6 ms·

"seeing the ultra rich paying far less taxes then they are." Is this actually true? I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3

by giantg2 5mo ago

"seeing the ultra rich paying far less taxes then they are." Is this actually true? I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3rd of all income/cap gain taxes.

bryanlarsen 5mo ago
Top 10% is the upper middle class, not the ultra rich. A successful surgeon making $1M per year is paying well over 40% a year in taxes, while Bezos is paying 1%.
- giantg2 5mo ago
  Do you have the data for that? I was wondering about tax paid (as dollars not effective rate- I know effective tends to me lower for HNW individuals due to accountants and other financial professionals they can afford).
  - sbarre 5mo ago
    > I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3rd of all income/cap gain taxes. If we're bringing receipts, how about you start? Do you have the data for this initial statement of yours?
    - giantg2 5mo ago
      This is close enough (posted here by another). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48185123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48185123
    - Jblx2 5mo ago
      Here is one source (with 2022 data): https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... - The top 1% of income earners pay 40.4% of the total U.S. Federal Income Tax receipts - Top 5% pays 61.0% - Top 10% pays 72.0% - Top 25% pays 87.2% - Top 50% pays 97.0% ...of course that doesn't include payroll taxes (Social Security).
      - WarmWash 5mo ago
        Please delete this comment before it bankrupts half of click-bait driven media outlets.
      - wat10000 5mo ago
        Focusing on a single tax is silly. We should look at all taxes paid across all levels of government. Federal income tax is one of the most progressive taxes out there, so of course that's what people focus on when they want to make the point that wealthy people are being sacrificed to the altar of taxation. If you look at all taxes, the share paid is remarkably close to the share earned. According to https://itep.org/who-pays-taxes-in-america-in-2024/ https://itep.org/who-pays-taxes-in-america-in-2024/, in 2024, the top 1% earned 20.1% of income while paying 23.9% of taxes. The bottom 20% paid 1.5% of taxes while earning 2.6% of income.
        giantg2 5mo ago
        This seems to show the same gradation but with less magnitude. Was there some other point you were making?
        wat10000 5mo ago
        It’s way less, is the point. Top earners pay just a little more than their share of income. The tax system as a whole is nearly flat.
        zeroonetwothree 5mo ago
        How do I sign up for this magical 25% “effective tax rate”? Last year mine was 46% and that’s only counting income tax (state + federal).
        wat10000 5mo ago
        By being somewhere around the 40th percentile of income, according to that link.
        5mo ago
- WarmWash 5mo ago
  Bezos pays 40% too. His assets are not income. Just like your assets are not taxed. Ok, but he does that loan-against-assets hack! Well the fact is that those loans eventually need to be paid, so at some point he will pay that 40% (unless he does the step-up basis hack when he dies) Ok, but he should be paying annually like everyone else! Well, technically he is, his assets, the company Amazon, pays a lot of taxes annually. The government views Amazon as a money printer, states get their sales taxes, and the federal government gets their income taxes. All of which originate with Amazon. All of which is to say, that the uppe-middle/upper-class, the successful surgeon, is the one that needs to be paying more taxes to equilibriate society.
  - bryanlarsen 5mo ago
    > unless he does the step-up basis hack when he dies I'm sure we can count that as a given. > The government views Amazon as a money printer, states get their sales taxes, and the federal government gets their income taxes. Except when states fall all over themselves to give Amazon a massive tax break to build their second HQ.
    - WarmWash 5mo ago
      >I'm sure we can count that as a given. It's very unlikely, he has pledged to give away most of his wealth in his lifetime, but there are a variety of factors that will always add space for detractors to make fair points. Bill Gates is still worth billions despite being an endless waterfall of charity money for decades. Either way, the step-up thing is way way way more common in the upper class, where people with ~$24M want their kids to get $6M each. These people are nobodies with no public image, and light years away from "Billionaire Class" status. >Except when states fall all over themselves to give Amazon a massive tax break to build their second HQ. All the employees will pay income tax, and they will mostly spend their money in the state, generating sales tax. Then there is the second order effect of businesses that pop-up to feed off the money that the employees make. What's often missed, and never explained, is that the government loves businesses, because businesses convert people into tax revenue, on almost all levels. Don't miss that.
- kube-system 5mo ago
  The top 10% is not even upper middle class in high COL areas. $155k is a top 10% income.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
dwa3592 5mo ago
Last year year Jeff bezos and I both paid taxes for the year of 2024. The percentage he paid on the money he made is far less than I did. I gave higher share of my income to the government than he did. Bezos's true tax rate was less than 1% and mine was around 25%. Link - https://itep.org/washington-post-rich-not-paying-fair-share/ https://itep.org/washington-post-rich-not-paying-fair-share/
- giantg2 5mo ago
  It seems your article is saying the same sort of thing I already stated - "The share of taxes paid by the richest 1 percent (24 percent)", right? You are talking about effective taxes rates, which are different. To discuss that, I would have liked to see a bit more detail in the article, like what the income sources were and the deductions and losses to offset gains. I think changes around capital gains and loans against equities could use some adjustments. The other taxes like payroll are basically moot as Bezos's payroll income is only about $90k per year anyways.
  - atmavatar 5mo ago
    > I think changes around capital gains and loans against equities could use some adjustments. At minimum, taking out a loan based on the current value of an asset should trigger immediate realization of capital gains/losses for at least those assets used as collateral. After all, the gains are already de facto being realized for the purpose of the loan. Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how to address the other side of things - that said loans often don't have to be repaid so long as the assets continue to gain. As such, the capital gains are actually being realized continuously by the loan, but I doubt it's feasible to properly handle that in tax law.
    - giantg2 5mo ago
      The easy thing to do is set a limit for how much and how long you can borrow against, tax the loans as income, or outlaw loans against investment instruments entirely.
- 5mo ago
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
seba_dos1 5mo ago
The ultra rich make up only a tiny minority of the top 10%. The majority is much closer to the top 90% than to the top 1%.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

by giantg2 5mo ago

"seeing the ultra rich paying far less taxes then they are." Is this actually true? I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3rd of all income/cap gain taxes.

bryanlarsen 5mo ago

Top 10% is the upper middle class, not the ultra rich. A successful surgeon making $1M per year is paying well over 40% a year in taxes, while Bezos is paying 1%.

giantg2 5mo ago
Do you have the data for that? I was wondering about tax paid (as dollars not effective rate- I know effective tends to me lower for HNW individuals due to accountants and other financial professionals they can afford).
- sbarre 5mo ago
  > I thought looking at the aggregates that the top 10% pay something like 1/3rd of all income/cap gain taxes. If we're bringing receipts, how about you start? Do you have the data for this initial statement of yours?
  - giantg2 5mo ago
    This is close enough (posted here by another). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48185123 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48185123
  - Jblx2 5mo ago
    Here is one source (with 2022 data): https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... - The top 1% of income earners pay 40.4% of the total U.S. Federal Income Tax receipts - Top 5% pays 61.0% - Top 10% pays 72.0% - Top 25% pays 87.2% - Top 50% pays 97.0% ...of course that doesn't include payroll taxes (Social Security).
    - WarmWash 5mo ago
      Please delete this comment before it bankrupts half of click-bait driven media outlets.
    - wat10000 5mo ago
      Focusing on a single tax is silly. We should look at all taxes paid across all levels of government. Federal income tax is one of the most progressive taxes out there, so of course that's what people focus on when they want to make the point that wealthy people are being sacrificed to the altar of taxation. If you look at all taxes, the share paid is remarkably close to the share earned. According to https://itep.org/who-pays-taxes-in-america-in-2024/ https://itep.org/who-pays-taxes-in-america-in-2024/, in 2024, the top 1% earned 20.1% of income while paying 23.9% of taxes. The bottom 20% paid 1.5% of taxes while earning 2.6% of income.
      - giantg2 5mo ago
        This seems to show the same gradation but with less magnitude. Was there some other point you were making?
        wat10000 5mo ago
        It’s way less, is the point. Top earners pay just a little more than their share of income. The tax system as a whole is nearly flat.
      - zeroonetwothree 5mo ago
        How do I sign up for this magical 25% “effective tax rate”? Last year mine was 46% and that’s only counting income tax (state + federal).
        wat10000 5mo ago
        By being somewhere around the 40th percentile of income, according to that link.
      - 5mo ago
WarmWash 5mo ago
Bezos pays 40% too. His assets are not income. Just like your assets are not taxed. Ok, but he does that loan-against-assets hack! Well the fact is that those loans eventually need to be paid, so at some point he will pay that 40% (unless he does the step-up basis hack when he dies) Ok, but he should be paying annually like everyone else! Well, technically he is, his assets, the company Amazon, pays a lot of taxes annually. The government views Amazon as a money printer, states get their sales taxes, and the federal government gets their income taxes. All of which originate with Amazon. All of which is to say, that the uppe-middle/upper-class, the successful surgeon, is the one that needs to be paying more taxes to equilibriate society.
- bryanlarsen 5mo ago
  > unless he does the step-up basis hack when he dies I'm sure we can count that as a given. > The government views Amazon as a money printer, states get their sales taxes, and the federal government gets their income taxes. Except when states fall all over themselves to give Amazon a massive tax break to build their second HQ.
  - WarmWash 5mo ago
    >I'm sure we can count that as a given. It's very unlikely, he has pledged to give away most of his wealth in his lifetime, but there are a variety of factors that will always add space for detractors to make fair points. Bill Gates is still worth billions despite being an endless waterfall of charity money for decades. Either way, the step-up thing is way way way more common in the upper class, where people with ~$24M want their kids to get $6M each. These people are nobodies with no public image, and light years away from "Billionaire Class" status. >Except when states fall all over themselves to give Amazon a massive tax break to build their second HQ. All the employees will pay income tax, and they will mostly spend their money in the state, generating sales tax. Then there is the second order effect of businesses that pop-up to feed off the money that the employees make. What's often missed, and never explained, is that the government loves businesses, because businesses convert people into tax revenue, on almost all levels. Don't miss that.
kube-system 5mo ago
The top 10% is not even upper middle class in high COL areas. $155k is a top 10% income.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

dwa3592 5mo ago

Last year year Jeff bezos and I both paid taxes for the year of 2024. The percentage he paid on the money he made is far less than I did. I gave higher share of my income to the government than he did. Bezos's true tax rate was less than 1% and mine was around 25%. Link - https://itep.org/washington-post-rich-not-paying-fair-share/ https://itep.org/washington-post-rich-not-paying-fair-share/

giantg2 5mo ago
It seems your article is saying the same sort of thing I already stated - "The share of taxes paid by the richest 1 percent (24 percent)", right? You are talking about effective taxes rates, which are different. To discuss that, I would have liked to see a bit more detail in the article, like what the income sources were and the deductions and losses to offset gains. I think changes around capital gains and loans against equities could use some adjustments. The other taxes like payroll are basically moot as Bezos's payroll income is only about $90k per year anyways.
- atmavatar 5mo ago
  > I think changes around capital gains and loans against equities could use some adjustments. At minimum, taking out a loan based on the current value of an asset should trigger immediate realization of capital gains/losses for at least those assets used as collateral. After all, the gains are already de facto being realized for the purpose of the loan. Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how to address the other side of things - that said loans often don't have to be repaid so long as the assets continue to gain. As such, the capital gains are actually being realized continuously by the loan, but I doubt it's feasible to properly handle that in tax law.
  - giantg2 5mo ago
    The easy thing to do is set a limit for how much and how long you can borrow against, tax the loans as income, or outlaw loans against investment instruments entirely.
5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

seba_dos1 5mo ago

The ultra rich make up only a tiny minority of the top 10%. The majority is much closer to the top 90% than to the top 1%.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]