Talk:Tax shelter

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i am almost amazed by the fact that i actually contributed something to wiki for once lol. i thought this billion-dollar-topic would have been 10 pages long by now. especially with all those wonderful examples of illegal tax shelters.

anyways, getting down to business, i live in canada, so the information is... pretty darn close to the canadian side of tax practices. i've been told that they are near identical down in the states as well (ignoring the actual tax rates)

i am still an accounting student in my 3rd year, so i am in no position to give assurance on my contribution. feel free to make corrections as u see fit.

- shaoquan


Frankly, your contribution would have been better left out - it's practically unreadable. Stick to numbers. It is only because the topic is so esoteric and few can organize and write clearly about it that this entry remains. It's horrible. ChrisLaurel 04:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Is that "US tax Example" accurate? Originally, John Q. Public owes $1200 in taxes from selling his house. In the last paragraph, it says he would have owed $2000 in taxes. This makes sense because the $800 capital gains tax he incurred from donating the shirts added to the $1200 he originally owed = $2000. But the $800 capital gains tax was already subtracted from his $2,000 tax credit from the shirt donation, making his overall tax credit $1200. If you already subtracted $800 in taxes when determining his final tax credit, why would you add it again to the total he owes in the third paragraph (making it $2000 [12000+8000])? Did my question make sense? Basically, it looks like he's being charged the extra $800 twice, once when it is subtracted from his tax credit of $2000 and once when it is included in his total taxes of $2000 in the third paragraph.


Your contribution was entirely misleading. To begin with, there is no "50% exemption" for capital gains under U.S. law. Long term capital gains are capped at a 15% rate. More fundamentally, a charitable donor is not taxed on the accrued capital gain in donated property. I've removed your contribution.

-Taxlaw