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Nick Paleveda received his B.A. and M.B.A. degrees from the University of South Florida in 1979. Mr. Paleveda attended the University of Miami receiving his law degree in 1982. Next, Mr. Paleveda attended the University of Denver and received his Master of Laws in Taxation in 1983. He was inspired to go to law school by his cousin William Saxbe, the Attorney General of the United States under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. During summers, Mr. Paleveda attended programs in Oxford University for law in England and Harvard University in the U.S. In 1984 he was admitted to practice in the State of Florida and admitted before the U.S. Tax Court and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Paleveda became a partner in the tax law firm Hampton, Paleveda, Murphy, Cody and Levy which employed 13 J.D. LL.M or J.D. CPA tax attorneys in Florida.

Mr. Paleveda won the Whatcom Literacy Council Trivia Bee in 2007 and in 2008 along with teammates Ken Jennings (Jeopardy! Champion) and Drew Giovanis in 2007 and Karla Walters and Ted Rosen in 2008.

For more information, visit http://www.obamataxesandyou.com.

“I read Nick Paleveda’s latest book and thoroughly enjoyed it. In his book Nick uses humor, and sometimes even a little light sarcasm, to take us on a light hearted romp through some of the most serious and thought provoking issues facing us today” KennethE. Guard, CFP, Ft. Myers Florida.

“Great job! I loved the bar charts!” Andy Ewing, PhD Candidate

“This book will last past the election” John Bremer MBA, CPA.

PageOneLit.com: Where did you grow up and who were your earliest influences and why?

Marjorie: I grew up in the Skagit Valley of Washington State, the Seattle area, the San Francisco Bay area where I attended Burlingame High School, then we moved to New Zealand, where I graduated from Whangarei Girls’ High School. Until we moved to Seattle, I spent a great deal of time hunting and fishing with my dad. We built model airplanes together back in the days when there was no remote control, so you fueled them up, fired them up and then tried to chase them in the car. It was a hoot. We also tied our own flies, and went camping as a family. Salmon fishing was an annual event, and I grew to love and respect the outdoors. I learned to shoot a shotgun, and I was a pretty good shot.

My dad was a very methodical, careful engineer, who was a lot like McGiver. He could make anything out of anything. I learned to take care of my gear, and to always put things back in better shape than when I took them out. I think I also developed a lot of confidence, self-reliance, and creativity. You learn to look for solutions, ways to improve things.

I was very idealistic. My cousin, Janet, introduced us to God and Jesus Christ. She taught us John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” I have continued to grow closer to my Savior throughout my life. I grew up in the Presbyterian Church and then, as an adult, I joined the Mormon Church. I actually attended the same congregation as Bay Buchanan, Pat’s sister. When Reagan won the presidency, she went to D.C. as Reagan’s Treasurer, the person who oversees the Mint.

My other influences were Dag Hammarskjold, Albert Schweitzer, Dietrich Bonheoffer, Nancy Drew, Marguerite Henry, The Founding Fathers, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and the old WWII movies with Bob Hope, Gregory Peck, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, James Michener, Oscar & Hammerstein, Rogers & Hart, Lerner & Lowe. I loved Broadway and anything on stage. My first live theater was “The Music Man” starring ROBERT PRESTON! My cousin Janet took us. I loved it at the time, but when I think of it now, I can’t believe just how lucky and blessed I was. I have always been a musical romantic. In addition, William O. Douglas, Madame Laura Nichols, my French teacher at Saint Nicholas School in Seattle, Mrs. Cowie, Miss Sadler, and my math teacher at Whangarei Girls School in New Zealand, John Keats, Robert Frost, E.E. Cummings, Ben Franklin, Anne of Green Gables, My Friend Flicka, The Black Stallion, Walter Farley, Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, William Faulkner, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Donne. I loved to read everything. Reading was my refuge and where my dreams could come to life through the lives and dreams and struggles of people just like me. I learned that no dream is too large to achieve and no difficulty is to great to overcome. My local TV heroes as a little girl were Wanda Wanda, and J.P. Patches. They taught us how to love our neighbors, that we were special and that our dreams were worth the effort to make them come true, and that life is joyful and full of wonder.

PageOneLit.com: Why did you write Obama Taxes and You!? What inspired this book?

Marjorie: My husband, Nick Paleveda, ran across Jerome Corsi’s book The Obama Nation, and basically went nuts. I had heard about the book, but I really didn’t have time to read it or respond, besides, I saw Corsi interviewed. He appears to be a bitter, defensive, fraud. Anyone with his credentials should be about bringing light to the world, not twisted deception. The book is about angry confrontation and slander, not information.

As usually happens, he starts writing, and then I get to edit what he writes, and then I end up finishing what he started and making it mine. He wrote the fun parts, I actually did the research into what they were actually proposing. I also researched the General Accountability Office, CBO, Census Bureau, and the IRS. I also enjoyed the web sites of groups on both sides of this debate. I had never known who the economists who came up with “trickle down” economics were. I would like to research more about that entire movement.

PageOneLit.com: In your new book . . .--you write “In politics, much of what we hear and see is a mixture of fact and fiction; even with tax policies.” Explain.

Marjorie:I got into taxation shortly after ERISA. From what I have seen, quite often tax policy depends more on who someone crosses than reality. As a tax accountant, your job is to find a legal way to reduce your client’s tax bill. Of course, the people who can afford to consult with you really don’t need any help with paying their taxes. Most often, the tax provisions providing opportunities to reduce taxes have been put in place to ostensibly serve some higher purpose like stimulating business development, or protecting an industrial sector, or to encourage support for a wise public policy. Encouraging savings and capital formation is the Republican rationale for the 15% rate on dividend and interest income. The fact that the person receiving this income does so without lifting a finger to produce the income is ignored.

Now if this low rate of taxation really does encourage saving and capital formation, then we should have the highest rate of saving in the industrial world because we have relatively low taxes compared to everyone else. Well, actually we don’t. Most Americans have little if anything saved for retirement, and most of us have about $17,000 in credit card debt.

They will insist that the low tax rate is necessary or the economy will grind to a halt. Well, historically, the rates on interest and dividends were sometimes much higher, and we managed to save more than we do now. However, people in this country seem to have an aversion to basing political or financial decisions on facts.

PageOneLit.com: . . . you write that Obama proposes a “Make Work Pay” refundable income tax credit of 6.2% on the first $8,100 earned. Explain. You say Obama will raise revenue to offset his tax cuts. Explain.

Marjorie: Right now Social Security is under intense fiscal pressure for a number of reasons. The premise that each generation would pay for the retired generation relies on a steady increase in the number of workers. In the 1980s the Reagan Administration and Congress realized that the system was in almost dire straits, and that we had to do something to forestall a collapse. Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill worked out the compromise that kept the system healthy for the next 25 years. The payroll taxes, Social Security and Medicare were increased slowly to the current rate of 15.3% total on income up to $102,000 for this year. The Medicare tax has no cap. You pay that rate on all earned income. Earned income is wages and salary paid to you for working. Dividend incomes, interest income, capital gains, are not earned income. There is no Social Security Tax levied on dividend, interest or capital gain income.

In the present situation, it is vital to keep the revenue flowing into the Social Security and Medicare system. If you want to maintain that revenue stream, then you cannot reduce these taxes. However, the payroll taxes are the most regressive tax in our tax system that means that low income workers are paying a greater portion of their income for these taxes than higher income workers. However, lower income groups actually spend on the things that keep the economy moving.

Obama’s proposal would pay single people up to $500 for a single person based on 6.2% of the first $8,100 of income. For a family with two income earners, that amount would be doubled. This frees up cash to spend on consumer goods or for saving, and at the same time maintains the integrity of the Social Security revenue stream while putting more cash in the hands of the people who need it most, and who will be in a position to spend the cash on consumer goods. This also makes the system a little more equitable. As we point out in the book, right now waitresses, college students, the working poor are all supporting retired billionaires.

In order to offset these credits, Obama will tax income in excess of $250,000 and tax them for the first time. This will put more fairness in the system, and improve its solvency, I would hope. It is a step in the right direction.

The important aspect of this proposal is that it is designed to be revenue neutral.

PageOneLit.com: In . . ., you discuss in detail LNG stations. What are LNG stations and how come we are not hearing about these and how we could be paying 87 cents per gallon at the pump?

Marjorie: Did we mention that reducing our dependence on oil would put Big Oil and Detroit in an unfamiliar position of not being able to control the economy?

First, T. Boone Pickens has devoted significant financial resources creating a movement to demand increased use of natural gas and wind power to bridge the gap between current technology and more efficient technology based on renewable energy sources. Go to www.pickensplan.com The COE of ___________ energy has joined forces with Boone to promote drilling for natural gas and the conversion of our fleets to CNG or LNG.

Second, the place where this is successful in this country is the state of Utah. The state embarked on a public private partnership with the local gas company to create a network of stations able to pump the Natural gas so that people could fill up with some convenience. In addition, there are kits to convert your gas line in your home so you can forget the gas station and just fill up at home.

Finally, people are converting their traditional cars to LNG or CNG based cars, and then they can save substantially on their gas bill.

You don’t hear about it, because Big Oil and the auto companies don’t want you to know. They would not be as profitable if we don’t have to buy their cars and burn oil based fuel. They are not going to allow information contrary to their best interests.

The last speech given by Eisenhower while he was still in office was a lengthy call for the American people to resist being consumed and controlled by the military-industrial complex. And you thought that was a left-wing battle cry. Sorry.

The media in this country is tightly controlled by the corporations who own the outlets. As these channels have become more consolidated, it has reduced the number of news sources, and increased the power of the corporations who own the news outlets. The result is that you hear what they want you to hear, unless you are really diligent about seeking out the truth. This does not mean that you use really off-the-wall news outlets or extremist web sites, but you have to take information with a grain of salt, and you have to work diligently to constantly learn about your world. I read everything I can put my hands on. I have lived in many places, and in been involved in several industries. These experiences give one insights that are not available in your living room on commercial television. As Mame Dennis so eloquently put it,

“Live, live, live! Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving!”

In today’s world, if you don’t follow that advice, you won’t thrive. There are too many forces of disinformation out there. The real danger is the “disinformation” that obscures and misleads, because this subtle deception is far more powerful than a blatant lie. Lies are easily disproved. Half truths can be fatal.

PageOneLit.com: Obama, Taxes, and You! is very informative on our “Tax History”. How much research did you have to do for this section and how did you research?

Marjorie: Well, we both have advanced degrees in taxation and over two decades of involvement with the U.S. tax system, so at this point; it was more like sharing a lifetime of learning. In addition, the IRS, General Accountability Office, the Census Bureau, and the Congressional Budget Office are outstanding resources if you want to learn about history or taxes or both. I checked these web sites for detailed facts and just wrote the rest from my own experience. I spent the majority of the research time confirming my facts and in studying the candidates’ proposals.

PageOneLit.com: In your opinion has our tax system reached such a time when it’s too overwhelming for the average American to understand and keep up with the changes every year? Will Obama simplify our tax system enough to make it less complex? If so how?

Marjorie:The tax system is actually way past the point of the rational, systematic collection of revenue to provide the means to discharge the responsibilities of the government. Part of this is due to the fact that we no longer have a clear statement of what exactly the government should provide in terms of services, policy, and enforcement. Without enforcement, the policies are meaningless, and the services will not fulfill their mandate or accomplish the tasks assigned.

For example, the Environmental Protection Act passed under Richard Nixon, who signed it into law. The Reagan Administration had no support for repealing the Act, so they systematically undermined it. Bush I did nothing to stop the erosion of the legal requirements under the Act. Clinton had budget constraints imposed by the tax and borrow Republicans, and under Bush II the Act has suffered to the point of being enforced by private citizens through the federal court system. Enforcement of the laws is the responsibility of the Executive Branch. The Republican administrations since Reagan have ignored this responsibility, at best. They seem to have obstructed enforcement when enforcement would have reduced the profits of corporations providing campaign financing.

Secondly, part of the complexity is simply due to the fact that we live in an unbelievably complex world. Technology has changed our lives in so many ways, and the result is that we need a whole new set of laws to deal with this increasing complexity. However, we should also then keep things as simple as possible.

The average American cannot possibly understand the laws in order to comply with them. First of all Congress cannot simply leave the tax code alone. In the book, we provided a chart showing the historical highest and lowest marginal tax rates on individual income. At least one of these rates has changed almost every year since 1913. Not only that, but almost every year added new provisions that complicated some aspect of the income tax. At this point, every area of the tax law requires specialization because you simply cannot keep up with the changes and all the minutiae of the provisions.

The President cannot change the culture of Washington alone. We must demand that our representatives in the House and Senate throw the lobbyists out and stop the games. We need to provide fair efficient laws focused on raising the necessary revenue as simply as possible. We need to stop taxing differently sources of revenue at different rates and eliminate the distinction between earned income and income from investments. Higher marginal rates would encourage saving in retirement plans and reduce the attractiveness of excessive compensation.

Marjorie: What I learned from writing this book is that we have been carefully and systematically led down this path. However, we followed willingly because we were too confident that “conventional” thinking is always correct and consistent with what we need to accomplish. I really came to understand the way labeling an exclusion insulate one from reality and from confronting one’s misconceptions. I learned how groups can co-opt rational thought because they refuse to look at facts and rely on “tradition”. There are still individuals in all parts of this country who refuse to accept that people of color work hard, are extremely intelligent, and capable. I have heard their disturbing, ignorant, negative comments. I learned how difficult it is to present reality and have them take it seriously if the facts conflict with cultural beliefs. I learned how unwilling most people are to challenge their peer group, let alone strike out on an independent path. I learned that we should not trust our government, especially when we are so unwilling to challenge the status quo and the alternatives presented by either party.

Marjorie: What we hoped to accomplish was to give people permission to admit they were wrong about trickledown economics, about the obsession with abortion and gay rights to the exclusion of paying appropriate attention to their core responsibilities, paying attention to the responsibilities of our government officials, and ignoring our responsibilities to our neighbors within our borders and those in other countries. We hoped to invite them to reexamine their beliefs and opinions and to come to different conclusions. Finally, we hoped to educate the American people as to the history of our system, the elements of the system that have been successful, and the elements that are unfair and lead to unhealthy results for the economy as a whole.

This is the most important election in my lifetime. I am almost to the end of my fifth decade on this planet. I love this country, and I want a brighter future for my sons and my grandchildren. I want a secure, comfortable retirement for myself and my employees.

Finally, we hoped to influence those on the fence that Barack Obama is the best choice because he wants to lead us into the future. He is running to lead America where she needs to go; not keep us where we are comfortable.

PageOneLit.com: You say you are voting for Obama because he is a liberal - This coming from a Ronald Reagan voter. Explain. In your opinion who has been our best president over the past 20 years and why?

Marjorie: Actually, I am voting for Obama because his policies do the best job of addressing tax changes, job creation, and equity for senior citizens, heath care, and insurance for all Americans, the financial institutions, the economy, the war and leading us into the future without being held hostage to the past.

I go to great lengths in the book to ban labels because they are used to destroy any meaningful exploration of alternative solutions to the challenges we face. If McCain was the same person who ran in 2000 and his policies were not simply a continuation of the failed Republican ideology that takes from the poor and middle class to enrich the wealthy, and his policies made sense, I would vote for him. He seems to have completely sold out to his Republican cronies.

Look at the Administration’s latest phony “crisis”. Remember the WMDs in Iraq? NOT. Remember Katrina? Where were the Republicans?

I have looked at this issue. We have discussed it at length with our enrolled actuaries, and our professional colleagues. There is no crisis requiring any bailout. There is not one dime in that proposal for the American taxpayer. During the Savings & Loan fiasco, which was the result of Congressional law changes, we guaranteed the loans, and though it took 20 years to wind up, the taxpayers actually made money. We did not have to give them one dime.

The more I learn about this bill and our circumstances, the more I oppose it completely.

• About 1% of the population controls 59% of the stocks. That 1% made this mess, and they need to take the consequences. Further, Paulson and Bernanke were on the watch that let this happen, when there were very simple steps that could have been taken to avoid it; like banning short selling on financial institution stocks for 12 months about 6 months ago, or even two weeks ago.

• The former Comptroller General, David Walker, was on a fiscal wake-up tour at the end of last year and until March of this year trying to get some attention on the disastrous course we have been on. He was persuaded to resign.

• All aid should be directed at individual taxpayers losing their homes, making credit available to small businesses, and investing in green energy to create jobs here.

• I am vehemently opposed to giving any control to Paulson and Bernanke. We should trust the two people who did nothing? NO WAY.

The great mistake in doing this is buying the securities. If as they say, they can honestly determine the actual current market value of each security, there is no reason to make the taxpayers put up one dollar. The same affect can be achieved by the use of a government guarantee on each investment based on its real market value. This does not require the government to put one dollar up. This does allow a true value statement of the asset on a balance sheet and returns liquidity by assuring the buyer of its minimum guaranteed value should all the assets in the security go south. Remember that these securities all have a commercial or residential property (an honest to god asset) at their base. If the loans do not perform, the property ends up in the hands of an investor who then can resell or hold. Some of the investments would be bad but some would be good. This is not a problem, if the value the treasury guarantees is an accurate representation of the intrinsic value of the asset. Remember when all was said and done the taxpayers made money on the savings and loan properties. Yes it did take 20 years to wind up. So rather than putting up 700 billion in cash, guarantee the basic value and let the investors sort it out using the market to finance the deal not the taxpayer.

As an odd statistic, the growth in wealth held by the 400 wealthiest federal tax payers is some 862 billion dollars in the last 4 years. Let them finance the deal. They made the money.