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[Zoidz]

Bingo. John Travolta has a private plane (he has a commercial pilots license) and when he was doing films (in his heyday) he would make the studios pay him for taking his plane to various locations, including his salary as a pilot, fuel costs, etc. He then wrote those costs off since he is a business.

The only suckers in this world are those of us who whose income that comes from worked wages. We are the backbone of the tax code while the rich do nothing but evade.

In this example, if Travolta was flying the plane, albeit his own plane, and doing something for the film production, then he is working as a pilot and not as an actor. Cost of fuel and maintenance is incurred as a result of the use. It's not much different than using a personal vehicle to do something for the company, then get reimbursed for the milage. GSA has a schedule for Privately Own Vehicle that includes aircraft (https://www.gsa.gov/travel/plan-a-t...ately-owned-vehicle-pov-mileage-reimbursement)

Most companies uses GSA rate since they can expense it on taxes and not raise an eyebrow for excessive reimbursement.

As for being "suckers" for relying on working wage as a sole income and don't like it then, one ought to do something about that instead of status quo. Save, invest and/or start a business to change the situation.

It’s not evading taxes, it’s legit business under the current tax code. The president of our engineering company has owned planes over the years and does the same. As mentioned it’s little difference from car mileage deductions, depreciation, etc, etc, just a more costly vehicle.

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[Donald Stanfield]

All of these objections sound like a reason to support a flat tax to me. Make everyone pay a fixed percentage and tax dodges would go away overnight.

 

[mkg3]

I have been in favor of the flat 15% tax concept for a long time.

Get rid of all deductions and everyone pays 15%. The more you make, more taxes you pay but it's fair to everyone. I believe if we want to help low income folks, then exempt the first 60K for single and 90K for joint. Tax everything else at the same rate and shrink the size of IRS to 1/10 of the size today.

 

[Zoidz]

I have been in favor of the flat 15% tax concept for a long time.

Get rid of all deductions and everyone pays 15%. The more you make, more taxes you pay but it's fair to everyone. I believe if we want to help low income folks, then exempt the first 60K for single and 90K for joint. Tax everything else at the same rate and shrink the size of IRS to 1/10 of the size today.

I agree. The current tax code has become way too complex with so many carve outs, exceptions, exemptions, allowances, on and on and on...... in addition to my personal income I have two K1s to file each year. Both are pretty simple business partnership structures and 20+ lines on the K1s make it way more complex than it needs to be.

 

[SASSquatch]

It’s not evading taxes, it’s legit business under the current tax code. The president of our engineering company has owned planes over the years and does the same. As mentioned it’s little difference from car mileage deductions, depreciation, etc, etc, just a more costly vehicle.

Nobody said anything about evading taxes. A $20M private jet and a $22K Corolla are not even in the same universe. Maybe rich people shouldn't be able to leverage mileage like working class people do since we have a much higher marginal tax rate.

Just saying.

 

[Donald Stanfield]

Nobody said anything about evading taxes. A $20M private jet and a $22K Corolla are not even in the same universe. Maybe rich people shouldn't be able to leverage mileage like working class people do since we have a much higher marginal tax rate.

Just saying.

Why not? The whole point of mileage is to allow a deduction for business costs. If an executive needs to fly across the country for a legitimate business purpose, why shouldn't that cost be able to be deducted using the same rules you get to use?

There are many ways the system is broken, mileage deductions aren't very high on that list.

 

[SASSquatch]

Why not? The whole point of mileage is to allow a deduction for business costs. If an executive needs to fly across the country for a legitimate business purpose, why shouldn't that cost be able to be deducted using the same rules you get to use?

There are many ways the system is broken, mileage deductions aren't very high on that list.

You are equating the hundreds of thousands of dollars in deductions incurred for what is possibly the worst kind of travel for environmental impact to the miniscule .55 cents a mile that an average person would deduct driving a fuel efficient vehicle.

We should allow deductions for millionaires paying the lowest possible tax rate (often net zero) while they also kill the planet with the largest possible carbon footprint?

To each his own.

 

[Zoidz]

Nobody said anything about evading taxes. A $20M private jet and a $22K Corolla are not even in the same universe. Maybe rich people shouldn't be able to leverage mileage like working class people do since we have a much higher marginal tax rate.

Just saying.

...
The only suckers in this world are those of us who whose income that comes from worked wages. We are the backbone of the tax code while the rich do nothing but evade.

ummmmm...... you sure about nobody said evade / evading?

 

[SASSquatch]

ummmmm...... you sure about nobody said evade / evading?

That is a general comment about how the rich avoid paying taxes - not specific to deducting mileage and transportation as a business expense. You chose to selectively include that sentence but the context was borrowing against your assets at an ultra low interest rate and using that as income vs. cashing out those assets and paying capital gains.

Context matters, right?

 

[Zoidz]

That is a general comment about how the rich avoid paying taxes - not specific to deducting mileage and transportation as a business expense. You chose to selectively include that sentence but the context was borrowing against your assets at an ultra low interest rate and using that as income vs. cashing out those assets and paying capital gains.

Context matters, right?

Yep context matters. It was the last paragraph and separate from everything else, so I interpreted it as a summary of all your thoughts for everything in the coversations. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[mkg3]

That is a general comment about how the rich avoid paying taxes - not specific to deducting mileage and transportation as a business expense. You chose to selectively include that sentence but the context was borrowing against your assets at an ultra low interest rate and using that as income vs. cashing out those assets and paying capital gains.

Context matters, right?

Rich or poor, I believe no one wants to pay taxes. Its only human nature to try paying minimum taxes LEGALLY by using all the available deductions.

If you are not one of those and like or gladly pay more taxes than you should, then you do you.

The rest of us, including vast majority of those on this forum by reading countless of EV credit threads that they want it and want to keep it, are in the category of paying as little as possible for taxes - I believe.

 

[SASSquatch]

Rich or poor, I believe no one wants to pay taxes. Its only human nature to try paying minimum taxes LEGALLY by using all the available deductions.

If you are not one of those and like or gladly pay more taxes than you should, then you do you.

The rest of us, including vast majority of those on this forum by reading countless of EV credit threads that they want it and want to keep it, are in the category of paying as little as possible for taxes - I believe.

Nobody would argue that, but most of us in this forum don't own private jets or maybe I read the room wrong. People who have that kind of wealth pay a lower effective tax rate (often times zero) because the system is setup to give them loopholes out of taxes that people who earn income from wages simply don't have.

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