What 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 argument for corporate income tax is misplaced. Many socialist countries have a low (or no) corporate income tax and that's goods. A country shouldn't tax the things it would like to encourage. In this case, that companies re-invest and not pull the funds out to pay investors. Capital gains tax should probably be mentioned. Why is it a much lower rate than income tax? Why not talk about that? Strange also that th…
basically this.
in these mostly socialist countries, the top income bracket starts much much lower than in the US. these countries tax the middle class and consumption with VAT ranging from 15-21% on consumption. in spain the top bracket starts around 60,000 euros a year and its 45% not including local tax.
these policies and similar ones in other countries in effect keep the rich rich and make it much, much harder for the poor/middle class to move up.
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.
That 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
Would it help to start a fund specific to this purpose? I'd imagine there would be significant ROI on it, in the big picture sense.
There’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.
Some might, but some are older and have roots in family ties and local ties. It is actually pretty hard and not especially desirable for many to abandon friends and family to save a money that is only to buy even more luxuries/see a bigger number in an account somewhere.
This article is looking at even smaller/higher percentiles than the article that you're referencing. I believe this explains the difference.
Yes, there is no explanation of exactly how that number (400) was chosen. Given that the US is widely acknowledged to be one of the most progressive tax systems in the world, the burden of proof required here is far higher than the article attempts.
Widely known by whom? I'm not sure how that could be true even in theory; there is no universally agreed on definition of "progressive".
What 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.
I agree, but the parent is responding to the article’s claim that the rich pay less. This isn’t in support of the parent’s comment, just trying to clarify the conversation and root out accidental straw men.
That 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
Careful. The two articles rely on vastly different cherry-picked definitions of who counts as rich, and neither claim is even remotely true anymore if you use the other definition. The top 1% are indeed audited at about the same rate as the working poor, but they also pay higher taxes than everyone else. This NYT article on the other hand picks out the top 400, who apparently pay lower taxes but are much more aggressively audited by the IRS than less wealthy people even with the funding cuts limiting their ability to do so. (According to the linked letter from the IRS, they heavily audit roughly the top 20,000 most well-off Americans.)
What 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…
Your source is a controversial one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation
These numbers are consistent across studies, and across countries. So try harder next time you want to discredit sources of data you don't like.