How much should you give up?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-21-2008
How much should you give up?
352
Tue, 10-21-2008 - 8:35pm

My mother wrote an angry reply to a post on this board. It was deleted, from what I read in her email. I know you will ask how I got into her email, well, I have the password in case something happens to her. I went into it tonight because I was trying to figure out why someone as lovely and kind as my mother tried to take her own life today. In her email, I found a reply to her post. In that reply, she was asked how much this person should have to give to her out of her $250,000 a year. This isn't an attack, it's an answer from someone who knows and loves my mother more than anything in the world. No doubt this will be deleted as well, but here it is until then.

First off, none of what you will be "giving up" out of your $250,000+ dollars will come to her or to anyone like her. It will be going to pay off the deficit for your children, and hopefully for mine, so that they will not get to a point where they would rather die than lose everything they own at the age of 56.

You were talking about losing 12% of $250,000. That is more than my mother made every year. She lost her job, and is about to lose her house. She never had much, but what she had she has lost over the years due to having a chronic illness. She has no retirement, and has watched her home value plummet. If she sold her house tomorrow, she would make less than $30,000 on it. We all know that's not even a year's income, and she cannot collect SS for 6 more years.

So here's my answer to you. You should be willing to give anything necessary to save people like my mother. You should do it because you have it to give. You should do it because it's the right thing to do. You shouldn't begrudge anyone your 12% who has worked so hard, and given so much of her time and energy to others free of charge when they were in need.

My mother taught us to give. Every Christmas, we had to take one gift off of our "want" list (which wasn't very long, since we were poor), and give that money to charity, or to someone with less than we had. There weren't a lot of people who had less than we had, or so I thought. I learned from my mother that I was wrong. She took me to homes where single mothers who had been abandoned by their husbands sat shivering with their children, wrapped in blankets, because they could not afford heat. We gave her a used kerosene heater and a gift certificate for $30 for kerosene. It wasn't much, but she cried when she got it.

Our next stop was to an elderly black man who was blind from cataracts, and had lost his wife just a month before Christmas. My mother brought him a homemade mincemeat pie, because he had loved his wife's so much. She apologized to him, saying she knew it wasn't as good, but it was filled with love.

We gave shoes to children who had none, clothes to women in battered women's shelters so they could go to work, gas money to people struggling just to get to work, and food to families when the food stamps didn't last out the month.

My mother gleaned fields every year after harvest and donated the food to a soup kitchen, and she also drove over 100 miles around our county giving it to the poor and the elderly. She never asked for anything in return. She has literally given the clothes off her back, well out of her closet, to someone she thought needed them more.

Now she lays in a hospital room, fighting for her life, because when it came down to it, nobody would help her. We kids did as much as we could, but it wasn't enough, because we don't have much either. Social services turned their backs on her because she didn't have a job to go back to. She lost her car, and her utilities were going to be cut off. And nobody...NOBODY cared about this woman who has done so much for others during her lifetime.

You obviously don't understand the spirit of giving. That's sad, with Christmas coming up. Too bad you didn't have a mom like mine.

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:04pm

Sorry, but if you are paying that much, maybe you need a new accountant andor a Financial Advisor.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:11pm

Sorry, but if you are paying that much, maybe you need a new accountant andor a Financial Advisor.


33% of $250k is $82,500.

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:14pm

I think the system has changed and it's not as givey as many here think or assume it is.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:21pm
that is true, it's the standard deduction, BUT, you can lower that by many things, dependant child deduction, mortgage interest deduction, charitable donations, work clothing(as in a nurse,etc, donations to goodwill(clothing) We no longer itemize since we only owe 9,000 on our mortgage. but there are tons of LEGAL deductions!
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-16-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:29pm

I thought everyone here was complaining that the "rich" take too many deductions already.

Photobucket

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:36pm

I am certainly not against anyone taking deductions they are entitled to.

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:37pm
You are more than free to return any money you receive in the form of a tax reduction or stimulus check. Why in the world would you think you have no choice?
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:39pm
Small business owners are already there. They can pay the highest tax rate, they pay both the employee and employer portions of the social security/medicare tax, and many pay state taxes as well.
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2007
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:39pm

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful but I've only been around a few days and I can tell you know absolutely nothing about taxes and how they work. Seriously.


If she's making 250k YES she is likely paying 70 or 80 in federal taxes. Who does your taxes? Tax Evaders R Us?


iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:42pm
Most of those deductions disappear once you reach a certain income level which isn't very high in the first place. They're "phased out". You finally think you're actually doing well and then you see how it really works. The public is very misinformed.

Pages