View Poll Results: What's your income level?
<$25,000
16
18.18%
$25,001-$50,000
21
23.86%
$50,001-$75,000
22
25.00%
$75,001-$100,000
6
6.82%
$100,001-$150,000
10
11.36%
$150,000+
13
14.77%
Voters: 88. You may not vote on this poll
What is your income level?
04-09-2012, 01:11 PM
#23
mkturbo.com
iTrader: (24)
Join Date: May 2006
Location: Charleston SC
Posts: 15,177
Total Cats: 1,681
I am hoping I break 50k gross income this year. Finally got my clearance so I started full time a few weeks back. In all honesty I am betting I am close to 45k gross this year.
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04-09-2012, 01:16 PM
#25
Elite Member
iTrader: (2)
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Central Florida
Posts: 2,799
Total Cats: 179
Then again, I would have incorrectly assumed the OP was looking for household income versus individual member income. To me, I would find the latter to be less relevant or useful.
If I am a stay-at-home dad (to our two dogs) and my wife makes $200k gross, is it really helpful if I post that I make $0?
PS - Joe, if you are still trying to guess, I did not vote.
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04-09-2012, 01:29 PM
#26
Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Seattle
Posts: 252
Total Cats: 4
I voted using my gross income because it made me feel better. After uncle sam had his way with my butthole and my wallet Id be down one more bracket.
Whoops.
Whoever set up this poll/thread is a fucktard.
Whoops.
Whoever set up this poll/thread is a fucktard.
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04-09-2012, 01:30 PM
#27
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,026
Total Cats: 6,592
Gross isn't a valid measure for people who are self-employed and have a lot of business-related expenses. Roughly 1/4 of my "gross" income was client reimbursement for hotels, airfare, equipment, and other costs directly related to the projects which I did for them.
If I were a corporate employee, then I would not have directly incurred these costs, and thus, I would not have been reimbursed for them. So when I compute my "Net" income, I'm not doing any funny business, I'm just reporting the bottom-line figure from Schedule SE, which is analogous to what a salaried employee would see on their W2. In other words, this is a fair apples-to-apples comparison.
Take a very simple example, and assume that I am a one-man car dealership. Every car that I sell costs me $24,000 to purchase from the manufacturer, and I sell it to the customer for $25,000. And assume that over the course of a year, I sell exactly 100 cars.
So, my gross receipts for the year was 2.5 million dollars, however 2.4 million of that went straight to the manufacturer who I bought the cars from, and only $100,000 of it went into my pocket. Would you expect me to report my "income" for the year as $2.5 million?
Same thing here, just on a smaller scale.
If I were a corporate employee, then I would not have directly incurred these costs, and thus, I would not have been reimbursed for them. So when I compute my "Net" income, I'm not doing any funny business, I'm just reporting the bottom-line figure from Schedule SE, which is analogous to what a salaried employee would see on their W2. In other words, this is a fair apples-to-apples comparison.
Take a very simple example, and assume that I am a one-man car dealership. Every car that I sell costs me $24,000 to purchase from the manufacturer, and I sell it to the customer for $25,000. And assume that over the course of a year, I sell exactly 100 cars.
So, my gross receipts for the year was 2.5 million dollars, however 2.4 million of that went straight to the manufacturer who I bought the cars from, and only $100,000 of it went into my pocket. Would you expect me to report my "income" for the year as $2.5 million?
Same thing here, just on a smaller scale.
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04-09-2012, 01:33 PM
#29
Gross isn't a valid measure for people who are self-employed and have a lot of business-related expenses. Roughly 1/4 of my "gross" income was client reimbursement for hotels, airfare, equipment, and other costs directly related to the projects which I did for them.
If I were a corporate employee, then I would not have directly incurred these costs, and thus, I would not have been reimbursed for them. So when I compute my "Net" income, I'm not doing any funny business, I'm just reporting the bottom-line figure from Schedule SE, which is analogous to what a salaried employee would see on their W2. In other words, this is a fair apples-to-apples comparison.
Take a very simple example, and assume that I am a one-man car dealership. Every car that I sell costs me $24,000 to purchase from the manufacturer, and I sell it to the customer for $25,000. And assume that over the course of a year, I sell exactly 100 cars.
So, my gross receipts for the year was 2.5 million dollars, however 2.4 million of that went straight to the manufacturer who I bought the cars from, and only $100,000 of it went into my pocket. Would you expect me to report my "income" for the year as $2.5 million?
Same thing here, just on a smaller scale.
If I were a corporate employee, then I would not have directly incurred these costs, and thus, I would not have been reimbursed for them. So when I compute my "Net" income, I'm not doing any funny business, I'm just reporting the bottom-line figure from Schedule SE, which is analogous to what a salaried employee would see on their W2. In other words, this is a fair apples-to-apples comparison.
Take a very simple example, and assume that I am a one-man car dealership. Every car that I sell costs me $24,000 to purchase from the manufacturer, and I sell it to the customer for $25,000. And assume that over the course of a year, I sell exactly 100 cars.
So, my gross receipts for the year was 2.5 million dollars, however 2.4 million of that went straight to the manufacturer who I bought the cars from, and only $100,000 of it went into my pocket. Would you expect me to report my "income" for the year as $2.5 million?
Same thing here, just on a smaller scale.
Thanks for making this even harder Joe.These "Vote on your income!tax!etc!" threads are always annoying to interpret - perhaps AGI is a better metric?
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04-09-2012, 01:46 PM
#30
Elite Member
iTrader: (3)
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Outside Portland Maine
Posts: 2,023
Total Cats: 19
These last few comments make me glad that I have a specific salary. It's easy to answer these questions. I suppose that is grossly outweighed by the fact that I am a slave to the man and have to sit in a cubicle with no windows all day.
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04-09-2012, 01:46 PM
#31
Actually, the whole 1% thing (based on ordinary income) is kind of silly. The truly rich don't have ordinary income, because they don't have to work. They have estates, investments and trusts, on which they get to pay a reduced rate when those items generate income.
Most ordinary income 1%ers were not 1%ers for most of their lives and may not be in the future. They may have worked very hard for decades to build a business (that usually employs others). They may have had a particularly good year. Yet, the media makes these folks out to be the Devil incarnate.
Rant off.
So, where are we posting the junk pictures?
Most ordinary income 1%ers were not 1%ers for most of their lives and may not be in the future. They may have worked very hard for decades to build a business (that usually employs others). They may have had a particularly good year. Yet, the media makes these folks out to be the Devil incarnate.
Rant off.
So, where are we posting the junk pictures?
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04-09-2012, 02:02 PM
#32
Actually, the whole 1% thing (based on ordinary income) is kind of silly. The truly rich don't have ordinary income, because they don't have to work. They have estates, investments and trusts, on which they get to pay a reduced rate when those items generate income.
Most ordinary income 1%ers were not 1%ers for most of their lives and may not be in the future. They may have worked very hard for decades to build a business (that usually employs others). They may have had a particularly good year. Yet, the media makes these folks out to be the Devil incarnate.
Rant off.
So, where are we posting the junk pictures?
Most ordinary income 1%ers were not 1%ers for most of their lives and may not be in the future. They may have worked very hard for decades to build a business (that usually employs others). They may have had a particularly good year. Yet, the media makes these folks out to be the Devil incarnate.
Rant off.
So, where are we posting the junk pictures?
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04-09-2012, 03:20 PM
#35
Elite Member
iTrader: (2)
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Central Florida
Posts: 2,799
Total Cats: 179
I would think whatever your 1040 AGI was would be a reasonable number as it is in the ballpark of what most people consider their annual income or "what they make" (it includes investment income, SS, pension, etc) but is before lots of widely varying elements like mortgage deduction, charitable gifts, etc.
It would also accomodate whether you file single, married filing jointly, married filing single, etc.
Let's just scrap this whole thread, ban the OP and start over using 2011 1040 AGI (or estimate for those of us that have not filed 2011 returns yet).
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04-09-2012, 03:55 PM
#38
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,026
Total Cats: 6,592
What I have described above simply makes my income equivalent to that of a person who is a salaried employee and receives a W-2. I don't see why this is confusing on controversial.
Those of you who are salaried employees and travel on company business- do you consider the cost of the airplane tickets and hotel rooms which you use to be income? Of course not. Your company pays for it and the cost is transparent to you. That's all I am doing here. By nulling out such expenses to generate AGI, I'm coming up with a number that is functionally equivalent to box 1 (Wages, tips & other compensation) of your W-2 form. This is how Schedule C (profit & loss from business) works. You start at the top with total gross receipts (lines 1a-1c) then you subtract out the cost of goods sold, travel expenses, and so forth, and you wind up with Net Profit, which you then enter into the exact same section of Form 1040 that you'd put your W2 earnings if you were a company man.
Honestly, folks. I'm not trying to pull any shenanigans here- this is how Sole Proprietorship accounting works, and it's not complicated. You take the total amount of money that you collected, subtract the amount of money you spent making the business operate, and what's left is your personal income. The fact that the "amount of money you spent making the business operate" happens to pass through your own personal credit card as opposed to a corporation's accounting department is immaterial.
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04-09-2012, 04:54 PM
#39
Elite Member
iTrader: (21)
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 6,593
Total Cats: 1,259
I bought my house in 1986 for less than $75,000. Today, it's worth in the 140-150 thousand dollar range. That same house in Boston, LA or near DC would cost me 2-3 times that, easy.
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