I guess this tax is under 50%, but once you cross that line, things get bad fast. Consider building a house after the trump tax hikes in California with $1M fr

I guess this tax is under 50%, but once you cross that line, things get bad fast. Consider building a house after the trump tax hikes in California with $1M from the top tax bracket. After income tax, there’s $490K left. Next come the Canadian lumber tariffs, which increased base cost per square foot from $300 to $360, which is another 20% effective tax. Now there’s only $400K left. (Covid also increased prices. Ignore that.) A normal time to IPO is 5-10 years, during which time people accept a depressed salary. The windfall post-tax is only $40-80K per year per million paid out, and salaries are typically at least $50-100K under market value. On top of that, there are local “screw the rich people that can build homes” fees and regulations that nearly double the cost of construction, so that $1M ends up being $200-250K in actual purchasing power. So, assume they but instead of build, and don’t pay those fees. $490K is something like one third of a house around here, so the person ends up borrowing to cover the tax. Their average income was something like $240-280K (pre inflation numbers, pre-tax), which is 91th percentile California household income, and those are “jackpot” years for that person. However, they ended up paying two years pre-tax salaries (3 years post tax) in income tax if they buy a house, and 6 years post-tax salary if they build. Of course, the above is nuanced, so most people are all like “yeah, screw the rich” without realizing these taxes disproportionately hit the middle class.