13% of Taxpayers pay 72% of the tax burden

The rich in America do not tend to sit on their wealth.

They keep investing it and making it grow if greedy libs will get off their back.

Consumption by lazy Obama voters on welfare is just that - eating the seed corn with no investment in the future.

 

the only tax people pay is federal income tax?

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correct. and they will invest it in ways that increase their wealth regardless of the marginal tax rate. They always have and they always will.

 

my grandfather was born in the back of a covered wagon... was orphaned at age 11 and that was the end of his public schooling. He was blinded in one eye in a workplace accident at age 20.... and ended up working for a wagon company in Arkansas by the age of 25. He retired at age 73 as VIce President of a Fortune 500 company... my father was a very successful lawyer. I am not talking inherited wealth either... but I AM talking about knowing full well that the benefits that my grandfather and my father enjoyed - the inner circle of friends who did things for friends that, were they priced out as consulting services would have been worth tens of thousands of dollars and they got them for nothing over a round of golf and a few cocktails in the 19th hole at the country club and they gave those same friends similar benefits in the same way. There is no price you can put on the access that wealth can bring... and the benefits are, for the most part, completely nontaxable... and they are used to allow wealthy people to compound their wealth exponentially. Sure... a scattering of really really lucky, hard working, charismatic guys will break through into that circle from the ordinary folks outside it.... I am not saying the club is totally against gaining new members.... but for the VAST majority of Americans , half of which have IQ's in double digits, those sorts of lives are forever out of reach.

 

Oh I see. What firm are you with again? Yes, trading has been compared to gambling, because of course there is risk involved. There is also an art to it, along with a little bit of science and the same can't be said about gambling (unless you're a card counter).

 

Sure.

But they may invest it in china where it has a higher return and lower taxes.

Or some other foreign market that smart rich people are able to find.

 

Wait a minute, so your grandfather came from a covered wagon and ended up a powerful executive? Didn't you just thoroughly disprove your last sentence? or was he just lucky? Were my father and uncles just lucky? How about me? I started in a 1000 sq ft family home and ended up in an elite Wall Street firm. I had no problem at all as a nobody coming from podunkville and enjoying the same "inner circle" benefits that you claim are so hard to obtain at literally every stage of my life. Sure, less intelligent people have to work harder, but I know lots of tradesmen with very nice lifestyles. Those in the immediate left of mean IQ deviation aren't exactly morons, and the next deviation left comprises only a small % of the population. Socioeconomic mobility simply isn't that hard, and it doesn't hinge on some special sauce the rich get that they should pay more taxes for, or even raw intelligence (though that comes closer to being a real factor and proper basis for tax bracket). It hinges more on someone's ability to make disciplined choices, to undertake small amounts of risk to seize opportunities, to work hard, to avoid repetitive bad behavior most of all. IMO there should be a pretty substantial tax credit structure for real wealth, innovation and job creation. As long as someone is supporting living wage jobs, they should get incented to create more. That kind of thing and similar, not the reverse. IMO, most of the rich provide more intangible benefit than they reap in 19th hole country club inner circle benefits. So yeah, I still disagree with Teddy.

 

It sucks, doesn't it. $100k per year is barely enough to maintain a middle to upper-middle standard of living these days, and there you are providing 72% of the tax burden.

Imagine if the few people with most of the money paid taxes.

In that case, what percentage of the tax-burden do you think the 13%ers would be carrying?

(BTW - remember when more than 13% got to live middle-class in this country? I bet everyone else is just loving adapting to a globalized standard of living.)

 

That's why we have progressive taxation. But people who EARN a lot of money must keep some advantage from it, otherwise society will lose the benefit of what they contribute. There have to be incentives because that's how human beings work. If Steve Jobs could live no better than someone making $50K, he probably wouldn't have done what he did. Brilliant creative workaholics must be rewarded because the rest of us count on them to support us. I don't mean tax money. I mean the creation and production of the jobs and goods and services that sustain everyone's lives.

You're making the Liberals' Error of equating government with life. But no form of government organization can give us prosperity. Government is just one tool, far from the most important, used by society. The problem now is that government is getting less and less efficient: it consumes more and gives us less. Most people would be better off if the government got smaller, and the money saved went into building business. Business creates wealth - jobs, goods, services. Government can only redistribute wealth. So I worry less about equalizing the pain of government, and more about lessening the total pain government inflicts.

You're saying, in effect, that it's OK to have disease so long as everyone has disease. I'm saying I want no one to have disease, or at worst no more than a few. That's the difference between the liberal focus on equality and the conservative focus on prosperity. You often refer to yourself as a Recovering Liberal. I wish you'd hurry up and recover already.

 

Maybe you are to braindead to comprehend this... but let me post it once again in case you DO have a brain, and somehow just missed it:

Sure... a scattering of really really lucky, hard working, charismatic guys will break through into that circle from the ordinary folks outside it.... I am not saying the club is totally against gaining new members.... but for the VAST majority of Americans , half of which have IQ's in double digits, those sorts of lives are forever out of reach.

 

Bobov
The tax system is NOT "Progressive" when you witness Warren Buffet owing less than his secretary.
Those percentages are washed out by the deduction benefits only the rich can exploit. Si?
That results in a Regressive Tax System. Warren doesn't feel any pain and his secretary may be serving the family more spaghetti.

Moi

No
The behavior of Kiev on Russian dominated areas in Ukraine
reminds me of the way the Canadian government treated the Metis
European mixed blood
And hanged Louis Reil ​

 

And on what principle of our government and our country does government have a right to confiscate 85% of your property and earnings? Since laws should be applied equally then lets have that rate apply to everyone.

More realistically what proof do you have that taxing at that rate would actually increase revenues to the treasury or is that not a concern?

 

Try 1993, the first year of Clinton's term as President.

 

No they won't at least not in taxable investments or risky investments. period. Just look at the historical revenues on capital gains at various tax rates.

 

For foreign investors, it has more to do with specific treaties than it does with our taxation system or rates, not to mention the strength of our financial institutions to withstand economic discrepancies.

And the graph you are showing is simply the level of investment with no correlation between rates and investment.

Captial gains rates did not change until 1997 with it was lowered to 10% and 20$ respectively. Look at the graph of investment when capital gains was ordingary income from 1986 to 1997. YOu still have a positive regression analysis despite a minor recession in 1992-1993 after the First Gulf War.

 

Yes they are, but between 1986 to 1997, long term capital gains were taxed, generally, as ordinary income as wwll on personal taxation.

 

And not only do they get that, they still qualify for Social Security even though they don't pay due to the reimbursement.

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They are REFUNDABLE TAX CREDITS and you do not have to pay in to receive them which is why people can get back MORE than they paid in if they paid anything to begin with.

 

How many faced an effective tax rate of 85%?

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Yes use language and the tax law with precision it will do you wonders, it is a REFUNDABLE TAX CREDIT.

 

The Democrat Congress did that over his lower spending request and failure to pass all his rescissions.

Which 4 years? The worst four years of Bush/Republican budgets was $1.35. Obama/Democrats $4.4 in four years.

So whose policies did better?

Nope it fell from a peak $400B from te 2000/2001 recession/recovery to a paltry $161B in 2007. What is your objection?

Wrong, Clinton came into office on a soaring economy and raised taxes and slowed that growth and slowed the growth of tax revenues, it was the Gingrich/Kasich tax rate cuts he was forced to signed that kick the economy back into high gear and that along with the spending restraints and welfare reforms he opposed produced the brief surpluses.

Presidents don't control interest rates.

He inherited an economic expansions but slowed it with his tax increase.

ROFL yes after Dick Morris told him he better do it because the economy wasn't performing as it should and he would lose the election. He signed and the economy took off and we had the brief surpluses in spite of him.

 

But not to a taxpayer, a dead persons estate, it is a one valuation and is mostly avoided and miniscule in the big picture.

We do not tax the wealth of LIVING BREATHING TAXPAYERS.

Yes it is it is one side of the scale. So what is unbalanced about the top 1% paying 40% of income taxes and the bottom 50% paying virtually nothing?

You are conflating corporate taxes with personal taxes and corporate taxes have been fairly stable since the early 1980's.

But here we are talking personal income taxes and the question you and others desperately refuse to address.

How when there is only one, the standard personal deduction.

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I've been in business and yes they are year long reporting and calculations on bookeeping, the EITC is nothing compared to business tax record keeping and reporting and auditing.

 

That is not the question is it, but yes those at the top pay a hugely disproportionate share of taxes which is "hard done" to those of any reason.

Which is a specious statement on it's face as if all they have to do is sit by the pool everyday and the money just rolls in.

The fact is the people in the top 1% are not a static group as you fallacious seem to believe. People move in and out of those groups such as a business owner who toils all his life to build a business and then sells it and that year the income from that sale puts him in the top. Yes foolish you. Or that the people at the top all inherited their money and never worked for it. Or that running businesses and getting income through stock options is not "really work".


Me>> Once again, my wife and I have saved all our lives and have quite a bit saved up for retirement, we sacrificed to do so. My neighbor makes the same as us but has not saved, has nothing. Why should I pay a higher tax rate than he does? Why should I pay more in actual dollars than he does?

Maybe you should try not to dodge the question or do you not comprehend the reality? You and others are the ones harping on wealth and how tax rates should be tied to wealth, well answer my question, reconcile why my wife and I should pay higher taxes than my neighbor simply because we saved up wealth where he didn't.

 

I would suggest you look at the historical tables of capital gains rates, the gains subject to taxation and the resulting revenues.

 

So? Holding long positions on assets is very difficult. There are plenty of reasons why any investor would want to sell early than originally planned.

 

The correlation is easy to see for anyone who isn't entirely clueless. You have relatively low investment as a share of GDP with capital gains rates higher than normal.

So? The positive regression is due to the investment boom of the 90's, where rapidly depreciating computer prices lead to boost the accumulation of computer capital.

 

Those at the top earn a HUGELY disproportionate share of the income.

Yes, many of them do EXACTLY that. When 80% of your income comes from non employment sources, the money does just roll in.

I didn't for a second suggest that, strawman.

If you have other additional income such as capital gains or interest then you should pay more actual dollars than he.
I do agree that you should pay the same tax for the same income as your neighbour.

Quit with the continued mischaracterization. Taxes should be tied to INCOME, until death when those taxes are tied to wealth.

AS to you saving up your after tax dollars and deploying them to earn additional income. Why on earth should you be exempt from taxes on that addition income? I fail to see how a smart, yet totally self serving financial strategy should exempt you from paying taxes on all your eligible income (barring credits and deducations of course)