“Almost half of Gen Xers surveyed (48%) say it’s going to take a miracle to retire securely.”
Latchkey kids to latchkey geezers…we’re going to need some help.
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We know how this will be leveraged: “repeal the death tax”, which would only, actually, help the spawn of the 1%, who are probably SFL anyway, but it makes a nice slogan.
Steve
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[quote=“steve203, post:2, topic:106273”]
We know how this will be leveraged: “repeal the death tax”, which would only, actually, help the spawn of the 1%, who are probably SFL anyway, but it makes a nice slogan.
[/quote
“I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”
― Thomas Sowell, Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays
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Showing money on the rich is “job creation”. Giving anything to the Proles is “Communism”.
Steve
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I’m not sure I agree entirely with increasing the “death tax” (or at least with how to determine what amount to increase it by), but would this tax really be taking someone’s earned money?
It seems, by definition, that if you are no longer with us, there is no one who is being harmed by this policy who actually earned the money.
Pete
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Cute, but incorrect.
It is greed to want to keep the money you have earned and resist fair taxation for the greater good. It isn’t greed, it’s justice to want to fairly tax others for the greater good.
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[quote=“MataroPete, post:5, topic:106273”]
I’m not sure I agree entirely with increasing the “death tax” (or at least with how to determine what amount to increase it by), but would this tax really be taking someone’s earned money?
It seems, by definition, that if you are no longer with us, there is no one who is being harmed by this policy who actually earned the money.[/quote]
Of course not. I can never tell if Thomas Sowell is as big a simpleton as he portrays himself to be or if he is just a craven liar. Perhaps a bit of both. If you inherit money of course you didn’t earn it. And on top of that most large estate are in the form of unrealized capital gains so the previous owner didn’t pay tax either.
Compare that to a school teacher or landscaper where all their income is taxed. So yes, it is greedy to argue unearned income shouldn’t be taxed when earned income is.
Simpleton or craven liar, take your pick. Add greedy to those adjectives too.
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Nice platitude!
But I have noticed that the definition of “fairly” taxing others tends to move/change and rarely be clearly defined.
So, what is the “fair” tax take ( i.e. the % of income taken by all governments–local, state, federal) for those making, say, $100K or more /year? ( if you prefer another/higher income starting point, do so and state the “fair” % take).
Cheers!
Murph
(please note that I am not talking marginal tax rate, but the total % taken of all income after all deductions, etc.)
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Wow!
How about a man with a different view of what governments should do, and how it should be paid for?
Why do you feel the need to demonize people with views different from yours?
Cheers!
Murph
(disagree with his views, but calling Thomas Sowell a “simpleton” seems a bit out of place: Thomas Sowell - Wikipedia)
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Oh, and FWIW, “simpleton” and “liar” are nouns, not adjectives.
Cheers!
Murph
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Sowell is trying to equate indignation with greed. That’s hokum.
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Gosh darn, syke6 must have really rattled your cage.
Pete
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And your answer to the question I posed about the “fair” % tax for others?
Cheers!
Murph
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What rattled my cage was his demonization of someone just because of his views/opinions.
Attack the man’s arguments with logic and facts, not the man himself.
Cheers!
Murph
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“According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.”
A few thoughts -
If the average taxpayer pays 13 percent, all tax payers paying 13 percent seems fair from a Sowell perspective that prizes simplicity. The fact that the wealthiest families only pay 8.2 percent, nearly 5% less than the average taxpayer, is unfair.
Some would argue that equal rates will lead to fair outcomes. But if we consider the financial burden of someone making $30,000 and someone making $1,000,000, at a 13% tax rate, the former brings home $26,100 and the latter brings home $870,000. While the rates are equal, the impact will hit the lower wage earner much harder. Equal rates do not result in fair outcomes.
Fairness aside, the question should be about what kind of society we want to live in. What societal benefit do we reap when tax policies enrich a growing number of billionaires above everyone else?
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Your study deals with the super rich (400billionaires), which is not the question I posed, and does not show its methodology…and it proposes a “wealth tax”…not additional income taxes. Last time I looked wealth taxes were seen as unconstitutional by most scholars.
Let’s talk where the bulk of the money is: the middle/middle upper income levels:
Here is the Federal data: (See table 1)
Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2022 Update (taxfoundation.org)
Pay special attention to the share of income dollars versus the share of taxes paid by income group.
Now, please tell me what you feel is the “fair” share for each of the following groups:
Top 1% (This group earns 20.1% of AGI and pays 38.8% of inc. taxes)
Top 5% (35.9% AGI vs 59.4% of taxes)
Top 10% ( 47.3% vs 70.8%)
Top 25% ( 68.8% vs 86.6%)
Your study and its recommendations for a wealth tax simply shows that the “fair share” is a myth.
Having now progressed the federal income tax system to the point where half the people pay only 3% of all federal taxes, the “progressives” want to try a wealth tax…but ONLY on the billionaires (at first, just like the original federal income tax was supposed to be).
Then the only place left to come is the same top 25%.
Cheers!
Murph
(who also knows that if you taxed the income of the 400 billionaires at the 100% level, it would not generate the money needed by the “fair share” group)
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I thought “latchkey” is another term for self-care…
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It seems like a lot of people use similar information to argue that high income earners are already paying too much, but let’s put it in perspective. Here’s how it breaks down:
Top 1% = >$650,000, 20.15 AGI and pays 38.8% of taxes
Top 5%, excluding the above ($250,000 - $650,000), 15.8% AGI and pays 20.6% of taxes
Top 10%, excluding the above ($170,000 - $250,000), 11.4% of AGI and pays 11.4% of taxes
Top 25%, excluding the above ($95,000 - $170,000), 21.5% of AGI and pays 15.8% of taxes
This is a progressive tax policy, it doesn’t seem “unfair” when you consider the financial burden.
Here’s something more interesting -
It’s weird that when you make more than $5 million, your effective tax rate goes down. It’s also weird that people would argue that lower income earners need to pay more taxes when we live in a consumer based economy.
As you eluded to in an earlier post, fairness is subjective. Tax policy shouldn’t be based on fairness. Trickle down economics sucks because it’s not good for our economy.
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It depends on how you define ‘fair.’
Take sports, it’s fair that the best team wins.
To make gambling on horse racing work, the faster the horse the more you have to tax it, I mean, handicap it with added weights.
To create a more equitable society you have to handicap the highest wealth producers. That’s ‘fair’ by some standards but it has consequences. A low level of taxation is tolerable but a high rate is destructive because incentives matter. For success, find the sweet spot.
The Captain
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That is done not in fairness to the racers but to enable the various bookies to offset winners vs losers AND make a profit. Otherwise, no bookies and thus nothing more than office betting pools. Which is fine by me…
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