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.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:50pm

I completely agree--very misinformed, or rather mislead. Most people don't realize how they're being screwed until they're in a position to see how it works. Obviously since most people are in lower brackets they don't really understand this. Oh the evil rich! They're not worthy of charitable contributions, child credits, itemized deductions, ROTH IRA contributions, rental property losses, stimulus checks--giving them those things would mean taking even less of their money and at the rate their money is taken that would greatly reduce tax revenue.

It doesn't cost as much to give someone in the 10% bracket a $1000 child credit--just a $100 in lost revenue to give that to someone in the 35% bracket, whoa, that would be a loss of $350. It doesn't happen. I remember being stunned one year that of my $15,000 in itemized deductions ($10,000 of which was charitable contributions)--none of it was deductible. Heck we even lose our personal exemptions--forget not getting the $1000 per kid credit, we can't even reduce the taxable income by the $3500 per kid!

About the only good news is the fact that many losses while not able to offset income can be carried over. So maybe one day they will be claimable. Wishful thinking eh?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 7:57pm
No, I guess I wouldn't know. My Dh will NEVER make that kind of money.
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-07-2006
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 8:04pm
It is not that I don't have a choice but it is not just my choice I am married.



Photobucketstill right





iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 8:10pm

And that lack of understanding is one reason so many voters in affect vote against what is in their own best interest.

Actually a good book on the topic:

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (Hardcover)
by Bryan Caplan (Author) "What voters don't know would fill a university library..."

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-07-2006
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 8:12pm

I think it has changed to, in the opposite direction. (and under the current administration, ugh)I think the issue here is that people get money back on from the IRS that is more than they paid in due to tax credits. We are not talking about regular welfare, unemployment benefits, disability, food stamps, etc.

To be fair I think this practice will increase no matter who wins the election, both are offering to increase tax credits.




Photobucketstill right





iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2007
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 8:15pm

I don't make that much money either. You don't have to make that much money to understand taxes, a lot of CPAs don't make that much money and they do taxes. I just tend to look things up and understand them before posting them as fact. Not saying I don't make mistakes...just that I don't believe everything a politician or the media tell me without doing my own independent research and truly understanding the issues.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-10-2007
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 8:17pm
That's very true. I just think the amount of the tax credits and the purpose for them is very different. Also, while McCain is offering credits- the main one I can think of is healthcare- it's for everyone (not income-specific) and he isn't proposing to raise taxes on anyone to pay for it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 8:18pm
Probably so, we have a lot of poor people and Middle class people.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-18-2005
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 8:21pm

what you are not aware of is that those deductions you claim to be "LEGAL" have limitations, and are not available to people in the upper brackets.

-Kristen

Photobucket
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-03-2008
Wed, 10-22-2008 - 8:22pm
He's NOT? couldn't fooled me. He wants to TAX your Health ins benefits you get from your Employer. The average

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