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Yep, and it doesn't even bother talking about the $21–32tn of untaxed assets(http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf htt

Yep, and it doesn't even bother talking about the $21–32tn of untaxed assets(http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_R...). Or that we tax the rich too little while we tax everyone else too much to keep public perception focused on taxes being too high(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_Tax_Rate_for_Highest_and_Lowest_Income_Earners.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_...).

refurb 10y ago
Or that we tax the rich too little The top 3% of income earners pay 51% of all income taxes.[1] You think that's too little? What should that number be? [1]http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-americans-pay-most-income-taxes-but-enough-to-be-fair/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-...
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Whatever percentage it needs to be ratcheted up to in order to ensure that everyone is fed and has shelter. Seems like we can work backwards to determine that?
  - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
    what if it's more than 100% of their income :) are YOU prepared to pay let's say an 80% income tax and a 25% sales tax for example ?
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      I'm prepared to pay whatever is necessary, while also contributing to whatever tech is needed to drive costs down to reduce the monthly government-wide nut needed to pay for entitlements. Food too expensive? Robotics farming. More energy needed? Scale up solar, wind, and utility scale battery storage installations. Moar cheap transportation? Scale up bicycle and electric self-driving car manufacturing. It _can_ be done. We simply need the will to do so. Work backwards, first principles style. We have lots of atoms and electrons, lets organize them efficiently for everyone's benefit.
      - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
        I can buy the tech side of things and if you think about this - just about everyone's standard of living today, including the poor, is way higher than in the past which can in part be attributed to technological advances. On the monetary side of things - it's very easy to 'proclaim' that you're willing to sacrifice your standard of living for the benefit of the others. When it comes to concrete implementations however, things typically don't work that way, ppl tend to bust their asses when there's concrete material compensation involved, otherwise - not so much. And if you take any material incentive to work away by providing free money you get multi-generation welfare families which we have in abundance as is. One can argue that these folks would be better off without the free money killing their will to work - to 'organize atoms and electrons' for ANYONE's benefit, yours included.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Point taken.
- drabiega 10y ago
  Not sure that is a relevant measure. Those people will also be paying a relatively low percentage of their income to taxes overall thanks to taxes which are flat or capped, so I'm not sure why it's meaningful what percent of tax revenues they contribute. As an admittedly extreme example, if the population consisted of 100 people who make 2$ and pay 1$, and one guy who makes $1000 and pays $100, he's responsible for half the tax income but probably still isn't paying his fair share since he's only paying 10% instead of 50%.
  - refurb 10y ago
    Well, considering ~40% of Americans pay no income tax, I'd say the top is paying more than their fair share?
    - drabiega 10y ago
      How is that relevant?
      - refurb 10y ago
        Incomes taxes (not including payroll taxes) make up ~47% of all federal dollars coming in. Payroll taxes (Medicare, SS), make up 34%, but half of that is paid by the employer, so it's really 18%.[1] So income taxes represent almost 3x the income stream that payroll taxes do. So I'd say not paying income taxes is a pretty big break in my book. [1]http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-sources-revenue-federal-government-0 http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-source...
        sgnelson 10y ago
        That's just for the Federal system, it ignores all state taxes.
    - kefka 10y ago
      Because total tax expenditures are far from just income tax. There's property taxes, vehicle taxes, gas taxes, "christian sin" taxes, lottery (which is a tax on stupid people), social security tax, medicare tax, sales tax, specific item/service sales tax, city taxes, county option taxes. And that's not even remotely the amount of taxes on businesses that raise the price of goods secretly to compensate the taxes hidden. And also, even illegal immigrants pay these taxes. They aren't even exempt. And many use fraudulent SSNs, so taxes are taken an applied to those SS accounts, but the illegals never use them. Yet more money for the coffers. But some percentage isn't paying any of one specific tax. Whatever.
- RamshackleJ 10y ago
  not sure about the top 3% but the top 1% have 34.6% of the wealth(measured in net worth) and the top 5% have 61.9%. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...) So yes! I do think its too little, especially in the top 1%. I think some moderately more progressive tax rates would be an improvement. One of the things that appeals to me about UBI is that it is a dramatic simplification of welfare bureaucracy. I would love to see something similar to the way we calculate taxes. Simplifying and closing tax holes would help extract more taxes from people who should be paying more while not punishing wage earners who have most of their taxes preempted out of their paycheck.
- drewrv 10y ago
  I think Buffet should pay a higher tax rate than his secretary. http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/ http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secreta... And I think Mitt Romney should pay a higher rate than me. http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/21/pf/taxes/romney-tax-return/ http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/21/pf/taxes/romney-tax-return/ The problem is that we treat capital gains differently than we treat income. Most of the top 3% work and pay income taxes, but the top .1% don't really pay income tax.
  - refurb 10y ago
    Are you proposing we eliminate the charitable tax deduction? That's one of the main drivers of Romney's low rate.
    - drewrv 10y ago
      Perhaps my comment wasn't clear enough: I'm proposing we treat capital gains as income. From the article on Romney: "The reason Romney's rate is so low -- despite having one of the highest incomes in the country -- is because his income was derived almost entirely from capital gains and dividends from his extensive portfolio of investments. And that form of investment income is typically taxed at just 15%, well below the 35% top tax rate for high earners."
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- BookmarkSaver 10y ago
  That is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that taxes on the richest brackets are at their lowest point in like 50 years, while simultaneously those people have accumulated an even higher portion of the total wealth/income in the economy. Taken out of context, what you are saying seems significant. Looking at it historically, the rich haven't really had it better regarding taxes and their share of the country's wealth in the last century. Put this way, raising taxes or adding new higher tax brackets seems pretty reasonable.
  - refurb 10y ago
    The percent of all income taxes paid by the wealthy has gone up over time, not down. As mention before on HN, yes rates were higher a while ago, but so were deductions. Nobody actually paid a 90% marginal rate.
- tracker1 10y ago
  Or, we could revise corporate and capital gains taxes, tax currency exchanges out of the country, and then tax everyone at 50%... from there, that would be enough for a "basic income" where everyone is taxed the same on what they earn. I don't think corporate taxes work, what's needed is systems and taxes in place to encourage keeping money more local, as well as diversifying or paying out dividends, which would in turn be taxed (assuming adjustments in capital gains). I'd just assume get rid of corporate taxes with the above adjustments and also get rid of corporate personhood and significant campaign reform.
- sgnelson 10y ago
  Income taxes... You realize there are more taxes than just income, yes? Seriously, the whole "but rich people pay all the taxes, and poor people pay no taxes..." myth needs to die a horrible death. But I live in a state which just lowered the income tax. And increased every other tax, as well as created a variety of taxes on services that were previously untaxed. And they then tell us our taxes have gone down. But somehow, the vast majority of people seem to be have less personal profit than the year before (assuming all income and costs sans taxes remain the same).
- dvtv75 10y ago
  I'll take your bait: I do think 51% of all income tax is too little for the top 3% of earners, because they are paid such a large piece of the pie; you're looking at it in terms of number of people paying tax and not percentage of total income made. Think of it this way: "The top 10% (in my country) pay 74% of all taxes," really translates to "This group makes 90% of all income and but only pays 74% of taxes." That means that those who make 10% of the total income (again, in my country) pay 26% of taxes. It's not the top that are hurting because they're paying tax in excess of their means, they're getting off lightly.
- damptowel 10y ago
  I guess the right amount would be, if you're democratically inclined, to whatever reduces political influence of the wealthy over the less wealthy. The current US distribution and it's political and economic destabilizing effects seem in favor of higher taxation on the top incomes.

refurb 10y ago

Or that we tax the rich too little The top 3% of income earners pay 51% of all income taxes.[1] You think that's too little? What should that number be? [1]http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-americans-pay-most-income-taxes-but-enough-to-be-fair/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/13/high-income-...

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Whatever percentage it needs to be ratcheted up to in order to ensure that everyone is fed and has shelter. Seems like we can work backwards to determine that?
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  what if it's more than 100% of their income :) are YOU prepared to pay let's say an 80% income tax and a 25% sales tax for example ?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    I'm prepared to pay whatever is necessary, while also contributing to whatever tech is needed to drive costs down to reduce the monthly government-wide nut needed to pay for entitlements. Food too expensive? Robotics farming. More energy needed? Scale up solar, wind, and utility scale battery storage installations. Moar cheap transportation? Scale up bicycle and electric self-driving car manufacturing. It _can_ be done. We simply need the will to do so. Work backwards, first principles style. We have lots of atoms and electrons, lets organize them efficiently for everyone's benefit.
    - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
      I can buy the tech side of things and if you think about this - just about everyone's standard of living today, including the poor, is way higher than in the past which can in part be attributed to technological advances. On the monetary side of things - it's very easy to 'proclaim' that you're willing to sacrifice your standard of living for the benefit of the others. When it comes to concrete implementations however, things typically don't work that way, ppl tend to bust their asses when there's concrete material compensation involved, otherwise - not so much. And if you take any material incentive to work away by providing free money you get multi-generation welfare families which we have in abundance as is. One can argue that these folks would be better off without the free money killing their will to work - to 'organize atoms and electrons' for ANYONE's benefit, yours included.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Point taken.
drabiega 10y ago
Not sure that is a relevant measure. Those people will also be paying a relatively low percentage of their income to taxes overall thanks to taxes which are flat or capped, so I'm not sure why it's meaningful what percent of tax revenues they contribute. As an admittedly extreme example, if the population consisted of 100 people who make 2$ and pay 1$, and one guy who makes $1000 and pays $100, he's responsible for half the tax income but probably still isn't paying his fair share since he's only paying 10% instead of 50%.
- refurb 10y ago
  Well, considering ~40% of Americans pay no income tax, I'd say the top is paying more than their fair share?
  - drabiega 10y ago
    How is that relevant?
    - refurb 10y ago
      Incomes taxes (not including payroll taxes) make up ~47% of all federal dollars coming in. Payroll taxes (Medicare, SS), make up 34%, but half of that is paid by the employer, so it's really 18%.[1] So income taxes represent almost 3x the income stream that payroll taxes do. So I'd say not paying income taxes is a pretty big break in my book. [1]http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-sources-revenue-federal-government-0 http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-source...
      - sgnelson 10y ago
        That's just for the Federal system, it ignores all state taxes.
  - kefka 10y ago
    Because total tax expenditures are far from just income tax. There's property taxes, vehicle taxes, gas taxes, "christian sin" taxes, lottery (which is a tax on stupid people), social security tax, medicare tax, sales tax, specific item/service sales tax, city taxes, county option taxes. And that's not even remotely the amount of taxes on businesses that raise the price of goods secretly to compensate the taxes hidden. And also, even illegal immigrants pay these taxes. They aren't even exempt. And many use fraudulent SSNs, so taxes are taken an applied to those SS accounts, but the illegals never use them. Yet more money for the coffers. But some percentage isn't paying any of one specific tax. Whatever.
RamshackleJ 10y ago
not sure about the top 3% but the top 1% have 34.6% of the wealth(measured in net worth) and the top 5% have 61.9%. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...) So yes! I do think its too little, especially in the top 1%. I think some moderately more progressive tax rates would be an improvement. One of the things that appeals to me about UBI is that it is a dramatic simplification of welfare bureaucracy. I would love to see something similar to the way we calculate taxes. Simplifying and closing tax holes would help extract more taxes from people who should be paying more while not punishing wage earners who have most of their taxes preempted out of their paycheck.
drewrv 10y ago
I think Buffet should pay a higher tax rate than his secretary. http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/ http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secreta... And I think Mitt Romney should pay a higher rate than me. http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/21/pf/taxes/romney-tax-return/ http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/21/pf/taxes/romney-tax-return/ The problem is that we treat capital gains differently than we treat income. Most of the top 3% work and pay income taxes, but the top .1% don't really pay income tax.
- refurb 10y ago
  Are you proposing we eliminate the charitable tax deduction? That's one of the main drivers of Romney's low rate.
  - drewrv 10y ago
    Perhaps my comment wasn't clear enough: I'm proposing we treat capital gains as income. From the article on Romney: "The reason Romney's rate is so low -- despite having one of the highest incomes in the country -- is because his income was derived almost entirely from capital gains and dividends from his extensive portfolio of investments. And that form of investment income is typically taxed at just 15%, well below the 35% top tax rate for high earners."
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
BookmarkSaver 10y ago
That is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is that taxes on the richest brackets are at their lowest point in like 50 years, while simultaneously those people have accumulated an even higher portion of the total wealth/income in the economy. Taken out of context, what you are saying seems significant. Looking at it historically, the rich haven't really had it better regarding taxes and their share of the country's wealth in the last century. Put this way, raising taxes or adding new higher tax brackets seems pretty reasonable.
- refurb 10y ago
  The percent of all income taxes paid by the wealthy has gone up over time, not down. As mention before on HN, yes rates were higher a while ago, but so were deductions. Nobody actually paid a 90% marginal rate.
tracker1 10y ago
Or, we could revise corporate and capital gains taxes, tax currency exchanges out of the country, and then tax everyone at 50%... from there, that would be enough for a "basic income" where everyone is taxed the same on what they earn. I don't think corporate taxes work, what's needed is systems and taxes in place to encourage keeping money more local, as well as diversifying or paying out dividends, which would in turn be taxed (assuming adjustments in capital gains). I'd just assume get rid of corporate taxes with the above adjustments and also get rid of corporate personhood and significant campaign reform.
sgnelson 10y ago
Income taxes... You realize there are more taxes than just income, yes? Seriously, the whole "but rich people pay all the taxes, and poor people pay no taxes..." myth needs to die a horrible death. But I live in a state which just lowered the income tax. And increased every other tax, as well as created a variety of taxes on services that were previously untaxed. And they then tell us our taxes have gone down. But somehow, the vast majority of people seem to be have less personal profit than the year before (assuming all income and costs sans taxes remain the same).
dvtv75 10y ago
I'll take your bait: I do think 51% of all income tax is too little for the top 3% of earners, because they are paid such a large piece of the pie; you're looking at it in terms of number of people paying tax and not percentage of total income made. Think of it this way: "The top 10% (in my country) pay 74% of all taxes," really translates to "This group makes 90% of all income and but only pays 74% of taxes." That means that those who make 10% of the total income (again, in my country) pay 26% of taxes. It's not the top that are hurting because they're paying tax in excess of their means, they're getting off lightly.
damptowel 10y ago
I guess the right amount would be, if you're democratically inclined, to whatever reduces political influence of the wealthy over the less wealthy. The current US distribution and it's political and economic destabilizing effects seem in favor of higher taxation on the top incomes.