. The lack of effective response to the Syrian use of chemical weapons after we self imposed it as a "red line" was a huge problem for him, as was the lack of political will during Operation Vigilante Resolve to completely clear the city, resulting in the subsequent much higher profile battle for Fallujiah.

[Spartan1980]

I've schooled my employees on the fallacy of a large tax return, so most of them are pretty reasonable on their withholding deductions. The blow was lessened among my employees considerably because of this. I also made it a point of showing how much more take home pay they got per check. I pay myself as an employee of my corporation, so I saw an increase in take home as well. Because I live in a fairly low tax state, and don't have high medical expenses, I don't ever itemize my deductions. In 25 years I've never been able to itemize more than the standard deduction.

We're pretty much in the same boat except that I have only one employee. Me. I've also been unable to do more than the standard deduction for about 15 years now. I don't like debt or paying interest so I keep those things to a minimum and I've been fortunate to not have any medical expenses. Taxes in my state aren't terrible by current standards.

Good on you for educating your employees. Those that complain that the new plan didn't withhold enough and they owed get no sympathy from me. It's easy math and they almost all know approximately what they are going make in a given year. The comparison isn't hard and they could have easily filled out another W-4 with additional deductions to compensate.

I pay myself a salary and make monthly tax payments. Just think of what would happen if EVERYBODY had to do the same. If it came out of their own accounts, instead of their employers' there would be a lot of fence cut and stuff sorted out post haste. As it is most people don't even know or acknowledge the amount of money they pay because they don't pay it. Make them write a check EVERY..SINGLE..MONTH like we do and that will change a whole lot of things.

[olstyn]

Those that complain that the new plan didn't withhold enough and they owed get no sympathy from me. It's easy math and they almost all know approximately what they are going make in a given year. The comparison isn't hard and they could have easily filled out another W-4 with additional deductions to compensate.

The trouble with that idea is that if you're buying health insurance from the public exchange and your income is low enough to qualify for some amount of APTC on said health insurance, it becomes much harder to calculate, especially if your income changes at some point during the year. They do not recalculate your APTC until you file your tax return (it's kind of an estimate based on predicted income in the first place anyway), and the formula for how much you're entitled to is somewhat arcane, so if you got a decent raise at some point, you know you're going to owe more than you previously expected, but not by how much, and it can be a truly unpleasant surprise. Of course, this is all dependent on what the people who crafted Obamacare deemed to be "affordable," so of course anybody stuck actually paying for it gets owned pretty hard.

Add in the fact that most folks are used to knowing that if they set their withholding to X, their end of year result will be Y and they don't usually need to think about it beyond that, and it was a recipe for unexpected results for a lot of people. Yes, you're right that if people had been 100% paying attention and had gotten out their calculators, they could have had at least an idea of what to expect, but when a system has worked a certain way for your whole life, it's pretty hard not to expect it to continue without massive year-to-year changes.

Long story short, you're not wrong, but I think you're judging people more harshly than they truly deserve.

[Sensei]

EMS is reportedly responding to the intersections of Constitution and Independence Avenues in DC for a pedestrian struck. Apparently, Rudy Giuliani was just run over by huge bus...

[Borderland]

EMS is reportedly responding to the intersections of Constitution and Independence Avenues in DC for a pedestrian struck. Apparently, Rudy Giuliani was just run over by huge bus...

Is he OK?

[blues]

[RJ]

Kinda how I feel after this week.



I understand things now move to the Judiciary Committee, who can draft Articles, or conduct their own hearings.

What’s the over under it goes to the full House before year end?


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[TCinVA]

What’s the over under it goes to the full House before year end?

It will, and it will go fast.

The only way it doesn't go to the full house is if their own internal whipping shows they don't have enough support from their own caucus to pass the articles of impeachment. Given that none of the allegations made have survived any level of scrutiny and that polling on impeachment is going the opposite way (the fact that polling is even being discussed in the context of an impeachment process shows the reality of what it is about) it's a real possibility that they have enough defections to cause Nancy trouble. But if they only pass it by one vote they'll still do it. And I expect Nancy to whip really hard to get even a one vote majority.

There is a mad dash to get it done before the IG report can make a dent. Congress is only in session for something like 12 days after this Thanksgiving break. Much of this has been carefully planned and coordinated well in advance.

This is entirely about politics and, most importantly, trying to protect the people who invented the entire Russia narrative from facing consequences for their actions.

The only thing seemingly not accounted for is not having an actual offense to fuel the process.