ModoVincere

What? Interest expense is offset against rent revenues on the tax return. Therefore it is a deduction allowed to the landlord. Also, the property tax on rental property is expensed and offsets the rental revenues. In addition, the cost of the building is deducted over time through a depreciation deduction.

So...How do renters pay more taxes?

Roody

My landlord told me he has to raise my rent this year because his taxes are going up. I believe him because he's also a friend and co-worker. Besides I could check it on the tax rolls if I wanted to go to the trouble. I may be wrong about renters paying more taxes than land owners, but we certainly do pay them, and they're a significant portion of our monthly rent.

ModoVincere

Basically, the renter will pay the taxes on the property. This is built into the rent that a landlord will ask for. However, that landlord will also have another property in which he lives, and will therefore pay property taxes on that property. Also, should a rental property not be rented out, that landlord still has to pay the taxes on it.

All in all, I do not see how one can say the renter pays more taxes.

MarkS

Plenty of parking at WM today.

youth

Proud to say that I haven't shopped at Wal-Mart in over a year, and I had a car and a nearby Wal-Mart during the first half of that year. Score anti-corporate-giant points for me

peace_piper

I find that these two things frequently match up. I bought a pair of American made shoes nearly a decade ago. Except for a few rips here and there, they are still in very good shape. I wouldn't be surprised if they lasted another 5-10 years at least.

Can people who buy Chinese shoes say the same?

My mother, case in example, buys a new pair of shoes at the K-mart every 6 months because her old K-mart shoes fell apart. She claims it's "saving" her money when she buys cheap shoes. She spends maybe $20 for a pair of shoes each time. Over a period of ten years, she has spent $400 on shoes. Meanwhile, I bought a pair of $70 shoes, American made. (She thought I was nuts for spending so much on shoes) In a period of ten years, I have paid $70 for shoes. Who's the one really saving money?

Also, I like to send a signal to corporations that I'm not buying their product because I disagree with their practices. I vote with my dollar.

JeffS

You've worn the same pair of shoes every day for ten years?

BroMax

You're right. It is capitalism. It is capitalism as it was practiced in the nineteenth century by the first big businesses, railroads. The roads that were well capitalized could drive competition from the market by charging artificially low rates and fares that did not even cover their costs. Then after they had driven the competitor out of the market they were free to charge whatever the traffic would bear. The French call this le capitalisme sauvage or savage capitalism.

When the surviving railroad became the only transportation in town, the people recognized it not only as a private enterprise but also as a public utility and the government imposed some regulation. Safety improved greatly and rates were put on a more rational basis and such newly regulated companies continued to pay dividends to their owners to this day.

The railroads were granted their property for rights-of-way by the government, not unlike some of the taxpayer-subsidized land deals Walmart has made.

I'm prepared to complain about the practice of capitalism when it is malpractice.

r8ingbull

I agree that American made and quality match up very frequently.

Sometimes I wonder how "saving" has changed from having savings accounts (or any other $ holdings) to paying less at the cash register. Saving is a simple act of taking money and saving it. If you buy something you didn't save money, you spent it.

brokenrobot

All true, and it reminds me of a story a European friend tells. She was hired to translate a series of business manuals from German to English for a company which had just opened an American subsidiary. There's a German phrase - I don't know it - which she translated literally as "business ethics and morality" throughout the employee handbooks, but when it got to the American subsidiary's management team, they demanded it be changed to "legality" - because they argued that morality has no place in business, in case it should interfere with profitability!

MarkS

The way it worked at the company I was at was that ethics didn't matter until someone at the top was caught in questionable business dealings. Then, everybody in the company had to take ethics training. Except, I don't think the presidents or VPs (the only ones in a position to commit a high-level crime) were ever seen at the training.