Yep.

I knew I liked you.

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You know me like that.

Well us rich guys need to stick together.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

isnt the argument... if you simplify the tax code, you open up avenues to funnel money through non taxed channels...

what i dont get is, if thats the case, cant we just impose limits on how much you can 'fudge'. doing that one change wouldnt confuse anyone, it would be a set dollar amount per year you can be off on your claims and it's considered OK. and it would effectively transfer more tax burden to the wealthy.

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

I am talking about creating the tax laws and just leaving them alone. The Trump tax law was about 80% a corporate change, and it was the first major overhaul in a long time.

Look, it is really difficult (timing wise) to calculate income and expenses for businesses. For instance, do you call it revenue when you sell a good to your customer or when the customer pays? Do you expense the truck when you buy it or over the period when it is used. How does overhead get allocated to inventory? What happens when you purchase goods from your subsidiary in Mexico, what is the right “transfer” price? What portion of meals and entertainment are deductible?

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Hawaii (fuck) You

That is a shockingly accurate description of what I do every minute of my day and why I come here to avoid those thoughts.

If you have a transfer pricing GUY, I have a few meetings coming up.

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You know me like that.

i agree it needs to stabilize but youre also arguing the code is too complex, which i do agree with. but only because the details are such that it hurts small business and individuals a lot more than wealthy companies and people.

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

Income taxes are always going to be complex. And for many reasons- I illustrated just a few reasons. The mere determination of income is difficult.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Looks like Bitcoin has survived Elon Musk and China, now the question is whether it can survive Joe Weisenthal.

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Don't take it personally.

Transfer pricing is an ungodly waste of time. I have always felt that taxing income is such a strain on every part of the system, that we would all be better off with a national sales tax, but I know that is highly regressive and subject to smuggling.

I have read that for every dollar collected in income tax, one third of that is spent complying and enforcing the rules.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Well, here's what is an even bigger waste of time...quality.

Quality is important but certifications are out of control. What used to be a 3 person department is now literally 10x as large and just as more expensive.

Full-time departments whose main job is to "check the box". Meetings that suck up hours of time of high-paid employees that make meaningless goals because we have to make goals and achieve them to demonstrate to outside parties that we care about the goals that they think we should care about.

I'm not against the concept. I think the Kaizen idea was ground-breaking and very useful to set standards. But it's out of control now.

A CFMB equivalent meeting would be to grab the top 20 posters and let's all spend multiple hours determining how many times JORR is going to post this year. We would ask JORR - "how many times do you think you will post this year?". He'd say 5,000. We would set the goal at 3,000 because that is reasonable enough not to question but certain to be met.

So, we would then demonstrate to another message board's huge quality department that we are "on it" and meeting our annual posting goals so you should feel comfortable letting your biker members post on our board.

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You know me like that.

Just as an addendum, the very concept of continuous improvement never ends by definition.

There are diminishing returns.

When a hypothetical CFO has to spend time explaining that the blue detergent behind his desk in an unlabeled spray bottle to keep bugs off his plants is not toxic. And then we get "written up" for it, is your car safer?

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You know me like that.

I obviously do not work in a manufacturing environment but have always had an interest in six sigma and Kaizen. I am a believer in the idea that doing tasks consistently (six sigma reducing variability) and improving quality continuously (Kaizen) has value. But if the organization does not have it built into its DNA and it simply becomes box checking, then it is worthless.

There is no doubt six sigma can be applied to service industries including mine, insurance. For instance, my industry is terrible on things like issuing policies. One never knows if and when a purchased policy will be issued. Sometimes it is one day and others it is one month. So brokers email us all day long looking for the policies. If you applied six sigma techniques and set that all policies will be issued two days after purchase, it would eliminate all the back and forth.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

True but there are always things that can be improved. However, MANY forget the old accounting test of cost benefit.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Related, but not trying make an argument, I just think it's a funny story.

I was asked in quality audit one time, if you were walking through the facility and acid accidentally was sprayed in your face, what would you do?

I said I'd scream for help.

She asked do you know where the eye wash stations are? Are they clearly labeled?

I said "Yes, they are clearly labeled. But I wouldn't be able to find them because I have acid in my eyes. So, I would scream for help."

We got dinged on that one.

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You know me like that.

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Don't take it personally.

Fed is announcing some ideas. Just legitimizes the market.

Maybe I'll grab some of that early Fed crypto.

Feeling good.

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You know me like that.

It is kind of cute to see the Fed think they can still control global economic monetary policy.

The world's on fire.

You do you.

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You know me like that.

Income tax becomes more complex when you deviate from the ostensible goal of raising revenue. When you start to incentive and disincentivize certain things in the context of raising revenue complexity grows exponentially.

Like a national sales tax seems simple and it is. But if you want to incentivize home ownership then you exclude home sales. If you want to disincentivize fossil fuels, then you have a different sales tax regime for fossil fuels, then people try to take advantage of those good areas and avoid the bad areas, then you pass laws to stop those actors, etc.

If the tax code, income or otherwise, restrained itself from incentivizing behavior, the tax code, income or otherwise, would be much more simple.

Holy shit. I just got my weekly financial analysis from the bank I have and it cites comments from this guy. What are the odds of that?

I really need to run for something.

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You know me like that.

I agree with you in full. The income tax code is being used for all sorts of incentives, which creates layers of complexity. And as long as they continue to push it as a means of leveling the playing field, it will only get worse. You cannot fund vast social programs by taxing 10% of the population. But good luck trying.

It is all a joke anyway. The federal government is just borrowing endlessly funded mainly by Federal Reserve monetization all the while entitlements are a hidden cost as they are not accounted for except as a paygo system. The present value of those liabilities is approaching $100T.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Hey, but it keeps us all employed.

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You know me like that.

Just got this in the mail today.



Interesting that they capitalized the word "Party" but not "nation".

I don't even know what they're talking about. I voted for Biden.

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You know me like that.

I still get the emails. The mail stopped around November.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I get calls.. All the damn time. I also get an obscene amount of NRA email and big brothers of Chicago addressed to my father but sent to my address But that is a different gripe.

No one really gets the flat tax/no deductions or sales taxes realities and advantages. And all sides bitch.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Not sure how I got on a Republican mailing list, but I started getting the mail after I voted in a Republican primary a decade ago. I had voted for a republican candidate for governor and in other races, but never got mail.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I’m pretty Republican. I’m just not that.

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You know me like that.

As a republican who’s donated in the past, I get frequent requests for money via text, email, snail mail and the occasional phone call.

While I appreciate we’re on the brink and our country is sliding into godless socialism, all have received the same response.

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Fundraising Ends in Antioch.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Yeah, the super alarmist messages generally don’t garner a positive response from me. I know the stats say I’m probably right up their ally but that ally keeps getting a place I’m avoiding more and more.