Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

Post by bhickey » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:07 AM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #83

harryh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Wages and bonus income aren't taxed differently. 2A) When you take into account corporate taxes, inflation, and risk the difference between tax rates on wages and cap gains aren't as big as you might think. 2B) Many economists argue that there should be no capital gains taxes at all as they create a distortion between consumption and saving behavior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_capital_income_taxatio...…

> When you take into account corporate taxes, inflation, and risk the difference between tax rates on wages and cap gains aren't as big as you might think. This doesn't make any sense. All of these things (with the exception of corporate taxes, which shouldn't exist) are priced into the return of the investment[1] and have nothing to do with taxation. Why would you take risk into account for purposes of taxation? Sho…

Post by Mikeb85 » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:07 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #80

Mikeb85 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's pretty much always a minimum amount you need to make to pay taxes, most flat tax schemes are still progressive on the low end. Very few 'flat tax' proponents want to tax the poor (not much money in it anyway). The idea with a flat tax isn't to punish the poor, but to reduce tax evasion on the higher end, and to reduce to burden on the middle class.

Taxes should be progressive at all levels, setting a floor to exclude the poor from the unfairness doesn't make it more fair for the guy in the middle income ranges. All flat tax solutions are bad as they are all inherently unfair.

Post by gnaritas » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:14 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #94

gnaritas wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes should be progressive at all levels, setting a floor to exclude the poor from the unfairness doesn't make it more fair for the guy in the middle income ranges. All flat tax solutions are bad as they are all inherently unfair.

Depends what your definition of 'fair' is. Conservatives think it's 'fair' that everyone pays the same rate. Progressives think it's 'fair' that everyone pays what they can afford. 'Fair' depends strongly upon one's beliefs, and can't be objectively defined.

Post by pmorici » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:16 AM UTC

curiousgeorgio wrote: post #26

nitrogen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every additional dollar I earn, I only get to keep 47 cents of it, just counting _income_ taxes. If that were for all taxes, and the marginal rate was still better for lower incomes, I don't think that sounds so bad. Sure, we humans always want to keep more of our hard work for ourselves, but pragmatically speaking I'd be okay if my marginal rate at 7 figures (which I'm nowhere near) was 53% in exchange for the s…

While you are entitled to that opinion, I think it's really hard to say with any confidence what your attitude would be at a vastly different income level. It may be useful to frame the idea in a different way: You sound as if you'd approve of a ~53% tax rate at an income level higher than your own, but not necessarily at your own level. For the sake of argument, if you were to work just as hard for every dollar at t…

Post by analog31 » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:17 AM UTC

ksec wrote: post #71

addicted wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flat tax is an incredibly pointless solution. The flat tax is opposed to a progressive tax, that says that instead of having a tax rate of 15% for 100% of your income, you have a tax rate of 0% for the first $10000 of your income, 10% of the next 20000, and so on. This is something that can be calculated mentally, looked up using IRS published tables, or calculated with no effort in a 10 line script or some of th…

I know this is about US taxes only, ( And i am not from US ). But shouldn't mortgage reduction only be acceptable if you have one property only? If you have multiple property, then you are basically accumulating asset over a long period of time.