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Comment by askafriend | Hacker News Reader

Nobody is stopping you from contributing more. In fact, contributions to charity are tax exempt.

But if you want to contribute more to the government directly, others here have pointed you to some good resources.

The individual wants his class to be taxed. Telling the individual they can simply pay more does nothing for everyone else in the class. Your reply is unserious.

Not only do I want everyone in my "class" to contribute more to society, everyone significantly above me should be contributing a larger share. This is the basis of progressive taxation.

If we're just airing what we think about taxation, I think people with low incomes should pay more than they do currently in taxes, so that everyone feels like they have skin in the game. People generally don't take as much care of something that was dropped in their laps as something that they had to work hard for.

Currently, over half of all federal personal income tax collected is paid by under 5% of taxpayers, and the bottom 50% of income earners as a whole pay under 3% of all federal income tax collected.

> and the bottom 50% of income earners as a whole pay under 3% of all federal income tax collected.

What percentage of annual cash flow in the USofA do they earn?

Is it more than 3%?

According to this source[0], the bottom 50% of income earners who paid 2.32% of all federal personal income taxes collected in 2020 comprised 10.18% of the share of income. So yes, it is more.

[0]: https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxe...

You're equating giving money to the government with contributing to society, which is not the same thing. Politicians will give your money to any cause that will get them reelected, be that vanity projects or cronies that contribute to their campaigns. That's not even the worst case, they can spend it on the military killing people, spying on the populace including you, or distributing it in some other unjust way.

If you want to actually contribute to society you are better off investing it in some productive way or giving away to people in need as directly as possible. Government is a necessary evil, don't give it a dime more than what's absolutely needed as it can get out of control with little room to escape.

Begging for a tax increase as a proxy for societal contribution is something else.

I work 60 hours a week and volunteer for 20 more.

Not only do I want everyone in my "class" to contribute at least as much as I do, I want them to actually contribute something, not just voidposting about how they have too much money and wish the government would take more of it.

The entire discussion seems to have veered into the unserious.

While true and a fair rebuttal to all higher tax suggestions, increased tax on people like OP would have a much larger effect than just them giving a bit more away.

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