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This is deceptive by using percentages... Top 1% of earners pay like 50% of all taxes Top 10% pay 80% of all taxes Bottom 50% pay 0% or negative amount of ta

This is deceptive by using percentages... Top 1% of earners pay like 50% of all taxes Top 10% pay 80% of all taxes Bottom 50% pay 0% or negative amount of taxes after benefit transfers.

mschuster91 2y ago
> This is deceptive by using percentages... It's not. Relatively speaking, the rich do pay less % of their share of income in taxes, despite them obviously being way more able to pay taxes than the lower castes. Warren Buffett infamously paid (and likely still pays) less of his income than his own secretary. This is beyond ridiculous. And that doesn't even take into account the obscene gains in wealth that aren't taxed at all (partially, because taxing unrealized gains is hard). The rich just evade that tax (or practically, they shift the payment date towards infinity) by taking ultra low-interest loans on their stock and pay the interest from dividends. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secret...
- ardme 2y ago
  He didn't though. He paid billions of dollars and she paid a few thousand.
  - swivelmaster 2y ago
    By percentage, not absolute.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    Would you rather pay $0 taxes on $10 annual income, or $99B taxes on $100B annual income? Which will leave you better off?
- wang_li 2y ago
  >Relatively speaking, the rich do pay less % of their share of income in taxes, despite them obviously being way more able to pay taxes than the lower castes. It's not entirely clear what you are trying to say, but as a share of income earned, the rich earn 20% of the income, they pay 40% of the income taxes collected by the government. They objectively pay more than a fair share.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > It's not entirely clear what you are trying to say, but as a share of income earned, the rich earn 20% of the income, they pay 40% of the income taxes collected by the government. They objectively pay more than a fair share. The question is what one defines as fair. For me, fairness is defined as "how much can one pay in relation to his income"... and then it's simple: when the secretary earning 48k a year has to pay 5% more in taxes, that's 2.4k less for her - and she'll feel that very immediately. Meanwhile, assuming Buffett has a yearly income of 480 million dollars (officially, he has a 100k/y salary, but there's no way his real income is that low given his net worth of ~130 billion dollars, so I just plugged in some number that is likely still way too low), if he has to pay 5% more taxes that's 24 million dollars - a sum that won't even register on any of his decisions. Once you pass a certain amount of wealth and/or income, you just have/earn so much that any kind of tax increase or decrease will not make any material difference in your lifestyle. Therefore, "fairness" for me would be defined as "all members of the economy, both the poor and the rich, contribute to society in a way so that both can live a reasonable life after taxes".
Izkata 2y ago
Yep, article is about taxes as percent of income, and title is just wrong. Also mentioned in the article: > Another factor is that many modern billionaires live off their wealth rather than their incomes, unlike most ordinary Americans.
ceejayoz 2y ago
> Bottom 50% pay 0% or negative amount of taxes after benefit transfers. Lucky duckies! https://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2010/07/lucky-ducky-day.html https://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2010/07/lu...
- Jensson 2y ago
  People without money get free healthcare, that series should have covered that as well, things aren't as bad as the pessimists say.
notaustinpowers 2y ago
Well, yeah, that makes sense. The top 1% (3.3m people) hold over 30% of all wealth in America. The bottom 50% (over 150m people) only hold 2.5% of the wealth in America. Also, how does the top 10% pay 80% of taxes but the top 1% pay 50%? I highly doubt they're paying 130% in taxes collectively...
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  The top 10% are part of the top 1%; you don't sum it up. The top 2-10% presumably pay about 30%.
- megaman821 2y ago
  We are taking about income tax and not wealth tax. Like this terrible article, you use them interchangeably. The authors are trying to be deceptive to push their preferred policy position.

This is deceptive by using percentages... Top 1% of earners pay like 50% of all taxes Top 10% pay 80% of all taxes Bottom 50% pay 0% or negative amount of taxes after benefit transfers.

mschuster91 2y ago

> This is deceptive by using percentages... It's not. Relatively speaking, the rich do pay less % of their share of income in taxes, despite them obviously being way more able to pay taxes than the lower castes. Warren Buffett infamously paid (and likely still pays) less of his income than his own secretary. This is beyond ridiculous. And that doesn't even take into account the obscene gains in wealth that aren't taxed at all (partially, because taxing unrealized gains is hard). The rich just evade that tax (or practically, they shift the payment date towards infinity) by taking ultra low-interest loans on their stock and pay the interest from dividends. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secret...

ardme 2y ago
He didn't though. He paid billions of dollars and she paid a few thousand.
- swivelmaster 2y ago
  By percentage, not absolute.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Would you rather pay $0 taxes on $10 annual income, or $99B taxes on $100B annual income? Which will leave you better off?
wang_li 2y ago
>Relatively speaking, the rich do pay less % of their share of income in taxes, despite them obviously being way more able to pay taxes than the lower castes. It's not entirely clear what you are trying to say, but as a share of income earned, the rich earn 20% of the income, they pay 40% of the income taxes collected by the government. They objectively pay more than a fair share.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > It's not entirely clear what you are trying to say, but as a share of income earned, the rich earn 20% of the income, they pay 40% of the income taxes collected by the government. They objectively pay more than a fair share. The question is what one defines as fair. For me, fairness is defined as "how much can one pay in relation to his income"... and then it's simple: when the secretary earning 48k a year has to pay 5% more in taxes, that's 2.4k less for her - and she'll feel that very immediately. Meanwhile, assuming Buffett has a yearly income of 480 million dollars (officially, he has a 100k/y salary, but there's no way his real income is that low given his net worth of ~130 billion dollars, so I just plugged in some number that is likely still way too low), if he has to pay 5% more taxes that's 24 million dollars - a sum that won't even register on any of his decisions. Once you pass a certain amount of wealth and/or income, you just have/earn so much that any kind of tax increase or decrease will not make any material difference in your lifestyle. Therefore, "fairness" for me would be defined as "all members of the economy, both the poor and the rich, contribute to society in a way so that both can live a reasonable life after taxes".

Izkata 2y ago

Yep, article is about taxes as percent of income, and title is just wrong. Also mentioned in the article: > Another factor is that many modern billionaires live off their wealth rather than their incomes, unlike most ordinary Americans.

ceejayoz 2y ago

> Bottom 50% pay 0% or negative amount of taxes after benefit transfers. Lucky duckies! https://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2010/07/lucky-ducky-day.html https://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2010/07/lu...

Jensson 2y ago
People without money get free healthcare, that series should have covered that as well, things aren't as bad as the pessimists say.

notaustinpowers 2y ago

Well, yeah, that makes sense. The top 1% (3.3m people) hold over 30% of all wealth in America. The bottom 50% (over 150m people) only hold 2.5% of the wealth in America. Also, how does the top 10% pay 80% of taxes but the top 1% pay 50%? I highly doubt they're paying 130% in taxes collectively...

ceejayoz 2y ago
The top 10% are part of the top 1%; you don't sum it up. The top 2-10% presumably pay about 30%.
megaman821 2y ago
We are taking about income tax and not wealth tax. Like this terrible article, you use them interchangeably. The authors are trying to be deceptive to push their preferred policy position.