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Comment by triceratops | Hacker News Reader

> they just pass all their income taxes onto the poor in the form of price increases.

The rich don't pay income taxes. They have capital gains.

Corporations pay taxes on income. If you don't charge corporations income tax, then you have to charge workers even more income tax to make up the difference. I guess that's better for "the poor" somehow?

> if you include second- and third-order taxes.

This is a phoney concept.

> Your rent could be $1000 instead of $2000 if your landlord's income wasn't taxed so much.

More likely your rent would stay $2000 and your landlord would keep more of it.

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> The rich don't pay income taxes. They have capital gains.

This is ridiculous. Plenty of people who most Americans would call "rich" pay income tax.

If you earn, say a $300k - $1MM/yr salary, you are rich compared to most Americans in most areas, and you pay tons of income tax and potentially zero capital gains depending on how you manage your finances.

It's very obvious I wasn't talking about salaried rich. I was talking about "generational wealth" people.

If you earn $1m/year you have high income and a path to become wealthy quickly. But you aren't actually wealthy in my eyes unless you have the asset portfolio to match.

> It's very obvious I wasn't talking about salaried rich

Yeah no shit, by circular definition of "doesn't pay income tax."

> I was talking about "generational wealth" people.

That's obviously not the same word as "rich."

> Yeah no shit, by circular definition of "doesn't pay income tax."

Ah so then you did get my meaning the first time. Which means pointing out that some people who may or may not have assets also pay high taxes on their salaried income was unnecessary.

> That's obviously not the same word as "rich."

High income isn't rich. "Rich" is someone who has a lot of assets and wealth. That's literally the dictionary definition of the word.

What you tried to do was move the definition of "rich", i.e. the target of ire, to way, way, way above what most Americans consider rich.

"Rich and paying no income tax" -> largely the top end of the top end. The vast majority of rich people pay lots of income tax.

I'll go out on a limb and guess that you land in the category that most Americans consider rich, but you think attention should really be directed towards the ultrawealthy. Totally reasonable and capital gains obviously needs to be the center of that discussion, but let's not try to get there by just moving the line of what "rich" is and helping people delude themselves into thinking $300k+/yr is middle class.

> the definition of "rich", i.e. the target of ire,

There's ire directed at high income earners who pay high income taxes? This is news to me. Why exactly?

> just moving the line of what "rich" is

Again that's the dictionary definition of rich. But never mind that. This segment of the "rich" (if you want to call them that) is already well-taxed on their salaried income - we both agree. What's left to say about them?

>There's ire directed at high income earners who pay high income taxes? This is news to me. Why exactly?

Standard arguments about inequality? CEOs for instance attract much ire from their pay, often in the form of comparisons to their pay relative to the janitor working there or whatever.

I thought we were talking about tax-related ire.

In all these discussions the term "rich" slides around from "slightly more wealthy than I am" to "doesn't even include Elon".

It's a useless discussion - the questions should be what needs to be done, and THEN figure out how to pay for it, if necessary.

After all, an easy argument against the OP is that if my "blue collar job" is saved by a tariff, I won't CARE that I'm spending 10% more on laptops, as I still have the job!

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