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Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

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Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#111

Post by physicsguy »

divbzero wrote: post #29
KerrAvon wrote: post #19

I wish this would get written up in mainstream media. Hypothesis being that if more people knew this existed, it would put additional pressure on Congress to simplify tax filing.

The number of possible inputs for Income is stunning: 15 types of income in total. There are “only” 5 possible inputs under Deductions & Credits but 3 of them are categories with several subitems: Itemized Deductions • Home mortgage interest • Deductible medical expenses • Motor Vehicle registration fees • Charitable contributions • Casulty or Theft losses Other Itemized Deductions • Other state and local taxes • Ded…

This is kind of mental. In the UK we have nowhere near as many tax deductible things. An ordinary employed person will only ever get tax deductions for pension contributions or charitable donations. Almost nobody in the UK even has to file a tax return; data is returned automatically to the government by all employers and so there is no need unless you have certain uncommon circumstances.

There are some schemes through employers that reduce your taxable income (for e.g. a scheme to purchase a bicycle tax free) but these are handled by your employer and work by sacrificing some salary in exchange for the benefits.

Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#112

Post by refurb »

jliptzin wrote: post #83
refurb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did have to be wealthy, but $100,000 in 1980 is equivalent to $383,000 today which is pretty wealthy. So it’s basically income above $400,000 today. And many of the tax “loopholes” involved real estate investment which would be accessible at that income level.

$380k is not wealthy. Most people can live just fine on $380k, don’t get me wrong, but it is basically upper middle class. If $380k/yr is wealthy then what is $20 million/yr?

$400k per year put you in the top 1% of income earners in the US. 99% of people make less than those people.

That’s wealthy to me.

Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#113

Post by taurath »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #75
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not useless, it’s just data which needs context. Like the claim which GP makes that the Reagan tax reform was “revenue neutral” which is dubious at best.

Tax revenues grew monotonically across the tax reforms of the 1980s in smoothly boring fashion with no discontinuities. That is pretty much a textbook definition of "revenue neutral". Are you arguing that the tax revenue grew too quickly to be defined as "revenue neutral"? I'm not old enough to have experienced it but the data is really obvious.

Would guess the idea is more about who pays that similar revenue, as since the 80s income inequality has shot upwards.

Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#114

Post by nly »

petercooper wrote: post #49

The US personal tax code looks extremely complicated to British eyes, but British people have a similar calculator at their disposal at https://listentotaxman.com/ though it only goes back to 2000.

The thing I find interesting is Americans always claim that countries with socialised healthcare have significantly higher tax burdens, but if you compare take home salaries between say New York and London, or San Fransisco and London, they're not that far apart.

That said, in tech Americans seem to make 50%-100% more total comp on a cost of living adjusted basis doing exactly the same job...

Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#115

Post by ngcc_hk »

I may be confused. I just talked with my kids about the problem of maintaining some old program in us gov particularly related to taxation. Possibly in assembly and last attempt to upgrade run out of budget and hence USA gov will forever have issue in maintaining it. People knew left and good luck to find my kid generation to learn those old thing.

Can you do it the other way round I wonder? Just give up and use a new version and ask legal to send this open source to all agents. After 3 years day this is the version.

It is not a sim issue. It is not a pre-filled issue. It is a real issue.

Or my brief to my kid is wrong. It is about something else.

Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#116

Post by ChrisLomont »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #56
ajmurmann wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems like this would render the website pretty useless for anything before that period, right?

It’s not useless, it’s just data which needs context. Like the claim which GP makes that the Reagan tax reform was “revenue neutral” which is dubious at best.

It's easy enough to look up federal tax revenues during that period and see they were indeed revenue neutral. There's nothing dubious about it - it's trivial to check.

Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#118

Post by pjc50 »

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #56
ajmurmann wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems like this would render the website pretty useless for anything before that period, right?

It’s not useless, it’s just data which needs context. Like the claim which GP makes that the Reagan tax reform was “revenue neutral” which is dubious at best.

The Reagan change probably was revenue neutral, but also changed tax incidence and its distribution across classes a lot.

Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#119

Post by pjc50 »

keehun wrote: post #12

Are all the dollar amounts in the simulated tax output at the top of the page inflation adjusted? For example, I inputted married, with no dependents with $500,000 salary and in 1977, the federal amount was $299,864 and in 2020 was $133,947. I assume these amounts can be compared without further adjusting for inflation? Tangentially, did federal taxes really come down that much?

I would not expect this to cope with inflation but to operate purely on nominal values; after all, that's what you'd put in the tax returns for those years.

Re: Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present

#120

Post by pjc50 »

physicsguy wrote: post #111
divbzero wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of possible inputs for Income is stunning: 15 types of income in total. There are “only” 5 possible inputs under Deductions & Credits but 3 of them are categories with several subitems: Itemized Deductions • Home mortgage interest • Deductible medical expenses • Motor Vehicle registration fees • Charitable contributions • Casulty or Theft losses Other Itemized Deductions • Other state and local taxes • Ded…

This is kind of mental. In the UK we have nowhere near as many tax deductible things. An ordinary employed person will only ever get tax deductions for pension contributions or charitable donations. Almost nobody in the UK even has to file a tax return; data is returned automatically to the government by all employers and so there is no need unless you have certain uncommon circumstances. There are some schemes throu…

A piece of politics that is radically different is that the UK does not have a right wing which hates the Federal government; the UK right wing is not only unitary-statist but monarchist.

This results in perverse pressures to make the Federal processes that people are exposed to, such as tax filing, as bad as possible so that voters also hate the Federal government.

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