Conference nyoss1::market_investing

    This is news to me.  I did hear that Clinton is thinking to
    eliminate the mortgage interest deduction for second home and
    to put a limit of how much interest can be tax deducted from 
    your primary home.
    
    Wendy

    Is this for real................................?
    
    But then again I would not put it past our government to dod somthing
    like this.
    
    

   A better approach might be to change the system completely.

   Give you an "Imputed Allowance" every month. All your salary is taken away
   and the government gives you an allowance. You don't have to pay "taxes".
   The Govt has all the money it needs to spend on "Zero Return Investments"
   and everybody's happy. 

   But wait a minute, a portion of your allowance could also be "Contributed".
   Wow! What possibilities!!

   Nari
      

    re: .0
    
    Yup! I heard the same thing from various sources - including ABC's
    "This Week With David Brinkley (sp?)". So, I guess it is quite REAL!
    
    I like Dave (Brinkley) put it at the end of his show.... "Now for those
    of you folks who got the letter from Ed McMann saying you may win $10M.
    Now you have to pay your taxes. You could say that but I didn't win
    anything. But, the government says, well, you COULD HAVE won." 
    
    Get ready folks! This is NOT the end. It is only the BEGINNING! 
    
    Mike

    
    time to raise the rent on our 2nd home to pay for the tax... too bad, I
    guess some kids just won't be able to afford to go to college anymore.
    
       8*O
    
    if the tax status of 2nd homes is affected, then not only will house
    values plummet as everyone simultaneously tries to sell their
    alligators, but new home construction will also plummet, taking the
    feeble recovery with it.
    
    great idea, eh?
    

    Bill Clinton can "propose" anything he wants but I doubt he would
    propose something so outrageous. You see,there is this thing called
    Congress which would have to vote on it. How many of those
    CongressCritters do you think might get re-elected if he/she voted for
    this?
    
    Ken

>================================================================================
>Note 400.0          New Clinton tax policy for homeowners ?            4 replies
>MSBCS::KALKUNTE "Ramsesh Kalkunte 293-5139"          83 lines   1-MAR-1993 11:17
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>     A number of you expressed utter disbelief at my story on being
>taxed on the potential rental value of your home. Well, gang, it is
>real. A number of sources are reporting this story, but the most
>credible source is David Broder, cheif editorial writer for the Washington Post. 
The only problem with this rumor is that there is absolutely no basis in fact
to the spread of FUD.  But, that's what FUD is all about.  The origin
of this rumor is from a researcher at the Excellence in Backstabbing network
who "deduced" this from a footnote in the Clinton/Gore book.

>     I can't make this stuff up, folks. It's too weird.
NO, you can't make it up.  Others can, though, to be disruptive.

>     But wait, it gets better. Homeowners and renters both are now
>going to get YET ANOTHER JOB! Now, all of us are restaurant or hotel
>workers. You got it folks. Just as restaurant works and hotel workers
>are subject to govenrment mandated additional withholding, to
>compensate for, what the govbernment claims is unreported tip income,
>you now will be subject to a TBD arbitrary amount added to your total
>income to compensate for unreported income. The government is PRESUMING
>that all of us are hoarding untold, unreported, THOUSANDS of dollars
>that should be taxed.
Excuse me, but this has been the TAX code for the better part of a decade.  The
presumption is that, in a cash economy such as those of service folks, they
will cheat.  So, employers are required to withhold based on the amount the
business sold.  Self-employed people are supposed to dole out the taxes on a
quarterly basis.  The President who signed this predated George Bush.

>     All of this is income YOU aren't reporting. We know you're doing
>it! We're the government! Don't argue with us, just pay!
It's all income.  If you aren't accurate in reporting it, you are commiting tax
fraud.  Of course, the magnitude of the fraud may not be significant enough for
the IRS to come after you, but ...  for example, you can claim gambling losses
for all the lotto tickets you bought that didn't win and offset that against
the winnings you do get.

>
>     In legal terms, this is called PRIOR RESTRAINT. The government is
>ASSUMING that all of us are guilty, to some degree, of not reporting
>income.
Yup, it seems that the IRS has been above the 5th and 6th Amendments to the
Constitution for a long time.  Complain to your Senators and Representatives
who have legislated this situation.

>
>     For fun tonight, go look up the tax in your 1040 form for your
>FULL INCOME, not your taxable income. Plan accordingly. 
I plan very carefully, thank you.  I know what deductions I can count on, such
as the standard deductions fro my kids.  I know what deductions I feel fairly
safe about, such as SAVE and the pre-tax Medical withholding.  I know which
deductions I can't count on, but might have, such as my safe deposit box.  Can
you say the same thing without being inflamatory?

>dp
>
BobW

    I think either you or the poor newsreader you quoted got confused.
    
    What Clinton & friends are doing is defining a novel way to measure
    household net worth for the purposes of arguing for his tax proposals.
    The count of rich people increases this way.
    
    But he has no intent of taxing one's principal residence on the basis
    of its imputed rental income.
    
    This new measurement is explained in a number of financial
    publications, such as The Wall Street Journal.

    And above all else, remember that our Constitution assigns few powers
    to the President.  As for the budgetry process, all he can do is
    propose a budget and sign or veto the resulting bill.  That budget is
    his formal request to the Legislative branch for funds to run the
    Executive Branch.  Anything else is all window dressing.  In the end,
    Congress will write the bills (primarily in sub-comittees), pass the
    bills, take credit for the cuts and blame the President for the taxes.
    
    If you seriously believe that our elected representatives could be so
    injuduicious as to increase taxes without requiring accompaning
    spending cuts and you are deeply concerned that they will pass such an
    onerous bill as the one talked about here, take the time to have a "low
    emotional" discussion with your Representatives and Senators. 
    
    As a recent "Shoe" cartoon strip so aptly noted, it is not:
    
    	"It's all about Economy, Stupid" 
    
    it is really;
    
    	 "It's all about getting re-elected, Stupid!"
    
    You probably do not need to remind them that economic issues got a
    President fired, they can also get Representatives and Senators fired. 
    You may be pleasently surprised at how receptive they are to your
    concerns.
    
    Of course, just my opinion...
    
    Dave

	Hmmmmm , I wonder if he asked John Major about this whilst he was over.


	We used to pay money to local government based on the notional rental 
	value of our homes - that was called rates.
	We changed it to be a levy-per-head, that was called community charge 
	(or poll tax)
	We have just changed it, to on the value of our homes, based on 8 price
	bands.

	Rates were unpopular, community charge was very difficult to collect and
	was very political. The current system is a mix of the two.

	Also, the tax relief on our mortgages was limited to interest on �30,000
	a few years back.  Then, it was limited again to the lowest tax rate,
	so even if you are a 40% tax payer, you only get relief at 20/25%.

	30,000 around here won't get you anything, 40,000 may get you a 
	1-bedroom flat, if you're lucky!

	Heather

       Lets have some sanity here before this note goes too far. If 
       you are interested in the total text of the Washington Post 
       Editorial it is located as follows:
       
       The Washington Post, February 24,1993 by Divide S. Broder
       Section:Editorial, p a19 OP-ED
       
       The section of the editorial that was brought into question 
       in the originating note (who knows where or who that came 
       from because of the "removed mail header to protect the 
       innocent"bull____)is about half way through the editorial and 
       is reproduced without permission below.
       
                     Last week Clinton, unembarrassed, put 
                  forward a revised program requiring tax 
                  increases the administration says will 
                  affect most families making over $30,000, 
                  one-sixth below the threshold George Bush 
                  had forecast.  Clinton claims he has been 
                  forced to these steps by the unexpected 
                  $346 billion size of the deficit he 
                  inherited. But last July, he told 
                  Business Week the deficits would approach 
                  $400 billion.
                    The more serious problem is that the 
                  new economic plan, "A Vision of Change 
                  for America," looks almost as jerry-built 
                  as the campaign document it replaced.  
                  The administration's $30,000 threshold, 
                  for example is not what most people 
                  understand as income, or even the Form 
                  1040's familiar adjusted gross income 
                  line.  It is a figure concocted to 
                  include fringe benefits and even the 
                  imputed rental value of the family home. 
                  As administration officials have 
                  conceded, the higher tax bites actually 
                  begin at a figure closer to $20,000 than 
                  $30,000.
                     These artifices were carefully 
                  concealed in Clinton's State of the Union 
                  address, helping him to gain a favorable 
                  first public reaction.
       
       Whoever wrote the item in 400.0 obviously is reacting to 
       something acquired after several interpolations down the road. 
       As usual, another unsubstantiated panic is caused by the 
       filtration of information to the point that it is not only 
       useless but changes its original intention. Throw any 20 
       second news update, most network news and USA Today and some 
       of the junk that appears in notes files into this category.
       
       Also, referring to the original comment made by Broder, it 
       seems that administrations have always sliced and diced 
       statistics to their advantage. I remember a previous 
       administrations effort to cook the early 80s unemployment 
       statistics by creating a category of people that had "stopped 
       looking for work" and counting the military(never counted in 
       statistics up to that point) as part of the employment pool. 
       Both had the result of dropping the rate to the 
       administration's advantage and taking the edge off what 
       otherwise be very bitter statistics.