Much more taxes than most on this board will ever pay.

I am seeing large transfer payments to the lower end of the income distribution. I'm not seeing it on the higher-end. Perhaps you are referring to other aspects of the tax code, like GSTTs and whatnot.

• Click here for link at https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/who-pays-taxe

of the tax code which can be exploited by folks with high income rather than transfers.

GRATS, CRATs, CRUTs, Carried interest, special depreciation rules, "loans are not realization of income", unlimited charitable deductions, foundations as covers for personal spending, etc., "capital gains tax subsidy" etc. are all artifacts of the tax code that favor the ultra wealthy.

I think the mistake that many folks make when they analyze the "wealthy" end of things is that by and large they will eventually pay. And certainly they do pay the majority of the tax revenue. Is there a risk some of these ultra wealthy people renounce citizenship and head to New Zealand? Sure but not everyone likes to sleep with sheep.

So eventually this capital will be taxed or at least distributed back into the economy via donation and consumption. Maybe not by their next generation, but certainly by the four that money will be back in the system. And those subsidies resulted in a tangible return on investment.

We enjoy tremendous advantages in our technology and productivity from our investment in human capital and research and development and the above "loopholes" create incentives to take risks and explore those. Bezos, Musk, Buffet, Gates, etc. have led vast teams to create technologies that make all of our lives better and the economy more efficient. I don't understand mouth breathing liberals who get upset about the fact that a mortal who will end up dead just like them having vastly more money than they do. Guess what - those people made all of our lives better. Billions of people. I'm happy they did that as they should be as well.

Are we getting a return on investment on welfare, section 8, etc? What is the goal of those subsidy? We have so many damned carve outs and preferences I don't see how it is possible to optimize a 100,000 variable equation. In general I am a meathead and think that simplifying the tax code would at least allow us to test these programs for efficacy.

As is, we only talk about whether we are adding to a deficit / surplus etc. This is not my expertise at all and now I regret responding. My bad.

such as the carried interedt loophole or even lower tax rates for capital gains. The facts is both those decisions could be described in the same manner but I doubt be would look at them in that manner.

It is simply part of the code now.

I also think that so few people understand the issue that it is ignored. Or, PE/HF money is strong. Either one works.

Is that R's were uniformly against getting rid of it as was Sinema. If the dems had one more vote that likely would have been a pay for in the IRA.

It has survived more than one tax policy fight, so it certainly has staying power.

There is also the possibility that Sinema chose to be the face of the opposition, to give other people in her party coverage. This is pure speculation on my part, but it is not that difficult to imagine such a scenario playing out.

unique brand of maverick where she has adopted policies not supported by large portions of either party but uniquely supported by the libertarian tech types and she has also taken a ton of money from from firms who benefit from the rule.

She envisioned herself as a centrist who would rise to the Presidency and understood she would need deep pockets to do that. I dont think she had any other objective in mind.

Dem aggressive advocacy prior to those elections and total control of both houses and POTUS because Senate Leadership in both cases did not want it to pass or even get brought to a vote or slipped in. And whenever included, it was a sham.

Chuck Schumer as Whip, Minority Leader and Majority Leader will never let it happen. I strongly advocate getting rid of it and my fellow conservatives sadly do not and are up front about it. But they also don't say it should be gone and then do everything possible to hide the fact that they will not let it pass.

You still owe $5k on your loan and it's forgiven, guess what, you're getting a 1099 for $5k.

If you're a waitress and you've been paying off college loans for more than 10 years, well.......

They ended up as taxable income. Of course, no one made that determination until 6 months after the fact...

during the housing crisis if the borrower sold for less than what was owed.

If you sold your house for 400k, for example, and you owed 500k, you would get a 1099 for 100k.

Sometimes we exclude the forgiven amount from AGI, because….voters.

And, taxable income is a bit of a stretch. It was money to pay employees so it should be a 1:1 offset by an expense deduction so the net tax effect is $0.

Excluding it from taxable income resulted in a gift from the government to the recipient equal to the PPP loan received * the recipient's tax rate.

which is, by definition, taxable income. Cash moved from an asset and liability on the balance sheet to an income statement transaction. All of this happened after the fact and was not known at the time of loan origination or forgiveness.

At least as it relates to the IRS. State Departments of Revenue may have ruled differently.

For the vast majority, the recipient was able to claim the deduction for payroll expenses and did not have to claim the forgiveness as income. This resulted in a net benefit to the recipient.

EDIT: The average PPP loan forgiveness was $72,100. At a 25% tax rate, that is a benefit to the recipient of $18,025. In aggregate, $757B out of $790B in PPP loans have been forgiven. That's roughly $190B in benefit to business owners over and above the PPP loans themselves.

hit my revenue. We did not wrongly claim forgiveness.

There wasn’t a good place to put it so most people/companies included it in revenue, but it would have been backed out of taxable income on the tax return. If it wasn’t then you should look into filing an amended tax return.

As it relates to forgiven loans, it would be equivalent to the borrower being able to claim an interest deduction for the forgiven amount. Such a ridiculous treatment and any business owner that took PPP should take a long, hard look in the mirror before bitching about loan forgiveness. As I’ve noted plenty of times before, my issue is not with PPP, it is with being able to “double dip” on the expense.

PPP was just an easier way to fund UE benefits. The alternative was mass layoffs and breadlines.

In contrast, no one forced anyone to attend college. People entered into these loans under their own free will and knowingly took out the loans in pursuit of an asset that they can monetize for the rest of their life.

As we have discussed before, the PPP comparison is completely off base here.

Like El K, I’m just waiting on my letter of thanks. At the very least, just an acknowledgment that a massive benefit was received and maybe the self awareness to not whine because the government has the audacity to confer a massive benefit on someone else this time.

There is no defense that expenses paid for by a gift from the government should have also been deductible while not having to recognize the gift as income. It was an egregious theft from the American people straight into the pockets of American business owners

Speaking of bread lines, I’d love to see stats on how many PPP-recipient businesses actually shut down during the pandemic and how many saw full year revenues down year over year. We basically just spent three years shotgunning billions, if not trillions, into American businesses in various ways. As Colonel Jessup might say “I’d rather they just said thank you and went on their way, but I don’t give a damn what they think of student loan forgiveness.”

The issue is the timing of what happened. As it turns out, when COVID hit, my leadership team and I decided to take zero salary and get a PPP loan so that we could retain the 5 people we hired at the end of 2019. Our revenues stayed flat in 2020, then we get a "gift" of taxable income (yes it is taxable because it is income), and I ended up paying taxes on no salary just because we saved 5 jobs. The problem with the scenario is that none of this was made clear until well into 2021, when we already had the burden of 5 extra people and the taxable "gift" from the government.

Or you didn’t meet the qualifications for forgiveness per the IRS.

I’d love to understand the mindset it takes to have the government pay your payroll and select other expenses for two months in a year where revenue was flat and have the audacity to complain about $12k in student loan forgiveness. It was a gift and I’m not sure how you view it any other way.

Here’s the math. Let’s concede that you included the loan amount ($x) in your taxable income. You received $x in taxable income and paid $x in payroll and other approved expenses. $x - $x = $0 so no tax effect.

Now, for nearly all of the other businesses that received PPP loans that were later forgiven.

PPP loan amount: $x
Loan forgiveness taxable income: $0
Expenses: $x
Net income: - $x
$x times their tax rate is the direct to owner benefit of being able to deduct expenses paid for by the government. It was a windfall which dwarfs the student loan forgiveness numbers at both the individual level and in the aggregate.

Does it hit equity? Normally, it would be income, but you’re saying that’s not the case. What’s the alternative?

Some people booked it to a PPP Forgiveness account in the Owner’s Equity section of the balance sheet.

Debit Ppp liability
Credit ppp forgiveness equity


Others booked it to an extraordinary income account which was then subsequently excluded from taxable income. Still others just booked it to a regular revenue account and subsequently excluded it from taxable income on their tax returns.

It’s not unusual to have book vs tax differences. GAAP depreciation vs Tax depreciation is generally always different.

However, that difference is probably what’s at play here.

At the end of the day, PPP was designed to be forgiven. The program was bipartisan and probably flawed due to us pushing it out quickly during a pandemic.

In contrast, student loans were originated under the assumption that they would be paid back. Biden tried to push for forgiveness and lost in court. Biden is forgiving loans anyways, like a true modern day Andrew Jackson.

You continue to bring up favorable treatment under the tax code as evidence of hypocrisy. That’s wrong, since the tax code changes are voted on by congress legally. And the code has been used to influence behavior for decades. So people respond to changes in the code, because that’s entire point of the code: to nudge people to save (401ks), or save for college (529), or buy a home (mortgage interest deduction), or have kids (child tax credit), or develop job skills (EITC), and on and on and on.

If your argument is that the code plays favorites, then the alternative is a flat-tax with zero deductions, credits, or exemptions. You game for that? I am.

I’m not a Democrat or Republican, and I don’t care what decisions Washington makes. Some will work in my favor, some won’t. Life moves on. We all make the best decisions with the facts we have when making the decisions.

Fact: PPP Loan forgiveness was tax exempt income at the Federal level and in the majority of states
Fact: PPP recipients were allowed to “double dip” by claiming an expense deduction for expenses paid with PPP proceeds.
Fact: This double dip resulted in a direct owner benefit of the PPP loan amount times the recipient’s tax rate.

My problem is not the hypocrisy of the code. It’s the hypocrisy of the beneficiaries of the code. I’d just like one PPP recipient to acknowledge that they had two months of payroll and other expenses paid for by the government and the cherry on top was they were able to still deduct those expenses from income and it was fucking great. I’d like one person who was able to shield capital gains in a 529 plan to admit it was an awesome benefit that is equivalent to loan forgiveness. What is the difference between $12k not paid to the government in capital gains tax and $12k not paid to the government in loan principal? Hint: nothing.

Instead we get responses about shutdowns and breadlines and misstatements about the PPP being taxable income and terms like bailout and deadbeat. There is no doubt that many businesses suffered from the pandemic and from government policies. There is also no doubt that many businesses didn’t miss one beat in 2020 and received two months of free payroll and rent and inexplicable deductions for government-paid expenses. This incites no outrage because it was a bipartisan gift rather than an executive order? Just doesn’t make sense to me.

As I’ve said many times, I encourage everyone to get what they can from the government and to pay as little as possible in tax. I encourage CaTripleDomer to file an amended return if he did in fact include the PPP loan in his taxable income. I support business owners buying 6,000 pound SUVs for “business” use and writing off 100% of the cost in year one. I have no problem with any of this. All I ask is that the recipient acknowledge the benefit that taxes not paid to the government is the same damn thing.

Edit to add: it should be pointed out that over the last 20 years, 529 plans and other savers have benefited tremendously from government bailouts. I guess I have a hard time reconciling one form of government bailout as acceptable and another form as unacceptable.

From Notice 2020-32:

This notice provides guidance regarding the deductibility for Federal income tax
purposes of certain otherwise deductible expenses incurred in a taxpayer’s trade or
business when the taxpayer receives a loan (covered loan) pursuant to the Paycheck
Protection Program under section 7(a)(36) of the Small Business Act (15 U.S.C.
636(a)(36)). Specifically, this notice clarifies that no deduction is allowed under the
Internal Revenue Code (Code) for an expense that is otherwise deductible if the
payment of the expense results in forgiveness of a covered loan pursuant to section
1106(b) of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), Public
Law 116-136, 134 Stat. 281, 286-93 (March 27, 2020) and the income associated with
the forgiveness is excluded from gross income for purposes of the Code pursuant to
section 1106(i) of the CARES Act.

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-20-32.pdf

Unless I am reading this incorrectly, it appears that double-dipping is not allowed.

• Click here for link at https://www.lanepowell.com/Our-Insights/202925/No-Double-Dip

I think it was September of 2020 but may be off on month or even year. IRS updated to comply.

The original IRS ruling makes basic logical sense. But you know Congress (bipartisan) can’t pass up an opportunity to gift business owners money via non-headline-friendly rules.

“Student loan forgiveness” is easy to understand and drive outrage.

“Congress allows business owners to deduct PPP expenses” doesn’t quite drive the same base brain outrage. As soon as I said the word deduction most posters eyes glazed over.

It is funny how the IRS went with the correct approach, only to be nuked by Congress.

FWIW, I agree that double-dipping here is wrong. Props to Mnuchin for taking the proper stance.

Last week, the IRS said it would deny those deductions, citing a tax code section that prevents companies from taking deductions tied to tax-exempt income. Allowing the deductions, the agency argued, would offer a double benefit.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has defended the decision.

“If the money that’s coming is not taxable, you can’t double dip,” he said on Fox Business on Monday. “This is basically tax 101.”

If the deductions are allowed, businesses could use them to offset other income. If companies are losing money, they could use the deductions to offset past years’ income and get refunds.

For example, consider a company that gets a $100,000 loan and whose owner has a 22% tax rate. If the business pays $100,000 worth of deductible expenses and has the loan forgiven, that would provide a $22,000 tax benefit on top of the loan forgiveness.

Members of Congress say this benefit is exactly what they intended.

“As was expressed to Treasury during the development of the PPP, we did not intend to deny the deductibility of ordinary and necessary business expenses, nor did these small businesses expect to lose deductions for their business expenses when they applied for a PPP loan,” wrote Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) and Rep. Richard Neal (D., Mass.) in a letter to Mr. Mnuchin. All are leaders of the congressional tax-writing committees.

Their letter also argued that the IRS misinterpreted the existing tax code section that denies deductions related to tax-exempt income.

Messrs. Grassley and Wyden are also backing a bill from Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) that would expressly allow the deductions, according to Mr. Cornyn’s office. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D., Texas) is introducing a similar bill in the House.

• Click here for link at https://neal.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=6

The double dip is just a preposterously insane policy. As I said a few posts ago, it would be equivalent to letting student loan borrowers take an income tax deduction on the forgiven loan amounts. No one would ever even suggest that because of how stupid it would sound.

I do find it curious that so many PPP recipients here that are pretty vocal on student loan forgiveness don't seem to have any rebuttal or acknowledgement to my posts on the double dip or the fact that $12k saved in capital gains tax in a 529 vehicle is not any different than $12k in loan forgiveness. The only difference is the timing of the benefit. Sure, one was approved by Congress and the other was an executive order, but from a financial standpoint, they are equivalent.

Also, I suppose we'll just ignore the massive government bailouts and zero interest rate policies from post-9/11 to 2009 Financial Crisis to Trump tax cuts to 2020 COVID relief that were essentially a transfer of wealth to America's investor class. It just blows my mind that some people here can be so oblivious to their misplaced selective outrage.

Except it was specifically exempted through 2025 when ARPA was passed.

And I'm not sure how to continue that thought at the end. I prefer not to make value judgements without knowing the details. If you're a waitress making student loan payments on a 12k loan after 10 years you don't deserve consideration because you're an irresponsible deadbeat? Quite a few assumptions packed in there.