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Comment by darawk | Hacker News Reader

> The USA has a large number of regressive taxes, which tax the poor more heavily than the rich. These have been steadily expanded. And it has one, only one, progressive tax - the federal (not state) income tax - which has been steadily made less progressive in recent years to the point where overall taxation is at best flat and more likely slightly regressive.

Citation needed. Saying the US has "only one" progressive tax is a bit ridiculous. The income tax is by far the largest tax almost anyone pays. It's certainly the largest tax I, and everyone I know, pay. And that only increases as you get richer.

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> And that only increases as you get richer.

Correct. Which is why income is such a miniscule fraction of the 1% (and above's) earnings. It's all out there in the open. Pick any CEO in the top-100 corporations. Look at their income. Then look at their overall earnings. The bulk falls under capital gains due to stock. Then there is deferred compensation, where taxes are lowered even MORE if you agree to postpone being paid. There are so many clever ways for the very very rich to avoid taxes it boggles the mind.

So go ahead and keep talking about the income tax, they've got you distracted.

> Pick any CEO in the top-100 corporations.

The top is about 3.5 millions people. Being one of the top-100 CEOs is very, very different from being a random one percenter.

> Pick any CEO in the top-100 corporations. Look at their income. Then look at their overall earnings.

Warren Buffet is probably the easiest person to look at here. A quick google says that [0] he made $11m in 2016, and on that he paid $1.85m in federal income tax, and he claims a large portion of the remainder was paid in state tax. Even ignoring his state taxes, yes he paid a marginal rate of 16%, but he still paid more in income tax than the average 1%er's salary. I'm certainly not a right wing advocate, but the spin associated with the "rich are not paying enough tax" doesn't really help the conversation much.

[0] https://fortune.com/2016/10/10/presidential-debate-donald-tr...

>A quick google says that [0] he made $11m in 2016,

The amount he made in 2016 is the point of contention. Sure he made 11m in income, but for that same year, BRK.A increased a staggering 25% in share price. Even if Buffet owns a 1% of BRK.A, that represents a paper gain of 4 Billion dollars.

Now, sure, he might not have sold any stock so that won't count against his capital gains tax, but to me, its a bit deceptive to say that Buffet only made $11M.

when your house goes up by 100k in a year did you “make” 100k?

What's your point? If my house goes up by 100k in a year, in most US states, my property taxes would rise accordingly, whether or not I realized the true value of the home. Housing is a poor analogy as stocks are treated better than housing in this situation.

(California is not one of those states, due to Proposition 13, which is also very controversial and is argued to be one of the causes of California's rising housing costs)

When it comes to "if the rich are being taxed enough", you bring up a good point - if my home rises in value I pay more - however Buffet makes several billion in paper gains, and his taxes are largely unchanged.

The house is a strawman of sorts. The rich pay property taxes too.

CEOs are probably a bad example for your point, because stock awards are generally taxed as income, not capital gains: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2016/09/01/apple-ce...

> However, the day Cook was awarded his multi-year payday Apple immediately withheld and sold 656,117 of Cook’s shares to cover his tax bill. All told, Apple sold $70.9 million in Cook’s stock at a price of $108.03, equivalent to or 52.1% of Cook’s total $135 million performance award.

You’re talking about a relatively small number of investors who derive most of their income from capital gains. (Capital gains account for just about 6% of total personal income.) It just so happens that many prominent examples (Trump, Buffet, Romney) happen to fall into that group. But even among CEOs, professional like Jack Welch (who pays over 30%) will take a lot or most of their compensation as ordinary income.

Most of the bottom ~50% or so of households pay no (or negative) federal income tax, due to low income, EITC, various offsets for children, etc.

At the lower end, you need to factor in payroll taxes as well ( FICA )

Also things like sales taxes or even DMV fees can be significant percentages of lower income's taxes.

There are also:

* FICA, which is strongly regressive at the higher end.

* Sales taxes, which are also strongly regressive since (citation needed) the poor likely pay more of their income on taxable goods. ("There's only so much filet mignon you can eat," according to a government professor I once had.)

* Property taxes.

* Fees.

Also, all of our morality or "sin" taxes are highly regressive: tobacco, booze, pot, soda, etc.

Don't forget government run lotteries

> it has one, only one, progressive tax - the federal (not state) income tax

The estate tax is very progressive, at 40% for estates over $11.4m, and 0% for estates worth less.

Many state taxes are progressive as well.

For most taxpayers, social security and medicare payroll taxes (highly regressive) are the largest tax they pay.

Citation?

Try sales taxes. The poor aren't excluded from them, yet someone who is poor is far more likely to spend a larger percentage of their income on them than anyone with enough income to save and invest.

Most of the sales taxes I’ve seen exempt things like food and other necessities.

That doesn't refute anything I said.

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