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I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year. For every additional dollar I earn, I only get to keep 47 cents of it, just countin
by SlowComputer 11y ago
I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year.
For every additional dollar I earn, I only get to keep 47 cents of it, just counting _income_ taxes. In reality, only high earners pay taxes. And high-salaried people are getting screwed under Obama's war against the most productive citizens.
- chongli 11y agoYou're caught in the middle ground. If you were a billionaire earning hundreds of millions per year you could afford to spend 10 million a year to hire a team of experts to hide all your money in the Caymans.
- acchow 11y agoWhere did you get these prices from? Why do you think it costs $10 million a year to hide all your money in the Caymans?
- enraged_camel 11y agoIt's from the NYTimes piece linked in the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/economy/for-the-wealthiest-private-tax-system-saves-them-billions.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/economy/for-the-w...
- harryh 11y agoIt's a real mystery what that piece never explains that the biggest reason for the drop in % of income paid in taxes is just the drop (from 28% to 15%) in the top cap gains rate.
- nitrogen 11y agoFor every additional dollar I earn, I only get to keep 47 cents of it, just counting _income_ taxes. If that were for all taxes, and the marginal rate was still better for lower incomes, I don't think that sounds so bad. Sure, we humans always want to keep more of our hard work for ourselves, but pragmatically speaking I'd be okay if my marginal rate at 7 figures (which I'm nowhere near) was 53% in exchange for the societal stability and upward mobility my taxes could enable.
- curiousgeorgio 11y agoWhile you are entitled to that opinion, I think it's really hard to say with any confidence what your attitude would be at a vastly different income level. It may be useful to frame the idea in a different way: You sound as if you'd approve of a ~53% tax rate at an income level higher than your own, but not necessarily at your own level. For the sake of argument, if you were to work just as hard for every dollar at that level as you do now for every dollar, but simply worked that much more (so every dollar required the same amount of work), do you think you'd still be willing to only keep 47 cents of each dollar? Similarly, if you were earning 7 figures and wanted to help society / people in need, would the government really be your best choice in terms of bang for your buck?
- harryh 11y ago> if you were earning 7 figures and wanted to help society / people in need, would the government really be your best choice in terms of bang for your buck? Has anyone ever tried to make a serious attempt to analytically tackle this question? There are a lot of people that try to rank charities against each other in terms of effectiveness. Could the same be done with government? Or even some portion of government? I have absolutely no idea, but this seems like an interesting question.
- morgante 11y ago> Could the same be done with government? I don't think so, just because the goods it provides are so numerous and muddled. Take one example: the fact that if I sign a contract I will feel legally obligated to follow through on it. This provides tremendous social good (billions of dollars worth), but it's very hard to quantify exactly how much. Then you have to figure out how much it costs to provide that good. Should you include the total cost of government? No, probably not, because that includes lots of other goods. But the direct cost of say the courts isn't enough because they can only function thanks to the explicit backing of law enforcement and the implicit backing of the military. It might be useful to start with a comparative analysis for governments though. It's probably impossible to delineate and assess every good the government provides, but you can compare the cost of governance and standard of living between countries. In such an analysis, I highly doubt the US comes out well. Personally, I am 99% sure that my donations to the Against Malaria Foundation provide more total social good per dollar than my taxes.
- nyolfen 11y ago> I'm not "super rich" Annual Income: 1,000,000 Your percentile is: 99.9%
- beaner 11y agoNo idea whether or not this guy is super rich, but annual salary and net worth are two very different things.
- wtallis 11y agoIt's an annual salary, not an isolated winning lottery ticket. Even if he doesn't currently have a super high net worth, he will soon enough unless he's spending like a lottery winner.
- beaner 11y agoMaybe. I guess it depends on what you consider "super high". It'd take a few years to build up $1m from a $1m salary, and there's no guarantee the job is even kept that long.
- waybull 11y agoOdds that this brand new account is getting a million cash: basically zero. Anybody who's getting a million cash is probably getting many millions through lower-tax vehicles (e.g. equity), and over the course of a decade has a much much lower effective tax rate.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- SlowComputer 11y agoYou are a fool.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- geofft 11y ago> In reality, only high earners pay taxes. What do you mean by this?
- emcq 11y agoOne perspective is that you are making 20x the average household income but keeping 1/2. Not too shabby. However I agree that it seems ridiculous that income is taxed so much more than capitol gains and likely provides much more positive contributions to society.
- pfisch 11y agoThis is only true if you are an employee, and even then I think there are ways around it.
- beachstartup 11y agouh, you should probably move, instead of complaining about who's president.
- muzz 11y agothe fact that they haven't moved speaks volumes about how much more income they can generate in California versus elsewhere
- beachstartup 11y agodon't be naive, people that rich don't need to stay in one place, and especially don't have to claim residence in any one place.
- muzz 11y agoare you referring to the OP? they stated they paid California taxes
- fragsworth 11y agoIt's somewhat infuriating. People get to sit on wealth, watch it grow, and then pay less in taxes on that income than someone who is contributing to society by working for a living.
- reddytowns 11y agoMost people that work for a living pollute the planet while doing so.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- voynich61 11y agoYou earn $1MM per year. That means either a) you spend way too much or b) you actually would be, even at an 80% tax rate, 'super rich'. I assume you live in an area where housing is expensive? That's a luxury you're paying for. Of course people who already have large sums of wealth should be highly taxed as well. But you cannot tell me that the state taking 50% of the income of someone who makes a million a year is too much, right? Edit: downvote storm! When did HN become /pol/?
- poikniok 11y agoAnd you are a leech my friend, at least this man provides some service to the world, unlike you ...
- voynich61 11y ago1) We have no idea what this person does. He could be a tobacco company executive (or substitute some position you find immoral). 2) You have no idea what I do.
- maratd 11y agoIt doesn't matter what you or he does. We don't tax people based on how much we like them?
- voynich61 11y agomaratd: We live in a society where money is allocated with little regards to justice. Of course it doesn't matter what SlowComputer does. Agnostic to his occupation, the law should assist the poor by shaving a portion off the exorbitant sums SlowComputer makes yearly.
- dang 11y agoPersonal attacks are not allowed on HN. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't.
- JackFr 11y ago> You earn $1MM per year. That means that someone valued my time, ability and labor enough to pay me for it. That is, the exchange took place because given the circumstance of my employer, my time, ability and labor were worth more to them than $1MM. I was just able to capture the $1MM portion. The idea assertion 'I spend too much' absent any context is as meaningless as the assertion that 'the government spends too much.'
- gnaritas 11y ago> I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year. > And high-salaried people are getting screwed under Obama's war against the most productive citizens. Stop whining and blaming Obama; there's no war against productive citizens, you aren't a victim. You don't get to complain when you're among the wealthiest in the world that you don't get to keep enough money. 99.9% of the country makes less than you, have some fucking perspective and perhaps a bit of humility for gods sake.
- Zhenya 11y agoWhat does it matter what the rest of the world has? If he/she earned it legally, they deserve it. You don't get to make victims out of the rest of the world.
- gnaritas 11y ago> If he/she earned it legally, they deserve it. Utter nonsense. Legal doesn't equal moral nor does it mean fair. Slavery was legal, that doesn't mean the slave owners deserved the profits from their labor (you apparently think it does). Legals means nothing more than we can't put you in jail yet.
- Zhenya 11y agoEyeroll. And who decides morality? You? No thanks.
- gnaritas 11y agoNo, we; that's what democracy is for, we evolve and over time, the law catches up as the common morality evolves. Or do you really think slave owners deserved their money because it was made legally? That was your argument, that legal means they deserve it, stand by your argument.
- Zhenya 11y ago
- yongjik 11y ago> For every additional dollar I earn, I only get to keep 47 cents of it, just counting _income_ taxes. In reality, only high earners pay taxes. You say that as if that's a problem.
- muzz 11y agoAre you a post-tax income maximizer? (If not, what are you maximizing?) If so, it speaks to the higher income generating power you have in California that you can be taxed more there than elsewhere and it is still the optimal result for you.
- methos3000 11y agoSince this individual is paying way more in taxes than the 99%, should they not have better services from the Gov? Do we not as Americans assume the more we pay for an item or service the better the product? It's only fair?
- inthewoods 11y agoWhy is this an issue with Obama? I understand he allowed a tax cut to expire that raised the top tax bracket, but it sounds like the issue you're having is more with California? Also, productive <> those that make the most money. Having worked on Wall Street, I know an entire class of mutual fund managers that I would argue are negative value to society given that they've underperformed their index benchmark for years yet are making millions of dollars a year for their active management "service".
- tawnie 11y agoSeriously, the more you earn the more taxes you should pay. If you think the US is bad then look at the UK. I call BS on higher earners paying taxes in the US where the top earners also have the biggest tax loop holes. I probably pay more taxes on my 25k a year than you ever have. Yep, that is right 25k a year with a teenager, by myself. So please go on with your first world problems.