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For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

• eloff 7y ago
  Wow, that chart shows tax rates on the wealthy dropping from 70% to 23% in the last 70 years. Now probably 70% was too socialist and may not fly in a globalised world where is a lot easier to move to a lower tax country or state (I'd move if I had to pay that.) But this seems ridiculously tilted to the other extreme now. Edit: I don't understand the objections to my comment. If you have a problem with the data behind that chart, that's not my problem. If you object to the usage of the word socialist - that's a common usage, don't be so pedantic.
  • Synaesthesia 7y ago
    It’s hardly socialist, unless the USA was socialist in the 50’s lol. Socialism anyway, real socialism is supposed to be about workers owning the factories they work in. What you’re describing is a welfare state.
    • traderjane 7y ago
      I thought workers owning the means of production was communism, whereas socialism has come to mean the distribution of value to society through highly general programs.
      • rriepe 7y ago
        Socialism: You give your paycheck to the government. Communism: The government gives your paycheck to you.
        • ivalm 7y ago
          No, Communism: there is no governemnt, we're a workers' utopia now.
      • crimsonalucard 7y ago
        No. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Socialism https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Socialism The mistake comes from the misconception that Scandinavia is Socialist. It is not: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nordic_model https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nordic_model The nordic model is a welfare state with multi-level collective bargaining (think unions and corporations everywhere). Though the term welfare state sounds really really bad, they are actually doing really really well.
      • throwaway744678 7y ago
        This is the current meaning of the word. But let's not forget where it comes from. Historically communists saw themselves as the true socialists (eg. USSR)
      • merpnderp 7y ago
        Socialism has a real definition which means the people owning the means of production. Just because people confuse it with a welfare state doesn’t change the myriads of literature discussing this philosophy. Just shows the continued failures of our public schools to teach even basic concepts.
      • Throw_Away_8563 7y ago
        No. Communism is a stateless and classless society, that, in Marxism, is the next step after the "dictatorship of the proletariat", or the ideology that wants to achieve this state. Socialism is the public ownership of the means of production. Communism is a form of socialism.
      • captainbland 7y ago
        My understanding is as such: Communism (the ideal): a classless, moneyless society where all states around the world have withered away and people are free to organise themselves outside the tyranny of the state or private property owners Communist Party: Authoritarians who like to use the above as a carrot and seem to like to create one-party states who never wither away. They claim to represent workers but tend to stick their own representatives anywhere that has any economic significance. Leftist critics of such societies often characterise this as "state capitalism" where the state is effectively one gigantic, brutal monopoly. In Lenin's words "He who does not work, neither shall he eat." Socialism (marxist): Workers own the means of production as a vital step towards communism Bourgeois socialism: A pejorative for what we call social democracy or democratic socialism Social democracy: The distribution of value to society through highly general programs, as you put it, within a liberal, capitalist society. Democratic socialism: Social ownership (i.e. co-ops, municipal ownership, some nationalisation) of the "means of production", usually still within a market and otherwise retaining liberal democracy and usually also aiming to implement social democratic policies, too. Also interesting: Ricardian socialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardian_socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardian_socialism
    • meerita 7y ago
      No, workers don't own anything in Socialist States. In Socialism, it is the State that owns everything and obligate the workers to work. You cannot create any business in Socialist states due the nature of the abolition of private property. You cannot choose what to work, it's the State who assign you that.
      • Synaesthesia 7y ago
        Then they're not socialist states. In fact the USSR was a counter-socialist state, they had to overcome the real revolution and re-instate managerial control from the workers, at great difficulty.
        • meerita 7y ago
          The USSR was a full blown socialist state. They managed capital in the practice, they also traded with other countries and let farmers do commerce due the war with them. but that was their strategy (on Russia) but in the rest of the socialist states they didn't. There's so much books written about this topic you can never end to find contradictions in their rules. Of course the elite lived like the best capitalists.
  • adnzzzzZ 7y ago
    There were a lot more exemptions, deductions and credits back then so the effective tax rate was not even close to 70% and was not much higher than it is today. Not sure why this article didn't mention this at all but I can guess, coming from the New York Times and all.
    • fiter 7y ago
      I believe the nominal tax rate now is not ~20%, so then the graphs are all showing effective, not nominal, and their point stands.
    • apazzolini 7y ago
      Since you're so sure of your viewpoint and the NYT's bias, it should be really easy for you to go into more detail here, right? (I'm not expecting a thorough response from you, don't worry)
      • ytNumbers 7y ago
        https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
        • apazzolini 7y ago
          See the rest of the comments on this post to understand why this link isn't useful in the discussion of taxes on the top 0.01%, which is the subject of the parent article.
          • ytNumbers 7y ago
            One aspect of what can be found in the NYT article is a graph that shows the people at the very top of the income pyramid paying a 70% tax rate in 1950. However, there's a nominal tax rate versus what someone actually winds up paying after various deductions an loopholes. An earlier study by the same authors of this latest publication that the NYT is citing indicates that those in the top 1% were paying around 40% in 1950. Based on that, I find the claim that those at the very top paid 70% in 1950 to be highly doubtful. Am I right about this? Well, I guess I'll have to wait a week for this latest book to be published, or until the NYT issues a correction. The earlier study from these same authors, which was cited in the link I posted above, can be found at: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/133/2/553/4430651/ https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/133/2/553/4430651/
• tartoran 7y ago
  That is correct, the rich don't pay any taxes at all (whenever the can). The was a recent thread on HN regarding tax audits [0]. What I got from that is that the IRS cannot afford to audit the rich because their taxes are complicated and they don't have enough resources to do so. They choose to audit the poor instead because, it is simpler.. link [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176705
  • hos234 7y ago
    Yup. That's the strategy the Military uses - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pentagon-budget-mystery-807276/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pent... "At a cost of $400 million, some 1,200 auditors charged into the jungle of military finance, but returned in defeat. They were unable to pass the Pentagon or flunk it. They could only offer no opinion, explaining the military’s empire of hundreds of acronymic accounting silos was too illogical to penetrate"
    • cpr 7y ago
      Remember when Rumsfeld announced that 2.3T USD were missing from the military? https://www.city-journal.org/html/americas-missing-money-15725.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/americas-missing-money-157... Yeah, nor do most people. The date he announced that? September 10, 2001. The section of the Pentagon hit? The accounting wing with all the records.
      • journalctl 7y ago
        As though the US government would have to orchestrate several terrorist attacks just to obscure some bad finances which are basically meaningless anyway.
        • bena 7y ago
          Yeah, that's the funny thing, we're supposed to trust that the Rumsfield thing is 100% legit but then they'd turn around and run a plane into the records to "hide" it. They could have just like not said shit. It's amazing how often conspiracy theories rely on the Illuminati DMV
• Synaesthesia 7y ago
  There’s so much that could be done if we taxed the ultra rich and huge corporations just a little bit more, and more effectively.
  • ggreer 7y ago
    They would just renounce their US citizenship and move to a country with lower taxes. That’s what Eduardo Saverin did.
    • nemo 7y ago
      Some might, but some are older and have roots in family ties and local ties. It is actually pretty hard and not especially desirable for many to abandon friends and family to save a money that is only to buy even more luxuries/see a bigger number in an account somewhere.
    • mcv 7y ago
      They didn't do that in the 1950s, though. It does address an important point, though: should you pay tax based on where you live, or on where your income comes from? Governments invest a lot in their country, their citizens, education, a healthy market, etc. For foreign companies to profit from that healthy market but not pay taxes there, seems wrong. Similarly, for people to work in a healthy labour market but not pay taxes there seems equally wrong. These things result in a race to bottom to attract rich people and corporations that make their money elsewhere. Instead, I think it would be better if income and profit were taxed more based on where it comes from, making tax havens irrelevant. But I have no idea how practical that is.
      • ivalm 7y ago
        About 30% tax haircut (on assets) if you renounce citizenship and try to repatriate money.
      • ggreer 7y ago
        > They didn't do that in the 1950s, though. In the 1950s there weren't any alternatives to the US. Europe and Asia were rebuilding from WWII. Central and South America weren't nearly as developed as today. Places like Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea were extremely poor. The english language wasn't as popular internationally. Intercontinental communication was expensive and low bandwidth. Travel was much more expensive. These communication and travel costs made investing in foreign ventures was a very risky endeavor. Nowadays, it costs nothing to video chat with people on the opposite side of the planet. And foreign investments are no longer the crapshoot that they used to be. It's much, much easier to live and work in a foreign country today. And it's only getting easier as technology improves. > Governments invest a lot in their country, their citizens, education, a healthy market, etc. Do they? I find that most people are successful despite governments, not because of them. For example: One of the schools I went to as a child was structurally condemned while I attended it. The water wasn't fluoridated, so my parents had to pay for fluoride pills to protect my teeth. I don't feel beholden to the government I live under anymore than I feel beholden to my employer. My employer has taught me valuable skills, invested in equipment, training, and pays for health care. Does that mean I should pay dividends to them after I leave? I don't think so.
• ggreer 7y ago
  This article fails to account for exemptions and deductions. This post[1] by the Tax Foundation explains it: > However, despite these high marginal rates, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the 1950s only paid about 42 percent of their income in taxes. Today the 1% pay a little over 36% of their income to taxes. 1. https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
  • fiter 7y ago
    This article is looking at even smaller/higher percentiles than the article that you're referencing. I believe this explains the difference.
    • hogFeast 7y ago
      Yes, there is no explanation of exactly how that number (400) was chosen. Given that the US is widely acknowledged to be one of the most progressive tax systems in the world, the burden of proof required here is far higher than the article attempts.
      • sweeneyrod 7y ago
        Widely known by whom? I'm not sure how that could be true even in theory; there is no universally agreed on definition of "progressive".
        • vonmoltke 7y ago
          > there is no universally agreed on definition of "progressive" "Progressive" is being used here as a technical term with a specific, greed-upon definition[1], not as a description for the leftist political movement that shares the term. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax
        • hogFeast 7y ago
          Yes, there is. If you are suggesting that literally no-one has ever thought: I will compare tax systems between countries...then yes...they have done that. And yes there are lots of objective measures of progressivity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax#Measuring_progressivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax#Measuring_prog... A good, brief, summary is - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/americas-taxes-are-the-most-progressive-in-the-world-its-government-is-among-the-least/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/ameri... - and there is also this in the Economist which explains the issues around spending in more detail - https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-taxes-are-unusually-progressive-government-spending-is-not https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-...
• cabaalis 7y ago
  > The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent). [1] I believe the linked data is from before the tax cuts. However, politics/social justice/etc all aside, it makes sense to me systematically that tax cuts affect the rich more than others. Wouldn't the groups paying the most be adjusted the most when a change occurs? [1] https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2018-update/ https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...
• uptown 7y ago
  dang: Dupe checker miss this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176586
• dannyw 7y ago
  It is absolutely intolerable that the US tax system is now flat and even slightly regressive.
  • zip1234 7y ago
    It's not--the article is missing important aspects of tax such as deductions/exemptions and other forms of tax paid.
    • frenchyatwork 7y ago
      At some point, with the right deductions & exceptions, a tax that looks progressive on paper becomes flat/regressive in practice.
      • zip1234 7y ago
        In general, I think a more complicated tax system favors those who can afford more accountants and lawyers.
  • swebs 7y ago
    Why?
• someguydave 7y ago
  why is this on hacker news?
• refurb 7y ago
  What a shit article. It's well known that despite the high marginal tax rates of the past, very few people ever paid those. Deductions abound that have since been eliminated. What you should really look at is real effective tax rates by income level.[1] What you'll find is that the top 1% make 19% of all income, but pay 37% of all taxes, with an average tax rate of 27%. The bottom 50% earn 11% of all income, but only pay 3% of all taxes, for an effective rate of 3.73%. [1]https://taxfoundation.org/top-1-percent-tax-rate/ https://taxfoundation.org/top-1-percent-tax-rate/
  • mcv 7y ago
    I'm not sure how informative that is. It's natural for the poorest 50% to pay a lot less tax; they first need to have enough money to eat and live before they can even afford to pay taxes. This is simply progressive taxation at work. Although I suppose showing that the top 1% has 19% of the income while the bottom 50% has 11% of the income does show the vast income discrepancy.
    • weberc2 7y ago
      I agree, but the parent is responding to the article’s claim that the rich pay less. This isn’t in support of the parent’s comment, just trying to clarify the conversation and root out accidental straw men.
      • danans 7y ago
        > the parent is responding to the article’s claim that the rich pay less. The article appears to be discussing the individual tax rates paid by the wealthiest, not the percentage of total tax paid. Those are two different things. The GP appears to have introduced the latter statistic, as often happens in this debate, to distract from the actual statistic under discussion.
        • refurb 7y ago
          I stated tax rate too. The bottom 50% effective tax rate is almost 1/10th of what the top 1%’s is. Therefore, the headline of the article “the rich pay less than than you” is pretty clearly false.
• vfc1 7y ago
  Of course they do. They can afford personal accountants and other full-time professionals that all they do fiscal optimization for them, trying to explore every loophole in the system for their advantage. They can open a company, declare expenses and claim a low salary, thet can put the money offshore or on Switzerland, and all those tax-avoiding schemas that are not doable by the common citizen.
  • coredog64 7y ago
    What exactly is it that you think putting the money in Switzerland accomplishes? The US asserts that any income you make anywhere in the world is subject to US income tax. Living inside a corporation is very difficult, and the IRS takes a pretty dim view of people who try it. But don’t take my word for it: Ask Wesley Snipes. He spent 3 years in a federal penitentiary for trying. There’s a small deduction that’s not indexed to inflation, and you can also deduct any local taxes you might have paid.
    • vfc1 7y ago
      All sorts of personal expenses can be deducted through a company. Travels, restaurants and hotels, car rentals, car maintenance. Even holidays, there is a whole business of seminars on cruises and exotic locations, people sign the presence sheet and skip classes and declare everything as an expense. You can pay your Internet, phone, buy coffee machines and coffee, office items and have all that deducted as a company expense. All of this is pretty significant for most people and would make a huge difference in most people budgets.
• throwaway13337 7y ago
  The argument for corporate income tax is misplaced. Many socialist countries have a low (or no) corporate income tax and that's goods. A country shouldn't tax the things it would like to encourage. In this case, that companies re-invest and not pull the funds out to pay investors. Capital gains tax should probably be mentioned. Why is it a much lower rate than income tax? Why not talk about that? Strange also that the article doesn't really target one specific part of the tax code - they don't mention any loopholes at all. If they'd like to see a change, name exploits. The article is outrage porn - not trying to inform, or make a specific change. It's simply trying to get clicks and shares. It's really a shame to see the new york times go this route.
  • chriogenix 7y ago
    basically this. in these mostly socialist countries, the top income bracket starts much much lower than in the US. these countries tax the middle class and consumption with VAT ranging from 15-21% on consumption. in spain the top bracket starts around 60,000 euros a year and its 45% not including local tax. these policies and similar ones in other countries in effect keep the rich rich and make it much, much harder for the poor/middle class to move up.
    • namdnay 7y ago
      I agree that corporation taxes are a bad idea, however I don't understand your argument about the tax rates in spain. How do they "keep the rich rich and make it much, much harder for the poor/middle class to move up"? You said yourself that the marginal income above 60k is taxed at 45% - that's clearly heavily taxing the rich
    • dep_b 7y ago
      Yup, moved back to one of those countries from a 20%-ish country and since I'm still not rich enough to have tons of deductions I'm really getting squeezed out of about half what I earn.
    • the_gastropod 7y ago
      These socialist countries have better economic mobility than the U.S. does... https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/americans-overestimate-social-mobility-in-their-country https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/02/14/american...
• partingshots 7y ago
  So since this is all 100% legal, are there resources available for people like us in the upper middle class bracket working as engineers in Silicon Valley to take advantage of all this? Almost half of my salary goes to taxes every paycheck. That’s almost $150,000 I literally never get to see just taken away.
  • IggleSniggle 7y ago
    You do see it though. In your roads, your public libraries, educated working-class, your parks, your clean air, your safe-to-drink milk, etc etc etc
    • wffurr 7y ago
      You also see it in the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that drop bombs on civilians in other countries, the global surveillance system, military aid to despotic regimes with no regard to human rights, the border guards that imprison children and harass travelers.
      • g2ah5z 7y ago
        You also see it in crumbling roads, ancient subway systems, shitty public schools, dumb regulations that make the market less competitive, "affordable" housing initiatives that make housing less affordable, pointless subsidies for farmers, and unsustainable pension funds.
        • IggleSniggle 7y ago
          This is true. It requires much more from the general populous than just the cash. Few private citizen wants to invest the time to fix the allocation. It’s a classic free rider problem.
      • IggleSniggle 7y ago
        A healthy democracy does require an engaged, educated voting populace to avoid being captured. I think the USA has been largely captured by the merchant kings who focus the populous not on their ability to change the nations trajectory, but instead on meaningless distractions. Did you hear about the anti-gun nuns who bought a significant piece of ownership in the gun manufacturers? They have voting rights in those companies, and the manufacturers are slowly being forced to answer to them.
• zerr 7y ago
  Another way to look at it, e.g. for income tax - if we take the same % (e.g. 30%) and think in terms of absolute numbers - for poor it is anyway a small amount, but for the rich the abs number might be so big that it becomes uncomfortable to just give such lump sum to government, especially if you don't like how gov spends it - so the incentives are much higher to optimize/avoid your taxes.
• xeonoex 7y ago
  All the people I know with money that have shared their effective tax rate pay way less than I do. Way less than this chart shows as well. I'm talking down to the single digits for effective tax rate. I can't 100% confirm that they're telling the truth, but I'm not sure why they would lie.
• frebord 7y ago
  See Figure 10 on this chart https://www.nber.org/papers/w22945.pdf https://www.nber.org/papers/w22945.pdf The data in this NYT article comes from research by the same authors as the above paper, which shows the top 1% having maximum effective tax rate over the years of around 45%? Confusing to say the least what is the difference.
• cal97g 7y ago
  The problem is that policies targeted at them would really only end up affecting the reasonably well off and not the rich/super rich.
• gorpovitch 7y ago
  I'm tired to read articles written inside "Opinions" sections.(not that I necessarily disagree with it, you guys are explaining how this article is right or wrong better than me). I would really like (not intended at HN, it's a general crisis in my life) to read more articles about politics that are neutral and factually oriented. It seems like 90% of the political content I read twists facts and build cheap, cherry-picked arguments to push for their opinions without any scientifical / logical humility (Discussing hypotheses, advancing honest counter arguments...). I am yet to find political writers / journalists raising questions without already knowing the answers to them. Real thinking instead of outrage porn (as another commenter wrote ; I like that expression)
  • TremendousJudge 7y ago
    Politics is a mind-killer https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-is-the-mind-killer https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i...
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • kaibee 7y ago
      I think you're missing the point of that article a bit.
  • Reedx 7y ago
    Would love to see that as well. Unfortunately outrage generates a lot more clicks and social media engagement. And politics are increasingly becoming intertwined with identity, which makes it even less cogent. From Paul Graham's essay about this: Politics, like religion, is a topic where there's no threshold of expertise for expressing an opinion. All you need is strong convictions. ...I think what religion and politics have in common is that they become part of people's identity, and people can never have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity. By definition they're partisan. http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html
  • 7y ago
• Excel_Wizard 7y ago
  This article doesn't do a good job of explaining the income breakdown of the top 400 households. I imagine it is nearly 100% long term capital gains and dividends. That doesn't explain the change in the chart that occurred in 2018 though.
• hogFeast 7y ago
  Oh boy, I can see how this ends. The US already has a very progressive system. The aim here appears to be: increase govt spending. Okay, the only way to do that (looking at other countries that have high shares of govt spending to GDP) is to reduce, not increase, the progressiveness of the tax system. The quantum of "taxes were higher in the past" is utterly wrong. They were marginally higher in the past but not by much (the big step change was JFK, then Reagan, then back up through Clinton)...how does the author even think govt gets paid for? Revenues are not swinging wildly all over the place. If you are worried about middle-class income growth, it is worth asking how their income growth has been so low given that a huge chunk of people pay no tax at all and the middle-class pay substantially less than almost anywhere else. That is the truly concerning thing about progressive tax systems, how do you pay for stuff when most people don't pay tax? And the political response to taxation is always: "someone else will pay for my stuff...someone else!!!". A global minimum corporation tax rate of 25% is ludicrous. I remember talking to a fund manager who talked regularly to Peter Oppenheimer about Apple's offshore cash...the solution, according to the genius Peter, was just for all the countries in the world to just make their tax systems equal to the US...easy...and then the problem would be solved. What is extraordinary about the charlatanism of the article is that the author actually thinks this view is logical. Apple just believed it so they didn't have to pay tax...but this is apparently someone's logical view...2019 Tangent: the US has gone way down the path of "economics and politics as objective science"...this has led to a host of people battering other people with apparently "logical" but totally impractical "solutions". Common-sense thinking and understanding history (i.e. what people have actually done in similar situations) is useful info that would help here.
  • secabeen 7y ago
    >The US already has a very progressive system. How can this be the case if the taxes actually paid (which is what the chart shows), is largely flat across income bands, between about 22 and 28%? Sure, between 1950 and 1980, the system was progressive, but the actual percentage paid by the wealthy has come down over the past 30 years, it's now much much less progressive than it was 50-70 years ago.
• _edo 7y ago
  That has to be the worst x-axis on a graph I've seen in a long time. The grid lines measure 0-10th, 20-30th, 40-50th, 60-70th, 80-90th, 95-99th, 99.99th, Top 400? That's atrocious, not only is it non-linear, not only does it have a line with regularly spaced dots giving the impression of continuity, but it skips from percent groups to absolute numbers? If we're talking about historical taxes why are we looking at tax rates and not taxes paid? Taxes paid by percentage income would be a huge improvement, and absolute taxes seems like an essential number for this conversation. I'm stunned when I see things like this associated with major universities and newspapers. edit: The y-axis also goes from 10-70% instead of 0-100%. So both axes are suspicious and the numbers being presented are known for their inaccuracy.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • jm_l 7y ago
    I don't understand your complaint, isn't average tax rate a percentage of income? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rate
    • thisisbrians 7y ago
      I think OP's point is that due to the complexity of tax laws, especially for the wealthy who have more non-wage income, the tax rate doesn't capture as useful a picture as actual dollars of taxes paid.
    • _edo 7y ago
      There's your tax bracket and then there's what you actually pay after deductions, loopholes, etc. The common argument is that the 70% rate of the 1950's was never actually paid by anybody and the effective tax rate was much lower. By looking at actual taxes paid that entire argument can be skipped. Anybody who studies historical taxes professionally should know this, so when they use a worse measure it looks like they're doing so because it fits their narrative.
  • c1505 7y ago
• JamesSchriver 7y ago
  I don't get this spiteful jealousy over the freedom from the slavery through taxation. Why would we not all want everyone to pay as few taxes as possible, rather than being spitefully jealous that some can manage to free themselves of the slavery of taxation. I get it though, the rich who both benefit most from the slavery of taxation by being individually great beneficiaries of that slave money taken from the middle class, are also the ones who add and modify rules that allows them to skirt the condition of tax slavery. If you don't realize that taxation (beyond the fundamental costs of operating the core Constitutional roles of government) is proportional slavery; then you really can't contribute anything positive to this discussion at all. No slavey who does not realize they are a salve can ever hope to free themselves.
• throwing838383 7y ago
  It's misleading because the rich that they're talking about already paid a much higher rate when they originally got the money in earnings. It's just the 2nd round of taxation: the capital gains which is lower, as it should be. And let's not forget, taxes are extremely high on everyone. The US Govt spends 38% of all US GDP, currently (recently above 40%!). https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spending-to-gdp https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spendi... And that's not even including 2nd order effects. When you go to spend it, your costs are much higher because part of what you're paying is someone else's really high tax rates. IE: the plumber has to charge you 300$/hr instead of just 200$/hr.
  • eloisant 7y ago
    I don't see why capital gains should be taxed lower. Money you get from working, from your blood and your sweat should be heavily taxed, but money you're earning just by already having money (whether it's from your work, inherited, donated from family members) shouldn't be taxed as well? What's the logic here?
    • whyaduck 7y ago
      The motivation for the OP's argument is that "tax has already been paid" on certain income. It's an arbitrary "rule" put forward by advocates for the wealthy. There's no reason capital gains can't be taxed as income other than: people who make lots of money on capital gains don't want it to be (e.g. the entire hedge fund/private equity industry, along with the budding American aristocracy). Note: I'm not saying changing the tax rate on capital gains wouldn't have an impact on investment patterns. It would.
    • rolltiide 7y ago
      The crux of your observation is "fairness" The crux of our observation is that "we're all getting hosed and you just want to ensure we are getting hosed equally?" these things can't happen in a vacuum, no matter how much you respect something with the label 'government' on it you do have to factor in what its doing with its passive funding source. Even this article correlates tax policy that benefited the rich with low GDP growth, suggesting that the government would have been a better steward of additional money. It should consider other revenue regimes. Capital tax is only perpetuated by inequality, as it is a stretch of taxation theory and a mere convenience. The state says "so you want us to take the money now, not gonna say no!" the non-capital class cheers
• kryogen1c 7y ago
  Conversations about this topic are so tiring. There's not just one question you can discuss; anything you can think to ask begets a massive pantheon of questions that require an agreement on moral axioms to even start talking about - and then the fun part begins. How much taxes should people pay? If rich people pay should pay more, does that mean more dollars or more %? If they should, can we make them? If we can, will that incentivize them to leave? if they leave, is that a net benefit globally even if it hurts america? is globalization a positive thing, economically? if it is, is there a concurrent reduction in cultural diversity? if there is, is that bad? do we even need _any_ taxes besides sales tax? how should taxes even be accomplished? queue discussion about big/small government, libertarians vs dems vs reps. im not even trying. thousands of questions about any small subset of this topic. its almost not even worth talking about in anything less than a doctoral defense, if thats even a big enough stage.
• iamgopal 7y ago
  Their money working for them. I think this is as it should be. But, all kind of inheritance should be banned, or to be created at heavy tax. That way, a rich self made person got to have and spend his money any way he wants, and at the same time, undeserved millionaire and billionaire get taxed.
  • dexterdog 7y ago
    So you want it to just be illegal for any person to gift money to another person?
    • kaibee 7y ago
      I think there is a reasonably balance to be found somewhere between not being able to give your friend 5$ and being able to make everyone even tangentially related to you into billionaires that do nothing but collect and spend the interest on their wealth.
      • dexterdog 7y ago
        Bezos is with about $110B. He is "tangentially related" to far more than 110 people. There is a solid track record of inheritors of massive wealth pissing it all away in a generation or two so you don't have to worry too much about it.
        • kaibee 7y ago
          > There is a solid track record of inheritors of massive wealth pissing it all away in a generation or two so you don't have to worry too much about it. I don't think wasting billions of dollars is any better.
          • dexterdog 7y ago
            Where is it wasted? It gets invested or spent.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• gok 7y ago
  It's hard to figure out how they got that chart that I've now seen pasted about a dozen times around social media. They cite an unpublished book. But it looks comically wrong. The bottom decile's tax rate is nowhere near 25%. The entire bottom quintile's tax rate is around 3%, and less than 2% for federal taxes. Perhaps the book plays some games with what constitute a "tax rate?" For example, if you spend double your income on consumption (not uncommon for low income people, especially those who benefit from programs like EITC and SNAP) and then pay sales tax, you could squint really hard and say that a 10% state sales tax is effectively a 20% income tax. But that's crazy; this number would keep going up the more wealth transfer happens.
  • refurb 7y ago
    Even more shocking is this is a “prestigious” national newspaper.
  • hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    You should read the article before being so rudely dismissive (and comically wrong). He clearly states that the graph includes total tax burden, including payroll taxes, which is why the bottom quintile's tax rate is higher.
    • gok 7y ago
      Payroll taxes are included in the total federal tax rate of around 2%.
• rolltiide 7y ago
  > The Confederacy’s hostility to taxes ultimately hampered its ability to raise money and fight the Civil War. That's a great footnote! I had thought of this several years ago and found a paper detailing the finances of the Confederacy, and boy were they ugly! The Civil War could have been won without a land war at all! It would have gone bankrupt either way. It couldn't issue debt and its farming citizens were selling crops to the government at inflated prices, which it was hoping to use and sell. The blockade prevented the selling, and it had limited use. When I think about it, the union which won learned to resort to sanctions almost exclusively.
• wdn 7y ago
  If you looking at tax rate. Of course, high earner AKA "the rich" pay lower. If you look at the dollars, then the rich pay bulk of the tax.
• mLuby 7y ago
  We should tax wealth not income. Yes I know it's hard to calculate. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Also financial penalties should be percentages of wealth, not fixed dollar amounts (perhaps with a floor). E.g. fine for littering is 1% wealth.
  • 3minus1 7y ago
    Real estate taxes are a form of wealth tax. One thing about real estate and salary is that there is a clear geographic origin (you work in a state, your property is in a state) that I think makes it a lot easier than going after total wealth.
  • troupe 7y ago
    Lets say you save $10,000 and invest it in a stock. It then goes up to $20,000. You are happy to pay taxes on that amount even though next year it might go back down again?
    • mLuby 7y ago
      Nobody is happy to pay taxes, but yes. Year 1: pay taxes on $10K in savings, $100K house. Year 2: pay taxes on $10K in stocks, $80K house. Year 3: pay taxes on $20K in stocks, $120K house. Year 4: pay taxes on $0 in stocks, $100K house.
      • troupe 7y ago
        So year 4 your stock goes back down to $10k or even goes to $0 and you'd be fine with having paid taxes the wealth you had even though it wasn't actually realized as money?
        • mLuby 7y ago
          Yes. Not sure why that's a strange concept… Taxing assets instead of income doesn't magically make investments worthless.
• rayiner 7y ago
  > The overall tax rate on the richest 400 households last year was only 23 percent, meaning that their combined tax payments equaled less than one quarter of their total income. The total income of the top 400 is just 1.3% of total income, so the tax rate on these people is largely irrelevant. The top 1%, who make 20% of all income, do indeed pay higher tax rates than everyone else. Any smaller grouping (billionaires, people making $10 million a year) comprise too small a fraction of the tax base for it to matter. Hell, you could tax the wealth of the top 400 at 100% and it would just pay for a single year of Medicare for All. Articles like this are political cover for the upper middle class, to shield the fact that the real reason we don’t have European-style social services is that the American middle class pays vastly lower taxes. American corporate taxes and top bracket income taxes are in line with that of countries like Canada, Germany, etc. https://taxfoundation.org/sources-of-government-revenue-oecd-2018/ https://taxfoundation.org/sources-of-government-revenue-oecd... Until the Trump tax cuts, the actual effective corporate tax rate was higher than those countries. For example, New Zealand’s been a media darling recently on the left. But it’s got a 33% top income tax bracket, a lower corporate tax rate than California even after the Trump tax cuts, and no capital gains taxes. What it does have is a significant GST and a top income tax bracket that kicks in at $70,000. The article paints this narrative about what’s happened since the 70% top tax brackets of the 1940s. That narrative is incorrect, because it ignores that the tax base was narrower. (Many things like corporate expense accounts were not taxed.) In fact the top effective bracket has been remarkably stable at around 40%. It is also misleading by omission. It dismisses, without any citation, the notion that tax reform has had any effect on economic growth. In fact, the whole developed world has broadened the tax base while cutting rates, especially for businesses. While it’s hard to establish causation, Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, before Reaganism, Thatcherism, and Merkelism, was a lot less economically competitive than it is today. Canada did the same exact thing, under both liberal and conservative administrations. (Trudeau, another media darling, presides over a country with a 33% top income tax bracket and a 16.5% capital gains tax rate). There is a proven model for how to get the kind of society the New York Times evidently wants. Look to Europe. Deregulate, cut corporate taxes, and make the middle class pay for its own benefits through high sales and social insurance taxes.
• williesleg 7y ago
  Nice how we mirror slashdot these days
• gnicholas 7y ago
  A couple of points regarding the lower rate of taxation for capital gains: • Capital gains are not inflation-indexed, which is one reason to have a lower rate. Consider three individuals: * Person A earned $100,000 working at BigCo in 2019 * Person B sold shares in 2019 that were purchased in 2017, for a (LTCG) gain of $100,000 * Person C sold shares in 2019 that were purchased in 1965, for a (LTCG) gain of $100,000 There's essentially no inflation to account for in cases A and B, since all of the relevant transactions happened relatively recently. But what about Person C? The real value of her investment has not increased by $100,000 — it's much less than that because of inflation. So one argument for a lower capital gains rate is to be fairer to people who have held investments a long time. • Investments are more mobile than wage earners. This is just a fact about the world: I can invest in a different country more easily than I can move to a different country, which leads to "tax competition" for investment income moreso than for wage income. However, this doesn't mean much in the US, where we tax worldwide income (so it doesn't matter where you earn investment income, for the most part). • Capital gains is "double taxation". It is true that if you tax capital, that is likely post-tax money. That is, it was earned at some time in the past and tax was paid at that time. There is a notable exception, however: basis step-up at death (inherited assets don't trigger capital gains when passed to heirs. If the total estate is under the current limit, I believe around $10M, then no tax would be paid at all). There are other tax preferences like the primary residence $500k exemption, qualified small business stock exclusion (look it up, startup founders!) that allow people to realize lots of gains without paying any/full tax. There are also less-sexy things like muni bonds.
  • dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Capital gains are not inflation-indexed, which is one reason to have a lower rate. No, it's a good reason to inflation adjust them; not inflation adjusting them and charging a lower rate means that people who can regularly turn over capital so that there is often very little inflation effect (more common with the really rich) pay low real taxes on income, while people who have a few capital assets that are held a long time for use value and then sell them with little real (but much inflationary) appreciation pay taxes at low rate on the nominal income, but often at a high rate on any real income (or, worse, pay positive taxes with no or negative real income). The two features compound the pro-wealth bias in capital gains policy rather than offsetting to approximate fairness with taxation of other income. Taxes on income should be blind as to whether it is labor or capital income (including those characterized as “payroll” rather than “income” taxes), and, to smooth irregular income streams (which otherwise have undesirable consequences in a progressive tax system) generous allowances for deferment or unusually high income and advance recognition of income should be made, and basis values, and deferred and advance-recognized income amounts all should be inflation adjusted.
• throwawaysea 7y ago
  No, they don't The rich pay disproportionately more taxes. See https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2018-update/ https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-... > In 2016, the top 1 percent of taxpayers accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid roughly $538 billion, or 37.3 percent of all income taxes, while the bottom 90 percent paid about $440 billion, or 30.5 percent of all income taxes.
• BuckRogers 7y ago
  Earned-income (labor) shouldn't be taxed at all. It seems very unjust to tax something that is not a profit, such as a job. We aren't taxed when we trade two pineapples for four pears, so why is trading our time/effort for money any different? It's a scam. Though property taxes are likely a bigger scam. With that we're already in a post-ownership society. You never escape rent, never own anything, which is truly unfair on most of us that have to work to survive and our home is our only real asset. Capital gains should be carrying all of the burden, along with other taxes. I could be persuaded to agree to a tax system that doesn't distinguish between any forms of income, as long as the first 50K was tax-free for everyone and steep progressive taxation after that, whether it's earned or unearned income. A bar set such as my 50K example to acknowledge that basic food/shelter only requires so much if you're willing to migrate, and everyone is treated the same- including the wealthy. They don't need more than 50K a year either, they're human too. No matter how it's done (I won't argue details with anyone because that's not my point here)- the tax burden shouldn't be on the working class. It should be on the investment class. Ultimately we'll likely need more worldwide government to track and tax these individuals fairly to eliminate tax scams like the Caymans. Without that I doubt any policy matters. Step one to that is publicly funding elections so those same people don't control our governments. The default and only tax-avoidance policy needs to be the same one that applies to the working class. If you don't like taxes, stop making money.
  • troupe 7y ago
    > We aren't taxed when we trade two pineapples for four pears, so why is trading our time/effort for money any different? Actually you are taxed on trades. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/four-things-you-should-know-if-you-barter https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/four-things-you-should-know-if-...
    • BuckRogers 7y ago
      That's a complete misrepresentation of your link and what I said. Of course businesses are regulated differently, or they'd be getting away with murder on bartering as yet another way to skirt taxes. I can trade you two apples for two pears without filing a 1099B. Again, why should my labor be treated any differently? The business I work for should potentially pay taxes on my employment, but employees should not. And to clarify because apparently I have to- I'm acting as my own person, not on behalf of a business.
• patientplatypus 7y ago
  Can the IRS be sued for violating equal protection under the law? They have admitted that they don't have the budget to go after high net worth individuals who can pay tax attorneys to hide their income in tax loopholes, so isn't that a tacit admittance that the rich can cheat on their taxes with impunity? If that's the case then not all citizens are held equally accountable to the same laws. That would seem to be a violation of the fourteenth amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause) The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State [...] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws".
  • ur-whale 7y ago
    No problem, the cost of defending the suit plus the cost of potentially more audit means it will just cost more to run the IRS the subsequent year. If only they could be bankrupted, now we'd be talking. Except they can't cause, like the rest of the government, they get to suck on the teat of infinite yield: people's taxes.
• Trias11 7y ago
  Why is this a surprise and/or news worthy? People with more resources can hire more professional tax advisers and structure their businesses and returns in more optimal ways than people with less resources.
• leghifla 7y ago
  Even if the rich were paying more taxes, that does not automatically mean that they are bearing the tax burden, because of "tax incidence" [0]. A rich person has usually much more bargaining power and can more easily shift the burden to someone else. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence
• standardUser 7y ago
  A lot of convoluted discussion going on here. The simple truth is that in America we tax income earned from having wealth at a much lower rate than income earned from work. And lower income earners pay a larger portion of their income to payroll taxes than the highest income earners.
• shitpostbot 7y ago
  It was really cool getting into a FANG and getting taught during orientation all the cool ways we could avoid taxes. Did you know that bonuses can be deferred and invested in the market tax free for years before you claim them? Also, what's the point of tax advantaged retirement and healthcare accounts. Normal dude making 50k and with a wife and two 2 kids gets very little. Silicon Valley engineer making N*100k gets a shitload extra cash even though he needs it the least.
• ur-whale 7y ago
  Correction: the rich pay a lower tax rate than you. They do pay, however, vastly more than you do. The various governments have somehow managed to brainwash the masses into comparing rates instead of actual amount paid. Very neat trick of you ask me.
  • conanbatt 7y ago
    Yeah this is a key issue. People often think that a Flat-tax rate is regressive because of consumer habits, but what you care the most of all is tax-consumption and tax-benefit, even more than nominal contributions. A billionarie made with defense contracts and state expenditures deserves a moral argument. But so does a lowly government employee that provides net negative value and collects a paycheck everymonth.
  • troupe 7y ago
    Even in terms of tax rate, there are a surprisingly large number of people who pay no income or payroll taxes.
• jl2718 7y ago
  https://medium.com/@johnlakness/why-the-ultra-wealthy-love-socialism-6c63b3ba3bee https://medium.com/@johnlakness/why-the-ultra-wealthy-love-s... (spoiler: growth tax)
• dr_dshiv 7y ago
  >The overall tax rate on the richest 400 households last year was only 23 percent, meaning that their combined tax payments equaled less than one quarter of their total income. This overall rate was 70 percent in 1950 and 47 percent in 1980. I thought those rates referred to income made above different cut offs, not the overall amount of money made...
  • saalweachter 7y ago
    In 1950, the top marginal tax rate was 91% on income over ~$2M in 2013 dollars.
• Pywarrior 7y ago
  Do they mean a lower tax rate or total dollars? I'd like to talk about total dollars not percentages, percentages are misleading. If someone is paying 1 million in taxes and you pay 10 thousand, they pay more than you, regardless of conversion to percentages of taxable income.
• zarro 7y ago
  I think this “vilify the rich minority” mentality that’s so popular these days is destructive in the fact that the people that popularize this, see it as a path of least resistance to getting subsidized at the expense of the rich, instead of working toward improving themselves and the value of the products/services they provide so that they may, in return, purchase valuable services for themselves. In the end when this sort of mentality is allowed to win out, what it leads to is the dissolution of those valuable services these “rich” people provide which made them their wealth in the first place. It’s unfortunate that only AFTER their dissolution, the original proponents of this mentality are the ones that suffer and realize their short sightedness.
  • empath75 7y ago
    What about all those services like public education, roads, the military, police force, federally funded research, societal stability and so on that government provides which enabled those wealthy people to gain and maintain their wealth to begin with. And what services did Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump provide the world, or all the other heirs and heiresses of vast fortunes who earned it by virtue of being the scion of someone who actually accomplished something -- or maybe the offspring of the offspring of someone who actually accomplished something?
    • zarro 7y ago
      The argument is, all those services and much more could be provided for privately much more efficiently.
  • munificent 7y ago
    > see it as a path of least resistance to getting subsidized at the expense of the rich. If making the tax code more progressive is equivalent to "subsidizing the poor at the expense of the rich", does that mean you're saying the current regressive tax laws subsidize the rich at the expense of the poor? If so, flipping that sounds entirely reasonable to me.
    • zarro 7y ago
• sharadov 7y ago
  I pay 35% of my net income in taxes, so that the rich don't have to!
  • jumbopapa 7y ago
    Tax rate is figured off of gross. You could easily inflate your tax burden by taking it as a percentage of net income.
    • sharadov 7y ago
      I meant "gross" , thanks for correcting me.
• hatchingalpha 7y ago
  https://hatchingalpha.com/how-to-prepare-for-the-2020-recession/ https://hatchingalpha.com/how-to-prepare-for-the-2020-recess...
• juskrey 7y ago
  They also take all the entrepreneurial risks.
• microcolonel 7y ago
  > Since then, taxes that hit the wealthiest the hardest — like the estate tax and corporate tax — have plummeted. The corporate tax hits everyone, and it hasn't "plummeted", it was reduced all at once in one year, to a still extremely high level (from my Canadian perspective). They go to all this effort to make a case that the effective rates paid by people with extremely high incomes are often slightly lower than those paid by people with still-very-high incomes... then they blame the marginal rate! This article is a mess, the juxtaposition of excellent, valid observations, and contradictory filler is astonishing.
• gamerboy 7y ago
  Rich people avoid taxes by converting their income into capital gains, this is often done using not talking big salaries but keeping money in the business Secondly, rich people often create network of companies where on company is pending to friend's company and some other friends company is lending to your company - using this, you improve credit score of whole network and you can lend harder public money. Then you can simply use it as leverage, this is creating money from thin air.
• choeger 7y ago
  Are these the top in income or wealth? Because afaik most taxes are on income. If you accumulate a lot of wealth and do not proportionally generate income from it (think of private real estate), your tax rate should drop by that measure, right?
• dev_dull 7y ago
  > The overall tax rate on the richest 400 households last year was only 23 percent, meaning that their combined tax payments equaled less than one quarter of their total income. This overall rate was 70 percent in 1950 and 47 percent in 1980. No it wasn’t. Is there even one historical example of someone paying 70% of their income as tax in 1950? Or was that simply the maximum theoretical income tax rate? That was just the maximum. Nobody paid that so it’s meaningless to compare these two numbers. This looks like another confirmation-bias article to me.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• imightberich 7y ago
  I'm rich[1]. I keep my 1040 numbers in a spreadsheet. Here's some overall numbers for tax years 1997 - 2018: - Wages $4M (Min $38K, Max $375K, Mean $179K) (Excludes FICA and 401(k) contributions.) - Total income $4.3M (Min $39K, Max $377K, Mean $195K) - AGI $4.3M (Min $38K, Max $377K, Mean $194K) - Taxable income $3.4M (Min $26K, Max $325K, Mean $156K) - Tax $742K (Min $3.8K, Max $81K, Mean $34K) - Overall effective tax rate (tax/AGI) is 17.4% (Min 5.5%, Max 23%) Marginal tax bracket has been as low as 15% and as high as 33%. Some specific years: - In my lowest income year, I had total income of $39K (AGI $38K) and paid $3.8K in taxes (10%). - In my highest income year, I had total income of $378K (AGI $377K) and paid $81K in taxes (21.6%) - In my highest tax year, I had total income of $341K (AGI $341K) and paid $76K in taxes (22.3%). - One year I had total income of $151K (AGI $146K) and paid $14K in taxes (10%). - Another year I had total income of $127K (AGI $117K) and paid $6.4K in taxes (5.5%). Married filing jointly for all years. Spouse has had no income since 2000. Two kids since 2003. Since 2004 I've lived in a state which currently has a flat income tax of 5.5%. With SALT, mortgage interest, and charitable contributions, I've itemized every year. Last year it barely made sense to itemize, and this year I'll probably be right on the itemize line again. Including SALT, I estimate my total effective tax rate at around 30% most years. I'd have to do some math to figure out how much sales and other non-SALT taxes are as a percentage of income. I'm a tech worker with a CS degree. I've been lucky with my career. One startup I joined circa 2000 made it to an IPO and was acquired by an F100. Another startup I joined was acquired by a public company which itself was acquired by an F100. Salary a few years into my career has been in the $125K - $200K range and bolstered by ISOs, ESPP, and RSUs. We're fortunate we can accord to put our kids through college. I expect to spend about $150-$200K total for both in a state school. Tangent: I would pay more in taxes for a stronger social safety net. Retirement is more than a decade off, but I'm counting on Social Security for 25-50% of our retirement income, and Medicare for health insurance. We'll do fine in retirement, but in retrospect, I wish I had been saving even more each year. Having SS tax uncapped (no wage base) in return for higher payout is a tradeoff I'd make. I don't see any reason to tie SS to wages and not total income (include capital gains and dividends). In general, I think there's too much reliance on the stock market for retirement. The mishmash of retirement plans we have in the U.S. is crazy. The 401(k) only came about due to some Kodak executives lobbying for a special exemption in the tax code. The deduction limits are arbitrary (why does a 401(k) allow almost 4x the deduction of an IRA). Expecting your average person to save for their own retirement is a lot to ask. My parents certainly never figured it out (both still working in their 70s). "How to save for retirement" wasn't a course I had in school. Even if (say) you're diligent enough to set aside 25% of your income each year into a target retirement fund and retire at 65, how well you do in retirement is still up to the whims of the stock market and how smartly you invested. Because most people don't have significant earnings till later in their careers, compounding isn't as valuable individually as it is collectively. And yet, corporations and governments haven't been reliable guarantors of retirement pensions. I don't really have an answer. [1] According to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/12/upshot/are-you-rich-where-does-your-net-worth-rank-wealth.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/12/upshot/are-yo... if I set the threshold to top 10%.
• calvinbhai 7y ago
  Number of Americans moving from middle class -> rich and poor -> middle class, is also proportional with reduction in taxes isn't it?
• arcboii92 7y ago
  Sheesh, imagine being the sucker who was 401st wealthiest and paying tax like the rest of us schmucks.
• patientplatypus 7y ago
  That's OK, guillotines are cheap.
  • dang 7y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments/flamebait to HN and ignoring our requests to stop. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
• reaperducer 7y ago
  For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate So all those political ads are now finally true. I guess that's something.
• aey 7y ago
  Why can’t we have a flat income tax and a ubi?
• chimi 7y ago
  The role of government is to protect its citizens and their property. By that measure, the wealthy have a lot more to lose than the poor and thus receive a proportionately larger service from the government. They have more to lose if the government fails. Thus, the wealthy should pay more for that protection. In fact, most of what the government does is protect the wealthy from the poor within its borders.
• MarcScott 7y ago
  I've often wondered whether a 100% inheritance tax is the answer to all of this. You can privilege your children with a private education, tuition, etc. You can't leave them any of your wealth. If your kids are under 18 when you die, then they can receive a dividend but at 18 that ends. Your spouse should be able to take care of themselves, and not rely on your wealth. No need for any other taxes whatsoever. Am I missing something?
  • tehsauce 7y ago
    That would highly discourage anyone from investing in anything that lasts longer than themselves- probably disastrous consequences
  • dragonwriter 7y ago
    A zero percent inheritance tax plus not exempting inheritance from normal income tax would be more fair. (With generous provisions for advance recognizing income at the taxpayers discretion or for deferring recognition of windfalls that significantly exceed prior income.)
• GoodJokes 7y ago
  Abolish Billionaires. No half measures. No compromise. These people have stolen this money off the backs of normal people and it is time to pay up.
• watertom 7y ago
  The bogus concept of “capital gains” needs to be changed. Unless someone invest in a pre-IPO company, or purchases stock during the IPO, capital gains should not apply. Buying stock on the market is not investing a company, unless the company gets the cash it’s not a capital investment. Buying and selling stock regardless of how long it’s held is not a capital investment. Also the selling of stock should be subject to state sales tax. The simple fact that your home isn’t consider a capital investment, but a boat is a capital investment is proof that it’s just a tax dodge for the rich.
• mirimir 7y ago
  For those who can't see the chart on NY Times: https://www.resetera.com/threads/for-the-first-time-on-record-the-400-wealthiest-americans-paid-a-lower-total-tax-rate-than-any-other-income-group.145467/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/for-the-first-time-on-recor...