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Obviously. This is a regressive tax (meaning it targets a larger percentage of income from lower-income groups than from high-income groups, as in employees not

Obviously. This is a regressive tax (meaning it targets a larger percentage of income from lower-income groups than from high-income groups, as in employees not owners of equity) that should be repealed as it directly makes American companies uncompetitive and is against the Interest of everyday people. You should have incentives to take the risk of starting a company and employing engineers / people not disincentives. Small businesses are the majority of jobs and this is directly impacting their ability to put money in people’s pockets and the number of jobs available.

JamesBarney 3y ago
I don't think it's regressive the average engineers makes far more than the average person. But it is a terrible idea because it strangles new technology companies which hurt growth in the long term.
- happytiger 3y ago
  Compare the average engineer to ownership and executive compensation and salaries my friend. Just because many engineers make more than average wages doesn’t mean they are compensated like owners and other senior level compensation packages… there is a massive gap. Just look at the compensation gap between CEOs and software engineers: https://www.dice.com/career-advice/income-gap-tech-ceos-software-engineers https://www.dice.com/career-advice/income-gap-tech-ceos-soft... I know people on HN like to think of FAANG salaries when they think of software engineers, but the vast majority get nothing close to that. And they are firmly in the “worker” category of salary ranges. 46 of 50 states have regressive taxation policies favoring the rich, and this taxation system is definitely regressive as it’s killing startups and small business’s ability to hire software developers by creating a tax punishment for doing so: a literal regressive tax as it punishes the working classes while favoring the upper classes (its definition). https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/#:~:text=46%20states%20tax%20the%20top%201%20percent%20at%20a%20lower,than%20any%20other%20income%20group https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/#:~:text=46%20states%20.... Poverty can look like raising a family as a single parent on a software engineering 91k average US salary in a place like NYC (when the CEO of the company you work for makes 30M a year). It’s not always Federal poverty levels that count. I know it’s easy to dismiss this point of view as political, but that’s not my intention. It’s important that people realize how unequal even software jobs have become.
  - JamesBarney 3y ago
    I guess it's how you define regressive. Is the following tax regressive or progressive? top 1%: 5% top 2-50%: 20% bottom 50%: 0%
    - happytiger 3y ago
      No, it’s the opposite. The term regressive tax refers to a tax that is applied uniformly regardless of income. Regressive taxes take a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from middle-and high-income earners. One of the main purposes of section 174 is to help foster “research or experimental expenditures”. However, the new section 174 rules are actively discouraging and effectively penalizing companies for incurring these costs because of the significant tax increase they may face as a result. So it’s the employees who are losing their jobs due to the tax, directly. It impacts those who are working for an hourly wage, not the owners. You could argue that the owners have a shoe in the game because they can hire fewer people, which is true, but it’s actually killing software engineering jobs and it’s the penalty to employment that makes it regressive. It’s evenly applied but the effect is uneven. A regressive tax takes a higher proportion of earnings from lower-income households than those with higher incomes… that’s my point. The top income earners don’t get hit by tax changes killing their positions, so the real threshold is whether someone is getting paid a salary or not. It deeply impacts salaried employees, not owners. Owners just have one fewer employee. That software engineer is out of a job. And it’s happening at scale and having a much larger impact than I think a lot of people realize. Hope that makes more sense. I’m sorry if I was unclear. It’s been a day my friend… :)
      - JamesBarney 3y ago
        > Regressive taxes take a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from middle-and high-income earners. I agree with this definition, and I'm pretty sure this tax won't fall on low-income earners. It will fall on a combination of devs and owners. (Probably more owners than devs, I doubt we'll see a large reduction in developer salaries) I also agree it's really bad tax policy. But later you seem to switch to definition of whether a tax is regressive by comparing owners vs employees but that seems only tangential to whether or not the tax is regressive, which every definition I've seen has more to do with income level relative to the general population, not the 0.1%.

JamesBarney 3y ago

I don't think it's regressive the average engineers makes far more than the average person. But it is a terrible idea because it strangles new technology companies which hurt growth in the long term.

happytiger 3y ago
Compare the average engineer to ownership and executive compensation and salaries my friend. Just because many engineers make more than average wages doesn’t mean they are compensated like owners and other senior level compensation packages… there is a massive gap. Just look at the compensation gap between CEOs and software engineers: https://www.dice.com/career-advice/income-gap-tech-ceos-software-engineers https://www.dice.com/career-advice/income-gap-tech-ceos-soft... I know people on HN like to think of FAANG salaries when they think of software engineers, but the vast majority get nothing close to that. And they are firmly in the “worker” category of salary ranges. 46 of 50 states have regressive taxation policies favoring the rich, and this taxation system is definitely regressive as it’s killing startups and small business’s ability to hire software developers by creating a tax punishment for doing so: a literal regressive tax as it punishes the working classes while favoring the upper classes (its definition). https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/#:~:text=46%20states%20tax%20the%20top%201%20percent%20at%20a%20lower,than%20any%20other%20income%20group https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/#:~:text=46%20states%20.... Poverty can look like raising a family as a single parent on a software engineering 91k average US salary in a place like NYC (when the CEO of the company you work for makes 30M a year). It’s not always Federal poverty levels that count. I know it’s easy to dismiss this point of view as political, but that’s not my intention. It’s important that people realize how unequal even software jobs have become.
- JamesBarney 3y ago
  I guess it's how you define regressive. Is the following tax regressive or progressive? top 1%: 5% top 2-50%: 20% bottom 50%: 0%
  - happytiger 3y ago
    No, it’s the opposite. The term regressive tax refers to a tax that is applied uniformly regardless of income. Regressive taxes take a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from middle-and high-income earners. One of the main purposes of section 174 is to help foster “research or experimental expenditures”. However, the new section 174 rules are actively discouraging and effectively penalizing companies for incurring these costs because of the significant tax increase they may face as a result. So it’s the employees who are losing their jobs due to the tax, directly. It impacts those who are working for an hourly wage, not the owners. You could argue that the owners have a shoe in the game because they can hire fewer people, which is true, but it’s actually killing software engineering jobs and it’s the penalty to employment that makes it regressive. It’s evenly applied but the effect is uneven. A regressive tax takes a higher proportion of earnings from lower-income households than those with higher incomes… that’s my point. The top income earners don’t get hit by tax changes killing their positions, so the real threshold is whether someone is getting paid a salary or not. It deeply impacts salaried employees, not owners. Owners just have one fewer employee. That software engineer is out of a job. And it’s happening at scale and having a much larger impact than I think a lot of people realize. Hope that makes more sense. I’m sorry if I was unclear. It’s been a day my friend… :)
    - JamesBarney 3y ago
      > Regressive taxes take a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from middle-and high-income earners. I agree with this definition, and I'm pretty sure this tax won't fall on low-income earners. It will fall on a combination of devs and owners. (Probably more owners than devs, I doubt we'll see a large reduction in developer salaries) I also agree it's really bad tax policy. But later you seem to switch to definition of whether a tax is regressive by comparing owners vs employees but that seems only tangential to whether or not the tax is regressive, which every definition I've seen has more to do with income level relative to the general population, not the 0.1%.