Comment by marcusverus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcusverus | Hacker News Reader

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This makes me laugh.

> The tax savings were relatively small for many families, however. The middle fifth of earners got about a $780 tax cut last year on average, according to the Tax Policy Center.

If you take someone who pays a small amount of taxes (the middle fifth paid $2170 in taxes in 2017), and give them a big tax cut ($780 in savings would mean they got a ~30% cut), the number is still small. Pretending that this is insignificant is just goofy.

> The top 20 percent of earners received more than 60 percent of the total tax savings.

People who pay the most taxes get the most out of tax cuts? Scandalous! Income taxes paid by quintile:

Lowest: $-476

Fourth: $-677

Third: $2170

Second: $6952

First : $31,132

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0102M

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0103M

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0104M

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0105M

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CXUFEDTAXESLB0106M

Lowest and fourth got a tax increase. Middle class got a minor tax cut, the middle-upper class got a decent cut, and the upper class got a large cut.

It's also worth noting that the cut in question also had temporary provisions that expired, causing a tax increase for nearly all brackets except the upper class.

There has also been a massive cut in social services, which primarily affect the lowest/fourth brackets, which means they're paying more taxes for fewer services.

It's hard to interpret that "tax cut" in a way that doesn't scream "we're increasing taxes on most, and cutting services, to give the wealthy a tax cut".

It’s your link buddy, just quoting your own source.

$780 is insignificant.

Tax policy is written by humans, and they can do what they like with it. If you want to cut taxes for the poor, you do. If you want to cut taxes for the ultra wealthy, but make sure the statistics say poor people got a tax cut, you can do that too.

If you paid 1M in taxes, a 30% cut is 300k, and if you paid 1k it’s $300. One person will buy some bitcoin or a Porsche, the other will be lucky to buy some gas and groceries.

Both got a 30% tax cut, but it would be goofy to claim they have equivalent value.

If you wanted to be an honest person, maybe you correct the poster that there were tax cuts for the poor, but also point out that the cuts heavily favored the wealthy. Which by the way, was their argument.

> $780 is insignificant.

Yeah, just stating your opinion isn't an argument.

> Tax policy is written by humans, and they can do what they like with it.

Insightful!

> If you want to cut taxes for the poor, you do.

What taxes? The poor pay negative income taxes. Did you read the post you're responding to?

> If you want to cut taxes for the ultra wealthy, but make sure the statistics say poor people got a tax cut, you can do that too.

I would love for the poor to pay zero taxes. It would be an improvement over the amount they "pay" now!

> If you paid 1M in taxes, a 30% cut is 300k, and if you paid 1k it’s $300. One person will buy some bitcoin or a Porsche, the other will be lucky to buy some gas and groceries.

Okay.

> If you wanted to be an honest person

You don't have to seethe, you know. You can be wrong without letting everyone know that you're miserable and angry about an internet post.

> ... maybe you correct the poster that there were tax cuts for the poor, but also point out that the cuts heavily favored the wealthy. Which by the way, was their argument.

You're almost caught up! Now that argument was I making in response? If you tried to understand instead of trying to misunderstand (or worse, just vomiting angry words without any substance to them), you might learn something!

As an outside observer: it's your comment that seems seething and out of place on HN, not theirs.

The USA has no negative income tax. There are programs like the EITC which provide benefits to the poor and can be larger than their tax burden depending on the specific circumstances.

The EITC was initially signed into law by Ford (R) and expanded by Reagan (R). Regan apparently called it "the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress".

I'm sure you knew all this, so thanks for being honest in this post about the fact that you would like to dismantle this particular social safety net.

Seething comment sounds like projection btw, I'm not mad. The whole point of HN is to have the discussion expand in detail. Seems like it's working:

- Someone generalized - You called them a liar - We found out the generalization wasn't strictly correct, but basically true in spirit: the wealthy received the majority of the benefit, the poor got a small token for the sake of statistics / sound bytes.

> The USA has no negative income tax.

They're called refundable tax credits. They result in people being net recipients of the income tax after refunds are paid out. This is a negative income tax.

> Someone generalized - You called them a liar

They didn't "generalize", they made a claim which is literally and undeniably untrue. That is a lie.

> We found out the generalization wasn't strictly correct, but basically true in spirit.

We found that the people he claimed didn't get a tax cut actually got a 30% tax cut. That's an obvious, blatant lie.

Putting aside for a moment that 30% of nothing is nothing, where are you even getting this idea that someone got a 30% tax reduction?

Look at the plot you shared "Personal Taxes: Federal Income Taxes by Quintiles of Income Before Taxes: Third 20 Percent (41st to 60th Percentile)"

2015: 1854

2016: 1954 (+100)

2017: 2170 (+216)

2018: 2676 (+506)

2019: 2519 (-157)

What about these numbers makes you think that the third quintile on average got a 30% tax cut?

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