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Comment by seaourfreed | Hacker News Reader

Congress is corrupt (via lobbyists). Congress would make this illegal if congress men/women didn't sell out American Citizens.

88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem.

$3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 88% came from workers.

US Federal Tax Revenues (2019): $3.5 Trillion

SOURCE: https://www.google.com/search?q=us+tax+revenues+2019&oq=us+t...

US Capital Gains (2018): $170 Billion (4.8%)

SOURCE: https://taxfoundation.org/federal-capital-gains-tax-collecti...

US Corporate Taxes: 3.9% of US Tax Revenues

https://taxfoundation.org/us-tax-revenue-2021/#:~:text=Corpo...

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Historically it was the opposite.

Overtime, all our policies changed to squeeze the regular citizens to protect and enrich the top 1%. It's wealth redistribution to the top.

Instead Americans would rather flight each other instead of banning together to reverse course.

It doesn't have to be this way.

I love how this website shows this in data:

https://wtfhappenedin1971.com

I knew it has been different, didn't know that website though. Anyway this should be repeated more often, also in response to the 'but if we tax them they'll go elsewhere, there is no other way'. Because people simply do not know this.

> 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%).

"the rich" pay income taxes as well: https://itep.org/who-pays-taxes-in-america-in-2020/

In fact, the top 1% paid 24.3% of all income tax. And the top 5% paid 40.6% of all income tax.

So it is most definitely taxing the rich.

The top 25% paid 66.4% of all income taxes, so to suggest that this is somehow a very regressive tax system seems to not hold water.

> In fact, the top 1% paid 24.3% of all income tax. And the top 5% paid 40.6% of all income tax.

Those numbers aren't normalized btw. Americans in the top 1% net worth account for more than 30% of the total net worth of all Americans [1] [2]. 30% > 24.3% so it is slightly regressive from that standpoint.

But there's a bigger picture and that is, what do these rich people do with their money? Does it help people or not? Arguably Jeff Bezos hurts many people's lives (eliminating mom and pop stores, mistreating employees, etc.) while Elon Musk is probably overall helping people (space exploration, more transportation options).

My point is, all the Americans in the bottom X% have to provide something of value to others to maintain / increase their net worth. Many people (not all) at the top Y% are maintaining / increasing their net worth by pushing many people far below them slightly down.

[1] https://windfalldata.com/blog/what-it-takes-to-be-in-the-top...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/10/08/top-1-of-u...

> Those numbers aren't normalized btw.

They don't need to be, they are what they are. 40.6% of all income tax is 40.6% of all income tax. No normalization needed.

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