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That was my gut reaction. 160bn is nothing to sneeze at but compared to a nearly 3 trillion deficit, it’s clear that taxing the rich (more) wouldn’t get us very

That was my gut reaction. 160bn is nothing to sneeze at but compared to a nearly 3 trillion deficit, it’s clear that taxing the rich (more) wouldn’t get us very far. Not that we shouldn’t try mind you, but I had imagined this would be a bigger figure.

Railsify 5y ago
They don't want to get us anywhere. They want to eliminate any large differences in wealth and try to make everyone equally poor and dependent on governments.
- quantified 5y ago
  I doubt very much that the top 1% have that in mind.
jdlshore 5y ago
That doesn't follow. If this is about tax evasion (according to other commenters; I haven't read the article), then it doesn't say anything about what could be gained by increasing the tax rate.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  Post WWII US had a 90% top marginal tax rate and a historic economy. By the time Jimmy Carter was president, the tax rate had been slashed by a third and his economy kind of sucked.
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    1. Almost no now paid that rate, tax deductions and clever strategies existed then too. 2. That captured about 20% of GDP in revenue, and we’ve never captured a larger percent for more than about a single year. 3. We currently capture north of 17% of GDP, which is the post war average.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  Exactly. This is not about taxing the rich more. It's about stopping them from committing crimes/fraud/etc in the system we've already got.
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    Given they need to hire agents to "decipher" their returns it probably means they're using legal loopholes and hiding the money outside of the US with complicated structures. Sure, they could start saying those loopholes are not good enough but then the political system would have a 600bn pressure to implement different loopholes or risk losing all of the tax revenue with people moving somewhere else. These days the USA main advantage is offering highly paid jobs and venture capital - and the ultra rich definitely don't need that. If they're still in the States and pay little tax, they most likely own the system.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      I don't think this is the case. Certainly many people avoid taxes -- entirely legally -- using loopholes and whatnot. But I believe the $600B figure cited in the article is an estimate of outright evasion: tax money that actually is owed, but people are lying or obfuscating things on their tax returns to make their tax liability seem lower. I don't think there's much of a worry that the rich will leave the US if tax rates (or enforcement efforts) go up. Federal income taxes have been much much higher in the US at various points in history, and this "rich flight" never came to pass. Certainly there will be grumbling if taxes are raised, but the rich will remain rich. And even if they move away, they still carry US tax liability, unless they renounce their US citizenship. Granted, it's harder to collect in that case, but it's still owed, and if the US government really wanted to find a way to collect it, they'd probably do a pretty good job of doing so.
- throwaw77r8 5y ago
  Maintaining faith in the USD. Of course it's still fiat... There may well come a day when China usurps the US's position of World Reserve. I think I'd prefer the US were I to elect from the two evils.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - anonuser123456 5y ago
    China will never be a reserve currency because Chinese courts do not respect property rights.
quantified 5y ago
Are you saying “meh, not enough to worry about”? Any 160bn expenditure is, therefore that quantity of revenue is. The debt and deficit are so large that nothing is a large percentage, just like no one contributes significantly to climate change and Amazon is only 4-5% of retail sales.
kelnos 5y ago
Taxing the rich more is orthogonal. You can add higher tax brackets all you want, and it'll bring in more revenue. $600B (or the $160B piece owed by the top 1%) is just the gap between what everyone should be paying based on current tax rates, and what they actually are paying. If you increase the "should be paying" by, say, $1T by increasing taxes, that says nothing about what will happen to the rate of tax evasion. Sure, that $600B figure may go up, but so will overall tax revenues. And if this effort to crack down on tax evasion works, all the better.

Railsify 5y ago

They don't want to get us anywhere. They want to eliminate any large differences in wealth and try to make everyone equally poor and dependent on governments.

quantified 5y ago
I doubt very much that the top 1% have that in mind.

jdlshore 5y ago

That doesn't follow. If this is about tax evasion (according to other commenters; I haven't read the article), then it doesn't say anything about what could be gained by increasing the tax rate.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Post WWII US had a 90% top marginal tax rate and a historic economy. By the time Jimmy Carter was president, the tax rate had been slashed by a third and his economy kind of sucked.
- ch4s3 5y ago
  1. Almost no now paid that rate, tax deductions and clever strategies existed then too. 2. That captured about 20% of GDP in revenue, and we’ve never captured a larger percent for more than about a single year. 3. We currently capture north of 17% of GDP, which is the post war average.
Applejinx 5y ago
Exactly. This is not about taxing the rich more. It's about stopping them from committing crimes/fraud/etc in the system we've already got.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  Given they need to hire agents to "decipher" their returns it probably means they're using legal loopholes and hiding the money outside of the US with complicated structures. Sure, they could start saying those loopholes are not good enough but then the political system would have a 600bn pressure to implement different loopholes or risk losing all of the tax revenue with people moving somewhere else. These days the USA main advantage is offering highly paid jobs and venture capital - and the ultra rich definitely don't need that. If they're still in the States and pay little tax, they most likely own the system.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I don't think this is the case. Certainly many people avoid taxes -- entirely legally -- using loopholes and whatnot. But I believe the $600B figure cited in the article is an estimate of outright evasion: tax money that actually is owed, but people are lying or obfuscating things on their tax returns to make their tax liability seem lower. I don't think there's much of a worry that the rich will leave the US if tax rates (or enforcement efforts) go up. Federal income taxes have been much much higher in the US at various points in history, and this "rich flight" never came to pass. Certainly there will be grumbling if taxes are raised, but the rich will remain rich. And even if they move away, they still carry US tax liability, unless they renounce their US citizenship. Granted, it's harder to collect in that case, but it's still owed, and if the US government really wanted to find a way to collect it, they'd probably do a pretty good job of doing so.
throwaw77r8 5y ago
Maintaining faith in the USD. Of course it's still fiat... There may well come a day when China usurps the US's position of World Reserve. I think I'd prefer the US were I to elect from the two evils.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- anonuser123456 5y ago
  China will never be a reserve currency because Chinese courts do not respect property rights.

quantified 5y ago

Are you saying “meh, not enough to worry about”? Any 160bn expenditure is, therefore that quantity of revenue is. The debt and deficit are so large that nothing is a large percentage, just like no one contributes significantly to climate change and Amazon is only 4-5% of retail sales.

kelnos 5y ago

Taxing the rich more is orthogonal. You can add higher tax brackets all you want, and it'll bring in more revenue. $600B (or the $160B piece owed by the top 1%) is just the gap between what everyone should be paying based on current tax rates, and what they actually are paying. If you increase the "should be paying" by, say, $1T by increasing taxes, that says nothing about what will happen to the rate of tax evasion. Sure, that $600B figure may go up, but so will overall tax revenues. And if this effort to crack down on tax evasion works, all the better.