4 ms·

You understand that the rich pay a majority of the taxes in the US?

by czbond 3y ago

gumballindie 3y ago
People that call for “the rich” to pay more taxes usually mean those earning above 100k. At least thats how it is in the uk. At some point it will become more convenient to just earn a low wage or none at all.
- harimau777 3y ago
  In my experience, they are generally calling for a wealth tax targeted at the 1% or even the .1%.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  "Tax Assets" is the rallying cry I've seen, and that one actually does hit the "capital gains" class.
- smcl 3y ago
  That’s … not how UK income tax bands work. I’m not sure thats how taxes work anywhere actually.
  - secondcoming 3y ago
    It’s not just income tax. You lose certain allowances when your salary exceeds a certain level, such as childcare. There definitely are scenarios when a pay rise can actually make you poorer.
- nielsbot 3y ago
  Really? You'd rather earn less than earn more and pay tax on some of it? Personally I'd go for earning more (if it's a choice) and paying the higher taxes instead of voluntarily lowering my income.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Not everyone wants to constantly earn more money. Especially when the government will steal a portion of it for themselves. If the work to benefit ratio is not good people are not going to bother earning more. If society only pays 10% more for 100% more effort people are not incentivized to do it.
    - harimau777 3y ago
      That doesn't necessarily seem like a bad thing. I'm not sure that we need everyone to be working 50 hour weeks.
  - bigyikes 3y ago
    It’s about the incentives and marginal change. Sure, you’d go for earning more, but now you’re less incentivized to do so. It might not matter to you, but it matters to the people at the margins — the people who are just on the edge of being willing to make an upward move but will decline to do so if their potential gross is lower than it otherwise could’ve been.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      Sure, that's fine though. Being less motivated to push for higher income is a far cry from deciding you don't want it and would rather have a lower income. Also I haven't seen any plans that would remove particularly much motivation below a million dollars, and by the time you're making a million dollars I wouldn't say there needs to be motivation to go for more.
    - harimau777 3y ago
      The problem in the parent's post is that people advocating for "taxing the rich" aren't actually talking about people who are being payed $100K. They are talking about people whose wealth comes from owning property. In that case, I'm not sure that our intuition about the effect of marginal incentives necessarily applies to the same degree. E.g. if a wealthy industrialist decides not to invest in a some piece of capital, it's not as though the capital ceases to exist; it will just be used by someone else. E.g. if an industrialist decides not to invest in a gold mine, then it's not as though the gold disappears. The land will simply be developed by someone else.
- ec109685 3y ago
  That’s not how it is in America. When taxes are contemplating being raised it is only dollars earned per year above $400k: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/03/02/biden-reiterates-400000-tax-pledge-to-fund-agenda.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/03/02/biden-reiterates-400000-...
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > People that call for “the rich” to pay more taxes usually mean those earning above 100k A rule of thumb in these discussions: you can tell a person's salary by where they define rich.
- dopidopHN 3y ago
  Above 100k is nothing.
  - harimau777 3y ago
    I don't think you will find many people advocating that the relevant point be 100K. Even setting aside that many people are advocating wealth taxes rather than income taxes, the breakpoints I see advocated for increased income taxes are generally 250K or 400K.
- ChumpGPT 3y ago
  >People that call for “the rich” to pay more taxes usually mean those earning above 100k. Good Lord, 100k? I was making more than that in 1999. When I say rich, I am saying anyone who makes more than 1 - 1.5 million a year. 100k is just over poverty these days...
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    No, 2.5× the median personal income isn’t “just over poverty”.
    - harimau777 3y ago
      That depends on whether the median person is living in poverty or not. There are definitely places in the US where it would be very difficult to raise a family or buy a home on the median income.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > That depends on whether the median person is living in poverty or not. Well, no, even if we stretched the definition of poverty to cover people making the national median personal income, people making 2.5× that still wouldn’t be in or just over poverty, but, sure, if you redefine poverty to include the wealthy than the wealthy are “poor”. But there are people actually in poverty by its common definition, and people making $100k/yr—which was asserted to be on the edge of poverty generally these days upthread—have more in common with people making $1 million/yr than with those people in actual poverty. > There are definitely places in the US where it would be very difficult to raise a family or buy a home on the median income. “It’s difficult to buy a home” isn’t poverty, and the subject wasn't people earning the median personal income but $100k/yr.
jjoonathan 3y ago
...on way more than a majority of the money, lol.
Guvante 3y ago
Only because everyone pretends that payroll taxes don't count. Individual income tax is $1.96T but payroll taxes are $1.48T.
throw0101c 3y ago
Lies, damn lies, and statistics: > To wit, “The Stat” is that the highest-earning one percent of taxpayers pay 40 percent of all income taxes. […] The first problem with The Stat is that it makes no reference to the proportion of income the rich earn. The juxtaposition between one percent and 40 percent is meant to convey the idea that a small number of people are carrying a gigantic and disproportionate burden, but the figure lacks any context when it omits how much money they earn in the first place. > Indeed, it turns the fact that rich people account for a massive share of the income pool into a reason to see them as mistreated. One common move for polemicists brandishing this figure is to note that the share of taxes paid by the rich is “up sharply” over the past couple decades — which it is, on account of rich people claiming a larger share of the national income. The logic implied by The Stat is that the bigger the proportion of income earned by the richest one percent, the more imperative it is to reduce their tax rates, so that they don’t pay too high a share of the tax burden. * https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-richest-1-dont-pay-40-of-the-taxes.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-richest-1... > Between 2014 and 2018, the 25 wealthiest Americans collectively earned $401bn, but paid just $13.6bn – about 3.4% of that – in taxes, according to a bombshell ProPublica investigation into the finances of the wealthiest Americans released on Wednesday. […] > Billionaires in tech pay the lowest tax rate, an average of 17% of their income, largely because their wealth comes from such investment income. Bill Gates, whose income from 2013 to 2018 was an average of $2.85bn a year, paid an average effective federal income tax rate of 18.4%. Lauren Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, earned an average of $1.57bn and paid an average tax rate of 14.8%. Ten of the top 15 earners on the list are billionaires who made their money in tech. > In comparison, the average single worker earning $45,000 paid an average tax rate of 21%. A married couple with one child who earns $200,000 paid a rate of 26%. In 2018, the highest top rate on ordinary income, which excludes investments, was 37%, yet the average tax rate for the 400 wealthiest Americans was 22% from 2013 to 2018. * https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/13/wealthiest-americans-tax-income-propublica-investigation https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/13/wealthiest-a... When you grab most of the income generated in the economy (leaving little for the folks at the bottom), then of course you pay most of the income taxes.

You understand that the rich pay a majority of the taxes in the US?

by czbond 3y ago

You understand that the rich pay a majority of the taxes in the US?

People that call for “the rich” to pay more taxes usually mean those earning above 100k. At least thats how it is in the uk. At some point it will become more convenient to just earn a low wage or none at all.

harimau777 3y ago
In my experience, they are generally calling for a wealth tax targeted at the 1% or even the .1%.
jjoonathan 3y ago
"Tax Assets" is the rallying cry I've seen, and that one actually does hit the "capital gains" class.
smcl 3y ago
That’s … not how UK income tax bands work. I’m not sure thats how taxes work anywhere actually.
- secondcoming 3y ago
  It’s not just income tax. You lose certain allowances when your salary exceeds a certain level, such as childcare. There definitely are scenarios when a pay rise can actually make you poorer.
nielsbot 3y ago
Really? You'd rather earn less than earn more and pay tax on some of it? Personally I'd go for earning more (if it's a choice) and paying the higher taxes instead of voluntarily lowering my income.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  Not everyone wants to constantly earn more money. Especially when the government will steal a portion of it for themselves. If the work to benefit ratio is not good people are not going to bother earning more. If society only pays 10% more for 100% more effort people are not incentivized to do it.
  - harimau777 3y ago
    That doesn't necessarily seem like a bad thing. I'm not sure that we need everyone to be working 50 hour weeks.
- bigyikes 3y ago
  It’s about the incentives and marginal change. Sure, you’d go for earning more, but now you’re less incentivized to do so. It might not matter to you, but it matters to the people at the margins — the people who are just on the edge of being willing to make an upward move but will decline to do so if their potential gross is lower than it otherwise could’ve been.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    Sure, that's fine though. Being less motivated to push for higher income is a far cry from deciding you don't want it and would rather have a lower income. Also I haven't seen any plans that would remove particularly much motivation below a million dollars, and by the time you're making a million dollars I wouldn't say there needs to be motivation to go for more.
  - harimau777 3y ago
    The problem in the parent's post is that people advocating for "taxing the rich" aren't actually talking about people who are being payed $100K. They are talking about people whose wealth comes from owning property. In that case, I'm not sure that our intuition about the effect of marginal incentives necessarily applies to the same degree. E.g. if a wealthy industrialist decides not to invest in a some piece of capital, it's not as though the capital ceases to exist; it will just be used by someone else. E.g. if an industrialist decides not to invest in a gold mine, then it's not as though the gold disappears. The land will simply be developed by someone else.
ec109685 3y ago
That’s not how it is in America. When taxes are contemplating being raised it is only dollars earned per year above $400k: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/03/02/biden-reiterates-400000-tax-pledge-to-fund-agenda.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/03/02/biden-reiterates-400000-...
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> People that call for “the rich” to pay more taxes usually mean those earning above 100k A rule of thumb in these discussions: you can tell a person's salary by where they define rich.
dopidopHN 3y ago
Above 100k is nothing.
- harimau777 3y ago
  I don't think you will find many people advocating that the relevant point be 100K. Even setting aside that many people are advocating wealth taxes rather than income taxes, the breakpoints I see advocated for increased income taxes are generally 250K or 400K.
ChumpGPT 3y ago
>People that call for “the rich” to pay more taxes usually mean those earning above 100k. Good Lord, 100k? I was making more than that in 1999. When I say rich, I am saying anyone who makes more than 1 - 1.5 million a year. 100k is just over poverty these days...
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  No, 2.5× the median personal income isn’t “just over poverty”.
  - harimau777 3y ago
    That depends on whether the median person is living in poverty or not. There are definitely places in the US where it would be very difficult to raise a family or buy a home on the median income.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > That depends on whether the median person is living in poverty or not. Well, no, even if we stretched the definition of poverty to cover people making the national median personal income, people making 2.5× that still wouldn’t be in or just over poverty, but, sure, if you redefine poverty to include the wealthy than the wealthy are “poor”. But there are people actually in poverty by its common definition, and people making $100k/yr—which was asserted to be on the edge of poverty generally these days upthread—have more in common with people making $1 million/yr than with those people in actual poverty. > There are definitely places in the US where it would be very difficult to raise a family or buy a home on the median income. “It’s difficult to buy a home” isn’t poverty, and the subject wasn't people earning the median personal income but $100k/yr.

jjoonathan 3y ago

...on way more than a majority of the money, lol.

Guvante 3y ago

Only because everyone pretends that payroll taxes don't count. Individual income tax is $1.96T but payroll taxes are $1.48T.

throw0101c 3y ago

Lies, damn lies, and statistics: > To wit, “The Stat” is that the highest-earning one percent of taxpayers pay 40 percent of all income taxes. […] The first problem with The Stat is that it makes no reference to the proportion of income the rich earn. The juxtaposition between one percent and 40 percent is meant to convey the idea that a small number of people are carrying a gigantic and disproportionate burden, but the figure lacks any context when it omits how much money they earn in the first place. > Indeed, it turns the fact that rich people account for a massive share of the income pool into a reason to see them as mistreated. One common move for polemicists brandishing this figure is to note that the share of taxes paid by the rich is “up sharply” over the past couple decades — which it is, on account of rich people claiming a larger share of the national income. The logic implied by The Stat is that the bigger the proportion of income earned by the richest one percent, the more imperative it is to reduce their tax rates, so that they don’t pay too high a share of the tax burden. * https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-richest-1-dont-pay-40-of-the-taxes.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-richest-1... > Between 2014 and 2018, the 25 wealthiest Americans collectively earned $401bn, but paid just $13.6bn – about 3.4% of that – in taxes, according to a bombshell ProPublica investigation into the finances of the wealthiest Americans released on Wednesday. […] > Billionaires in tech pay the lowest tax rate, an average of 17% of their income, largely because their wealth comes from such investment income. Bill Gates, whose income from 2013 to 2018 was an average of $2.85bn a year, paid an average effective federal income tax rate of 18.4%. Lauren Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, earned an average of $1.57bn and paid an average tax rate of 14.8%. Ten of the top 15 earners on the list are billionaires who made their money in tech. > In comparison, the average single worker earning $45,000 paid an average tax rate of 21%. A married couple with one child who earns $200,000 paid a rate of 26%. In 2018, the highest top rate on ordinary income, which excludes investments, was 37%, yet the average tax rate for the 400 wealthiest Americans was 22% from 2013 to 2018. * https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/13/wealthiest-americans-tax-income-propublica-investigation https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/13/wealthiest-a... When you grab most of the income generated in the economy (leaving little for the folks at the bottom), then of course you pay most of the income taxes.