5 ms·

A time when unions were strong, when the 1% were taxed at ~90% and when "social security" and "pensions" were not evil words. I feel zero sympathy for American

A time when unions were strong, when the 1% were taxed at ~90% and when "social security" and "pensions" were not evil words. I feel zero sympathy for Americans and for the utter clusterfuck of misery that awaits them over the next 20 years. This is just the beginning.

pofilat 8y ago
There never was a 90% tax rate. That was a marginal rate, and there were massive deductions.
- monocasa 8y ago
  Then name those massive deductions. Edit: or just drive by downvote, I guess.
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    You should expect people to downvote when you demand information you could get yourself just by skimming Wikipedia articles.
    - monocasa 8y ago
      I asked about deductions, not just the marginal rate. That's not covered in the wikipedia articles.
  - pofilat 8y ago
    From the 1950s, when the marginal rate was >90%: https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ > per the Piketty, Saez, and Zucman data ... The average tax rate on the 0.1 percent highest-income Americans was 50.6 percent in the 1950s, compared to 39.8 percent today. From 1979 onward: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/effective_tax_rates2004.pdf http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/... Highest effective tax rate, before Reagan's reforms, was 37% of the income of the top 1%
    - monocasa 8y ago
      I asked about the deductions, not just the marginal rate. My understanding is it matched what's more typical in Japanese C-levels these days. You don't have a crazy salary, but your car is a company car, the company has a deal with the good schools to cover tuition for your kids, you don't pay for breakfast, or lunch ever because you'd be at the office so the company handles it, etc. Edit: Guys, there's several ways to being down the marginal rate, deductions are only one of them.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    One of the first Google results. https://mises.org/library/good-ol-days-when-tax-rates-were-90-percent https://mises.org/library/good-ol-days-when-tax-rates-were-9... In a nutshell, most expenses that businesses can still deduct were once deductible by individuals, the largest (by dollars) being interest deductions for any type of loan.
    - monocasa 8y ago
      I mean, this is why I don't look to the Mises Institute for real economic analysis. This is blog post is case in point, they base the whole idea of the deductions reducing the marginal rate on one anonymous former accountant, interspersed with bitching about 'liberals'. EDIT: I mean, their charts are blatantly mislabeled (even against their argument), showing a top marginal rate of over 90%. These people are just incompetent.
      - gamblor956 8y ago
        The highest marginal rate was 94% during WWII. So it sounds like the incompetent one is...you... And I'm not citing the Mises Institute for economic analysis, I'm citing it as one of the many dozen potential resources you could have looked at for the historical information you were asking for, namely the deductions that were lost in the 1986 tax reform.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
qaq 8y ago
Would you name a country where 1% is taxed @ 90%? and what exactly would it acomplish so a google eng. would suddenly have 30-40K after tax income with 2 mil mortage that would really help make things right.
- PopsiclePete 8y ago
  Google engineers are not the top whatever-percent that needs to be taxed like that, no. It's mostly the idle billionaire class. Warren Buffet agrees with me, FWIW.
  - qaq 8y ago
    What does it have to do with 1%? there are about 600 billionaires in US so they are like what 0.000001%?
    - sokoloff 8y ago
      >> 0.000001%? No, 0.000184% (or 0.0000018, a factor of >180 different)
- rconti 8y ago
  Marginal tax rates on very high earners were 90% in the US. https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-myth-of-the-90-percent-tax-rate https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-myth-of-the-90-pe...
- abalone 8y ago
  That exaggerates how much they’d be taxed, but generally speaking such governments provide more public services (eg health care, quality education) and also build housing. Even in the USA, HUD used to have a bigger budget than the department of defense.
sctb 8y ago
Could you please stop with the unsubstantive flamewar comments? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

pofilat 8y ago

There never was a 90% tax rate. That was a marginal rate, and there were massive deductions.

monocasa 8y ago
Then name those massive deductions. Edit: or just drive by downvote, I guess.
- crooked-v 8y ago
  You should expect people to downvote when you demand information you could get yourself just by skimming Wikipedia articles.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    I asked about deductions, not just the marginal rate. That's not covered in the wikipedia articles.
- pofilat 8y ago
  From the 1950s, when the marginal rate was >90%: https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ > per the Piketty, Saez, and Zucman data ... The average tax rate on the 0.1 percent highest-income Americans was 50.6 percent in the 1950s, compared to 39.8 percent today. From 1979 onward: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/effective_tax_rates2004.pdf http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/... Highest effective tax rate, before Reagan's reforms, was 37% of the income of the top 1%
  - monocasa 8y ago
    I asked about the deductions, not just the marginal rate. My understanding is it matched what's more typical in Japanese C-levels these days. You don't have a crazy salary, but your car is a company car, the company has a deal with the good schools to cover tuition for your kids, you don't pay for breakfast, or lunch ever because you'd be at the office so the company handles it, etc. Edit: Guys, there's several ways to being down the marginal rate, deductions are only one of them.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  One of the first Google results. https://mises.org/library/good-ol-days-when-tax-rates-were-90-percent https://mises.org/library/good-ol-days-when-tax-rates-were-9... In a nutshell, most expenses that businesses can still deduct were once deductible by individuals, the largest (by dollars) being interest deductions for any type of loan.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    I mean, this is why I don't look to the Mises Institute for real economic analysis. This is blog post is case in point, they base the whole idea of the deductions reducing the marginal rate on one anonymous former accountant, interspersed with bitching about 'liberals'. EDIT: I mean, their charts are blatantly mislabeled (even against their argument), showing a top marginal rate of over 90%. These people are just incompetent.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      The highest marginal rate was 94% during WWII. So it sounds like the incompetent one is...you... And I'm not citing the Mises Institute for economic analysis, I'm citing it as one of the many dozen potential resources you could have looked at for the historical information you were asking for, namely the deductions that were lost in the 1986 tax reform.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]

qaq 8y ago

Would you name a country where 1% is taxed @ 90%? and what exactly would it acomplish so a google eng. would suddenly have 30-40K after tax income with 2 mil mortage that would really help make things right.

PopsiclePete 8y ago
Google engineers are not the top whatever-percent that needs to be taxed like that, no. It's mostly the idle billionaire class. Warren Buffet agrees with me, FWIW.
- qaq 8y ago
  What does it have to do with 1%? there are about 600 billionaires in US so they are like what 0.000001%?
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    >> 0.000001%? No, 0.000184% (or 0.0000018, a factor of >180 different)
rconti 8y ago
Marginal tax rates on very high earners were 90% in the US. https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-myth-of-the-90-percent-tax-rate https://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-myth-of-the-90-pe...
abalone 8y ago
That exaggerates how much they’d be taxed, but generally speaking such governments provide more public services (eg health care, quality education) and also build housing. Even in the USA, HUD used to have a bigger budget than the department of defense.

sctb 8y ago

Could you please stop with the unsubstantive flamewar comments? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html