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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

#231

Post by astine »

eloisant wrote: post #119
throwing838383 wrote: post #95

It's misleading because the rich that they're talking about already paid a much higher rate when they originally got the money in earnings. It's just the 2nd round of taxation: the capital gains which is lower, as it should be. And let's not forget, taxes are extremely high on everyone. The US Govt spends 38% of all US GDP, currently (recently above 40%!). https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spendi.…

I don't see why capital gains should be taxed lower. Money you get from working, from your blood and your sweat should be heavily taxed, but money you're earning just by already having money (whether it's from your work, inherited, donated from family members) shouldn't be taxed as well? What's the logic here?

"I don't see why capital gains should be taxed lower."

The point of taxing capital gains lower than income is to encourage the wealthy to invest rather than hoard their wealth. This is good because invested money helps drive economic growth which is usually good for everyone.

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

#232

Post by dragonwriter »

gnicholas wrote: post #218
dragonwriter wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capital gains are not inflation-indexed, which is one reason to have a lower rate. No, it's a good reason to inflation adjust them; not inflation adjusting them and charging a lower rate means that people who can regularly turn over capital so that there is often very little inflation effect (more common with the really rich) pay low real taxes on income, while people who have a few capital assets that are held a l…

I completely agree that we should inflation-index assets for which electronic purchase/sale records readily available (stock purchased through brokerages). For other types of assets, the inflation rationale is still a decent reason to have a lower LTCG rate (think antiques, paintings, etc.).

> I completely agree that we should inflation-index assets for which electronic purchase/sale records readily available (stock purchased through brokerages).

How are electronic records relevant? The information needed is expected, whether records or electronic or not, when doing capital gains now, so there's non rational need for electronic records.

> For other types of assets, the inflation rationale is still a decent reason to have a lower LTCG rate

No, it's not. For the reasons already explained.

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

#233

Post by chagen »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #210
folbec wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 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.

1. US population: 329,663,350 2. 0.01% is 32,966 people, not 100 3. There are 585 billionaires in the US [0] 4. Billionaires make up 0.00017% of the population [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_numbe...

regarding 2: I think they meant millionaires with more than $100,000,000.

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

#234

Post by journalctl »

bena wrote: post #153
journalctl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Conspiracy theories are always so impractical. It would’ve been way easier to just ship all of the documents to an incinerator and yeah, just not say anything.

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

#235

Post by astrodust »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #210
folbec wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- 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.

1. US population: 329,663,350 2. 0.01% is 32,966 people, not 100 3. There are 585 billionaires in the US [0] 4. Billionaires make up 0.00017% of the population [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_the_numbe...

A) This is implied to mean people of working age, so under 20 doesn't count.

B) The 0.01% is not all billionaires, but they are all extremely high-net-worth individuals. These are people that are not only set for life, but with proper money management and tax planning, could carry on for generations without having to do a lick of work.

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

#236

Post by astrodust »

lm28469 wrote: post #156
mcv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"I like having a car but hate spending all that money on maintenance. It's just money out of my pocket!"

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

#237

Post by dekhn »

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.

as mentioned elsewhere, the part of the pentagon that was destroyed was not "the accounting wing" which is also not even a concept that makes sense.

Pretty much every 9/11 truther cites "facts" but then has trouble when the facts turn out to be not true or are willful, limited misinterpretations of reality.

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

#238

Post by sidlls »

isoskeles wrote: post #114
wnissen wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each general is the CEO of a multi-thousand person organization. Whether CEO pay is reasonable is a different discussion, but it would be surprising if generals were not paid well.

Generals are not paid that well, at least not compared to a Silicon Valley software engineer's salary. I think they make ~$200k ( https://militarypay.defense.gov/Portals/3/Documents/ActiveDu... ), so if any of them are obscenely wealthy, best guess is they make a lot of money off of "speaking events" like any other person with political connections.

They also have many other benefits, including housing subsidies, commissary access, essentially free health care, etc. Officers especially are compensated very well.

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

#239

Post by rdl »

darawk wrote: post #225
jellicle wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The top 1% are indeed audited at about the same rate as the working poor, but they also pay higher taxes than everyone else. But they don't. That's the point. Your conventional wisdom is wrong. The USA has a large number of regressive taxes, which tax the poor more heavily than the rich. These have been steadily expanded. And it has one, only one, progressive tax - the federal (not state) income tax - which has bee…

> The USA has a large number of regressive taxes, which tax the poor more heavily than the rich. These have been steadily expanded. And it has one, only one, progressive tax - the federal (not state) income tax - which has been steadily made less progressive in recent years to the point where overall taxation is at best flat and more likely slightly regressive. Citation needed. Saying the US has "only one" progressiv…

Most of the bottom ~50% or so of households pay no (or negative) federal income tax, due to low income, EITC, various offsets for children, etc.

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

#240

Post by 0x0aff374668 »

darawk wrote: post #225
jellicle wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The top 1% are indeed audited at about the same rate as the working poor, but they also pay higher taxes than everyone else. But they don't. That's the point. Your conventional wisdom is wrong. The USA has a large number of regressive taxes, which tax the poor more heavily than the rich. These have been steadily expanded. And it has one, only one, progressive tax - the federal (not state) income tax - which has bee…

> The USA has a large number of regressive taxes, which tax the poor more heavily than the rich. These have been steadily expanded. And it has one, only one, progressive tax - the federal (not state) income tax - which has been steadily made less progressive in recent years to the point where overall taxation is at best flat and more likely slightly regressive. Citation needed. Saying the US has "only one" progressiv…

> And that only increases as you get richer.

Correct. Which is why income is such a miniscule fraction of the 1% (and above's) earnings. It's all out there in the open. Pick any CEO in the top-100 corporations. Look at their income. Then look at their overall earnings. The bulk falls under capital gains due to stock. Then there is deferred compensation, where taxes are lowered even MORE if you agree to postpone being paid. There are so many clever ways for the very very rich to avoid taxes it boggles the mind.

So go ahead and keep talking about the income tax, they've got you distracted.

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