Income tax preparation can be a complex and daunting task, but using tax software can make it much easier. In this example, we looked at a single filer, Mr. Anderson, with an income of $100,000. After applying the standard deduction of $12,009.50, we arrived at a taxable income of $87,050.
Posts in the Ann Brown category:
Marginal & Average Tax Rates 1070 Income Tax Preparation 2022 – 2023
Understanding income tax can be complex, especially in a progressive tax system like that in the United States. As income increases, so do the tax rates, resulting in multiple tiers or layers of taxes that make the calculation more complex. This complexity is why it’s important to understand the concepts of marginal and average tax rates, which are key to tax preparation and wealth preservation.
Health Care Natural Right? Does it Matter to the Debate?
A topic related to natural rights seems appropriate in a day so close to Independence Day, a day when a country adopted natural rights as guiding principles, rights which are self-evident and include the right to life, liberty, and property. The claim that healthcare is a natural right is a standard talking point, one used to advocate more government involvement into the healthcare system, one used to mandate that the government provide health care. There are at least three issues that often get mixed during the debate over whether healthcare is a natural right.
• A debate over whether natural rights are real. Are there really self-evident truths or are all rights relative and cultural
• If we except that there are natural rights we can then debate whether health care falls into the category of natural rights.
• Debate over the relevance of whether healthcare is a natural right to the questions of policy, the question of whether the government should provide healthcare. In other words, does the question of whether healthcare should be provided hinge solely on whether healthcare is a natural right or not.
Although our founding documents are clearly based on the idea that there are self-evident truths, those that have the force of natural law in a similar way as the laws of physics, the acceptance of natural rights is far from universal, many relativists believing that law is all relative, cultural, and learned. Therefore, all law will change over time and from place to place. Those that believe in natural laws often argue that there is some universal awareness, some similarity in laws across the globe and across time, that there is something inherent in the formation of law in society, that inherent force being natural law. We will not spend more time focusing on the debate over the existence of natural law except to recognize that there is much debate over its existence.
If we except that healthcare falls into the realm of natural rights, it would be a strong argument for a more active government role to those who believe in natural rights. Before getting into this debate, however, we first want to mention that the argument for health-care as a natural right seems disingenuous in some cases because we firmly suspect that many presenting this claim do not actually believe in natural rights. Instead, they believe that all rights are relative and if the argument of natural rights were to lead to a conclusion they did not desire they would have no problem expressing the view that there is no such thing as natural rights.
What is natural law?
According to Merriam Webster natural law is a body of law or a particular principle held to be derived from nature and binding upon human society in the absence of or in addition to positive law.
Most natural rights are things we believe people to have which the government should not be able to simply take away without cause and which the government should provide a system to prevent others from taking away. For example, we have the right to do what we want with our physical selves and the government cannot force our physical actions without cause. One extreme example is the government not having a right to take the life of a citizen for no reason and having an obligation to implement a system to prevent others from taking a citizens life, a system like the military and police. The government does not have the right to take property without cause and has an obligation to prevent others from taking property through implementing a legal system and means to enforce the legal system.
Many would argue that healthcare qualifies as a natural right because it is needed to preserve life, and the right to life is a natural right. However, providing healthcare is not always the same thing as providing law enforcement to protect life because law enforcement is designed to prevent harm by others while much of the healthcare system is not intended to prevent others from doing harm to a citizen, but is a service being provided. There are some aspects of healthcare that may fall under natural law and some that may not.
For example, a citizen being shot by another citizen and needing immediate medical assistance to save a life could fall under a natural right for similar reasons a law enforcement, both law enforcement and medical care being required to protect a life threatened by another, in this case, both preserving the right to one’s life being taken by another. Under the current system, medical attention is provided in this type of situation, care being provided for life-threatening situations even where there is no insurance. The current system could likely be made more efficient, and there is a question about the free rider effect and how society pays for this situation, but these issues are separate from the issue at hand, the questions about whether healthcare is a natural right.
There are many cases where health care is not protecting life from being wrongly taken by another, however, and these situations do not seem to fall under the category of natural rights. For example, preventative care including regular physicals and regular doctor visits, although highly advised, valuable, and potentially lifesaving, are not preventing life from being taken by the government or another citizen, but are services.
Although some aspects of health care could fall under natural rights there are many areas that do not, leading to our last question of whether or not it matters? Does the decision to provide government healthcare depend on whether healthcare is a natural right? As somebody who does believe in natural rights, I do think that if healthcare is a natural right, it should be provided, but if it is not a natural right, it does not necessarily mean we cannot decide to have it.
Given that the portion of health services that may fall under natural law is already provided for, and that much of health care does not fit the definition of a natural right, the debate comes down to how to construct the most efficient healthcare system, one that provides the most service, in the fairest way, to the most people. Although government involvement of some kind is likely necessary, market forces, like allowing individuals to purchase different types of insurance policies based on their needs and being able to buy across state lines to increase compatition, should be part of the solution as well.
Happy Independence Day
Be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Abraham Lincoln
Time = Money, Time = Love, Love ≠ Money ???
I have never really questioned the saying, time is money until I started hearing time compared to other things, such as “time is love” by Josh Turner. If time is money and time is love, this will lead us to reason that love is money. Now I’m not saying that Josh Turner was implying that love is money, a song title of Love is Money probably needing to be moved to another genre of music to be successful, but why doesn’t this reasoning work?
How is it that time equaling money rings true but love equaling money does not?
The first step to this kind of problem is to drill down on some definitions, definitions often being something we take for granted, something we believe is fully understood until asked to define a term fully. For example, asking a professor of physics to define time may result in a very long response leaving us with more questions about time than answers, asking an economist to define money may result in a detailed discussion about what the traits of money are, and asking a poet to define love may result a few hours of poetry to illustrate the non-explainable. An attempt to define these terms, however, is where we will start.
What exactly are money, love, and time?
According to Merriam-Webster money, love, and time can be defined as:
- Money is something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or means of payment.
- Love is a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.
- Time is the measure or measurable period during which an action, process, or conditions exists or continues.
When asked why time equals money many of us would respond that both have value and are therefore at least similar, if not the same. Money is a measure of value according to our definition of money and time is a measurable period. The link between time and money may actually be that we need the concept of time to measure performance and money is a standard unit of measure. In other words, we cannot measure something like revenue without the concepts of time and some unit of measure, like money, because revenue is a measure over time.
When asked why money does not equal love, money not equaling love being a response I’m assuming most would give, many of us would respond that there is something about the concept of love that cannot be measured in the units of dollars. Maybe part of the reason for this is that there is not the same connection between love and time as there is between money and time, love not being something that can be accumulated over time in the same way that revenue can. In other words, it is difficult to measure performance over time using love as the unit of measure, although we do try and do this. For example, when analyzing somebody’s life, we may ask the question of whether she was well-loved as part of our analysis, part of our measure of her life.
From an economic perspective, love would not work well as money because, although love can be thought of as storing value, love, defined as a strong affection, is not a good medium of exchange, strong affection not being something we can trade for a loaf of bread.
In conclusion, although there are links between time, money, and love:
Time ≠ love ≠ money
but
Time = Money & Time = Love
may be useful phrases in normal conversation as long as we are careful to avoid insinuating the logical conclusion that of these statements, that
Love = Money
to avoid the conversation taking an unintended turn.
Is WHO YOU KNOW more important than WHAT YOU KNOW?
I’ve often heard, as I’m sure you have, that who you know is more important in life than what you know, that the right connections are more important than the right answers. There certainly is some truth to this statement, but I think the answer to the question of which is more important, connections or knowledge, is better understood with relation to our ultimate goals, the end result we are trying to achieve.
When the end goal is power and money, it may well be true that connections trump knowledge, but this leads to the question of whether the pursuit of power and money is the right end goal. Especially when pursued with the notion that knowledge is not valuable. Achieving a status of authority without knowledge, or with limited knowledge, may prove to be reckless, harmful, and possibly dangerous.
On the other hand, having knowledge without connections can lead to a situation where that knowledge cannot be put to its best use, the time and effort acquiring knowledge not being applied to its fullest effect.
In the end, connections and knowledge are both just means and not ends, both tools to achieve ultimate goals and not just goals to be achieved. This conclusion is no new revelation but is an ancient one. Like the answer to most questions posed as a binary option, the best answer is neither. Neither connections nor knowledge is better than the other; neither can stand alone. Both are needed to achieve our ultimate ends and our ultimate goals.
What does this mean for our career? What is the action plan?
We should set short term goals in both realms of knowledge and connections, avoiding the trap of obsessing on either as an end goal, always realizing the bigger picture, that both are just short term goals, that both are means to a greater final goal, that ultimate goal being. . .