Duly noted, will dumb it down next time.
very late to the party. as is widely known across AF, i’m pro higher marginal tax rates for high income people. i think taxing income more, and taxing capital gains and dividends at a rate that is closer to earned income is necessary, particularly in the US, to resolve some of the inequality problems.
if you’re against taxing high income people, how about we get some people who make $1-$5 million in annual income, put them on a stage in front of 50,000 normal people, and have them justify how they spend their second, third, fourth or fifth million in annual income and if the answer is acceptable. are mass upper class birkin bags really good for society? how about mass upper class Bentleys. once upon a time, the general population hated the people (royalty and royalty types) who spent money on frivolous unnecessary things.
other comments on us tax system. y’all need to tax more at death. this is reason #1 why US inequality is so bad relative to the rest of the world. another reason why inequality is so bad in the US is a complete lack of a social safety net. in the US, someone loses their job and their life is over within six months. in the rest of the developed world, this individual has maybe 2 or 3 years before his life is over. considering there are often temporary factors outside of this person’s control, it is cruel to crush a perfectly capable human’s life (and his family’s life) because of cyclical unemployment or structural unemployment that is largely out of his control, at least in the short-term. saying this individual just needs to try harder doesn’t work when there are 10 million guys like him at cyclical lows.
if they are not willing to work as hard or smart, screw them. The normal person (say half of Americans), can’t come up with $500 for an emergency if they had to, they should worry about their situation before they worry about anyone else’s. They can have an opinion but it’ll most likely be wrong.
actually they have a vote to steal from the rich. the problem is they so stupid they dont even realize it. literally 95% of households are retarded.
Maybe it’s because I’m only skimming the replies, but the effective tax rate on the 1% is roughly the same as always. Seems to be there has to be some other way to address this issue, even if we stipulated it needed to be fixed. I don’t understand trying to use historical periods where the taxes paid are similar
its because you skimmed the replies, nullifying your post which was just a repost
You’d have to raise taxes on long-term cap gains. That’s really the only feasible way. And I’m very much against this, btw.
major reason is the bracket was set so high (2m in today’s $$). that only the top 1% of the top 1% paid the highest marginal tax rate. just fyi
http://currydemocrats.org/in_perspective/average_effective_federal_tax_rates.png
tax avoidance is also key!!!
You are making the mistaken assumption that these people spend everything they make.
I do tax returns for several people who make north of $1m, and none of them even come close to spending that much money. In fact, most of them lead relatively boring, mundane, middle-class lives.
But that kind of supports his stance that if they aren’t spending it, why not turn it over to the government?
they are prolly investing it. which is better for the economy!
warren buffet once made the argument that the reason why ehe doesnt donate the money to the poor right now while he is still alive is because he is the best person to grow the money. then once he dies, he will have his wife, who is now bill gates foundation to spend it on things that will make the world much better.
so the reason why we dont give it to the government or poor people is because they will misuse the money and not let it have the most impact in making the world a better place!
^ it supports the stance that you shouldn’t be generating 3-10x your one-year, already excessive needs every single year. i’m not for 90% tax rates like in much of the 20th century but 70%-80% tax on income and 30%-40% tax (for higher earners) on capital gains and dividends would largely take care of the inequality problem.
but this is not how this works from a policy perspective. my whole point is that the argument of “they don’t work hard enough” is moot when looking at a group of 10 million people at a time when there are only 2 million jobs available during a cyclical or structural downturn. they have no capital and maybe some can attain new skillsets. these people need time for cyclical jobs to return and financial assistance to re-skill to avoid the complete meltdown of their lives and their family’s lives. avoiding mass bankruptcy and mass foreclosure when people lose jobs during a downturn is good for society. as a group, it is largely not their fault, it is the economy’s fault.
this is also how you avoid a drug epidemic and many other social problems. by boosting unemployment insurance and other social assistance, you will cut law enforcement and other social costs.
Can we all at least agree that tax avoidance (Illegal, not the normal legal stuff) needs to be stopped.
Billionaires shouldn’t be able to commit tax fraud of 400 million and give it to their children. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html
We should fund the IRS and ensure that corporations/people aren’t able to get an unfair advantage because they break the law. The US is missing out on billions of dollars each year.
Since we are discussing billionaires not paying taxes. This is a gem worth a watch.
That’s better.
I think I took a test once that mentioned the difference between tax avoidance vs evasion.
Tax avoidance is legal. In fact, it’s expected. In fact, it’s what I’m paid to do.
Tax evasion is illegal and gets you thrown in prison. Ask Al Capone.
Thank you captain obvious, lol
Based on the above responses, it’s not so obvious.