Prime example of the F*r*e*e*p*e*r mentality

[zbdent]

Okay, how to put this in a way that freepers would understand?

If you can afford to buy a Hummer, you can get essentially for half price with the "tax write-off" of approximately half of its value.

If you are an average person, and you donate your car to a charitable cause, the law changes 1/1/2005 to keep you from getting the "fair market value" tax deduction, leaving you with the best that the charity can get for the car at an auto auction, where, if the charity is really, really lucky, they might get somewhere in the neighborhood of what the car's "fair market value" might be. At best.

So, the "haves" get their Hummer, the "treading water"s get screwed yet again.

[trotsky]

1. Not only that, but now the poor charity

has to waste precious volunteer or staff time tracking those values, matching them up with the donor, etc.

Yet another example of screwing the little guy.

[kcass1954]

8. Not to mention what happens when...

the charity either doesn't get the title, or doesn't get a marketable title. Now they're stuck with a vehicle they can't sell, and can't register to use for their day-to-day charitable business. (I work at an auto auction.)

[Contrary1]

11. I work for an auto wholesaler...

one of our solutions for not getting a title for a pile
of crap car was to park it unlicensed on a public street,
and wait for the city to tow it off.

Whoever titled it last got to deal with the problem. I
know, not very nice, but one should not be buying or
selling a car without having a good title in hand.

[coloradodem2005]

2. Pretty much how it is.

People loooove their hummers.

[quaoar]

3. I think I read recently

that the Hummer tax write-off is being changed.

Anybody know about that?

[fob]

4. So let me go through this again, IF I can already afford the Hummer

I can also take advantage of the huge tax break and get the Hummer for close to half-price. Then, after 5 years, or whatever schedule I used to write-off the Hummer on, I donate it to a charity, and they sell it to someone ELSE who can afford it, not only will that person enjoy another healthy tax write-off on the same damn vehicle, but I get to dip into the tax pool (YOUR MONEY) yet again by deducting the "fair market value" it was sold for! And I get the added benefit of using the charity's accounting service to track the sale and report the tax benefit for me, saving ME yet again further funds that would have gone to MY accountant!


Wow what a deal! How does all that translate to the real ME, average working man driving a 1995 pick em up truck with meager resale (ie "fair market value")?

[karl meltdown]

6. HUMMERS SUCK ...

I told my accountant JAGUAR and soon there after ordered my 2000 XJ8 SO FAR SO GOOD at 49000 miles she is a rock!

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. Wow!

Four years old, isn't it time to trade that baby in? :eyes:

[pa28]

5. OK here's another one.

As part of the same law you can buy a $500,000 airplane and deduct 50% to 79% of the price as depreciation the first year. The rest in following years.

So, if you make $600,000 in annual income you can erase your tax obligation and get a free airplane in the bargain! Now that's what I call an "ownership society".

[quaoar]

7. New Republican welfare reform:

If the poor would just buy airplanes, they wouldn't be poor anymore.

[rfkrfk]

16. a deduction, is not a tax credit.

Consider 50 percent of 500,000.
.
The money,'in your pocket', does not go up by 250,000

[Billy Ruffian]

9. Only those that have their own business

can take the tax write-off for large (over 6000lbs GWVR, IIRC) vehicles. This was to help the small businessman that needs a pickup, large van, delivery truck, etc. As with nearly every tax writeoff, there is some number of people that abuse it. (many doctors are in a sole proprietership or partnership, and can use this tax writeoff)

The tax code is far too Byzantine, and needs to be greatly simplified.

[zbdent]

14. Ah, but it's always the threat of one or two people who might, through

some extreme interpretation of a law, be able to "screw the system" and actually get $1 more in benefits - this is what sinks most legislation posed by "the damn Democrats and liberals" - the threat again of the "welfare queen" getting away with "murder" while the "working millionaires" get screwed by having to pay an extra dime.

Trust me. If this option was set up by a Dem to allow Average Joe Six-Pack to really be able to write off some of his tax burden and helm him feed his family, then it would be ripped to tiny little shreds by the "liberal media".

[Warren DeMontague]

10. And what the hell is wrong with people

that they think there's any sense (not to mention patriotism) in driving a giant, outsized vehicle that gets three miles to the gallon of a finite resource that we have to buy from countries full of extremists who (supposedly) want to kill us, that we are currently fighting wars over, and that is inarguably causing massive climate change on the entire planet?

If you can afford to buy a Hummer, good for you.. If you go ahead and do it, you're an asshole.

[blondeatlast]

18. Your last sentence would make a fine bumper sticker, if a bit

too long.

How about "I CAN afford a Hummer, but I'm not an asshole."

[orpupilofnature57]

13. remember a time when consumers had to go without, rationing?

FOR THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,unless it effect shrubs (base) *

[Digit]

15. I am incredulous that anyone would even BUY a Hummer

To me, someone with a Hummer might as well be wearing a baby seal coat.

[orpupilofnature57]

17. oo-oo right on the brink, CONGRATULATIONS!! DIGIT eom

[blondeatlast]

19. I live in a neighborhood of comfortable working-class and

lower management types. There are two Hummers in our neighborhood, and I can tell you that they MUST have taken out second mortgages to buy them.

There is no other way in my neighborhood. Just not possible.

[Deja Q]

20. In the reality people have made for themselves,

we are a society of money. And the only way to get it is to take from others. Anything that looks of morality and virtue, which are the antitheses of money, gets spat on.