The Income Rich Take One For The Team. Thanks!

I love talking about taxes. Our President and both houses of Congress have finally all agreed on a deal on this whole fiscal cliff mess. I’ve been holding my breath on this because I thought for sure that I’d be paying a lot more in taxes this year. But I dodged the bullet. All venture capitalists did, actually. Nothing the government agreed to in the last few days actually affects the asset wealthy in this country. If you’re a Hollywood agent barely getting by with a million dollar a year salary and two ex spouses, your life sucks right now. You’re going to have barely any money left over at the end of each month for cocaine with the tax increase. Small business owners will also take a hit because their business profits are considered income in most cases Luckily I’m not in any of the groups who are being affected much. I have some money in the bank from selling TechCrunch a couple of years ago, which of course isn’t taxed on an ongoing basis. So I’m good there. And even better, there hasn’t been a word mentioned about the carried interest loophole. Most of the money I make now comes from investments from CrunchFund. And the vast majority of that is what’s called carried interest. Even though I’m investing other people’s money, the government calls it a capital gain. So instead of paying 39.6 percent on that money (I won’t call it income), I pay only 15 percent (or maybe 20 percent under the new rules – it isn’t clear to me). In other words, income is a sucker’s game. Carried interest rocks. Everyone wants the rich to pay more in taxes. They’re thinking about Mitt Romney and Warren Buffet when they say “rich people.” But really rich people like that are totally protected. Their accumulated wealth can only be touched by inflation. And if they’re in the hedge fund game, most of their “income” is taxed at just 15 percent. Which is why Warren Buffet can pay a lower tax rate than his secretary. And why, even after calling for tax increases for the rich, he’ll still be paying a lower tax rate than his secretary. Kill This Loophole Many of us benefiting from it have been asking for it to end for years because it is so vastly unfair. It’s not often that something is so

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/1l2rIDMUyw0/

rough riders joy division norco rand paul detained asexual jim carrey san francisco chronicle