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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

People have been clamoring for more taxes on the rich. Well, this is what it looks like.

Oh wait! You didn't think you were rich, right?

But... this tax bill dramatically _lowers_ taxes on people who make a lot more money or have a lot more assets. So sure, this guy is rich relative to an unemployed coal miner. But you're being a little disingenuous by implying that this guy is remotely close to "the rich" who people commonly think of raising taxes on, and doubly so in implying that people who want higher taxes want them for everyone but themselves. I would gladly pay more in exchange for better services and safety nets.

You are being disingenuous. He's not just rich compared to an unemployed coal miner, or an employed one for that matter. He is rich compared to the vast majority of the US, and and even more vast majority of the world. Based in the GP, he's likely in the 3rd percentile for income in the US, and the .1 percentile for the world. This is essentially a minor noble complaining that the major nobles have nicer things than he does, and that the king should redistribute it (but not too much, we can't have the peasants wasting any of our precious resources)

>>Based in the GP, he's likely in the 3rd percentile for income in the US, and the .1 percentile for the world.

Most people don't understand this. When they are talking about 'the rich' or 'the 1%', they are really talking about your every day doctors, managers in most software companies, lawyers etc.

Its very hard to notice how poor and how many poor there are in the remainder of the world.

No, this is a hit on the upper middle class. The actual rich aren't feeling the pain.

It's actually a hit on economic growth, since it discourages local tax-funded programs that produce a net gain in output (even after considering their costs); it literally creates a structural incentive for reduced economic growth through suboptimal local and state decision-making.

It's a product of of irrational anti-tax dogmatism.

Spoiler alert: if you make over $200,000 a year, you are the rich compared to most of the rest of the country.

I love that a factual statement is getting downvoted, btw. Get a grip on your frame of reference, HN.

Rich is relative to housing costs.

Your $200,000 a year will get you by very nicely here in the Midwest. We even have jobs and accept the same currency you're paid in over in SV, imagine that!

Feel free to move.

Rich in the bay area is somewhere in the neighborhood of $500k-$1MM/year.

"in the bay area" is not relevant. Living in the bay area is not a right. If the taxes or cost of living is too high, then you can't live in the bay.

Wealth is relative. "In the bay area" is absolutely relevant. Companies in SF pay so much because the cost of living is so high. Someone with $20 is not richer than someone with $10 if it costs the first person $15 to buy lunch and it costs the second person $2 to buy the equivalent lunch.

I realize that cost of living has an impact on wealth.

But, we're talking about taxes and mostly about a couple specific provisions: SALT deduction, mortgage interest deduction, and the higher-end tax rate. Relative wealth is definitely not relevant to the SALT and mortgage interest deductions. (To review, the mortgage interest deduction subsidizes the rich and the SALT deduction forces people in low tax states to subsidize people in high tax states)

The only one left is tax brackets. You could argue that tax brackets should take into account cost of living. So, if you earn 100k in Nebraska you'd pay a higher percentage of that than a similar person living in SF. But, I think that doesn't take into account the fact that SF is such an in-demand place to live. You don't have to live in SF. Basically, I'm not convinced that cost of living differences should play a role in taxes.

Honestly the upper middle class should do pretty well, if you're not currently earning income through a pass-through s-corp I'd suggest looking into setting one up.

We dev folks will be fine, it's the classic american middle-management folk who will be put through the ringer with this bill.

Depends on if you mean rich for California, rich for the USA, or rich for the world.

Oh wait! They didn’t think wealth was relative, right?

> People have been clamoring for more taxes on the rich.

But this “tax reform”, in net, does exactly the opposite.

Yet this particular reform _does_ tax the rich more. It's mostly those making >$200k that will be hit, and it removes what were basically subsidies for the richest states in the country.

... And then it removes the alternative minimum tax, starts to phase out the estate tax and lowers pass through income tax rates. This tax cut might hit some really stupid rich people hard, but anyone wise enough to hire an accountant is going to get a lot more take home.

Looking at the new tax law as a whole, you are right, but the focus of this article is on changes to the state and local tax deduction, which currently favors rich states with high taxes.

People in expensive states are not somehow better off, dollar amounts are just higher in both the labor and real estate markets. It’s better understood as localized inflation than localized wealth.

If you mean by rich, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet level rich, then there are only a few dozen people whom you can tax that way.

Also tax is on income, not wealth. Unless Bill Gates sells his stocks, its pretty much untouchable.

There are wealth taxes. (property tax is one of them, estate tax is another -- phased out by this bill) In my opinion, we could do with a lot more wealth taxes.

> People have been clamoring for more taxes on the rich. Well, this is what it looks like.

How exactly is this a tax increase on the rich?

People making more than $200,000 per year will pay more taxes. How is it not a tax increase on the rich?

> People making more than $200,000 per year will pay more taxes. How is it not a tax increase on the rich?

I'm not sure of that, though, because that only seems true if you're filing single. MFJ at the same income level puts you in a lower bracket than today. I know there are more single filers than married, and that married filers pay close to 3/4 of all income taxes, but I'm unsure if that results in an overall increase.

Besides, this whole tax plan seems to lighten the tax burden on wealth. The estate tax exemption gets larger (and eventually eliminated in the house plan), and the small business tax rate drops to 25% (S-Corps, LLC, Partnerships, Sole Proprietors) - that's almost entirely going to benefit entities used to manage passive income/wealth like PE, hedge funds, etc. The house plan is a little better here since it reduces taxes on small businesses who don't make enough to benefit from the senate version.

Put another way, if this were really a tax increase on the rich, why are we projecting that the deficit (and national debt) will increase as a result? With income distribution the way it is right now, the only way you arrive at the deficit number is to tax the rich less, not more. The issue here is that everyone is getting a tax cut, and that seems unwise to me without some adjustment to spending.

The "rich" don't earn a salary.

I'm fine with paying tax if we get something good like universal healthcare out of it.

I don't want to pay more tax and cut medicare just to subsidize corporations and billionaires.

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