Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 504 posts

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

#461

Post by LordDragonfang »

Forbo wrote: post #448
Forbo wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a flat transactional tax that occurs any time money changes hands? I found this not too long ago and have been enamored with the idea: http://apttax.com/execsummary.php

Fuck me, right? Would be nice to know why this is seemingly such a shitty idea, but guess I'll never hear why.

Simple answer? Economies perform better when money changes hands more frequently. Disincentivizing that is generally a bad idea. Additionally, taxes like that disproportionately affect the poor, who often have to spend their income as soon as they get it, and barely affects the rich, who have lots of money sitting around not being spent.

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

#462

Post by watertom »

The bogus concept of “capital gains” needs to be changed. Unless someone invest in a pre-IPO company, or purchases stock during the IPO, capital gains should not apply.

Buying stock on the market is not investing a company, unless the company gets the cash it’s not a capital investment. Buying and selling stock regardless of how long it’s held is not a capital investment. Also the selling of stock should be subject to state sales tax.

The simple fact that your home isn’t consider a capital investment, but a boat is a capital investment is proof that it’s just a tax dodge for the rich.

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

#463

Post by _edo »

rczhang wrote: post #394
_edo wrote: post #84

That has to be the worst x-axis on a graph I've seen in a long time. The grid lines measure 0-10th, 20-30th, 40-50th, 60-70th, 80-90th, 95-99th, 99.99th, Top 400? That's atrocious, not only is it non-linear, not only does it have a line with regularly spaced dots giving the impression of continuity, but it skips from percent groups to absolute numbers? If we're talking about historical taxes why are we looking at tax…

This is missing what the graph is trying to convey. Playing with the y-axis in this case, doesn't change the shape of the data. It only makes the graph more readable. For example, would you start the y-axis on a graph of global temperature at –273.15°C (absolute zero)? Second, why should the graph use evenly sized groups? The whole point is to show an outlier in tax data among a small group of people. Using evenly si…

> For example, would you start the y-axis on a graph of global temperature at –273.15°C (absolute zero)

> This is a lazy statement

Yes it is.

> This is missing what the graph is trying to convey.....It only makes the graph more readable.

The problem is that so many decisions are made trying to tell the right story that eventually the underlying data barely matters at all. If top 400 doesn't work maybe top 100 will, or top 10, or top 1000. If going back to 1950 doesn't work then maybe 1960 or 1940.

If you don't care about things like best practices you can simply choose the shape of the graph you want and go from there. Maybe this time they did it with effective tax rates. It doesn't matter.

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

#465

Post by dang »

patientplatypus wrote: post #407

That's OK, guillotines are cheap.

We've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments/flamebait to HN and ignoring our requests to stop.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

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

#466

Post by [deleted] »

chimi wrote: post #380
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…

> it's a different sort of income, with a VASTLY riskier risk profile Yes, earning the money with labor is vastly riskier. Telling a financial advisor where to put money incurs no risk to your life . Compare that to being a welder, tree feller, home builder, where your health or life is a daily concern. I really don't understand why those who go out and work hard every day have to pay more in tax (as a percentage) th…

[deleted]

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

#467

Post by ClumsyPilot »

walshemj wrote: post #401
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do stunt-men, soldiers, arctic explorers and other jobs with risk to life and limb pay no tax?

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

#468

Post by vfc1 »

coredog64 wrote: post #105
vfc1 wrote: post #20

Of course they do. They can afford personal accountants and other full-time professionals that all they do fiscal optimization for them, trying to explore every loophole in the system for their advantage. They can open a company, declare expenses and claim a low salary, thet can put the money offshore or on Switzerland, and all those tax-avoiding schemas that are not doable by the common citizen.

What exactly is it that you think putting the money in Switzerland accomplishes? The US asserts that any income you make anywhere in the world is subject to US income tax . Living inside a corporation is very difficult, and the IRS takes a pretty dim view of people who try it. But don’t take my word for it: Ask Wesley Snipes. He spent 3 years in a federal penitentiary for trying. There’s a small deduction that’s not…

All sorts of personal expenses can be deducted through a company. Travels, restaurants and hotels, car rentals, car maintenance.

Even holidays, there is a whole business of seminars on cruises and exotic locations, people sign the presence sheet and skip classes and declare everything as an expense.

You can pay your Internet, phone, buy coffee machines and coffee, office items and have all that deducted as a company expense.

All of this is pretty significant for most people and would make a huge difference in most people budgets.

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

#469

Post by sobani »

jklein11 wrote: post #458
Forbo wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about a flat transactional tax that occurs any time money changes hands? I found this not too long ago and have been enamored with the idea: http://apttax.com/execsummary.php

I’m not really understanding how this is different from the VAT taxation scheme.

VAT means Value Added Tax. @Forbo's was talking about a transaction tax.

The difference can be explained by this completely made up example: A steel mill buys iron ore for $1 a kilo and makes steel of that. A nail factory buys steel for $1.50 a kilo and makes nails of that. A distributor buys those nails wholesale for $2 a kilo. A hardware store buys those nails from the wholesaler for $2.50 a kilo. A contractor buys those nails from the hardware store for $3 a kilo. The subcontractor bills $3.50 a kilo for those nails. The general contractor bills you $4 a kilo for those nails.

With VAT you/the general contractor/all businesses involved pay taxes on a total of $4.

With a transaction tax, it would be paid on $17.50.

But the above is a simplified example. In the real world there are probably a lot more businesses (each specializing in their own niche) and therefor transaction involved in getting that nail into your wall.

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

#470

Post by mcv »

ggreer wrote: post #174
mcv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't do that in the 1950s, though. It does address an important point, though: should you pay tax based on where you live, or on where your income comes from? Governments invest a lot in their country, their citizens, education, a healthy market, etc. For foreign companies to profit from that healthy market but not pay taxes there, seems wrong. Similarly, for people to work in a healthy labour market but not p…

> They didn't do that in the 1950s, though. In the 1950s there weren't any alternatives to the US. Europe and Asia were rebuilding from WWII. Central and South America weren't nearly as developed as today. Places like Singapore, Taiwan, and Korea were extremely poor. The english language wasn't as popular internationally. Intercontinental communication was expensive and low bandwidth. Travel was much more expensive.…

Still, you went to school. Would your school situation have been better if the government didn't provide schools? If the schools are lacking, shouldn't the government provide better schools?

Similarly, roads to get to school, law enforcement keeping the place fairly safe, rather than overrun by roving warlord bands, food standards that ensure corporations aren't selling you poison. I think living is generally better in countries where the government takes good care of these sort of things.

Although I suppose in lawless countries, rich people could just become their own warlord and hire their own army.

Post reply on HN