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Volume and proportion are not the same thing. 50% of net is very easy when you have >10% of all wealth. No super rich individuals are taxed at 50% either of the

Volume and proportion are not the same thing. 50% of net is very easy when you have >10% of all wealth. No super rich individuals are taxed at 50% either of their net income either (if they are they are doing their taxes themselves and their lawyer is a fool), it is more common for ultra high wealth individuals to pay less than 10% of their net earnings.

refurb 11y ago
I see your point, but don't forget that almost 50% of Americans don't pay any federal tax at all.[1] In fact some of them get EITC, so they are getting free money from the government on top of keeping all of their salary. So my question still stands, what would be a fair breakdown of tax burden? Top 1% pay 100% of all income taxes? 90%? I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm asking an honest question. Unless we know what "fair" looks like, we don't know what needs to change. [1]http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/07/in-2015-45-percent-of-americans-will-pay-no-federal-income-taxes/ http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/07/in-2015-45-percent-of-amer...
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- aninhumer 11y ago
  I think asking what's "fair" is the wrong question. We should ask what is effective at creating the most utility. I believe the marginal utility of money is roughly logarithmic, and thus taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor creates a lot of utility. However, this must also be balanced with the economic incentives that (potential) inequality drives, which leads to a lot of utility creation. The intuition I take out of this, is that letting people be billionaires is a complete waste of resources, because plenty of people would still aspire to wealth even if the richest person in the world had a fraction of that.
- CJefferson 11y ago
  Asking the question what should the 'top 1%' pay is (in my opinion) the wrong question. A better start (for me) is to ask what % of tax the people with the (for example) top 50% of income, or top 50% of wealth, should pay. If the top 1% has (for example) 90% of the income, then only paying 50% of the tax might be considered unfair.
  - refurb 11y ago
    If the top 1% has (for example) 90% of the income, then only paying 50% of the tax might be considered unfair. The only number I could find is that the top 1% earns 22% of all AGI (adjusted gross income). This is income after all deductions, etc; the amount of income the tax rate is applied to.[1] I'd be interested to see how much of all income is earned by the top 1%. [1]http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-0 http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-inco...
    - Retric 11y ago
      AGI is a lie. EX: Calculate bill gates lifetime wealth and lifetime AGI. Hint, that 30 billion he donated never counted as AGI.
      - refurb 11y ago
        AGI is not a lie, it's Adjusted Gross Income, that is the income you actually pay tax on. It's not like it's some super secret formula that no one knows how to calculate.
        Retric 11y ago
        Income is income, Adjustment is where the lie comes from. Sure, you can pretend it's meaningful number, but ex: charitable donations are not deductible from payroll taxes so they are clearly not going to reduce income. Or for a more obvious example, donate 1 million in appreciated and you get to deduct the full 1 million from income. (see if you can spot the problem with that.) PS: Hypothetically, if they said AGI was income - 95% of income over 10 million per year would you still use it? After all that's just an adjustment.
- Tsagadai 11y ago
  Sales tax is still tax. While they don't personally hand the money to the government it is still coming out of their money. I am not qualified to talk about how the US tax system fits together but I assume that 50% is paying some form of land tax through local government fees that are passed on as an increase in rent. I would also assume they drink or smoke (pretty hefty taxes there too). Consider also that fees are pretty much tax by any other name (they are government revenue), there is a rather large fee to cancel US citizenship.

refurb 11y ago

I see your point, but don't forget that almost 50% of Americans don't pay any federal tax at all.[1] In fact some of them get EITC, so they are getting free money from the government on top of keeping all of their salary. So my question still stands, what would be a fair breakdown of tax burden? Top 1% pay 100% of all income taxes? 90%? I'm not trying to start an argument, I'm asking an honest question. Unless we know what "fair" looks like, we don't know what needs to change. [1]http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/07/in-2015-45-percent-of-americans-will-pay-no-federal-income-taxes/ http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/07/in-2015-45-percent-of-amer...

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aninhumer 11y ago
I think asking what's "fair" is the wrong question. We should ask what is effective at creating the most utility. I believe the marginal utility of money is roughly logarithmic, and thus taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor creates a lot of utility. However, this must also be balanced with the economic incentives that (potential) inequality drives, which leads to a lot of utility creation. The intuition I take out of this, is that letting people be billionaires is a complete waste of resources, because plenty of people would still aspire to wealth even if the richest person in the world had a fraction of that.
CJefferson 11y ago
Asking the question what should the 'top 1%' pay is (in my opinion) the wrong question. A better start (for me) is to ask what % of tax the people with the (for example) top 50% of income, or top 50% of wealth, should pay. If the top 1% has (for example) 90% of the income, then only paying 50% of the tax might be considered unfair.
- refurb 11y ago
  If the top 1% has (for example) 90% of the income, then only paying 50% of the tax might be considered unfair. The only number I could find is that the top 1% earns 22% of all AGI (adjusted gross income). This is income after all deductions, etc; the amount of income the tax rate is applied to.[1] I'd be interested to see how much of all income is earned by the top 1%. [1]http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-0 http://taxfoundation.org/article/summary-latest-federal-inco...
  - Retric 11y ago
    AGI is a lie. EX: Calculate bill gates lifetime wealth and lifetime AGI. Hint, that 30 billion he donated never counted as AGI.
    - refurb 11y ago
      AGI is not a lie, it's Adjusted Gross Income, that is the income you actually pay tax on. It's not like it's some super secret formula that no one knows how to calculate.
      - Retric 11y ago
        Income is income, Adjustment is where the lie comes from. Sure, you can pretend it's meaningful number, but ex: charitable donations are not deductible from payroll taxes so they are clearly not going to reduce income. Or for a more obvious example, donate 1 million in appreciated and you get to deduct the full 1 million from income. (see if you can spot the problem with that.) PS: Hypothetically, if they said AGI was income - 95% of income over 10 million per year would you still use it? After all that's just an adjustment.
Tsagadai 11y ago
Sales tax is still tax. While they don't personally hand the money to the government it is still coming out of their money. I am not qualified to talk about how the US tax system fits together but I assume that 50% is paying some form of land tax through local government fees that are passed on as an increase in rent. I would also assume they drink or smoke (pretty hefty taxes there too). Consider also that fees are pretty much tax by any other name (they are government revenue), there is a rather large fee to cancel US citizenship.