13 ms·

That's why i'm against high taxes. We get a bunch of random political parties, promising to "tax the rich" and stuff, we get new laws... and what happens? - T

That's why i'm against high taxes. We get a bunch of random political parties, promising to "tax the rich" and stuff, we get new laws... and what happens? - The poor already pay very little tax - no change there - The rich avoid the tax by doing shady stuff (who remembers the panama papers.. or this.. or many other stories like these) - I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and not in fun way.

estaseuropano 6y ago
That's not a result of high taxes but of either badly designed/balanced taxes or of lack of enforcement.
- cscurmudgeon 6y ago
  But the conversation is always towards higher taxes rather than fixing enforcement, design, etc. Edit: I think I hit a nerve.
  - _djo_ 6y ago
    Not really. The Biden administration’s proposals include more funding and organisational reform for the IRS. Democrats have been talking for some time about how the steady defunding of the IRS has resulted in less tax collection from the rich and powerful.
    - nostrebored 6y ago
      Reforming the IRS as an organization doesn't work when it's tax law that's the problem.
      - _djo_ 6y ago
        It’s part of a solution, not the entire solution. But even if you improved tax law you’re still going to need a well-resourced and highly skilled IRS capable of properly auditing multinationals and the very wealthy.
      - ABCLAW 6y ago
        Tax law has issues, but deficient analysis, audit and enforcement against richer, more complex files is a huge issue. Why fail to fix one over the other?
    - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
      What leads you to believe increased funding would be directed toward regulating the richest and most powerful people/companies (i.e. the biggest financiers of political campaigns on both sides of the aisle)?
      - _djo_ 6y ago
        The OPs statement was that more focus needs to be on improving enforcement. I simply pointed out that improving enforcement, by reversing the budget cuts and consequent drop in audit capability within the IRS, was part of the current administration’s policy. Whether their proposed changes will actually work is another question, but it’s wrong to say there’s no attention there and that the debate is only about raising taxes. I can’t say I understand the downvotes I received for saying that.
- trappist 6y ago
  I understood parent's point to be that we obviously can't trust them to do better than this. In any case it seems clear that this is exactly why high tax rates hurt the middle class more than the rich. And everyone know it, and yet it persists.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Typically it's because taxing the super rich wouldn't be enough, so you tax a broad swath of the population. Billionaires (put together) in the US hold something similar to 1 year of federal tax receipts, for example. Tax them into the ground and you get 1 year of revenue.
    - mazteraz9 6y ago
      This is one of the more interesting points that gets lost in the "tax the rich" talk. I believe this is because people's general political point of reference is their individual situation and not the overall system - but from the system point of view it truly is just a drop in the bucket.
      - Closi 6y ago
        Eh, the top 1% of earners are responsible for c15% of income. Bear in mind that these will be on a higher tax band too, so a figure of c25% of income tax revenue is pretty likely - hardly a drop in a budget.
    - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
      For the US it doesn't so much matter who is taxed or how much. We cannot break even if you take into account unfunded liabilities.
- insert_coin 6y ago
  Which high taxes are part of. Raising taxes is an admission that current tax policy, and the other side of the coin, the government spending policy, are awfully designed. Of course there has never been a competent design since taxes always need to be higher to "reduce" the ever increasing wealth gap higher taxes were supposed to be tackling in the first place. Just for once we could try something different maybe?
Swizec 6y ago
> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes Fwiw we feel like middle class but we’re really in the top 5% or higher. We’re the rich people these taxes and politicians talk about. The ultra rich/wealthy are a red herring, there’s only a few 10k of them of them. Only 614 people are billionaires. 7 figure income (salary) puts you in top 0.35% ... that’s 1,120,000 Americans. Not a whole lot. edit: top 10% starts at $125,000 salary
- mrkurt 6y ago
  Middle class engineers make 7 figure salaries?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Swizec 6y ago
    No, that’s the top 0.35% Where does the middle class top off? $125,000/year individual income puts you in top 10%. Pretty normal for a software engineer. Is that middle class?
    - dataflow 6y ago
      > Where does the middle class top off? $125,000/year individual income puts you in top 10%. Is that middle class? Depends on the location and cost of living? And no I'm not saying you should just offset income by exactly the CoL. Obviously being in a prime location has its own benefits too. But you can't just assume the benefits cancel the extra cost of living either; they certainly don't cancel for everybody. The balance is somewhere in between. (I don't have a formula.)
- tfehring 6y ago
  More than 1% of US households (something like 1.5M households with a total of ~3M people) have >$10M in household net worth. The primary target is that class, irrespective of its members’ earned income, in part because they can reliably earn mid-six-figures per year in returns to capital alone. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/10/22/the-number-of-millionaires-has-boomedheres-where-your-net-worth-ranks-compared-to-others/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/10/22/the-number...
guerrilla 6y ago
This doesn't seem to make much sense: You're against a policy because someone lied and didn't implement it when they said they would? You can be for taxing the rich and against people who do otherwise simultaneously.
- macinjosh 6y ago
  I think the point is that beyond total and complete global totalitarianism there isn't a great way for any government to truly tax the rich to the extent desired because there were always be another safe haven for it overseas.
  - guerrilla 6y ago
    > there isn't a great way for any government to truly tax the rich The burden of proof is on you then. For you to be able to say that, you'd have to enumerate all possibilities and then provide evidence why each wouldn't work. In the meantime, it seems obvious things could be better without needing to be perfect.
  - Mulpze15 6y ago
    It is harder and harder for US persons to put their money abroad. All foreign banks must declare US Persons to the US authorities. I am sure some figure out ways, but you have to go in dodgier places. This is a new development is the last 10-20 years, so there is progress. It should help people trust the system is getting fairer. If one is against taxes, and uses lack of enforcement as a reason, I smell dishonesty.
  - syops 6y ago
    Can't you make it expensive to move money overseas by taxing such moves?
gzer0 6y ago
Unless you are making more than $400,000, the new tax proposals would not affect you. What is your definition of "middle class"? Someone making $400k is most certainly in the top 1%. What tax changes have occurred so far in the past few decades that are significantly affecting you? I would genuinely like to know
- mattnewton 6y ago
  Not OP, but the removal of the SALT deduction hurt.
  - gautamcgoel 6y ago
    Can you expand on that please?
    - mattnewton 6y ago
      The 2017 “tax cuts” partially eliminated deductions for state and local taxes, capping them at 10k. This means people in high cost of living, high tax states effectively get taxed on income multiple times instead of being able to discount the money they already paid to state and local taxes above 10k. https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/salt-deduction/ https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/salt-deduction/
    - cortesoft 6y ago
      SALT is “state and local tax”... you can deduct state and local taxes from your federal taxes, but a few years ago they put a cap on it so you can only deduct $10,000. This really hurt tax payers in higher tax states.
      - ghufran_syed 6y ago
        I pay more now because of the SALT cap, but I still support the idea - why should residents of low tax states subsidize residents of high tax states, all other things being equal?
trentnix 6y ago
And the taxes they take from you get spent as poorly as possible. And the solution is always more taxes.
- Guest42 6y ago
  My impression is that GWB and DJT delivered some very large tax breaks and that the “more” taxes would be more accurately described as a return to normal taxation levels, provided how much one agrees that post-Reagan establishes the level of normalcy. I do agree though that the spending could be improved. That position varies group by group.
  - trentnix 6y ago
    “normal taxation levels” - a word salad without peer. Those tax breaks happened to catalyze massive tax receipts nonetheless, but taxes are politically justified by who they poleaxe, not by the consequences that result.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- tigershark 6y ago
  Better that spending them golfing in your golf courts while grifting tens of millions per year by forcing the secret service to stay there paying an exorbitant price...
  - trentnix 6y ago
    If you’re arguing our elected officials receive exorbitant benefits on the taxpayer dime, you’ve got a friend in me. But unfortunately that is but a drop in the bucket of the grift involved in entitlement fraud, tax fraud, foreign aid fraud, military-industrial hustle, and the Trillions of other ways our “representatives” by favor and votes with other people's money.
throwaway77388 6y ago
IMO the high taxes should be only for people worth tens of millions of dollars or more.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  Those high taxes were never about revenue, they were all about keeping corporate managers from looting the companies that employed them.
  - throwaway77388 6y ago
    I think I should have said 'very high taxes'.
    - Gibbon1 6y ago
      Doesn't matter even with the high marginal tax rates of the 1940's the amount of revenue generated from those taxes was small. Most wealthy people choose to reinvest profits rather than converting them to personal income.
dguaraglia 6y ago
So what you are against is rich people not paying the taxes they are supposed to be paying, not against 'higher taxes'. I used to think like you, until I realized that the people sinking millions of dollars in every electoral campaign to push candidates friendly to 'lower taxes' are the ones who are already taking advantage of every loophole.
baccheion 6y ago
Need to save at least 50% of take-home salary into a high-yield investment account. One-way street. Even during retirement, you'd be scraping out only the interest/DRIP. Further, always pay cash (ie, avoid debt). Even for a car. Even for an education. Even for a house. Then you can see the truth.
cameldrv 6y ago
You could also just fund enforcement and have real penalties with teeth. You get a few hundred multi millionaires going to prison and the problem will go away. When you're at that level, it's simply not worth taking the chance if the risk is real.
odiroot 6y ago
> The poor already pay very little taxno change there And in many developed nations also (naturally) get the biggest net benefits.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Bukhmanizer 6y ago
This is a really bad argument. There’s probably a very large segment of the population that would avoid paying any taxes no matter how low you set them. What you’re arguing for is basically a pay what you want model for the rich, where if they feel like they’re getting taxed too much they can just utilize these loopholes.
therockspush 6y ago
You're right. Considering we just budgeted about 750 billion for the military, more than the next 7 or 10 countries combined depending on who you ask, me thinks even if they do get their hands on this money its not going to end up in the right place.
devmunchies 6y ago
for the same reason i believe that entertainment companies should have reasonable prices/practices if they don't want me to pirate movies, governments should keep taxes low if they want the rich to pay them.
- kokx 6y ago
  I don't think we should count on the rich to not try to find loopholes anyway while keeping their taxes low. I'm pretty sure they would do so whether their taxes are low or not. Trying to stay on their good side hoping they will "do the right thing and pay more taxes", won't really make that much of a difference.
  - devmunchies 6y ago
    it's a bell curve, taxes too low and govt doesn't make enough, taxes too high and people are disincentivized to pay taxes, invest, start businesses, etc. > won't really make that much of a difference is that you hunch or you have data? I remember seeing the bell curve in an undergrad business class. I'd imagine a 20% vs 45% tax will absolutely have different outcomes. If someone is already dodging taxes then they will probably continue but the next generation of millionaires should never start. That's why I think it's related to pirating movies, it's a similar dynamic.
ErikVandeWater 6y ago
YES! If the politicians actually wanted to tax the rich then they'd be closing loopholes, not raising the marginal rates.
internetslave 6y ago
I made a post about this yesterday and got torn apart for it. It’s the hard working professional class that suffers from high taxes. The people who do everything right. The rich evade
Shacklz 6y ago
> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and not in fun way. You will be fine. Just like everyone else in pretty much the entirety of the rest of the civilized world.
trentnix 6y ago
> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and not in fun way. And predictably, the responses are whether or not you are actually middle class. Because somehow if you're not, you deserve to be f**d hard I guess...?
- MattRix 6y ago
  These taxes affect people who are making $400k+, so yeah, they can handle paying more taxes.
  - trentnix 6y ago
    Otherwise known as "the people who employ and invest". In the same way corporate taxes trickle down to the consumer (otherwise known as "everybody else"), the same is true of taxes on wealthy incomes. And even our discussion over who pays taxes and how much they pay is moot since the problem is actually spending. The best thing that could happen is that everyone has a real tax burden and everyone pays it directly (not via payroll deduction). Because then more people might be interested in how their taxes are being spent.
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    I'm not from US, so these taxes don't affect me. I'm talking about earning 2x-3x national average pay and getting fucked by that here, in a small EU country. 5k(eur) gross monthly here (current gross average is ~1950eur), after taxes and social/medical (they're a "tax" here, divided between worker and employer) gives me 2922eur net, and I cost my employer 5805eur. With VAT (22%) our customers pay 7082eur, for me to get 2922eur, and the government gets 4160eur. That's without any actual cost, my chair, my computer, toilet paper, office rent,...
cletus 6y ago
Focusing in tax rates is a distraction because no matter what they are the rich don’t pay them. Until you can get to a point where the rich actually pay taxes then we can talk about rates.
adav 6y ago
It’s funny how everyone thinks that the threshold for any tax on the rich should always be a bit higher than their own circumstances!
- rufus_foreman 6y ago
  Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.
pmiller2 6y ago
That's because "tax the rich" usually begins and ends with income taxes. More creativity, such as a financial transaction tax, increased capital gains taxes, or a wealth tax paired with capital controls, would let us capture more from the big boys and less from the high earning engineer/small business owner.
conception 6y ago
It may feel this way but it’s easy to see that this isn’t the case by looking at tax revenues. They dropped a lot after the bush tax cuts and again after the trump tax cuts. Saying that tax policy doesn’t matter is simply not true. During Clinton we were set to be debt free in 2013... the bush passed his cut. Tax policy matters.

estaseuropano 6y ago

That's not a result of high taxes but of either badly designed/balanced taxes or of lack of enforcement.

cscurmudgeon 6y ago
But the conversation is always towards higher taxes rather than fixing enforcement, design, etc. Edit: I think I hit a nerve.
- _djo_ 6y ago
  Not really. The Biden administration’s proposals include more funding and organisational reform for the IRS. Democrats have been talking for some time about how the steady defunding of the IRS has resulted in less tax collection from the rich and powerful.
  - nostrebored 6y ago
    Reforming the IRS as an organization doesn't work when it's tax law that's the problem.
    - _djo_ 6y ago
      It’s part of a solution, not the entire solution. But even if you improved tax law you’re still going to need a well-resourced and highly skilled IRS capable of properly auditing multinationals and the very wealthy.
    - ABCLAW 6y ago
      Tax law has issues, but deficient analysis, audit and enforcement against richer, more complex files is a huge issue. Why fail to fix one over the other?
  - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
    What leads you to believe increased funding would be directed toward regulating the richest and most powerful people/companies (i.e. the biggest financiers of political campaigns on both sides of the aisle)?
    - _djo_ 6y ago
      The OPs statement was that more focus needs to be on improving enforcement. I simply pointed out that improving enforcement, by reversing the budget cuts and consequent drop in audit capability within the IRS, was part of the current administration’s policy. Whether their proposed changes will actually work is another question, but it’s wrong to say there’s no attention there and that the debate is only about raising taxes. I can’t say I understand the downvotes I received for saying that.
trappist 6y ago
I understood parent's point to be that we obviously can't trust them to do better than this. In any case it seems clear that this is exactly why high tax rates hurt the middle class more than the rich. And everyone know it, and yet it persists.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Typically it's because taxing the super rich wouldn't be enough, so you tax a broad swath of the population. Billionaires (put together) in the US hold something similar to 1 year of federal tax receipts, for example. Tax them into the ground and you get 1 year of revenue.
  - mazteraz9 6y ago
    This is one of the more interesting points that gets lost in the "tax the rich" talk. I believe this is because people's general political point of reference is their individual situation and not the overall system - but from the system point of view it truly is just a drop in the bucket.
    - Closi 6y ago
      Eh, the top 1% of earners are responsible for c15% of income. Bear in mind that these will be on a higher tax band too, so a figure of c25% of income tax revenue is pretty likely - hardly a drop in a budget.
  - ErikVandeWater 6y ago
    For the US it doesn't so much matter who is taxed or how much. We cannot break even if you take into account unfunded liabilities.
insert_coin 6y ago
Which high taxes are part of. Raising taxes is an admission that current tax policy, and the other side of the coin, the government spending policy, are awfully designed. Of course there has never been a competent design since taxes always need to be higher to "reduce" the ever increasing wealth gap higher taxes were supposed to be tackling in the first place. Just for once we could try something different maybe?

Swizec 6y ago

> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes Fwiw we feel like middle class but we’re really in the top 5% or higher. We’re the rich people these taxes and politicians talk about. The ultra rich/wealthy are a red herring, there’s only a few 10k of them of them. Only 614 people are billionaires. 7 figure income (salary) puts you in top 0.35% ... that’s 1,120,000 Americans. Not a whole lot. edit: top 10% starts at $125,000 salary

mrkurt 6y ago
Middle class engineers make 7 figure salaries?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Swizec 6y ago
  No, that’s the top 0.35% Where does the middle class top off? $125,000/year individual income puts you in top 10%. Pretty normal for a software engineer. Is that middle class?
  - dataflow 6y ago
    > Where does the middle class top off? $125,000/year individual income puts you in top 10%. Is that middle class? Depends on the location and cost of living? And no I'm not saying you should just offset income by exactly the CoL. Obviously being in a prime location has its own benefits too. But you can't just assume the benefits cancel the extra cost of living either; they certainly don't cancel for everybody. The balance is somewhere in between. (I don't have a formula.)
tfehring 6y ago
More than 1% of US households (something like 1.5M households with a total of ~3M people) have >$10M in household net worth. The primary target is that class, irrespective of its members’ earned income, in part because they can reliably earn mid-six-figures per year in returns to capital alone. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/10/22/the-number-of-millionaires-has-boomedheres-where-your-net-worth-ranks-compared-to-others/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/10/22/the-number...

guerrilla 6y ago

This doesn't seem to make much sense: You're against a policy because someone lied and didn't implement it when they said they would? You can be for taxing the rich and against people who do otherwise simultaneously.

macinjosh 6y ago
I think the point is that beyond total and complete global totalitarianism there isn't a great way for any government to truly tax the rich to the extent desired because there were always be another safe haven for it overseas.
- guerrilla 6y ago
  > there isn't a great way for any government to truly tax the rich The burden of proof is on you then. For you to be able to say that, you'd have to enumerate all possibilities and then provide evidence why each wouldn't work. In the meantime, it seems obvious things could be better without needing to be perfect.
- Mulpze15 6y ago
  It is harder and harder for US persons to put their money abroad. All foreign banks must declare US Persons to the US authorities. I am sure some figure out ways, but you have to go in dodgier places. This is a new development is the last 10-20 years, so there is progress. It should help people trust the system is getting fairer. If one is against taxes, and uses lack of enforcement as a reason, I smell dishonesty.
- syops 6y ago
  Can't you make it expensive to move money overseas by taxing such moves?

gzer0 6y ago

Unless you are making more than $400,000, the new tax proposals would not affect you. What is your definition of "middle class"? Someone making $400k is most certainly in the top 1%. What tax changes have occurred so far in the past few decades that are significantly affecting you? I would genuinely like to know

mattnewton 6y ago
Not OP, but the removal of the SALT deduction hurt.
- gautamcgoel 6y ago
  Can you expand on that please?
  - mattnewton 6y ago
    The 2017 “tax cuts” partially eliminated deductions for state and local taxes, capping them at 10k. This means people in high cost of living, high tax states effectively get taxed on income multiple times instead of being able to discount the money they already paid to state and local taxes above 10k. https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/salt-deduction/ https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/salt-deduction/
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    SALT is “state and local tax”... you can deduct state and local taxes from your federal taxes, but a few years ago they put a cap on it so you can only deduct $10,000. This really hurt tax payers in higher tax states.
    - ghufran_syed 6y ago
      I pay more now because of the SALT cap, but I still support the idea - why should residents of low tax states subsidize residents of high tax states, all other things being equal?

trentnix 6y ago

And the taxes they take from you get spent as poorly as possible. And the solution is always more taxes.

Guest42 6y ago
My impression is that GWB and DJT delivered some very large tax breaks and that the “more” taxes would be more accurately described as a return to normal taxation levels, provided how much one agrees that post-Reagan establishes the level of normalcy. I do agree though that the spending could be improved. That position varies group by group.
- trentnix 6y ago
  “normal taxation levels” - a word salad without peer. Those tax breaks happened to catalyze massive tax receipts nonetheless, but taxes are politically justified by who they poleaxe, not by the consequences that result.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
tigershark 6y ago
Better that spending them golfing in your golf courts while grifting tens of millions per year by forcing the secret service to stay there paying an exorbitant price...
- trentnix 6y ago
  If you’re arguing our elected officials receive exorbitant benefits on the taxpayer dime, you’ve got a friend in me. But unfortunately that is but a drop in the bucket of the grift involved in entitlement fraud, tax fraud, foreign aid fraud, military-industrial hustle, and the Trillions of other ways our “representatives” by favor and votes with other people's money.

throwaway77388 6y ago

IMO the high taxes should be only for people worth tens of millions of dollars or more.

Gibbon1 6y ago
Those high taxes were never about revenue, they were all about keeping corporate managers from looting the companies that employed them.
- throwaway77388 6y ago
  I think I should have said 'very high taxes'.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Doesn't matter even with the high marginal tax rates of the 1940's the amount of revenue generated from those taxes was small. Most wealthy people choose to reinvest profits rather than converting them to personal income.

dguaraglia 6y ago

So what you are against is rich people not paying the taxes they are supposed to be paying, not against 'higher taxes'. I used to think like you, until I realized that the people sinking millions of dollars in every electoral campaign to push candidates friendly to 'lower taxes' are the ones who are already taking advantage of every loophole.

baccheion 6y ago

Need to save at least 50% of take-home salary into a high-yield investment account. One-way street. Even during retirement, you'd be scraping out only the interest/DRIP. Further, always pay cash (ie, avoid debt). Even for a car. Even for an education. Even for a house. Then you can see the truth.

cameldrv 6y ago

You could also just fund enforcement and have real penalties with teeth. You get a few hundred multi millionaires going to prison and the problem will go away. When you're at that level, it's simply not worth taking the chance if the risk is real.

odiroot 6y ago

> The poor already pay very little taxno change there And in many developed nations also (naturally) get the biggest net benefits.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Bukhmanizer 6y ago

This is a really bad argument. There’s probably a very large segment of the population that would avoid paying any taxes no matter how low you set them. What you’re arguing for is basically a pay what you want model for the rich, where if they feel like they’re getting taxed too much they can just utilize these loopholes.

therockspush 6y ago

You're right. Considering we just budgeted about 750 billion for the military, more than the next 7 or 10 countries combined depending on who you ask, me thinks even if they do get their hands on this money its not going to end up in the right place.

devmunchies 6y ago

for the same reason i believe that entertainment companies should have reasonable prices/practices if they don't want me to pirate movies, governments should keep taxes low if they want the rich to pay them.

kokx 6y ago
I don't think we should count on the rich to not try to find loopholes anyway while keeping their taxes low. I'm pretty sure they would do so whether their taxes are low or not. Trying to stay on their good side hoping they will "do the right thing and pay more taxes", won't really make that much of a difference.
- devmunchies 6y ago
  it's a bell curve, taxes too low and govt doesn't make enough, taxes too high and people are disincentivized to pay taxes, invest, start businesses, etc. > won't really make that much of a difference is that you hunch or you have data? I remember seeing the bell curve in an undergrad business class. I'd imagine a 20% vs 45% tax will absolutely have different outcomes. If someone is already dodging taxes then they will probably continue but the next generation of millionaires should never start. That's why I think it's related to pirating movies, it's a similar dynamic.

ErikVandeWater 6y ago

YES! If the politicians actually wanted to tax the rich then they'd be closing loopholes, not raising the marginal rates.

internetslave 6y ago

I made a post about this yesterday and got torn apart for it. It’s the hard working professional class that suffers from high taxes. The people who do everything right. The rich evade

Shacklz 6y ago

> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and not in fun way. You will be fine. Just like everyone else in pretty much the entirety of the rest of the civilized world.

trentnix 6y ago

> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and not in fun way. And predictably, the responses are whether or not you are actually middle class. Because somehow if you're not, you deserve to be f**d hard I guess...?

MattRix 6y ago
These taxes affect people who are making $400k+, so yeah, they can handle paying more taxes.
- trentnix 6y ago
  Otherwise known as "the people who employ and invest". In the same way corporate taxes trickle down to the consumer (otherwise known as "everybody else"), the same is true of taxes on wealthy incomes. And even our discussion over who pays taxes and how much they pay is moot since the problem is actually spending. The best thing that could happen is that everyone has a real tax burden and everyone pays it directly (not via payroll deduction). Because then more people might be interested in how their taxes are being spent.
- ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  I'm not from US, so these taxes don't affect me. I'm talking about earning 2x-3x national average pay and getting fucked by that here, in a small EU country. 5k(eur) gross monthly here (current gross average is ~1950eur), after taxes and social/medical (they're a "tax" here, divided between worker and employer) gives me 2922eur net, and I cost my employer 5805eur. With VAT (22%) our customers pay 7082eur, for me to get 2922eur, and the government gets 4160eur. That's without any actual cost, my chair, my computer, toilet paper, office rent,...

cletus 6y ago

Focusing in tax rates is a distraction because no matter what they are the rich don’t pay them. Until you can get to a point where the rich actually pay taxes then we can talk about rates.

adav 6y ago

It’s funny how everyone thinks that the threshold for any tax on the rich should always be a bit higher than their own circumstances!

rufus_foreman 6y ago
Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.

pmiller2 6y ago

That's because "tax the rich" usually begins and ends with income taxes. More creativity, such as a financial transaction tax, increased capital gains taxes, or a wealth tax paired with capital controls, would let us capture more from the big boys and less from the high earning engineer/small business owner.

conception 6y ago

It may feel this way but it’s easy to see that this isn’t the case by looking at tax revenues. They dropped a lot after the bush tax cuts and again after the trump tax cuts. Saying that tax policy doesn’t matter is simply not true. During Clinton we were set to be debt free in 2013... the bush passed his cut. Tax policy matters.