5 ms·

that would make sense right? old money isn't going to take more income than required to make purchases, otherwise you pay taxes. if you include wealth gains and

• boeingUH60 3y ago
  > this true tax rate shenanigans drives me nuts though Not only you. It’s plain lying, but well, I guess the audience liked it.
• lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I don’t know why ProPublica sullies its name by not being extra clear that they are complaining about the lack of a wealth/overall property tax. We already have property taxes. It would be simple to make an argument for or against expanding it. Or it could make an argument for marginal sales taxes (what I would prefer), to capture the rich people that borrow against their assets for their spending needs.
  • nwiswell 3y ago
    > We already have property taxes. Sort of? They're a patchwork state system and they're heavily kneecapped because in many states property tax is not really proportional to the market value. In California, effectively the longer you've owned the property the less you tend to pay as a fraction of the value, which in a sense is regressive because younger, less affluent homeowners pay more tax.
    • lotsofpulp 3y ago
      The point is there exists a tax you have to pay for simply owning something (although the tax rate is not 1 to 1 with market value in many places). So now we are just talking about applying to other equities like stocks. > In California, effectively the longer you've owned the property the less you tend to pay as a fraction of the value, which in a sense is regressive because younger, less affluent homeowners pay more tax. For sure, it is remarkable how many ways US society screws young people (fewer voters) in favor of the old (more voters) once you start looking. And in California, it is remarkable how explicitly they screwed young people with poorer ancestors versus young people with richer ancestors.
      • nwiswell 3y ago
        > The point is there exists a tax you have to pay for simply owning something Not at the federal level, and the methodology used for computing effective tax rates in this article (both for typical households and the centibillionaires) is explicitly federal-only, so that's not really true. I agree with you broadly but the Constitution does not permit a federal wealth tax. The 16th Amendment authorizes only income tax.
        • lotsofpulp 3y ago
          I’m referring to Americans philosophically accepting a wealth tax. There was no federal income tax at one point too.
          • nwiswell 3y ago
            I'm not holding my breath. In any event I think ProPublica laying out the data in this fashion is necessary groundwork if that's going to become a part of the political consciousness. The intellectual argument for a wealth tax to control inequality has been pretty compelling ever since Capital in the Twenty-First Century, but advocating for a constitutional amendment is obviously premature.
          • jandrewrogers 3y ago
            US property taxes are essentially use taxes, which have analogues in other countries, not wealth taxes. If it was a wealth tax then you'd be able to deduct any outstanding mortgage debt.
    • denimnerd42 3y ago
      It's just regressive in general. normal people, especially today, have half or more of their net worth tied up in their home. so all of us normal people are effectively being wealth taxed while the very richest are effectively not being. My wealth tax in texas is ~2% :( I've got say for example 100k house with 50k equity and 50k cash and stock assets. I pay 2k in property taxes on 100k in property but 2k/(50k+50k)=2%. not real #s but real percent.
    • xkcd-sucks 3y ago
      > younger, less affluent homeowners There's also some bifurcation; older people with no money just seem to disappear and die especially after exiting the workforce, compared to younger people who are more visible and have more possibilities. In light of those recent news articles highlighting the disproportionate rise of homelessness in the Boomer generation, etc