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Please, stop deciding the winners and losers government. Tax us less, far less. Here’s something to consider - today I pay >60% of my income to taxes; historic

Please, stop deciding the winners and losers government. Tax us less, far less. Here’s something to consider - today I pay >60% of my income to taxes; historically (pre-1920) if 20% of a farmers income was taxed that would be very high. I don’t want to have to write grants so I can have a business. Reduce the burden and let me compete against ideas, not people who write grants properly.

adkadskhj 5y ago
What do you do that you pay >60% of your income in taxes? I'm self employed and hit ~%30.
- slumdev 5y ago
  Federal income taxes Social Security taxes Medicare taxes State income taxes Local income taxes State/local real property taxes State/local personal property taxes Sales taxes It's pretty easy to get to 50 or 60%, depending on how much you make and what state you live in.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    I live in a high-tax area (including local taxes), in a relatively high tax bracket, with few/no special credits or deductions, and I don't pay anything close to 50%. Unless you own an absolute shitton of property and have an abnormally high property tax liability relative to your income, in which case you have an abnormal financial situation that isn't generalizable to other people. Maybe this is typical if you're a landlord and your source of income is mostly real property, but that's not a typical situation either. Also, Congress doesn't have much control over state sales taxes, property taxes, etc.
    - mullen 5y ago
      Also, if they are a landlord, the renter is paying their property tax, not them.
  - jljljl 5y ago
    Total SALT paid as a % of income actually _decreases_ the wealthier you are, since sales and vehicle taxes tend to be regressive. It varies by state, but on average for the top 1%, it looks like average effective tax rate in the US comes out to around 38-39% https://www.visualcapitalist.com/unequal-state-tax-burdens/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/unequal-state-tax-burdens/ https://www.getrichslowly.org/effective-tax-rates/ https://www.getrichslowly.org/effective-tax-rates/ I’m not sure how to get 50% - 60%… maybe that’s referring to your top marginal tax bracket?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - slumdev 5y ago
      No, marginal rates don't even go that high. Once you include sales taxes (which are 12% in a jurisdiction not far from my home) and property taxes (which aren't taken against income but are still taxes), it's not hard to get to a 50-60% total tax burden (across all tax authorities).
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > It's pretty easy to get to 50 or 60%, It's really, really not. You'd have to be making high 7 or low 8 figures in ordinary income annually and own expensive real estate and spend a shit ton of money on other stuff that has sales taxes. Tax rates aren't additive. A 40% top federal bracket and a 10% top state bracket don't result in 50% of your actual income going to taxes.
    - slumdev 5y ago
      > A 40% top federal bracket and a 10% top state bracket don't result in 50% of your actual income going to taxes. Our household is in the top 5% (not even top 1%) nationally, living in a medium-tax state, and we managed to max out the SALT deduction. Practically speaking, this means that for the portion of income taxed by state and local authorities resulting in taxes in excess of 10k, we are also (doubly) taxed by the federal government. It truly is (partially) additive.
      - triceratops 5y ago
        > we managed to max out the SALT deduction We can all thank the Trump "tax cuts" for that. > It truly is (partially) additive. On that portion of your income. I reiterate what I said earlier. To have an actual effective 50% tax rate, you need to be earning well over $1m. That's not "easy" or a typical case.
    - TheCoelacanth 5y ago
      Also, Social Security taxes stop after the first $137k of income, before the top income tax rates kick in. You will never be paying Social Security taxes and the top marginal income tax rates on the same dollar. There is no overlap.
- jorgBaller 5y ago
  EUSSR
- willcipriano 5y ago
  These percentages can be all over the place due to different definitions of tax. Are you only talking federal or fully loaded? Do you only look at withholding or do you factor in any refunds? Do you include sales tax? What about increases to the prices of goods you buy due to corporate taxes? Capitol gains on your investments? Various fees that are paid to the government? The cost of compliance with regulations that you wouldn't of done otherwise? What about fines, commonly a large revenue generator in rural areas? Property taxes? Higher prices due to governmentally enforced monopolies? Devaluation of your holdings due to the printing of more currency? To start we must first agree on what we are counting.
  - TheCoelacanth 5y ago
    Even using the most inclusive possible definition, that doesn't seem plausible. All taxes combined in the US including state, local, corporate and so on, add up to 24.5% of GDP[1]. [1] https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pd...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
> Tax us less, far less. Here’s something to consider - today I pay >60% of my income to taxes; historically (pre-1920) if 20% of a farmers income was taxed that would be very high. Consider that a farmer in the 1920s just might be in a wildly different tax bracket than you are.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  There weren't high income taxes until and because of the two world wars.
fallingknife 5y ago
You have way more disposable income than a 1920's farmer. But I do agree that anything north of 49% is completely outrageous.
digitaltrees 5y ago
But the internet you use. The roads you use. The courts you rely on for enforcing contracts the GPS network that makes location based business models even possible come from those grants and basic research. If we ever have self driving cars it will be because DARPA -a government agency— hosted competitions in the desert with million dollar cash prizes just for college students to compete to have fun building self driving humvees; at the time no one thought it would be commercially viable.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Ah yes, the famous "who would build the roads" gambit. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/post_5.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/post_5.html
  - digitaltrees 5y ago
    Read about the early economic history of the US. How hard it was to conduct commerce when you couldn’t get goods to or from a market because there were bad roads. You can dismiss government all you want but when Roman government administration was good, roads were built. Not so much in the dark ages.
  - digitaltrees 5y ago
    That article is ridiculous. Do you know how expensive it is to pave a road? I had to pave a small parking lot (15 spaces) for a building I own and it was $20k. It’s one think for a person to build a 400meter road it’s another for a person or company to build a network of roads. So this cute anecdote is entirely irrelevant especially when you consider that broadly over history there are no examples of road network built without governments leadership.
  - opheliate 5y ago
    From the article: > Enter Mike Watts and his wife, who decided to build a road only 400 meters long to get around the landslide. They put a 2-pound toll on it. The road was built in 10 days. > And it’s working. People are using it and it’s bringing in substantial revenue. This is what people parody when they mock radical economic libertarianism. Roads are (arguably) a public good. They shouldn't bring in "substantial revenue", otherwise only the richest areas will get them. I appreciate the failure of bureaucracy to fix the detour here, but this just isn't a response to the problem of societal infrastructure without taxation.
blank_fan_pill 5y ago
"Please end the system that I have benefitted so greatly from that I make enough money to be in the top tax bracket. I pay more taxes than a 1920s farmer and that is inherently bad."
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  Who said the poster benefitted from such a system from such a system in the first place? What makes you think he or she doesn't hold the idea that paying more taxes than a 1920s farmer is bad is just being opportunistic? Just because someone lives under a certain set of laws does not mean that they agree with or benefit from them.
bitwize 5y ago
The best, most civilized places to live all have high (>50%) taxes because they have extensive public infrastructure. But the people there live longer, healthier, happier lives. Taxes are a part of life, and if you want to live above third world conditions, they are going to be high.
Afforess 5y ago
> Please, stop deciding the winners and losers government. Almost nobody thinks that the US government's role is to pick winners and losers. This is always an cloaked appeal for less regulation, often in bad faith and unrelated to the topic at hand. > Tax us less, far less. Here’s something to consider - today I pay >60% of my income to taxes; historically (pre-1920) if 20% of a farmers income was taxed that would be very high. Odd callout to farmers. I wonder why... > don’t want to have to write grants so I can have a business. ... What does grant-writing have to do with government or tax rates? > Reduce the burden and let me compete against ideas, not people who write grants properly. Ahh, there it is. You want government money, but not government scrutiny. Nice.
zeruch 5y ago
I care less about the tax rate, then how effective its applications are.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mullen 5y ago
If you are in America, you are not paying 60% of your incoming to taxes. No one pays that in America. What bugs me about the discussion of taxes in this country are the vast swaths of Americans who think they pay 40%, 50% or 60% taxes. If you are paying 45% or more, you need a new CPA.

adkadskhj 5y ago

What do you do that you pay >60% of your income in taxes? I'm self employed and hit ~%30.

slumdev 5y ago
Federal income taxes Social Security taxes Medicare taxes State income taxes Local income taxes State/local real property taxes State/local personal property taxes Sales taxes It's pretty easy to get to 50 or 60%, depending on how much you make and what state you live in.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  I live in a high-tax area (including local taxes), in a relatively high tax bracket, with few/no special credits or deductions, and I don't pay anything close to 50%. Unless you own an absolute shitton of property and have an abnormally high property tax liability relative to your income, in which case you have an abnormal financial situation that isn't generalizable to other people. Maybe this is typical if you're a landlord and your source of income is mostly real property, but that's not a typical situation either. Also, Congress doesn't have much control over state sales taxes, property taxes, etc.
  - mullen 5y ago
    Also, if they are a landlord, the renter is paying their property tax, not them.
- jljljl 5y ago
  Total SALT paid as a % of income actually _decreases_ the wealthier you are, since sales and vehicle taxes tend to be regressive. It varies by state, but on average for the top 1%, it looks like average effective tax rate in the US comes out to around 38-39% https://www.visualcapitalist.com/unequal-state-tax-burdens/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/unequal-state-tax-burdens/ https://www.getrichslowly.org/effective-tax-rates/ https://www.getrichslowly.org/effective-tax-rates/ I’m not sure how to get 50% - 60%… maybe that’s referring to your top marginal tax bracket?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - slumdev 5y ago
    No, marginal rates don't even go that high. Once you include sales taxes (which are 12% in a jurisdiction not far from my home) and property taxes (which aren't taken against income but are still taxes), it's not hard to get to a 50-60% total tax burden (across all tax authorities).
- triceratops 5y ago
  > It's pretty easy to get to 50 or 60%, It's really, really not. You'd have to be making high 7 or low 8 figures in ordinary income annually and own expensive real estate and spend a shit ton of money on other stuff that has sales taxes. Tax rates aren't additive. A 40% top federal bracket and a 10% top state bracket don't result in 50% of your actual income going to taxes.
  - slumdev 5y ago
    > A 40% top federal bracket and a 10% top state bracket don't result in 50% of your actual income going to taxes. Our household is in the top 5% (not even top 1%) nationally, living in a medium-tax state, and we managed to max out the SALT deduction. Practically speaking, this means that for the portion of income taxed by state and local authorities resulting in taxes in excess of 10k, we are also (doubly) taxed by the federal government. It truly is (partially) additive.
    - triceratops 5y ago
      > we managed to max out the SALT deduction We can all thank the Trump "tax cuts" for that. > It truly is (partially) additive. On that portion of your income. I reiterate what I said earlier. To have an actual effective 50% tax rate, you need to be earning well over $1m. That's not "easy" or a typical case.
  - TheCoelacanth 5y ago
    Also, Social Security taxes stop after the first $137k of income, before the top income tax rates kick in. You will never be paying Social Security taxes and the top marginal income tax rates on the same dollar. There is no overlap.
jorgBaller 5y ago
EUSSR
willcipriano 5y ago
These percentages can be all over the place due to different definitions of tax. Are you only talking federal or fully loaded? Do you only look at withholding or do you factor in any refunds? Do you include sales tax? What about increases to the prices of goods you buy due to corporate taxes? Capitol gains on your investments? Various fees that are paid to the government? The cost of compliance with regulations that you wouldn't of done otherwise? What about fines, commonly a large revenue generator in rural areas? Property taxes? Higher prices due to governmentally enforced monopolies? Devaluation of your holdings due to the printing of more currency? To start we must first agree on what we are counting.
- TheCoelacanth 5y ago
  Even using the most inclusive possible definition, that doesn't seem plausible. All taxes combined in the US including state, local, corporate and so on, add up to 24.5% of GDP[1]. [1] https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pd...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

> Tax us less, far less. Here’s something to consider - today I pay >60% of my income to taxes; historically (pre-1920) if 20% of a farmers income was taxed that would be very high. Consider that a farmer in the 1920s just might be in a wildly different tax bracket than you are.

chrisco255 5y ago
There weren't high income taxes until and because of the two world wars.

fallingknife 5y ago

You have way more disposable income than a 1920's farmer. But I do agree that anything north of 49% is completely outrageous.

digitaltrees 5y ago

But the internet you use. The roads you use. The courts you rely on for enforcing contracts the GPS network that makes location based business models even possible come from those grants and basic research. If we ever have self driving cars it will be because DARPA -a government agency— hosted competitions in the desert with million dollar cash prizes just for college students to compete to have fun building self driving humvees; at the time no one thought it would be commercially viable.

aww_dang 5y ago
Ah yes, the famous "who would build the roads" gambit. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/post_5.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/post_5.html
- digitaltrees 5y ago
  Read about the early economic history of the US. How hard it was to conduct commerce when you couldn’t get goods to or from a market because there were bad roads. You can dismiss government all you want but when Roman government administration was good, roads were built. Not so much in the dark ages.
- digitaltrees 5y ago
  That article is ridiculous. Do you know how expensive it is to pave a road? I had to pave a small parking lot (15 spaces) for a building I own and it was $20k. It’s one think for a person to build a 400meter road it’s another for a person or company to build a network of roads. So this cute anecdote is entirely irrelevant especially when you consider that broadly over history there are no examples of road network built without governments leadership.
- opheliate 5y ago
  From the article: > Enter Mike Watts and his wife, who decided to build a road only 400 meters long to get around the landslide. They put a 2-pound toll on it. The road was built in 10 days. > And it’s working. People are using it and it’s bringing in substantial revenue. This is what people parody when they mock radical economic libertarianism. Roads are (arguably) a public good. They shouldn't bring in "substantial revenue", otherwise only the richest areas will get them. I appreciate the failure of bureaucracy to fix the detour here, but this just isn't a response to the problem of societal infrastructure without taxation.

blank_fan_pill 5y ago

"Please end the system that I have benefitted so greatly from that I make enough money to be in the top tax bracket. I pay more taxes than a 1920s farmer and that is inherently bad."

Dracophoenix 5y ago
Who said the poster benefitted from such a system from such a system in the first place? What makes you think he or she doesn't hold the idea that paying more taxes than a 1920s farmer is bad is just being opportunistic? Just because someone lives under a certain set of laws does not mean that they agree with or benefit from them.

bitwize 5y ago

The best, most civilized places to live all have high (>50%) taxes because they have extensive public infrastructure. But the people there live longer, healthier, happier lives. Taxes are a part of life, and if you want to live above third world conditions, they are going to be high.

Afforess 5y ago

> Please, stop deciding the winners and losers government. Almost nobody thinks that the US government's role is to pick winners and losers. This is always an cloaked appeal for less regulation, often in bad faith and unrelated to the topic at hand. > Tax us less, far less. Here’s something to consider - today I pay >60% of my income to taxes; historically (pre-1920) if 20% of a farmers income was taxed that would be very high. Odd callout to farmers. I wonder why... > don’t want to have to write grants so I can have a business. ... What does grant-writing have to do with government or tax rates? > Reduce the burden and let me compete against ideas, not people who write grants properly. Ahh, there it is. You want government money, but not government scrutiny. Nice.

zeruch 5y ago

I care less about the tax rate, then how effective its applications are.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mullen 5y ago

If you are in America, you are not paying 60% of your incoming to taxes. No one pays that in America. What bugs me about the discussion of taxes in this country are the vast swaths of Americans who think they pay 40%, 50% or 60% taxes. If you are paying 45% or more, you need a new CPA.