dreyOO said:

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YouBet said:

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For those of you with 529s, your list of expenses that you can withdrawal tax-free has greatly expanded and you can now pay for trade school and certifications with it. Thus, it's not limited to traditional academia anymore.

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That's nice. I'm almost worried I'd overfunded, but this should be nice.

Also, we're buying a Toyota assembled in San Antonio. Normally, I'd just go cash, but I think we'll finance a portion (to write it off) while keeping more cash in savings or invested.

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The car interest deductions phase out pretty quick, think it is $100k single and $200k married.

Doh! Hadn't seen the small print. That sucks. Otoh, we make better than 4% in savings and better than that with wise investment. Still may roll that way.

Thanks for the insight though

TriAg2010 said:

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The gambling provision is a shame. Zero percent of gambling losses should be tax deductible.

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Gambling winning should not be taxable.

if there is a larger standard deduction for those over 60

that will help me in another 5 years..

not having my taxes increase back to the level it was in 2017 helps me.

getting rid of illegal aliens helps drive the price of real estate down and helps me

I work in power generation, lots of good for us. The geothermal incentives definitely moves the needle for us, seems like we will continue building wind and solar farms, but more focus on geothermal and gas conversions. One of the coal plants I manage sits on a large geothermal bed, so we might be pushing for that soon.

Furlock Bones said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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The gambling provision is a shame. Zero percent of gambling losses should be tax deductible.

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Gambling winning should not be taxable.

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Why?

Wow I guess I didn't know that the BBB raised the corp tax rate from 21% to 25%.

I'm a part owner in a very small S corp and was hoping that the BBB was going to make the 21% permanent and thus I would have a case to convert the business over from S to C corp. Primary reason is the s corp money has been taxed in the 24-32% brackets for the current owners as well as triggering personal tax limits and the K1 is a PITA.

BCOBQ98 said:

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Wow I guess I didn't know that the BBB raised the corp tax rate from 21% to 25%.

I'm a part owner in a very small S corp and was hoping that the BBB was going to make the 21% permanent and thus I would have a case to convert the business over from S to C corp. Primary reason is the s corp money has been taxed in the 24-32% brackets for the current owners as well as triggering personal tax limits and the K1 is a PITA.

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It didn't raise it. Stayed at 21%.

It's not investing. It's not income. It's a game of chance. Casinos and gaming websites should pay taxes on income. Or gambling losses should be tax deductible against ordinary income.

LITERALLY today's CEA report shows the cost of living

DECLINING.

do you include the price of fuel in your 'cost of living increase"

Lower gasoline prices are flowing through America's supply chains and reducing inflation for everyday goods in grocery stores across the nation. Thank you, @POTUS!

— Secretary Doug Burgum (@SecretaryBurgum) July 8, 2025

I'm more cognizant of when restaurants try to charge tip on top of tax amounts now that those tips are tax free. That's pretty much it for us.

LMCane said:

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LITERALLY today's CEA report shows the cost of living

DECLINING.

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Tangentially related...cost of restaurants are not declining. Adding the CC FOP fee onto bills is now becoming pretty common. Once that floodgate opened, everyone started rushing in to recover that cost and pass it onto consumers. I noticed a "Non-Cash Adjustment" charge on our Mexican food bill last night that was new for this establishment.

I think we can all expect this to become the norm everywhere within the next several months.

TriAg2010 said:

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Gambling winnings are income and should be taxed as such. Gambling losses are entertainment and [should] not be tax deductible.

"But I play poker for a living and this is less tax favorable than a business which can deduct its expenses." Yes, then operate a business. We want people using their labor to provide goods and services not play games of chance and skill.

"Huh, kinda statist of you." Buddy, I want the boot of the government on the neck of the sin economy because too many people can't help themselves.

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So should day traders be taxed, or is that "service" ok?

When you risk the money its entertainment, but only if you lose? If you win it's income?

As for your desire to lessen sin economies -- I don't actually disagree with you (though that's another topic). But this isn't doing that -- that's the point. This is a SUBSET of very specific people within that industry.

The behemoths that take your money -- the casinos, the sportsbooks, the apps, etc... Those are OK (and often get tax breaks). The workers inside that industry. Those are OK -- no negative tax consequences for them.

All of the people who can't help themselves losing their ass -- this isn't impacting them at all as they aren't itemizing.

What this is doing is taking the actual overall, long-term winners and specifically taxing them. That isn't putting the boot on the neck of the sin economy -- these casinos don't want sharp players! This is the exact opposite, its allowing the casinos not to have to worry about and lose money to the people who actually know what they are doing and instead continue sapping Joe Vegas for his mortgage payment because he can't help himself.

I don't know that I'd be FOR a significant "sin" tax, but this isn't actually that, hell it's more the opposite - this is basically saying the sin and the enablers of the sin are just fine, let's put the hurt on the people who actually cost the enablers money.

Tim Weaver said:

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Yes. Incentives for solar and wind are taken away too.

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Lots of impact to solar panel sales. There is a realization that avenue for a living is coming to an end. I am onboarding a lot of solar guys that are getting out of that and into roof sales instead. It's an Easy transition and it works well for the team to have an influx of seasoned sales guys.

We are awash in natural gas . Look for natural gas fired power generation to fill the gap. Expect lots of pipeline construction , gas fired power generation, and electric power grid expansion in non-commie states.

Which is why this aspect of the bill is so hypocritical -- you're basically taking the ones that CAN do it effectively and penalizing them... But not penalizing those who just willfully piss their money away.

Picture a bar that serves a thousand people a day. 500 of those people have 3-4 drinks. 400 of those people have 7-8 drinks. 90 of those people have 10+ drinks and get blackout drunk.

10 of those people go in and have just 1 drink and then leave. Those 10 people actually cost your business money.

So you're going to raise your prices for just those 10 people for their drink. To the point where it's not worth it to them to drink at all -- or to the point where they need to have 3+ drinks.

Either it's wrong and everyone should be penalized for it (sin tax), or it's permitted and everyone is treated the same.

Can't disagree with you on that .

Problem is lead time on turbines and such. We are wanting to put one in place of the coal plant I manage, but if I ordered large ticket items today, we are several years from getting large ticket items. Best idea is to convert coal plants to natural gas in the interim until new CTs arrive.

No doubt supply of big rotating equipment and electrical equipment limits how fast it can be done . It's still the fastest way tho imo.

Proposition Joe said:

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Which is why this aspect of the bill is so hypocritical -- you're basically taking the ones that CAN do it effectively and penalizing them... But not penalizing those who just willfully piss their money away.

Picture a bar that serves a thousand people a day. 500 of those people have 3-4 drinks. 400 of those people have 7-8 drinks. 90 of those people have 10+ drinks and get blackout drunk.

10 of those people go in and have just 1 drink and then leave. Those 10 people actually cost your business money.

So you're going to raise your prices for just those 10 people for their drink. To the point where it's not worth it to them to drink at all -- or to the point where they need to have 3+ drinks.

Either it's wrong and everyone should be penalized for it (sin tax), or it's permitted and everyone is treated the same.

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It's not a penalty to tax you on income, that's just how it normally works. It's special treatment to allow you to write off the losses. I don't get to write off the cost of my vacation and not pay tax on the income I used to pay for the vacation. Allowing gamblers to write off their losses is special treatment for gamblers.

I've got some clarity on the gambling loss limitation.

It is a 2 phase deduction
1. You can only take 90% of your annual losses
2. The deductible losses cannot exceed 100% of your winnings.

In other words, you can still take 100% of your winnings if it is less than 90% of your losses.

Also, it starts in 2026.
Also, there is more expected legislation on this - the casino lobby was NOT happy lol

How the sausage is made: Senate Republicans have no idea how deduction limits on gambling losses got into Trump’s big bill.

“If you’re asking me how it got in there, no I don’t know,” says Grassley

“I’m not sure what it does,” Cornyn added

Both sit on Finance committee

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) July 8, 2025

halfastros81 said:

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With the stock market you are buying a piece of ownership in a business and businesses are run by people that are generally pretty good at improving the value of said enterprises. Not so much with gambling
Excluding the casino owners of course .

I have no issue with those that want to make a living via gambling but there aren't that many that do so very effectively. A lot of folks do pretty well over the long haul
In the stock market and if you look at the returns of the overall market over the long haul it's clearly a way to build wealth.

Stock market day traders and gamblers should probably be treated the same from a tax perspective imo

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If you are actually part owner in a company you get a percentage of the profits though.

With a stock you may get a dividend, otherwise you're reliant on others perception of the stock price

Agreed, day traders are more aligned with gambling since there's no real investment

Just to make sure I understand the math - if a gambler wins $10,000, but loses $15,000, they can write-off up to $13,500 against their winnings. Right?

By the way, this is likely just window-dressing to help Trump's bill get passed. I read somewhere that it produces $380 billion over 10 years or something similar. Helped make the math much more palatable, cosmetically. I imagine the politicians all present "what-if" scenarios on various revenue-raising items to the CBO, and this one looked like a lot of gain with little pain, and likely not much political fallout (sticking it to a few degenerate gamblers). They can always sneak through a "tax cut" later, once the bill was passed (which is likely to happen). Sleazy, for sure.

I bleed maroon said:

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Just to make sure I understand the math - if a gambler wins $10,000, but loses $15,000, they can write-off up to $13,500 against their winnings. Right?

By the way, this is likely just window-dressing to help Trump's bill get passed. I read somewhere that it produces $380 billion over 10 years or something similar. Helped make the math much more palatable, cosmetically. I imagine the politicians all present "what-if" scenarios on various revenue-raising items to the CBO, and this one looked like a lot of gain with little pain, and likely not much political fallout (sticking it to a few degenerate gamblers). They can always sneak through a "tax cut" later, once the bill was passed (which is likely to happen). Sleazy, for sure.

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No- if you won 10 and lost 15, you would get to claim a 10 deduction.

If you won 10 and lost ten, you would claim 9
If you won 10 and lost 5, you would claim 4500
If you won 10 and lost 100, you would claim 10.

See the post about 2 phases about 4 posts up.

I think we're generally in agreement but the one thing I'll add is the perception of what a stock is worth by others is based on past numbers and projections of future numbers rather than say the 50/50 proposition of black or red (extreme example for illustration purposes).