Under a fair tax code, Trump should have paid $0 in income tax…

by philg

… because he would have paid all of his taxes via a land value tax.

My Facebook feed is alive with people complaining that Trump hasn’t paid sufficient taxes over the past decades for which the NYT has obtained his personal tax returns (see Holy Grail attained: NYT gets hold of Trump’s tax returns). Essentially they are complaining that the real estate industry is not taxed properly. For the first 39 years, for example, depreciation may cancel out much of the rental revenue (and this clock can be accelerated by the sophisticated, as I learned from a friend who owns a huge office building and will pay no taxes for the first 15 years). As with Warren Buffet’s fortune, as long as assets aren’t totally cashed out, any tax on capital gains can be deferred for decades or perhaps centuries.

Maybe this is the nudge that the U.S. needs to move to what might be a much better and fairer tax, i.e., one on the value of land. This won’t discourage investment in nice buildings because the value of the building isn’t taxed. As the U.S. gets bulked up via immigration to a Chinese level of population density, land per person should become more scarce and valuable. Already we’ve seen that much of the fruits of economic growth in the U.S. have ended up accruing primarily to property owners (i.e., as soon as wages rise in a city, rents rise so that landlords soak up most of the increase and leave the workers with little additional spending power).

An advantage of the land value tax is that the U.S. could shut down its income taxation scheme, thus encouraging people to work more. Note that everyone who isn’t homeless, unhoused, or living in a car would end up paying the land value tax directly (homeowner) or indirectly (renter). It is also easy for governments to collect property-based taxes. The government knows where all of the land is and who owns it. In the hysteria around Trump and his taxes, one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned is the extent to which the hated dictator has paid 50+ years of property tax on the various properties that he owns. According to the NYT, Trump is an arch criminal and a mastermind at tax evasion (so much so that the IRS hasn’t actually changed his tax liability, though supposedly such as finding by the IRS will come any day now). Yet there is no indication that Trump or his companies have managed to escape paying property tax every year.

What’s not to love about a tax that even Donald Trump is not smart enough to avoid?

(A federal land value tax might be awesome for redressing income inequality. Wealthy coastal elite states have a lot of valuable land so they would pay more than states where median incomes are low. Uber rich Californians who may be paying almost nothing in property due to Proposition 13 could finally be taxed on the rise in land value to which they contributed nothing.)

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Transmission of coronaplague among the fully masked Japanese

by philg

“Dynamic Change of COVID-19 Seroprevalence among Asymptomatic Population in Tokyo during the Second Wave” (medRxiv):

Objective: To assess changes in COVID-19 seroprevalence among asymptomatic employees working in Tokyo during the second wave. Design: We conducted an observational cohort study. Healthy volunteers working for a Japanese company in Tokyo were enrolled from disparate locations to determine seropositivity against COVID19 from May 26 to August 25, 2020. COVID-19 IgM and IgG antibodies were determined by a rapid COVID19 IgM/IgG test kit using fingertip blood. Across the company, tests were performed and acquired weekly. For each participant, serology tests were offered twice, separated by approximately a month, to provide self-reference of test results and to assess for seroconversion and seroreversion. Setting: Workplace setting within a large company. Participants: Healthy volunteers from 1877 employees of a large Japanese company were recruited to the study from 11 disparate locations across Tokyo. Participants having fever, cough, or shortness of breath at the time of testing were excluded. Main Outcome(s) and Measure(s): Seropositivity rate (SPR) was calculated by pooled data from each two-weeks window across the cohort. Either IgM or IgG positivity was defined as seropositive. Changes in immunological status against SARS-CoV-2 were determined by comparing results between two tests obtained from the same individual. Results: Six hundred fifteen healthy volunteers (mean + SD 40.8 + 10.0; range 19-69; 45.7 % female) received at least one test. Seroprevalence increased from 5.8 % to 46.8 % over the course of the summer.

COVID-19 infection may have spread widely across the general population of Tokyo despite the very low fatality rate.

In other words, nearly half of this (masked) population came up positive for antibodies to COVID-19. That’s after excluding anyone with symptoms.

If masks are effective when used by the general public, how did the world’s most competent and experienced users of masks end up transmitting this virus to each other at these rates?

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Doom by December for the wicked unmasked Swedes

by philg

From the scientists at IHME:

By the end of December, 200 Swedes will be dying every day from coronaplague, unless they see the light and convert to the Church of Shutdown and don the hijab.

The current WHO dashboard says that 4 Swedes have died from Covid-19 in the last 7 days (0.57 deaths per day). IMHE therefore is predicting a 350X increase in coronaplague deaths.

Readers: What’s your best guess as to where the Swedes will be at the end of December?

My guess: 5-10 deaths per day. This is based on (a) Swedes being stuck indoors more, (b) Swedish Karens (even countries that give the finger to the virus must have some) who have been hiding in bunkers coming out, (c) travel picking up and therefore more people coming in from heavily plagued countries outside of Sweden, more people going from small towns to big cities, etc.

What does #Science tell us about our own country? Given that we change our minds every few weeks about shutdown policies, prediction can be more challenging. IMHE says that its projection is about 3,000 deaths per day by the end of December and it would over 6,000 if the U.S. were to give residents back what had been their Constitutional rights, e.g., to assemble.

Readers: Best guess for the U.S. daily COVID-19 deaths at the end of December?

My guess: about 700 per day… because that’s what it is right now and our shutdowns and mask policies are likely to ensure that the coronavirus always has a comfortable home somewhere in the U.S. (see When we wear masks, does the coronavirus thank us for our service?)

What else is interesting in the IHME data? 93% of Spaniards are (always) wearing masks:

(The WHO dashboard shows 453 deaths within the last 7 days. The population, 47 million, is roughly 4.5X Sweden’s while deaths are 100X never-masked Sweden’s. IMHE shows Swedish mask use at 1%.)

Follow-up: The IHME folks did pretty well in predicting the upward part of the exponential, but failed to predict that the virus would burn out, as it had in the spring 2020 wave. Here is the long-term picture:

If we zoom in, we find that I was off by a factor of 10 and IHME was off by a factor of only 2.

Keep in mind that anyone who tested positive for Covid in the 30 days prior to death was tagged by a computer as a “Covid death” and that Sweden ultimately had “less than half of Europe’s average excess death rate of 11 percent” (analysis).

What is the principal flawed assumption that resulted in my estimate being off by 10X? As there were no lockdowns, I assumed that nearly the entire Swedish population had been infected by SARS-CoV-2 in the spring of 2020 and, therefore, that those who could be killed by SARS-CoV-2 had already been killed. It may be, however, that Swedish efforts to isolate the elderly were reasonably effective and also that immunity to COVID acquired in April 2020 had already worn off by December 2020 (I would have expected immunity to last 2-3 years, which is also what people were saying about the vaccines at the time).

IHME got it wrong in the links below, but they got this one mostly right!

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RBG worked to maximize government while her husband worked to minimize tax payments

by philg

From the scholarly journal Vogue, “May Every Woman Find Her Marty Ginsburg”:

As he became a tax attorney and Ruth pursued advocacy work at the ACLU and professorships, he famously took on the domestic task of cooking for the family.

So the judge who sought to create a bigger government was married to an attorney who specialized in minimizing client’s tax payments.

(Separately, RBG flouted convention by marrying a guy who earned way more than she did!)

Can “every woman” find a spouse who earns as much as a tax attorney? (the successful ones earn at least $600 per hour; Marty Ginsburg was a partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, where profits per partner were over $3 million in 2018) “Broke men are hurting American women’s marriage prospects” (New York Post):

“Most American women hope to marry, but current shortages of marriageable men — men with a stable job and a good income — make this increasingly difficult,” says lead author Daniel Lichter in a press release.

Lichter adds that unless your dream man is an Uber driver, the dearth of would-be grooms is prominent “in the current ‘gig economy’ of unstable, low-paying service jobs.”

To investigate the man drought, researchers created profiles of potential husbands, based on real husbands as logged in American Community Survey data. They then compared these hypothetical spouses with actual unmarried men.

They found that a woman’s made-up hubby makes 58 percent more money than the current lineup of eligible bachelors.

“This study reveals large deficits in the supply of potential male spouses,” the study concludes.

“Many young men today have little to bring to the marriage bargain, especially as young women’s educational levels on average now exceed their male suitors’,” Lichter says.

Some ladies are even starting to date down in order to score a forever partner.

And sure, there’s the whole “love” factor in a marriage. But, in the end, “it also is fundamentally an economic transaction,” says Lichter.

Maybe a Harris-Biden administration will help a lot more women realize the dreams expressed in the Vogue article. If tax rates are doubled, there will be a lot more tax attorneys.

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Holy Grail attained: NYT gets hold of Trump’s tax returns

by philg

“LONG-CONCEALED RECORDS SHOW TRUMP’S CHRONIC LOSSES AND YEARS OF TAX AVOIDANCE” (NYT):

The Times obtained Donald Trump’s tax information extending over more than two decades, revealing struggling properties, vast write-offs, an audit battle and hundreds of millions in debt coming due.

Finally all of the Trump-haters’ questions will be answered? Sadly, no. Much additional forensic accounting remains to be done.

By their very nature, the filings will leave many questions unanswered, many questioners unfulfilled. They comprise information that Mr. Trump has disclosed to the I.R.S., not the findings of an independent financial examination. They report that Mr. Trump owns hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable assets, but they do not reveal his true wealth. Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia.

If the tax returns don’t reveal Trump’s true wealth “by their very nature,” why was it so important to obtain and review them?

I’ve read through this article once and can’t find anything interesting. Trump seems to have had some winners and losers among his properties and took all of the deductions that good tax lawyers (such as RBG’s husband, a specialist in limiting payments to the government that RBG sought to expand) could find.

Actually, a close reading of the article reveals that Trump should actually be rich, as you might expect with someone who uses a Boeing 757 as a personal/family aircraft:

The newer tax returns show that Mr. Trump burned through the last of the tax-reducing power of that $1 billion in 2005, just as a torrent of entertainment riches began coming his way following the debut of “The Apprentice” the year before.

For 2005 through 2007, cash from licensing deals and endorsements filled Mr. Trump’s bank accounts with $120 million in pure profit. With no prior-year losses left to reduce his taxable income, he paid substantial federal income taxes for the first time in his life: a total of $70.1 million.

According to some previous articles that I’ve read, due to some crazy favorable contract terms and tax laws it seems that Trump was able to deduct losses on real estate that were actually incurred by partners (i.e., the $1 billion in losses for him might have been taken after only a $50 million personal loss). So if he chewed through this $1 billion with profits, that likely means that he actually earned $1 billion in profit circa 1995-2005 and didn’t have to pay income tax on that profit (due to the losses carried forward from the previous ventures in which he had not actually lost $1 billion of his own money).

Is it fair to say that the NYT’s long hunt for Trump’s tax returns has merely revealed that Trump was making roughly $100 million per year in a volatile industry and that his tax lawyers have been aggressive with the deductions? Who was a primary enabler of Trump being able to keep most of this $100 million/year?

Business losses can work like a tax-avoidance coupon: A dollar lost on one business reduces a dollar of taxable income from elsewhere. The types and amounts of income that can be used in a given year vary, depending on an owner’s tax status. But some losses can be saved for later use, or even used to request a refund on taxes paid in a prior year.

Until 2009, those coupons could be used to wipe away taxes going back only two years. But that November, the window was more than doubled by a little-noticed provision in a bill Mr. Obama signed as part of the Great Recession recovery effort. Now business owners could request full refunds of taxes paid in the prior four years, and 50 percent of those from the year before that.

What about the New York Times’s passion for learning more about how American women make money with their, um, natural assets?

The data contains no new revelations about the $130,000 payment to Stephanie Clifford, the actress who performs as Stormy Daniels — a focus of the Manhattan district attorney’s subpoena for Mr. Trump’s tax returns and other financial information.

How about the proven (by the NYT) fact that everything Trump has done has been bankrolled by Russia?

No subject has provoked more intense speculation about Mr. Trump’s finances than his connection to Russia. While the tax records revealed no previously unknown financial connection — and, for the most part, lack the specificity required to do so — they did shed new light on the money behind the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, a subject of enduring intrigue because of subsequent investigations into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

The records show that the pageant was the most profitable Miss Universe during Mr. Trump’s time as co-owner, and that it generated a personal payday of $2.3 million…

So the guy who was earning $100 million per year from 1995-2005 added $2.3 million to his fortune via an event that occurred in Moscow?

Here’s the most shocking section to me:

Likewise the cost of haircuts, including the more than $70,000 paid to style his hair during “The Apprentice.” Together, nine Trump entities have written off at least $95,464 paid to a favorite hair and makeup artist of Ivanka Trump.

That’s a lot of hair-related expense!

Readers: What new and important information did you take away from this article?

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NYT 2012: Voting by mail is a recipe for fraud

by philg

“Error and Fraud at Issue as Absentee Voting Rises” (New York Times, October 6, 2012):

While fraud in voting by mail is far less common than innocent errors, it is vastly more prevalent than the in-person voting fraud that has attracted far more attention, election administrators say.

The flaws of absentee voting raise questions about the most elementary promises of democracy.

Voting by mail is now common enough and problematic enough that election experts say there have been multiple elections in which no one can say with confidence which candidate was the deserved winner. The list includes the 2000 presidential election, in which problems with absentee ballots in Florida were a little-noticed footnote to other issues.

Still, voting in person is more reliable, particularly since election administrators made improvements to voting equipment after the 2000 presidential election.

“Trump Is Pushing a False Argument on Vote-by-Mail Fraud. Here Are the Facts.” (August 31, 2020):

President Trump has begun pushing a false argument that has circulated among conservatives for years — that voting by mail is a recipe for fraud.

That’s the beauty of #Science… the truth evolves until eventually there is a scientific consensus.

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Frontiers of Canadian divorce litigation: alimony without a marriage, children, or shared residence

by philg

“Unmarried Ontario couple had no children and no house but man must still pay support, appeal court rules” (National Post):

Under Ontario law, an unmarried couple are considered common-law spouses if they have cohabited — lived together in a conjugal relationship — continuously for at least three years. But that doesn’t necessarily mean living in the same home, the court found.

“Lack of a shared residence is not determinative of the issue of cohabitation,” the Appeal Court said. “There are many cases in which courts have found cohabitation where the parties stayed together only intermittently.”

The decision comes in the case of Lisa Climans and Michael Latner, both of Toronto, who began a romantic relationship after meeting in October 2001. At the time, she was 38 and separated with two children, court records show. He was 46 and divorced with three children.

Although they maintained their separate homes, Latner and Climans behaved as a couple both privately and publicly. They vacationed together. He gave her a 7.5-carat diamond ring and other jewelry that she wore. She quit her job and would regularly sleep at his house. They travelled together and talked about living together.

Latner proposed several times and Climans accepted. He often referred to her by his last name. However, he insisted she sign a marriage contract and came up with several drafts. She refused.

Throughout their relationship, the two kept separate bank accounts and never owned property in common. Nevertheless, Latner gave Climans thousands of dollars every month, a credit card, paid off her mortgage and showered her with expensive gifts. He provided her and her children with a “lavish lifestyle,” the court found.

When their 14-year relationship finally broke down in May 2015, Climans asked the courts to recognize her as Latner’s spouse and order him to pay her support. He argued she had been a travel companion and girlfriend, nothing more. As such, he said, they were never legally spouses and he owed no support. An eight-day trial ensued.

In her decision in February 2019, Superior Court Justice Sharon Shore sided with Climans. She ruled they were in fact long-time spouses, finding that despite their separate home, they lived under one roof at Latner’s cottage for part of the summer, and during winter vacations in Florida. Shore ordered him to pay her $53,077 monthly indefinitely. Latner appealed.

The Appeal Court did find Shore had made an error in deciding how long Latner would have to pay Climans support based on when they first began cohabiting. While Shore had found that to be almost from the get-go, the higher court said it wasn’t earlier than their first stay together at his cottage, meaning they didn’t reach the threshold for indefinite payments.

Instead, it ordered him to pay her support for 10 years.

So, the gal who refused to sign the prenuptial agreement will end up with CAD$6,369,240 (about $5 million U.S.). Canadians who identify as “women” and who work full-time full-year earn about CAD$52,500 per year (statcan). Thus, for her work as a travel companion, jewelry recipient, and (presumably) sex partner, Lisa Climans will receive, in addition to gifts already banked, 121 years of salary at the average wage paid to a Canadian identifying as a “woman” who endures the drudgery of 40 hours per week in the labor force.

In the Distillery District of Toronto… Love (possibly convertible into cash).

What was the old/conventional understanding of the law? From a group of divorce, custody, and child support litigators in Ontario:

In Ontario, Canada, two people are considered common law partners if they have been continuously living together in a conjugal relationship for at least three years. If they have a child together by birth or adoption, then they only need to have been living together for one year.

In Canada, a “conjugal relationship” is more than just a sexual relationship. A “conjugal relationship” in Canada is one in which two people share a home, finances, friend groups, and an emotional connection on top of having a sexual relationship.

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A complete anti-racism curriculum for all ages

by philg

In case your local school is mostly shut down and you want to make sure that your kids get the essentials, from the front of a house in the Boston suburbs…

(the neighborhood welcomes People of Color as long as they can afford the two-acre zoning minimum (about $750,000 for a vacant lot, and don’t forget to set aside $20-40,000 per year for no-longer-deductible-unless-Biden-gets-elected property tax))

Should children give their lunch money to the Massachusetts Bail Fund? “Mass. Bail Fund Answers Criticism After Freeing Convicted Sex Offender Accused Of New Rape” (WBUR):

A bail fund in Massachusetts is defending itself after freeing people facing serious crimes, including a convicted rapist who has since been charged with a new rape.

The Massachusetts Bail Fund said in a statement Wednesday that it bails out people based on financial need “regardless of charge or court history” because it believes pretrial detention is “harmful and racist.”

The Cambridge-based organization, whose motto is “Free Them All,” said criticism over its practices only serves to “prop up a white supremacist institution” that studies have shown imposes higher bails on people of color than whites for the same crimes.

From boston.com, “Convicted rapist let out after bail fund pays for his release allegedly rapes again”:

On July 15, the Massachusetts Bail Fund paid the $15,000 in bail to release a registered Level 3 sex offender awaiting trial on rape and kidnapping charges stemming from a 2018 case, according to authorities.

On Wednesday, he allegedly raped again. And authorities are now openly criticizing the fund for setting Shawn McClinton free, referring to him as a “sexual predator.”

McClinton, 39, was arraigned Thursday in the Dorchester division of Boston Municipal Court on new charges of aggravated rape, kidnapping for the purpose of sexual assault, strangulation, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. His bail was set at $500,000 on these charges, and Judge Lisa Grant revoked his open bail from the 2018 case, according to a news release from Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins’s office.

On Tuesday night, McClinton allegedly met up with the victim, and they went from Quincy to Dorchester. When she tried to leave on Wednesday, McClinton allegedly wouldn’t let her and raped her at knifepoint. The victim reportedly suffered cuts and bruising and ultimately was able to escape. A passerby saw her afterward and called 911, authorities said.

(see also Richard Pryor regarding racial injustice in imprisonment: “I thought Black people killed people by accident”)

How about M4BL The Movement for Black Lives? Their May 2020 “vision” and “policy demands for Black power, freedom, & justice” says that the Jews in Israel are committing “genocide … against the Palestinian people.” If there is a full-scale genocide being perpetrated by Jews, why should the top priority of the righteous be the behavior of the police in Minneapolis, Baltimore, Portland, and some other U.S. cities? Nobody has accused these police departments of genocide. Why not give money to Hamas so that they can #Resist the Jewish-run genocide?

Let’s look at the reading list with some excerpts from Amazon…

I Believe I Can is an affirmation for boys and girls of every background to love and believe in themselves. … [the author] Grace was bullied throughout her childhood

Why is this limited to affirming “boys” and “girls”? What about children with other gender IDs?

Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table: Will Allen is no ordinary farmer. A former basketball star … he can see what others can’t see. When he looked at an abandoned city lot in Milwaukee he saw a huge table, big enough to feed the whole world. No space, no problem. Poor soil, there’s a solution. Need help, found it. Farmer Will is a genius in solving problems. In 2008, the MacArthur Foundation named him one for his innovative urban farming methods, including aquaponics and hydroponics.

Might this mislead youngsters regarding farming economics? How can a hydroponic farm built by Will Allen compete with a regular farm in Mexico plus a truck to bring the produce to Costco? (Wikipedia says that at least one of this guy’s urban farming projects went bust.) If the answer is “we need to eat it right after it is picked” then might it still be cheaper to airfreight the produce than to grow it in a city with exotic life support? (NPR says that I’m wrong: “How Hydroponic School Gardens Can Cultivate Food Justice, Year-Round”)

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You is an adaptation for youngsters of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America: (from a reader) This is one of the greatest history books I’ve ever read. I was highlighting passages on pretty much every page, mostly because so much of what’s here was new to me. Hey, I’m an upper middle class white guy who’s trying to examine my own privileges, understand more of why there’s so much racism in this country and learn how I can do better. This book, which was undoubtedly extremely difficult to write, is an amazing resource, one I’ll be referring back to probably for the rest of my life. We all owe Ibram X. Kendi a tremendous debt.

Wikipedia says Ibram Kendi is director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University. So people who don’t want to spend $20 on these books can pay $77,662 per year to watch a video by Dr. Kendi. (If “privilege” is all about being white, how is it that “in 2016, Ibram X. Kendi became the youngest person ever to win the National Book Award for Nonfiction” (“How to Be an Anti-Intellectual” from City Journal)? Shouldn’t Americans who identify as Black need to work harder and for more years in order to get to the same places as Americans who identify as white?)

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Volkswagen ID.4 versus Tesla Y: Did the Empire Strike Back?

by philg

The Volkswagen ID.4 was unveiled today. The base price is $40,000. After middle-class taxpayers work a few extra months to subsidize the rich with a $7,500 tax credit, for which Teslas are no longer eligible, the vehicle will cost only about half as much as a slightly pimped-out Tesla Y.

Although the VW does not have as large a charging network as Tesla, presumably, charging is free for three years.

Car and Driver says that the price will come down to $36,000 in 2022 when production comes to Tennessee. This can’t be good for predicted resale value! And, indeed, the lease price is not that low, nearly $500/month for 36 months with the up-front costs amortized.

How about the dashboard? Did Volkswagen copy Tesla and stick a Chinese touch screen in the middle of the two front seats and call it good? No. There is a real dashboard, according to Car and Driver:

All versions of the vehicle feature VW’s 5.3-inch ID Cockpit. The digital dash cluster uses three frames in the display to show speed, driver assistance information, and navigation. Drivers can opt for all three or just two of the three, with the speedometer always available. The automaker has moved the gearshifter directly to the right and attached it to the display. Twist it forward to go forward and back to go into reverse. A button on the side places it in park.

How about the size? From electrek:

In other words, these cars are the same size.

The VW should be better for driving in the city due to a tighter turning radius. (But how many people with enough money to buy a new car will want to drive into American cities anymore?)

One glaring deficiency from Mindy the Crippler’s point of view: No Dog Mode. At least based on the VW web site, there is no way to park the car with instructions to keep the climate control going. From Cadillac Mountain, below, speaking of landmarks named after car manufacturers….

Is this the beginning of the end for Tesla? The company cannot make cars profitably at current prices, right? And the current prices cannot be sustained when the real car companies are offering excellent electric cars at just over $30,000, right? The competitive analysis by VW shows that the Tesla can charge faster in ideal circumstances and can accelerate more dramatically (not here in Boston; traffic jams are back!), but presumably those advantages are balanced by a lot of disadvantages in areas where traditional car manufacturers have expertise.

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Do we have the energy to fight both coronaplague and cleavage?

by philg

In the same vein as Time to love smokers again? … “Paris Musée d’Orsay sorry for barring visitor in low-cut dress” (BBC):

Temperatures reached 26C on Tuesday, and Jeanne, an art-loving literature student, told of her desire to mark the end of a hot afternoon at the Musée d’Orsay. “It was far from my mind that my cleavage would be the subject of any disagreement,” she says.

Although her friend had a cropped top that showed her navel, Jeanne says attention was fixed on her breasts even before she had had a chance to show her ticket. “Oh no, that’s not going to be possible, that’s not allowed, that is not acceptable,” she quotes a ticket agent as saying.

If society has the energy for this, can we infer that coronaplague isn’t so bad?

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