taxes

Robert Reich—Charity Bigot, Culture Dunce

/ Jack Marshall / 75 Comments
"Charity? Why yes, I send my usual check to Harvard, of course...have to make sure young Ethan gets accepted despite his vehicular manslaughter conviction..."

“Charity? Why yes, I send my usual check to Harvard, of course…have to make sure young Ethan gets accepted despite his vehicular manslaughter conviction…”

Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor, is out with an opinion piece declaring that giving to his favored charitable causes—charities directly assisting the poor– is real charity, while giving to other non-profits, in the arts, humanities and education, is just a self-serving, classist tax game.

“…A  large portion of the charitable deductions now claimed by America’s wealthy are for donations to culture palaces – operas, art museums, symphonies, and theaters – where they spend their leisure time hobnobbing with other wealthy benefactors,” he writes. “I’m all in favor of supporting fancy museums and elite schools, but face it: These aren’t really charities as most people understand the term. They’re often investments in the life-styles the wealthy already enjoy and want their children to have as well. Increasingly, being rich in America means not having to come across anyone who’s not.” 

Reich is an intelligent man, and I have a difficult time, reading this nonsense, believing that he is doing anything but gratuitous class-bashing here. Does he really believe that poor people don’t need and appreciate the arts, don’t go to see theater productions, never listen to music and wouldn’t be caught dead in a museum? Does he really believe everyone in an opera audience looks like the Monopoly Man, and goes there, not to listen to beautiful music, but to “hobnob” with old prep school buddies? Reich’s essay is an ugly example of class bias, and little more. How does he explain generous philanthropists who are childless? What’s their “angle”? Heaven knows,the wealthy never do anything out of compassion or generosity! Reich is engaging in biases on all sides: the poor are mundane, intellectually bereft philistines, and the wealthy are insular snobs. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: The American Public

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments
Is this a great country, or what?

Is this a great country, or what?

No surprises here, but still:

A sickening  McClatchy poll released today shows that a majority of the U.S. public opposes all measures that are necessary to address the nation’s debt and deficit crisis, except increasing taxes on the rich…which, by itself will be of minimal assistance in addressing the long-term problem. Its advantage, of course, is that it involves no sacrifices from the vast majority of the public.

Such irresponsible, lazy, ignorant and foolish judgment by the public, of course, would not be an insuperable problem in a properly functioning republic, in which dedicated, informed, selfless and courageous public servants were willing to come together, compromise, and make difficult but necessary decisions that might be unpopular with their constituents. Or if the nation had elected a skilled and persuasive national leader who could persuade the public to reject narrow, short-term self-interest as patriots and Americans, for the benefit of future generations.

We don’t have those things, however, so the public’s lack of responsibility, knowledge and common sense is, if not fatal, a serious threat to the national welfare and long-term viability of the United States.

At least we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves, and perhaps the Founders, for foolishly entrusting a representative democracy to a people too ignorant and selfish to keep it working.

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Facts: McClatchy

Graphic: It is future

Ethics Dunce: The Internal Revenue Service

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Question:

What is the monetary value of something that can’t be sold?

Answer:

Nothing.

That’s an easy one.

So why is the IRS claiming that the heirs of the New York art dealer Ileana Sonnabend  owe $29.2 million in taxes on an art work that U.S. prevents from ever being converted into cash? Continue reading →

The Supreme Court Upholds The Individual Mandate and Obamacare: The Ethics Opinion

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

This morning the Supreme Court announced its decision upholding the key provision in the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a Obamacare. It is apparently a huge and complex decision, and is now available in text form online here.

The political and legal analysis will be coming soon from others far more qualified than I [UPDATE: The legal dissections have begun, and you can’t do better than to start here] , and while I am deeply interested in them, that’s not my job. I won’t be able to read the opinions and the various concurring opinions and dissents, not to mention digest them, for quite a while, but some ethical verdicts are already evident from what I do know: Continue reading →

Occupy Eduardo Saverin

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Too bad for Severin that they don’t make students read this any more.

You use the culture, markets, resources and freedom of the United States to turn your innovation into a fortune, and when your nation needs you, more than ever, to contribute your fair share to address its serious economic crisis, you decide to flee to foreign shores.

 That’s Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Despicable.

Occupy Wall Street and its offspring engage in slander and bigotry by characterizing all wealthy, successful individuals as selfish leeches, but their stereotype fits Saverin like a wetsuit. As his company is poised for a public offering and his shares in it are about to lay golden eggs, he has decided to give up his citizenship, and his tax obligations, to live in luxury in Singapore. This will save him at least 67 million dollars in taxes, and probably more. His lawyer-spokesman says that the timing of Saverin’s exodus is coincidental; he just had an overpowering desire to live in Singapore.

Right.

Well, good riddance. The U.S. needs his money, and had a right to it, but it doesn’t need him. He is an ungrateful, greedy and selfish wretch, and richly deserves to be remembered as this generation’s Philip Nolan, “The Man Without A Country.”

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Facts: Bloomberg

Graphic: Barnes and Noble

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Estate Tax Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

This was not my father. For one thing, he was shorter.

My sister and I finally settled up the estate of our parents after over a year of paper signing, meetings with accountants, and mind-numbing calculations. The estate, as my folks wanted it, was divided 35%-35%-30%, with the last portion going into a trust for the three grandchildren. The amount of money in the estate was a shock to my sister and me, and a very pleasant surprise, though for all the problems the money will solve, we would have forfeited all of it to have Mom and Dad alive today. Still, being able to give over substantial assets to their children and grandchildren was one of their lifelong goals, and they would have been satisfied and proud that they succeeded so spectacularly.

My sister, a good, reliable liberal, asked me whether I felt guilty about the inheritance. I said yes, in the sense that I wish our parents hadn’t been so resolutely frugal in their retirement, and had spent more of the money they earned and saved on more of their own pleasure and enjoyment rather than squirreling it away for us. But did I feel any pangs of conscience because the money wasn’t going to Uncle Sam’s coffers?

Absolutely not. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Day: Drew Curtis’ Fark

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Mitt Romney is not a player.

“The stupid tax just doubled.'”

—Drew Curtis’ Fark, in a typically perceptive jibe, at the announcement by Powerball officials that in order to increase the attractiveness of the multi-state super-lottery, it will be raising the levels of jackpots, lowering the odds against winning, and to make more money, doubling the cost of a ticket.

Fark. com was a guilty pleasure before I started an ethics blog, but is now a daily assignment, as Drew Curtis’s clever link collection where he simultaneously uncovers interesting news items and attaches one-line jokes to them has proven to be a rich source of ethics stories.

The various lotteries are all unethical, as state governments too cowardly to pass taxes on those who can afford it duck their duties by enticing the desperate, the poor, the  gambling addicted, and, as Fark correctly notes, the stupid, to spend money they should be saving or spending on necessities. Their foolish objective, nourished by state promotions, is to buy a remote chance at a life-changing stroke of luck—which, statistics say, is more likely to ruin their lives than to fix them. The original argument for these cynical and degrading devices was that they would balance state budgets and improve the schools. You can see how well that is working out.

So, times being tough, the biggest government pocket-picking scheme of them all,  Powerball,  is trying to suck in more people who shouldn’t be playing and who are grossly irresponsible to waste their money, while charging them more to do it. It’s unfair to have a tax on being stupid—being stupid in the 21st Century costs too much already.

But Fark is right. That’s exactly what Powerball is.

Why Would Anyone Trust A Company That Tricks Them Into Opening Its Junk Mail?

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

" Disclaimer: This document isn't intended to be as misleading as it obviously is."

The firm is Ideal Tax Solutions, and I’m sure, really I am, that the people who run it, which include lawyers bound by the professional ethics rules prohibiting them from engaging in misrepresentation, dishonesty, deceit or fraud, are dedicated and well-intentioned. From an ethics stand-point, however, why anyone would trust a company that markets its services in a blatantly misleading way is beyond my comprehension. Someone must; a lot of someones must. Yet the company introduces itself to potential customers by deceiving them.

The letter arrives in an envelope that works very hard to look like it will contain an official IRS document. The mailing stamp has an elaborate eagle and flag logo; a large 2011 is posted in the lower right-hand column. Also there: a statute number TITLE 18 SEC. 1702 US CODE. There is a window in the envelope, and the address that is visible appears on institutional pink paper.

Oh-oh. Continue reading →

Rep. Schakowsky Was Right…Inarticulate, But Right

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Okay, Jan Schakowsky's not exactly Daniel Webster.But she's not wrong, either.

As proof of the degree that Tea Party anti-tax mania has unhinged the brains of conservatives generally, especially hyper-ventillating  pundits, consider last week’s controversy over poor Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill), who told a morning talk show, Wade & Roma on WLS-AM in Chicago, that citizens were obligated to pay a portion of what they earned to the government, and as a result became the poster girl for What’s Wrong With America, or at least the Democratic Party.

To read and listen to the abuse and ridicule heaped on Schakowsky, one would have thought that she was Lenin-in-a-bra, advocating government confiscation of the wealth stolen from the workers—in fact, that’s what I did thought when I heard some of the furious rants about her comments from the conservative talk show circuit. Then I listened to the clip. Do you know the horrible, foolish thing she said? You’ll be shocked. Here’s the key exchange: Continue reading →

Hole-in-the-Roof Ethics: If Obama Asks For Massive Infrastructure Renewal, the GOP Must Support It.

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Seldom is a solution to a problem so obvious, and so conducive to bi-partisanship. It is a solution to two problems, really: America’s dangerously rotting infrastructure, and the nation’s dismal unemployment rate. Spend the money, trillions if necessary, to repair and replace existing roads, railway beds, waterways, sewer systems, airports and bridges.  It still won’t get us where we need to be, but we’ll be much better off than if we let the current deterioration continue, and we’ll save money in the long run, too—real savings, not phony health care reform savings that evaporate once reality kicks in.

There is no justification not to do this, nor is there any legitimate excuse for any elected official not to vote for it. (And no, not wanting to give the President a victory is not legitimate…or ethical, or patriotic.) Repairing the infrastructure isn’t “discretionary spending,” it is essential, unavoidable and cost-effective spending, unless it is diverted into new boondoggles and pork. No new structures, unless they replace unrepairable old ones. No light rail systems or bullet trains; what is needed is basic maintenance and repair….everywhere. It is already late, but “better late than never” has seldom been as appropriate. Continue reading →