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The numbers for Elbonia are unlike the US but you can use numbers to say all kinds of magical things. US median income $75,000 top 10% $149000 top 5% $352000

by 6510 1y ago

The numbers for Elbonia are unlike the US but you can use numbers to say all kinds of magical things. US median income $75,000 top 10% $149000 top 5% $352000 Which is 203000 more, therefore half of the top 10% must earn $101500 less than $149000 to have an average of $149000 which is only $47500 which is 0.6 times median. If you tax them 40% they have only 0.36 times median left. See? top 1% $749000 is 397000 more than the top 5%, therefore 4/5 of the top 5% earns $99250 less than $352000 which is only $252750 which is only about 3 time median. top 0.1% $3312693 is 2563693 more than the top 1%, therefore 9/10 of the top 1% earns $284854 less than 749000 which is only 464145 which is only about 6 times median. I don't know where all the money went but it isn't here.

Terr_ 1y ago
I have no idea what you're trying to demonstrate with all that, it looks like a 1+1=3 Chewbacca Defense. Moving from a progressive-tax to a flat-tax (with the same total receipts) will lower the tax-burden on one group and raise it on another. You don't even need numbers to understand it: It's the same as how leveling a see-saw will result in one end moving up and one end moving down. ___________ To offer a specific critique: > top 10% $149000 Correct, $149,000 is the hypothetical income of a single person sitting in-between the bottom 90% and the top 10% of income. This means every single person in the top 10% earns at least $149,000 per year. > therefore half of the top 10% must earn $101500 less than $149000 No no no, something has gone Very Very Wrong here. It is literally impossible for anybody in the 10% to be earning less than the lowest-earning member of that group.
- 6510 1y ago
  > I have no idea what you're trying to demonstrate with this... number-based Chewbacca Defense. hahaha, I forgot to mention I totally agree with what you said. > You've gone off the rails somewhere. I'm glad you noticed :) Ill demonstrate the jedi mind trick one more time... Imagine 100 boxes, we ignore 90 of them. The 10 boxes left have 149 on average in them. if they had exactly 149 each it would be 10x149=1490 However, we are told 5 of these boxes have 352 on average. How much is in the remaining 5 boxes? If the boxes told about had exactly 352 each it would be 5x252=1760 If the remaining 5 boxes are empty the average would be 1760/10=176 176 is more than 149 See?
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    You can't call it a "Jedi mind trick" when the victim can't even tell what you want them to do. :p Anyway, what does "sometimes you can bullshit people with bad math" have to do with progressive-vs-flat taxation? > The 10 boxes left have 149 on average in them > 5 of these boxes have 352 on average "A portion weight more than the whole." -> "Uh, no."
    - 6510 1y ago
      I was simply trying to use real numbers to compare with the story about Elbonia. Turned out the US is a really special place. > to be in the top 10% of US earners, you need to earn nearly $149,000 annually. > According to the same research, those in the top 5% earned at least $352,000. https://www.unbiased.com/discover/banking/how-much-income-puts-you-in-the-top-1-5-or-10 https://www.unbiased.com/discover/banking/how-much-income-pu... I have no idea how to calculate the flat tax now. The words "nearly" and "at least" make it even more confusing.
      - Terr_ 1y ago
        I think you're reaching for the wrong statistics. You want averages of subgroups, rather than medians or percentiles which tell about about where boundaries lie. In my original Elbonia example, knowing "There are peasants and nobles and the poorest noble has an income of $90" wouldn't give you enough information to work with. Consider the stuff here: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... ________ The first chart shows an ascending staircase of tax-rates as each group has a higher average income (not shown) than the prior group, indicating a progressive tax scheme. With a flat tax, every bar would be the same moderate height. We don't automatically have enough information to say exactly where the horizontal line would be, but clearly it has to be somewhere between today's "Bottom 50%" and "Top 1%", meaning those groups would see a tax-hike and a tax-cut respectively. ________ Another approach is the next chart, "High-Income Taxpayers Paid the Highest Average Income Tax Rates". Much like my "many peasants" and "few nobles" groups, this chart has 6 groups. It shows the smallest group, the "top 1% of people" took in 22% of the taxable income, and paid 40% of the taxes, and so on down the line for the other chunks. Under a flat tax, any group with X% of the income would also pay X% of the taxes. In other words, the right-hand stack would shift to look like the left-hand stack. Knowing this, you can tell which groups' "taxes paid" boxes would grow (tax hike, boo) and which which groups' would shrink (tax cut, yay).

by 6510 1y ago

Terr_ 1y ago

I have no idea what you're trying to demonstrate with all that, it looks like a 1+1=3 Chewbacca Defense. Moving from a progressive-tax to a flat-tax (with the same total receipts) will lower the tax-burden on one group and raise it on another. You don't even need numbers to understand it: It's the same as how leveling a see-saw will result in one end moving up and one end moving down. ___________ To offer a specific critique: > top 10% $149000 Correct, $149,000 is the hypothetical income of a single person sitting in-between the bottom 90% and the top 10% of income. This means every single person in the top 10% earns at least $149,000 per year. > therefore half of the top 10% must earn $101500 less than $149000 No no no, something has gone Very Very Wrong here. It is literally impossible for anybody in the 10% to be earning less than the lowest-earning member of that group.

6510 1y ago
> I have no idea what you're trying to demonstrate with this... number-based Chewbacca Defense. hahaha, I forgot to mention I totally agree with what you said. > You've gone off the rails somewhere. I'm glad you noticed :) Ill demonstrate the jedi mind trick one more time... Imagine 100 boxes, we ignore 90 of them. The 10 boxes left have 149 on average in them. if they had exactly 149 each it would be 10x149=1490 However, we are told 5 of these boxes have 352 on average. How much is in the remaining 5 boxes? If the boxes told about had exactly 352 each it would be 5x252=1760 If the remaining 5 boxes are empty the average would be 1760/10=176 176 is more than 149 See?
- Terr_ 1y ago
  You can't call it a "Jedi mind trick" when the victim can't even tell what you want them to do. :p Anyway, what does "sometimes you can bullshit people with bad math" have to do with progressive-vs-flat taxation? > The 10 boxes left have 149 on average in them > 5 of these boxes have 352 on average "A portion weight more than the whole." -> "Uh, no."
  - 6510 1y ago
    I was simply trying to use real numbers to compare with the story about Elbonia. Turned out the US is a really special place. > to be in the top 10% of US earners, you need to earn nearly $149,000 annually. > According to the same research, those in the top 5% earned at least $352,000. https://www.unbiased.com/discover/banking/how-much-income-puts-you-in-the-top-1-5-or-10 https://www.unbiased.com/discover/banking/how-much-income-pu... I have no idea how to calculate the flat tax now. The words "nearly" and "at least" make it even more confusing.
    - Terr_ 1y ago
      I think you're reaching for the wrong statistics. You want averages of subgroups, rather than medians or percentiles which tell about about where boundaries lie. In my original Elbonia example, knowing "There are peasants and nobles and the poorest noble has an income of $90" wouldn't give you enough information to work with. Consider the stuff here: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... ________ The first chart shows an ascending staircase of tax-rates as each group has a higher average income (not shown) than the prior group, indicating a progressive tax scheme. With a flat tax, every bar would be the same moderate height. We don't automatically have enough information to say exactly where the horizontal line would be, but clearly it has to be somewhere between today's "Bottom 50%" and "Top 1%", meaning those groups would see a tax-hike and a tax-cut respectively. ________ Another approach is the next chart, "High-Income Taxpayers Paid the Highest Average Income Tax Rates". Much like my "many peasants" and "few nobles" groups, this chart has 6 groups. It shows the smallest group, the "top 1% of people" took in 22% of the taxable income, and paid 40% of the taxes, and so on down the line for the other chunks. Under a flat tax, any group with X% of the income would also pay X% of the taxes. In other words, the right-hand stack would shift to look like the left-hand stack. Knowing this, you can tell which groups' "taxes paid" boxes would grow (tax hike, boo) and which which groups' would shrink (tax cut, yay).