Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes • Hacker News Board

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#41

Post by tempsy » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 4:00 AM UTC

primis wrote: post #32

tempsy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this doesn’t factor in the $12k deduction and saving in a tax shielded 401k or IRA though which should both dramatically reduce adjusted income come tax time plus tax advantages you get when you are married and have dependents

When you're making 50-70k / year you're probably not able to put money in a 401k, especially in the event you have a single income 3 or 4 person household. This is also missing the point slightly. You shouldn't have to rely on tax day returns.

you will be able to claim deductions immediately and owe less taxes than a single person making the same. plus you get double the standard deduction. in that case you will really pay very few taxes even if you save very little in a 401k or IRA (though you still should even if you can’t max)

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#42

Post by ALittleLight » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 4:01 AM UTC

User23 wrote: post #34

They were liable for military service though. Being forced to go die fighting Spartans may not have an easily assigned monetary value, but it's certainly a civic obligation at least on par with tax paying.

Weren't the rich Athenians similarly obligated?

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#43

Post by vouaobrasil » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 4:01 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #33

WalterBright wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can defer taxes with 401ks, IRAs, Roth IRAs, and investing in stocks, a house, anything you have that appreciates in value. 40% of Americans have investments in stocks, it is hardly confined to 1%.

Contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax-deductible and early withdrawals are both taxed and penalized. You don’t just pay taxes as normal income when you take an early withdrawal from a 401k they also tack on a 10% penalty making such investments unusually risky. Untaxed capital gains on the other hand is just a free zero interest loan. Anyway, having stocks is irrelevant here. What matters is for tax burden is what…

Interestingly, that's not true in Canada's version of the Roth, the TSFA (tax-free savings account). There, you can make early withdrawals without being taxed, but that counts as a penalty towards future contributions. The total contribution amount is added to each year.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#44

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 4:05 AM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #25

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #9

This is a case of apples and oranges. Modern people expect more from their government than the Athenians so more people need to pay taxes to finance it. I agree that the more you earn the more you should pay in terms of percentage of income but the idea that only the rich need to pay taxes is unmaintainable. Also, when it comes to taxes no one is rich, just ask the high income people. There are plenty of people that…

> the idea that only the rich need to pay taxes is unmaintainable I'm not so sure. Taxes are for lots of things, but one of them is making sure a power hungry psycopath doesn't set themself up as king. We might end up spending less of it on weapons that cost thousands of dollars every time you pull the trigger if we taxed the problem away before it could gain momentum.

[deleted]

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#45

Post by AmericanChopper » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 4:07 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #33

WalterBright wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can defer taxes with 401ks, IRAs, Roth IRAs, and investing in stocks, a house, anything you have that appreciates in value. 40% of Americans have investments in stocks, it is hardly confined to 1%.

Contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax-deductible and early withdrawals are both taxed and penalized. You don’t just pay taxes as normal income when you take an early withdrawal from a 401k they also tack on a 10% penalty making such investments unusually risky. Untaxed capital gains on the other hand is just a free zero interest loan. Anyway, having stocks is irrelevant here. What matters is for tax burden is what…

The capital gains you’re talking about are not “untaxed”, they simply don’t exist. An unrealized capital gain is one that hasn’t occurred. It’s very intellectually dishonest to pretend that unrealized gains are real, and extremely so to pretend that they are income.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#46

Post by lvass » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 4:18 AM UTC

beedeebeedee wrote: post #37

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Low tax advocates want a more streamlined government that looks after core functions (managing trash, police, etc) rather than what it has taken on today (entire multimillion dollar agencies tasked with getting more women into high status jobs, regulation of the size and shape of cabbages, etc) The idea that "people who want less tax than I do just crave widespread poverty" is a sign you have an ide…

> The idea that "people who want less tax than I do just crave widespread poverty" is a sign you have an ideological brainworm. No one thinks like that. Plenty of people think that. They might not admit it publicly (or even admit the full implications to themselves), but they still think it, and more importantly, try to act on it.

Kindly reread HN guidelines, particularly: Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#47

Post by TheCoelacanth » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 4:20 AM UTC

utopcell wrote: post #21

Without delving into any moral or fairness arguments, it is probably fair to say that a US tax payer in the top 1% probably already pays 10x to 100x in taxes, in absolute terms, compared to the median tax payer. If I'm reading this [1] correctly, in 2020 about 99% of the population was responsible for 56% of individual taxes while 1% was responsible for the rest 44%. [1] https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-i…

That covers federal income tax, which is only one of many forms of taxation. It isn't even the only federal tax on income (FICA is not included).

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#48

Post by alchemist1e9 » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

jquery wrote: post #29

utopcell wrote: post #21

Without delving into any moral or fairness arguments, it is probably fair to say that a US tax payer in the top 1% probably already pays 10x to 100x in taxes, in absolute terms, compared to the median tax payer. If I'm reading this [1] correctly, in 2020 about 99% of the population was responsible for 56% of individual taxes while 1% was responsible for the rest 44%. [1] https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-i…

Whatever they’re paying, it’s not enough, because inequality is increasing. In other words, they’re paying an outrageous amount of the taxes because they make an extraordinarily amount of the income (and wealth). I’m not talking about someone who got a bunch of RSUs and paid 50% on their $2m payday, it’s the billionaires like Trump who treat tax evasion as a game because the consequences are lower than the expected r…

I will speculate there is a completely different mechanism for inequality than taxation policies. Let’s call it crony capitalism and specifically originating within the financial system. Federal reserve policies and bailouts and socialized losses with privatized gains are what cause inequities, imho.

I can give a few specific examples that might help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_Lane_Transactions

https://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/programs-archive/large-sc...

Central banks engage in civilization level money laundering and cause the inequality increases. These programs are crony capitalism that is specifically directed to an established globalist western oligarchy. That’s not capitalism even remotely, it’s global oligarchy.

$80B/month was regular dispensed in exchange for collateral which was worth significantly less. That’s 80 modern skyscrapers per month.

It will be interesting if censorship can be successfully reigned in and someone more articulate and with public credibility can attempt to explain the outright theft mechanism that was and continues to be obfuscate by jargon and games and corruption.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#49

Post by jquery » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 5:28 AM UTC

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #48

jquery wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever they’re paying, it’s not enough, because inequality is increasing. In other words, they’re paying an outrageous amount of the taxes because they make an extraordinarily amount of the income (and wealth). I’m not talking about someone who got a bunch of RSUs and paid 50% on their $2m payday, it’s the billionaires like Trump who treat tax evasion as a game because the consequences are lower than the expected r…

I will speculate there is a completely different mechanism for inequality than taxation policies. Let’s call it crony capitalism and specifically originating within the financial system. Federal reserve policies and bailouts and socialized losses with privatized gains are what cause inequities, imho. I can give a few specific examples that might help. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maiden_Lane_Transactions https://www…

Of course The Fed is a generator of inequality, but if taxes were set properly, it could be counterbalanced. We can see this in European countries with much lower rates of inequality because of high taxes on excessive wealth and income. They also have central banks printing money at insanely low interest rates (or even negative rates)… until recently… perhaps they have raised their rates in tandem with the US.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#50

Post by whakim » Sat, Jan 07, 2023, 5:43 AM UTC

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #24

ggm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A basis for argument by low tax fanatics that think a modern Athenian state is possible, drugs, TV shows, VLSI and togas, all in with jets and retsina. UK income tax was notoriously applied as a temporary expedient. The low tax fans want a return to the pre Victorian levels of poverty that went hand in hand with the non-welfare state.

I don't think so. Low tax advocates want a more streamlined government that looks after core functions (managing trash, police, etc) rather than what it has taken on today (entire multimillion dollar agencies tasked with getting more women into high status jobs, regulation of the size and shape of cabbages, etc) The idea that "people who want less tax than I do just crave widespread poverty" is a sign you have an ide…

Without getting into a debate about what the government should or should not do, I just want to point out that it's disingenuous to argue that a relatively large portion of government spending has anything to do with "getting more women into high status jobs" or "regulation of the size and shape of cabbage." The vast majority of what "government has taken on today" (compared to 150 years ago) relates to the social safety net, education, and health care.