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In the United States people making 250k plus, ~the one percent, pay ~54% of the income tax [1]. Poor people, approximately the bottom third, pay nothing in inc

In the United States people making 250k plus, ~the one percent, pay ~54% of the income tax [1]. Poor people, approximately the bottom third, pay nothing in income tax. I too want poor people to earn and have more money but it doesn't seem true that the rich aren't paying their fair due. 1 - https://taxfoundation.org/new-irs-data-wealthy-paid-55-percent-income-taxes-2014/ https://taxfoundation.org/new-irs-data-wealthy-paid-55-perce... Edit: To the people downvoting me, please clarify why. From my perspective I'm directly addressing a point in the conversation with a legitimate source. I don't see why this should be downvoted, so please clarify for me.

Retric 9y ago
Only if you define income taxes to only include a subset of income taxes and ignore social security. Further, income taxes are only a subset of the overall tax load and you need to take earnings with a grain of salt as multi generational wealth can accumulate without being considered as 'income'.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  If you look at all federal taxes, as this analysis of CBO numbers does [1], then it seems that the top 1% take 18% of income and pay 28% of all federal taxes. So, you are right that the portion of all federal taxes is not as great as I made it seem in my parent comment, that comment only takes into account federal income tax. But, I believe the overarching point and conclusion still stands. 1 - https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/top-1-what-they-make-and-pay/ https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/top-1-what-they-make-and-p...
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    You mean, that there's a progressive tax system rather than a regressive one? Yeah, that is a triumph of decency and something we should not take for granted! This is something we should try to do MORE of.
    - ImSkeptical 9y ago
      I think progressive taxes are fine, my point was that the rich are paying their fair share.
      - cmurf 9y ago
        No, because they are getting wealthier at a greater rate than either the middle class or poor. The U.S. didn't used to have this problem when the upper tax bracket rate was above 70%. It's plausible it doesn't need to be that high if deductions aren't as generous as they were when taxes were that high (for more than a generation by the way, so it's not like extremely high taxes at the top brackets has some civilization ending result - we already know it doesn't, in fact it acts as a strong incentive to avoid taxes by taking deductions in creative ways which ideally also have a social benefit).
  - Retric 9y ago
    How do the counting is also really important. Note, links that's a decade out of date (2005) numbers and the newer numbers look a little different even using those metrics. Also, CBO numbers significantly understate the earnings of the top 1 percent. Mark Zuckerberg for example has a net worth of ~70 billion yet that money is vastly greater than the sum of his 'income' over his lifetime.
deepnotderp 9y ago
The "problem" is not the doctor who struggled through med school to make 250K a year. The issue is the billionaire making tens of billions a year (and in some cases paying LESS in taxes).
- SapphireSun 9y ago
  Let's not kid ourselves. Everyone making that much money forms a social class that works to reengineer society to protect themselves, doctors included. However, we have engineered the system to make it look as though they deserve that much money by working students to exhaustion and saddling them with debt and poor working conditions. If we changed that, it wouldn't seem necessary to let specialists earn 250-700k+ per year. It's hard to believe that any of this is necessary or wise in a medical system. Professional guilds like lawyers and doctors also limit the number of people in the field to protect wages. The AMA has been essentially an enemy of the people that works to milk the CPT codes. The grift is that a procedure typically is X$ and takes Y hrs to perform. They recommend that some are easier and harder and create a cheap CPT code and an expensive CPT code. This seems fair. Then everyone marks all procedures that can be remotely justified as such as the expensive CPT. There are other grifts but this is one way that health care costs inflate over time.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  I don't think either of those are a problem. The problem is that we need more healthcare, more jobs, better jobs, healthier food for the poor, better education, etc. If we have to tax the hardworking doctors, or take more or even most of the billionaire's money, then I'm quite sanguine about that. So be it. I think using taxes as a weapon against people is wrong though. So - to say that because some billionaire pays a lower tax rate, because his income comes through capital gains, that we must punish him with steeper taxes, or a wealth tax, or whatever plan you suggest, then I believe that is not only unproductive but also immoral to do so. The basic problem is that the government is a poor steward of our money. Take education as an example. The US spends more money per student when it comes to education, and doesn't have outstanding scores in math, reading, science, or any category that I'm familiar with. There are problems with our education system, it's unequally distributed, it's not preparing kids for the careers of the future adequately, and other problems - but what's the solution? Spend more money, tax more, and so on? On a similar subject, why should we take more money from the rich, who already pay a disproportionate share of federal taxes, so that we can buy more tanks we don't need, invade foreign countries, overthrow foreign governments, staff military bases around the world, and waste uncountable amounts of money on silly military projects.
nradov 9y ago
We really ought to ban the word "fair" from discussions about tax rates. Fairness is totally subjective and that just derails the conversation. It would be more productive to focus on outcomes. How can we structure the tax system to prevent civil disorder ("let them eat cake"), keep people out of extreme poverty, and avoid burdening wealthy individuals so much that they emigrate to lower-tax countries?
jfoutz 9y ago
One (absurd) solution would be to say, no income taxes beyond $127,000 (same as social security) and to pay for it, we'll just not have a military. The homeless person down the street wouldn't really notice. The homeowner would get very nervous. The international oil corporation would essentially self destruct. So in this case, The more you have the more you stand to lose. Another (absurd) option, we could cut all discretionary spending in half. So, 1/2 size military, 1/2 size departments of state, health, homeland security, veterans affairs, education and the rest. This might be kinda workable, but we'd probably lose military control in the middle east, which is essentially access to all that oil. i think it'd be tough to enforce copyright without heavy state department involvement, which would risk a bunch of wealth. I think the 1% get outsized returns from the stability of the government. If you can pick a set of departments to simply eliminate i'd love to see the set, and why it wouldn't risk current wealth. There are a few i'd be sad to see go, but you could probably eliminate education, energy (no more nukes though), nasa, interior, hud, and agriculture. that gets you fairly close to 200 billion, with about 400 billion more to go. those are risky, but probably survivable. i dunno. I fundamentally disagree, the more you have the more you benefit from the status quo.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  I agree that rich benefit more from the status quo than the poor. That's part of why I'm not bothered by the fact that the rich pay a disproportionate (mathematically speaking only) share of the taxes. Plus, a rich person can give up a third of their income whereas a poor person couldn't. What I'm saying is that it doesn't seem true to say the rich aren't paying their fair due. If you think that, then please answer what percentage of federal taxes do you think the 1% should pay and why would that be more fair than what they currently pay?
  - jfoutz 9y ago
    if i could wave a magic wand, taxes would be strictly progressive. I understand the difference between income and capital gains, but i find Buffet's comments about 'lower rate than my secretary' frustrating. I would support Paul Ryan's original promise that 'you can file your taxes on a postcard'. With the caveat, every other person and corporation also files their taxes on a postcard. This, of course, strips a fantastic amount of subtlety and control. Subsidize what you want and tax what you don't is standard tax policy. On the other hand, i prefer scheme to c++. so simple as to be completely transparent is better than fabulous complexity. But, it turns out that's not a particularly popular world view.
cmurf 9y ago
Wealth inequality is the better measure. And by that measure, wealth inequality is getting worse in the U.S. and indefinite worsening of inequality is untenable for a civil society and functioning democracy. Also, all earned income (wages) is subject to payroll tax from the very first dollar and that is a tax on one's income. But setting aside FICA, there is a disturbing vulgarity in saying only poor people pay nothing in income tax, because rich people also pay nothing in income tax on that exact same amount of money. That's how tax brackets work. Person A makes $15,000 a year and pays no income tax; person B makes $1.5 million but likewise pays no income tax on their "first" $15,000. So I find picking on poor people, who pay a disproportionate amount of their income on sales and property taxes than wealthy people, rather ignorant and obscene. The mere fact that wealth inequality continues to get worse does tell me there is a deficiency in tax policy. I don't really care about an arbitrary emotive like "fairness" - what I care about is avoiding the destabilization of civility and that is guaranteed to have a breaking point at a certain level of inequality. It is not necessary to enforce a classless, egalitarian society, in order to narrow the wealth inequally gap to something more sane and then maintain that gap (for those who want to protect classism, anyway).

Retric 9y ago

Only if you define income taxes to only include a subset of income taxes and ignore social security. Further, income taxes are only a subset of the overall tax load and you need to take earnings with a grain of salt as multi generational wealth can accumulate without being considered as 'income'.

ImSkeptical 9y ago
If you look at all federal taxes, as this analysis of CBO numbers does [1], then it seems that the top 1% take 18% of income and pay 28% of all federal taxes. So, you are right that the portion of all federal taxes is not as great as I made it seem in my parent comment, that comment only takes into account federal income tax. But, I believe the overarching point and conclusion still stands. 1 - https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/top-1-what-they-make-and-pay/ https://www.factcheck.org/2008/05/top-1-what-they-make-and-p...
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  You mean, that there's a progressive tax system rather than a regressive one? Yeah, that is a triumph of decency and something we should not take for granted! This is something we should try to do MORE of.
  - ImSkeptical 9y ago
    I think progressive taxes are fine, my point was that the rich are paying their fair share.
    - cmurf 9y ago
      No, because they are getting wealthier at a greater rate than either the middle class or poor. The U.S. didn't used to have this problem when the upper tax bracket rate was above 70%. It's plausible it doesn't need to be that high if deductions aren't as generous as they were when taxes were that high (for more than a generation by the way, so it's not like extremely high taxes at the top brackets has some civilization ending result - we already know it doesn't, in fact it acts as a strong incentive to avoid taxes by taking deductions in creative ways which ideally also have a social benefit).
- Retric 9y ago
  How do the counting is also really important. Note, links that's a decade out of date (2005) numbers and the newer numbers look a little different even using those metrics. Also, CBO numbers significantly understate the earnings of the top 1 percent. Mark Zuckerberg for example has a net worth of ~70 billion yet that money is vastly greater than the sum of his 'income' over his lifetime.

deepnotderp 9y ago

The "problem" is not the doctor who struggled through med school to make 250K a year. The issue is the billionaire making tens of billions a year (and in some cases paying LESS in taxes).

SapphireSun 9y ago
Let's not kid ourselves. Everyone making that much money forms a social class that works to reengineer society to protect themselves, doctors included. However, we have engineered the system to make it look as though they deserve that much money by working students to exhaustion and saddling them with debt and poor working conditions. If we changed that, it wouldn't seem necessary to let specialists earn 250-700k+ per year. It's hard to believe that any of this is necessary or wise in a medical system. Professional guilds like lawyers and doctors also limit the number of people in the field to protect wages. The AMA has been essentially an enemy of the people that works to milk the CPT codes. The grift is that a procedure typically is X$ and takes Y hrs to perform. They recommend that some are easier and harder and create a cheap CPT code and an expensive CPT code. This seems fair. Then everyone marks all procedures that can be remotely justified as such as the expensive CPT. There are other grifts but this is one way that health care costs inflate over time.
ImSkeptical 9y ago
I don't think either of those are a problem. The problem is that we need more healthcare, more jobs, better jobs, healthier food for the poor, better education, etc. If we have to tax the hardworking doctors, or take more or even most of the billionaire's money, then I'm quite sanguine about that. So be it. I think using taxes as a weapon against people is wrong though. So - to say that because some billionaire pays a lower tax rate, because his income comes through capital gains, that we must punish him with steeper taxes, or a wealth tax, or whatever plan you suggest, then I believe that is not only unproductive but also immoral to do so. The basic problem is that the government is a poor steward of our money. Take education as an example. The US spends more money per student when it comes to education, and doesn't have outstanding scores in math, reading, science, or any category that I'm familiar with. There are problems with our education system, it's unequally distributed, it's not preparing kids for the careers of the future adequately, and other problems - but what's the solution? Spend more money, tax more, and so on? On a similar subject, why should we take more money from the rich, who already pay a disproportionate share of federal taxes, so that we can buy more tanks we don't need, invade foreign countries, overthrow foreign governments, staff military bases around the world, and waste uncountable amounts of money on silly military projects.

nradov 9y ago

We really ought to ban the word "fair" from discussions about tax rates. Fairness is totally subjective and that just derails the conversation. It would be more productive to focus on outcomes. How can we structure the tax system to prevent civil disorder ("let them eat cake"), keep people out of extreme poverty, and avoid burdening wealthy individuals so much that they emigrate to lower-tax countries?

jfoutz 9y ago

One (absurd) solution would be to say, no income taxes beyond $127,000 (same as social security) and to pay for it, we'll just not have a military. The homeless person down the street wouldn't really notice. The homeowner would get very nervous. The international oil corporation would essentially self destruct. So in this case, The more you have the more you stand to lose. Another (absurd) option, we could cut all discretionary spending in half. So, 1/2 size military, 1/2 size departments of state, health, homeland security, veterans affairs, education and the rest. This might be kinda workable, but we'd probably lose military control in the middle east, which is essentially access to all that oil. i think it'd be tough to enforce copyright without heavy state department involvement, which would risk a bunch of wealth. I think the 1% get outsized returns from the stability of the government. If you can pick a set of departments to simply eliminate i'd love to see the set, and why it wouldn't risk current wealth. There are a few i'd be sad to see go, but you could probably eliminate education, energy (no more nukes though), nasa, interior, hud, and agriculture. that gets you fairly close to 200 billion, with about 400 billion more to go. those are risky, but probably survivable. i dunno. I fundamentally disagree, the more you have the more you benefit from the status quo.

ImSkeptical 9y ago
I agree that rich benefit more from the status quo than the poor. That's part of why I'm not bothered by the fact that the rich pay a disproportionate (mathematically speaking only) share of the taxes. Plus, a rich person can give up a third of their income whereas a poor person couldn't. What I'm saying is that it doesn't seem true to say the rich aren't paying their fair due. If you think that, then please answer what percentage of federal taxes do you think the 1% should pay and why would that be more fair than what they currently pay?
- jfoutz 9y ago
  if i could wave a magic wand, taxes would be strictly progressive. I understand the difference between income and capital gains, but i find Buffet's comments about 'lower rate than my secretary' frustrating. I would support Paul Ryan's original promise that 'you can file your taxes on a postcard'. With the caveat, every other person and corporation also files their taxes on a postcard. This, of course, strips a fantastic amount of subtlety and control. Subsidize what you want and tax what you don't is standard tax policy. On the other hand, i prefer scheme to c++. so simple as to be completely transparent is better than fabulous complexity. But, it turns out that's not a particularly popular world view.

cmurf 9y ago

Wealth inequality is the better measure. And by that measure, wealth inequality is getting worse in the U.S. and indefinite worsening of inequality is untenable for a civil society and functioning democracy. Also, all earned income (wages) is subject to payroll tax from the very first dollar and that is a tax on one's income. But setting aside FICA, there is a disturbing vulgarity in saying only poor people pay nothing in income tax, because rich people also pay nothing in income tax on that exact same amount of money. That's how tax brackets work. Person A makes $15,000 a year and pays no income tax; person B makes $1.5 million but likewise pays no income tax on their "first" $15,000. So I find picking on poor people, who pay a disproportionate amount of their income on sales and property taxes than wealthy people, rather ignorant and obscene. The mere fact that wealth inequality continues to get worse does tell me there is a deficiency in tax policy. I don't really care about an arbitrary emotive like "fairness" - what I care about is avoiding the destabilization of civility and that is guaranteed to have a breaking point at a certain level of inequality. It is not necessary to enforce a classless, egalitarian society, in order to narrow the wealth inequally gap to something more sane and then maintain that gap (for those who want to protect classism, anyway).