figmentPez
Staff member
More financial malfeasance by Clarence Thomas and his Nazi friend:
Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
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GasBandit
Staff member
The original intent was actually kind of the opposite. The founders did not want to have to pay to equip the militia, and they assumed since everyone lived on the frontier of the known world, owning firearms was going to be a given. Not only did they not provide or subsidize firearm purchase, but if you were mobilized, you were expected to bring the firearm you owned.
No, none of that is actually true.
GasBandit
Staff member
The Militia Act of 1792 specifically says:
You were expected to completely outfit yourself not only with firearms but all the supplementary equipment as well. At least they made them tax write-offs.
GasBandit
Staff member
I'd say so. There's a big difference, and I've had to become intimately familiar with that this year since buying an EV. I get a $7500 tax rebate on it. That's a VERY different story than if I was able to just write off the price of the car - if it was just reducing my taxable income by the price of the car, I'd get back about half that.
Okay, fair enough. What kind of write-off (I assume rebates didn't exist at the time?) did revolutionary era militiamen get?
GasBandit
Staff member
The verbiage of the act indicated they could deduct the price of the gear they were required to purchase from their taxable income.
It'll never get you money "back" (unless you've drastically overestimated on your paycheck witholding) but it'll reduce your taxes owed by a little.
GasBandit
Staff member
Let me just run through the scenario I just outlined, using the EV purchase.
If you make (to pull a number out of a hat) $60,000 a year, you'll pay $10,558 in federal taxes. Unless you have some crazy other deductions or something, but let's just go with the standard deduction for this discussion.
If you buy a 2023 Chevy Bolt for $29,000, it will reduce your tax burden by $7500. (Which will probably vastly outstrip your withholding, resulting in a big rebate check that makes you feel good despite it's really just the government giving back what they took)
However, if you made a $29,000 deductible purchase of some other sort, reducing your taxable income by that amount, it would result in you paying $4,332 in taxes for that year... or a $6,226 reduction of your tax burden.
A flat rebate also acts progressively as income increases. In the upper tax brackets, the $29,000 write-off would probably get you more money back than $7500.
Edit - crunched the numbers using the same site. If you make $200,000, a $29,000 reduction of taxable income would save you just shy of $9 grand.
If you make (to pull a number out of a hat) $60,000 a year, you'll pay $10,558 in federal taxes. Unless you have some crazy other deductions or something, but let's just go with the standard deduction for this discussion.
If you buy a 2023 Chevy Bolt for $29,000, it will reduce your tax burden by $7500. (Which will probably vastly outstrip your withholding, resulting in a big rebate check that makes you feel good despite it's really just the government giving back what they took)
However, if you made a $29,000 deductible purchase of some other sort, reducing your taxable income by that amount, it would result in you paying $4,332 in taxes for that year... or a $6,226 reduction of your tax burden.
A flat rebate also acts progressively as income increases. In the upper tax brackets, the $29,000 write-off would probably get you more money back than $7500.
Edit - crunched the numbers using the same site. If you make $200,000, a $29,000 reduction of taxable income would save you just shy of $9 grand.
If you make €60k/year in Belgium, you world pay about €32k in federal income tax (which excludes quite a lot of other taxes, but so did you).
/sadEuropeannoises
(and just to get it out of the way, no this is not in some way looking down on or complaining about Americans, FFS)
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Am just going to interject here to yes read text carefully, because this is how people get (unpleasantly) surprised when they find out their $5000 expires-this-year tax credit is wasted because they only owed $1200 in taxes (and will therefore be forfeiting the remaining $3800).
--Patrick
--Patrick
No my initial post was a sneaky way to get meal team 6 to silently register their fire arms. But it does have significant shared characteristics of how fire arms were regulated in colonial americas, the act of 1792 (enroll in the militia, get tax benefits but only with this gear!) being a solution to the nightmares of 1776 (everyone bring what ever gear you have!), but quickly gave way to the permanent solutions of 1808 (okay okay the state will provide all the gear for you).
Our EV was $5000 Fed and $3000 Province applied to the price of the car at purchase. (Sort of, the Province part was so new, that dealerships had not integrated it into their systems, so we got a cheque in the mail. )
GasBandit
Staff member
That's only true of some things but not others. For example, it is typical of corrections officers to also have to buy their own weapons. Though unions are trying to get that addressed as well. And the US's tax code pretty much says anything you have to buy as a "business expense" can get written off.
Clearly Canada handles things differently. Here, for EVs (and as I have discovered much to my chagrin, residential solar) you are expected to foot the entire bill up front and then get some money later from tax rebates. And as Patrthom said, if the rebate exceeds your tax liability for the year, you only get your tax liability back. Which is another reason I won't be going for solar this year after all - There's something like an $8000 solar residential tax credit, which I definitely won't be passing up if I'm expected to foot the entire $27,000 installation in advance.
It also occurs to me that a flat tax rebate is usually better than a specific deduction for the cost because of how the Standard Deduction works.
If you are going to write off the expense, you have to itemize instead of taking the standard deduction (which is $12,950 for single filers and those married filing separately, $25,900 for joint filers, and $19,400 for heads of household). So, to itemize a $29,000 EV expense, you will ALSO be on the hook for scrounging up enough other itemized deductions to cover what you would have gotten from the standard deduction. Otherwise you'll start off that "behind" and receive TONS less back.
So, for example, that $60,000 version I said was wrong - that was if you covered the entire $13k standard deduction AND got the itemized deduction for the cost of the EV. Most people who make that much (and definitely those making less) are sure to get a better deal taking the standard deduction rather than itemizing, because their itemized deductions almost never add up to more than the standard deduction. And that's another reason why write offs are only really a concern for rich people. ESPECIALLY if you are filing jointly or as head of household.
Federal tax on $60,000 using the single-filing standard deduction is $10,558.
If you itemize and have to cover the $13k out of the $29k cost of the vehicle, your tax burden for the year is $6887. Meaning your EV subsidy only actually got you back $3671.
The EV tax rebate is specifically called out to NOT be an itemized deduction, you can take the standard deduction and then still apply the full $7500 (assuming your tax liability for the year is at least $7500).
Did you know that many areas want to apply annual taxes to EVs? This they justified by the lack of fuel taxes being paid. Which is actually quite understandable, as governments are loathe to lose tax revenue. But thanks to an Obama era law, EV owners get to punch anyone in the mouth who posits the idea that fuel taxes pay for roads maintenance.
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Yes. They are trying to get a tax levied to replace fuel taxes* that will be "lost" due to the conversion to EVs.
--Patrick
*Wow, Pennsylvania! 75% excise taxes on motor fuel? Wow.
Last I heard they were trying to get a mileage tax. Which is such a wonky solution that obviously wouldn’t work.
And people think that Obama was legislatively unsuccessful.
I've seen ideas floating around that cars get their odometer recorded every "safety inspection/registration" and the Government gets told the number and sends a bill for how much you have driven since the last time. Because heaven forbid you drive your car out of the region.
GasBandit
Staff member
FTFY.
As I said before, it's a non-refundable tax rebate. It cannot take you below 0 on your tax liability. So at best, it can only cancel your federal taxes, not get the government to "pay" you.
EITC and child care credits can.
So every couple years you get a bill for a couple hundred or more? Absolutely terrible idea.
Especially since it makes it’s insane that they would do that rather than something incredibly easy like taxing capital gains at normal rates. Or just fucking taxing corporations.
I have seen people putting forth proposals which suggest that, since electricity is so ubiquitous and used as "fuel" for EVs, the rate the consumer pays to use it should also include fees/taxes/whatever proportionate to the amount of CO2/ash/waste/etc produced at the generation facility as a way to get EVs to pay their "fair share" to offset those emissions.
This strikes me as dumb, primarily since this is a cost which should 100% be borne by the generation facility itself. NOW if that facility wants to mark up their retail supply price as a way to recoup those costs, then fine, but it shouldn't be couched as some questionable attempt to try and foist that responsibility onto the consumer.
--Patrick
Legitimately my exact reaction.
GasBandit
Staff member
I hear through the grapevine this will be changing next year. Kinda.
There's legislation going into effect that will let the dealer discount the price of the EV by $7500 and the government will cut them a check. But when you come around to doing your taxes, if the entire $7500 isn't applicable to you (for example, your tax liability would have been less than $7500), the difference will be added to your TL.
Which means it could actually bite you in the ass come tax time, a little. Especially if you are very low income, to the tune of needing that $7500 discount immediately to be able to afford the EV in the first place... a bigger than usual tax bill come next April might hurt.
figmentPez
Staff member
GasBandit
Staff member
Fuckin hell
www.chron.com
Texas Republicans pushing vigilante immigration policing law
The Texas bill would allow the governor to deputize citizens as immigration officers–and in some cases grant them arrest powers.
