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Is the proportion of all collected taxes paid by the 1% a meaningful measure here? Wouldn’t it be more useful to compare how much the 1% pay in taxes as a propo

• listenallyall 5y ago
  Both of you are chasing a straw man. The U.S. doesn't have a wealth tax, doesn't claim to, never did. People pay taxes on income (to the Federal govt, not talking property, sales, gasoline taxes etc which are local). The tax code was never intended to be equally weighted by someone's wealth. If you are in favor of wealth confiscation, I mean wealth tax, come out and say that, and lobby and vote for it. Don't try to wrangle the income tax into something it isn't. Of course, in the interim, you could try and cancel the two most popular tax deductions, mortgage interest and charitable donations, which benefit rich, wealthy people far more than everyone else. Let me know how that goes.
  • csb6 5y ago
    > The U.S. doesn't have a wealth tax, doesn't claim to, never did. This is true (I guess estate taxes could be considered a sort of wealth tax, although there is a lot of Republican support for removing them, so we'll see how long they remain when they get back into power). > If you are in favor of wealth confiscation, I mean wealth tax, come out and say that I mean, I would support it. I wasn't trying to hide it; I was just commenting on the parent's metric. All taxes are a kind of confiscation, given that they are mandatory. However, my sense is that you see this as a sort of robbery rather than a redistribution to the community (i.e. poor people, old people, necessary public services that enable your business to function, your wealth to continuously accumulate, your employees living costs when your business lays them off, etc.). I see no problem in redistributing a chunk of it when social problems such as poverty continue to exist. > Of course, in the interim, you could try and cancel the two most popular tax deductions, mortgage interest and charitable donations, which benefit rich, wealthy people far more than everyone else. Let me know how that goes. I'm not sure where you are getting this from. I don't really have an opinion on these specific taxes. I think encouraging charity is good, but oftentimes I think wealthy people choose to donate to causes that do not really need the money (e.g. school districts in wealthy areas). Instead, redistributing that money using taxes and sending it to places individual wealthy people/private charities can't/won't adequately support (e.g. poorer school districts, large social services, etc.) seems sensible to me. There are a lot of ways to do that. Maybe removing deductions for wealthy people would be a way. The U.S. does not tax wealthy people nearly as much as other developed countries, which also have many wealthy people who get along just fine. Of course, all of these proposals are DOA in the U.S. due to the political influence of the rich who have a class interest in reducing their tax burden, so I don't think this is a very meaningful hypothetical anyways. We are just randos on the Internet with no real say in any of this.