Another way to look at it, e.g. for income tax - if we take the same % (e.g. 30%) and think in terms of absolute numbers - for poor it is anyway a small amount, but for the rich the abs number might be so big that it becomes uncomfortable to just give such lump sum to government, especially if you don't like how gov spends it - so the incentives are much higher to optimize/avoid your taxes.
For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
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Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I thought workers owning the means of production was communism, whereas socialism has come to mean the distribution of value to society through highly general programs.
No. Communism is a stateless and classless society, that, in Marxism, is the next step after the "dictatorship of the proletariat", or the ideology that wants to achieve this state. Socialism is the public ownership of the means of production. Communism is a form of socialism.
Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#33All the people I know with money that have shared their effective tax rate pay way less than I do. Way less than this chart shows as well. I'm talking down to the single digits for effective tax rate. I can't 100% confirm that they're telling the truth, but I'm not sure why they would lie.
Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#34That is correct, the rich don't pay any taxes at all (whenever the can). The was a recent thread on HN regarding tax audits [0]. What I got from that is that the IRS cannot afford to audit the rich because their taxes are complicated and they don't have enough resources to do so. They choose to audit the poor instead because, it is simpler.. link [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21176705
Yup. That's the strategy the Military uses - https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/pent...
"At a cost of $400 million, some 1,200 auditors charged into the jungle of military finance, but returned in defeat. They were unable to pass the Pentagon or flunk it. They could only offer no opinion, explaining the military’s empire of hundreds of acronymic accounting silos was too illogical to penetrate"
Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#35See Figure 10 on this chart
https://www.nber.org/papers/w22945.pdf
The data in this NYT article comes from research by the same authors as the above paper, which shows the top 1% having maximum effective tax rate over the years of around 45%? Confusing to say the least what is the difference.
Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#36There’s so much that could be done if we taxed the ultra rich and huge corporations just a little bit more, and more effectively.
They would just renounce their US citizenship and move to a country with lower taxes. That’s what Eduardo Saverin did.
Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#37What a shit article. It's well known that despite the high marginal tax rates of the past, very few people ever paid those. Deductions abound that have since been eliminated. What you should really look at is real effective tax rates by income level.[1] What you'll find is that the top 1% make 19% of all income, but pay 37% of all taxes, with an average tax rate of 27%. The bottom 50% earn 11% of all income, but only…
I'm not sure how informative that is. It's natural for the poorest 50% to pay a lot less tax; they first need to have enough money to eat and live before they can even afford to pay taxes. This is simply progressive taxation at work.
Although I suppose showing that the top 1% has 19% of the income while the bottom 50% has 11% of the income does show the vast income discrepancy.
Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#38What a shit article. It's well known that despite the high marginal tax rates of the past, very few people ever paid those. Deductions abound that have since been eliminated. What you should really look at is real effective tax rates by income level.[1] What you'll find is that the top 1% make 19% of all income, but pay 37% of all taxes, with an average tax rate of 27%. The bottom 50% earn 11% of all income, but only…
The graph in article is effective, not marginal. The poorest do pay less in absolute numbers because they are poor, that's a statement of income inequality, not progressivity of the tax rate.
Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#39So since this is all 100% legal, are there resources available for people like us in the upper middle class bracket working as engineers in Silicon Valley to take advantage of all this? Almost half of my salary goes to taxes every paycheck. That’s almost $150,000 I literally never get to see just taken away.
Takes home $150k. Has access to world-class infrastructure and public services. Complains.
Sounds about right.
Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate
#40What a shit article. It's well known that despite the high marginal tax rates of the past, very few people ever paid those. Deductions abound that have since been eliminated. What you should really look at is real effective tax rates by income level.[1] What you'll find is that the top 1% make 19% of all income, but pay 37% of all taxes, with an average tax rate of 27%. The bottom 50% earn 11% of all income, but only…
- They are NOT speaking of the 1% (such as medical professional or high income technical professionals)
- They are NOT speaking of the 0.1 %.
- They are speaking of the 0.01%. One person out of 10000. Not multimillionaires. 100 millionaires and billionaires.
There is a very good reason why the tax foundating speaks of the 1% and not of the 0.1% or 0.01% : it is usefull to protect billionaires.