Deficit may be much larger with the stock market now going down..

[PeacePlan]

A lot of people pay taxes on profits they make in the stock market and they will be claiming loses not gains. I have no idea how much revenue they get from the stock market but I would guess it is a large number. Without these revenues they will reach the debt ceiling sooner. May have to deal with it before the election if revenues drop? We also could be going into a double dip and more unemployment?

[nobody's_hero]

Interesting point.

There is one bright side to the market's falling:

I had been worried that the establishment might be able to "keep things held together with glue and spit" until the 2012 elections, just to make Ron Paul look bad and deny him the ammunition for the issue which is his main selling point: the economy.

Hopefully, the market will bitch slap Congress and the administration for the next year, even though it is going to hurt a lot of Americans in the process :(.

[cindy25]

not just the Fed deficit, but the states (pension funds being wiped out) and esp. NY, NJ, CT which depend on Wall Street to fund social programs (indirectly thru state income taxes )

[Revolution9]

I thought the profits from stocks fell under capital gains? I thought that that profit used to be what was called income, was taxed and wages were not. Now it is backwards with capital gains getting no or little tax and wages getting nailed hard. Am I thinking correctly about these items?

Rev9

[Carehn]

Capital gains are big taxes. You have to pay them on what you make if you sale a stock, on any dividend and then another tax if they come from another country. I think there may be something to what is posted here. You know how government is always overly optimistic about what its going to bring in or dish out. They probably thought they would be pulling taxes in from a dow around 20,000 by the end of next week. what with the markets being so happy about the debt compromise and all.

[VBRonPaulFan]

your losses on stock losses are capped at $3,000 a year. any losses greater than that accrued in one year you carry forward and apply them to the next years returns until the losses are used up. so people can't just post a huge stock loss on their return and get a big check from the government. funny that they cap losses, but not gains :rolleyes:

[Zippyjuan]

Revenues from capital gains account for about 2-3% of all government revenues. http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=3856&type=0 The market losing say ten percent would mean losses in revenues of 0.2%- not any significant addition to the debt or deficit.

they are usually between 2 percent and 3 percent of total receipts.