Hard to identify with people who find this controversial
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/01/ta...
Yeah.
Ignore the time value of money for a moment and imagine you work for minimum wage for thirty years, building a business, then sell it and get ten million dollars for a single year, hoping to fund your retirement and pay for college etc. Compare that to getting $333K/year for thirty years - the taxes paid would be considerably different.
Personally, I think that we need to look at taxes and earnings over a whole lifetime rather than on an arbitrary yearly basis.
There's no way there's enough money in the top 1% to fund the programs and plans she wants. The only way will be through the upper middle class. YOU.
On the other hand, the model appears to fit pretty poorly for gay marriage, where they posit if you move from traditionalism, before you know it, people will be marrying dogs.
Before (IIRC) Reagan, the point at which different marginal tax rates apply wasn't adjusted for inflation for decades, perhaps ever. The result was exactly that middle class families (including mine) paid tax rates that were originally intended only for the rich.
If you already believe that "taxes are theft", then nothing I or anyone else can say will change your mind.
However, the fact is that you made your money in one of the most money-making-amenable contexts in the history of this planet, and that's not an accident, and it's not a coincidence. This nation has been investing in itself--and investing in you--since long before either of us were born, in order to provide the societal context that allowed you to exercise the full extent of your god-given abilities in order to make your fortune. That's why you didn't die of cholera when you were 3, it's why you didn't join the job market as a barefoot and illiterate 12-year-old, it's why you can commute to work each day secure in the knowledge that some dude isn't going to pull up in a Toyota Hilux, jack your Beemer and sell you into slavery.
To be a rich person in the United States and think "I made all this money, all by myself, because I'm some kind of genius Randian super-guy" is the pinnacle of deluded, parasitical vanity.
> That's kind of a weirdly confrontational tone to take.
Last sentence:
> To be a rich person in the United States and think "I made all this money, all by myself, because I'm some kind of genius Randian super-guy" is the pinnacle of deluded, parasitical vanity.
You see that as non confrontational?
Could you parse this sentence for me please? "That always sparks the idea of true laziness in the person saying this."
In particular the primary reason I support this is that the primary reason I want more than $100K income is competing in housing markets like SFBA and NYC. If everyone making over $100K is taxed heavily past that point, then the people competing for the same housing are on the same playing field as I am - if anything, I'm more competitive with people who make more than I do - and it also makes income equality better in general. (I don't actually care if the money goes to the government; you may as well burn it. The effect I'm interested in is changing post-tax incomes, not getting more revenue for the government)
100k just isn't that much in a city nowadays.
I'd support it for 250k, but really we are just arguing about the cutoff not about the idea of raising taxes on high earners.
But, I am happy to concede that not everyone expects this and I am being optimistic :)
You can't possibly believe that 70% marginal on > 100k is anywhere near reasonable. Here in CA, that means, you're income taxes would be 83% plus medicare and social sec urity which is +8%, and let's not forget the company pays another 7% of your salary on top of that (you don't ever see that 7% - that's the part they pay), and that's not even counting all the other taxes you pay after that. at that point, everyone would have to quit their jobs. to say that it would ruin the economy is the biggest understatement of a lifetime.
Well, that's the rub: it depends on who you ask. If you ask someone making $30K per year, $100K is a fantastic sum worthy of a high tax rate. That's the problem with the "soak the rich" rhetoric: it's all a matter of perspective. Just pray that someone without any insight into your financial situation doesn't deem you "rich"!
I do not understand your argument that everyone would have to quit their jobs. They just wouldn't fight for raises once they made it to $100K. I started my career making $95K out of college. I can't say I'm more than $5K/year happier now. I just spend more to keep up with everyone else, mostly on housing.
do you have savings? any retirement funds set up? any family? if you have family, your spending will skyrocket and you won't make it with 95K, even in new york. jsut so you know, child care runs about 22K per year per child (not tax decutible) and that's just the tip of iceberg. so don't have any children, if you wanna keep your spending low.
edit: serious question, is that equality worth it, if it means you're homeless and hungry on the street?
also, in SF 117K is considered low income for a family of 4: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Annual-Income-of-11740...
I suspect that in such an alternate NYC, very few renters (let's ignore buyers, because it makes it more complicated, but I think my argument applies there too) would be motivated to make significantly more than $100K. Therefore most people are going to be paying at most $100K/40 = $2500/month for housing according to the standard NYC rental guidelines. The market for 1BR apartments that cost $3000, $4000, $10,000/month no longer exists. (Double that for 2BRs.) In that housing market, not in the current NYC housing market, would I still end up homeless and hungry on the street if I had to pay rent from savings? I think there's a lot less chance that if I got laid off I'd be unable to make rent in this alternate universe, even if I had the savings of making $95K/year, than that if I got laid off from my current job making >>$100K/year and with my current savings I'd be unable to make rent in this universe.
Obviously in the NYC of current reality, I am not going to donate 70% of everything I make over $100K. The very fact that taxes are a collective activity is what makes them different from voluntary charity.
Flexible Savings Accounts can make some childcare tax deductable.
Medicare + Social security is 6.2%, and you don't pay it for income above $118.5K.
The 70% is marginal, not on the whole income.
The employer share (what you call 7%) is mostly irrelevant to the employee. It doesn't show up in my tax forms.
The whole point was that the exorbitant cost of living in CA would become unsustainable with such a tax, and the system will shift to account for it.
And finally:
>are you just trolling for responses? well you got me.
Violating HN guidelines.
Medicare + Social security is 6.2%, and you don't pay it for income above $118.5K.
I personally support a 70% marginal tax on all income over $100,000, and I make well over that
The amount of revenue this will raise is rather low, compared to increasing the tax on, say, the middle class. You'll gain a lot, lot more if you revert the recent tax reduction on the middle class. I just looked at my numbers, and I thought my taxes wouldn't be impacted (high state income tax and real estate tax that can no longer be deducted). But even I saved quite a bit with the recent tax cuts.
I obviously don't have a problem taxing people who make over $10M. But if I had to choose, I would instead revert the current tax cuts, even thought that would raise my tax burden.