4 ms·

In other news, top 3% of us taxpayers earned the majority of income in 2016

by getcrunk 8y ago

refurb 8y ago
So you’re willing to concede that the rich pay their fair share?
- greesil 8y ago
  Please define fair, and rich.
- nevir 8y ago
  Isn't the other half of the statistic something like "the top 0.1% of U.S. taxpayers earned majority of income"?
- coldtea 8y ago
  How did you come up with that? The article just says that top 3% of US taxpayers pay the majority of income taxes. If they pay 60% of all income tax paid, but have e.g. 80% of income, they're still paying "the majority of income taxes", but not a fair share of them.
  - harryh 8y ago
    Your hypothetical is not the case (as you can see in one of the graphs in the article). I don't know what "fair share" means exactly, but the 3% in question make far less a % of national income than they pay in income taxes.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      My hypothetical was an extreme example to show how this can be still fair. Besides this extreme example, you can get the 3% much lower in their share of income and still be justified for the taxes they pay. Say, a person makes 1M year and a 999999 people make 10K per year. The first person earns just 0,01% of the total income combined, but he might be the only one paying taxes if the others are below the taxable income level. So, he might pay e.g. 20% of 1M (and 100% of taxes), while he only makes 0.01% of the income -- and that could still be fair. Now add many dirt poor, many middle class, and a 3% of upper middle class, millionaires, billionaires and so on.
  - sintaxi 8y ago
    As someone else has pointed out the top 3% have about 30% of the income while paying 60% of the tax. https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/itOyNXaN9ahY/v1/760x-1.png https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/itOyNXaN9ah... edit: downvoted for providing facts. I take it we have marxists here.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >downvoted for providing facts. I take it we have marxists here. Well, speaking of facts, "I take it we have marxists here" shows a bias, and it's not exactly a fact in itself. Under a progressive taxation scheme, it can be perfectly normal to make "30% of the income while paying 60% of the tax". (In fact, more normal than being 3% of the population but making 30% of the income). And for many progressively harsher taxation is fairer -- for one because 20% for someone who makes $20K can leave them with difficulty even paying for rent, while even 50% for someone earning $1M will leave them with a very comfortable amount to have all kinds of luxuries. Below a point of poverty, even 10% or 5% is cruel. Whether 60% share of taxes is fair it depends. Perhaps they should pay even more than 60% of the tax.
      - sintaxi 8y ago
        My comment corrected the assertion that the top 3% take home 80% of the income - and was written without bias (the marxist comment was added after the downvotes).
- tankerdude 8y ago
  No chance. There are lies and there are statistics. It misses the point about local taxes and fees. If you flip it around, and ask, how much of your total income is used to pay taxes and fees for federal, state, and local taxes, the ones at the lower end will be paying a much higher percentage of their income. There is only so much you actually have to pay for when you become rich where the folks on the lower end must pay for certain things that take a larger part of their income. No chance it is “fair” and we know who is writing the tax laws.
  - harryh 8y ago
    If you flip it around, and ask, how much of your total income is used to pay taxes and fees for federal, state, and local taxes, the ones at the lower end will be paying a much higher percentage of their income. This is simply false. One can certainly argue that our tax code should be more progressive than it is, but denying that it is progressive at all is contradicted by the facts.
    - tankerdude 8y ago
      Progressive for federal income taxes, yes. But overall progressive, the answer is simply no. Many places switched from part of income tax to fees. Skyrocketed increase for fees to national parks this past year. Went up 300% for a weekly pass. You apply that over and over again in many parts of your life, and it adds up. It just simply costs more of the percentage of your income to live and because of it, it takes a bigger chunk of your income and thus isn’t progressive. Lastly, Social Security is a kicker for the one thing that is flat out regressive. Capital gains pays zilch for it, and it stops at 127K or so of income. That tax is burdened by the middle class. That’s chump change for the wealthy, but anyone hit by it is burdened less and less the more money they make. And don’t tell me it’s a “fund”. That’s not how the GOP acts with it.
      - harryh 8y ago
        There are publicly available stats on this stuff. You can look them up on the IRS website. They disagree with your assertion.
- kylestlb 8y ago
  Do you think marginal utility factors into fairness?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
foota 8y ago
That doesn't actually follow, since average tax rates increase as you earn more.
- trhway 8y ago
  I dont think it's true. Remember Buffet saying that his tax is less than his secretary's? Specifically top 1% average rate is 27% while top 0.001 - 24%.
  - bluedevil2k 8y ago
    His effective tax percentage he meant. Since he has so many tax write-offs, capital gains distributions and carried interest, he was referring to the taxes he paid divided by the total money he earned. One can assume his secretary had only her income and the standard deduction.
  - MR4D 8y ago
    That’s mostly irrelevant. If you had a trillion dollars in muni bonds and no other income, your federal tax rate would be zero. (And that’s a constitutional thing, too). The other aspect is long term capital gains rate. Raising that has historically hurt capital formation, which, while it hurts those at the top, creates situations like the late 70’s for the rest of the population.
  - wdn 8y ago
    Buffett said that because he wants other to pay more tax. If he so wants to pay more tax as law requires it, then all he has to do is lobby Washington get rid of the “Dividend Received Deduction” or DRD, which he is the biggest beneficiary. DRD is when a company, in this case Bershire Hathaway, received a dividend payment from a company they owned, Bershire can exempt up to 80% of the dividend from the income tax. I love Buffett dearly and I think he is a great person. But when it come to tax, he is a hypocrite.
    - JamesBarney 8y ago
      The drd doesn't effect his personal tax rate, it only affects Berthshire Hatheways tax rate.
zxcvvcxz 8y ago
The top 1% earned 23% of all income. They also paid 40% of all income taxes.
cperciva 8y ago
Not true. If you read the article, you'll find a graph which shows the fractions of income: https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/itOyNXaN9ahY/v1/760x-1.png https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/itOyNXaN9ah... The top 3% of US taxpayers had a combined ~28% of income. You have to go up to the top ~12% of US taxpayers to accumulate 50% of income.
- danvoell 8y ago
  What % of discretional income did the top 3% have?
  - cperciva 8y ago
    Not sure what you mean by "discretional". Disposable (after-tax) income? Or discretionary income (which depends on where you draw the line for a "basic standard of living)? In either case, this is irrelevant to the fact that getcrunk made a false claim.
- andrewvc 8y ago
  The NY times recently ran a story about Jared Kushner paying no, or almost no taxes after showing a loss by using some legal, but creative accounting around depreciation. I've heard the same thing about owners of sports teams. So, when it comes to the 1% it can be hard to measure who's actually in it.
  - refurb 8y ago
    There is a big difference between cherry picked examples and what happens on average. We’ve all heard of millionaires paying no taxes, yet the top 0.1% pay an effective rate of 36% on average (too lazy to look up source again).
  - djrogers 8y ago
    Asset depreciation is at best a temporary game - for example I racked up depreciation on a rental property, and during the years I did so, I paid less in taxes. When I sold the property I had to account for that depreciation and pay taxes on all of it.
branchless 8y ago
"earned" in a world of rentier activity. Some earn it, some appropriate it.

In other news, top 3% of us taxpayers earned the majority of income in 2016

refurb 8y ago

So you’re willing to concede that the rich pay their fair share?

greesil 8y ago
Please define fair, and rich.
nevir 8y ago
Isn't the other half of the statistic something like "the top 0.1% of U.S. taxpayers earned majority of income"?
coldtea 8y ago
How did you come up with that? The article just says that top 3% of US taxpayers pay the majority of income taxes. If they pay 60% of all income tax paid, but have e.g. 80% of income, they're still paying "the majority of income taxes", but not a fair share of them.
- harryh 8y ago
  Your hypothetical is not the case (as you can see in one of the graphs in the article). I don't know what "fair share" means exactly, but the 3% in question make far less a % of national income than they pay in income taxes.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    My hypothetical was an extreme example to show how this can be still fair. Besides this extreme example, you can get the 3% much lower in their share of income and still be justified for the taxes they pay. Say, a person makes 1M year and a 999999 people make 10K per year. The first person earns just 0,01% of the total income combined, but he might be the only one paying taxes if the others are below the taxable income level. So, he might pay e.g. 20% of 1M (and 100% of taxes), while he only makes 0.01% of the income -- and that could still be fair. Now add many dirt poor, many middle class, and a 3% of upper middle class, millionaires, billionaires and so on.
- sintaxi 8y ago
  As someone else has pointed out the top 3% have about 30% of the income while paying 60% of the tax. https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/itOyNXaN9ahY/v1/760x-1.png https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/itOyNXaN9ah... edit: downvoted for providing facts. I take it we have marxists here.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >downvoted for providing facts. I take it we have marxists here. Well, speaking of facts, "I take it we have marxists here" shows a bias, and it's not exactly a fact in itself. Under a progressive taxation scheme, it can be perfectly normal to make "30% of the income while paying 60% of the tax". (In fact, more normal than being 3% of the population but making 30% of the income). And for many progressively harsher taxation is fairer -- for one because 20% for someone who makes $20K can leave them with difficulty even paying for rent, while even 50% for someone earning $1M will leave them with a very comfortable amount to have all kinds of luxuries. Below a point of poverty, even 10% or 5% is cruel. Whether 60% share of taxes is fair it depends. Perhaps they should pay even more than 60% of the tax.
    - sintaxi 8y ago
      My comment corrected the assertion that the top 3% take home 80% of the income - and was written without bias (the marxist comment was added after the downvotes).
tankerdude 8y ago
No chance. There are lies and there are statistics. It misses the point about local taxes and fees. If you flip it around, and ask, how much of your total income is used to pay taxes and fees for federal, state, and local taxes, the ones at the lower end will be paying a much higher percentage of their income. There is only so much you actually have to pay for when you become rich where the folks on the lower end must pay for certain things that take a larger part of their income. No chance it is “fair” and we know who is writing the tax laws.
- harryh 8y ago
  If you flip it around, and ask, how much of your total income is used to pay taxes and fees for federal, state, and local taxes, the ones at the lower end will be paying a much higher percentage of their income. This is simply false. One can certainly argue that our tax code should be more progressive than it is, but denying that it is progressive at all is contradicted by the facts.
  - tankerdude 8y ago
    Progressive for federal income taxes, yes. But overall progressive, the answer is simply no. Many places switched from part of income tax to fees. Skyrocketed increase for fees to national parks this past year. Went up 300% for a weekly pass. You apply that over and over again in many parts of your life, and it adds up. It just simply costs more of the percentage of your income to live and because of it, it takes a bigger chunk of your income and thus isn’t progressive. Lastly, Social Security is a kicker for the one thing that is flat out regressive. Capital gains pays zilch for it, and it stops at 127K or so of income. That tax is burdened by the middle class. That’s chump change for the wealthy, but anyone hit by it is burdened less and less the more money they make. And don’t tell me it’s a “fund”. That’s not how the GOP acts with it.
    - harryh 8y ago
      There are publicly available stats on this stuff. You can look them up on the IRS website. They disagree with your assertion.
kylestlb 8y ago
Do you think marginal utility factors into fairness?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

foota 8y ago

That doesn't actually follow, since average tax rates increase as you earn more.

trhway 8y ago
I dont think it's true. Remember Buffet saying that his tax is less than his secretary's? Specifically top 1% average rate is 27% while top 0.001 - 24%.
- bluedevil2k 8y ago
  His effective tax percentage he meant. Since he has so many tax write-offs, capital gains distributions and carried interest, he was referring to the taxes he paid divided by the total money he earned. One can assume his secretary had only her income and the standard deduction.
- MR4D 8y ago
  That’s mostly irrelevant. If you had a trillion dollars in muni bonds and no other income, your federal tax rate would be zero. (And that’s a constitutional thing, too). The other aspect is long term capital gains rate. Raising that has historically hurt capital formation, which, while it hurts those at the top, creates situations like the late 70’s for the rest of the population.
- wdn 8y ago
  Buffett said that because he wants other to pay more tax. If he so wants to pay more tax as law requires it, then all he has to do is lobby Washington get rid of the “Dividend Received Deduction” or DRD, which he is the biggest beneficiary. DRD is when a company, in this case Bershire Hathaway, received a dividend payment from a company they owned, Bershire can exempt up to 80% of the dividend from the income tax. I love Buffett dearly and I think he is a great person. But when it come to tax, he is a hypocrite.
  - JamesBarney 8y ago
    The drd doesn't effect his personal tax rate, it only affects Berthshire Hatheways tax rate.

zxcvvcxz 8y ago

The top 1% earned 23% of all income. They also paid 40% of all income taxes.

cperciva 8y ago

Not true. If you read the article, you'll find a graph which shows the fractions of income: https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/itOyNXaN9ahY/v1/760x-1.png https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/itOyNXaN9ah... The top 3% of US taxpayers had a combined ~28% of income. You have to go up to the top ~12% of US taxpayers to accumulate 50% of income.

danvoell 8y ago
What % of discretional income did the top 3% have?
- cperciva 8y ago
  Not sure what you mean by "discretional". Disposable (after-tax) income? Or discretionary income (which depends on where you draw the line for a "basic standard of living)? In either case, this is irrelevant to the fact that getcrunk made a false claim.
andrewvc 8y ago
The NY times recently ran a story about Jared Kushner paying no, or almost no taxes after showing a loss by using some legal, but creative accounting around depreciation. I've heard the same thing about owners of sports teams. So, when it comes to the 1% it can be hard to measure who's actually in it.
- refurb 8y ago
  There is a big difference between cherry picked examples and what happens on average. We’ve all heard of millionaires paying no taxes, yet the top 0.1% pay an effective rate of 36% on average (too lazy to look up source again).
- djrogers 8y ago
  Asset depreciation is at best a temporary game - for example I racked up depreciation on a rental property, and during the years I did so, I paid less in taxes. When I sold the property I had to account for that depreciation and pay taxes on all of it.

branchless 8y ago

"earned" in a world of rentier activity. Some earn it, some appropriate it.