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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

#261

Post by palunon »

0x0aff374668 wrote: post #240
darawk wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Pick any CEO in the top-100 corporations.

The top is about 3.5 millions people. Being one of the top-100 CEOs is very, very different from being a random one percenter.

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

#262

Post by ur-whale »

patientplatypus wrote: post #205

Can the IRS be sued for violating equal protection under the law? They have admitted that they don't have the budget to go after high net worth individuals who can pay tax attorneys to hide their income in tax loopholes, so isn't that a tacit admittance that the rich can cheat on their taxes with impunity? If that's the case then not all citizens are held equally accountable to the same laws. That would seem to be a…

No problem, the cost of defending the suit plus the cost of potentially more audit means it will just cost more to run the IRS the subsequent year.

If only they could be bankrupted, now we'd be talking. Except they can't cause, like the rest of the government, they get to suck on the teat of infinite yield: people's taxes.

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

#263

Post by joshuamorton »

dv_dt wrote: post #230
kevinwang wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual article contains charts that seem to support the claim that the top 1% pay higher taxes

I think there is a key language ambiguity here. Whatever your position on what the rich should pay, there is a question of what is being paid as a proportional rate of total income, vs what is being paid in absolute terms. Confounding that difference are also issues of income tax rate, vs capital gains rates and wealth vs income. The wealthy pay in absolute terms, more dollars, but they pay a lower rate than others.

No, according to this article, the 1% continue to pay a larger percent of their income. It is only once you move into the 1% of the 1% that the rate again decreases.

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

#264

Post by empath75 »

zarro wrote: post #259

I think this “vilify the rich minority” mentality that’s so popular these days is destructive in the fact that the people that popularize this, see it as a path of least resistance to getting subsidized at the expense of the rich, instead of working toward improving themselves and the value of the products/services they provide so that they may, in return, purchase valuable services for themselves. In the end when th…

What about all those services like public education, roads, the military, police force, federally funded research, societal stability and so on that government provides which enabled those wealthy people to gain and maintain their wealth to begin with.

And what services did Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump provide the world, or all the other heirs and heiresses of vast fortunes who earned it by virtue of being the scion of someone who actually accomplished something -- or maybe the offspring of the offspring of someone who actually accomplished something?

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

#265

Post by ytNumbers »

apazzolini wrote: post #68
ytNumbers wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/

See the rest of the comments on this post to understand why this link isn't useful in the discussion of taxes on the top 0.01%, which is the subject of the parent article.

One aspect of what can be found in the NYT article is a graph that shows the people at the very top of the income pyramid paying a 70% tax rate in 1950. However, there's a nominal tax rate versus what someone actually winds up paying after various deductions an loopholes. An earlier study by the same authors of this latest publication that the NYT is citing indicates that those in the top 1% were paying around 40% in 1950. Based on that, I find the claim that those at the very top paid 70% in 1950 to be highly doubtful. Am I right about this? Well, I guess I'll have to wait a week for this latest book to be published, or until the NYT issues a correction. The earlier study from these same authors, which was cited in the link I posted above, can be found at:

https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/133/2/553/4430651/

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

#266

Post by troupe »

mLuby wrote: post #175

We should tax wealth not income. Yes I know it's hard to calculate. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Also financial penalties should be percentages of wealth, not fixed dollar amounts (perhaps with a floor). E.g. fine for littering is 1% wealth.

Lets say you save $10,000 and invest it in a stock. It then goes up to $20,000. You are happy to pay taxes on that amount even though next year it might go back down again?

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

#268

Post by gnicholas »

holy_city wrote: post #242
gnicholas wrote: post #198

A couple of points regarding the lower rate of taxation for capital gains: • Capital gains are not inflation-indexed, which is one reason to have a lower rate. Consider three individuals: * Person A earned $100,000 working at BigCo in 2019 * Person B sold shares in 2019 that were purchased in 2017, for a (LTCG) gain of $100,000 * Person C sold shares in 2019 that were purchased in 1965, for a (LTCG) gain of $100,000…

I don't think you could say CG taxes are "double taxation" since only the income from the asset is taxed, not the principle. >it's much less than that because of inflation Why would you hold an investment for 55 years that isn't beating inflation?

> Why would you hold an investment for 55 years that isn't beating inflation?

The point is that the inflation is getting taxed also. Say inflation is at 2 percent per year over the period, and it's appreciating at 2 percent more than that annually. Then when you pay taxes, the "capital gain" amount includes both the real appreciation and the inflation. So in this example, half of the putative "gain" is actually inflation.

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

#269

Post by munificent »

zarro wrote: post #259

I think this “vilify the rich minority” mentality that’s so popular these days is destructive in the fact that the people that popularize this, see it as a path of least resistance to getting subsidized at the expense of the rich, instead of working toward improving themselves and the value of the products/services they provide so that they may, in return, purchase valuable services for themselves. In the end when th…

> see it as a path of least resistance to getting subsidized at the expense of the rich.

If making the tax code more progressive is equivalent to "subsidizing the poor at the expense of the rich", does that mean you're saying the current regressive tax laws subsidize the rich at the expense of the poor?

If so, flipping that sounds entirely reasonable to me.

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

#270

Post by conanbatt »

ur-whale wrote: post #252

Correction: the rich pay a lower tax rate than you. They do pay, however, vastly more than you do. The various governments have somehow managed to brainwash the masses into comparing rates instead of actual amount paid. Very neat trick of you ask me.

Yeah this is a key issue. People often think that a Flat-tax rate is regressive because of consumer habits, but what you care the most of all is tax-consumption and tax-benefit, even more than nominal contributions.

A billionarie made with defense contracts and state expenditures deserves a moral argument. But so does a lowly government employee that provides net negative value and collects a paycheck everymonth.

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