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Comment by sgjohnson | Hacker News Reader

But nobody ever paid it as there were millions of loopholes.

You have to be actually wealthy for most "loopholes" come into play. Just like today, non-wealthy high earners take the biggest hit in taxes. And there are way more of those than actually wealthy people. Back then, the hit was even bigger, but the group being hit the hardest was smaller.

Politically, this setup seems to help keep those high-earners voting for lower taxes, which makes sense to them since they're the ones paying the highest overall rate.

Employee benefits like company-provided cars were way more common as it was a more favorable tax situation.

You did have to be wealthy, but $100,000 in 1980 is equivalent to $383,000 today which is pretty wealthy. So it’s basically income above $400,000 today.

And many of the tax “loopholes” involved real estate investment which would be accessible at that income level.

$380k is not wealthy. Most people can live just fine on $380k, don’t get me wrong, but it is basically upper middle class. If $380k/yr is wealthy then what is $20 million/yr?

While technically a better term for assets than income, we'll continue to use "wealthy".

You should realize that multiple things can be wealthy.

$380k is wealthy and $20M is also wealthy. $20M is wealthier than $380k.

Im the US, an income of $380k is the 99th percentile.

In a higher COL state of California, an income of $380k is still in the 99th percentile.

And for the very high COL city of San Francisco, an income of $380k is still just about the 99th percentile

If a person is making $380k, regardless of what they may believe, they are absolutely not middle class in any way shape or form. They are "wealthy".

I think you should not be redefining what words mean to make your argument.

Wealthy means to have wealth. Wealth is the abundance of financial assets. Income can become wealth if saved/invested, but it is not wealth.

There are numerous definitions of middle class, with many being "not upper, not lower". Upper class is defined as those that have the most wealth (explicitly not income) and political power.

$People with 380k of income, but without significant assets are not upper class. They would be considered upper middle class.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wealthy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_class

> $People with 380k of income, but without significant assets are not upper class. They would be considered upper middle class.

I mean sure, but anyone able to sustain that income level will quickly become wealthy unless they have ridiculously high spending levels.

They should, but but it is not guaranteed. There is also a long way between having more wealth than most, and becoming upper class where you can live "comfortably" entirely off the earnings of your wealth.

My previous comment seemed to have touched a nerve with some people, which strange given that I (IMO) was politely providing commonly accepted definitions of words/terms, with supporting references. I guess people do not like the actual meanings of the words. Or perhaps I sounded like an condescending asshole :shrug:

$400k per year put you in the top 1% of income earners in the US. 99% of people make less than those people.

That’s wealthy to me.

> then what is $20 million/yr?

obscenely rich

“More wealthy”?

100K in 1980 was sufficient to build and compound your wealth. That’s wealthy.

Up thread somebody asked what these were. A response had credit card interest deductions (rich people aren't running a credit card debt today, and certainly not in 1970) and easier tax fraud.

This is such a compelling narrative for the "taxes should be lower" crowd that I'm skeptical. Granted, this is my personal bias. But I would love to see the actual clear examples of how people are deducting like 50% of their income or whatever they'd need to bring their 70% marginal rate down to 35%.

In the 80s mortgage rates hit 20%. So there's a start. Wages weren't quite as skewed to the high end as they are today. The gap between low middle, middle, and upper middle was not as wide, so it was less likely to hit the threshold for the 70% bracket. There were far more single income families, so again, not as likely to hit the threshold. Finally it's a marginal rate. Only income above the threshold would be taxed that much, not one's entire income.

source?

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