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USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

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Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#331

Post by hackuser »

tunesmith wrote: post #312
hackuser wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

Thanks.

> It's generally accepted that the value of money is roughly logarithmic as it increases

I assume that is economic theory; do you remember whose or have any pointers to where I can read more?

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#332

Post by some1else »

Pokepokalypse wrote: post #300
shmageggy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lastly, it seems that Government revenue for Federal and State/Local has actually increased pretty linearly with the population. Despite all the different changes in the income tax rate/other progressive taxes. This supports an overhaul to the tax code to a more simple, flat tax system. From another data source outside this report, I'd have to find it, but historically, no matter the top bracket tax rate, the Feder…

In practice; we currently have a very UN-progressive system. Where the very wealthy get excessive tax breaks, and pay even less than the middle and upper-middle class (who are getting fucking murdered: at least that's my experience). Would a flat-tax fix this? In theory: but if we set that "flat tax" to 15-17%; (and simply pocket the cost savings from simplification of tax code) - that seems like a win. But the very…

> the absolute murder "small businesses" get away with, (like; taking their personal Truck as a deduction, by calling it a "work truck")

How about "work computer"?

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#333

Post by weaksauce »

djrogers wrote: post #320
weaksauce wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 possib…

> 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.

That scenario is possible, sure. either way it's disingenuous to make the claim that they would lose money by making one more dollar when the tax breaks were not part of the discussion and that cliff would exist regardless of the marginal tax rate on the high earners(which they were discussing). I am ALL for simplifying the tax code to remove subsidies and loopholes and other complexities to the tax code. I am not for removing the progressive nature of the tax code.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#334

Post by hwillis »

deelowe wrote: post #326
QuarterReptile wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While most of what you said is spot on, people often misunderstand what constitutes the super rich group with big tax breaks. It's way less than one percent, because it's the big investment money that's getting out of so much taxation. People who earn high salaries are actually paying quite substantial taxes. For some perspective, "the 1%" starts at about $350k annual salary (think middle-of-the-pack surgeon.) At tha…

Smart money finds ways to reduce that income as much as possible and lives instead off capital gains. I find that there's a lot of smart money once you get above 350 or so annual.

For these purposes, income includes everything, down to and including appreciation of assets. Capital gains make up the majority of income only for people making 2 million+ annually.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#335

Post by weaksauce »

djrogers wrote: post #318
weaksauce wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are two definitions of a regressive tax. the first deals strictly with the percentage rate and the second deals with the proportionality of effect toward lower class incomes. Your flat tax would be strictly progressive on the first front but regressive on the second even more regressive if tax deductions are still a thing. The only fair tax is one that is progressive and accounts for diminishing marginal utility of a dollar. Just like sales tax is a flat tax it's regressive because of the elasticity of demand for essentials.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#336

Post by grandalf »

s73ver wrote: post #288
grandalf wrote: post #244

By restricting the project to data provided by governments there is absolutely zero chance of much additional accountability being offered by this platform. I think all recipients of public funds should be required to account for all spending per hour, project and employee, and should also publish highly granular KPI and transactional data. I don't necessarily want to see a 10-K, I want access to google analytics, th…

That kind of accounting would drive up needed grants by at least 20%, or make it so that these NGOs wouldn't actually be able to do anything.

It would be fine if it started out accounting for those things by week, then eventually by day and hour.

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#337

Post by LolWolf »

kbenson wrote: post #211
schoen wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's regressive in that it causes the poor to pay more than they do now. With regard to taxes, progressive and regressive have specific meaning. Under that meaning, a flat tax is the border between progressive and regressive taxation. It is not an example of a regressive tax. Increasing the amount that poor people pay makes a tax scheme relatively more regressive, but if it's no more regressive than a flat tax, it'…

> Under that meaning, a flat tax is the border between progressive and regressive taxation. That depends entirely how you measure. If you measure by total income, then yes. If you measure by income after necessities for living are accounted for, then a very simple progressive tax that takes that into consideration might be considered the baseline, and a flat tax that doesn't take that into consideration could be cons…

I thought progressive and regressive referred to convex and concave taxation curves, respectively (both monotonically increasing, of course). Then flat tax is exactly the border (i.e. a linear function).

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#339

Post by kbenson »

LolWolf wrote: post #337
kbenson wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Under that meaning, a flat tax is the border between progressive and regressive taxation. That depends entirely how you measure. If you measure by total income, then yes. If you measure by income after necessities for living are accounted for, then a very simple progressive tax that takes that into consideration might be considered the baseline, and a flat tax that doesn't take that into consideration could be cons…

I thought progressive and regressive referred to convex and concave taxation curves, respectively (both monotonically increasing, of course). Then flat tax is exactly the border (i.e. a linear function).

While depending on background, that may be what some people think of as defining progressive and regressive taxes, and may indeed describe at a low level the concept that most people think of and even be the origination of the term, it's not the definition generally put forth currently[1][2] (which is, admittedly, very simplistic). That just goes to my point, which is that people aren't even necessarily in agreement on the terms, and might not even be aware of that.

1: https://apps.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/student/glossary...

2: https://apps.irs.gov/app/understandingTaxes/student/whys_thm...

Re: USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources

#340

Post by dandare »

japhyr wrote: post #329
dandare wrote: post #70

Dear USA Facts team, we would like to offer you few hints for public spending visualizations based on our experience. We are the creators of https://us.wikibudgets.org/w/united-states-budget-2016 . - Government spending is only a small part of the public finance. People need to see all public organisations: states and cities, departments, offices, bureaus and agencies, schools, hospital and prisons and obviously all…

I teach high school math and science, and I've been showing the zoomable budget to students all day. Now it's the end of the day, and staff and students are still coming in to share how much more clearly they understand where our federal money comes from, and where it goes. This kind of presentation of critical data is just awesome. Thanks so much for putting this together.

Thank you for your kind words. I could only the data was more detailed and perhaps in several dimensions and not only for the federal government.
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