Way Of Life - Christian Inventor R.g. Letourneau

[RSS Robot]

After LeTourneau turned his attention to manufacturing earthmoving equipment and was becoming financially successful, he and his wife Evelyn determined to give 90% of their income to the Lord.

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[Alan]

Excellent article by Brother Cloud. I had previously read the biOBraphy on LeTourneau. I would suggest all of the brethren to read the article and if possble purchase the book. A lot of the used book stores, secular and Christian, have his biography. That is how I bought mine.

 

The life of LeTourneau is an example of how God can use any one; in any business, in any occupation, whether in the ministry or not, who decides to step out in real faith.

 

Please note I said real faith. LeTourneau's faith produced real works as the Book of James, and the lives of the Old Testament saints, teaches. Thank you again for the encouraging article.

[OLD fashioned preacher]

In the U.S. it is now impossible to give 90%. Why? Let's keep the figures easy to work with, shall we?

 

If you make $1,000,000 and give $900,000 leaving $100,000 to live on here's what happens at the end of the year.

 

You file your taxes. If you don't claim the gifts for a deduction you owe a little over $350,000. The prOBlem is that you only have $100,000 (minus what you lived on).

 

Okay, deduct it. Wait, not so fast. You can claim the 1st 30% ($300,000) of your income at full value leaving $700,000 taxable income (or about $245,000 in taxes owed) but you don't have that much for you only kept $100,000.

 

The 30%-50% range of your income is a sliding deductible scale from 100%-0%. Anything you give that is in excess of 50% of your income is NOT deductible AT ALL. So, you have $400,000 of deductions (plus your personal and dependent deductions of less than $30,000 with 4 or 5 kids if married filling jointly) and owe taxes on just shy of $600,000. You now owe Uncle Sam around $210,000 out of the $100,000 you did not donate.

 

If that's not crooked on the government's part, what is?

[John81]

There were very good reasons the Founder's excluded income taxes when forming the Constitution.

 

The deceitful and wrong ways they went through to bring about the ability to tax income in the early 20th century, and the mess we have with that today, makes it's wickedness evident.

[ThePilgrim]

In the U.S. it is now impossible to give 90%. Why? Let's keep the figures easy to work with, shall we?

 

If you make $1,000,000 and give $900,000 leaving $100,000 to live on here's what happens at the end of the year.

 

You file your taxes. If you don't claim the gifts for a deduction you owe a little over $350,000. The prOBlem is that you only have $100,000 (minus what you lived on).

 

Okay, deduct it. Wait, not so fast. You can claim the 1st 30% ($300,000) of your income at full value leaving $700,000 taxable income (or about $245,000 in taxes owed) but you don't have that much for you only kept $100,000.

 

The 30%-50% range of your income is a sliding deductible scale from 100%-0%. Anything you give that is in excess of 50% of your income is NOT deductible AT ALL. So, you have $400,000 of deductions (plus your personal and dependent deductions of less than $30,000 with 4 or 5 kids if married filling jointly) and owe taxes on just shy of $600,000. You now owe Uncle Sam around $210,000 out of the $100,000 you did not donate.

 

If that's not crooked on the government's part, what is?

Whoa!  Can you use some numbers a guy that has never earned over 25,000.00 in a single year in his life can understand?

[OLD fashioned preacher]

Whoa!  Can you use some numbers a guy that has never earned over 25,000.00 in a single year in his life can understand?

Haha, like I have ever made $1M? Now you've complicated things because of EIC and a MUCH lower tax bracket.

 

I'm not taking the time to look up tables so my figures may be off a bit (though not more than $500) but let's see.

 

$20,000 income - donate $18K, keep $2K

Married, filling jointly, 2 children.

At $20K standard deduction plus dependent allowances wipe out taxable base leaving zero owed -- donation doesn't matter nor affect.

 

Earned Income Credit (EIC) now nets you a REFUND of about $8,000.

The question of how did the 4 of you live on less than $170/month ($2,000 for the year - 10% of $20K) without unclaimed income nets you an AUTOMATIC audit from the IRS (possible done by a surprise visit at your home -- awwww, how convenient) and an AUTOMATIC accusation (no proof necessary) of tax fraud (stealing unmerited free money stolen from taxpayers -- uh, I mean EIC -- and unreported income not being taxed [even if it still keeps you in a zero tax bracket]).

 

There, feel better?