Yul Brynner renounces US Citizenship!

Yul Brynner, of the nude head clan of actors, renounced his US Citizenship after a tax dispute with the IRS! ... 50 years ago.

So why is the Russian born actor newsworthy today?

Why his case highlights the huge number of people giving up their US citizenship.

Isn't it batshit crazy to report an event that happened 50 years ago as a reason for leaving the US today?

Not to Bloomberg's.

Does it matter that Brynner had lost his tax exemption as an American resident abroad? Ops! I guess not to Bloomberg. Brynner claimed to be an American living abroad for tax purposes while ... working in America.

I guess he jumped over the border with Siam every night before going to bed.

So how many people give up their US Citizenship per year? About 3,000. Most of them living overseas. Many of them born overseas.

None of them named Rush Limbaugh seeking political or other asylum in a non-treaty country without public healthcare, socialism, or Muslim President born in Kenya.

A payment for being ruled?

Oh my head hurts over this one.

Remember that college class you had to take on Philosophy? Painful, wasn't it? So bad, you couldn't even sell the book.

My Little Philosophy Book fell on my head while I was sleeping on my back. Today. Or, maybe yesterday. Damn Dr. Bloom and his literal translations from the original Greek.

Alright.

So maybe Plato/Socrates said there was a payment due to government for being ruled. WTF!

Loss of freedom? Social contract? Taxes? The concept that I owe a debt to a tyrant sucks.

But, and there's always some but, But, isn't the answer to that a way of separating the men from the boys?

There is a debt owed to government for being ruled. I can't tell you what it is. Answer to yourself. Then, apply that to how you've been voting and what you hope will happen because you voted.

$9.5 Billion in revenue for a tax exempt non-profit organization called the NFL

It's kick off time.

The Falcons want taxpayers to buy them a new stadium. Why not we bought the current one.

I think the National Football League should buy the stadium. With $9.5 billion in revenue last year and a tax exempt non-profit status, I know they have the cash.

Details on how the Waffle House waitress supports NFL owners with her tip income.

From MSN.

Yeah, the article doesn't mention my favorite waitress. Do I need to draw you a line from her pocket to Arthur Blank's?

I didn't think so.

If corporations are people, tax them like people!

There's an article out of USA Today about corporate tax rates.

Yes, the maximum corporate tax rate is 35%. I don't know exactly where the US ranks in corporate taxation, but I bet our maximum tax rate has us in the top ten world wide.

But, corporations don't pay the maximum. The average for corporations were 12.6% in 2010. Wish I was taxed at that average rate.

Think about it in rough numbers. If you make $8,700, your tax bracket is 15%. That's for a single filer in 2013.

Are you making over $36,000, you're in the 25% tax bracket. That's $9,000 leaving you $27,000 to live on.

That's just federal taxes. I'm not adding in Georgia's 6 percent income taxes or the 7 percent withholding for Social Security.

Here's a cut and paste from the article.

The news comes months after after the Government Accountability Office released a report showing that companies in 2010 reported an average effective tax rate of 12.6%, well below the 35% federal corporate tax rate.

Corporate giants such as telecom firm Verizon, drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb and power management firm Eaton, all reported effective tax rates of 0% during the past 12 months.

There's a gun to my head! IRS agents have machine guns and are forcing me to pay taxes!

Back to this little irrational theme.

Let's say I stop making my mortgage payments. I'll go through the same hoops as not paying my taxes.

The bank sends me a few messages. If I don't reply, I start getting some personal attention. If I still don't reply, I get a default notice. If I still don't reply and don't pay. I get a notice that my home is going to be seized and sold to the highest bidder. Which will be the bank holding my mortgage 90% of the time.

My house gets sold. I get an eviction notice. If I continue to squat in the house, I get evicted by the new owner.

Maybe a law enforcement officer wearing a gun and driving a car with a trunk full of guns helps keep the peace during the eviction.

If I resist, I don't usually get shot. But, if I get violent, I could get dead.

That doesn't mean the bank is holding a gun to my head forcing me to pay my mortgage on time.

So the wackos who think the IRS has a gun to their heads will say, "I don't have a choice in government. I do have choices in the market place."

No. You can't change to a bank that doesn't expect you to pay.

This whole thing about a deadly threat forces tax payment is bullshit.

When the IRS starts executing delinquent tax payers on the street, I'll change my mind.

All Politicians Lie

“All politicians lie!”

That’s just not true. However, the truth does get trampled often by political hacks. But if we look, we can find the truthful politician right after an election. He or she is the one who didn’t get elected.

Speaking truth to the public isn’t the easiest path to political success. Saying things that people want to hear will win elections.

The best example of this comes in our email boxes.

Yesterday, Ann Coulter sent me her latest column on John McCain. I wasn’t as interested in John as I was in the ads neatly tucked into her column and the margins of her email.

I really, really want to know more about how I can gain strength without exercise. I’ve always known that going to a gym was unhealthy. Now, I can be grateful to Ann Coulter for providing with this shocking research that “the fitness industry doesn’t want me to know.”

But before I could cancel that worthless gym membership, Ann had already confirmed that I was paying $50,000 too much in taxes!

“What would you do with an extra $50,000 dollars?” and “Keep your money in your pocket where it belongs!” Those two sentences dumped John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and George Washington into the garbage.

Not only has the ‘fitness industry’ been lying to me, the government has $10,000, $20,000, or even $50,000 dollars of my extra money!

I don’t know where Ann Coulter gets the extra time to talk about politics given the huge burden she must carry providing me with the truth about exercise and taxes!

Now that we know where to buy our snake oil, let’s get back to the truth by using that painful subject of taxes.

Jonathan Hoenig of Fox News sent me a video about the unfairness of the tax burden. According to Jonathan, the richest one percent of taxpayers pay 39 percent of income taxes!

How dare we treat our rich people like this! How dare we!

And, who is responsible for this abuse? According to dear Jonathan, it’s those Wal-Mart workers making ten bucks an hour!

I thought it was very clever for Jonathan and Fox News to blame Wal-Mart workers for the horrible burdens of being super-duper rich.

And since I just saved myself the annual cost of belonging to a gym, signed up with an online CPA service to get my extra $50,000 back from the government, I must be in that richest one percent group, right?

Wrong! And, Fox News is wrong about the unfair burdens of being in the richest one percent of Americans.

The most likely source of the Fox News report is the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation, a far right organization, should have gotten its raw data from the IRS.

Now the IRS puts out some really good statistics and publications, but I know the Tax Foundation and Fox News didn’t bother with a statistical analysis or even look at the existing online reports.

The top one percent of Americans with taxable returns had roughly 25 percent of all taxable income in 2005 and paid a tax rate of about 23 percent. If that doesn’t shock anyone, the top 400 taxpayers in 2000, earned an average income of over $170 million dollars each before taxes.

I’d like to be in that very exclusive group, wouldn’t you? What would you do with an income of $170 million before taxes?

Judging by Ann Coulter, Fox News, and their commercial sponsors, we’d cancel our gym memberships, hire an online accountant, and complain about $10 per hour Wal-Mart workers.

Ah, the Republican version of the American dream, to be lazy, ignorant, and rude to people who are doing nothing but working to make a living.

Property Tax and FairTax

This starts what I hope is a series on taxation.

As always, I'm controversial and the topic is controversial.

In my opinion, being the son of a disable combat veteran, no one has a right to complain that taxes cost them an arm and a leg.

Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

Lots of men have paid 100 percent of their future earnings in a military tax. Their wives, mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons also helped pay this military tax. When those who have paid the most get a rebate program, then I'll start talking about fairness in government imposed fees. MAYBE!

I'd rather talk about systemic unfairness created by private wealth. But, that's just talking.

We do make nice replacement arms and legs for our vets. Some eventually get comfortable in new transplant skin after severe burns. But, this side of Heaven, nothing for the dead.

Now, on to a discussion of property taxes.

Various Republicans, like Speaker Glenn Richardson want to do away with property taxes.

What would you lose?

Here's a story on how your community could lose more than an arm and a leg.

Six years ago the residents of Suwanee voted to more than double their property taxes. The payoff: a boost from 28 acres of green space to more than 270, and a feeling of investment in their hometown. "People here participate in the community in a very thorough way," says resident Dave Williams, 40, a partner in a marketing company and father of two. "They don't just live here and work or play somewhere else."

That's abundantly clear at the newly developed town center. Built on a heavily trafficked downtown corner, it meshes park space, retail and office properties and housing into one multiuse plaza -- and residents have embraced it in a big way. On summer afternoons kids of all ages splash in the park's interactive fountains. On weekends Town Center Park's outdoor amphitheater holds concerts and other events. Behind the appealing row of restaurants and shops are townhouses and single-family homes. Housing is reasonable -- you can get into a nice four-bedroom for $250,000 -- and schools are topnotch.

As for jobs, Dish Network and Southeastern Freight are the area's biggest employers, but Google, Hewlett-Packard and other tech concerns also have offices nearby. Surrounding Gwinnett County and Atlanta (30 miles away) provide even more opportunities. Suwanee offers a tax break to companies that bring in more than 25 high-paying jobs.

Though the town has planned recent development deliberately, the area around interstate 85, which runs through Suwanee's southeastern corner, lacks for aesthetics but not for congestion. Still, the rest of the city has a lot to offer.

"We're blanketed with parks to use," says Brenda Everson, a mother of three boys. "We're very nature-y. Instead of going to a movie, we'd rather be out hiking or playing ball. It's nice to have those options."

What does Speaker Richardson want you to do? Become dependent on the GOP to plan your hometown? Let corporations make decisions about your life style?

The town being described is Suwanee, Georgia. Suwanee was voted the 10th best place to live in America (CNN).

What did the voters think about doubling their tax rate? Well, they voted to do it. And they took control of their town and their lives.

As the grandson of a Kentucky coal miner, I urge you to say no to the company town, the company store, and the private city.

Destroying your way of life one new law at a time.

No property taxes = No local control

Keep your right to vote as a meaningful right.