MYTH : Trump's Social Security Tax Holiday Will Help Employers and Their Employees

Well, this is a solid myth, that's for sure.  Smart and ethical CPAs are recommending that their clients not just walk, but sprint away from the Memorandum Deferring Payroll Tax Obligation.  Let me preface this by declaring that I'm not an attorney and that all of this is my opinion.  But I can read and think. 

First, a little background.

The current IRS Commissioner is Trump appointee Charles Rettig, who, during his confirmation hearing, "told lawmakers he would ensure that the agency is 'impartial and non-biased from top to bottom' and follows the law."  

This seems unlikely, given that Rettig's Beverly Hills law firm specialized in defending wealthy clients against taxing authorities.  Since taking over the IRS, Rettig has slashed 4000 employees, including 19% of enforcement and compliance staff.  Like every single other Trump appointee, Rettig was selected for his ability and enthusiasm to vandalize the very agency to which he was appointed.

So Trump's Memorandum Deferring Payroll Tax Obligations allows any employee with bi-weekly pay of less than $4000 to defer paying of their 6.2% share of Social Security tax.  This appeals to two kinds of Trump supporters:  the wealthier ones who hate Social Security and, including this group, the less well-off supporters who hate taxes and government in general, despite all the benefits they enjoy as a result.

The key word here is "deferring".  What could make this tax easier to pay in the future?  Some tax people are rightly claiming that only Congress has the ability to waive such taxes.  But they've already granted that right to the President in the event of a national emergency, which Trump declared in April due to the [fake, according to him] pandemic.  

In fact, it will simply put employers at risk of fees and penalties.  On top of that, I've seen nothing in the regulations that prevents employers from going after former employees for reimbursement. According to our Senator & Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, "Donald Trump's scam is obvious — juice paychecks before the election and sock workers with a massive tax bill early next year when he’ll be out of office or never have to face voters again. While many businesses are unlikely to go along with Donald Trump’s fake tax cut, billions could be drained from the Social Security trust fund. This scheme is designed to give Donald Trump a talking point — it won’t benefit workers in any way.”*

Whether you're an employee or an employer, don't be seduced by this nonsensical campaign trick.

 

*Thanks to Think Advisor for their excellent article on this and choice quotes.

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There Oughta' Be a Law! (repost)

I'm reposting this financial mostly-a-myth because of the recently and rapidly growing list of "mistakes" made by our president and virtually every one of his inner circle.

I confess that my first reaction to outrageous behavior is, "there oughta' be a law!".   One way I attempt to keep up with the times is to watch TV about once a week, usually a news program on Sunday morning.  Holy cow!  A dozen "there oughta' be a law!" incidents come up in 15 minutes (so far, my upper tolerance limit), most having to do with advertising:

• Gambling is portrayed as entertainment, showing idiotically grinning couples.  I've never seen people smiling in a casino, have you?  There oughta' be a law against these ads.
• Drugs are also paired with happy, healthy actors who, in reality, will probably never need a prescription in their lifetimes.  Drug ads should be illegal.
• Fashion is advertised as an essential source of happiness, acceptance and, well, evolving as humans!  A top fashion consultant admitted that he doesn't follow consumers' fashion desires, he manufactures them.  There oughta' be a law.  (But in my case it's obvious I don't follow fashion.)
• Food.  If you just look around it's apparent that Americans get plenty of food.  Yet billions are spent daily trying to get us to eat cheap, crappy "food".  Or food that neither our budgets nor our bodies can afford.  This should be illegal, just like hard liquor ads are.
• Cars are a personal statement, instant evocations of status and coolness.  Oh.  And they can transport things and people.  But we need fewer of them, not more of them.  How are these ads any different than hard liquor, gambling, drugs or food?
• Investing "porn" is everywhere.  Really?  You're going to plan out the rest of your life based on information from whoever spends the most money to catch your eye??  Where do they get all that money to spend on ads?  From your money.  There are rational, evidence-based rules & tools you can find online, most for free.  Finally, there are honest, wise and experienced advisers in your community to help you curate the deluge of money madness.  Investing & insurance ads should be illegal. 

But then, several weeks after our Nuevo Vallarta vacation, it dawned on me what had been different- and profoundly relaxing -about Mexico.  At the resort, what was it about the pool area, the weight room, the parking lot . . . everywhere that was so calming?  What was absent?  Then I realized there were No signs, no rules, no "Danger" or "Forbidden" or "Warning" placards at every turn.  It felt clean, quiet, uncluttered, adult.  They relied on the intelligence and character of their guests to make things run smoothly and so far it seemed to be working.

Wouldn't it be easier, less expensive and more effective to encourage consumers* to be smarter and more discerning ?  That's a transferrable skill.  It would make us all better citizens, parents, workers, entreprenuers and, yes, consumers.  Absolutely there should still be laws and enforcement of them.  But the path to perfect safety is more perilous and ultimately results in zero freedom under dictators.  Which is why our current administration wants to entice you down that path to make you dumber, more fearful and less tolerant, hence, easier to manipulate and control.

*And, in the vein of today's post, voters

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Universal Basic Income is Welfare

The idea of a universal basic income has found growing support in Silicon Valley as robots threaten to radically change the nature of work.

Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar is the latest tech bigwig to get behind the concept. His philanthropic investment firm, the Omidyar Network, announced Wednesday that it will give nearly half a million dollars to a group testing the policy in Kenya.

SEE ALSO: Could 2017 be the year people take universal basic income seriously?

Universal basic income is the notion that a government should guarantee every citizen a yearly sum of money, no strings attached. The thinking is that such a program would relieve economic stress as automation technology severely reduces the demand for labor.

Theories along these lines have existed for centuries, but their proponents have never had much luck convincing governments to give them a shot. Thus, the only data on real-world effects come from a few scattered experiments throughout the years.

GiveDirectly is looking to add to that knowledge with one of the biggest trials of a basic income system in history. 

The group recently launched a 12-year pilot program in which it plans to give 6,000 Kenyans regular stipends for the entire duration. Around 20,000 more will receive at least some form of cash transfer.

The Omidyar Network is hoping the study will help advance the debate around basic income from broad theoretical terms to more practical considerations.

"While the discussion has generated a lot of heat, it hasn’t produced very much light," wrote the Omidyar Network's Mike Kubzansky and Tracy Williams in a blog post announcing the pledge. "There is very little research and empirical evidence on how and when UBI could best be used."

Omidyar isn't the only tech mogul backing efforts to take the theory from paper to practice. 

Startup incubator Y-Combinator is in the midst of one such study in the Bay Area, and its president, Sam Altman, and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes have kicked $10 million towards another research project.

A number of other tests have also cropped up in recent months as universal basic income finds more mainstream acceptance. 

-Patrick Kulp, Mashable  

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Propaganda is Obvious

Because it is excellent, I've cut and pasted from a fascinating- and chilling -article by Berit Anderson and Brett Horvath from scout.ai  If you wanted reasons to spend less time on line, well here you go.  The full article is at https://scout.ai/story/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine  This is a must read.  Thanks Tom Civiletti for your post.
The upshot:  political, social and economic propagandizers now have the capacity to customize their message to every single individual with an online presence.  They can build a total experience for you, complete with a large group of fake friends, that is emotionally addicting and intellectually manipulative.  They can construct a complete world just for you, solely for the purpose of contolling your decisions.  Which doesn't feel like control at all.
This is why I believe people who run face-to-face businesses like I do will never become extinct.  In fact, now is our time.  We must counteract this powerful, pervasive and unConstitutional manipulation of one another.

At Scout, we’ve been speaking with political strategists, technologists, and machine learning experts about how AI propaganda will spread through society in the near future. We want to work with you, the Scout community, to scenario plan what happens next. Here are some implications to get the conversation started.

IMPLICATION #1:

Public Sentiment Turns Into High-Frequency Trading

Thanks to stock-trading algorithms, large portions of public stock and commodity markets no longer resemble a human system and, some would argue, no longer serve their purpose as a signal of value. Instead they’re a battleground for high-frequency trading algorithms attempting to influence price or find nano-leverage in price position.

In the near future, we may see a similar process unfold in our public debates. Instead of battling press conferences and opinion articles, public opinion about companies and politicians may turn into multi-billion dollar battles between competing algorithms, each deployed to sway public sentiment. Stock trading algorithms already exist that analyze millions of Tweets and online posts in real-time and make trades in a matter of milliseconds based on changes in public sentiment. Algorithmic trading and ‘algorithmic public opinion’ are already connected. It’s likely they will continue to converge.

IMPLICATION #2: 

Personalized, Automated Propaganda That Adapts to Your Weaknesses

What if President Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign didn’t just have the best political messaging, but 250 million algorithmic versions of their political message all updating in real-time, personalized to precisely fit the worldview and attack the insecurities of their targets? Instead of having to deal with misleading politicians, we may soon witness a cambrian explosion of pathologically-lying political and corporate bots that constantly improve at manipulating us.

IMPLICATION #3: 

Not Just a Bubble, But Trapped in Your Own Ideological Matrix

Imagine that in 2020 you found out that your favorite politics page or group on Facebook didn’t actually have any other human members, but was filled with dozens or hundreds of bots that made you feel at home and your opinions validated? Is it possible that you might never find out?

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Holistic Financial Planning is Pleasant !

The title of this post is a possibility, that holistic financial planning can be fun!  But in my experience that is almost, without exception, a myth.  Because holistic planning involves frank discussions of the following not-so-fun topics:

1. Death- I ask my clients to complete a Life Expectancy calculator.  Approximate longevity is essential for Social Security timing as well as for accumulation spend-down of retirement funds.  Plus, using the calculator saves them the embarrassing questions about their health, habits and genes.
2. Disability- Unless you luck out and leave this world in a sudden manner, old age & sickness are pretty well guaranteed.  Long term care risk is high, as are the costs.  Losing one's job or occupation due to disability is a risk.  And the underwriting gaunlet and high premiums reflect the degree of risk.
3. Divorce- titleing of property, income disparity and beneficiary designations need to be structured so as not to be devastating to the lower earning spouse in case divorce occurs.
4. Politics- Usually considered off-limits, if something political is going on that may affect a client's plans, I bring it back on the table.  A great example is our current mentally and morally unfit President.  What will happen if he succeeds in repealing the Affordable Care Act, in the absence of a viable alternative solution (as opposed to alternative facts)?  What if he meddles in Social Security, as he most likely will?  What if his retaliations against our trade partners is reciprocated and you lose your job?  We need to anticipate and minimize the risk of these near certainties.
5. Religious Beliefs- Also a forbidden topic between most professionals and their clients, religious beliefs may have to be considered.  Some folks believe they don't need to plan, or change their plans, because God wouldn't think of allowing them to go broke.  Ahem.  Just look at all the bad things that are allowed to happen to good people.  Why would you be immune?  I tell of the early Christian Coastal Native Americans saying, "Trust in God but row away from the rocks."
6. Rotten Children-  A plan I have never, ever, in 36 years seen succeed is attempting to buy the love of your rotten children.  Forget about how they got that way and whose fault it is.  You owe it to each other to dig in your heels and protect your retirement assets.  Model for them good self care.  Their unemployability, bad marriages, serial relationships, illegitimate children, drug addictions, perpetual student-hood and disrespect for you and your future are not your problems.  You gave them life and a head start.  Your job is done.

This may be one of the harshest posts in a long time.  But I deal in reality.  Because I want the best possible outcomes for my clients.  Nothing is off the table.

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