Income taxes should be illegal. I'm fond of the flat tax idea. This also "fixes" the issue with wealth differences. A rich person buys a yacht and pays their % (no loopholes) and a poor person buys their groceries and pays their %. Everyone can pay for their own consumption and choices. What really drags the country down is the ridiculous number of people who don't pay nor contribute. Too many able-bodied people only taking. Of course, I have no idea what the plan is when AI leaves us all without work.
Even your early commenters miss the key point. The most wealthy people don't generate earnings (and their consequent income tax) any way near relative to their net worth. Their wealth comes from unrealized long term cap gains. If you look at the owners of Facebook, Amazon, Google etc... you see gains of billions or tens of billions or more and no taxes paid. Bill Gates of Microsoft just announced his intent to leave his remaining holdings to his foundation characterized as a charitable gift and thereby never taxed on his behalf or estate-wise. He already did that with an earlier 1/2 of his holdings, no taxes paid. There is good reason for long term (tax incentivized) investing and charitable donations but the current extremes of these should be addressed with a lifelong combined cap of 5, 50 or 500 million dollar limit. Past that gains should be taxed. If you look at the billionaire class, in particular those based on long term stock holdings, you will find they pay out in taxes an unbelievably small % (I estimated Gates years ago as paying out less than 1 1/2% of net worth in taxes) relative to their net worth. It is legal but so offensive to any sense of fairness as to be infuriating. Change the law, create a massive lifetime exemption and tax cap gains earned and unearned.
The wealthy have benefitted more than the middle folks from tax cuts from Bush, Obama, and Trump. They have greatly benefited from the cheap money the last couple decades (borrowing money tax free and paying less in interest payments). Plus the wealth to hire accountants to help them game the system (recalling Buffet's admission that he paid less percentage tax than his secretary). I'm not here to soak the rich but things do seem a little out of balance, even QTR has talked about the class divide. It does remind me that the post WWII period of high income tax on the wealthy was as much for keeping the society from getting top heavy as much as paying down the debt.
First comment? Yay. What about the issue of generational wealth passed down? I know that inheritance taxes used to be higher, not sure how much/when. Is it “fair” to have massive transfers of wealth to people who won the genetic lottery? We used to have a less skewed distribution of wealth, instead of a barbell. How about a piece on that. Sure I know that Buffet and Gates will give away the vast portion of their wealth, but what about, say the Sacklers?
Oh yes, and one more thing, as Columbo used to say. You need ti examine the Cotillion effect. During ZIRP as imposed by the FED, Jaime Diamon could borrow at .4% and Joe and Susue Sixoacj were largely shut out of the home market even though they were giddy about 3% fixed rate mortgages. In Tampa Bay alone, PE owns 25% of housing, largest in the country. Rents up 49% between 2019 and 2023. You know that income is not wealth. Ask Melody Wright...
Good writing. Another point pertaining to “ taxing the rich” is that larger amounts of wealth are increasingly mobile. Experience shows that confiscatory taxes lead to a flight of the wealthy into less taxed areas. English rock stars are a decent example. When extremely successful they choose to domicile here vs England merely due to tax rates. Money flees when taxes climb which economically makes perfect sense. Also the ability to communicate instantly from practically anywhere and ease of travel mean location is no longer key.
I have no issue at all with the fact that we have a progressive tax system—your chart shows why we should. The top 5% of earners earn half of all the income and the bottom 50% earn less than $50,000 a year. That’s a lot of people trying to live and put food on the table with few dollars. And your chart doesn’t account for all the goodies top earners have access to: stock compensation, carried interest, etc.
Income taxes should be illegal. I'm fond of the flat tax idea. This also "fixes" the issue with wealth differences. A rich person buys a yacht and pays their % (no loopholes) and a poor person buys their groceries and pays their %. Everyone can pay for their own consumption and choices. What really drags the country down is the ridiculous number of people who don't pay nor contribute. Too many able-bodied people only taking. Of course, I have no idea what the plan is when AI leaves us all without work.
Even your early commenters miss the key point. The most wealthy people don't generate earnings (and their consequent income tax) any way near relative to their net worth. Their wealth comes from unrealized long term cap gains. If you look at the owners of Facebook, Amazon, Google etc... you see gains of billions or tens of billions or more and no taxes paid. Bill Gates of Microsoft just announced his intent to leave his remaining holdings to his foundation characterized as a charitable gift and thereby never taxed on his behalf or estate-wise. He already did that with an earlier 1/2 of his holdings, no taxes paid. There is good reason for long term (tax incentivized) investing and charitable donations but the current extremes of these should be addressed with a lifelong combined cap of 5, 50 or 500 million dollar limit. Past that gains should be taxed. If you look at the billionaire class, in particular those based on long term stock holdings, you will find they pay out in taxes an unbelievably small % (I estimated Gates years ago as paying out less than 1 1/2% of net worth in taxes) relative to their net worth. It is legal but so offensive to any sense of fairness as to be infuriating. Change the law, create a massive lifetime exemption and tax cap gains earned and unearned.
The wealthy have benefitted more than the middle folks from tax cuts from Bush, Obama, and Trump. They have greatly benefited from the cheap money the last couple decades (borrowing money tax free and paying less in interest payments). Plus the wealth to hire accountants to help them game the system (recalling Buffet's admission that he paid less percentage tax than his secretary). I'm not here to soak the rich but things do seem a little out of balance, even QTR has talked about the class divide. It does remind me that the post WWII period of high income tax on the wealthy was as much for keeping the society from getting top heavy as much as paying down the debt.
First comment? Yay. What about the issue of generational wealth passed down? I know that inheritance taxes used to be higher, not sure how much/when. Is it “fair” to have massive transfers of wealth to people who won the genetic lottery? We used to have a less skewed distribution of wealth, instead of a barbell. How about a piece on that. Sure I know that Buffet and Gates will give away the vast portion of their wealth, but what about, say the Sacklers?
Oh yes, and one more thing, as Columbo used to say. You need ti examine the Cotillion effect. During ZIRP as imposed by the FED, Jaime Diamon could borrow at .4% and Joe and Susue Sixoacj were largely shut out of the home market even though they were giddy about 3% fixed rate mortgages. In Tampa Bay alone, PE owns 25% of housing, largest in the country. Rents up 49% between 2019 and 2023. You know that income is not wealth. Ask Melody Wright...
Good writing. Another point pertaining to “ taxing the rich” is that larger amounts of wealth are increasingly mobile. Experience shows that confiscatory taxes lead to a flight of the wealthy into less taxed areas. English rock stars are a decent example. When extremely successful they choose to domicile here vs England merely due to tax rates. Money flees when taxes climb which economically makes perfect sense. Also the ability to communicate instantly from practically anywhere and ease of travel mean location is no longer key.
I have no issue at all with the fact that we have a progressive tax system—your chart shows why we should. The top 5% of earners earn half of all the income and the bottom 50% earn less than $50,000 a year. That’s a lot of people trying to live and put food on the table with few dollars. And your chart doesn’t account for all the goodies top earners have access to: stock compensation, carried interest, etc.