4 ms·

I’d like to add here that the biggest fallacy is assuming rich pay income tax at all, which leftists across the world all seem to universally believe. I would

I’d like to add here that the biggest fallacy is assuming rich pay income tax at all, which leftists across the world all seem to universally believe. I would argue that in 21st century the definition of rich is actually „achieves most of his income through sources which are not subject to income tax”. Progressive income tax mostly hurts well qualified proffessionals nowadays (people actually working for that income) and as such is detrimental to economy at large.

whakim 5y ago
This isn't true. If you define "income" as the sum of an individual's income from capital plus income from labor, it is only in the top 0.1% of the distribution that capital income dominates labor income. (This percentile threshold changes slightly based on country; in countries such as the United States it'll be a bit higher.)
- d3ckard 5y ago
  And? Due to power-law distribution that 0.1 % holds disproportional amount of riches. I really don’t get that people talk about rising income inequality all the time, but actually noticing it (i.e. very strong minority holding many assets) suddenly doesn’t make sense.
  - whakim 5y ago
    No one is denying that income and wealth are distributed very unequally. But my point is that well more than 99.9% of individuals primarily earn money via labor and are therefore subject to an income tax, and so it isn't correct to assert that income taxes don't hurt the rich. They don't hurt the absolute richest individuals - but most people aren't defining "the rich" as only the top 0.05%.
    - d3ckard 5y ago
      Then I’d like to hear alternative definition of rich and see whether it is sound.
      - whakim 5y ago
        "Rich" is an ambiguous term; there clearly isn't a single definition. That being said, I think most people would agree that an individual who earns a salary of $500k a year (~99th percentile in the United States) is clearly "rich." The question I'd put back to you is why it's useful to have a single, universally agreed-upon definition of "rich"?

whakim 5y ago

This isn't true. If you define "income" as the sum of an individual's income from capital plus income from labor, it is only in the top 0.1% of the distribution that capital income dominates labor income. (This percentile threshold changes slightly based on country; in countries such as the United States it'll be a bit higher.)

d3ckard 5y ago
And? Due to power-law distribution that 0.1 % holds disproportional amount of riches. I really don’t get that people talk about rising income inequality all the time, but actually noticing it (i.e. very strong minority holding many assets) suddenly doesn’t make sense.
- whakim 5y ago
  No one is denying that income and wealth are distributed very unequally. But my point is that well more than 99.9% of individuals primarily earn money via labor and are therefore subject to an income tax, and so it isn't correct to assert that income taxes don't hurt the rich. They don't hurt the absolute richest individuals - but most people aren't defining "the rich" as only the top 0.05%.
  - d3ckard 5y ago
    Then I’d like to hear alternative definition of rich and see whether it is sound.
    - whakim 5y ago
      "Rich" is an ambiguous term; there clearly isn't a single definition. That being said, I think most people would agree that an individual who earns a salary of $500k a year (~99th percentile in the United States) is clearly "rich." The question I'd put back to you is why it's useful to have a single, universally agreed-upon definition of "rich"?