Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

From your link:

> The middle fifth of earners got about a $780 tax cut last year on average, according to the Tax Policy Center.

> The top 20 percent of earners received more than 60 percent of the total tax savings, according to the Tax Policy Center; the top 1 percent received nearly 17 percent of the total benefit, and got an average tax cut of more than $30,000. And that’s not even factoring in the law’s huge cut to corporate taxes, which disproportionately benefit the wealthy households that own the most stock.

Hence (rightfully so) pitchforks. The average American taxpayer was bamboozled.

View on HN

The median 5th of earners earned from 30-48K last year, which includes a huge chunk of people who pay zero federal income tax. A $780 tax cut in to someon who only pays $1000 is not insubstantial.

It's kinda the way math works - if you cut taxes for everyone, the people who pay the most taxes in absolute dollars will see the most benefit.

Oh, and you're not disproving my point - claiming a tax cut is not a tax cut because when people in fact paid less in taxes is kinda hard to do.

But since the top 20% of taxpayers pay 87% of income tax[1] and the top 1% pay 37%[2], this makes total sense.

1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-20-of-americans-will-pay-87... 2: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...

But it’s not how it was sold. The absolute number is not the issue, but the optics. I have seen this first hand with Trump supporters (extended family) who are having an unpleasant tax filing season (owing when they have never owed before) and feel lied to. I have delivered the bad news that their tax burden was already so low, how would they expect their tax cut to be generous? Like I said, optics.

EDIT: I know how tax refunds and liability work, but I am not the general public.

If you have to pay more or your refund is lower, that's a good thing. That means you paid less money in taxes.

The government holding onto your money until the end of the year is not a good thing. You'd be better off saving that money and investing it.

Progressive taxation makes sense, the fact that this tax law did nothing about the cap on the payroll tax should be the ultimate indicator.

I think the tax cuts were stupid, but I don't see how a tax cut can work any other way. The top 1% pay 37% of all income taxes, so getting 17% of the benefit is actually quite progressive.

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...

What an unusual way to present the "progressive" ratio of taxes being paid, basing it on the total taxes paid by percentile groups. Of course a disproportionately wealthy percentile would be expected to pay most of the taxes in absolute amount or as ratios of absolute amounts between groups, if all the percentiles paid the same amount, but also EVEN IF the tax rates slide lower (i.e. are regressive) for the wealthy.

Progressive versus regressive tax rate discussions are more typically based on the ratio of one household's tax to that household's earnings. In other words, how much of what I make goes to taxes? I think this make comparisons more fair and straightforward, instead of comparing the ratios of combined absolute taxes by group.

I mean that the tax cut is progressive. If it wasn't progressive, then the 1% would receive 37% of the tax cut savings.

It's really hard to cut the federal income taxes on the poor, who pay no federal income tax.

> the top 1 percent received nearly 17 percent of the total benefit

Given that the top 1 percent pay more in taxes than the bottom 90% combined, that doesn't seem entirely unfair.

Seems unfair that someone making 11x what another person makes used to pay 25x as much as them in taxes but now pays 40x instead (i.e. 550k vs 50k)

Not to me? Seems totally fair assuming the person making 11x is still able to afford a comfortable lifestyle (which they're more than able to)

From each according to his ability?

And to each according to his needs. Yea, it'd be nice if we could get full on communism working at some point but I'm not holding my breath, in the mean time I'm happy to live with these rough balances of the system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com