Poll: Which of these is unethical?

[pb4uski]

An interesting video on legal vs ethics. I was particularly struck by the example of wh fere some people protested at the funeral of a fallen soldier... IMO clearly unethical but also clearly legal because of the first amendment... a great example that legal is not necessarily ethical.

https://youtu.be/CNarucwXMtE

 

[NoiseBoy]

Taking unemployment with no intent to seek work is legal? I thought seeking work was a requirement in all states.

My chief complaint about unemployment benefits is that they can be used by seasonal workers to bridge the winter, or off-season, months. This scenario plays out best in two income households where one spouse has a 12 month job that provides HI benefits. It is unethical because the seasonal worker is collecting unemployment benefits, but has no intention of finding a new job and is only waiting to be re-hired by his/her seasonal employer.

I have also heard of workers who get "laid off" just before retiring so they can collect UI benefits.

Regarding using a trust to hide assets in order to qualify for Medicaid, in my city there is only one decent supportive living facility that accepts Medicaid patients, so I don't think that strategy would play too well here. The best assisted living / skilled nursing / memory care facilities in my community are all 100% private pay.

 

[pb4uski]

Another interesting revelation of this poll is that with 75 responses, none think that Roth conversions or timing when to begin SS are unethical... I agree... but a couple folks in the other thread that spawned this poll were arguing that it was as unethical as sheltering assets to qualify for Medicaid LTC benefits.

The percentage thus far for none of the above is surprising but a lot of that probably are folks who believe that if something is legal then it is ethical (or moral).

 

[FIREmenow]

An interesting video on legal vs ethics. I was particularly struck by the example of wh fere some people protested at the funeral of a fallen soldier... IMO clearly unethical but also clearly legal because of the first amendment... a great example that legal is not necessarily ethical.

https://youtu.be/CNarucwXMtE

While I wholeheartedly agree that this is clearly wrong, I don't consider it unethical. Maybe immoral......

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals

Ethics vs. Morals. ... While they are sometimes used interchangeably, they are different: ethics refer to rules provided by an external source, e.g., codes of conduct in workplaces or principles in religions. Morals refer to an individual's own principles regarding right and wrong.

 

[pb4uski]

Good point... I was probably more thinking immoral when I titled the poll but I wrote ethical.... though I don't view them as being that different... I have a hard time thinking of something that would be immoral but ethical or unethical but moral.

Not so sure I agree with you now... when I went to look up the opposite of immoral in the dictionary it says the antonym of immoral is .... you guessed it... ethical.

 

[Mdlerth]

How ethical is it when half the population is forced to support the other half?

I don't like subsidizing healthcare for wealthy people...

I don't like subsidizing healthcare for anybody, regardless of their finances. Same goes for their groceries, or their housing, or their drug rehab, or anything else. People who are assumed to be competent enough to vote should be considered competent enough to provide for themselves.

I have a well-rehearsed rant about subsidies and supply-demand and price-volume and slippery slopes and societal decay and man's inhumanity to man. But I'll spare the forum from having to read it; God knows DW has heard it often enough!

 

[FIREmenow]

Good point... I was probably more thinking immoral when I titled the poll but I was thinking immoral.... though I don't view them as being that different... I have a hard time thinking of something that would be immoral but ethical or unethical but moral.

Not so sure I agee with you now... when I went to look up the opposite of immoral the dictionary says the antonym of immoral is .... you guessed it... ethical.

LOL!! How thin is that hair?

 

[truenorth418]

Our elected leaders work hard to design and implement tax policy. If they did not want to make these various exclusions available, they would have written the laws differently.

While it is both immoral and illegal to break these laws, there is nothing immoral about following them.

 

[pb4uski]

I guess that you have never heard of the term "unintended consequences"?

If there were perfect ways to prevent abuse then you might have a point. For example, I think that most people would agree that it was not the intent of lawmakers to subsidize health insurance for people with substantial wealth, yet that is what happended in some circumstances with Obamacare subsidies since they are based on income rather than wealth. OTOH, it probably would have been very complicated and an administrative nightmare to design the process to exclude that small subset so at the end of the day it was judged as better to keep things simple even though some situations may fall through the cracks

 

[aaronc879]

scrabbler1, I agree with you but it is a help.

Senator.... a single person can get the child tax credit.... all they need to do is have a qualifying child.

Seriously, I understand your frustration.. but OTOH with a declining population in the US we need to increase birth rates for the long term benefit of the country and the child tax credit helps young families so I don't have much of an issue with it.

US Population by Year

The US population has continued to climb every year. We don't need any incentive to increase it even more. With life expectancies increasing we will be getting overcrowded soon enough.

 

[FIREmenow]

Our elected leaders work hard to design and implement tax policy. If they did not want to make these various exclusions available, they would have written the laws differently.

Probably not your intent, but unfortunately I think your words are accurate (my emphasis), and based on lobbying, not the will of the people.

 

[pb4uski]

US Population by Year

The US population has continued to climb every year. We don't need any incentive to increase it even more. With life expectancies increasing we will be getting overcrowded soon enough.

You are correct... I was referring to declining population growth... and neglected to include that key word..... and I think that is a could be a problem.... who is going to take care of us old folks?

 

[PatrickA5]

My chief complaint about unemployment benefits is that they can be used by seasonal workers to bridge the winter, or off-season, months. This scenario plays out best in two income households where one spouse has a 12 month job that provides HI benefits. It is unethical because the seasonal worker is collecting unemployment benefits, but has no intention of finding a new job and is only waiting to be re-hired by his/her seasonal employer.

I have also heard of workers who get "laid off" just before retiring so they can collect UI benefits.

In my state, seasonal workers don't qualify for unemployment.

 

[marko]

On a broader base:
Maybe it's just me, but after working 40 years, paying my taxes, keeping my nose clean and seeing so much 'gimme for free' out there, I've sort of reached the point of saying "Where's mine?"

I wouldn't break any laws but I have no qualms about getting what I can get, be it SS, ACA, unemployment or whatever.

 

[Tadpole]

Maybe you should have added "Taking a child dependent deduction when a single person is unable to do it"

I am more concerned with continually paying to support other peoples children than someone maximizing the tax code to avoid taxes.

That can be said of any deduction/exemption that doesn't distribute equally among taxpayers. I could say I don't want to support a church/religion or charity if I, myself, do not make sure I get an equal write-off. These sources of individual deductions are not, as far as I can see, constitutional protections. They are individual choices just like, in today's world, children.

If I don't take or don't qualify for any deductions and my tax cohort does, I, inevitably have a higher tax burden that, in a zero sum game, can be construed to be me taking on the additional tax burden of the cohort's forgiven tax burden. (Or construed as helping pay for stained glass windows of someone else's church/religion). However one wants to think about it.

 

[HadEnuff]

On a broader base:
Maybe it's just me, but after working 40 years, paying my taxes, keeping my nose clean and seeing so much 'gimme for free' out there, I've sort of reached the point of saying "Where's mine?"

I wouldn't break any laws but I have no qualms about getting what I can get, be it SS, ACA, unemployment or whatever.

Just what I was about to write. Agree.

There is much about the way the government raises money, and where it spends it that I find unethical and immoral. To carefully pick where I step to avoid as much as possible the many booby-traps of taxation placed in my way by the government is neither unethical, nor immoral. It is my duty to myself and my family.

 

[CRLLS]

WOW. Being guilty of several of these actions, i guess I chose the one that I haven't done (yet?). That is "Structure your assets so you can obtain Medicaid LTC benefits". I don't expect this will ever be done. I can't say that I will never do it. However, I would like say, I see this as different from spending down your assets, as one poster suggested.

As for collecting unemployment benefits, I have done so 2x in my career. The first time it took me over 1 yr to find equivalent work. The 2nd time I was 55 yrs old and had no expectation that, in my field, I would actually find an employer willing to hire me. That didn't stop me from making applications to job openings and collecting unemployment while doing so. If the right job offer came, I would have taken it. BTW, It didn't. Maybe that is unethical or immoral. It was legal.

BTW, is asking your client not to give you a bonus because it would throw you over the ACA cliff, managing your income to optimize your ACA subsidy?

 

[Cobra9777]

The percentages add up to more than 100%. Maybe adding 'None of the above' screwed things up.

 

[Senator]

You are correct... I was referring to declining population growth... and neglected to include that key word..... and I think that is a could be a problem.... who is going to take care of us old folks?

I also think you (wrongfully) assumed the increased population would be financially taking care of you, via SS, Medicare, etc.

I think you (and I) will be, for the most part, financially taking care of the new population increase.

Looking at the demographics, there are going to be a lot less taxpayers, as a percentage of the new population, there there is now.

I don't like subsidizing healthcare for anybody, regardless of their finances. Same goes for their groceries, or their housing, or their drug rehab, or anything else. People who are assumed to be competent enough to vote should be considered competent enough to provide for themselves.

You have not seen anything yet... This is just the beginning. As we continually provide the means to ER without ever having to work at all, people are taking advantage of it in droves.

 

[pb4uski]

I also think you (wrongfully) assumed the increased population would be financially taking care of you, via SS, Medicare, etc.....

You are totally wrong... that never even crossed my mind... not sure why you woud ever think that.

DW and I can take care of ourselves... thank you very much.

 

[pb4uski]

....I have a well-rehearsed rant about subsidies and supply-demand and price-volume and slippery slopes and societal decay and man's inhumanity to man. But I'll spare the forum from having to read it ...

Thank you!

 

[PatrickA5]

I still can't see the difference between:

Structuring your assets to qualify for government-paid long-term care - that was obviously intended to help people that can't afford it.

Structuring your income to qualify for government-paid subsidies to pay for health care premiums - that was obviously intended to help people that can't afford it.

I don't see the difference. But, I also can't say that I would never do either of these.

 

[pb4uski]

.....As for collecting unemployment benefits, I have done so 2x in my career. The first time it took me over 1 yr to find equivalent work. The 2nd time I was 55 yrs old and had no expectation that, in my field, I would actually find an employer willing to hire me. That didn't stop me from making applications to job openings and collecting unemployment while doing so. If the right job offer came, I would have taken it. BTW, It didn't. Maybe that is unethical or immoral. It was legal.

BTW, is asking your client not to give you a bonus because it would throw you over the ACA cliff, managing your income to optimize your ACA subsidy?

On the second part, I would say yes, it is managing your income to optimize your ACA subsidy (but I have no probems with that).

On the first part, I was thinking more about posts that we have seen where people who are FI and lose their job and decided to ER and have no intention of ever working again collect unemployment because they can... they feign that they are job hunting and go through the motions to collect benefits but they really have no intention of accepting a job and working again. It seems to me that your situation was different... you wanted to work and were trying to find another job against daunting odds.

 

[pb4uski]

I still can't see the difference between:

Structuring your assets to qualify for government-paid long-term care - that was obviously intended to help people that can't afford it.

Structuring your income to qualify for government-paid subsidies to pay for health care premiums - that was obviously intended to help people that can't afford it.

I don't see the difference. But, I also can't say that I would never do either of these.

One example might be a 60 yo single person with $2 million who has just ERed.

In the first case, he puts his $2 million in a irrevocable trust so if he needs LTC that Medicaid will pay for it and his nieces and nephews will get the money.

In the second case, between ER and Medicare he draws from taxable accounts rather than tax-deferred accounts to keep his income low enough that he qualifies for subsidies.

To me, those are quite different... with the first egregious and the second benign.... but to you and others.... not so much.

 

[pb4uski]

The percentages add up to more than 100%. Maybe adding 'None of the above' screwed things up.

No, it is because respondents can chose more than one.

Perhaps the confusion is that I initially titled the thread as which is most unethical and when I saw that I could design the poll where people could chose more than one I selected that option and I couldn't figure out how to go b and change the title of the thread to delete the work "most". Sorry for the confusion.

Mods... can you delete the word "most" from the thread title?