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I find it surprising that so many HN users on this thread are rushing to the comments to make the point that the rich do, in fact, pay more than "the rest of us
by ccvannorman 11y ago
I find it surprising that so many HN users on this thread are rushing to the comments to make the point that the rich do, in fact, pay more than "the rest of us."
Did you not hear about the Panama papers? It should be quite evident that if you are wealthy enough, you can use creative loopholes to pay very little tax. It's also very well known that many big corporations use offshore accounts to pay little/no taxes.
No, I'm not going to cite sources. If you are so living under a rock that you don't know this is a real problem, a source isn't going to help you -- you're just going to start arguing about sources instead of the real, actual issue that should be fucking obvious.
- ptaipale 11y agoGenerally the problem is not that your fellow HN users are living under a rock; it's more that getting good evidence about the problem is hard.
- tyingq 11y agoEven the super rich that don't delve in grey area loopholes do pretty well. Warren Buffet explaining the issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-...
- asdfologist 11y agoExactly. Percentage tax rates don't mean squat when you're hiding all your income.
- MrTonyD 11y agoPercentages mean almost nothing sometimes. I was running my own business for a while and making many hundreds of thousands - and spending $30,000 in a day didn't mean anything to me. So paying 20% vs 30% vs 50% wouldn't have made any difference in my daily life.
- adevine 11y agoPercentages also don't mean much when you split "rich" vs "middle-class" based on some arbitrary top x% of income. The real difference in the US is between the landed gentry (people who live off their investments) and people who are paid for their labor. That is where many people (like Warren Buffet) see a fundamental unfairness, especially in cases where people who are paid for their labor manage to get it taxed at investment income levels (e.g. carried interest).
- pessimizer 11y agoIt's typical middle-class status quo defending logic. Plantation owners paid more taxes than slaves, and lords paid more taxes than serfs. Lazy slaves.
- thrownaway2424 11y agoAre you new here? HN has always been very heavy on the libertarian point of view. Many people here think that John Galt is not getting a fair shake.