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Comment by dghlsakjg | Hacker News Reader

As an engineer living outside the States: Get a grip.

Its a marginal tax, so it won't even affect engineers making $500k, unless they cash in on a windfall.

What do you get for your taxes? You get to be living in the one place on earth where you CAN make that much money. Nothing is stopping you from moving elsewhere on this earth and renouncing your US citizenship. Then you can stop paying those taxes (and likely pay higher taxes).

You get access to a massive highway system funded by the feds, you get access to multiple international airports in the Bay Area, you get access to a collection of some of the smartest people in the world at some of the best institutions in the country that suck in an absurd amount of federal funding.

Let's not even get into the fact that Capital gains tax is at its lowest ever, and at one point capital gains for top earners was 40%, and income tax was even higher.

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I’m not sure why this narrative continues to have purchase.

The federal government publishes its spending data[1], and that is simply not what the money is spent on.

Transportation in totality was 7% of discretionary spending, itself 24% of total spending in 2019 [1].

2020 was an unusual year with enhanced unemployment and the paycheck protection program, but depending on whether you want to count the interest on debt, 35% to 40% of federal spending was on Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare, the latter net of premiums (so gross spending was higher).

In 2018, a more normal year, these categories represented 55% of spending, interest being 8%.

In short, most federal tax dollars represent a redistribution of income from the young and working to the old, nonworking population. That’s what the plurality of the dollars do. Whether or not that’s a “good” thing is outside the scope of this comment, but we should at least be able to be honest about it.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...

If you include federal spending on self funded programs (and are still self funding as they haven't gone insolvent yet), you'll have to include payroll taxes in your revenue computations as well just to be fair.

> In short, most federal tax dollars represent a redistribution of income from the young and working to the old, nonworking population.

People paid into social security and medicare to get it. If they get more than they paid in for (sans interest earned on what they put in), then you have a case for a "wealth transfer". Otherwise, it is just like a 401K, which is also save now and use later.

On your first point I absolutely agree.

But if you’re implying from it that benefits programs don’t matter because the payroll taxes pay for them, that’s not correct.

In 2020, the cost of the programs I mentioned above was approximately 2.3 trillion dollars. Payroll tax revenue was 1.3 trillion, income tax revenue was about 1.6, everything else is half a trillion.

So if you waved a magic wand and poofed these programs out of the budget, you could get rid of the payroll taxes and 2/3 of the receipts of the income tax without changing the deficit. Or, you could get rid of payroll taxes, all the other taxes, and still reduce the income tax receipts by about 1/3.

> People paid into social security and medicare to get it. If they get more than they paid in for (sans interest earned on what they put in), then you have a case for a "wealth transfer". Otherwise, it is just like a 401K, which is also save now and use later.

The problem with this line of argumentation is that people have gotten (and are promised to get) more out of these programs than they pay in.

The CBO provides projections for the solvency of the assets of these programs, which it calls trust funds [1]. The projections show the bulk insolvent by 2026. So clearly people are receiving more than their contributions are capable of sustaining.

[1]: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56541

> In 2020, the cost of the programs I mentioned above was approximately 2.3 trillion dollars. Payroll tax revenue was 1.3 trillion, income tax revenue was about 1.6, everything else is half a trillion.

Sure but the programs ran surpluses for many years, all of that money being lent to the government. You can’t double count paying that debt down as new debt if you counted it as debt when it was lent to the general fund (if debt was used to pay down debt, then it just remains). Likewise, interest payments on that debt also go back into the programs (since they were debtees), so if you get to only count that interest once even if it is being transferred inside what you are taking as the budget (so interest the government pays to SS shouldn’t be counted as additional debt either). The point where previous surpluses no longer cover current outlays (2035 for social security, 2026 for Medicare) is when we can start counting extra money put in as new debt.

>...Let's not even get into the fact that Capital gains tax is at its lowest ever,

No it is not. The lowest capital gains rates were 12.5% and even 10 years ago it was 15%.

>...and at one point capital gains for top earners was 40%

When was it ever 40%? 50 years ago, it was 35%, but that was the highest.

https://www.wolterskluwer.com/en/expert-insights/whole-ball-...

>....and income tax was even higher.

Talking about marginal rates without discussing effective rates (due to deductions that were available, etc.) is quite misleading. That high 70% rate in the 70's brought in a tiny amount of tax revenue:

>...Of the $517 billion the Treasury collected in 1980, only $3 billion to $5 billion came from the 70 percent bracket — less than 1 percent of total tax revenue.

https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2019/02/05/democrats-7...

(One reason that democrats suggested lowering the top rate in 1981.)

Those high marginal rates encouraged all kinds of unproductive investments to take advantage of loopholes built into the law. Where people couldn't get around the rates, there were deadweight losses from economic activity that didn't occur. Even if someone thinks it is morally ok to take that much of someone's income, those kinds of high rates simply hurt the economy.

Amen. As another non US developer, there's nothing worse than seeing the pure outrage of some of the most highly paid and privileged workers on the planet.

A huge tax bill is a dream cause it means your take home pay is likely several multiples of that number. I wish I paid a million a year in tax personally.

>Let's not even get into the fact that Capital gains tax is at its lowest ever

That's not the case here in the US. Historically we've had capital gains brackets that maxed out at 7%. Even looking at more recent rates, the top brackets were lower a decade ago.

> Its a marginal tax, so it won't even affect engineers making $500k, unless they cash in on a windfall.

Arguing this point is apparently a lost cause. It's how taxes have always worked in the US, but despite that you still have clearly educated high earners flipping out when they see a bracket start at nearly $500k as if the new marginal rate is going to gut them.

People love their money and always want more of it. Just admit it, people. I like mine too!

I'm always really surprised how many people don't understand marginal taxation. Also, how tax rates are graduated tax could mean that someone could pay less in taxes in California than in Alabama (for low earners) is completely alien to them.

This convo also doesn't address fairness. It never addresses fairness.

It is simply "you won't die without less money. Therefore, you must pay more".

> Let's not even get into the fact that Capital gains tax is at its lowest ever, and at one point capital gains for top earners was 40%, and income tax was even higher.

Oh yeah. Gay right is also better than ever. Minority right is also better than ever.

Woman actually can get a degree from Harvard now.

Should we all just shut up?

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You also ignore that salaried employees already pay fair share of tax.

Why don't we tax billionaires more like Dems advertise for years?

What about if we taxed billionaires and millionaires an extra 10% on earnings related to their business assets that aren’t subject to regular income taxes? Would that be fair?

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