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> The new rate would apply to those in the top tax bracket for long-term capital gains, which in 2021 covers individual filers earning more than $445,850 and ma

> The new rate would apply to those in the top tax bracket for long-term capital gains, which in 2021 covers individual filers earning more than $445,850 and married joint filers earning more than $501,600, according to the Ways and Means Committee. Would have been nice to have that in the title, because it seems more fear-mongering than necessary. People who make that much and more use more infrastructure and benefit more from stock market gains, they should pay an accordingly fair amount of taxes. See also: https://www.vox.com/22432338/joe-biden-tax-plan https://www.vox.com/22432338/joe-biden-tax-plan

ergocoder 5y ago
> People who make that much and more use more infrastructure I doubt this is true for silicon valley engineers who earn more 500k. I pay +100k in tax a year. I pay for my own healthcare on top of that. Yet public safety is rather low. Public school is bad. And etc. If anything, it doesn't feel I get much out of it. Apart from that, any proposed tax plan almost always hurts the most the high-end salaried employees who already pay their fair share of tax (RSU is taxed immediately). Might as well just call it yet-another-silicon-valley-engineer tax. Meanwhile the billionaires or hundred-millionaires will still be able to find a way to reduce their tax because they have enough capital to hire an army of tax accountants. Dems shout about billionaires and hundred-millionaires for years. Yet they never make law that targets this particular group. What is up with that?
- the-dude 5y ago
  > If anything, it doesn't feel I get much out of it. You got to occupy Afghanistan for 20 years! > Yet they never make law that targets this particular group. What is up with that? Targeting lower brackets brings in more revenue for less costs.
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  Dems shout while talking cash from the rich, look at the relationship Clinton had with Goldman Sachs. It will keep working as long as Democrats voters are dumb enough to fall for their "we're for the working man!" schtick.
  - throwawaymanbot 5y ago
    Ah yes, I was waiting for the blame it all on the Democrats post. Didnt have to wait long.
- ericmcer 5y ago
  I was really hoping it would target people with like ludicrous incomes, like 2m+ a year or something, going after 480k+ is grabbing high performing professionals as well, doctors, lawyers, engineers, successful small businesses, etc.
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    Thats the sweet spot of cash to lose without impoverishment or negative impact but not so much cash to fight it or evade it.
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    The overall median income for all full-time workers in the USA is $39.5k. For full-time with a doctorate it is $79k. I think that 5-10x the median income of any education group is an ok place to pay higher capital gains. $480k puts you more than $100k into the top 1%...
    - ergocoder 5y ago
      But these high earners already pay fair share of tax. I thought we would target billionaires, no?
      - mbfg 5y ago
        how did you determine "fair share"
      - thatcat 5y ago
        maybe it should be based on net worth and not income
  - whateveracct 5y ago
    If you make 500-600k, you aren't going to feel this _that_ much..it's a tax bracket after all. So this does target 1-2m earners.
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  > they never make law that targets this particular group. I have a (cynical) theory about that: once some means of getting ahead trickles down to the likes of you and I, it's too prevalent and has to be pushed up the ladder a bit.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  As an engineer living outside the States: Get a grip. Its a marginal tax, so it won't even affect engineers making $500k, unless they cash in on a windfall. What do you get for your taxes? You get to be living in the one place on earth where you CAN make that much money. Nothing is stopping you from moving elsewhere on this earth and renouncing your US citizenship. Then you can stop paying those taxes (and likely pay higher taxes). You get access to a massive highway system funded by the feds, you get access to multiple international airports in the Bay Area, you get access to a collection of some of the smartest people in the world at some of the best institutions in the country that suck in an absurd amount of federal funding. Let's not even get into the fact that Capital gains tax is at its lowest ever, and at one point capital gains for top earners was 40%, and income tax was even higher.
  - over_bridge 5y ago
    Amen. As another non US developer, there's nothing worse than seeing the pure outrage of some of the most highly paid and privileged workers on the planet. A huge tax bill is a dream cause it means your take home pay is likely several multiples of that number. I wish I paid a million a year in tax personally.
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    > Let's not even get into the fact that Capital gains tax is at its lowest ever, and at one point capital gains for top earners was 40%, and income tax was even higher. Oh yeah. Gay right is also better than ever. Minority right is also better than ever. Woman actually can get a degree from Harvard now. Should we all just shut up? --- You also ignore that salaried employees already pay fair share of tax. Why don't we tax billionaires more like Dems advertise for years?
    - dghlsakjg 5y ago
      What about if we taxed billionaires and millionaires an extra 10% on earnings related to their business assets that aren’t subject to regular income taxes? Would that be fair?
  - nmhancoc 5y ago
- tullianus 5y ago
  Public safety is mostly funded at local and state levels. Public school is half funded by local government and half funded by the state. TFA is about federal taxes.
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    There lies the problem in US. The problem is just passed on "oh it's the state, oh it's the city" As a taxpayer, I don't give a shit. Federal and state and city should work together to come up with a holistic solution. My city/state/country are all democrats. How come they can't work together??
    - plandis 5y ago
      I think you are either misunderstanding the US federalist system or are ignorant of how and why the system works the way it does.
- alanmessey 5y ago
  > Meanwhile the billionaires or hundred-millionaires will still be able to find a way to reduce their tax because they have enough capital to hire an army of tax accountants. > Dems shout about billionaires and hundred-millionaires for years. Yet they never make law that targets this particular group. What is up with that? That's an excellent point. The IRS is chronically underfunded and the added funding for it was removed in the latest bill. They can afford to sneak around the tax code because of hired help and loopholes (like taking out loans rather than paying from money you 'own'). I do think focus is much too powerful on 'moderately wealthy' people. Relevant: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-treasury-irs/irs-chief-says-1-trillion-in-taxes-goes-uncollected-every-year-idUSKBN2C0255 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-treasury-irs/irs-chie... I know audits are random, but I really think if you make over a million or something, you should be automatically audited. But then...that would require funding the IRS adequately. Edit: typo
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    The IRS has invested a lot in low effort automated audits that catch non-rich people when they try to cheat on their taxes (they are usually not very smart about it), while the rich people who can afford accountants and lawyers make their cases too expensive in manual effort and time to pursue under a cut budget. They just can only audit so many millionaires+ every year, while they can audit almost everyone else with a push of a button.
- plandis 5y ago
  > Yet public safety is rather low. Public school is bad. Those sound like complaints for the local government. The federal government doesn’t generally have control over local schools or state/local law enforcement. I also think you’re grossly over estimating the number of Silicon Valley engineers making >$500k/yr and that it’s a stretch to call it a SV engineer tax.
- GhettoChild 5y ago
  Do you live in a state with an income tax? Why not move to a state with lower tax obligations and lower how much you spend on taxes that way.
vineyardmike 5y ago
> People who make that much and more use more infrastructure I really don't know how you can say this without defense. I assume that poor rural americans use the most tax-payer funded resources per capita. Building roads and infrastructure just to service a few people seems most infra usage per person. Those aren't rich working professionals. Or maybe people in hurricane zones use the most infrastructure. All those dams/levies/bridges through swamp lands of Louisiana. Considering how often the get rebuilt (even if just once a decade). Surely, over the next 100 years the americans in hot/low lying areas will use most infrastructure thanks to global warming and sea level rise.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- alanmessey 5y ago
  First: we both know how to use search engines, so your assumption that poor rural Americans use the most...etc could also stand to be backed up with research. But fair point, here's some proof for you: I don't have access to academic papers, but here's the one they're referencing: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 in this article: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/20/21184814/climate-change-energy-income-inequality https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/20/2118481... 1) The very rich use vastly more energy (much of it in travel, but also in the production of the stuff/properties/vehicles they buy) than the rest of us so that means they rely on the energy infrastructure more. Energy infrastructure uses all the logistics infrastructure (rails, roads, ocean, air, pipelines, etc). 2) Higher energy use means they have a much higher carbon footprint and are more responsible for detriments to poorer people because of climate change. Extremely rich people can afford to escape the effects of climate change and pollution, the poor cannot. So if they're responsible for more, they should be more responsible for cleaning up after themselves. This addresses your hurricane zones and sea level rise areas. 3) They travel more and a lot of public infrastructure goes into that (again: roads, air, FAA, airports...) 4) they buy more luxury goods which, again, get to them on public infrastructure (our ocean ports, roads, rail, planes, etc). 5) You'll notice in that paper mentioned in the vox article that healthcare is also used more by the top 10% than the bottom 10% (45% to 0.5%). 6) They rely more on the communications infrastructure (cell phone networks, the internet) I could keep going, but I'll just end up repeating the paper. I think you could argue the very wealthy don't rely much on public safety services because they can afford not to live in areas with higher crime rates and can hire their own private security. Possibly also schools.

ergocoder 5y ago

> People who make that much and more use more infrastructure I doubt this is true for silicon valley engineers who earn more 500k. I pay +100k in tax a year. I pay for my own healthcare on top of that. Yet public safety is rather low. Public school is bad. And etc. If anything, it doesn't feel I get much out of it. Apart from that, any proposed tax plan almost always hurts the most the high-end salaried employees who already pay their fair share of tax (RSU is taxed immediately). Might as well just call it yet-another-silicon-valley-engineer tax. Meanwhile the billionaires or hundred-millionaires will still be able to find a way to reduce their tax because they have enough capital to hire an army of tax accountants. Dems shout about billionaires and hundred-millionaires for years. Yet they never make law that targets this particular group. What is up with that?

the-dude 5y ago
> If anything, it doesn't feel I get much out of it. You got to occupy Afghanistan for 20 years! > Yet they never make law that targets this particular group. What is up with that? Targeting lower brackets brings in more revenue for less costs.
blacktriangle 5y ago
Dems shout while talking cash from the rich, look at the relationship Clinton had with Goldman Sachs. It will keep working as long as Democrats voters are dumb enough to fall for their "we're for the working man!" schtick.
- throwawaymanbot 5y ago
  Ah yes, I was waiting for the blame it all on the Democrats post. Didnt have to wait long.
ericmcer 5y ago
I was really hoping it would target people with like ludicrous incomes, like 2m+ a year or something, going after 480k+ is grabbing high performing professionals as well, doctors, lawyers, engineers, successful small businesses, etc.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  Thats the sweet spot of cash to lose without impoverishment or negative impact but not so much cash to fight it or evade it.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  The overall median income for all full-time workers in the USA is $39.5k. For full-time with a doctorate it is $79k. I think that 5-10x the median income of any education group is an ok place to pay higher capital gains. $480k puts you more than $100k into the top 1%...
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    But these high earners already pay fair share of tax. I thought we would target billionaires, no?
    - mbfg 5y ago
      how did you determine "fair share"
    - thatcat 5y ago
      maybe it should be based on net worth and not income
- whateveracct 5y ago
  If you make 500-600k, you aren't going to feel this _that_ much..it's a tax bracket after all. So this does target 1-2m earners.
commandlinefan 5y ago
> they never make law that targets this particular group. I have a (cynical) theory about that: once some means of getting ahead trickles down to the likes of you and I, it's too prevalent and has to be pushed up the ladder a bit.
dghlsakjg 5y ago
As an engineer living outside the States: Get a grip. Its a marginal tax, so it won't even affect engineers making $500k, unless they cash in on a windfall. What do you get for your taxes? You get to be living in the one place on earth where you CAN make that much money. Nothing is stopping you from moving elsewhere on this earth and renouncing your US citizenship. Then you can stop paying those taxes (and likely pay higher taxes). You get access to a massive highway system funded by the feds, you get access to multiple international airports in the Bay Area, you get access to a collection of some of the smartest people in the world at some of the best institutions in the country that suck in an absurd amount of federal funding. Let's not even get into the fact that Capital gains tax is at its lowest ever, and at one point capital gains for top earners was 40%, and income tax was even higher.
- over_bridge 5y ago
  Amen. As another non US developer, there's nothing worse than seeing the pure outrage of some of the most highly paid and privileged workers on the planet. A huge tax bill is a dream cause it means your take home pay is likely several multiples of that number. I wish I paid a million a year in tax personally.
- ergocoder 5y ago
  > Let's not even get into the fact that Capital gains tax is at its lowest ever, and at one point capital gains for top earners was 40%, and income tax was even higher. Oh yeah. Gay right is also better than ever. Minority right is also better than ever. Woman actually can get a degree from Harvard now. Should we all just shut up? --- You also ignore that salaried employees already pay fair share of tax. Why don't we tax billionaires more like Dems advertise for years?
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    What about if we taxed billionaires and millionaires an extra 10% on earnings related to their business assets that aren’t subject to regular income taxes? Would that be fair?
- nmhancoc 5y ago
tullianus 5y ago
Public safety is mostly funded at local and state levels. Public school is half funded by local government and half funded by the state. TFA is about federal taxes.
- ergocoder 5y ago
  There lies the problem in US. The problem is just passed on "oh it's the state, oh it's the city" As a taxpayer, I don't give a shit. Federal and state and city should work together to come up with a holistic solution. My city/state/country are all democrats. How come they can't work together??
  - plandis 5y ago
    I think you are either misunderstanding the US federalist system or are ignorant of how and why the system works the way it does.
alanmessey 5y ago
> Meanwhile the billionaires or hundred-millionaires will still be able to find a way to reduce their tax because they have enough capital to hire an army of tax accountants. > Dems shout about billionaires and hundred-millionaires for years. Yet they never make law that targets this particular group. What is up with that? That's an excellent point. The IRS is chronically underfunded and the added funding for it was removed in the latest bill. They can afford to sneak around the tax code because of hired help and loopholes (like taking out loans rather than paying from money you 'own'). I do think focus is much too powerful on 'moderately wealthy' people. Relevant: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-treasury-irs/irs-chief-says-1-trillion-in-taxes-goes-uncollected-every-year-idUSKBN2C0255 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-treasury-irs/irs-chie... I know audits are random, but I really think if you make over a million or something, you should be automatically audited. But then...that would require funding the IRS adequately. Edit: typo
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  The IRS has invested a lot in low effort automated audits that catch non-rich people when they try to cheat on their taxes (they are usually not very smart about it), while the rich people who can afford accountants and lawyers make their cases too expensive in manual effort and time to pursue under a cut budget. They just can only audit so many millionaires+ every year, while they can audit almost everyone else with a push of a button.
plandis 5y ago
> Yet public safety is rather low. Public school is bad. Those sound like complaints for the local government. The federal government doesn’t generally have control over local schools or state/local law enforcement. I also think you’re grossly over estimating the number of Silicon Valley engineers making >$500k/yr and that it’s a stretch to call it a SV engineer tax.
GhettoChild 5y ago
Do you live in a state with an income tax? Why not move to a state with lower tax obligations and lower how much you spend on taxes that way.

vineyardmike 5y ago

> People who make that much and more use more infrastructure I really don't know how you can say this without defense. I assume that poor rural americans use the most tax-payer funded resources per capita. Building roads and infrastructure just to service a few people seems most infra usage per person. Those aren't rich working professionals. Or maybe people in hurricane zones use the most infrastructure. All those dams/levies/bridges through swamp lands of Louisiana. Considering how often the get rebuilt (even if just once a decade). Surely, over the next 100 years the americans in hot/low lying areas will use most infrastructure thanks to global warming and sea level rise.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
alanmessey 5y ago
First: we both know how to use search engines, so your assumption that poor rural Americans use the most...etc could also stand to be backed up with research. But fair point, here's some proof for you: I don't have access to academic papers, but here's the one they're referencing: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-0579-8 in this article: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/20/21184814/climate-change-energy-income-inequality https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/3/20/2118481... 1) The very rich use vastly more energy (much of it in travel, but also in the production of the stuff/properties/vehicles they buy) than the rest of us so that means they rely on the energy infrastructure more. Energy infrastructure uses all the logistics infrastructure (rails, roads, ocean, air, pipelines, etc). 2) Higher energy use means they have a much higher carbon footprint and are more responsible for detriments to poorer people because of climate change. Extremely rich people can afford to escape the effects of climate change and pollution, the poor cannot. So if they're responsible for more, they should be more responsible for cleaning up after themselves. This addresses your hurricane zones and sea level rise areas. 3) They travel more and a lot of public infrastructure goes into that (again: roads, air, FAA, airports...) 4) they buy more luxury goods which, again, get to them on public infrastructure (our ocean ports, roads, rail, planes, etc). 5) You'll notice in that paper mentioned in the vox article that healthcare is also used more by the top 10% than the bottom 10% (45% to 0.5%). 6) They rely more on the communications infrastructure (cell phone networks, the internet) I could keep going, but I'll just end up repeating the paper. I think you could argue the very wealthy don't rely much on public safety services because they can afford not to live in areas with higher crime rates and can hire their own private security. Possibly also schools.