Letters to the editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Verifying the facts

Mr. Jaronik wrote in the PVT on Nov. 17 that “Mr. Ferrell would not be willing to verify with his personal records (tax returns), in which he states he ends up paying more taxes while everyone else paid less.”

As I recall, the tax revision by Reagan was in 1983, 34 years ago, so obviously I would not have tax records to verify the fact that I ended up paying more taxes under Reagan than I previously did. However, I do remember there was a national closed-circuit TV seminar which explained the new tax law under Reagan. Readers may recall that I said my taxes were higher, primarily because Reagan eliminated some real estate deductions.

Before the new tax law under Reagan, one could write off accelerated depreciation of income property against ordinary income without limits. I took advantage of that allowance and paid much less taxes because my otherwise taxable income was greatly reduced by the accelerated depreciation. Anyone can research this information if there are doubts. Reagan’s new tax law eliminated accelerated depreciation. Since my previous tax shelter had been eliminated, I ended up paying more in income tax. I admit there are rich Democrats and rich Republicans. The difference is that rich Democrats like Warren Buffet admit the tax code is unfair. Mr. Buffet has said numerous times, “it’s not fair that my secretary gets taxed at a higher rate than I do.” Even Obama wanted to be taxed higher. The Republican fat cats never cease trying to lower their taxes at the expense of raising taxes for the middle class, falsely claiming that trickle-down economics, which has failed miserably every time, will balance the budget. I challenge Mr. Jaronik to give us the source when he wrote, “the Democrats again percentage-wise, have many more wealthy individual and corporate donors.”

I am sorry Mr. Jaronik was not aware of the tax changes under Reagan. Also, it should not be a surprise that Mr. Jaronik did not believe my column because denial and being uninformed seem to be common threads with Republicans. For example, consider the Republican sex degenerate, Roy Moore, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Alabama. Numerous women have stated that Moore sexually preyed upon them when they were as young as 14 while Moore was in his early 30s. At least one woman said that Moore tried to rape her when she was only 16. The shopping mall in Gadsten, Alabama, banned Moore from entering the premises because he had been observed preying on young girls. Most citizens would not have Moore in their social circles, let alone vote for him for any office. Yet the Republican Party in Alabama is fully backing the pervert. America has a very serious problem when truth is ignored and denied by a large portion of our society.

Jim Ferrell