Someone who thinks w/holding is legit....

Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 22:37:35 -0700 (PDT) From: "Arnold Nelson" Subject: Re: Re:WSJ editorial of Thursday, May 24, 2007 To: "Bob, thanks so much for your clear and thotful response to my WSJ letter. I hardly meet another conservative in a month, so it's nice to get it in writing that I'm not going completely off the track, on top of getting lots of stuff I never knew.. I blind copied in about a dozen hard core righty friends to that note, and also the TownHall Meetup Yahoo groups, a sort of blog here in Chicago, which probably has a dozen regular responders. From all of those recips, I got one note from someone objecting to my Social Security/withholdoing tax opinions: "I'm having a problem following your logic on 'No wage earner has ever paid a penny in Social Security Taxes.' I personally pay about $x,xxx per year in Social Security taxes. Yes, my company sends the money in, but they are sending money they withheld from me. The company does add a corresponding amount on top of what they have withheld from me. But make no mistake, I do pay Social Security taxes." and "As for income taxes, I pay well over $Xk per year. Again, the company writes the check that goes to the government, but it's money they have withheld from me. And in this case there is no matching amount on top; it's just my money. The alternative is for me to underwithhold (claim exemptions to which I am not entitled, for instance) to the point where nothing is withheld on my behalf and then the company would send in no $ with my name on them. It would then be up to me to make this up by April 15." The person that wrote that has considerably more credentials than I have in this area, but that point about 'underreporting' and paying up at the end of the year has not been true since at least 1985. If you're a wage earner, and you try to not have any taxes deducted, they're gonna do it anyway, and if at the end of the year, that refund gets too big, they'll penalize you (the wage earner) for underdeducting.Claiming "exemptions which you are not entitled" will get you a stiff penalty from the IRS, I'm sure. Bob, I was about ten years old when my Mother told me "Social Security is just a tax." It's only the last dozen years or so that I caught on to exactly what she was saying. But I lose friends when I explain this. A woman living in my building, recently retired, went just short of berserk: "That's my money, I paid in!" This is not even getting into the facts that as soon as the Feds started getting those checks from the employers in 1935, they immediately spent it on some hare-brained scheme or other (religiously depositing a 'bond' in some fund somehwere, whcih said "The citizens of the US will pay, in 20xx, the sum of....") And a local talk show hostess, Teri O'Brien (recovering attorney) has said more than once that there were two USSC decisions in the late 1930s that said no one has any clain at all on any of that money. So I know you're real busy, but I sure would appreciate your thots on this - I just find it hard to believe that only one person out of 20 who got that note does not accept my points. (Obviously, I didn't expect anything from the Journal, but that blog has more than its share of crabs, who pile on me all over the place on other items.) If that "it's my money" argument meant anything to them, they would have sent me similar notes. Arnie Nelson, on the Democrat-occupied west bank of Lake Michigan (Illinois 9th CD, repped by Nancy Pelosi's evil twin, Jan Schakowsky) PS Do you know Father Sirico (sp?) at the Acton Institute? I heard him w/ Walter Williams on Rush fillin last year and sent him (Fr) an email - I got a gracious response and a free sub to all their stuff. I stopped in their offices in Grand Rapids on March 27 (very nice)but was told (quite warmly) that they're lucky if he shows up once a month.