Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by gnaritas » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:18 AM UTC

wonderlust wrote: post #90

gnaritas wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think a pure flat tax would actually be bad for the country implemented immediately It would be bad in any form, it's regressive; marginal utility and all that, taxes should be progressive or they're not a fair burden.

I have a problem when people call tax burdens fair. There are so many ways to define fair its rediculous and has no solid meaning. Also, on that note, its not logically possible to tax a business alone. Any tax a business pays must by necessity be passed on to consumers, else the company goes out of business. You can get around it by only taxing profits, but then you open the giant loophole of all value that's not pr…

> I have a problem when people call tax burdens fair.

Well I have a problem with people who think fair doesn't matter.

> There are so many ways to define fair its rediculous and has no solid meaning.

Fair is like porn, it's hard to define, but everyone knows when they see it. It's genetic, even monkeys have a sense of fairness and refuse to cooperate when they're being treated unfairly. If that's not enough meaning for you, look harder.

> There is no "fair" way to do that makes everyone happier.

Sure there, look up the veil of ignorance; people think more fairly when they don't know which side of the equation they'll come out on.

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

#102

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:21 AM UTC

themartorana wrote: post #34

paulddraper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why "fair tax" advocates flat sales tax. It still leads to questions, but sales taxes are usually simpler than income and capital taxes.

This is my favorite proposal to date. Sales tax applies equally to a pencil and a yacht. It also encourages savings at lower income levels.

A sales tax is the ultimate regressive tax. At the low end, you don't have much to save anyways (you need to eat!), so you are spending your income and getting taxed. At the high end, you can save a lot more since you make more. And you can always fly off to Hong Kong for a weekend to buy things (that is what happens today in China which has a high VAT/import tax).

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

#103

Post by gozur88 » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:26 AM UTC

Mikeb85 wrote: post #63

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…

It's not a terrible solution. Ideally a flat tax (which pretty much always means a lower rate than high earners pay) simplifies the tax system, and makes high earners less likely to evade taxes. However it doesn't change the fact that really high earners get a lot of their wealth from investments, so in the end they'll still pay a lower total 'rate'. The highest tax burden will still be paid by upper middle-class pro…

The problem with the flat tax is it doesn't address the problem. What makes the tax code complicated is determining exactly what constitutes taxable income. Dealing with different tax brackets is simply a matter of looking a number up in a table.

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

#104

Post by Zhenya » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:26 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #77

SlowComputer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year. For every additional dollar I earn, I only get to keep 47 cents of it, just counting _income_ taxes. In reality, only high earners pay taxes. And high-salaried people are getting screwed under Obama's war against the most productive citizens.

> I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year. > And high-salaried people are getting screwed under Obama's war against the most productive citizens. Stop whining and blaming Obama; there's no war against productive citizens, you aren't a victim. You don't get to complain when you're among the wealthiest in the world that you don't get to keep enough money. 99.9% of the country makes le…

What does it matter what the rest of the world has? If he/she earned it legally, they deserve it. You don't get to make victims out of the rest of the world.

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

#105

Post by newman314 » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:27 AM UTC

bhickey wrote: post #78

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...…

1) It looks like I'm mixing up the California withholding rate with the tax rate. Thanks. 2A) Granted. If I had a magical tax wand, I'd obliterate corporate taxation. 2B) It's an argument I've heard, but I'm more interested in avoiding arbitrage. My preferences might be mistaken. :) 3) If I hold the belief that we shouldn't tax income differently based on its source, Mankiw's argument doesn't have much force. His rea…

Why remove corporate taxation?

From my perspective, corporations already pay a lower effective tax rate and have access to tax avoidance strategies that not available to the individual.

I've read the argument that eliminating the corporate tax would spur growth but that's like saying eliminating individual income tax would spur consumer spending.

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

#106

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

newman314 wrote: post #105

bhickey wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) It looks like I'm mixing up the California withholding rate with the tax rate. Thanks. 2A) Granted. If I had a magical tax wand, I'd obliterate corporate taxation. 2B) It's an argument I've heard, but I'm more interested in avoiding arbitrage. My preferences might be mistaken. :) 3) If I hold the belief that we shouldn't tax income differently based on its source, Mankiw's argument doesn't have much force. His rea…

Why remove corporate taxation? From my perspective, corporations already pay a lower effective tax rate and have access to tax avoidance strategies that not available to the individual. I've read the argument that eliminating the corporate tax would spur growth but that's like saying eliminating individual income tax would spur consumer spending.

Because all taxes are taxes on people. Corporate taxes are just a convoluted and bad way of doing so.

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

#107

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

Zhenya wrote: post #104

gnaritas wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year. > And high-salaried people are getting screwed under Obama's war against the most productive citizens. Stop whining and blaming Obama; there's no war against productive citizens, you aren't a victim. You don't get to complain when you're among the wealthiest in the world that you don't get to keep enough money. 99.9% of the country makes le…

What does it matter what the rest of the world has? If he/she earned it legally, they deserve it. You don't get to make victims out of the rest of the world.

> If he/she earned it legally, they deserve it.

Utter nonsense. Legal doesn't equal moral nor does it mean fair. Slavery was legal, that doesn't mean the slave owners deserved the profits from their labor (you apparently think it does). Legals means nothing more than we can't put you in jail yet.

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

#108

Post by powertower » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:32 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #77

SlowComputer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year. For every additional dollar I earn, I only get to keep 47 cents of it, just counting _income_ taxes. In reality, only high earners pay taxes. And high-salaried people are getting screwed under Obama's war against the most productive citizens.

> I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year. > And high-salaried people are getting screwed under Obama's war against the most productive citizens. Stop whining and blaming Obama; there's no war against productive citizens, you aren't a victim. You don't get to complain when you're among the wealthiest in the world that you don't get to keep enough money. 99.9% of the country makes le…

> Stop whining and blaming Obama; there's no war against productive citizens, you aren't a victim. You don't get to complain...

Everyone gets to complain, you don't have a monopoly on it.

> when you're among the wealthiest...

Not everyone that is wealthy won the lotto. Some people actually worked for it (took risks, worked harder, etc).

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

#109

Post by gnaritas » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:33 AM UTC

powertower wrote: post #108

gnaritas wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I live in California. I'm not "super rich" but we earn more than $1MM/year. > And high-salaried people are getting screwed under Obama's war against the most productive citizens. Stop whining and blaming Obama; there's no war against productive citizens, you aren't a victim. You don't get to complain when you're among the wealthiest in the world that you don't get to keep enough money. 99.9% of the country makes le…

> Stop whining and blaming Obama; there's no war against productive citizens, you aren't a victim. You don't get to complain... Everyone gets to complain, you don't have a monopoly on it. > when you're among the wealthiest... Not everyone that is wealthy won the lotto. Some people actually worked for it (took risks, worked harder, etc).

Yes, and some people should be ashamed of complaining in the name of decency.

> How about when you are the among the ones that took the most risk in life, the ones that worked the hardest

Ah, the just world fallacy and survivor-ship bias all in one. You didn't work the hardest or take the most risks, far more people who worked harder and took equal risks didn't get lucky.

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

#110

Post by Zhenya » Thu, Dec 31, 2015, 5:36 AM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #107

Zhenya wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it matter what the rest of the world has? If he/she earned it legally, they deserve it. You don't get to make victims out of the rest of the world.

> If he/she earned it legally, they deserve it. Utter nonsense. Legal doesn't equal moral nor does it mean fair. Slavery was legal, that doesn't mean the slave owners deserved the profits from their labor (you apparently think it does). Legals means nothing more than we can't put you in jail yet.

Eyeroll. And who decides morality? You? No thanks.