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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

#401

Post by walshemj »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #385
koheripbal wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that "tax rate" is an ambiguous term because different kinds of income at taxed at different rates. So, for example, if someone makes most of their money on dividends, then they pay capital gains tax, and it appears like they are unfairly paying a lower rate than everyone else. ...but that's not a fair comparison because it's a different sort of income, with a VASTLY riskier risk profile. Taxing it at…

> but that's not a fair comparison because it's a different sort of income, with a VASTLY riskier risk profile. Taxing it at the income rate wouldn't make sense. Ah yes, the riskiest activities of them all: investing in fortune 500, government bonds, index funds and inflating real-estate prices. They all count as capital gains.

Most of those are higher risk than interest on cash or TIPS (not all government bods are safe) ask the shareholders of Thomas Cook or Going back a bit Enron about risk.

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

#402

Post by Jweb_Guru »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #335
dv_dt wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The wealthy pay in absolute terms, more dollars, but they pay a lower rate than others. There’s at least one perspective where this makes sense: Everyone expects a discount on goods and services when purchased in bulk. Why should tax be abt different?

Paying taxes is not "buying the government" and paying higher taxes is not buying "more" of it, or buying it in bulk. For starters: bulk rates are lower, in part, as an incentive to get people to buy more of a product at once. Since paying taxes is (ostensibly) mandatory, this doesn't apply.

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

#404

Post by fzeroracer »

filoleg wrote: post #280
esoterica wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no canonical neutral in politics. “Neutral” is just code for “stuff I agree with”. You don’t really want neutral content, you just want content that validates your existing beliefs. The article lists a bunch of facts and numbers, why do you consider it “non-factual”?

They probably meant that they want factual content that either leaves out the narrative completely or equally covers all sides of the story with equal regard. I.e., content that focuses on facts and supplements it with narrative when needed. As opposed to the majority of the current political content, where the narrative takes the first and foremost place (usually very one-sided narrative too), and then facts just ac…

Where does the buck end, though? What if people demand you cover evidence of a flat Earth whenever you talk about the planet? Or climate change denial when talking about record-breaking heatwaves?

Avoiding politicized content is impossible because anything can be politicized. As the above poster here put it, neutral articles effectively means articles whose politics you agree with and/or articles that reinforce the status quo.

Now we can argue about intellectually dishonest articles and ones that bury the lede, but the article in the OP does back up the assertion with data.

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

#405

Post by walshemj »

rayiner wrote: post #197
solotronics wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just a single example but it was eye opening when my friend told me about one of his clients. He is the chief mechanic at an exotic car dealership and one of their biggest customers is an active duty general in the Marines, this guy has millions of USD worth of cars.

Without some concrete statistics, it’s hard to analyze that. A non-trivial number of officers have family money.

In the UK id buy that chaps joining the guards regiment their fathers /grandfathers did

I kind of got the impression that the military isn't seen in that way in the USA and didn't have such a high social status

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

#406

Post by shkkmo »

mcguire wrote: post #346
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…

There are also: * FICA, which is strongly regressive at the higher end. * Sales taxes, which are also strongly regressive since (citation needed) the poor likely pay more of their income on taxable goods. ("There's only so much filet mignon you can eat," according to a government professor I once had.) * Property taxes. * Fees.

Don't forget government run lotteries

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

#408

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

dv_dt wrote: post #400
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evidently, as evidenced by every large spending project since the dawn of time (probably?). As I posted elsewhere in these comments: Everyone expects a discount on goods and services when purchase in bulk. Why should taxes be any different?

The wealthy also receive the lions share of benefits from stability and especially international infrastructure maintained by the US state. Some would argue that taxes are different because of the issue of fairness in society, and for the fortunate who have vastly more than needed to survive, more should be expected to help everyone else. This is in the self interest of the wealthy, as economic growth is actually stu…

I tend to agree with the idea that the wealthy should be taxed more, in a progressive taxation sense.

Perhaps I should have prefaced by previous comment with “playing devils advocate”.

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

#409

Post by WalterBright »

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…

> it has one, only one, progressive tax - the federal (not state) income tax

The estate tax is very progressive, at 40% for estates over $11.4m, and 0% for estates worth less.

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

#410

Post by dexterdog »

kaibee wrote: post #343
dexterdog wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos is with about $110B. He is "tangentially related" to far more than 110 people. There is a solid track record of inheritors of massive wealth pissing it all away in a generation or two so you don't have to worry too much about it.

> There is a solid track record of inheritors of massive wealth pissing it all away in a generation or two so you don't have to worry too much about it. I don't think wasting billions of dollars is any better.

Where is it wasted? It gets invested or spent.
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