4 ms·

I have never understood the notion that taxes at or above 50% are at all ethical, and yet some argue openly for 80%+. The idea that the government is entitled

I have never understood the notion that taxes at or above 50% are at all ethical, and yet some argue openly for 80%+. The idea that the government is entitled to more of someone's earnings than they are is shocking. To then suggest the government is entitled to 4 out of every 5 dollars a person earns is, quite frankly, beneath consideration in my eyes. What right do you, i or anyone else have to call this anything but theft?

lfowles 11y ago
Tax brackets. The government isn't entitled to 80% of what _any_ person earns, just a portion of what the _richest_ earn. Looking at GP's PDF for 1945: Income Take home $10,000 $7,060 $20,000 $12,140 $50,000 $21,680 $100,000 $29,680 $200,000 $37,180 $500,000 $55,180 Of course, this is for income, the people being taxed the highest rates will also have capital gains. Inspired by michaelchisari below, here's the same table in 2015 $$ Income Take home $132,576.67 $93,599.13 $265,153.33 $160,948.07 $662,883.33 $287,426.21 $1,325,766.67 $393,487.55 $2,651,533.33 $492,920.05 $6,628,833.33 $731,558.05 Whew, big numbers.
- michaelchisari 11y ago
  Fr the record, $55,180 in 1945 is the equivalent of $727,917.20 now.
  - lfowles 11y ago
    Thanks! Added another table with modern day $$$. Big numbers!
- liquidise 11y ago
  > The government isn't entitled to 80% of what _any_ person earns, just a portion of what the _richest_ earn. Astounding double standards. Some numbers: if Ted makes $100,000/yr and Jim earns $1,000,000/yr and both are taxed at 30%, Jim is already paying $270,000 _more_ in taxes every year. Even at the same tax rate. Crank Jim's rate to 90% and we are looking at an $870,000/yr difference! Through what greed can we morally justify such insatiable lust for the money other's have earned? Furthermore, the capital gains argument is rife with unintended consequences. It, quite literally, disincentives the wealthiest folks from innovating and earning money through economically productive means. Instead, we send the message "if you insist on earning money by working like the rest of us, we are going to take 80% of it. But, if you want to rest on the laurels of your investments and be otherwise unproductive, by all means. The choice is yours." It terrifies me that this mindset is the majority opinion these days.
  - lfowles 11y ago
    As the other reply says " Please learn how marginal tax brackets and rates work before talking about the issue where people can hear you. "
    - liquidise 11y ago
      I am aware how they work. I get that all earning up to a point are taxed under bracket x, and then after that are taxed at bracket y, and so forth. Unless you mean something else in which case i welcome you to explain where i have erred here. If that is in fact what you mean, it still changing absolutely nothing. The effective tax rate on folks in these upper brackets would still be enormous. But i guess piggybacking baseless comments is an easy way to avoid justifying these stances. I still have not seen someone say how they are justified in taking that much money from people while feeling ethical.
      - lfowles 11y ago
        My POV: Even with extraordinarily high taxes at the higher tiers of the brackets, is that not enough for the rich to live quite well? IFF funding government (for example, if an effective basic income program was in place) was better than everyone doing their own thing, then I see no big loss from flattening the take-home income curve. If they want to live extravagantly, income tax isn't going to be a big hurdle, which is why I mentioned capital gains as well.
1971genocide 11y ago
Do you know what is theft ? When kids born today are unable to afford to go to college, while the same people who are against +80% tax were born in an era when tax was way higher at +90% that helped pay for their education and create the infrastructure that allowed them to earn their wealth. "Surplus Wealth is a scared trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community " - Andrew Caregie. Guess what if you think the government is treating you unfairly then be prepared when society bifurcates and returns a stack error in the form of "bolsheviks".
- onewaystreet 11y ago
  Some of the wealthiest people in the US were born just a few decades ago. Not all US billionaires are not crotchety 80-year-olds.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  More kids than ever before can afford to go to college. http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2010/ted_20100428.png http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2010/ted_20100428.png
  - rosser 11y ago
    Having little choice but to sign yourself up for a mortgage-sized debt that can't be discharged isn't the most obvious definition of "affordable" I've ever encountered.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      I'm defining "afford to go to college" as "have enough money to actually attend if they choose to". The number of people who actually attend is a lower bound on this number. A quick google search yields an average cost of $9k for a state school, $22k for out of state, and $31k for private. Maybe the expensive side of college is "mortgage-sized" debt, provided you are comparing to the cheapest mortgages.
    - thetopher 11y ago
eli_gottlieb 11y ago
Please learn how marginal tax brackets and rates work before talking about the issue where people can hear you.
unprepare 11y ago
> dollars a person earns When an individual who grows up without ever taking advantage of a single piece of society, they will have an argument for taxes being unfair. Lets not forget the debts that all citizens owe to the country: Roads Internet Telephones Water Food regulation Environmental regulation Scientific advancements Protection from outside forces (military) Flight regulations etc. Once youve paid for all of those you can begin to complain about how taxes are unfair.
- liquidise 11y ago
  I am not arguing for no taxes. I am saying that an effective tax rate above 50% is theft. Taxing more successful people at multiplicatively higher %'s is lunacy. They already are paying way more than lower income folks at the same rate. If your argument is that more successful people consume more resources and thus owe the government a greater debt, then i would argue we should be taxing consumption more. Not income.
  - unprepare 11y ago
    > i would argue we should be taxing consumption more Consumption tax disproportionately affects the poorest citizens. It is a non-workable solution. Consumption is what drives the economy, disincentives to consumption would hurt the economy as a whole (causing the wealthy to lose money via investments). Further, a citizen has no hope to pay off the debt that it owes the government for the things i listed previously. There is no tax rate at which you would effectively pay back the government for its investments in society. The yearly budget of the US Department of Transportation alone, is 77 billion - that's just to keep federal roads drivable. If you think theres some tax level at which you have paid for the initial investment and upkeep of the federal highway system, by all means share it here, i would love to know what number you think is 'fair' since its 'your money' even though they aren't 'your roads' You have an extremely entitled view of what "fair" is.
njharman 11y ago
Don't earn such a disproportionate amount of money and it won't get "stolen". In other words if you don't steal so much from others, go meet won't steal it back.

lfowles 11y ago

Tax brackets. The government isn't entitled to 80% of what _any_ person earns, just a portion of what the _richest_ earn. Looking at GP's PDF for 1945: Income Take home $10,000 $7,060 $20,000 $12,140 $50,000 $21,680 $100,000 $29,680 $200,000 $37,180 $500,000 $55,180 Of course, this is for income, the people being taxed the highest rates will also have capital gains. Inspired by michaelchisari below, here's the same table in 2015 $$ Income Take home $132,576.67 $93,599.13 $265,153.33 $160,948.07 $662,883.33 $287,426.21 $1,325,766.67 $393,487.55 $2,651,533.33 $492,920.05 $6,628,833.33 $731,558.05 Whew, big numbers.

michaelchisari 11y ago
Fr the record, $55,180 in 1945 is the equivalent of $727,917.20 now.
- lfowles 11y ago
  Thanks! Added another table with modern day $$$. Big numbers!
liquidise 11y ago
> The government isn't entitled to 80% of what _any_ person earns, just a portion of what the _richest_ earn. Astounding double standards. Some numbers: if Ted makes $100,000/yr and Jim earns $1,000,000/yr and both are taxed at 30%, Jim is already paying $270,000 _more_ in taxes every year. Even at the same tax rate. Crank Jim's rate to 90% and we are looking at an $870,000/yr difference! Through what greed can we morally justify such insatiable lust for the money other's have earned? Furthermore, the capital gains argument is rife with unintended consequences. It, quite literally, disincentives the wealthiest folks from innovating and earning money through economically productive means. Instead, we send the message "if you insist on earning money by working like the rest of us, we are going to take 80% of it. But, if you want to rest on the laurels of your investments and be otherwise unproductive, by all means. The choice is yours." It terrifies me that this mindset is the majority opinion these days.
- lfowles 11y ago
  As the other reply says " Please learn how marginal tax brackets and rates work before talking about the issue where people can hear you. "
  - liquidise 11y ago
    I am aware how they work. I get that all earning up to a point are taxed under bracket x, and then after that are taxed at bracket y, and so forth. Unless you mean something else in which case i welcome you to explain where i have erred here. If that is in fact what you mean, it still changing absolutely nothing. The effective tax rate on folks in these upper brackets would still be enormous. But i guess piggybacking baseless comments is an easy way to avoid justifying these stances. I still have not seen someone say how they are justified in taking that much money from people while feeling ethical.
    - lfowles 11y ago
      My POV: Even with extraordinarily high taxes at the higher tiers of the brackets, is that not enough for the rich to live quite well? IFF funding government (for example, if an effective basic income program was in place) was better than everyone doing their own thing, then I see no big loss from flattening the take-home income curve. If they want to live extravagantly, income tax isn't going to be a big hurdle, which is why I mentioned capital gains as well.

1971genocide 11y ago

Do you know what is theft ? When kids born today are unable to afford to go to college, while the same people who are against +80% tax were born in an era when tax was way higher at +90% that helped pay for their education and create the infrastructure that allowed them to earn their wealth. "Surplus Wealth is a scared trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community " - Andrew Caregie. Guess what if you think the government is treating you unfairly then be prepared when society bifurcates and returns a stack error in the form of "bolsheviks".

onewaystreet 11y ago
Some of the wealthiest people in the US were born just a few decades ago. Not all US billionaires are not crotchety 80-year-olds.
yummyfajitas 11y ago
More kids than ever before can afford to go to college. http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2010/ted_20100428.png http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/2010/ted_20100428.png
- rosser 11y ago
  Having little choice but to sign yourself up for a mortgage-sized debt that can't be discharged isn't the most obvious definition of "affordable" I've ever encountered.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    I'm defining "afford to go to college" as "have enough money to actually attend if they choose to". The number of people who actually attend is a lower bound on this number. A quick google search yields an average cost of $9k for a state school, $22k for out of state, and $31k for private. Maybe the expensive side of college is "mortgage-sized" debt, provided you are comparing to the cheapest mortgages.
  - thetopher 11y ago

eli_gottlieb 11y ago

Please learn how marginal tax brackets and rates work before talking about the issue where people can hear you.

unprepare 11y ago

> dollars a person earns When an individual who grows up without ever taking advantage of a single piece of society, they will have an argument for taxes being unfair. Lets not forget the debts that all citizens owe to the country: Roads Internet Telephones Water Food regulation Environmental regulation Scientific advancements Protection from outside forces (military) Flight regulations etc. Once youve paid for all of those you can begin to complain about how taxes are unfair.

liquidise 11y ago
I am not arguing for no taxes. I am saying that an effective tax rate above 50% is theft. Taxing more successful people at multiplicatively higher %'s is lunacy. They already are paying way more than lower income folks at the same rate. If your argument is that more successful people consume more resources and thus owe the government a greater debt, then i would argue we should be taxing consumption more. Not income.
- unprepare 11y ago
  > i would argue we should be taxing consumption more Consumption tax disproportionately affects the poorest citizens. It is a non-workable solution. Consumption is what drives the economy, disincentives to consumption would hurt the economy as a whole (causing the wealthy to lose money via investments). Further, a citizen has no hope to pay off the debt that it owes the government for the things i listed previously. There is no tax rate at which you would effectively pay back the government for its investments in society. The yearly budget of the US Department of Transportation alone, is 77 billion - that's just to keep federal roads drivable. If you think theres some tax level at which you have paid for the initial investment and upkeep of the federal highway system, by all means share it here, i would love to know what number you think is 'fair' since its 'your money' even though they aren't 'your roads' You have an extremely entitled view of what "fair" is.

njharman 11y ago

Don't earn such a disproportionate amount of money and it won't get "stolen". In other words if you don't steal so much from others, go meet won't steal it back.