6 ms·

If only we could find some way to raise taxes for people who make so much money that they wouldn't be impacted by those taxes.....

by ceedan 1y ago

SamPatt 1y ago
When life becomes more expensive due to taxation (inflation is effectively a tax), I'm very skeptical that the solution is more taxation.
- MurkyLabs 1y ago
  It's less about raising taxes on people making less than 250,000 a year and more on getting people who make over 1,000,000 pay taxes at all. Sure there's plenty of people who aren't rich that commit tax fraud but the IRS is pretty good at getting them. Getting the millionaires who can throw lawyers at them to waste time makes it not worth it. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer
  - hiatus 1y ago
    People making one million dollars a year are people like doctors and lawyers and are most certainly paying taxes. One million dollars today was ~$680k in 2008.
  - FredPret 1y ago
    I don't know how this is even a talking point. The top 5% of taxpayers in the USA pay 61% of the taxes. The top 1% pay 30-40% of all the taxes and have done so for decades. https://usafacts.org/articles/who-pays-the-most-income-tax/ https://usafacts.org/articles/who-pays-the-most-income-tax/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/#:~:text=High%2DIncome%20Taxpayers%20Paid%20the%20Majority%20of%20Federal%20Income%20Taxes https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...
    - travisporter 1y ago
      I think looking at the top 5% of wealth, not just taxpayers, may open up the conversation on both sides
    - wadadadad 1y ago
      When the top 5% makes 3x more than the bottom 50%? The top 5% makes 38% of the total, while the top 1% alone makes 22%, per the same sources you just quoted. Yes, the ones who make the most can afford to pay the most in taxes. You didn't even cover GP's main point about getting the top to even pay taxes; the top 1%, per your own source, only pays 26%, while the top 50% pays 16%. Top x% tax bracket should at least be 32%, per current brackets. So one could argue they aren't even paying what they 'should'. https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brackets https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brac...
      - FredPret 1y ago
        Argue for higher tax rates and more enforcement all you want, but the fact is that the current setup results in a situation where the bulk of actual taxes collected come from the rich. This situation has persisted for as many decades as I've been able to find data for. Here's a quote from my source: "The top 1 percent earned 22.4 percent of total AGI and paid 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes. In all, the top 1 percent of taxpayers accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined." And we haven't even talked about the avalanche of payroll and sales taxes generated by the businesses they run.
        danans 1y ago
        > Argue for higher tax rates and more enforcement all you want, but the fact is that the current setup results in a situation where the bulk of actual taxes collected come from the rich. As they should, because the rich are paid multiples or orders of magnitude more than the middle/working class and poor. That's possible because they make money by: - Owning capital and taking a share of the resulting productivity passively (the wealthiest of the wealthy) - Working at a level of abstraction in the hierarchy where their skills allow them to scale their income via technology or by directing the labor of lower skilled workers. - Working in elite supply-limited professions (i.e highly specialized doctors and lawyers, r&d in high speculation industries like AI). It takes significant financial, social, or education capital to be able to participate in the economy in either of those modes. As the income and wealth inequality trends have become more extreme, it makes sense that the wealthy should be paying an ever increasing portion of the tax burden, not a lower portion. Otherwise you end up with feudalism.
- jjice 1y ago
  I'm no economist, but it feels like just adjusting the taxation the further up the marginal brackets (even creating more marginal brackets at different increments to make the resolution finer) is what would benefit the majority more. Whether that has negative effects elsewhere, I have no idea and thank goodness I'm not in charge of that.
- halestock 1y ago
  You’re arguing that because inflation (which is not a tax) is kinda sorta like a tax, therefore taxation in general isn’t a solution?
  - SamPatt 1y ago
    Inflation is effectively taxation. Here's the University of Toronto's economics lesson on the subject: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/jfloyd/modules/inft.html https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/jfloyd/modules/inft.html
    - halestock 1y ago
      That is a discussion that inflation resembles a tax. And in any case, how does that refute the idea that taxation in general is not a solution? That’s like saying soda taxes are bad so we shouldn’t have income taxes either.
      - bigbadfeline 1y ago
        > That is a discussion that inflation resembles a tax. That's splitting hairs. Inflation is a choice, just like taxes, and, importantly, it's a regressive tax, which helps us understand why the elites love it so much. Inflation shouldn't be mentioned without pointing out that it's a regressive tax. > And in any case, how does that refute the idea that taxation in general is not a solution? It doesn't. Nobody claimed that either. Taxation by itself isn't a solution, but I doubt there is a solution that doesn't involve taxation. > You’re arguing that because inflation (which is not a tax) is kinda sorta like a tax, therefore taxation in general isn’t a solution? I can't find anybody claiming anything of the sort. > That’s like saying soda taxes are bad so we shouldn’t have income taxes either. Another strawman.
- rozap 1y ago
  Inflation looks a lot like taxation, yes. But assets, the markets for equities, etc rise with inflation. The upper class has most of their net worth in assets/equities, whereas the poorer people are living paycheck to paycheck just buying the essentials each month, and each month those essentials become more expensive. Only one of these groups feels any real impact. So yes it's a tax but it's a tax on a very specific segment of the population.
boringg 1y ago
[flagged]
- rozap 1y ago
  Your comment amounts to "no it won't" Why. We used to have much higher tax rates on the super wealthy. That was when America was doing stuff rather than floundering. I'd even argue it's in their own interest to have higher taxes. There is no guarantee the current structure of society will continue indefinitely. Without a more reasonable distribution of wealth, we may end up repeating the "let them eat cake" episode.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > Why. Because there literally aren't enough of these ultra-wealthy people for them to have enough total wealth to confiscate to solve the problem. There are any number of mathematical analyses of this out there.
    - stackbutterflow 1y ago
      It reduces wealth inequality. Such that one person doesn't have the power to buy, legally, a presidential election, multiple regional elections, or half the politicians via lobbying/corruption.
      - boringg 1y ago
        Again not solving the actual problem. The problem you are describing is revoking Citizen's United. What your trying to do is a patch job to another problem which is going to cause all sorts of unintended consequences. First principles people, not these lazy slap dash approaches.
        stackbutterflow 1y ago
        I'm providing a reason to tax the wealthiest. It's not about Citizen's United, because it's very specific to the US, while it's a global problem that rich people have too much influence. Forget about elections and politicians, they can fund media empires at a loss to push their ideologies. No one should have that much power. They can buy lawyers effectively putting them out of the reach of the law. So many problems would be solved or reduced in intensity by taxing them.
Ferret7446 1y ago
I don't think it's ethical to do something just because the person won't be impacted. That logic would justify a lot of theft.
- ceedan 1y ago
  So you think that the marginal tax brackets from the 50s are unethical?

If only we could find some way to raise taxes for people who make so much money that they wouldn't be impacted by those taxes.....

by ceedan 1y ago

If only we could find some way to raise taxes for people who make so much money that they wouldn't be impacted by those taxes.....

SamPatt 1y ago

When life becomes more expensive due to taxation (inflation is effectively a tax), I'm very skeptical that the solution is more taxation.

MurkyLabs 1y ago
It's less about raising taxes on people making less than 250,000 a year and more on getting people who make over 1,000,000 pay taxes at all. Sure there's plenty of people who aren't rich that commit tax fraud but the IRS is pretty good at getting them. Getting the millionaires who can throw lawyers at them to waste time makes it not worth it. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer
- hiatus 1y ago
  People making one million dollars a year are people like doctors and lawyers and are most certainly paying taxes. One million dollars today was ~$680k in 2008.
- FredPret 1y ago
  I don't know how this is even a talking point. The top 5% of taxpayers in the USA pay 61% of the taxes. The top 1% pay 30-40% of all the taxes and have done so for decades. https://usafacts.org/articles/who-pays-the-most-income-tax/ https://usafacts.org/articles/who-pays-the-most-income-tax/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/#:~:text=High%2DIncome%20Taxpayers%20Paid%20the%20Majority%20of%20Federal%20Income%20Taxes https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...
  - travisporter 1y ago
    I think looking at the top 5% of wealth, not just taxpayers, may open up the conversation on both sides
  - wadadadad 1y ago
    When the top 5% makes 3x more than the bottom 50%? The top 5% makes 38% of the total, while the top 1% alone makes 22%, per the same sources you just quoted. Yes, the ones who make the most can afford to pay the most in taxes. You didn't even cover GP's main point about getting the top to even pay taxes; the top 1%, per your own source, only pays 26%, while the top 50% pays 16%. Top x% tax bracket should at least be 32%, per current brackets. So one could argue they aren't even paying what they 'should'. https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brackets https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brac...
    - FredPret 1y ago
      Argue for higher tax rates and more enforcement all you want, but the fact is that the current setup results in a situation where the bulk of actual taxes collected come from the rich. This situation has persisted for as many decades as I've been able to find data for. Here's a quote from my source: "The top 1 percent earned 22.4 percent of total AGI and paid 40.4 percent of all federal income taxes. In all, the top 1 percent of taxpayers accounted for more income taxes paid than the bottom 90 percent combined." And we haven't even talked about the avalanche of payroll and sales taxes generated by the businesses they run.
      - danans 1y ago
        > Argue for higher tax rates and more enforcement all you want, but the fact is that the current setup results in a situation where the bulk of actual taxes collected come from the rich. As they should, because the rich are paid multiples or orders of magnitude more than the middle/working class and poor. That's possible because they make money by: - Owning capital and taking a share of the resulting productivity passively (the wealthiest of the wealthy) - Working at a level of abstraction in the hierarchy where their skills allow them to scale their income via technology or by directing the labor of lower skilled workers. - Working in elite supply-limited professions (i.e highly specialized doctors and lawyers, r&d in high speculation industries like AI). It takes significant financial, social, or education capital to be able to participate in the economy in either of those modes. As the income and wealth inequality trends have become more extreme, it makes sense that the wealthy should be paying an ever increasing portion of the tax burden, not a lower portion. Otherwise you end up with feudalism.
jjice 1y ago
I'm no economist, but it feels like just adjusting the taxation the further up the marginal brackets (even creating more marginal brackets at different increments to make the resolution finer) is what would benefit the majority more. Whether that has negative effects elsewhere, I have no idea and thank goodness I'm not in charge of that.
halestock 1y ago
You’re arguing that because inflation (which is not a tax) is kinda sorta like a tax, therefore taxation in general isn’t a solution?
- SamPatt 1y ago
  Inflation is effectively taxation. Here's the University of Toronto's economics lesson on the subject: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/jfloyd/modules/inft.html https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/jfloyd/modules/inft.html
  - halestock 1y ago
    That is a discussion that inflation resembles a tax. And in any case, how does that refute the idea that taxation in general is not a solution? That’s like saying soda taxes are bad so we shouldn’t have income taxes either.
    - bigbadfeline 1y ago
      > That is a discussion that inflation resembles a tax. That's splitting hairs. Inflation is a choice, just like taxes, and, importantly, it's a regressive tax, which helps us understand why the elites love it so much. Inflation shouldn't be mentioned without pointing out that it's a regressive tax. > And in any case, how does that refute the idea that taxation in general is not a solution? It doesn't. Nobody claimed that either. Taxation by itself isn't a solution, but I doubt there is a solution that doesn't involve taxation. > You’re arguing that because inflation (which is not a tax) is kinda sorta like a tax, therefore taxation in general isn’t a solution? I can't find anybody claiming anything of the sort. > That’s like saying soda taxes are bad so we shouldn’t have income taxes either. Another strawman.
rozap 1y ago
Inflation looks a lot like taxation, yes. But assets, the markets for equities, etc rise with inflation. The upper class has most of their net worth in assets/equities, whereas the poorer people are living paycheck to paycheck just buying the essentials each month, and each month those essentials become more expensive. Only one of these groups feels any real impact. So yes it's a tax but it's a tax on a very specific segment of the population.

boringg 1y ago

[flagged]

rozap 1y ago
Your comment amounts to "no it won't" Why. We used to have much higher tax rates on the super wealthy. That was when America was doing stuff rather than floundering. I'd even argue it's in their own interest to have higher taxes. There is no guarantee the current structure of society will continue indefinitely. Without a more reasonable distribution of wealth, we may end up repeating the "let them eat cake" episode.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > Why. Because there literally aren't enough of these ultra-wealthy people for them to have enough total wealth to confiscate to solve the problem. There are any number of mathematical analyses of this out there.
  - stackbutterflow 1y ago
    It reduces wealth inequality. Such that one person doesn't have the power to buy, legally, a presidential election, multiple regional elections, or half the politicians via lobbying/corruption.
    - boringg 1y ago
      Again not solving the actual problem. The problem you are describing is revoking Citizen's United. What your trying to do is a patch job to another problem which is going to cause all sorts of unintended consequences. First principles people, not these lazy slap dash approaches.
      - stackbutterflow 1y ago
        I'm providing a reason to tax the wealthiest. It's not about Citizen's United, because it's very specific to the US, while it's a global problem that rich people have too much influence. Forget about elections and politicians, they can fund media empires at a loss to push their ideologies. No one should have that much power. They can buy lawyers effectively putting them out of the reach of the law. So many problems would be solved or reduced in intensity by taxing them.

Ferret7446 1y ago

I don't think it's ethical to do something just because the person won't be impacted. That logic would justify a lot of theft.

ceedan 1y ago
So you think that the marginal tax brackets from the 50s are unethical?