What Percentage of Wealthy People are Scamming the System?

[rucky]

usually entails cheating on taxes, hiding money away, exploiting loopholes, etc?

Just to be fair, using the same percentage breakdowns as this poll:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5738231

[sakabatou]

1. Other: No idea

[rucky]

2. It's a poll - it has no feelings.

go with your gut

[YOY]

3. Now some of them I've actually seen proudly admitting it.

Never really met any poor folks "scamming the system" and if they were they didn't make it known.

[LooseWilly]

4. Why would wealthy people scam the system...

... when they have accountants to do it for them?

Remember, after the Enron and like implosions... there was a wave of accounting firms that were semi-firmly slapped on the collective wrist?... I suspect that there's a connection there... though I'm not likely to be the one to try to run down the facts.

We have to look forward, after all...

[notesdev]

5. Scamming? Or gaming?

Outright scamming, I'd say maybe 10%. Gaming, probably more like 95%. Hard to blame the latter group when the law encourages just that.

[blueknight]

6. actually 100 %

but they are allowed to do so because their wealthy friends in the congress and senate made it possible. remember what the helmsley lady said.

[liberal N proud]

7. Would you list farmers in the rich or poor section?

I know a lot of farmers who claim to be poor, draw large subsidies which they will argue are not welfare and are driving new cars every year.

[rucky]

9. I think that falls in the "Welfare Queen" category.

bummer about that. we tend to romanticize the family farm, but it's probably happening in my (red, red) area as well.

[liberal N proud]

11. It's happening everywhere

Even in Iowa where land sells for thousand/acre.

I had a link to a database where you could search names to see what government subsidies they were getting.

I found it to see how much my poor cousins were hauling in, it was a like $150 thousand a year in subsidies.

[hfojvt]

8. how are you defining rich, poor and scamming

CBS news just did a story about a realtor, apparently divorced who is taking advantage of free medical care. First, is she a poor person? Is a poor person who used to be a rich person the same as a poor person who has always been poor?

She once had a six figure income, but apparently did not put enough away to shelter her through these hard times. She's not scamming anything, but is taking advantage of free help that she wouldn't have needed if she had planned better.

I might mention another friend. She had just gotten back from a Grateful Dead concert and was going to the food bank because she had no money. Uhm, maybe because she spent it going to a Dead show. She also claimed that she had savings she didn't want to dip into. Is it a 'scam' to get free help when you actually have, or could have had, resources to help yourself?

On the other hand, what about the low tax rate on dividends? Is it a scam for a Wal-mart heiress to donate $2 million to the RNC and then later see a bill passed that reduces the tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 15%? (Actually I got that backwards since she donated $2 million to re-elect Bush after the law was passed in May 2003) A law that saves her about $10 million a year in taxes. Even though nothing illegal was done, I would still call that a scam. A 'Perfectly legal' scam, but a scam nonetheless.

[Posteritatis]

23. Folks' rich/poor definitions here get wacky

There were a couple people back in the fall who said that all homeowners - all homeowners, explicitly and multiply confirmed - are too rich and need to be taxed into ruin as punishment for their evil.

[boppers]

10. People without the means to pay an accountant, pay more in taxes.

I recall one time period when my father was pulling in over $250K a year, but his "taxable income" was 17.

Not $17K.... 17 dollars.

Sometimes I wonder how much of the "poor" in the US are folks who are really good at gaming the system.

[customerserviceguy]

12. I'll draw the line at "exploiting loopholes" as scamming the system

One person's legitimate business deduction or personal credit is another person's loophole.

If the so-called loophole was voted on by Congress, and signed by the President, it is a part of tax law, no matter how many lobbyists paid how many politicians for it. It's open, and there for everyone to see. Not the same thing as cheating on taxes or hiding money away.

[newinnm]

13. Does that include

President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand etc.... or are we just talking about Repugs?



-nnnm

[rucky]

17. Class War - not Partisan War

any and all cheats

[newinnm]

21. So this class war you speak of... who is at war with whom?

and what is the goal of the war. How will we know when the war is won?


-nnnm

[rucky]

24. Looks like you've got all the bases covered.

We could all live in harmony, once we get rid of the liberal scourge.

Enjoy your stay, here.

[stillcool]

14. Some of them can't help it..

the system was made for them, and by them.

[JVS]

15. At least 98%

[newinnm]

16. Refer to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5738244&mesg_id=5738578

[Thothmes]

18. Wonder what percentage of American citizens

cheat on taxes, hide money away, exploit loopholes, etc?

[XemaSab]

19. +1

[Selatius]

20. Even if only 30% of them were gaming the system, that represents hundreds of billions to us.

How many billionaires and millionaires became even more wealthy and powerful off of the war profits generated by Iraq, for instance? How many of them got big bonus checks when someone else's son or daughter was bleeding and dying on some distant battlefield?

[Posteritatis]

22. 404; couldn't guess (nt)