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Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed go

Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens. 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 88% came from workers.

bartart 5y ago
It's also worth noting that the top 1% pay about 40% of all income taxes at the federal level, and they earn about 20% of annual income from all sources (http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/186106 http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/186106). So classifying 88% of federal revenue as paid by regular workers might be a bit misleading
- lovich 5y ago
  Did 100% of the wealth generated by the 1% come from their income taxed at that rate, or did they have a significant portion of their generated wealth come from capital gains? Classifying the 1%'s wealth by talking about their income as if its 100% of their wealth might be a bit misleading.
  - tomnipotent 5y ago
    > might be a bit misleading Does wealth matter when you're talking about taxes? I was under the impression "1%" was in reference to share of adjusted gross income, not total wealth.
- greycol 5y ago
  In the same spirit it might be worth noting that 'earn about 20% of annual income" could also be considered a bit misleading 'receive about 20% of annual income" would be a less controversial term.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  99% of the top 1% are "normal workers" like me - engineers at Google - or my cousin - a radiologist - or one of my best friends - an investment banker - or lawyers, or owners of successful small businesses, etc... These "normal workers" pay a lot of that 40% of the tax bill. There aren't that many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and board members, A+ list celebrities, and aristocrats. You're getting into the .01% - that's still 32,000 people! Chicago Booth put together an article with graphs to really show how much the top 0.01% has diverged [1]. The top 0.01% still pays A LOT of the income taxes - about 5% - but that means, mostly hardworking normal people in the top 1% are paying the other 35% of that 40% share of the tax bill. It's not like Bill & Melinda Gates are paying 40% of the tax bill by themselves... [1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never-mind-1-percent-lets-talk-about-001-percent https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never...
  - aaronchall 5y ago
    So using your numbers, the top percent of the top percent pay 1/8 of the taxes that the top percent pay, and the remaining 99% of the top percent pay 7/8 of those taxes. That is still quite disproportionately more. I pay a big chunk of my income in taxes too. Everyone needs to contribute. There's not enough money otherwise, and demanding that Bill Gates pay more, as much as I dislike him, isn't going to do it (and doesn't seem fair as he's already paying his fair share).
    - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
      The top 1% - minus the top 0.01% - are paying 35% of all income taxes. The top 0.01% themselves are paying another 5%. The bottom 99% are paying the remaining 60%.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    That article is saying top 1% income in the US is numbers higher than $400k! The median was something like $50k or $80k last time I checked. Those aren't normal workers, those are exactly there sort of people who are seen as not contributing their fair share. They physically can't be working harder than a median worker but they're getting multiples of the salary. If someone is going to be supporting society, they are the people with the means.
- fastaguy88 5y ago
  One must be careful about focusing on income taxes - they leave out about 1/3 of federal revenue paid by social security taxes, which are overwhelmingly paid by the bottom 99%. And focusing on federal taxes leaves out state and local taxes, which are also borne by the majority of the populace.
samename 5y ago
Do you have a source for these stats?
- fukmbas 5y ago
  Google
- seaourfreed 5y ago
  Yes. They come straight from US Congressional Budget Office. These are government published numbers: US Federal Tax Revenues (2019): $3.5 Trillion SOURCE: https://www.google.com/search?q=us+tax+revenues+2019&oq=us+tax+revenues+2019&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i390.5893j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=us+tax+revenues+2019&oq=us+t... US Capital Gains (2018): $170 Billion (4.8%) SOURCE: https://taxfoundation.org/federal-capital-gains-tax-collections-historical-data/ https://taxfoundation.org/federal-capital-gains-tax-collecti... US Corporate Taxes: 3.9% of US Tax Revenues https://taxfoundation.org/us-tax-revenue-2021/#:~:text=Corporate%20income%20taxes%20accounted%20for,income%20taxes%20and%20property%20taxes https://taxfoundation.org/us-tax-revenue-2021/#:~:text=Corpo....
  - frutiger 5y ago
    > US Federal Tax Revenues (2019) > US Capital Gains (2018) Is that a typo or are you comparing revenues from two different years?
fnord77 5y ago
in the 1950s and later, the highest tax bracket was somewhere in the 90%s
- bartart 5y ago
  Yes, but unfortunately no rich person actually paid those rates: "despite these high marginal rates, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the 1950s only paid about 42 percent of their income in taxes. As a result, the tax burden on high-income households today is only slightly lower than what these households faced in the 1950s." https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
  - rhizome 5y ago
    Your 42% is overall, right? The 90% was a marginal rate, the first bullet point at your URL.
    - ploxiln 5y ago
      That implies that significantly less than half of their income fell into the highest bracket. This is true of the top 0.01% as well (the top 1% of the top 1%), they paid about 50% overall. So, the top 1% of the top 1% of high-income earners, found a way for their income that would fall into the top tax bracket, to not be income. They turned it into capital gains or something else. To not do so would be crazy, so literally no one let a significant amount of their income fall into the top tax bracket, in the 1950s.
      - dlp211 5y ago
        The difference between 42% (1954) and 36% (2016) is massive, and we lowered their taxes even more since then!
markus_zhang 5y ago
IMO the state should give incentives and ways for billionaires and mega corps to invest into new technologies as well as new programs that will invigorate the economy, technology and other perspectives of the society. Sadly it seems it is doing the opposite.
- hnick 5y ago
  R&D tax credits exist in some places, but as far as I can tell one company I worked at claimed it just for writing software they used in-house which seems against the spirit of the idea.
Rebelgecko 5y ago
Is it unusual that 88% of the US federal revenue is from individual income taxes? IIRC US corporate income tax rates are fairly high compared to the rest of the world (although maybe there's more deductions and other shenanigans)
- croes 5y ago
  Fairly high? I don't think so. Compare the tax rates to european countries.
  - Rebelgecko 5y ago
    It looks like most countries in Europe have lower corporate tax rates than the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe)
- yojo 5y ago
  The economist has a nice chart on this. The US has a lower share of taxes paid by corporations relative to other sources than our peers. https://archive.is/ND3cQ https://archive.is/ND3cQ
  - granzymes 5y ago
    At 24.6%, the US had an effective average corporate tax rate somewhat in the middle of the pack in 2019. In 2017, at 37.5%, it was the second highest in the world, so which year you look at is very important. It's also important to realize that a large portion (~10%) of individual income taxes are actually from pass-through business income. https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=CTS_ETR https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=CTS_ETR
    - oblio 5y ago
      Isn't 2017 an outlier? Didn't Trump pass a one time law allowing for repatriation of profits at a lower tax rate? That's not sustainable.
Fern_Blossom 5y ago
Hot take: Stop thinking of lobbying as a corporate only tool and understand the system was devised as a way for specialized interested (technocratic) to influence congress in an efficient and informed way. The lobbyist system is open to all by purpose. The real problem: the general public doesn't actually give a shit about wiping its own ass when it comes to dealing with their own government. Whose fault is it when you don't play the game with the rules provided? Stubbing your toe and blaming an -ism doesn't produce results. Many non-corporate, non-corrupt groups in US history used the system to make true good changes.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  We can't afford lobbyists because we are paying those 88% of taxes and ever increasing costs for products from those companies and organizations paying 12%.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  Okay then go to K Street and hire yourself a lobbyist. Unless you know someone or have a lot of money under your control you won’t even be able to get a meeting. Your suggestion is as ridiculous as telling the average person to “just ask the Fed for money” when they can’t make rent. If you truly believe the system is equally “open to all” then you have bought the bullshit lobbyists have been selling the public hook, line, and sinker.
  - refurb 5y ago
    I mean, if you donate to the ACLU your money goes to lobbying. The comment isn’t wrong. Nothing stops citizens from organizing a non-profit to lobby the government. I’ve worked with a few groups that lobby for better healthcare coverage. They go to Washington once to year. They are surprisingly effective in getting changes passed. Actually being more “grassroots” makes the lobbying easier. It’s harder for a Congressperson to reject a meeting from their constituents.
  - gadders 5y ago
    Reminds me of this story from The Onion: American People Hire High-Powered Lobbyist To Push Interests In Congress "WASHINGTON—Citing a desire to gain influence in Washington, the American people confirmed Friday that they have hired high-powered D.C. lobbyist Jack Weldon of the firm Patton Boggs to help advance their agenda in Congress. Known among Beltway insiders for his ability to sway public policy on behalf of massive corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Monsanto, and AT&T, Weldon, 53, is expected to use his vast network of political connections to give his new client a voice in the legislative process." https://politics.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-lobbyist-to-push-inte-1819571821 https://politics.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powe...
0xy 5y ago
It's really hard to evade personal income tax, so why shouldn't the government just give up and tax corporations at 0%, while having high progressive personal income taxes? Or, better yet, proper sliding consumption taxes. If you want a yacht or private jet, pay 150% in taxes. Norway already taxes luxury cars at over 100% of their value.
- spacephysics 5y ago
  That hinders technological progress. Typically newer technology in most consumer fields is bought and “tried out” by the wealthy. If it’s popular enough, economy of scales comes in and makes it more affordable. Adding that heavy of a tax will disincentivize some wealthy from buying the product, leading to slower, if any, feedback loop to give that tech to the lower income classes. You may ask, well the tech is already made. And a private jet won’t become affordable to normal folks anytime soon. True, but then the issue is, who determines exactly which items are taxed, and how much? Most likely a domino effect that was not intended or predicted will occur, causing worse outcomes than the pseudo planned-economy hoped for.
- rcpt 5y ago
  This is right. Corporate taxes just create a tax evasion industry. If there were no corporate tax then shareholder profits would be higher. It's be simpler to tax the shareholders and an individual is unlikely to have an army of lawyers doing their taxes
  - notahacker 5y ago
    When corporate tax is zero and corporations don't hire tax specialists because nobody audits them, individuals don't need an army of specialists to hide most of their income and expenditure in a corporation, and basically anyone that isn't an entry-level employee can do it...
    - rcpt 5y ago
      How do I hide most of my income?
jimbob45 5y ago
Do you have sources for those incredibly attractive statistics?
practicalpants 5y ago
Many in congress literally use shell companies to obtain payments discretely so yeah, shell company laws aren't getting passed anytime soon.
vxNsr 5y ago
Honest question: When you have an agenda that wants to spend an additional $6tillion do you really care that much about tax revenues? (On top of the $5 trillion from the past year) At that point does it really matter how much you collect? You’ve clearly given up all semblance of trying to balance a budget. At this point we’re pretty deep in the new-age progressive economic policy ideology, where taxes aren’t about building up gov coffers but rather taking money out of the economy, so does it really matter how the money is taken out? Why are you so concerned with taxing corporations when it’s much easier to tax people?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cto_of_antifa 5y ago
  By that logic, isn't taxing lower-income people taking even more money out of the economy, since poorer people spend a much higher percentage of their earnings?
  - vxNsr 5y ago
    100% of $10 is still less than 20% of $100 but taxing corporations doesn’t do the same thing as taxing ppl and the purpose is to remove money from the economy not ensure everyone fairly contributes to the national coffers. We should be working on the most effective way to remove money from the economy not worrying about who’s paying what.
colechristensen 5y ago
One: this seems to be about uber activities outside the US Two: the US is actively working on what it is calling a global minimum corporate tax Three: anonymous shell companies were made illegal in the US in January It seems your comment is rather uninformed. There is of course much to do but it is hard to look at what is happening and come to the conclusion that it is all nothing
- jb775 5y ago
  > this seems to be about uber activities outside the US Wrong. This is Uber transferring money all around the world through shell companies so it's hard to figure out where it came from. Just like a crypto-mixer. This quote alone shows how they initially transferred a good chunk of money out of the US: Uber transferred its intellectual property through a $16 billion “loan” from one of its subsidiaries in Singapore that in turn owns one of Uber’s Dutch shell companies, a manuever that grants the company a $1 billion tax break every year for the next 20 years > the US is actively working on what it is calling a global minimum corporate tax Never gonna happen. The govt's collection of federal taxes within the US is already technically illegal[1]. This is political fluff talk coming from the do-nothing Democrats. > anonymous shell companies were made illegal in the US in January Companies with more than 20 full-time employees, $5 million in annual sales, and a physical presence (i.e. a PO Box) are excluded from these new regulations[2]. This is more political fluff to bamboozle the peasantry. Its actual intention is to box out competition and build moats around the current ivory towers. [1] https://politicalvelcraft.org/2011/09/08/u-s-supreme-court-struck-down-personal-income-tax-president-kennedy-struck-down-federal-reserve-both-not-enforced/ https://politicalvelcraft.org/2011/09/08/u-s-supreme-court-s... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/defense-bill-override-paves-way-for-overhaul-of-anti-money-laundering-rules-11609542221 https://www.wsj.com/articles/defense-bill-override-paves-way...
  - peter422 5y ago
    All the people who have gone to jail for tax evasion are not having good success with the argument that taxes are unconstitutional.
Aunche 5y ago
>Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists) The most a single company spent on lobbying last year was Facebook at $19.7 million, which is a whopping .17% of their marketing expenses. At the same time, they shelled out $130 million, forming a irrevocable trust to fund a supreme court of moderation decisions. If lobbying were really effective, Facebook would have given money to any Congressperson willing to make any decisions at all, regardless of whether they are pro or anti-censorship. Either way, it's a win for Facebook because they can deflect all blame to the new regulations. The less Zuck has to think about moderation, the more he can focus on making money. The problem is that no representative was ever willing to do so. During the hearings about Section 230, Congress loved to grill Facebook on why they shouldn't have censored this and should censor this other thing. However, none of them attempted meaningful questioning that would aid them in writing a bill to achieve their supposed goals. The real reason Congress is so ineffective is much more mundane: they have no incentive to do otherwise. Voters love hearing spicy soundbytes, so that's where all Congresspeople's effort goes into. People just want a simple problem that they can point their fingers at and knock down, but the real world doesn't work that way. When you blamed "lobbying", did you bother to look up the myriad existing regulations and their shortcomings? The result of all this is that an increasing number of real decisions are being made by unelected officials, from the SCOTUS effectively legislating Google v. Oracle or the Federal Reserve's increasingly aggressive monetary policy.
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Almost 10 billion dollars was donated in the 2020 election cycle. The money overwhelmingly comes from a very small and well off portion of the population. This is why the positions taken by congress so consistently serve the interests of the few over the many. https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/donor-demographics https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/donor-demogra...
  - Aunche 5y ago
    Campaign finance is certainly broken, but it's not the same as lobbying. Also, most evidence points towards money having little if any impact on elections. Most recently, Bloomberg spent $570 million on primaries and only received 31 delegates. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c... https://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left https://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bloomberg-delegate-18-million/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bloomberg-delegate-18-million/
refurb 5y ago
Capital gains taxes fall under income taxes. Spending money on lobbyists is not corruption. Is the ACLU corrupting Congress through its lobbying?
- Frost1x 5y ago
  >Is the ACLU corrupting Congress through its lobbying? Yes. Just because what something has as a goal may seem like a net positive doesn't mean the means it uses to get to that goal are. The ACLU, like any lobbying, is using financial resources to influence democratic government policy disproportionately based on the financial resources it can acquire. The ACLU shouldn't need to exist but it's an interesting example to bring up. Lobbying (part of the process of transferring wealth into power by influencing or creating policy that creates more or solidifies that wealth) shouldn't be permitted to exist. However in competitive environments, ultimately, ethics go out the window. If you're constrained by ethics and your opponent isn't, you're working at a disadvantage in most environments. Rules have to exist to enforce those ethics in such environment and prevent such necessary compromises from being on the table. If we didn't have groups lobbying against individual rights and liberties we shouldn't need groups lobbying to protect individuals rights and liberty. Both, IMHO, are signs of an unhealthy democracy. Let's eliminate lobbying.
  - refurb 5y ago
    Huh? You’re saying that voters or organizations that represent voters shouldn’t petition their politicians in issues they think are important? Because that’s what lobbying is.
    - Frost1x 5y ago
      I didn't say voters shouldn't petition their representatives, I said organizations funded by a biased subset of voters shouldn't petition politicians for voters. That defeats the entire purpose of the current reprentative system if you have a mechanism to skew and pressure representation based on your financial resources as opposed to voters. I already question the current representation system. It doesn't help when I know I can pump tens of millions or more into professional lobbyists to get unequal representation in government.
johannes1234321 5y ago
Actually the EU would have to act here. The EU should ensure that revenues made in the EU are taxed in the EU. However that would require all member states to agree and for countries like Ireland or Netherlands it is better to earn 1% of all EU profits of those companies than "proper" tax rates on only parts of the revenue, thus they won't agree ...
- secfirstmd 5y ago
  To be fair to Ireland it also would require other countries drop the hidden advantages to business that countries grant to gain unfair advantage. Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, France's support to state industries and use of its intelligence services to gain competitive business contracts, the US subsidising research through military investment, Delaware Corps, Swiss banks being Swiss banks, Scandinavian companies using bribes, various favoured semi-state companies in Eastern Europe with suspiciously tight political connections, Israel using state resources and insider access for trusted businesses, Korean State lead industry, Chinas intellectual property theft, Italy and Greece's lack of tax collection, Dutch taxes, Malta's money laundering, the UK using Trusts, the Island of Man and BVI to allow companies manipulate tax but keeping it at an arm's length, UKs revolving door between intelligence/gov/banking, the UK letting dodgy money wash through London. Ireland is one of the worse on the corporate tax but in many ways we are just a rocky previously poor outcrop that has found a way to be competitive openly. Many others do unfair things in more hidden ways and everything needs to be on the table.
  - sgift 5y ago
    > Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, I grant the first one, but how exactly does Germany control/manipulate the Euro?
    - secfirstmd 5y ago
      Easily. When the Euro started the German economy was in a terrible stagnation. The Euro needed to be higher for countries like Ireland that economically were doing very well at the time. By keeping it low to make German exports more competitive it meant countries like Ireland overheated, instead of having a natural breaking mechanism though higher interest rates. Irish interest rates were way too low at the time. (Of course that doesn't remove our responsibility for not taking the loans or for regulating things better) Tons of money in Germany that was making little return then flooded into countries running hot. When this stupid money should have been written off as bad loans the Germans strong armed Ireland and elsewhere to pay it all back in full. Many of these debts should have been properly haircut. It's the same thing with the Euro post 2008. Germany's tight control of its policy means it gets the strongest say on what actions the ECB takes and generally how the wider EU approaches finances etc.
csomar 5y ago
Actually, the US gets to benefit from this. This money will be taxed in the US, at best; or repatriated as a deal at worst {https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-19/u-s-companies-repatriated-cash-hits-1-trillion-under-tax-law https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-19/u-s-compa...}. > 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 88% came from workers. This is meaningless. You need to look at something called "fiscal pressure". If you remove employees taxes and increase corporate taxes, what you'll probably get is lower salaries. {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...} tl;dr: Taxes are a political topic when they should be a scientific one.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Why do people always bitch about Congress? They are playing governments all over the world for this, not just the US government.

bartart 5y ago

It's also worth noting that the top 1% pay about 40% of all income taxes at the federal level, and they earn about 20% of annual income from all sources (http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/186106 http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/186106). So classifying 88% of federal revenue as paid by regular workers might be a bit misleading

lovich 5y ago
Did 100% of the wealth generated by the 1% come from their income taxed at that rate, or did they have a significant portion of their generated wealth come from capital gains? Classifying the 1%'s wealth by talking about their income as if its 100% of their wealth might be a bit misleading.
- tomnipotent 5y ago
  > might be a bit misleading Does wealth matter when you're talking about taxes? I was under the impression "1%" was in reference to share of adjusted gross income, not total wealth.
greycol 5y ago
In the same spirit it might be worth noting that 'earn about 20% of annual income" could also be considered a bit misleading 'receive about 20% of annual income" would be a less controversial term.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
99% of the top 1% are "normal workers" like me - engineers at Google - or my cousin - a radiologist - or one of my best friends - an investment banker - or lawyers, or owners of successful small businesses, etc... These "normal workers" pay a lot of that 40% of the tax bill. There aren't that many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and board members, A+ list celebrities, and aristocrats. You're getting into the .01% - that's still 32,000 people! Chicago Booth put together an article with graphs to really show how much the top 0.01% has diverged [1]. The top 0.01% still pays A LOT of the income taxes - about 5% - but that means, mostly hardworking normal people in the top 1% are paying the other 35% of that 40% share of the tax bill. It's not like Bill & Melinda Gates are paying 40% of the tax bill by themselves... [1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never-mind-1-percent-lets-talk-about-001-percent https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never...
- aaronchall 5y ago
  So using your numbers, the top percent of the top percent pay 1/8 of the taxes that the top percent pay, and the remaining 99% of the top percent pay 7/8 of those taxes. That is still quite disproportionately more. I pay a big chunk of my income in taxes too. Everyone needs to contribute. There's not enough money otherwise, and demanding that Bill Gates pay more, as much as I dislike him, isn't going to do it (and doesn't seem fair as he's already paying his fair share).
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    The top 1% - minus the top 0.01% - are paying 35% of all income taxes. The top 0.01% themselves are paying another 5%. The bottom 99% are paying the remaining 60%.
- roenxi 5y ago
  That article is saying top 1% income in the US is numbers higher than $400k! The median was something like $50k or $80k last time I checked. Those aren't normal workers, those are exactly there sort of people who are seen as not contributing their fair share. They physically can't be working harder than a median worker but they're getting multiples of the salary. If someone is going to be supporting society, they are the people with the means.
fastaguy88 5y ago
One must be careful about focusing on income taxes - they leave out about 1/3 of federal revenue paid by social security taxes, which are overwhelmingly paid by the bottom 99%. And focusing on federal taxes leaves out state and local taxes, which are also borne by the majority of the populace.

samename 5y ago

Do you have a source for these stats?

fukmbas 5y ago
Google
seaourfreed 5y ago
Yes. They come straight from US Congressional Budget Office. These are government published numbers: US Federal Tax Revenues (2019): $3.5 Trillion SOURCE: https://www.google.com/search?q=us+tax+revenues+2019&oq=us+tax+revenues+2019&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i390.5893j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=us+tax+revenues+2019&oq=us+t... US Capital Gains (2018): $170 Billion (4.8%) SOURCE: https://taxfoundation.org/federal-capital-gains-tax-collections-historical-data/ https://taxfoundation.org/federal-capital-gains-tax-collecti... US Corporate Taxes: 3.9% of US Tax Revenues https://taxfoundation.org/us-tax-revenue-2021/#:~:text=Corporate%20income%20taxes%20accounted%20for,income%20taxes%20and%20property%20taxes https://taxfoundation.org/us-tax-revenue-2021/#:~:text=Corpo....
- frutiger 5y ago
  > US Federal Tax Revenues (2019) > US Capital Gains (2018) Is that a typo or are you comparing revenues from two different years?

fnord77 5y ago

in the 1950s and later, the highest tax bracket was somewhere in the 90%s

bartart 5y ago
Yes, but unfortunately no rich person actually paid those rates: "despite these high marginal rates, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in the 1950s only paid about 42 percent of their income in taxes. As a result, the tax burden on high-income households today is only slightly lower than what these households faced in the 1950s." https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
- rhizome 5y ago
  Your 42% is overall, right? The 90% was a marginal rate, the first bullet point at your URL.
  - ploxiln 5y ago
    That implies that significantly less than half of their income fell into the highest bracket. This is true of the top 0.01% as well (the top 1% of the top 1%), they paid about 50% overall. So, the top 1% of the top 1% of high-income earners, found a way for their income that would fall into the top tax bracket, to not be income. They turned it into capital gains or something else. To not do so would be crazy, so literally no one let a significant amount of their income fall into the top tax bracket, in the 1950s.
    - dlp211 5y ago
      The difference between 42% (1954) and 36% (2016) is massive, and we lowered their taxes even more since then!

markus_zhang 5y ago

IMO the state should give incentives and ways for billionaires and mega corps to invest into new technologies as well as new programs that will invigorate the economy, technology and other perspectives of the society. Sadly it seems it is doing the opposite.

hnick 5y ago
R&D tax credits exist in some places, but as far as I can tell one company I worked at claimed it just for writing software they used in-house which seems against the spirit of the idea.

Rebelgecko 5y ago

Is it unusual that 88% of the US federal revenue is from individual income taxes? IIRC US corporate income tax rates are fairly high compared to the rest of the world (although maybe there's more deductions and other shenanigans)

croes 5y ago
Fairly high? I don't think so. Compare the tax rates to european countries.
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  It looks like most countries in Europe have lower corporate tax rates than the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_in_Europe)
yojo 5y ago
The economist has a nice chart on this. The US has a lower share of taxes paid by corporations relative to other sources than our peers. https://archive.is/ND3cQ https://archive.is/ND3cQ
- granzymes 5y ago
  At 24.6%, the US had an effective average corporate tax rate somewhat in the middle of the pack in 2019. In 2017, at 37.5%, it was the second highest in the world, so which year you look at is very important. It's also important to realize that a large portion (~10%) of individual income taxes are actually from pass-through business income. https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=CTS_ETR https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=CTS_ETR
  - oblio 5y ago
    Isn't 2017 an outlier? Didn't Trump pass a one time law allowing for repatriation of profits at a lower tax rate? That's not sustainable.

Fern_Blossom 5y ago

Hot take: Stop thinking of lobbying as a corporate only tool and understand the system was devised as a way for specialized interested (technocratic) to influence congress in an efficient and informed way. The lobbyist system is open to all by purpose. The real problem: the general public doesn't actually give a shit about wiping its own ass when it comes to dealing with their own government. Whose fault is it when you don't play the game with the rules provided? Stubbing your toe and blaming an -ism doesn't produce results. Many non-corporate, non-corrupt groups in US history used the system to make true good changes.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
We can't afford lobbyists because we are paying those 88% of taxes and ever increasing costs for products from those companies and organizations paying 12%.
elliekelly 5y ago
Okay then go to K Street and hire yourself a lobbyist. Unless you know someone or have a lot of money under your control you won’t even be able to get a meeting. Your suggestion is as ridiculous as telling the average person to “just ask the Fed for money” when they can’t make rent. If you truly believe the system is equally “open to all” then you have bought the bullshit lobbyists have been selling the public hook, line, and sinker.
- refurb 5y ago
  I mean, if you donate to the ACLU your money goes to lobbying. The comment isn’t wrong. Nothing stops citizens from organizing a non-profit to lobby the government. I’ve worked with a few groups that lobby for better healthcare coverage. They go to Washington once to year. They are surprisingly effective in getting changes passed. Actually being more “grassroots” makes the lobbying easier. It’s harder for a Congressperson to reject a meeting from their constituents.
- gadders 5y ago
  Reminds me of this story from The Onion: American People Hire High-Powered Lobbyist To Push Interests In Congress "WASHINGTON—Citing a desire to gain influence in Washington, the American people confirmed Friday that they have hired high-powered D.C. lobbyist Jack Weldon of the firm Patton Boggs to help advance their agenda in Congress. Known among Beltway insiders for his ability to sway public policy on behalf of massive corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Monsanto, and AT&T, Weldon, 53, is expected to use his vast network of political connections to give his new client a voice in the legislative process." https://politics.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powered-lobbyist-to-push-inte-1819571821 https://politics.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powe...

0xy 5y ago

It's really hard to evade personal income tax, so why shouldn't the government just give up and tax corporations at 0%, while having high progressive personal income taxes? Or, better yet, proper sliding consumption taxes. If you want a yacht or private jet, pay 150% in taxes. Norway already taxes luxury cars at over 100% of their value.

spacephysics 5y ago
That hinders technological progress. Typically newer technology in most consumer fields is bought and “tried out” by the wealthy. If it’s popular enough, economy of scales comes in and makes it more affordable. Adding that heavy of a tax will disincentivize some wealthy from buying the product, leading to slower, if any, feedback loop to give that tech to the lower income classes. You may ask, well the tech is already made. And a private jet won’t become affordable to normal folks anytime soon. True, but then the issue is, who determines exactly which items are taxed, and how much? Most likely a domino effect that was not intended or predicted will occur, causing worse outcomes than the pseudo planned-economy hoped for.
rcpt 5y ago
This is right. Corporate taxes just create a tax evasion industry. If there were no corporate tax then shareholder profits would be higher. It's be simpler to tax the shareholders and an individual is unlikely to have an army of lawyers doing their taxes
- notahacker 5y ago
  When corporate tax is zero and corporations don't hire tax specialists because nobody audits them, individuals don't need an army of specialists to hide most of their income and expenditure in a corporation, and basically anyone that isn't an entry-level employee can do it...
  - rcpt 5y ago
    How do I hide most of my income?

jimbob45 5y ago

Do you have sources for those incredibly attractive statistics?

practicalpants 5y ago

Many in congress literally use shell companies to obtain payments discretely so yeah, shell company laws aren't getting passed anytime soon.

vxNsr 5y ago

Honest question: When you have an agenda that wants to spend an additional $6tillion do you really care that much about tax revenues? (On top of the $5 trillion from the past year) At that point does it really matter how much you collect? You’ve clearly given up all semblance of trying to balance a budget. At this point we’re pretty deep in the new-age progressive economic policy ideology, where taxes aren’t about building up gov coffers but rather taking money out of the economy, so does it really matter how the money is taken out? Why are you so concerned with taxing corporations when it’s much easier to tax people?

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cto_of_antifa 5y ago
By that logic, isn't taxing lower-income people taking even more money out of the economy, since poorer people spend a much higher percentage of their earnings?
- vxNsr 5y ago
  100% of $10 is still less than 20% of $100 but taxing corporations doesn’t do the same thing as taxing ppl and the purpose is to remove money from the economy not ensure everyone fairly contributes to the national coffers. We should be working on the most effective way to remove money from the economy not worrying about who’s paying what.

colechristensen 5y ago

One: this seems to be about uber activities outside the US Two: the US is actively working on what it is calling a global minimum corporate tax Three: anonymous shell companies were made illegal in the US in January It seems your comment is rather uninformed. There is of course much to do but it is hard to look at what is happening and come to the conclusion that it is all nothing

jb775 5y ago
> this seems to be about uber activities outside the US Wrong. This is Uber transferring money all around the world through shell companies so it's hard to figure out where it came from. Just like a crypto-mixer. This quote alone shows how they initially transferred a good chunk of money out of the US: Uber transferred its intellectual property through a $16 billion “loan” from one of its subsidiaries in Singapore that in turn owns one of Uber’s Dutch shell companies, a manuever that grants the company a $1 billion tax break every year for the next 20 years > the US is actively working on what it is calling a global minimum corporate tax Never gonna happen. The govt's collection of federal taxes within the US is already technically illegal[1]. This is political fluff talk coming from the do-nothing Democrats. > anonymous shell companies were made illegal in the US in January Companies with more than 20 full-time employees, $5 million in annual sales, and a physical presence (i.e. a PO Box) are excluded from these new regulations[2]. This is more political fluff to bamboozle the peasantry. Its actual intention is to box out competition and build moats around the current ivory towers. [1] https://politicalvelcraft.org/2011/09/08/u-s-supreme-court-struck-down-personal-income-tax-president-kennedy-struck-down-federal-reserve-both-not-enforced/ https://politicalvelcraft.org/2011/09/08/u-s-supreme-court-s... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/defense-bill-override-paves-way-for-overhaul-of-anti-money-laundering-rules-11609542221 https://www.wsj.com/articles/defense-bill-override-paves-way...
- peter422 5y ago
  All the people who have gone to jail for tax evasion are not having good success with the argument that taxes are unconstitutional.

Aunche 5y ago

>Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists) The most a single company spent on lobbying last year was Facebook at $19.7 million, which is a whopping .17% of their marketing expenses. At the same time, they shelled out $130 million, forming a irrevocable trust to fund a supreme court of moderation decisions. If lobbying were really effective, Facebook would have given money to any Congressperson willing to make any decisions at all, regardless of whether they are pro or anti-censorship. Either way, it's a win for Facebook because they can deflect all blame to the new regulations. The less Zuck has to think about moderation, the more he can focus on making money. The problem is that no representative was ever willing to do so. During the hearings about Section 230, Congress loved to grill Facebook on why they shouldn't have censored this and should censor this other thing. However, none of them attempted meaningful questioning that would aid them in writing a bill to achieve their supposed goals. The real reason Congress is so ineffective is much more mundane: they have no incentive to do otherwise. Voters love hearing spicy soundbytes, so that's where all Congresspeople's effort goes into. People just want a simple problem that they can point their fingers at and knock down, but the real world doesn't work that way. When you blamed "lobbying", did you bother to look up the myriad existing regulations and their shortcomings? The result of all this is that an increasing number of real decisions are being made by unelected officials, from the SCOTUS effectively legislating Google v. Oracle or the Federal Reserve's increasingly aggressive monetary policy.

michaelmrose 5y ago
Almost 10 billion dollars was donated in the 2020 election cycle. The money overwhelmingly comes from a very small and well off portion of the population. This is why the positions taken by congress so consistently serve the interests of the few over the many. https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/donor-demographics https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/donor-demogra...
- Aunche 5y ago
  Campaign finance is certainly broken, but it's not the same as lobbying. Also, most evidence points towards money having little if any impact on elections. Most recently, Bloomberg spent $570 million on primaries and only received 31 delegates. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c... https://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left https://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10941690/campaign-finance-left https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bloomberg-delegate-18-million/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bloomberg-delegate-18-million/

refurb 5y ago

Capital gains taxes fall under income taxes. Spending money on lobbyists is not corruption. Is the ACLU corrupting Congress through its lobbying?

Frost1x 5y ago
>Is the ACLU corrupting Congress through its lobbying? Yes. Just because what something has as a goal may seem like a net positive doesn't mean the means it uses to get to that goal are. The ACLU, like any lobbying, is using financial resources to influence democratic government policy disproportionately based on the financial resources it can acquire. The ACLU shouldn't need to exist but it's an interesting example to bring up. Lobbying (part of the process of transferring wealth into power by influencing or creating policy that creates more or solidifies that wealth) shouldn't be permitted to exist. However in competitive environments, ultimately, ethics go out the window. If you're constrained by ethics and your opponent isn't, you're working at a disadvantage in most environments. Rules have to exist to enforce those ethics in such environment and prevent such necessary compromises from being on the table. If we didn't have groups lobbying against individual rights and liberties we shouldn't need groups lobbying to protect individuals rights and liberty. Both, IMHO, are signs of an unhealthy democracy. Let's eliminate lobbying.
- refurb 5y ago
  Huh? You’re saying that voters or organizations that represent voters shouldn’t petition their politicians in issues they think are important? Because that’s what lobbying is.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    I didn't say voters shouldn't petition their representatives, I said organizations funded by a biased subset of voters shouldn't petition politicians for voters. That defeats the entire purpose of the current reprentative system if you have a mechanism to skew and pressure representation based on your financial resources as opposed to voters. I already question the current representation system. It doesn't help when I know I can pump tens of millions or more into professional lobbyists to get unequal representation in government.

johannes1234321 5y ago

Actually the EU would have to act here. The EU should ensure that revenues made in the EU are taxed in the EU. However that would require all member states to agree and for countries like Ireland or Netherlands it is better to earn 1% of all EU profits of those companies than "proper" tax rates on only parts of the revenue, thus they won't agree ...

secfirstmd 5y ago
To be fair to Ireland it also would require other countries drop the hidden advantages to business that countries grant to gain unfair advantage. Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, France's support to state industries and use of its intelligence services to gain competitive business contracts, the US subsidising research through military investment, Delaware Corps, Swiss banks being Swiss banks, Scandinavian companies using bribes, various favoured semi-state companies in Eastern Europe with suspiciously tight political connections, Israel using state resources and insider access for trusted businesses, Korean State lead industry, Chinas intellectual property theft, Italy and Greece's lack of tax collection, Dutch taxes, Malta's money laundering, the UK using Trusts, the Island of Man and BVI to allow companies manipulate tax but keeping it at an arm's length, UKs revolving door between intelligence/gov/banking, the UK letting dodgy money wash through London. Ireland is one of the worse on the corporate tax but in many ways we are just a rocky previously poor outcrop that has found a way to be competitive openly. Many others do unfair things in more hidden ways and everything needs to be on the table.
- sgift 5y ago
  > Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, I grant the first one, but how exactly does Germany control/manipulate the Euro?
  - secfirstmd 5y ago
    Easily. When the Euro started the German economy was in a terrible stagnation. The Euro needed to be higher for countries like Ireland that economically were doing very well at the time. By keeping it low to make German exports more competitive it meant countries like Ireland overheated, instead of having a natural breaking mechanism though higher interest rates. Irish interest rates were way too low at the time. (Of course that doesn't remove our responsibility for not taking the loans or for regulating things better) Tons of money in Germany that was making little return then flooded into countries running hot. When this stupid money should have been written off as bad loans the Germans strong armed Ireland and elsewhere to pay it all back in full. Many of these debts should have been properly haircut. It's the same thing with the Euro post 2008. Germany's tight control of its policy means it gets the strongest say on what actions the ECB takes and generally how the wider EU approaches finances etc.

csomar 5y ago

Actually, the US gets to benefit from this. This money will be taxed in the US, at best; or repatriated as a deal at worst {https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-19/u-s-companies-repatriated-cash-hits-1-trillion-under-tax-law https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-19/u-s-compa...}. > 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 88% came from workers. This is meaningless. You need to look at something called "fiscal pressure". If you remove employees taxes and increase corporate taxes, what you'll probably get is lower salaries. {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_to_GDP_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...} tl;dr: Taxes are a political topic when they should be a scientific one.

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stjohnswarts 5y ago

Why do people always bitch about Congress? They are playing governments all over the world for this, not just the US government.