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Once again, I'm begging you, with tears in my eyes to learn the difference between statutory and effective tax rates. Do I disagree that there were headline ra

Once again, I'm begging you, with tears in my eyes to learn the difference between statutory and effective tax rates. Do I disagree that there were headline rates of 70%? No. Did anyone pay those rates on any meaningful amount of their income? Also no.

digitaltrees 1mo ago
Again I beg you to wipe the tears from your eyes and look at the data. Wealth inequality was significantly lower from 1940 to 1980, the gap between CEO and worker pays was orders of magnitude lower. Taxe rates demonstrably reduced wealthy estates over time We are now at levels of disparity greater than the guilded age. Consumers are about to run out of credit at which point there will be a Great Depression level contraction.
- rsync 1mo ago
  No, your parent is correct. In addition to the pragmatic point about how nobody actually paid those rates, there is an ideological mismatch as well: Those very high marginal tax rates were not enacted to address inequality or any of the typical social goals that we think of when we advocate for higher marginal tax rates. Rather, they were imposed to combat war profiteering during the WW2 period: "The crisis of World War II led Congress to pass four excess profits statutes between 1940 and 1943. The 1940 rates ranged from 25 to 50 percent and the 1941 ones from 35 to 60 percent. In 1942, a flat rate of 90 percent was adopted, with a postwar refund of 10 percent; in 1943 the rate was increased to 95 percent, with a 10 percent refund."[1] Can you argue for a very high marginal tax rate as a means of wealth distribution and furthering progressive policy ? Yes, of course you can. Have we ever had one ? Not really. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_profits_tax#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_profits_tax#United_Stat...
  - digitaltrees 1mo ago
    Just because people didn’t pay the top rate doesn’t mean they didn’t pay substantially higher percentages than today.

digitaltrees 1mo ago

Again I beg you to wipe the tears from your eyes and look at the data. Wealth inequality was significantly lower from 1940 to 1980, the gap between CEO and worker pays was orders of magnitude lower. Taxe rates demonstrably reduced wealthy estates over time We are now at levels of disparity greater than the guilded age. Consumers are about to run out of credit at which point there will be a Great Depression level contraction.

rsync 1mo ago
No, your parent is correct. In addition to the pragmatic point about how nobody actually paid those rates, there is an ideological mismatch as well: Those very high marginal tax rates were not enacted to address inequality or any of the typical social goals that we think of when we advocate for higher marginal tax rates. Rather, they were imposed to combat war profiteering during the WW2 period: "The crisis of World War II led Congress to pass four excess profits statutes between 1940 and 1943. The 1940 rates ranged from 25 to 50 percent and the 1941 ones from 35 to 60 percent. In 1942, a flat rate of 90 percent was adopted, with a postwar refund of 10 percent; in 1943 the rate was increased to 95 percent, with a 10 percent refund."[1] Can you argue for a very high marginal tax rate as a means of wealth distribution and furthering progressive policy ? Yes, of course you can. Have we ever had one ? Not really. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_profits_tax#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_profits_tax#United_Stat...
- digitaltrees 1mo ago
  Just because people didn’t pay the top rate doesn’t mean they didn’t pay substantially higher percentages than today.