6 ms·

Every year there are new "tax the rich" plans and some become law. Over the long haul, the government just blows the money and asks for more. Theses schemes

Every year there are new "tax the rich" plans and some become law. Over the long haul, the government just blows the money and asks for more. Theses schemes are easy to sell to the voters but all they really do is let the government spend and waste more.

58028641 3y ago
When have we taxed the rich?
- kevdragon6 3y ago
  In 2020: Top 1% paid 42% of all collected income taxes. (1.5 million tax payers paid $722 Billion) Bottom 50% paid 2.25% (78 million tax payers paid $1.7 Billion) https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/ https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income...
  - sroussey 3y ago
    The top 1% of that 1% pay almost nothing. This is what gets people all riled up about. And the 99% of the top 1% are the ones that pay. Mostly because it expensive to get around taxes, something the 1% of the 1% can easily afford.
    - qzw 3y ago
      It's not just the expense of getting around taxes, but also the difference in sources of income. If most of the income is on a W-2, there are just not as many ways to get around any income taxes. But if it's mostly business or investment income, that's like Minecraft for accountants.
    - cronix 3y ago
      And a lot of people always throws around terms like "almost nothing" without defining it in terms of actual dollars. Is it like 50M is nothing compared to their 10B net worth? What are we talking about/comparing here?
      - sroussey 3y ago
        Trump paid zero for years. Privately, I know how to make investment income go to zero if you have enough of it. It’s all rather fascinating. Really, the top 5% of the top 1% could do it. But if you have less than $1m income (or cap gains), then it’s likely not worth it.
  - grogenaut 3y ago
    how much did those top 1% make in income out of the total?
    - _huayra_ 3y ago
      I'm glad you pointed this out. The parent comment to yours is the equivalent of people seeing a big red map of the US during the presidential race and saying "how come the Democrats win when there's so much red?!", as if land can vote -_-
      - rmk 3y ago
        In America, land can vote, although not in the Presidential election. The Senate.
        jjeaff 3y ago
        Still not land voting. Seeing as RI gets the same number of votes as AK. And both senate candidates are selected by popular vote in the state, so even if most of the state is red, big blue cities can swing the vote.
        jack_squat 3y ago
        RI has the same approximate population as AK. What people mean when they say land votes, is AK compared to NY. AK has a population of < 1M while NY has a population of > 8 million. Proportionally, Alaskans have > 8x the representation in the senate that New Yorkers have.
        jjeaff 3y ago
        I haven't heard people say "land votes" (except in this thread). Only, "land doesn't vote".
        rmk 3y ago
        Not a proportional vote but a territorial vote nonetheless.
  - Caligatio 3y ago
    The trend that is more troubling is the effective tax rate for the 1% of earners is falling (34.47% in 1980 vs 25.99% in 2020) yet their share of total taxes paid is rising (19.05% in 1980 vs 42.31% in 2020). This just highlights the growing income gap between the 1% and everyone else.
    - johngladtj 3y ago
      Or perhaps it's just proving the laffer curve true.
  - oblio 3y ago
    If that's supposed to be some sort of rallying cry in their defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM The top 1% had almost 40% of the wealth in the US, in 2012. And that video is from 2012, from before Covid, now it's much, much worse, because since 2020 the top 1% have captured about 66% of the extra wealth created.
    - refurb 3y ago
      The top 1% have 40% of wealth and pay 40% of taxes? Sounds ideal to me.
- tarsinge 3y ago
  From https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/ https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-bracke... the answer is between 1936 and 1981 (as a high as 90% for the highest bracket from 1941 to 1963).
  - WeylandYutani 3y ago
    Curiously the time conservatives want to go back too. HN is higher income bracket so they don't need the services the government provides- and have the arrogance to call it waste.
    - realjhol 3y ago
      Conservative here. We don't want to go "back" to anything - we reject the Whig history notion of linear history entirely. Rather there are things we want, and things we don't want, and enormous income taxes is decidedly one of the things we don't want.
- Justin_K 3y ago
  In general the rich pay most taxes: https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-the-rich-pay-taxes https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-t... Rich people pay more property taxes. Rich people pay own companies, which pay corporate taxes. LA just enacted a wealth tax on 5m+ real estate. My point is how many times have we been sold the concept of "if we just bond or tax X, we can solve problem Y". These always turn out to be Big dreams where billions get spent and nothing really gets better. Look at the CA high speed rail diaster. Look at this one... The government sold a bond for homeless housing and raided the money for another project. https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/03/california-affordable-housing-bonds-disappear/ https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/03/california-... We don't have revenue problems, we have spending problems.
- rs999gti 3y ago
  capital gains taxes Death tax Top level income tax rates Property taxes Sales taxes And for the self employed - estimated quarterly taxes
jameslevy 3y ago
What about the MMT concept of just taxing the rich and "burning" their funds as a targeted method of reducing the money supply?
- trashtester 3y ago
  That actually sounds closer to Austrian concepts of inflation than MMT. Reducing the money supply in itself doesn't affect consumer prices, if it only affects money that was not in circulation anyway. In order to use taxes to counter inflation (when it is defined as increas in consumer prices), you need to tax those who would otherwise spend most of the money. The most efficient way is to tax the upper middle class.
  - brvsft 3y ago
    I save most of my money, but supposedly I was going to spend it anyway so actually it should be taxed? Infuriating take. Edit: Forgot to mention the obvious, if this is how you feel, why isn't a higher sales tax on certain items ideal? People scoff at sales tax proposals because they'd target the poor, but sales taxes could be implemented progressively too. Tax new cars, smartphones, etc. More expensive items get a higher tax, reducing the impact on poorer people.
    - trashtester 3y ago
      I'm not arguing for or against higher taxes. Just stating what I see about facts about the relationship between taxes and inflation under MMT thinking. (And I'm not a fan of MMT, btw.) Inflation happes when there's an imbalance between supply and demand. MMT argues for increasing deficit spending to fund all sorts of social programs. It also argues that the purpose of taxes is not to "balance the budget", but rather to tamper the inflation that tends to follow overspending. The alternative (increasing interest rates) doesn't work properly under MMT, since treasury bonds cannot have a real interest rate, or the deficit spending would eventually break down. That means that under MMT, purchasing power of consumers must be pulled back using taxation of various sorts, which only works if you tax the consumers. The problem with MMT (the way I see it) is that adjusting taxes to regulate inflation is probably an even more painful approach for most people than using the interest rate. Anyway, the fact you need to tax the actual consumers to fund social programs remains the same, even in more traditional social democratic/keynsian approaches, even if they use the interest rate to regulate inflation. If you look at northern Europe (where I live), taxes on the middle class are much higher than in the US. They're also higher for the poor, but with the increased social benefits, free healthcare, etc, it matters less for them. Oh, btw, a lot of the taxes collected ARE, as you propose, collected as sales or luxery taxes, as well as employers taxes (hidden income taxes) Where I live, the direct income tax is "only" around 45%. However, the base sales tax is 25%. The employers tax (tax on employers for paying salaries, in other words a hidden income tax) is 25% (if you make more than $100k). For some items, such as cars, fuel, alcohol, tobacco, cosmetics, sugar/candy, etc, there are additional taxes, often well over 100% of the base cost. All-in-all, I suppose, out of the salaray budget that my employer allocates to me, 75-80% ends up as taxes, somehow. And I'm middle class, not rich and not poor. If the left in the US really wants to have a European style welfare state, this is about the level that allows for that. If given the facts about this, I doubt many American's would want to switch. On the other hand, few people over here would want to switch in the other direction, too, since they're used to the taxes and the benefits they buy.
an-allen 3y ago
Justin, I don't know who you are but I’m so glad you are there. Ive be bombarded with tax the rich posts on a variety of my news outlets and theres always this echo chamber of supporters who are incapable of understanding that taxes just end up bloating the inefficiency of governments. If we really are about taking wealthy folks money, we are much better off if that capital enters the economy without government clipping the ticket. Here is Elon Musks 1 billion dollars in taxes. With his 1 billion dollars we can fund a wide ranging web of wasteful bureaucrats, or we can let Elon use his 1 billion to fund a capital project that generates jobs, technological advances, and builds a product that can be exported worldwide so that there is a positive impact on GDP. I prefer 1 billion of Elon capital projects over 1 billion of government programmes Every. Day. Of. The. Year.

58028641 3y ago

When have we taxed the rich?

kevdragon6 3y ago
In 2020: Top 1% paid 42% of all collected income taxes. (1.5 million tax payers paid $722 Billion) Bottom 50% paid 2.25% (78 million tax payers paid $1.7 Billion) https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/ https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income...
- sroussey 3y ago
  The top 1% of that 1% pay almost nothing. This is what gets people all riled up about. And the 99% of the top 1% are the ones that pay. Mostly because it expensive to get around taxes, something the 1% of the 1% can easily afford.
  - qzw 3y ago
    It's not just the expense of getting around taxes, but also the difference in sources of income. If most of the income is on a W-2, there are just not as many ways to get around any income taxes. But if it's mostly business or investment income, that's like Minecraft for accountants.
  - cronix 3y ago
    And a lot of people always throws around terms like "almost nothing" without defining it in terms of actual dollars. Is it like 50M is nothing compared to their 10B net worth? What are we talking about/comparing here?
    - sroussey 3y ago
      Trump paid zero for years. Privately, I know how to make investment income go to zero if you have enough of it. It’s all rather fascinating. Really, the top 5% of the top 1% could do it. But if you have less than $1m income (or cap gains), then it’s likely not worth it.
- grogenaut 3y ago
  how much did those top 1% make in income out of the total?
  - _huayra_ 3y ago
    I'm glad you pointed this out. The parent comment to yours is the equivalent of people seeing a big red map of the US during the presidential race and saying "how come the Democrats win when there's so much red?!", as if land can vote -_-
    - rmk 3y ago
      In America, land can vote, although not in the Presidential election. The Senate.
      - jjeaff 3y ago
        Still not land voting. Seeing as RI gets the same number of votes as AK. And both senate candidates are selected by popular vote in the state, so even if most of the state is red, big blue cities can swing the vote.
        jack_squat 3y ago
        RI has the same approximate population as AK. What people mean when they say land votes, is AK compared to NY. AK has a population of < 1M while NY has a population of > 8 million. Proportionally, Alaskans have > 8x the representation in the senate that New Yorkers have.
        jjeaff 3y ago
        I haven't heard people say "land votes" (except in this thread). Only, "land doesn't vote".
        rmk 3y ago
        Not a proportional vote but a territorial vote nonetheless.
- Caligatio 3y ago
  The trend that is more troubling is the effective tax rate for the 1% of earners is falling (34.47% in 1980 vs 25.99% in 2020) yet their share of total taxes paid is rising (19.05% in 1980 vs 42.31% in 2020). This just highlights the growing income gap between the 1% and everyone else.
  - johngladtj 3y ago
    Or perhaps it's just proving the laffer curve true.
- oblio 3y ago
  If that's supposed to be some sort of rallying cry in their defense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM The top 1% had almost 40% of the wealth in the US, in 2012. And that video is from 2012, from before Covid, now it's much, much worse, because since 2020 the top 1% have captured about 66% of the extra wealth created.
  - refurb 3y ago
    The top 1% have 40% of wealth and pay 40% of taxes? Sounds ideal to me.
tarsinge 3y ago
From https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/ https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-bracke... the answer is between 1936 and 1981 (as a high as 90% for the highest bracket from 1941 to 1963).
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  Curiously the time conservatives want to go back too. HN is higher income bracket so they don't need the services the government provides- and have the arrogance to call it waste.
  - realjhol 3y ago
    Conservative here. We don't want to go "back" to anything - we reject the Whig history notion of linear history entirely. Rather there are things we want, and things we don't want, and enormous income taxes is decidedly one of the things we don't want.
Justin_K 3y ago
In general the rich pay most taxes: https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-the-rich-pay-taxes https://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/1-chart-how-much-t... Rich people pay more property taxes. Rich people pay own companies, which pay corporate taxes. LA just enacted a wealth tax on 5m+ real estate. My point is how many times have we been sold the concept of "if we just bond or tax X, we can solve problem Y". These always turn out to be Big dreams where billions get spent and nothing really gets better. Look at the CA high speed rail diaster. Look at this one... The government sold a bond for homeless housing and raided the money for another project. https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/03/california-affordable-housing-bonds-disappear/ https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2021/03/california-... We don't have revenue problems, we have spending problems.
rs999gti 3y ago
capital gains taxes Death tax Top level income tax rates Property taxes Sales taxes And for the self employed - estimated quarterly taxes

jameslevy 3y ago

What about the MMT concept of just taxing the rich and "burning" their funds as a targeted method of reducing the money supply?

trashtester 3y ago
That actually sounds closer to Austrian concepts of inflation than MMT. Reducing the money supply in itself doesn't affect consumer prices, if it only affects money that was not in circulation anyway. In order to use taxes to counter inflation (when it is defined as increas in consumer prices), you need to tax those who would otherwise spend most of the money. The most efficient way is to tax the upper middle class.
- brvsft 3y ago
  I save most of my money, but supposedly I was going to spend it anyway so actually it should be taxed? Infuriating take. Edit: Forgot to mention the obvious, if this is how you feel, why isn't a higher sales tax on certain items ideal? People scoff at sales tax proposals because they'd target the poor, but sales taxes could be implemented progressively too. Tax new cars, smartphones, etc. More expensive items get a higher tax, reducing the impact on poorer people.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    I'm not arguing for or against higher taxes. Just stating what I see about facts about the relationship between taxes and inflation under MMT thinking. (And I'm not a fan of MMT, btw.) Inflation happes when there's an imbalance between supply and demand. MMT argues for increasing deficit spending to fund all sorts of social programs. It also argues that the purpose of taxes is not to "balance the budget", but rather to tamper the inflation that tends to follow overspending. The alternative (increasing interest rates) doesn't work properly under MMT, since treasury bonds cannot have a real interest rate, or the deficit spending would eventually break down. That means that under MMT, purchasing power of consumers must be pulled back using taxation of various sorts, which only works if you tax the consumers. The problem with MMT (the way I see it) is that adjusting taxes to regulate inflation is probably an even more painful approach for most people than using the interest rate. Anyway, the fact you need to tax the actual consumers to fund social programs remains the same, even in more traditional social democratic/keynsian approaches, even if they use the interest rate to regulate inflation. If you look at northern Europe (where I live), taxes on the middle class are much higher than in the US. They're also higher for the poor, but with the increased social benefits, free healthcare, etc, it matters less for them. Oh, btw, a lot of the taxes collected ARE, as you propose, collected as sales or luxery taxes, as well as employers taxes (hidden income taxes) Where I live, the direct income tax is "only" around 45%. However, the base sales tax is 25%. The employers tax (tax on employers for paying salaries, in other words a hidden income tax) is 25% (if you make more than $100k). For some items, such as cars, fuel, alcohol, tobacco, cosmetics, sugar/candy, etc, there are additional taxes, often well over 100% of the base cost. All-in-all, I suppose, out of the salaray budget that my employer allocates to me, 75-80% ends up as taxes, somehow. And I'm middle class, not rich and not poor. If the left in the US really wants to have a European style welfare state, this is about the level that allows for that. If given the facts about this, I doubt many American's would want to switch. On the other hand, few people over here would want to switch in the other direction, too, since they're used to the taxes and the benefits they buy.

an-allen 3y ago

Justin, I don't know who you are but I’m so glad you are there. Ive be bombarded with tax the rich posts on a variety of my news outlets and theres always this echo chamber of supporters who are incapable of understanding that taxes just end up bloating the inefficiency of governments. If we really are about taking wealthy folks money, we are much better off if that capital enters the economy without government clipping the ticket. Here is Elon Musks 1 billion dollars in taxes. With his 1 billion dollars we can fund a wide ranging web of wasteful bureaucrats, or we can let Elon use his 1 billion to fund a capital project that generates jobs, technological advances, and builds a product that can be exported worldwide so that there is a positive impact on GDP. I prefer 1 billion of Elon capital projects over 1 billion of government programmes Every. Day. Of. The. Year.