4 ms·

Why shouldn't crimes perpetrated by lower and middle class be persecuted? The rich already pay a disproportionately large amount of taxes and then society excus

Why shouldn't crimes perpetrated by lower and middle class be persecuted? The rich already pay a disproportionately large amount of taxes and then society excuses lower and middle class persons from paying their small share of taxes.

lnsru 3y ago
Rich optimize taxes due to many loopholes in tax system using insanely well paid consultants specializing exactly in that. While middle class gives at least 2/3 of the pre-tax money for taxes, so called insurances and weird things like petrol tax in Germany.
- zo1 3y ago
  I don't want to be snark about it, but why not make a SAAS or product out of such loopholes? Commoditize them, and have economies of scale work. Of course, my first thought as to why that hasn't been possible is because there is a "lower bound" cost to such things that on a meta-level only really works if the rich do it. E.g. the $5k cost and $100k minimum bank balance to have a bank account in tax haven country X, and the $1600 yearly company registration fees to maintain a shell company in country Y.
  - lnsru 3y ago
    I guess client group is rather limited. Salaried employees have to pay taxes. There is no other way. Small businesses can deduct cars and iPhones as expenses and are happy. It gets interesting reaching mid 7 digit revenue zone. But on other hand it is also matter of trust. I have classmates advising about these things, very interesting stuff. Exclusively for real riches.
mandmandam 3y ago
> The rich already pay a disproportionately large amount of taxes INCOME taxes. Which is NOT the same as WEALTH. If you're going to talk about "the rich" then you need to differentiate between the wealthy ownership class (the people who own things like the debt for our 20 trillion dollar illegal wars, or your mortgage), and the software engineers and doctors who get spooked by any talk of raising taxes. This guy explains the issue in simple terms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXP8gH0wddE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXP8gH0wddE - He's British, but it applies to the US also.
- tromp 3y ago
  Some countries charge a wealth tax on your total worldwide assets. Here in the Netherlands that amounts to over 1% of total wealth.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    I'm not seeing how that applies to OP's false claim that "the rich pay a disproportionate share" of taxes.
    - prepend 3y ago
      Disproportionate can have different meanings. I think that the rich pay most of the income/wealth tax [0], but that’s because that’s where the income/wealth is. It’s disproportionate by number of persons, but arguably proportionate by income. [0] in 2020, US, top 1% paid 42% of income tax https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3894233-how-america-actually-taxes-the-affluent/ https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3894233-how-america-actu...
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        > arguably proportionate by income. That source demonstrates that it’s definitely not proportionate by income. > the top 1 percent paid 42.3 percent of the total federal income tax in 2020 while receiving 22.2 percent of total adjusted gross income We have a progressive taxation system on income (for good reason), which causes the high-income to pay far more than their proportional share of income. Some will argue that they should be paying an even more disproportionate amount, which is fine and we can have that discussion, but it is an absolutely truthful claim that they are already paying a higher than proportionate share now.
        lostmsu 3y ago
        Capital gains tax in US is capped at just under 25%. Regular income tax goes higher.
coldtea 3y ago
>The rich already pay a disproportionately large amount of taxes How do people come up with these ideas? Related to their income and overall wealth they pay disproportionate embarassingly little. The "disrpoportionate" also includes well paid employees in the top 10%, but not the real 0.1% "owning" class. And above a few million worth, the actual money earned per year is usually obscured by all kinds of schemes, of which only the salary and capital gains tax ends up taxed (if that). And that's without even considering the millions (pun intended) of ways they have to avoid being taxed but still have access to their money, from estates and "charity" foundations they control, to offshores, passing spending as expenses to their companies, special tax cuts, the ease of moving abroad for "tax reasons" at will (no biggie if you have the power to be accepted whether you go, the ability to pay the set amounts to acquire a foreign passport/nationality, to move with trivial for you costs, and so on), and of course access to teams of much better accountants...
- hellojesus 3y ago
  Assuming US: Tax is based on income. If you find a way to avoid income, you don't have any income to be taxed. There are certainly ways to game the system, but those ways mean one isn't realizing income. Seems relatively fair to me. After all, the gov isn't supposed to be a welfare machine,and stealing from others is generally regarded as theft.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >Seems relatively fair to me. It's legal. It's hardly fair. It means the working/middle class masses get to pay the burden of taxes (including sales taxes, and others) disproportionately to their income and wealth - and of course, the money taken from them is orders of magnitude more impactful on their everyday life than if we half of Bezos income (or even half his total wealth) was taxed away. >and stealing from others is generally regarded as theft. Only as long as you're not rich. If you're its normalized and has lots of legal avenues available to you to do that, same how unfairness is codified in laws like the above, in which "if you find a way to avoid income, you don't have any income to be taxed", which was made the case precisely because the rich have ample easy means to "avoid income".
permo-w 3y ago
why do you think the rich pay a "disproportionately" large amount of taxes
- hellojesus 3y ago
  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 is measured by income in the US because the federal gov can only tax income. Wealth taxes are thankfully unconstitutional.
  - permo-w 3y ago
    do you consider the heritage foundation an unbiased source?
ohgodplsno 3y ago
>https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/budget-fiscalite/limpot-des-milliardaires-passe-au-crible-1949456 https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/budget-fiscalite/lim... Billionaires' effective tax rate in France is 26%. _I_ pay more than that just in revenue tax, not to mention value added tax, etc. People making over 627000€ per month have a 46% effective tax rate. The rich do not pay their fair share, and benefit disproportionately from the taxes that I pay. It's not my trucks destroying public infrastructure, or polluting the atmosphere.

lnsru 3y ago

Rich optimize taxes due to many loopholes in tax system using insanely well paid consultants specializing exactly in that. While middle class gives at least 2/3 of the pre-tax money for taxes, so called insurances and weird things like petrol tax in Germany.

zo1 3y ago
I don't want to be snark about it, but why not make a SAAS or product out of such loopholes? Commoditize them, and have economies of scale work. Of course, my first thought as to why that hasn't been possible is because there is a "lower bound" cost to such things that on a meta-level only really works if the rich do it. E.g. the $5k cost and $100k minimum bank balance to have a bank account in tax haven country X, and the $1600 yearly company registration fees to maintain a shell company in country Y.
- lnsru 3y ago
  I guess client group is rather limited. Salaried employees have to pay taxes. There is no other way. Small businesses can deduct cars and iPhones as expenses and are happy. It gets interesting reaching mid 7 digit revenue zone. But on other hand it is also matter of trust. I have classmates advising about these things, very interesting stuff. Exclusively for real riches.

mandmandam 3y ago

> The rich already pay a disproportionately large amount of taxes INCOME taxes. Which is NOT the same as WEALTH. If you're going to talk about "the rich" then you need to differentiate between the wealthy ownership class (the people who own things like the debt for our 20 trillion dollar illegal wars, or your mortgage), and the software engineers and doctors who get spooked by any talk of raising taxes. This guy explains the issue in simple terms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXP8gH0wddE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXP8gH0wddE - He's British, but it applies to the US also.

tromp 3y ago
Some countries charge a wealth tax on your total worldwide assets. Here in the Netherlands that amounts to over 1% of total wealth.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  I'm not seeing how that applies to OP's false claim that "the rich pay a disproportionate share" of taxes.
  - prepend 3y ago
    Disproportionate can have different meanings. I think that the rich pay most of the income/wealth tax [0], but that’s because that’s where the income/wealth is. It’s disproportionate by number of persons, but arguably proportionate by income. [0] in 2020, US, top 1% paid 42% of income tax https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3894233-how-america-actually-taxes-the-affluent/ https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3894233-how-america-actu...
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      > arguably proportionate by income. That source demonstrates that it’s definitely not proportionate by income. > the top 1 percent paid 42.3 percent of the total federal income tax in 2020 while receiving 22.2 percent of total adjusted gross income We have a progressive taxation system on income (for good reason), which causes the high-income to pay far more than their proportional share of income. Some will argue that they should be paying an even more disproportionate amount, which is fine and we can have that discussion, but it is an absolutely truthful claim that they are already paying a higher than proportionate share now.
      - lostmsu 3y ago
        Capital gains tax in US is capped at just under 25%. Regular income tax goes higher.

coldtea 3y ago

>The rich already pay a disproportionately large amount of taxes How do people come up with these ideas? Related to their income and overall wealth they pay disproportionate embarassingly little. The "disrpoportionate" also includes well paid employees in the top 10%, but not the real 0.1% "owning" class. And above a few million worth, the actual money earned per year is usually obscured by all kinds of schemes, of which only the salary and capital gains tax ends up taxed (if that). And that's without even considering the millions (pun intended) of ways they have to avoid being taxed but still have access to their money, from estates and "charity" foundations they control, to offshores, passing spending as expenses to their companies, special tax cuts, the ease of moving abroad for "tax reasons" at will (no biggie if you have the power to be accepted whether you go, the ability to pay the set amounts to acquire a foreign passport/nationality, to move with trivial for you costs, and so on), and of course access to teams of much better accountants...

hellojesus 3y ago
Assuming US: Tax is based on income. If you find a way to avoid income, you don't have any income to be taxed. There are certainly ways to game the system, but those ways mean one isn't realizing income. Seems relatively fair to me. After all, the gov isn't supposed to be a welfare machine,and stealing from others is generally regarded as theft.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >Seems relatively fair to me. It's legal. It's hardly fair. It means the working/middle class masses get to pay the burden of taxes (including sales taxes, and others) disproportionately to their income and wealth - and of course, the money taken from them is orders of magnitude more impactful on their everyday life than if we half of Bezos income (or even half his total wealth) was taxed away. >and stealing from others is generally regarded as theft. Only as long as you're not rich. If you're its normalized and has lots of legal avenues available to you to do that, same how unfairness is codified in laws like the above, in which "if you find a way to avoid income, you don't have any income to be taxed", which was made the case precisely because the rich have ample easy means to "avoid income".

permo-w 3y ago

why do you think the rich pay a "disproportionately" large amount of taxes

hellojesus 3y ago
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 is measured by income in the US because the federal gov can only tax income. Wealth taxes are thankfully unconstitutional.
- permo-w 3y ago
  do you consider the heritage foundation an unbiased source?

ohgodplsno 3y ago

>https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/budget-fiscalite/limpot-des-milliardaires-passe-au-crible-1949456 https://www.lesechos.fr/economie-france/budget-fiscalite/lim... Billionaires' effective tax rate in France is 26%. _I_ pay more than that just in revenue tax, not to mention value added tax, etc. People making over 627000€ per month have a 46% effective tax rate. The rich do not pay their fair share, and benefit disproportionately from the taxes that I pay. It's not my trucks destroying public infrastructure, or polluting the atmosphere.