is there any way to add comps to this site? it would be very interesting to see how our split of gov't spending compares to other countries
USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
311–320 of 359 posts
Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's only true in a very academic sense. Ideally you would want to exclude the expenses incurred to sustain a reasonable minimum quality of life and only consider taxation on income in excess of that. A truly flat tax rate is still regressive in the sense that it is a significantly higher burden on that expendable income at the lower end of the scale.
> Ideally you would want to exclude the expenses incurred to sustain a reasonable minimum quality of life and only consider taxation on income in excess of that I don't agree that is ideal. Ideally, everyone makes an equal sacrifice. What is an equal sacrifice? * Everyone could pay the exact same amount of tax, let's say $15K. But that is not equal sacrifice; some people can afford $15K much more easily than others (…
It's generally accepted that the value of money is roughly logarithmic as it increases. A logarithmic flat tax could look something like this:
1) Figure how many times poverty rate you make in revenue (2x, 3x, whatever)
2) Take the log base 10
3) Multiply by some flat constant that is the same for everyone, so that the total national amount taxed is how much the US needs. Last I checked, that flat constant would be around 9.
4) The result is what percentage of your revenue you should pay in taxes.
Currently, we are far from logarithmic. Under this scheme, pretty much everyone reading this board would pay less taxes. Bill Gates pays about the right amount. Exxon would pay more.
Useful as a thought experiment to explore how far away we are from a fair level of progressive taxation.
Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#313Is this not a glorified data.world?
Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Those making $250K and up are responsible for 51.6% of all income tax revenue. How much more should they be expected to contribute? And this is what is so annoying about groups complaints about the wealthy paying taxes. The heavy reliance on misleading statistics. The quote says a specific group pays 51% of all tax revenue and says it's way too much. Well did they collect 51% of all income? An entire article that n…
The quote says a specific group pays 51% of all tax revenue and says it's way too much. Well did they collect 51% of all income? Probably not. Some quick Googling finds this analysis: http://www.financialsamurai.com/how-much-money-do-the-top-in... It uses different split points, but claims that the top 5% of earners make about 35% of the total AGI, but pay 59% of gross income taxes.
Of course, federal "income taxes" are less than 2/3 of total federal taxes on income.
Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We would have a budget surplus if we actually made Social Security/other Gov. retirement program replacement actually sustain itself perpetually. What. A. Concept. The problem is that there are a lot of people who believe that SS isn't broken because you can simply increase retirement age, make people pay in more, and other assorted band-aids. SS will be "solvent" until it suddenly isn't, and people need to realize…
Retirement age must increase. People are living longer than when retirement pensions were first designed. It was easy to introduce, people weren't expected to live that long then and now they do.
I will actually HAPPILY increase my retirement age: when employers stop firing engineers over the age of 55 and replacing them with college grads. I'm happy to work until 72 or even 75. I have a pretty generous vacation allowance, so I'm not feeling the "rat race" in that way anymore. What I'm feeling is the creeping dread as I approach 50, that I'm going to be rightsized.
Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social Security is perpetually misunderstood. It's working as designed. Those surpluses that you're looking for were essentially just dumped on the federal balance sheet as non-marketable debt and spent on stuff like building aircraft carriers. The "deficit" means that it's time to pay back those IOUs. It's pretty easily balance that -- you raise the threshold for payroll taxes and index it to inflation. Flat tax is…
It's pretty easily balance that -- you raise the threshold for payroll taxes and index it to inflation. It's already indexed to wage growth rates, and there's nothing "easy" (or at least, shouldn't be) about a 12.4% marginal tax rate hike.
It's easier than dealing with the blowback from slashing essential benefits from millions of seniors.
My guess would be that the marginal dollar provided to a 30th percentile income individual has a higher economic impact than a loss of 0.12 of a marginal dollar for a person making $150k.
Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
A couple things... The parent is talking about "progressive" as in "the tax gets progressively higher as you make more money", not in the "social justice" sense. The flat tax being regressive means that the poor would have to actually pay more in taxes than they do now, which is very little. That's seen as a bad thing. Obviously there are solutions to that in flat tax proposals. Second, "the wealthy pay very little t…
> Those making $250K and up are responsible for 51.6% of all income tax revenue. How much more should they be expected to contribute? And this is what is so annoying about groups complaints about the wealthy paying taxes. The heavy reliance on misleading statistics. The quote says a specific group pays 51% of all tax revenue and says it's way too much. Well did they collect 51% of all income? An entire article that n…
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Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just one simple example would be that there is an untaxed amount, let's say $25k (or whatever the poverty level is) and everything above is 20%.
That is still regressive. A truly progressive tax system would be similar to what we have now but with much fewer deductions that the affluent can use to lower their effective tax rate. (Oft cited that warren buffet has a lower effective tax rate than his secretary because of all the deductions and loopholes.) Not to mention that there is a huge misunderstanding of how progressive tax rates work. A very affluent busi…
> That is still regressive
No, it's clearly not. Lemme give you some examples assuming a 15% flat tax and a 25K pre-bate (or credit, or whatever you want to call it):
1) 25k income, $0 tax - effective tax rate = 0% 2) 50k income, $3,750 tax - effective tax rate = 7.5% 3) 100k income, $11,250 tax - effective tax rate = 11.25% 4) 1M income, $146,250 tax - effective tax rate = 14.625%
It's clearly a progressive tax, as the rate goes up as income goes up. Feel free to call the above rates or the idea of a flat tax unfair, but please don't try to glance the meaning of well defined terms like 'regressive tax' to mean what you want them to.
Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I don't believe the tax burden on the lower classes in the US has ever been lessened by increased rates at the top levels." Every dollar of extra tax paid by the wealthy is a dollar of tax that doesn't need to be paid by the non-wealthy. Your belief notwithstanding.
You missed what I said. I said tax rates, not what was actually paid, as you stated. The people at the top have the ability to move. Or when the tax rates were 90%+ on the top brackets, those people simply reported they made $249,999 that year as they have the ability to find other places for their money. Sorry if that wasn't clear enough. What I originally said is very different than how you understood it. Even in y…
You presuppose governments just spend what they get, no-one benefits in any way, and tax rates have no impact at the margins. You're so completely off the mark I don't know where to start.
It's fine to be cynical about rich people avoiding tax and the benefit of government programs, but you need to understand what you're being cynical about. The fact is that tax cuts do reduce revenue so having higher taxes clearly did something.
Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point that the businessman was trying to make is not that he misunderstands how marginal tax rates work, but for the next dollar I'm going to earn, I now get to keep less. My incentive to earn the NEXT dollar is therefore less. This is exactly why we don't have a tax rate on the top bracket of 90% like in the Eisenhower era. It's not about being taxed on all your money when you make over that amount, it is, where…
Listen, I saw it and I know what he said. he said if he goes one dollar over 250k he would make less than if he had not gone over that threshold. this is complete bullshit and it was either an ignorant understanding of marginal tax rates or a deliberate way to obfuscate the issue with a national tv appearance where you can feign ignorance and most of the population doesn't understand tax rates. He didn't say after 25…
> he said if he goes one dollar over 250k he would make less than if he had not gone over that threshold.
That actually is theoretically possible - there are numerous tax credits and deductions that come with income caps, and while they are generally phased out, it's not always a smooth slope, and can have some cliffs.
Obviously he'd be in a very odd and like one-time situation if that were the case, but it is possible with how screwy our tax system is.