Hi, we're back in the Davis Media Access Studio for another episode of The City Considerers. My name is Autumn Laberino. Thanks so much for joining us today. It's my pleasure today to interview Davis Mayor Rob Davis. Welcome Rob. Yeah, it's good to be here again, thanks. So I'd recently interviewed Stacey Winton and Bob Bowen about capping off the city's centennial year, which has been going on all of 2017. But I tasked you with something a little bit harder. We talked about how in July the mayorship will roll over and Mayor Pro Tem Brett Lee will take that office. And I asked you to think about the next hundred years in Davis. We've celebrated the past hundred. We're gonna talk about what's coming up. Yeah, well the next hundred. I mean, I'm wondering what would have happened if someone had been sitting here a hundred years ago. Could they have imagined the things? I mean, at a certain level I don't think we can imagine all the technological changes will happen. I mean, we can talk about broadband, but we're probably thinking 10 to 15 to 20 years out or autonomous vehicles. But what that's actually gonna mean for the life of the city is hard to predict. I generally think in terms of more of the overarching way that we'll be in this area. I mean, for example, as a community, I think we understand we're on the cusp of experiencing significant changes related to climate. And the issues are gonna be about adaptation and what is gonna be the most effective or what are the most effective ways of adapting to those changes. And I think what I see happening is a continuation of what's happening now. And that is a greater focus on local decision making, local autonomy, finding the right sort of scale of local to affect change and to deal with the changes that are coming. And so I think we're gonna be thinking much more about our bio region. That is that that region might be a watershed, but where the resources that we have can be effectively managed locally, whether it's groundwater or whether it's, electricity supply, water supply for consumption. All of these things we're moving, I think more and more in our thinking to what is the right scale. So we're doing more and more with Woodland, we're doing more and more with the county. And I would expect for a variety of services, we're gonna be thinking about the scale at which we can most effectively serve the needs of the community and respond to the changes that are coming. Dave's does have sort of this dichotomy. We love to do things in partnership and the new surface water project is a perfect example. We also love to do things independently. And for years we've been talking about, will we have some kind of municipally run electricity utility, for example. Or you know, so we both love to do things in partnership and we wanna strike that independent note. That's a hard balance. It is, but I think what we're learning is we're not yielding autonomy when we partner. We're more effectively engaging with our neighbors whose needs and interests very much align with ours. So electricity is a really good example. The JPA, the Joint Powers Authority that we've formed is with both the county, which is largely rural ag interests and the city of Woodland so far. That is a unique thing because we may have a vision for how we want to incentivize the development of local supply of electricity, but we're also doing it in collaboration with others who share this physical space with us at a scale that makes a lot of sense and there may be others that wanna join that. So it's gonna constantly going forward. I think it's gonna be a question of how do we balance the most effective level at which to deliver services? How do we maintain that autonomy so that our communities can maintain what's important to them? And those things, I'm happy to say so far, I'm really optimistic that we're gonna be able to strike the balance. I think Davis, I think we're learning that when we share these things with other communities, we gain from their insights, they gain from our insights and we're able to do things much more effectively. So the two examples you cited, water and then electricity are where we're at right now. I mean, in the future, it could be solid waste management. It could be how we deal with our waste stream to monetize it, again, collectively at the right scale using the resources locally. Groundwater management is already a huge issue. We're doing collectively as a region. So I see that continuing and part of the reason I see it continuing is I think there's an appropriate level of problem solving that needs to be somewhat face-to-face where you do rely on personal relationships, where you do rely on that ability to, when conflict arises to know that this is your neighbor you're dealing with, you're nearby neighbor, not someone far away in another state or another region. So I think that, and I believe it'll extend to things like broadband. It could be much more around food supply. In other words, we could go much more in the direction of food production for local consumption. So I think my sense is those things are gonna continue to accelerate going into the future and we'll be much more focused on local problem solving and local solutions to challenges that we face. It is kind of an elegant thing to work with other communities within Yolo County because I think it's a powerful reminder that we're more connected than we are separate. So there's that aspect too. Yeah, I think that's a, I mean, I really think that what we're talking about is even as we see a larger and larger splintering of relationships nationally and across the world, what I'm heartened by is the increasing solidarity that I sense among the different communities here to really roll up our sleeves and learn from each other and work together. And a lot of that is based on relationships of trust that we can continue to work on. It's really that social capital piece that I think we've undervalued for far too long but which we are now seeing is gonna be key to facing the challenges ahead. And that's a very helpful note. I'm very hopeful actually, yeah. So I think we'd be remiss if we didn't touch on the relationship between the city and the university and what that might look like. I think some of the things you talked about, electricity, water, groundwater issues, those are gonna affect us all, campus, city, everything. But is there anything in particular looking forward that you see developing that relationship? Well, I mean, I think to some extent that relationship is gonna be dependent on what the university becomes. I mean, we're still very much in a model of university where people come to a central location for learning. I think the promise of decentralized learning has taken off more slowly than maybe some people thought that it would. But the university is still talking about regional centers across the planet. And I think the same kind of forces that are leading to decentralization of decision making out to the appropriate level, I think education is probably gonna be more and more decentralized as well. And so, will the world be coming to this town in the future? Or will we be providing opportunities for learning that stretch across distances? And if that's the case, then that will fundamentally alter the relationship between the city and the university. The other thing is places like China and all of East Asia really are gonna be actual competitors to the University of California, Davis. In terms of students, right now, we're attracting a large number of Chinese students, but we would expect that the quality of those institutions would increase. I think all of that means that the university itself is going to look very different. It may be actually smaller. It may continue to do the same world class type of research, but I think whether it will be a hub or whether it will be more like a set of nodes around the world with the expertise that's developed here, shared out, that will change the relationship between the city and the university because a lot of the relationship now, obviously, is driven by just how big the university is and the accommodation of all the people coming. Well, if that's less of the model, then those pressures are not gonna be the same. And so I think it's gonna be a healthy relationship and I would take it one step further. I firmly believe that just as we're going to need to marshal our resources locally to deal with local issues, I think more and more the universities around this country will refocus back in on problem solving at a local and regional level. So rather than saying, how do we figure out how to feed the world, we're gonna talk about, we'll be talking about how do we make sure that we marshal and appropriately use, shepherd the resources that are here locally to withstand the changes that are coming, whether they're climate, food, supply, challenges, whatever they might be. And so I think in the same way the university is gonna, their efforts are gonna be much more focused on solving more local and regional problems. That's really interesting. 10 years ago, the buzz was all about distance learning. In other words, teaching people over the internet or broadcasting in other places. And the university was actually coming to us here at then Davis Community Television and saying, can you help us record things? We wanna really explore distance learning. And it had a brief moment in the sun and then it sort of dropped off because I think, as you said, the emphasis switched to, let's put our energy into, smaller satellite centers out in the world. But I also think you're right that the problems that are gonna be facing us are really gonna be around climate change and water and soil issues and food production and capacity. I mean, a hundred years from now, we'll just be coming to the end of the, the population boom echo. So in a hundred years, we may be seeing finally at that point, probably 50 to 60 years out, a global population that is finally peaking at somewhere around 16 billion. And I'm not suggesting a long, slow decline, but just demographically speaking, it will be leveling out. Well, that's gonna change many, many things because right now we're premised on a world that's continuing to grow a population, an aging population, even while we grow, but it's gonna be a very different population composition. And so responding to the challenges a hundred years from now will be different because we'll be in a different phase of population development. The universities and all of us are gonna be responding to that because the challenges will be different then. And I think probably too technologically speaking, the opportunities for real virtual learning through artificial intelligence and other things that we can't even imagine yet will make it possible so that we're not just talking about making videos to put online, but we're talking about virtual learning that's live real time using the technologies that allow people to be in a virtual lab no matter where they're sitting in the world. And that's already happening. That's already happening. And I mean, a hundred years it may be, we may be somewhere beyond that, I can't even imagine what it is. But the point is, I think the resources, if that happens, then people learning in those different nodes will be positioned to really work on the, take the challenges they're collectively learning about to solve local problems. And I think that's gonna be the key to the success of universities going forward is that they're really focusing on those things in their nearby, just as the cities that host them are focusing on very much their nearby. If you could pick one project, you'd really love to see advance, and I'm not gonna take you a hundred years out, let's say in the next decade. What would it be? You know, for me, I think there's two, I can't limit it to one. You can have two. Okay, I mean, and well, they're linked though. I mean, I think our criminal justice system and the way we think about justice, moving towards a restorative model where we end punitive practices for nonviolent crime and where we think more deeply about the causes that lead people, especially young people, to commit crime and go on the path to incarceration. I believe that the 10 year project ahead of us, which I think we're entering into now, to move towards a truly restorative process that restores people to community in a way that holds them accountable for what they've done. I wanna be part of that actually. The other is to really, and I don't believe there's gonna be a technological fix, I think there's a behavior change that needs to happen in each of our hearts and that is the change in how we perceive addiction and homelessness and mental health, that whole nexus. And so the project that I wanna be part of is really a project of reducing significantly the number of people who are caught up in that syndrome that leads to chronically living on the street with untreated mental illness, with addiction illnesses and effectively finally finding ways to deal with those syndromes so that we can take people who are right now living on the edges and living really lives that are barely human and bring them back and that's also a restorative process. And the more we learn about issues of trauma, the more we learn about issues of what is happening in the brain, in the mind with addiction, I think we're gonna be better equipped to say there is a restorative process possible so not just that they're bad actors engaging in bad behavior, but there are things happening in there physiologically that need to be dealt with. And I think we're, again, I think we're on the cusp of developing programs that will help us treat childhood trauma, even if it lingers into adulthood and deal with the causes of the things that lead to that very visible thing we call homelessness, which is linked to a certain criminality. Those are the things, those very human things that lead to the restoration of people to communities rather than casting them out. Those are the projects that I think, I just wanna spend the rest of my life working on those projects. And that takes it from trying to fix a problem to trying to develop a real humanitarian solution. I mean, you know. It is, well these are people, right? I mean, we're talking about people and whatever it is they're doing that we object to and they're objectionable things to treat them, to treat the issue as if people are not beyond redemption and that there is not a need for us to separate them from us, but there is the potential of restoring people to community. I think that's the vision we need. It's the vision we're gonna need because we're not gonna have the resources to continue to send people away. It's more costly than to restore them to community, but there's a lot of hard work to do there. Yeah. We're out of time. I think we could sit here and talk all afternoon. I wanna thank you for the very thoughtful approach you've brought to your time as mayor. And I know it's not over yet. I'm not trying to rush you. And for always being willing to come in here and talk about substantive issues. I appreciate that very much. I'm happy to. I enjoy it actually. So you've been watching the city considers and I've been chatting with mayor Rob Davis and you can watch this on Tuesday evenings prior to council meetings. It airs at 615 on DCTV channel 15 on the Comcast cable system. And of course it'll be online and on social media. And we hope you'll tune in again next month. Thanks so much.


U.S. soldiers from the First Combat Aviation Brigade picked up their rivet guns, powered up forklifts, and connected fuel lines in a series of competitions featuring the flight operations sustainers of the brigade. Teams from multiple battalions in the brigade competed in the sustainer games near Storke-Bericks, Germany. The aviation support battalion is made up of an entirely sustainer-maintainer MOSes. It's a very complex, diverse group of soldiers, and so we designed the sustainer games in a way where each of those MOSes would be represented. It gets after their individual skills, their MOS skills, but also builds the team, and it becomes a competition where they can simultaneously see each other's progress and build readiness. So I think these games are actually a really good thing for maintainers. It gives us a chance to practice and show our skill sets that a lot of, like, non-maintenance won't get to see, and I think it actually boosts morale and build camaraderie between maintainers in the unit. Physical fitness and confidence was the theme, so soldiers also competed in obstacle course and rugged terrain timed events. When the participants come in and they conduct the range, I'm looking for two, pretty much two things, teamwork and motivation. If they conduct each obstacle as a team, then it builds unit cohesion, and the level of competitiveness is very high. Each individual team has something to prove when they come out here and conduct the course. They want to be the best because winning matters. The first combat aviation brigade is deployed to Germany in support of Atlantic Resolve. The brigade's sustainers are critical to the unit's ability to provide flight operations, helping to provide air dominance to the U.S. forces and partner nations in the European theater. In my opinion, the maintainers are the backbone of aviation. Like, without the maintainers, like, the pilots are going to fly the birds, but once the bird needs maintenance, then it can't really do anything. And we make sure that the pilots are able to fly and land safely and get home to their families.


Income tax 2023 2024 income tax formula get ready and some coffee so we can stave off the government attack with income tax preparation 2023 2024 first a word from our sponsor yeah actually we're sponsoring ourselves on this one because apparently the merchandisers they don't want to be seen with us but but that's okay whatever because our merchandise is is better than their stupid stuff anyways like our trust me I'm an accountant product line yeah it's paramount that you let people know that you're an accountant because apparently we're among the only ones equipped with the number crunching skills to answer society's current deep complex and nuanced questions if you would like a commercial-free experience consider subscribing to our website at accounting instruction comm or accounting instruction dot think of it comm in prior presentations we took a look at the different approaches the different tools that we will use to understand income tax preparation income tax laws those including the formula method a formula being something that we can typically visualize more easily it being more distilled than say the tax forms and is great for understanding conceptually then we have the actual tax forms noting that the formula is within the tax forms in other words when we calculate the tax forms there will be a formula to it but it's more of an expanded type of formula that's not really distilled down to its essence and then we have the software the software of course having the forms within it and the forms having the formulas within the forms but the software adds another layer for us to understand with that allowing us quick data input into the software and looking at the result in the format of the tax forms and then trying to distill the tax forms down to its essence which in essence would be the simplest type of formula at this time we want to focus in on the formula so we're going to basically go through line item by line item of the formula as we do so you can kind of imagine that each of these line items are going to have more things that could be included within them in other words whatever you have a tax question then the first thing that might come to mind is where does that thing fall within our formula each of these line items having possibly multiple things that could contribute to them and then once we understand what line item something falls into then we can kind of visualize what's going to happen in that line item and then what's going to cascade through the rest of the formula when you look at income tax forms they are actually expanded on each of these line items in other words if you were to create an income tax form just from scratch at this point in time what you might do is just simply create page one the summary page which would basically be a formula such as this and then you would have sub schedules that would be expanding on each of those line items as needed that's not exactly how the tax code came about because it used to be that the tax code was very simple meaning you can most people can do their taxes on one side of a postage card sized piece of paper that was the idea was supposed to be very easy for most people to do their taxes but as things got complex they didn't want to add other forms instead they wanted to keep everything on one page or one form form 1040 so you ended up with multiple times of forms like a 1040 easy and so on and so forth because they were trying to make it so you just need one form that was like the selling point even though things were getting more complex and then they tried to simplify the code doing something like what we're doing at this point of time because these days you're not getting the actual forms from like the post office and filling them out by hand you're getting them from a computer so therefore having multiple pages isn't as big as a problem as it might have been before when you wanted a piece of paper that you can fill out just one line item so we'll touch more on that later when we get when we compare this to the actual tax form but for right now we've got the line items the first line item is income now income of course is kind of part of an income statement because we're talking about an income tax so the first half of the formula is an income statement although a strange one an income statement having income and then expenses now from a business perspective usually those expenses are the things that you had to consume in order to generate the income however when you're talking about individual income the income statement is more complex because the things that we spend money on are often personal the goal not being to generate income but to live well right so the expenses are going to get a little bit wonky on our income statement but the income line is pretty straightforward the irs basically saying everything is income unless we say otherwise is the general idea and we'll dive into that there's of course a lot of gray area then with the income statement what needs to be included in income what needs to not be included in income whenever someone has a question about you know money that they have received loans that have forgiven or something like that then those all those questions are about the income line item is that going to be included or excluded increasing or decreasing the income line item on the tax formula obviously for taxes income going up is actually bad because everything is flipped on its head for taxes taxes disincentivizing to income right so we so it's everything's backwards then we have the types of deductions now the deductions can be broken out to what you might used to be called like above the line deductions versus below the line deductions uh or you might call them these are like schedule one deductions because now they have the schedule thing or adjustments to income when you hear adjustments to income that's basically a deduction because it's a lowering the income line item it's just another word another again another phrase that you could use for these line items for the types of deductions the point is that these ones are separate than the itemized deductions and the standard deductions these are the ones that are more rare except that possibly like an ira deduction is is fairly common in this section but most deductions that you think of are going to be either the generic standard deduction or the things that are within the itemized deductions such as charitable deductions state tax deductions and things of that nature that gets us to a subtotal adjusted gross income or a g i so you can kind of think of this if you had an income statement that sells like that sells like manufacturing like a inventory i mean you have you you could have well you could also have returns and allowances on an income statement so income minus like the returns or something gives you the adjusted gross income or you could think of an income statement has an income and then the cost of goods sold the things if you sell inventory gets you that like that subtotal gross profit it's all getting you it's all going the same direction your income is going down from top to bottom of the income statement but there's these subtotals along the way this is one for basically the income tax return kind of income statement so we have the adjusted gross income a g i very important subtotal because most of the fave out phase outs that we talk about meaning as we look at deductions as we look at credits those being good things because they're kind of like expenses although credits are a little different we'll talk about in a second but uh as those as those things go higher as our income goes higher we might phase out those items they might we might lose them and it's not usually based on the top line income but on the a g i adjusted gross income so that's why that's a very important line item and then we have the greater of two types of deductions either the standard deduction or the itemized deduction now this is an area a few years ago there's been some back and forth to try to simplify the tax code and and so on and so forth and the idea of that would be one idea to simplify the tax code would be let's stop doing so much of this itemized deduction business because obviously the people that itemized are usually the more wealthy individuals who who have these other categories of deductions that we're trying to incentivize but are kind of outside you know the normal deductions there there are things where the government is trying to incentivize people to behave in certain ways like a charitable deduction is clear clearly trying to incentivize people to give to charity which is kind of which is a good thing but at the same time you would think that you know people i still kind of think people would give the charity without needing the charitable deduction and if people are not itemizing they still might be given to charity even though they're taking the standard you know deduction and possibly not getting a benefit on a tax return of of giving to charity and so on and so forth if you get a deduction for retirement plans then and you don't have to include that money in income or you get like an IRA above the line or adjustment to income deduction then that's incentivizing people to save for retirement which is good but again if we didn't have that deduction would people not save for retirement i kind of feel like you know we should be telling people the motive matters in terms of people's behavior right they should be doing things not just because they've been triggered to do it like slides you know the dog salivating when a bell rings or something like that they should be doing it because you know they're thinking about it and about retirement say that's a good idea to do that there's a difference right between those two things but anyway so the standard deduction is one that everyone gets right no matter what and that's usually going to be a lower income individuals that are going to be taking the standard deduction and then the item deduction is only if the itemized deductions are greater than the standard deductions would you take the itemized deduction why is that because deductions are good and you're going to get either one of these but not both and therefore you're only going to take the itemized deductions if they're larger than the standard deductions what are the itemized deductions that usually push people over the threshold to itemize rather than taking the standard usually things related to a home purchase such as the the interest mortgage interest and property taxes and then you can combine that with state taxes if you have substantial income taxes on the state side which are capped and limited to but but those are the things that usually might push people over now you have to be careful with that too because real estate agents as we'll talk about when we get there will emphasize that and say that well you need to buy a home in order to take advantage of the taxes but and that might be the case but you don't it's not as straightforward as that either because the standard deduction is significant so you don't so if you're paying interest on a mortgage just to get its tax deduction that might not be the best way to go because you still have to pay the interest on the more you still have to take out a massive loan which is usually a big thing for most for most people in order to get basically a deduction but we'll talk more about that later that gets you to the taxable income so taxable income this whole thing is basically the income statement side of things for the income tax formula income statements are income minus expense this has another pit stop income minus deductions which are kind of expenses which are going to be the above the line deductions pit stop along the way adjusted gross income and then the greater of standard deductions or or the itemized deductions now as we're thinking about this just realize that when we look at these kind of deductions what kind of deductions makes sense from an income tax perspective it would be those deductions you need in order to generate the income in other words if you're if we're dealing with an income tax we're taxing people as they generate the money we're not taxing their balance sheet we're not taxing the money that's already in the bank theoretically that already got taxed when they earned it we're taxing the money as it's going into the bank uh as as they are earning that money now if you talk to one person that had income up top and they made like a hundred thousand dollars but in order to generate that hundred thousand dollars they had to spend sixty thousand dollars or else they wouldn't have generated the one hundred thousand dollars that would be usually like a business expense that would be something you'd see in like a schedule c or something like that oftentimes but that's the conceptual business expenses make the most sense oftentimes well then it doesn't make sense to tax them on on a hundred thousand it makes sense to tax them on forty thousand because they had to expend sixty thousand in order to make the hundred thousand because if you compare that to somebody else that has a w two job for example and they make one hundred thousand but have no expenses they didn't need to spend anything in order to generate the one hundred thousand well it wouldn't make sense to tax both of them on the top line one hundred thousand it would make sense to tax people only on their net income deducting the expenses that were needed in order to generate the income right uh but obviously and so that's but obviously that gets complex because people are going to say well what kind of things were necessary to generate the income and that's why you end up with the standard deduction because the the code is basically saying we're not going to get into that we're just going to say we're going to say if you have a business it'll be on the schedule c and then everybody else just gets this standard deduction uh if it's not a business expense and that's what it's going to be and then of course because the tax code can never stay constant you get the itemized deductions as well which are usually things where the government is trying to adjust your behavior it's not about tax collection oftentimes with the itemized deductions it's more about how can they get you to do certain things well they get you to do things with the tax code if they if they want if they think that she that they want to stimulate the housing market then if they increase the deduction for interest on homes that's going to you know that's going to have a significant impact on behavior with regard to the housing market if they if the charitable deductions are good if they change the charitable deduction rules that's going to if they want people to save for retirement they can change the deductibility of putting money into an IRA or something their attempts to change your behavior and so you can argue whether or not the government should be in the business of trying to change your behavior or should they just stay out of your business and just focus on collecting whatever taxes they need to collect by simplifying the tax code and letting letting people make their own decisions about retirement contributing to charity and all that kind of stuff so that's a debate to have now notice you would think you'd be basically done if it was a flat tax you'd say okay there's taxable income i'm going to multiply that times the tax rate but as we saw before it's not a flat tax it's a tax uh it's a it's a progressive tax so now you have to calculate this based on you know tax tables oftentimes which are based on the tiered system that we talked about before and we could have some taxes that are outside of this that would be such as you know to qualify dividends or capital gains for example that so the taxes calculation actually gets quite complicated now what do we do from our data input side of things we usually input the income statement and kind of double check the taxable income possibly with another worksheet as we will do in excel in this formula standpoint comparing that to what we entered in the tax software with a tax forms uh type of calculation and then oftentimes we rely on the tax return or the tax software to do the tax calculation which is fine but we probably also want to have a conceptual idea of what the tax return is doing so we can communicate that to others so that we can make sure that there's not an error uh in the calculation and so that we can effectively plan uh going forward but just for the data input into the software we're basically going to double check this taxable income and then and then rely oftentimes on the software to do the tax calculation also note this is not accounting for a double entry accounting system there's no balance sheet here you can see for individual income taxes that means we're losing a huge internal control we're not using accounting software oftentimes some people do and that's going to give a high level a much more accurate level of assurance that your income statement is correct because the software is going to force you to use the double entry accounting system and you'll have a balance sheet and if you're doing bank reconciliations you have even a higher level of assurance but many times people don't right so that means and so what we're on the tax return side of things as as we do the as as we do the data input and notice by the way using software to use the double entry accounting system you can do that for personal books as well if you wanted to you can put your personal financials into the accounting software and use the double entry accounting system you know in a in a similar fashion that way but again on the form 1040 we're going to be driven by income and we're going to be driven by forms oftentimes w2 forms and so it is you know it kind of is what it is more complex tax returns you know the bookkeeping will be more important and then if you have business tax returns then of course uh it's the bookkeeping becomes more more important so that's going to be that's going to but so that means that when we do the data input we want to give a double check somehow so oftentimes what i would do and what i've seen i've worked at many cpa firms often many of them will have an outside calculation to kind of double check possibly in excel or some worksheet so that you can re-enter this information again into another system and double check that you come out to the same taxable income for both calculations and then we've got the tax before credits and other taxes so the tax being calculated again you would think that would be somewhat the end but no we also have credits now the credits are going to really complicate things because they're not part of the they're not like a deduction they're similar to deductions in that they're both good we like deductions we like credits but the credits are calculated are put in place after we actually calculated the tax therefore the credits are going to have a much larger impact from a dollar to dollar credit in other words if you had a one dollar credit versus a one dollar deduction the one dollar credit's going to be a much higher value given the fact that you're going to get the whole dollars worth of benefit as opposed to a dollar deduction which will simply decrease your taxable income and then you're only going to get a benefit based on whatever your tax rate is based on the progressive tax tables and all of that kind of stuff so so the credits are great from in that we want credits but when you try to think about what the impact is on the income tax formula credits are going to greatly complicate the whole the whole process here and then we have other taxes now we're talking here primarily we're talking about an income tax when we're looking at the form at 1040 but sometimes there's other taxes you know that could be in play here such as the self-employment tax is going to be one of the big ones because if you have a schedule c type of business then in taxable income you have your your income coming in from your business but the iris also wants their payroll tax equivalent from you who they see as basically the employee of your own business and therefore since you didn't give yourself a w2 and withhold payroll social security and medicare they're gonna they're gonna calculate uh self-employment tax which is basically payroll taxes for self-employed individuals calculating both the employee and the employer portion so if you have a business or are subject to self-employment tax that is a huge addition down here and will complicate things a lot so if you're a tax preparer you want to be thinking do i want to deal with businesses do i want to deal with tax returns that have business entities whether they be schedule c's flow through entities s corporations llc's or corporations partnerships flows do i want to deal with those or not if you do even with schedule c's it will complicate the tax return greatly so you might be saying hey look i just want to crank out as many returns as possible i'm not going to take on business returns and then i'll i'll focus on volume or you might say okay i know schedule c's are complex but i think i can take on basic schedule c's i don't want to go through i don't want to actually do the tax return to for flow through entities s corporations and partnerships and corporations which aren't a flow you know corporate tax returns because then you have to file an actual separate return or or possibly you you don't file the separate return you won't do the corporate return you'll just do the business return after the corporate return has been done by someone else right you might just say i only do the form 1040 individual income tax returns so so you really want to think about that because it's really difficult to tell clients no right then that's what you need to know what you want to do and what you don't want to do know what you know know what you don't know and don't let the client try to pressure you into taking on work that you're like i'm not that's not my thing i'm not doing that uh and which can be difficult so then we've got that'll give us the total tax and then we've got and then again you think you'd be done right here but you're not because now you've got the tax payments and uh refundable credits okay so first of all we have these credits we already saw the credits up top so you're like what i already dealt with the credits why are there another credits down here on this line item and that has to do with refundable credits versus non-refundable credits now a non-refundable credit is is what we used to think of as kind of a normal a normal credit meaning a tax by definition means that you either owe money or you don't owe money so when we talk about the income taxes then usually what we're trying to do is lower the amount of tax that we have to pay the money's only going one direction normally for a normal tax system it's going from us the earners of the money to the government that's the way it's going and if we get a credit or a deduction those are the two things that could lower the amount of money that's going from us to the government so taxes traditionally do not wind up in the money going from the government to us right you might say well there's a refund but normally traditionally the refund means the money went from us to the government but we paid we overpaid and therefore they are refunding the overpayment the refund isn't money that's going from the government to us they're not paying us just you know they're not that's traditionally what happens so so that would mean that the credits up top here are the types of credits that do not bring taxable income below zero because that wouldn't make any sense if you don't owe any tax uh if if if you if you're saying i don't have any tax to pay right here and then you had a credit which would be available to take if you had tax to pay but you don't have any tax to pay then then you're not going to get a benefit from the credit because the government doesn't pay you the money only goes one way it's a tax you pay the government or you don't pay the government however if it's a refundable credit that equation changes right so now you have situation where even if i don't owe any money the government gives me the government the money's going from the government to me right in those situations so so it's not a refund even though it's going to be qualified counted as a refund in that case it's more of a benefit or of a welfare type of program that's worked into the tax code and so so it complicates the tax system but a lot of people think that the tax system is the best way to deal with the safety net kind of issue so now we so now we have these breakout between the credits that don't take the tax below zero and the credits that do the ones that don't are called non-refundable the ones that do are refundable to make that even more complex some credits that are refundable have a refundable portion to them so we then have to determine what portion of the credit is refundable what portion is not then we have the payments now the tax system is set up so that the government does not want to allow you to wait till the end of the year so if we're talking about 2023 then you can't just simply pay all of your taxes when the tax return is due on april 15th let's say of 2024 it would already be late you would be hit with penalties and interest the government wants their money during the year why well one because they want the money as you earn it and there's time value related to money so they want it sooner rather than later and two they don't trust you to hold on to the money that you have earned during the year to be able to pay them at april 15th of the following year so they want to force you to pay them when the money is in your hand or even before it gets in your hand by making the employer the bad guy taking the money out of your paycheck before you get it so that means that the taxes are supposed to be the form 1040 should simply be a reporting requirement and not something that results in either a refund or money that is due meaning it would be similar to payroll taxes if you've dealt with payroll taxes they're the same concept in that you pay the taxes when you pay the employee you know you pay the taxes during the the pay periods and whatnot and then you file the form 941 usually on a quarterly basis as opposed to a yearly basis but the 941 is just a summary so you're just saying hey look this is how much payroll taxes i owed this is how much i already paid you therefore i don't have anything do and i don't have anything refunded normally that's the way the payroll tax works if the payroll tax is working correctly for the for the income tax you can't do that because it's too complex there's no way there's no way that you're going to get your withholdings correct exactly it's impossible because the tax code is too complex so what are you what are you going to do then well the whole system is set up so that you overpay so when you fill out your w4 to get withholdings on your wages the the whole system is set up generally to overpay and and that serves a couple purposes for the government number number one that means that they're more likely to get their money of course and and that also means that it's likely that you're going to get a refund at tax time because you have overpaid and that makes the government look good right so it looks like the bad guy is the employer who keeps taking your money out of your paycheck every every pay period that jerk and then the good guy is the government that gives you a refund on the on tax day there the the the government comes in and saves you like robin hood everything's flipped on its head i thought robin hood stole from the tax man and then gave to the back to the people that earn the money no it's the other way it's the other way according to the ira the tax man is robin hood and the okay but so that's so that's why you shoot for a refund you're shooting for a refund not because you just want a refund because you're shooting for a refund so you don't get hit with the stick and i'm going to repeat this multiple times what's the goal of income tax not to get hit with the government stick what is the government stick penalties and interest right hopefully beyond that jail time or whatever but generally the stick is penalties and interest they're going to hit you with that a lot of times before they before usually they go further than that right so so that's where so we're trying to overpay to avoid getting hit with the stick and that's what we do that's why we get a refund otherwise we would like to be exactly because what would happen then is we would get more of our money sooner meaning we'd get bigger paychecks if we lower our withholdings but if we increase our withholdings we're going to get smaller paychecks but we're less likely to get hit with penalties and interest at tax time the whole system is generally set up to overpay the taxes so that the IRS is more likely to get their money and be able to give you at least a small refund at tax time okay tax refund or tax due so that's going to get us then of course to whether or not you owe money or not which is going to be the bottom line for this tax period and then of course based on this information the tax calculation you then think about what's going to happen next year how do i how do i make sure next year's withholdings are sufficient so that i don't get hit with the stick of penalties and interest


President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bob Highland, Governor Bond, Senator Danforth, the representatives of our house who are here, the other distinguished guests, you ladies and gentlemen. I didn't know I was in the movie until the last scene came on, and then I couldn't clap. But believe me, I do applaud that picture until that moment. It was beautiful. And I would have enjoyed it even more if I wasn't the one who had to follow it with a speech. Those pictures, the words, and the music that touch our hearts, and I believe they capture a feeling that's very much with us today. The spirit of St. Louis is alive, and that's the spirit that will rebuild America. It's a great privilege. It's a great privilege to stand before your group. I've always believed that entrepreneurs are the forgotten heroes of America. In your dreams and in your courage to take great risks, rest America's best hopes for more jobs, stronger growth, and a higher standard of living. Two of every three new jobs are created in firms in America with fewer than 100 employees. If we're to remain true to America, we must preserve and enhance the possibility for every small businessman and woman to make it big. Just one week ago I addressed the Congress, and I told them that thanks to the courage, the patience, and the strength of people like you, America is on the mend. And one of the networks following that speech did a telephone survey to find out if the people felt that way. Well, 73 percent of your fellow citizens said yes it was. Well, we still have a mountain of challenges to surmount, but the evidence of recovery continues to build. Leading economic indicators are up. Eight of the nine last months. Housing starts and permits are up. Real wages are growing. Auto sales are strengthening. Construction contracting is rising. Unemployment claims are heading down. And there's one more venture capital, or one more figure I should say venture capital. Investments in the development of small businesses have actually reached in this time of recession record levels in our history. Sometimes statistics seem mighty impersonal. Well, today I saw a different kind of proof, the kind that warms your heart and gives pause even to the most hardened cynic. I've just come from that Chrysler plant at Fenton, and I can report to you the men and women are back in the job. They're moving cars off the line. They believe this great nation is on her way back to the top, and they're right. General Motors and Ford are calling back workers and creating jobs too. By some estimates, auto employment here could increase up to 71 percent here in the St. Louis area by next August. What a shot in the arm that would be from Missouri's economic growth. We're beginning to receive the payoff that we've all been waiting for. The reward for painful but essential steps to cure a disease that was crippling America and undermining our security. This is not a fashionable idea in some parts of Washington, but the record inflation, interest rates, and taxes of 1980 were caused by a government goliath growing too fat, spending too much of your money, and only the people were saying, this has got to stop. There seems to be a little confusion about a sentence I used in my State of the Union speech last week, that we in government must take the lead in restoring the economy. Some people seem to think that I was advocating a return to the old ways. I didn't mean anything of the kind. What I meant was, government was largely responsible for creating the economic mess of recent years. Now it must recognize that and start undoing the damage it has done. We have a plan for America's future. It isn't easy and it isn't quick, but it will work because it's designed to attack problems at their roots rather than pretending to legislate them away with still another quick fix. We had to take the lead in bringing down and we have brought them down from 21.5% to 11% and we're determined to do better. We must do better and get them down further. We had to take the lead in doing something about runaway regulations and smothering enterprise. So we're pursuing a long-term program to deregulate key areas of the economy. By next fall, Americans will spend 300 million fewer hours on government-required paperwork than they were doing just two years ago when we took office. The bureaucratic monster who would slay private enterprise is being taught a new command. It's called HEAL. You are still forced to spend too many hours on government forms, but we're continuing to work on that and we're going to get a few hundred million more of those hours done away with. We had to reverse the dangerous decline in savings and investment choked off by higher and higher taxes. Well, all personal tax rates are being reduced still 25 or another 10%. It'll be a total of 25%. The first real reduction in nearly 25 or 20 years, and this is especially important for small businesses which are mainly self-proprietorships and for encouraging venture capital. We're raising the estate tax exemption for family farmers and family businesses to $600,000. Of even greater help, there will no longer be any estate tax for a surviving spouse. And beginning in 1985, tax rates will be indexed to protect people from being pushed into higher tax brackets when they get cost of living pay raises. Let me say that I will fight any move against the third year of the tax cut or indexing. They must go into effect on schedule. Without that final tax cut, that final installment, Americans will shoulder a higher tax burden than ever before. And repealing indexing, well, indexing is just sleight of hand. Or I mean not indexing as sleight of hand inflation is. Rather than bringing spending down closer to revenues, governments simply raised revenues the sneaky way. It used inflation to push every working family in America toward higher and higher tax brackets. Ironically, they call this progressive, compassionate, and fair. It reminds me of Samuel Johnson's comment about a fellow who couldn't see the difference between virtue and vice. And Samuel Johnson's advice was, when he leaves, count the spoons. Must the people always do with less so government can spend more? Or should government hold the line so the people can save and America can grow again? We aren't reducing tax rates in 1981 and 82 and 83 just so we can turn around and raise the rates in 84 and 85 and every year after that and do it by way of indexing without anyone having to pass a tax bill. There will be an attack that we believe they should end. This is particularly true of the indexing, but I say that not indexing, government has made a profit on inflation and there is no way that we should permanently leave in place an incentive for government to again stimulate inflation in order to increase its own revenues without having the nerve to pass a tax bill. Lowering the tax burden is vital to our strategy for lasting growth through greater savings, investment and production, and that strategy is beginning to work.  So again, we in government must take the lead with a genuine recovery budget. First, we believe that federal spending in 1984 overall should increase no more than the rate of inflation. Our budget includes the six-month freeze and the cost of living adjustments recommended by the Bipartisan Soldier Security Commission. We are also requesting a spending freeze on many federal programs, including a one-year freeze on federal pay and pensions. I hate it a little bit to do that with regard to the military, because they for so long have been in a starvation diet and we finally were just getting their pay scale up somewhat commensurate with what our men and women in uniform should get. But the other day on television, I saw a sergeant over at Fort Myers. They caught him out there on the grounds and asked him how he felt about having his pay frozen. And he said, well, I'd like like anyone. I'd like to get a pay raise. Then he said, if the Commander-in-Chief says that that's necessary to make our country better, I'm for the pay freeze. Having access to a few phone numbers, I couldn't help but call him and tell him how grateful I was and how proud I was to have him in uniform. Well, many of the people who pay the government's bills have already endured tremendous hardships themselves. And that's why I feel that we can ask others, those in government, to sacrifice too. People who work in the world of risk have no guarantee of profits, income, cost of living pay raises, or indexed pensions, let alone a job. Yet they're the ones who must produce the abundance to fund the government programs which keep America strong and assist those in need. Second, you've all heard that much of federal spending is uncontrollable. These are the automatic spending programs, called entitlements. They have a built-in cost increase. Well, in our budget, we propose basic structural reforms in those programs. We will insist on fairness. Those in genuine need will be protected. But if we receive bipartisan support, what used to be out of control will be finally brought under control. Third, we're adjusting our program to restore America's defenses by proposing $55 billion in defense savings for five years. I share the desire for defense savings and I'll continue to seek them. But our armed forces were neglected for more than a decade while the Soviets forged ahead. With the most massive military buildup in history, we cannot negotiate strategic arms reductions, which we're trying to do with only trust and goodwill. Americans will no longer tolerate just a facade of security. They expect our planes to fly, our ships to sail, and our helicopters to stay loft. And only a few years ago, we couldn't guarantee that they would. Yes, defense is expensive, but how much would we have spent to avoid World War II? Who will put a price on the lives of our soldiers lost at Guadalcanal and Tarawa, Omaha Beach, Anzio, or Bastogne? It's my duty as president and the duty of all of us as citizens to make sure that America is strong enough to remain free and at peace. There have been four wars in my lifetime. We didn't get in any one of them because we were too strong. Finally, our budget does propose a standby tax that would not start until 1986, but would only start if the Congress had already passed our spending and budget control program, and only if the deficits still exceeded 2.5 percent of gross national product and only if recovery from the recession was fully underway. I personally believe that economic recovery will make this standby tax unnecessary. In the meantime, this is our way of protecting the tax cuts and indexing that we've won for the American people, and I think it will reassure many of those out in the money markets today that we do mean to control inflation and interest rates. Now, before I take your questions, let me just mention a few other initiatives where we're taking the lead to assist small business and encourage greater growth. I've had the privilege of signing three pieces of legislation, a special... Prompt payment legislation requires the government to pay its bills promptly or pay interest penalties. The Export Trading Company Act of 1982 will increase U.S. exports and jobs by encouraging the formation of export trading companies to serve as intermediaries for businesses in the international marketplace. It's time to start increasing American exports and to stop exporting American jobs. The Small Business Innovation Development Act provides mandatory set-asides from the existing federal research and development budget. This will allow small business to participate more fully in research efforts for our nature's future. For example, during the current fiscal year, this program will direct some 40 to 50 million dollars to small, high-technology firms for innovative research and development. By 1987, the program will provide nearly half a billion dollars to small business entrepreneurs for high technology, new products, new ideas, and new jobs. The private sector is providing strong leadership here in St. Louis. I understand that Monsanto is giving the single largest corporate grant to any university ever for high-tech research and development, about 25 million dollars to Washington University here in your city. To strengthen our firms to compete more effectively, to better mobilize the tools and resources of science and technology, we are creating a non-partisan commission on industrial competitiveness to make specific policy recommendations. So I'd like to ask you today please lend us your wisdom at all the time you can to spare, that you have to spare, and we'll make good use of that time and your ideas. We're a society that's in transition. Those who are hurting need help. We'll provide it. Yet we must keep our eyes on the future and step up our efforts to train today's workforce for tomorrow's world. We want America to remain in the forefront of the technological revolution. We have great hopes for the Landmark Job Training Partnership Act that was passed last year, and we very much admire your strong commitment to training and job creation through organizations like OIC, the Metropolitan Reemployment Task Force, and the Say Yes program. We're submitting to the Congress the Employment Act of 1983 designed to get at the special problems of the long-term unemployed. We'll propose extending unemployment benefits and special incentives to employers who hire the long-term unemployed and young people seeking summer jobs. One of my great regrets last year was our inability to get our Enterprise Zones proposal passed by the Congress, and we'll be pressing hard for it this year. But your fine governor, Kit Bond, he didn't wait. He helped Missouri become one of the 11 states to pass its own Enterprise Zone proposal. Since I used an old-fashioned word a few weeks ago that caught the press by surprise, I'll say he didn't wait for the government to get off its keister. Speaking of Kit Bond, he played a major leadership role in shaping the Small Business Revitalization program together with the Small Business Administration and HUD. Already 21 states led by Missouri have become active partners in this program. It's been estimated that this effort could result in billions of dollars for community development and the creation of thousands of new jobs as federal, state, and private resources are brought together. We're a country with great problems, but we can solve those problems because we're a good people. From coast to coast, on the job and in the classrooms and laboratories at new construction sites and in churches and community groups, neighbors are helping neighbors. They've already begun the building, the research, the work, and the giving that will make America great again. Thank you for being Americans like that. Thank you for the spirit of St. Louis. I have no ambition higher than to prove worthy of the standards that you have set. God bless you all, and I think I'm supposed to take some questions in the time that remains. Mr. President, we welcome you to the Town Hall Forum, which has become a part of the RCGA program. We have two microphones set up, one to your left, one to your right, and we'll ask people to come up and ask their specific questions of you. With your permission, sir, the first one, which may be a composite of a good many small businessmen here. With the budget deficit projections of a couple of hundred billion for this year, 188 billion for next year, and the subsequent competition for the funds for the federal government. What kind of help, if any, can you offer small business for access to what's going to be left in that available capital pool for their own expansion, their own inventory? Anything at all? Well, for one thing, let me say that already the increased rate of personal savings has increased the amount of capital, private capital, capital pool, which should to some extent offset government's increased borrowing. I wish I could give more of an answer than that for these next two years, but we do know that we're pretty much bound in by these two deficits. The recession is certainly responsible for probably half of those deficits, and a large part of them then is the thing that I mentioned of problems that built in unreducible things, but which we're starting to reduce. I can tell you that our projections call for as we get beyond 84 for a decline, and a rather steep decline in the deficits on out through 1988 that would take it considerably down and leave that capital pool available there. And I think with this next tax increase, what we're tax cut, what we have already seen in the increase in personal savings rate, which has amounted to billions of dollars, tens of billions of dollars, will further increase that so that government won't have a monopoly on that available capital. Thank you, Mr. President. Would you direct your attention here, sir? Your question, please? Mr. President, my name is Lane Jumper. I represent the Times Beach Businessman's Association and I think I come from the single most depressed area of small business in the United States of America. The question we have for you is three parts, basically. One, is there anything that you can do to help the small businessmen recover on a short-term basis from the double whammy of both the flood and the docks and the contamination situation in the Times Beach area? Two, would you be willing to allow delegation from Times Beach to speak with you on the long-term solution to the terrible problem we have in Times Beach? And three, would you be willing to appoint a citizen from Times Beach to your special task force that did to deal with the Times Beach situation? To the third one, yes. To the second one, I think that I've been kept pretty well aware and abreast of the problem that I know is there. Let me just say about that, that we are, as you know, and in response to your Governor's request, we have named out of all the bureaus and agencies that could be involved to get by some bureaucratic entanglements. We've named one man in charge of the federal effort and working with the people of the state and the local level there. We have finished taking the samples with regard to the possibility of dioxin, one of the most toxic matters that we know of. We've taken those samples. We have tripled now the number of laboratories that are now running the tests to make sure if there is a threat and the extent of the threat, both in homes and in the area and the open spaces and so forth, of that area. I know what it did to your business with regard to having to close that area and put up the barricades, but I don't think until we know the threat from that dioxin, I don't think we could have done anything other and been responsible interaction if we had not said that people must avoid that until we know what the effect can be. With regard to small business and others we declared that an emergency area as we did again at your governor's request we that makes a small business there available for small business administration loans at the considerably lower rate of interest and we'll do what we can. We have also we're housing about 80% of the people they were the only ones who requested it. Some others have either returned to their homes or are living with friends or relatives. We're doing everything we can and the community cooperative project that has been in the planning we are expecting that to be completed four days from now February 5th and we are expecting also to be hearing the results of the other problems I mentioned before the month is out we're working as fast as we can on that and incidentally as I saw a clipping on paper that I was supposed to have received a letter about this that was never answered I've had everybody combing through everything we never received the letter now whether the post office is to blame or not I don't know but we didn't get the letter I have Mr. President may I express our appreciation for your diligence and perseverance to final passage the five cent federal excise tax on motor fuel and may I tell you that here in Missouri we're already putting it to good use in expectation of these added funds last Friday bids were received for about 45 million in construction work on highways and bridges and like amounts will be received will be committed this month of February and next month in March and very shortly many of our citizens will be back at work on these important construction projects and shortly after that those of us who use the highways will be benefiting from the improvements which were much needed the attractive feature of this whole thing was that it was a user fee and funds are provided by users now a moment ago you referred to the concern about the federal deficit and many of us are terribly concerned about that we also want to be given to other user fees which will in part offset federal expenditures but there's right now any plan for anything of that kind the I know there was a great deal of talk and criticism that the five cent gas tax that I had gone on record is saying it would take a palace coup and I would approve such a tax I did say that but I said it and answered a question in the back at a time when they thought or they were talking about using it simply as to raise general revenues our secretary and now former secretary Drew Lewis of transportation had come to me more than a year ago with a review of what was we were up against with regard to the highways, the deterioration and the bridges now and make the children get out and walk across because they consider it too dangerous dangerous to carry them across and so forth I at that time had to say Drew can you come back next year bad as it is and he did and we approved it as you say as a user fee just a few weeks ago in Illinois a group of road builders met with me and gave me a hard hat which I expect to use in my dealings with congress this session he but they were saying the same thing you are about how many jobs already are in the works because of this program and I view it as again a user fee that when it is no longer needed for the purpose it was passed then it should be repealed so I thank you I I would have to look I don't know how far we can go in that without offsetting the incentive feature of the tax cuts because when you're in a recession there is no question that more money to the people in the private sector is a necessary incentive so I would have to review any further ones as against the need against what they might do to reducing those incentives may we have your question for the president please Mr. President given the scenario that we have a nation on the mend and that we also have very high national deficits do you feel as we move into 1984 that we will be able to maintain the same relatively low level of inflation and low interest rates that we have today yes I do I think the only thing that is keeping interest rates up today is fear those in the lending market know that they have to get back enough in interest to offset the depreciated value of the dollar which is inflation and they are watching us very closely to see if we are going to stay the course or if we are going to go back to that era of quick fixes that always resulted in more inflation and then interest rates following them up this is particularly true of long-term lending my goal is to eliminate inflation I have made speeches out on the mashed potato circuit for about 25 years and back when inflation was only running at about two or two and a half percent a year I used to warn then and how many of you will remember that the people that were deliberately putting that inflation in it didn't come down upon it's like a plague of locusts it was planned and they said it was part of the new economics that it was necessary to maintain prosperity well I said then and I say now that inflation is like radioactivity it's cumulative and sooner or later it gets out of control and my goal is zero inflation and then let interest rates be honest just one last factor also as to why I don't believe that it's necessary as we begin to get return prosperity for inflation to go up is when you've got a full third of the industrial capacity of the nation idle that much capacity it's difficult to see how suddenly a demand on the part of consumers for more goods and product could thus by supply and demand cause inflation cause prices to go up we've got a long way to go before we reach full capacity of industry may we have your question please sir Mr. President my name is Jim Walsh the Vice President of Jefferson Savings and Loan who indicated that you would resist any of the efforts of Congress to abolish the 10 percent withholding law that's going to come into effect can you choose to oppose the wishes of 90 million Americans or small business people and small savers now wait a minute I think I've I can only recall speaking are you speaking about the 10 percent tax cut that goes into effect July 1st 10 to 10 percent withholding of interest on dividends that will become effective July 4th in all financial institutions yes I know now I know that that was very unpopular with a lot of people and they think that it is a way of taxing people on their savings and so forth but what we have discovered is that one of the largest areas of avoidance of tax is in that field that the this has been the biggest loophole whereby people just simply do not pay a tax they legitimately owe and the it's virtually impossible even in a computerized age for the Treasury Department Bureau of Internal Revenue to be able to track this down so we pass this but I would like to call to your attention that there is a very definite level above which that withholding will take place and that for most of the people and certainly most of our retired people who are dependent on savings and the income from them there is no withholding we put it at quite a high level but it was done for that reason alone that there definitely is a large amount of tax that is owed to the government that is not now being paid Mr. President I have been signaled we have time for one more sir because of your schedule over here if you will my name is George Thorne to be here to speak to the President of the United States and the only thing I want to say to you is I don't live in Russia God bless you thank you Mr. President thank you very much that was one of the best questions I've ever had to not answer but since that wasn't a question and since we started on that side I think it's only fair that we make it even and we finish with one over here like a sergeant you're the commander in chief yes sir go ahead your question please Mr. President my name is George Matty I am Executive Vice President of Lindberg Cadillac company here in downtown St. Louis on Sunday evening right in this very auditorium the automobile dealers of Greater St. Louis completed a five day show where we set new attendance records for this convention center at 180,000 people who paid an average of two and a half dollars to see or 60 were sold right from the floor here however on another subject aside from merchandising Cadillac cars I am a worker in the pro-life anti-abortion movement I can assure you that many citizens voted for your pro-life position can we now count on you to use your tremendous powers of persuasion to unite our pro-life members of Congress behind legislation that will stop the killing of the unborn thank you Mr. President yesterday yesterday afternoon I spoke to an audience of this same size 4,000 people in Washington and pledged to them that I am going to continue to do everything I can I realize this is highly controversial I realize that there are people who sincerely and honestly believe that it is an unwarranted infusion in the privacy and the right of choice of women who may choose to go that way but I have to feel that until and unless someone can prove beyond shadow of a doubt that the unborn child is not a living human being then we have to opt in favor that it is alive and it is killing to do what is being done today and that we only condone in self defense thank you Mr. President thank you all very much I'm sorry that I talked as long as I did I'd rather do this for the whole period than try to make a speech first but again I just want to say to you I think I'm going home more rewarded than you because being out there in that plant meeting the workers today seeing what's going on, hearing things like those first few words there about what happened here with the increase in sales and all and seeing all of you I'm going back to Washington convinced more than ever that there isn't anything the people of this country can't do when the people get together and decide it needs to be done thank you again and God bless you thank you Mr. President Mr. Howard Mr. President, mere words can't really express our gratitude you coming here to St. Louis today we have a small token of our appreciation for your appearance here it's a symbol of our great country, a Stuban Eagle which we'd like to have you take back to the Oval Office Ladies and gentlemen would you all please stay in place as the presidential party leaves thank you very much, please stay in place