8 ms·

> Most of what we work for goes to the government. Relatively few people have an effective tax rate above 50%. In the US, if you live in a high tax state like

• jelliclesfarm 7y ago
  We are also taxed on goods, property, transactions, consumption, death, inheritance..even gifting.. etc. we pay a lot of taxes. Imagine you make 2.5 million/year. Why should you pay 1.25 million as taxes? Are you being taxed for being wealthy? Isn’t it punitive? What services do you receive that is worth 1.25 million? But imagine you make 60k/year. Roads, infrastructure, essential services, public schools for a family of 4 with 2 kids does make sense. A larger family benefits more as they get more than they contribute. Our tax system incentivizes larger families and redistributes wealth. It works if there is a healthy middle class. In CA the very rich is thin but they also support a larger proportion than other states. When we are looking to hit 9 billion soon, it’s probably not best to incentivize rampant population growth and large families.
  • akiselev 7y ago
    > What services do you receive that is worth 1.25 million? A stable state that protects your property rights over the other 1.25 million.
    • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      Like protection money? Then the Govt is like the mafia?
      • BigJono 7y ago
        No? The mafia fucks your shit up if you don't pay. The government protects you from civil unrest, which is instigated by all the other people that aren't millionaires. If the mafia protected you from other people robbing you, then they'd be a legitimate business. It's called a security company.
        • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
          So..it’s still protection money? Robin Hood economy?
        • 9c8675a8 7y ago
          Oh, the mafia fucks my shit up if I don't pay while the govt doesn't do this? You're not making sense. In any case the mafia charges less than government; I think I prefer them. Civil unrest is mostly a bunch of confused idiots who want the govt to tax them more either directly or indirectly.
      • munchbunny 7y ago
        Say you have $2.5 million in income for the year. For $1.25 million, the government maintains the system that allows you to spend it as real wealth. It maintains the system that enforces your business and employment contracts. It enforces that when you deposit your money in a bank or buy stocks, you don’t also have to pay for your own gunmen to make sure you can get your money back out. It makes sure that when your house is on fire, the firemen don’t first evaluate your net worth and then extort you in front of your burning house. The mafia comparison severely underestimates just how much useful (wealth creating) infrastructure modern governments provide. All of those things were essential for you to have earned your $2.5 million in the first place without always having to look over your shoulder in case the local warlord notices your money and decides to take it.
        • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
          Right. Warlords in Europe and America? How much is the tax rate in Rwanda?
          • munchbunny 7y ago
            I'm having trouble believing that you actually tried to understand what I wrote.
            • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
              The ‘warlord’ caught my eye and I couldn’t read past it. Sorry.
              • xdavidliu 7y ago
                The warlord part was at the very end of their post.
        • 9c8675a8 7y ago
          How about I don't actually need or want any "contracts". I.e. I'm happy with the 1 month risk as e.g. a freelancer and just want the govt to fuck off. Last time I checked the bank holidays and various confiscation schemes "for the greater good" wheren't stopped by any govt; quite the opposite. Fire? Get insurance.
  • smt88 7y ago
    > Our tax system incentivizes larger families and redistributes wealth. Do you have a shred of evidence to back this up? In reality, the situation is the opposite: places with higher taxes that pay for better government services see a declining birth rate. Taxes pay for a social safety net and birth control. Both of those things cause birth rates to go down, not up. By contrast, large families are the safety net in places with riskier economies and poorer public health.
    • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      45% of California state budget goes to public school education. A middle class family with 4 children and one earning member pays way little and gains more. Someone making 2.5 million and paying 1.25 million in taxes supports the others with less benefits. This is the first example that came to my mind. What are your thoughts on this?
      • RockIslandLine 7y ago
        "What are your thoughts on this?" We need much higher taxes on millionaires.
        • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
          Why? Because they are more productive than non-millionaires?
          • dontblink 7y ago
            What makes you think they are?
            • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
              What makes you think they are not..? I don’t know what to make of this pointless back and forth.. If you think someone who creates products is less productive than say...a supermarket check out employee, I have nothing more to contribute to this back and forth. Have a nice day.
  • drivebycomment 7y ago
    > When we are looking to hit 9 billion soon, it’s probably not best to incentivize rampant population growth and large families. US fertility rate is already below 2 (per woman), and overall population growth is already very low. It doesn't make sense to use population growth as a reason for anything at this point. Also, the growth to 9 billion worldwide isn't due to US. It's mostly due to Africa. And we already know what lowers the birth rate - better healthcare, better economy and better education. Nothing to do with tax policy or wealth transfer.
    • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      True but we only have a fixed land/resources in our planet and we must stay within carrying capacity. Maybe migration is in order. But we can’t increase a nation or a people’s population to keep up with others out of some kind of racial purity goal. Better healthcare also increases life span and population due to lower mortality rate. More women are educated today than 100 years ago, yet population has kept increasing steadily. World poverty has decreased and yet population has increased.
      • zhengyi13 7y ago
        "The future is here already; it's just not evenly distributed" -- William Gibson.
      • Reelin 7y ago
        > World poverty has decreased and yet population has increased. I think the demographic transition model applied on a per-country basis explains that quite well (and also makes clear that there is no immediate cause for concern based on population alone). https://www.thoughtco.com/demographic-transition-geography-1434497 https://www.thoughtco.com/demographic-transition-geography-1... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition
      • drivebycomment 7y ago
        Your worldview is likely very wrong. The population growth is not a "sustained" state - it's an artifact of the transition from poverty to prosperity. Once a country has low child mortality rate and high education, the birthrate drops like a rock - you know, even China, which isn't that rich overall yet, has its birth rate drop below that of US - i.e. China's population growth has already effectively stopped (the actual number of people will continue to grow as the current population grows older, but the number of children won't change much). You may want to watch: https://www.gapminder.org/videos/population-growth-explained-with-ikea-boxes/ https://www.gapminder.org/videos/population-growth-explained... and a few other videos on gapminder. > we only have a fixed land/resources in our planet and we must stay within carrying capacity. There's no evidence that's the case. We do have serious environmental issues (like global warming, and pollution) but they are not directly related to "carrying capacity" to sustain the overall human population. For all we know, we know we can produce enough food to sustain the population. We know technological solutions to solve the global warming. Look at the historical data on birthrate (click play to see it change from 1800 to present): https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&marker$axis_y$which=children_per_woman_total_fertility&domainMin:null&domainMax:null&zoomedMin:null&zoomedMax:null&spaceRef:null;;;&chart-type=bubbles https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$state$time$value=2018;&mar... you'll find that the world has largely already converged to the steady state, and it's only Africa that needs to finish its transition to the sustainable state. Thus, the only humanitarian and practical way to end the population growth is to get the (most African) poor countries get better health, better education and economy, which is already in well progress.
  • BigJono 7y ago
    You're taxed at that rate because that's what the government thinks is optimal for the economy. It's not punitive and it's got nothing to do with what anyone "deserves" or how much they use. The point of social security is to mitigate risk, which increases fluidity in the job market. Without that, you have scores of potential successful business owners working in factories, contributing fuck all to the economy. There's some real positives to progressive taxation too. It acts as a negative tax on risk, incentivising veteran devs to take on more low paying research positions and startups instead of lucrative consulting and big business gigs. There's a reason almost every highly successful country has a similar tax system. Progressive taxation up to ~50% and not much higher. Because despite what people on the far-left or far-right keep crapping on about, fucking with either free markets or welfare is a recipe for disaster, you need a good balance of both to have a healthy economy.
  • gnaritas 7y ago
    No you are not taxed on death. Those who inherit your money are taxed on that income, as they should be.
  • benhurmarcel 7y ago
    > What services do you receive that is worth 1.25 million? And what do you produce alone that is worth 2.5 million?
    • jelliclesfarm 7y ago
      I honestly don’t know anyone who makes that much. But generally that high income comes passively because of lack of expense externalities. This is also generally to higher risk and speculative activity involving proportionally high capital investment.
• efaref 7y ago
  In the UK at least it's pretty easy to get close to, if not over, 50% if you're earning Google SWE salaries. The marginal rate hits 62% at £100k, and that's not including the "stealth" payroll tax known as Employer's NIC.
  • alasdair_ 7y ago
    >In the UK at least it's pretty easy to get close to, if not over, 50% if you're earning Google SWE salaries. The marginal rate hits 62% at £100k, and that's not including the "stealth" payroll tax known as Employer's NIC. Can you explain how you got this figure? https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates says that the rate at 100K is 40% and 45% at 150K
    • tom_ 7y ago
      (all figures approximate) Once you get to £100,000/year gross salary, the tax-free allowance starts to taper away. At £100,000/year, your tax free allowance is ~£12,000; at £125,000/year, your tax free allowance is £0. Suppose now you got a pay rise from £100,000 to £125,000. At £100,000, your take home pay was ~£66,500; at £125,000, your take home pay is ~£76,000. Your overall tax rate was ~33.5%, now ~39%. But comparing this year's payslips with last year's, you'll notice that of the £25,000 increase in the headline figure, ~£9,500 has actually made its way into your bank account. And 9500/25000=0.38. That's where the 62% figure comes from. In practice, since the max tax rate is 45%, and employee's NI is around 1% at that point, your overall tax rate never gets past 46%. (For example, suppose you earn £1m via PAYE: net salary is ~£541,000. Overall tax rate therefore 45.9%.) You can get approximate figures for this stuff out using https://listentotaxman.com/ https://listentotaxman.com/. If you want proper advice, you can pay an accountant.
      • MagnumOpus 7y ago
        Nitpick: Upper marginal employee NI rate is 2%, not 1%. So the high income marginal tax rate (and maximum average tax rate) is 47%, not 46%. Nitpick 2: The employer also pays 13.7% NI on top of that million-pound salary, so the actual tax wedge on the employer's £1.137m outlay is 52.4% (and would approach 53.4% at multi-million salary levels).