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Comment by morninglight | Hacker News Reader

> Seniors, should reap the benefits of higher bank savings rates after years of piddling returns.

Not to any significant degree. Bank rates won't come close to offsetting the effect of inflation. The big winner will be the IRS, as intended.

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How does IRS win here?

I assume capital gains on the increase in nominal value. The government gets a cut of that. Kinda acts like a wealth tax.

Unless the tax brackets are adjusted, inflation with rising wages means more people in higher tax brackets. If corporate earnings go up, there's more for the IRS too though that might be wiped out by the lessening value of each dollar.

Unless the tax brackets which are adjusted for inflation every year continue to be adjusted as usual*

Are you saying the IRS does not adjust tax brackets to follow inflation properly?

The brackets are indexed to C-CPI as of 2018

> unless the tax brackets are adjusted

Most IRS brackets and thresholds are tax adjusted [1][2]. Tax brackets certainly are, as is the personal standard deduction.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-provides-tax-inflation-adju...

[2] https://thehill.com/policy/finance/580961-irs-announces-infl...

Inflation is 8.6% but they adjusted the tax brackets by 3%.

https://taxdude.substack.com/p/inflation-is-a-double-stealth...

You linked to someone who doesn't explain how they do the adjustment calculation. I'm assuming because the person at that substack is a bad faith actor trying to get an emotional response from people.

Here's a link actually explaining the process. https://taxfoundation.org/2021-tax-brackets.

It would appear the year over year cutoff for the calculation will lead to a bigger catch up in the next adjustment.

Let's say inflation is 10%. Let's say I have some money. To just break even, I have to invest it somewhere that returns 10%. So I do. (That's easier to find than it was when inflation was 1.5%.)

Then the IRS says that the 10% is income, and taxes me on that. They make more than they did when I was getting 1.5% on my money.

When inflation was surging in the late 1970s and early 1980s, CD rates exceeded 10%.

And a mortgage came with a 16% rate. No thanks!

And monthly rate was lower than now with 5.5% mortgage. Yes, I want it.

All it will cost you is a few decades of deflation to get back to 70s prices.

I am very ok with housing price deflation.

As should everyone! If your finances would be wrecked by house prices staying stable, let alone decreasing, you're in for a world of hurt.

Also it's amusing that everyone wants lower cost housing but wants house prices to appreciate.

To get back to 70s prices we should also go back to 70s building codes (less safe, but is something costing 2x, 3x, 5x really justifies the marginal safety improvements?) and 70s house sizes (smaller)

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