Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

scienceblogs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 102 posts

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#61

Post by berntb »

loewenskind wrote: post #55
jasonkester wrote: post #42

As somebody who stands to get clobbered by this high tax bracket, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one out here who thinks it's just fine. I've always been in favor of a flat tax with a lower bound. So, say 50% of all income above $20k. Let the regular folk (like me last during the last couple years of getting a bootstrapped startup off the ground) get off without paying any tax whatsoever. Take up the slack by mak…

>I mean sure, losing half your income to taxes is a problem This is a big issue I see in America (being American myself). Money spent in taxes is always considered "lost" [1]. Consider somewhere like Sweden. Tax rates go above 50%, but for that money they get health care, college for as high as they're capable of going (even room and board while they're attending!), etc., etc. So those are all things they don't have…

>>Consider somewhere like Sweden.

Sweden has the world's highest taxes, but lots of the common functionality works badly.

For example, it is really hard to get a doctor to put work into diagnosing any problems you have. There is IMHO a business opportunity for a travel agency to organize vacation trips for this...

(I had knee problems for half my life -- this did lower my life quality. The private doctor that in the end diagnosed and cured it (easily cured, by the way...), said that he'd seen quite a few cases of that problem uncured for decades!)

Also note that if something isn't solved by the one-size-fits-all state systems and you end up paying privately -- you have little money left over after you've paid the world's highest taxes.

(Also, room/board isn't free for students. They generally take loans. Remember that part about having little money left over after taxes..?)

That said -- the US health care system seems worse than anywhere else in the western world.

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#62

Post by c1sc0 »

liedra wrote: post #38

This is ridiculous. Any American (or Australian for that matter!) who whines about their taxes should come and work for a few years in Europe. In Belgium, on an entry-level salary (for a post-doc academic position) I was being taxed at over 50% (my communal tax was at 8%): "For 2010, marginal income tax starts at 25%, rises to 30% over EUR 7,900, 40% over EUR 11,240, 45% over 18,730 EUR with a top limit of 50% for in…

Fellow Belgian here. Left the country 4 years ago & honestly I'm not sure if I ever want to go back. I'm raving mad about the political insanity. Despite the high tax levels, we managed to become a country that is virtually bankrupt & instead of tackling the problems we decided to focus on bullshit politics instead. I am not getting my money's worth and am actively pulling out, even if it saddens me because I used to like the country & the people.

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#63

Post by ju2tin »

jasonjei wrote: post #44
houseabsolute wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any other ethnic group would be up in arms That is because the other ethnic groups are not the dominant ones in society, and are typically disadvantaged on the whole because of their race. My personal view as a White person is that I have enough advantages by my White male-ness that I do not need to demand more, or do anything to offset whatever minor inconveniences might arise from the same. Doing so would seem pe…

I think what houseabsolute is saying has real validity. As a Chinese American, I've been teased at school for having a last name like "Hung," for speaking a language other than English. We haven't reached a world blind to color, and the faction on HN has a much better understanding of different cultures, skin colors, etc. than the average white American, especially of those in the South. It's a bit of a catch-22 situ…

Kids tease other kids about ANYTHING. If it weren't about your name, it would be something else. Doesn't mean white society is conspiring to keep Chinese people down.

And that UNC Chapel Hill thing is just disgusting. Not sure someone who would do something like that is a good representative of the attitudes of white people in general.

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#64

Post by loewenskind »

berntb wrote: post #61
loewenskind wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I mean sure, losing half your income to taxes is a problem This is a big issue I see in America (being American myself). Money spent in taxes is always considered "lost" [1]. Consider somewhere like Sweden. Tax rates go above 50%, but for that money they get health care, college for as high as they're capable of going (even room and board while they're attending!), etc., etc. So those are all things they don't have…

>>Consider somewhere like Sweden. Sweden has the world's highest taxes, but lots of the common functionality works badly. For example, it is really hard to get a doctor to put work into diagnosing any problems you have. There is IMHO a business opportunity for a travel agency to organize vacation trips for this... (I had knee problems for half my life -- this did lower my life quality. The private doctor that in the…

>Sweden has the world's highest taxes

Pretty sure that's actually Denmark.

>For example, it is really hard to get a doctor to put work into diagnosing any problems you have.

As opposed to the US where you'll pay substantially more money for it? In my experience doctors tend to check symptoms and form a matrix in their head of possible causes, applicable medication, removing medications that conflict with each other and just give you the whole remaining set. You'll be paying for all that medication, btw. If it works, they can't know for sure what it was or what fixed it. If it doesn't you enter round two, a subset of the previously excluded meds. Get out your wallet again.

>Also, room/board isn't free for students. They generally take loans.

Is this new? I used to hang out regularly with about 20 different Swedish students (an online game) and this is how they told it me worked. As far as I know none of them were working, just going to school.

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#65

Post by ju2tin »

Lost in the bashing of this professor who had the temerity not to want to pay higher taxes, is the fact that he had to invest lots of money to be able to earn his big salary. He probably has at least 7 years of higher education. His wife, as a medical doctor, probably has at least 8, if I understand correctly how med school and internships work. They sank a huge amount of money -- maybe close to $500,000 -- into investing in their careers, while most people in the lower income brackets have spent little, if anything, in that way. And the cost to the professor and his wife is even greater if you factor in the opportunity cost of not working high-paying jobs all those years they were in school. Call it a cool million sunk into their education and training, easily.

So it's hardly greedy of the guy to want to be able to at least pay back his wife's student loans before Obama hits him up even harder to help finance a new era of government expansion. There's a difference between revenue and profits, after all.

As for saying he shouldn't have bought a million-dollar house, that's hardly an unreasonable price for a couple with a combined annual income of roughly half that amount. As a multiple of their income, it's comparable to a couple who makes $125,000 a year buying a house worth $250,000. That doesn't sound so crazy, does it?

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#66

Post by rdl »

guelo wrote: post #50
jasonkester wrote: post #42

As somebody who stands to get clobbered by this high tax bracket, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one out here who thinks it's just fine. I've always been in favor of a flat tax with a lower bound. So, say 50% of all income above $20k. Let the regular folk (like me last during the last couple years of getting a bootstrapped startup off the ground) get off without paying any tax whatsoever. Take up the slack by mak…

There is no "50% tax bracket". Obama's proposed plan would raise the 33% and 35% brackets to 36% and 39.6%.

There is if you count state and local taxes. In California you can be paying 9.3% + 1.0%, and in other places (NYC) it can be even higher. At 39.6 + 9.3 + 1.0, you would be above most countries in the world.

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#67

Post by rdl »

nhebb wrote: post #58

What's with all the class warfare in the US lately? There isn't anything wrong with making money. I'm no where near the 450k/yr earnings range, but I certainly don't begrudge anyone who is. Some people seem to have the perspective that your earnings are the government's money, and they, through the goodness of their hearts, let you keep a percentage of it.

I think people don't (at least in the US, and probably globally, generally) begrudge people what they view as "fair" rewards, especially if they themselves might have a shot at them. Most of the political supporters of low taxes in the US are actually not incredibly high income, but people who think they may have high income in the future.

If you view most wealth and income as coming from fraud/crime or deceit, then it is much more reasonable to want some kind of confiscatory taxes. I think in the past, most Americans with relatively high incomes (doctors, small business owners, etc.) were well respected for contributing more value to the community than they took out in salaries. It is a lot harder even for me as a libertarian to defend those who make huge amounts of money from wall street, government regulation, etc.

In most third world countries with pretty open class warfare, the rich have largely made their money from extractive industry or other exploitation. I'm not sure if this is cause or effect -- there's a strong argument that living in a country where wealth only comes from that kind of thing actually turns your country into a horrible place to live, any where anyone who would otherwise be productive would then want to flee to be productive elsewhere.

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#68

Post by bhickey »

guelo wrote: post #50
jasonkester wrote: post #42

As somebody who stands to get clobbered by this high tax bracket, I sometimes feel like I'm the only one out here who thinks it's just fine. I've always been in favor of a flat tax with a lower bound. So, say 50% of all income above $20k. Let the regular folk (like me last during the last couple years of getting a bootstrapped startup off the ground) get off without paying any tax whatsoever. Take up the slack by mak…

There is no "50% tax bracket". Obama's proposed plan would raise the 33% and 35% brackets to 36% and 39.6%.

Sure, but you're leaving out FICA (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%). This bumps the brackets to 40.65% and 42.65% (or 43.65% and 47.25%). After local taxes this can easily top 50%. Suppose you earned $357k gross in Rhode Island. Your total tax liability would be in the area of $189k, or 52.7%.

All of this also ignores the employer FICA contribution.

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#69

Post by rdl »

bhickey wrote: post #68
guelo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "50% tax bracket". Obama's proposed plan would raise the 33% and 35% brackets to 36% and 39.6%.

Sure, but you're leaving out FICA (6.2%) and Medicare (1.45%). This bumps the brackets to 40.65% and 42.65% (or 43.65% and 47.25%). After local taxes this can easily top 50%. Suppose you earned $357k gross in Rhode Island. Your total tax liability would be in the area of $189k, or 52.7%. All of this also ignores the employer FICA contribution.

FICA phases out around $100k, but there's also the future ObamaCare 3.8% tax (unearned income) 0.9% (earned income) as well (currently legislated to begin 1 JAN 2013).

Re: Pity the Poor Couple Who Make $450,000 Per Year

#70

Post by berntb »

loewenskind wrote: post #64
berntb wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Consider somewhere like Sweden. Sweden has the world's highest taxes, but lots of the common functionality works badly. For example, it is really hard to get a doctor to put work into diagnosing any problems you have. There is IMHO a business opportunity for a travel agency to organize vacation trips for this... (I had knee problems for half my life -- this did lower my life quality. The private doctor that in the…

>Sweden has the world's highest taxes Pretty sure that's actually Denmark. >For example, it is really hard to get a doctor to put work into diagnosing any problems you have. As opposed to the US where you'll pay substantially more money for it? In my experience doctors tend to check symptoms and form a matrix in their head of possible causes, applicable medication, removing medications that conflict with each other a…

>>Pretty sure that's actually Denmark.

It might be Denmark this year. It is/was a hard battle for the "top" position between them.

>>As opposed to the US

Hrm...

I did also write: "That said -- the US health care system seems worse than anywhere else in the western world."

Finding health problems is afaik internationally acknowledged as the problem with Swedish health care.

Edit: I might add that from what I've heard -- when they've finally find a serious problem, the system is thorough. Just hope it isn't too late if/when you get a diagnosis...

>>Is this new?

You seemed to say different in what I commented?

No. It isn't new. I studied there twice (in different decades).

Generally, students take loans to cover living expenses during studies. You get subsidies, but today most students have to work extra because the loans/subsidies don't cover living expenses.

Edit: If you're young and going to study, it might be worth the trouble to do it in Europe. There is some minor cost to study at Swedish universities for non-EU students (new this year), but imho -- avoid Scandinavia, it is probably too similar to Canada from your viewpoint. Go for Germany or something.

Edit: Removed failed attempt at humor.

Post reply on HN