4 ms·

Same here. I would rather that the disproportionately rich pay for it, however.

by tjr225 8y ago

briandear 8y ago
You would rather someone else pay for your beliefs? The disproportionately rich already pay a disproportionate share of taxes. The top 1% earn 19% of the income but pay 35% of the taxes in the US. I’m not sure that’s fair. Rich people also create the jobs: if they pay more, they have less incentive to invest more which means fewer businesses being funded and fewer jobs.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  World's tiniest golden violin. I am also against disproportionate taxes on the rich, but lets not start pitying them or assigning value to their well being above societies. Liberty above everything else, and I dont want anyone to suffer any consequence under the veil of "trickle-down econ", which is not what people think it is.
  - isoskeles 8y ago
    Nah, I feel for the disproportionately rich. They’re constantly blamed for society’s ills, for the sin of having wealth, to the point where I’m sure something like 15% of the population would be happy with dragging them into the streets and beheading them. I’m tired of hearing about the “disproportionately rich” and the unoriginal idea that their resources are the only solution. It’s tiring to see people continue piling on with that rhetoric.
    - FiveSquared 8y ago
      And not knowing whos real and whos fake. But, they should pay a fair share. BTW, The best income is 299k at Reigh NC.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  I generally agree with you here, but as an aside there is one nuance you have to consider. And that's taxation vs disposable income. Imagine somebody earns $50k and spends $30k on their living expenses and pays a 30% tax rate. They have $20k left after their basic living expenses, but $15k of that is eaten up by taxes. Looking at their disposable income, they're paying a ridiculous tax rate of 75%. I think it's more reasonable to compare taxation on disposable income. In my opinion a fair tax would only tax disposable income anyhow. Of course that creates an incentive to have $0 disposable income but it's no different than the problem of corporations aiming to report $0 profit. Progressive tax schemes aim to achieve this, but in a completely broken and inconsistent fashion. For instance somebody earning $100k in San Francisco is going to be spending a rather different percent of their income on basic living expenses than somebody living in Bodunk earning the same, and so applying the same scheme to both does not make sense. It'd be much easier to just make everything that qualifies as a 'basic living expense' fully deductible, and then you pay e.g. 15% on the rest.
  - Bahamut 8y ago
    There's more to it here - the wealthy generally are able to better play long games to further save more, better able to handle unexpected life events that could devastate the less prepared, and have better alignment with the government fighting/optimizing for their use cases. There are a lot more reasons as to the exponential advantages the wealthy generally enjoy suggest that the wealthy should indeed get taxed more, but it's probably better suited for discussion elsewhere than HN.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Sure, but I think this starts getting into ideology. I think people should be taxed rates that, in a vacuum, can be considered fair. I pay 15% of what I can, you pay 15% of what you can is about as fair as you can get. The reason I'm not fond of going beyond this is because you start getting into very subjective territory. For instance while I agree with all you've said, excepting your conclusion, I'm sure you'd also agree that lower income individuals would also be much more likely to end up as the direct beneficiaries of where lots of government money goes to such medicaid/medicare and various social programs. Since these lower income individuals are going to be disproportionately more likely to utilize the benefits of these government programs, would it then not make more sense for them to shoulder a greater percent of the costs to account for this? I absolutely do not agree with this conclusion, but at the same time I also don't see any clear logical flaw in it. So you can do an ideological tug of war, one way or the other, to no end on these issues. One ideology might have the wealthy give nearly all of their income away to help the rest of the population. The other end of ideology might have people give none away and rely entirely on market dynamics. I think a fixed and fair sum is one of the more reasonable ways to step outside of ideology and try to create a system that nobody really loves, but also nobody can create rational arguments suggesting is, in and of itself, unreasonably biased towards one group or another.
- darkarmani 8y ago
  Are you talking about wealth or income?

Same here. I would rather that the disproportionately rich pay for it, however.

by tjr225 8y ago

Same here. I would rather that the disproportionately rich pay for it, however.

You would rather someone else pay for your beliefs? The disproportionately rich already pay a disproportionate share of taxes. The top 1% earn 19% of the income but pay 35% of the taxes in the US. I’m not sure that’s fair. Rich people also create the jobs: if they pay more, they have less incentive to invest more which means fewer businesses being funded and fewer jobs.

conanbatt 8y ago
World's tiniest golden violin. I am also against disproportionate taxes on the rich, but lets not start pitying them or assigning value to their well being above societies. Liberty above everything else, and I dont want anyone to suffer any consequence under the veil of "trickle-down econ", which is not what people think it is.
- isoskeles 8y ago
  Nah, I feel for the disproportionately rich. They’re constantly blamed for society’s ills, for the sin of having wealth, to the point where I’m sure something like 15% of the population would be happy with dragging them into the streets and beheading them. I’m tired of hearing about the “disproportionately rich” and the unoriginal idea that their resources are the only solution. It’s tiring to see people continue piling on with that rhetoric.
  - FiveSquared 8y ago
    And not knowing whos real and whos fake. But, they should pay a fair share. BTW, The best income is 299k at Reigh NC.
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
I generally agree with you here, but as an aside there is one nuance you have to consider. And that's taxation vs disposable income. Imagine somebody earns $50k and spends $30k on their living expenses and pays a 30% tax rate. They have $20k left after their basic living expenses, but $15k of that is eaten up by taxes. Looking at their disposable income, they're paying a ridiculous tax rate of 75%. I think it's more reasonable to compare taxation on disposable income. In my opinion a fair tax would only tax disposable income anyhow. Of course that creates an incentive to have $0 disposable income but it's no different than the problem of corporations aiming to report $0 profit. Progressive tax schemes aim to achieve this, but in a completely broken and inconsistent fashion. For instance somebody earning $100k in San Francisco is going to be spending a rather different percent of their income on basic living expenses than somebody living in Bodunk earning the same, and so applying the same scheme to both does not make sense. It'd be much easier to just make everything that qualifies as a 'basic living expense' fully deductible, and then you pay e.g. 15% on the rest.
- Bahamut 8y ago
  There's more to it here - the wealthy generally are able to better play long games to further save more, better able to handle unexpected life events that could devastate the less prepared, and have better alignment with the government fighting/optimizing for their use cases. There are a lot more reasons as to the exponential advantages the wealthy generally enjoy suggest that the wealthy should indeed get taxed more, but it's probably better suited for discussion elsewhere than HN.
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Sure, but I think this starts getting into ideology. I think people should be taxed rates that, in a vacuum, can be considered fair. I pay 15% of what I can, you pay 15% of what you can is about as fair as you can get. The reason I'm not fond of going beyond this is because you start getting into very subjective territory. For instance while I agree with all you've said, excepting your conclusion, I'm sure you'd also agree that lower income individuals would also be much more likely to end up as the direct beneficiaries of where lots of government money goes to such medicaid/medicare and various social programs. Since these lower income individuals are going to be disproportionately more likely to utilize the benefits of these government programs, would it then not make more sense for them to shoulder a greater percent of the costs to account for this? I absolutely do not agree with this conclusion, but at the same time I also don't see any clear logical flaw in it. So you can do an ideological tug of war, one way or the other, to no end on these issues. One ideology might have the wealthy give nearly all of their income away to help the rest of the population. The other end of ideology might have people give none away and rely entirely on market dynamics. I think a fixed and fair sum is one of the more reasonable ways to step outside of ideology and try to create a system that nobody really loves, but also nobody can create rational arguments suggesting is, in and of itself, unreasonably biased towards one group or another.
darkarmani 8y ago
Are you talking about wealth or income?