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For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

nytimes.com

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Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#151

Post by newen »

tanderson92 wrote: post #136
newen wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lower tax rates, not necessarily lower taxes.

From TFA: > They have constructed a historical database that tracks the tax payments of households at different points along the income spectrum going back to 1913, when the federal income tax began. It may be reading the book for the full detail on methods and results. I plan to.

I was saying that the reason the IRS would audit richer people more is because they would pay more taxes even though they might have lower tax rates.

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#152

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

gok wrote: post #124

It's hard to figure out how they got that chart that I've now seen pasted about a dozen times around social media. They cite an unpublished book. But it looks comically wrong. The bottom decile's tax rate is nowhere near 25%. The entire bottom quintile's tax rate is around 3%, and less than 2% for federal taxes. Perhaps the book plays some games with what constitute a "tax rate?" For example, if you spend double your…

You should read the article before being so rudely dismissive (and comically wrong). He clearly states that the graph includes total tax burden, including payroll taxes, which is why the bottom quintile's tax rate is higher.

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#153

Post by bena »

journalctl wrote: post #113
cpr wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when Rumsfeld announced that 2.3T USD were missing from the military? https://www.city-journal.org/html/americas-missing-money-157... Yeah, nor do most people. The date he announced that? September 10, 2001. The section of the Pentagon hit? The accounting wing with all the records.

As though the US government would have to orchestrate several terrorist attacks just to obscure some bad finances which are basically meaningless anyway.

Yeah, that's the funny thing, we're supposed to trust that the Rumsfield thing is 100% legit but then they'd turn around and run a plane into the records to "hide" it.

They could have just like not said shit.

It's amazing how often conspiracy theories rely on the Illuminati DMV

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#154

Post by hogFeast »

sweeneyrod wrote: post #46
hogFeast wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Yes, there is. If you are suggesting that literally no-one has ever thought: I will compare tax systems between countries...then yes...they have done that.

And yes there are lots of objective measures of progressivity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax#Measuring_prog...

A good, brief, summary is - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/04/05/ameri... - and there is also this in the Economist which explains the issues around spending in more detail - https://www.economist.com/united-states/2017/11/23/american-...

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#155

Post by archie2 »

partingshots wrote: post #22

So 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.

Get a remote job for a valley company if you absolutely must work in the valley...and then move to Texas.

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#156

Post by lm28469 »

mcv wrote: post #37
refurb wrote: post #19

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.

> it's natural for the poorest 50% to pay a lot less tax

People don't understand that taxes are the only way to make capitalism work overall by making money trickle down to the poorest and into public infra structures and services. All they see is $$ leaving their account.

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#157

Post by xapata »

isoskeles wrote: post #107
xapata wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication was that they should be distinct but are not.

I didn't get that at all. Can you explain?

Generals do not earn millions in salary. To afford millions worth of automobiles, the general must have misappropriated funds.

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#158

Post by g2ah5z »

wffurr wrote: post #63
IggleSniggle wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do see it though. In your roads, your public libraries, educated working-class, your parks, your clean air, your safe-to-drink milk, etc etc etc

You also see it in the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that drop bombs on civilians in other countries, the global surveillance system, military aid to despotic regimes with no regard to human rights, the border guards that imprison children and harass travelers.

You also see it in crumbling roads, ancient subway systems, shitty public schools, dumb regulations that make the market less competitive, "affordable" housing initiatives that make housing less affordable, pointless subsidies for farmers, and unsustainable pension funds.

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#159

Post by swebs »

tartoran wrote: post #3

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

Maybe its time we start considering the Fair Tax plan again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

Re: For the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid a lower tax rate

#160

Post by ComputerGuru »

std_throwaway wrote: post #140
dekhn wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ummm, are you making an oblique "9/11 truther" claim?

What is wrong with those facts? Did they keep copies of those files in other locations? Did they explain the unaccounted money later on? EDIT: According to other comments who explained what's wrong, the "facts" are wrong and belong into the realm of "911truther" propaganda.

Money continued to disappear and in fact keeps disappearing and the Pentagon just says “oops, e we don’t know where it went, we’ll just permanently offset the books to balance them,” with no further accountability than that (across three administrations). They are basically untouchable even with records physically around; they do not need to resort to destruction of physical evidence so long as the military industrial complex is alive and well.
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