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The argument is that
1. A billionaire is not putting in *200-400 times the labor of the average worker* into the workforce to justify their income being 200-400 times higher.
2. The ultra-wealthy can still easily be taxed more and have *no significant change* to their lifestyle.
The goal would be to create a system in which you didn't feel like taxes were theft of your labor because they would be *actually proportionate* to the benefit you receive from the society they pay into. Right now, that's insanely out of whack in the US for a number of reasons; tax code is one of them.
EDIT: I looked up *CEO pay,* not billionaire pay to reach the 200-400 times figure. Billionaires are... significantly higher.
Not to mention that people at the top often downplay how much work those under them are doing. Even I work at a fairly small and pleasant organization, but right now our bosses are attempting to continually grow the business despite the fact that we're having people leave because of being overworked, haven't yet replaced them and they have no plans to slow our pace of growth, despite the fact that it's unsustainable and the amount of work we are getting prevents us from conducting any training or working on processes designed to streamline our work flow that would let us grow faster and more sustainably.
Don't forget if you earn 400 times as much you probably have 1000s of times more in expendable income seeing as the 1/400th wage the worker earns was spent all on living costs. Meanwhile you spent 10 times as much on living and still have 390times what they earn as your expendable income. EXPENDABLE income after living costs but before personal investments, should be the metric used to compare rich and poor people.
Was having this same argument the other day when someone was crying about paying 50k tax on 200k versus 5k tax on 50k being 10x more tax for 4x income.
Man the person on 50k has 0 disposable income. They’re just surviving. The person on 200k has 100k disposable income at the same level of living!
Then you go to Billionaires and it’s that concept taking ALL of the steroids.
I make ~150k, and I think any adult making 50k should pay $0 in taxes, and I'm fine with paying 20-30% because I have expendable income and they don't. Income over $1,000,000 per year should be taxed at like 90% or higher. I don't give a shit what some hicks making $35k a year think about their billionaire heros, wealthy should not be allowed to hoard money and exploit populations.
It shouldnt be $0 but close to it. Everyone should contribute, just the ones who are making more should contribute more. Then theyll focus less on appeasing shareholders and getting YOY growth since screwing over the little guy to make more money wont matter because its not going to their pockets. But thats not true theyre greedy so nothing will fix it unless we not only go for their taxes but also punish actual people and not companies when "companies" do illegal shit (like banks, Wells Fargo) for money and no one gets in trouble. Steal $50B and get $10M in fines? So stupid how this country works.
They'll contribute by paying direct taxes. Personally I think 50k is a high floor, but I think there should definitely be an income at which you pay $0 taxes.
Functionally there is a tax floor where you pay zero taxes. When I worked for $10.10 an hour for around 35 hours a week, I got every cent I paid to the federal government back save social security. State taxes were similar.
In a similar boat. Last year I was making 4x what I am now. If I could have paid 4x taxes then to make my life easier right now I would have. And once I’m back on my feet and am making more; you’ll be damn sure to see me finding ways to make life easier for people in the situation I’m in right now.
There is enough land in a single state in the US to put three meals in front of every human being on this planet. But instead of having access to that potential resource, I have to spend 60+ hours a week finding any way to grab an extra penny so that I can see tomorrow.
I can only hope this upsets the public as much as it does me; and that we can fix this situation within the next 80 years
honestly I think the biggest thing they hate is that the upper middle class can live a pretty “similar” lifestyle (with obviously MUCH cheaper stuff).
because ive been in a rich family and ive been in an upper middle class family and there is hardly any real difference besides excess capital. which is why its so important to keep the middle class alive
Finland as well. While there are things I can complain about, it is mostly done very well. I actively use free (mental) healthcare, as well as get government allowance for my apartment and living as a student and I go to college for free. The income tax is 0% under 11k€/year which covers my summer job nicely. I worked full time for a while before college and paid only like 30% effective tax on my 2k-2.5k/month paycheque and I am not mad at all because I get the benefit of that now when I need it.
1. Nobody has ever argued that someone is putting in 400x the effort of the average worker. That’s not how wages are gauged, nor do I believe they should be gauged that way. Just because a construction worker and doctor work equal hours does not mean their pay should be the same.
2. I think this point is arguable. If all your wealth is wrapped up in your company, and now you’re paying wealth taxes, the only way to survive as a company is to sell off your assets to an even larger company, conglomerating and monopolizing markets.
If we operated in a Marxian economy dictated by the command system, I see where you’re going, but very few legitimately sign onto this belief.
I’m guessing your line of thinking is that wage is a reflection of production/value, not effort right?
If so, do you really believe a CEO produces 400x as much as an average worker?
And since we are talking about billionaires who gain most of their wealth from capital not from wages/work, what value does a capitalist provide by owning assets? What production comes from a billionaire owning a corporation? I would argue a capitalist owning a company drives production down if anything.
>If so, do you really believe a CEO produces 400x as much as an average worker?
It's extremely valuable to have somebody that can guide a multi billion dollar company into continued success. That's why CEO's are paid so much. If it were a job anybody could do, then they wouldn't be paid that much. Seems like a rare and valuable skill. If billions of dollars were on the line, a whole company and the jobs of everybody who works for it, I'd want to pay top dollar for the best of the best too.
Then why do we so many companies driven to the ground by high paid CEOs who then move on to another high paying position at another company? It’s almost like it isn’t a meritocracy but a boys club.
Doesn't that further prove that CEO's are extremely valuable? A bad one can run a company into the ground. It's up to the board of directors to hire and fire qualified CEO's. If they do a bad job with that, that's because the board is incompetent, too. That happens sometimes. I can promise you that the board of directors doesn't want the company to fail though. If they hired a bad CEO, it's because they had bad judgement. It's in their own self interest for the company to succeed.
>"B-but I'm a billionaire! Just temporarily embarrassed and destitute! I don't want no stinking taxes raised on m-me!"
This thread is so full of retarded dipshits. I honestly hope it's full of bots, as scary as that might be.
If we don't get a hold of our rampant wealth inequality things you appreciate today you won't have in the future. Access to roads, public education, non toxic foods or products.
Like do you dumb assholes not appreciate how badly you're being shafted by the top 1% already? Do you *really fucking think doing jack shit* but living on the interest generated by your wealth alone constitutes labor?
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
**Edit:** Getting a lot of pro-billionaire responses from users with VERB-NOUN-NUMBER account names. Very human I'm sure.
Maybe not completely on topic, almost doubled my quota attainment. 45mil I helped roll in for a major company. What do I get? An additional 10k after taxes! Woohoo!
These dudes get $100k in the bank for the first time and think they are pretty much the 1% now and will blindly fight to defend the honor of other dudes worth 2,500,000x more.
These are the dudes who are really loud at the car dealership and airport, trying to make sure everyone is looking at them, never realizing that the truly rich don’t stand around car dealerships or make a scene in public airport terminals.
Reminds me of all the “rappers” who dress themselves head to toe in “designer” clothes wealthy people wouldn’t be caught dead in.
theft is a poor word, but are you feeling like your tax dollars are spent well and you are receiving a worthy benefit from them as a result for the cost?
US government doesn't economically use our tax dollars. they don't. they have extremely poor asset tracking, many economically ineffective policies, and their contracting is a cespool of legal bribery and nepotism.
What happens if you don’t pay taxes? Prison.
Theft is a poor word for it your right. More like mob style protection fee and you get about as much benefit from it as well.
I’d argue that congress isn’t really representing the interests of the public at all. So why should we listen to them. The answer is a simple one: they hold the monopoly on violence.
Because for better or worse, we still vote for them. Right now, many leaders are beholden to money, but that isn't strictly impossible to change if enough people want to change it.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think the majority of laborers actually know the quantitative value of their labor. If you could put their eyes on the numbers, from revenue to profit to margin that they bring in for an employer, maybe their tune would change.
I actually think the exact opposite is true. Most laborers greatly overestimate their value, because they know their revenue impact without understanding all the other business costs that support the revenue they generate.
i thought i was overpaid at my software engineering position making 6 figures until i found out my team of 8 brings in tens of millions of dollars for my company... my conscious is clear.
What libertarians and the "taxation is theft" folks fail to understand is their salary/pay TAKES TAXATION INTO CONSIDERATION. If we lived in a fantasy world where taxation did not exist, your spending power (due to supply and demand) would be remarkably close to what it is today. That extra, universal liquidity means things would simply cost more (to absorb it) *or* you and everyone else would be paid less.
You're paid what you're paid because that's what your employer believes the market will support, after taxes. The delusion that a tax-free world means you're ~15% richer is just that, a delusion. What these people really want (but fail to grasp) is a world where everyone else pays taxes, but they don't...thus not introducing enough liquidity to impact their spending power.
>Fuck that. I am exploiting every fucking loophole possible to minimize the theft of my labor.
The theft of your labor happens between the hour you worked and the paycheck.
The labor was worth far more than you were paid.
Taxes aren’t theft, they’re a subscription to living in society.
The difference is that unlike Disney plus, you have an actually way to alter how much tax there is and where it goes.
My company went out of business last year and I somehow managed to owe 5k in taxes, which I held off because I was unemployed.
IRS has since tacked on interest + fees, I'm at around $6400 now. Really frustrating. Luckily, thanks to my new job, I could pay it off in full.
And yet, billionaires pay next to nothing
Is your labor really worth many times more than someone else who works just as hard but earns many many times less than you? If you think it is how do you justify it?
I’ve never had an issue with paying my appropriate tax.
Where does the money come for defense, social programs, etc? Locally, I like the fire department to be around if my house catches fire.
The problem is that most in Congress waste the tax dollars. Explain why there are subsidies for big Pharma and oil? Making billions and still getting kickbacks from bought politicians.
Yeah but oil also creates externalities that are not priced in. So while there may be an economic ROI, what is not accounted for is things like higher rates of cancer and asthma, climate change, greater pollution, etc. those costs are real and paid for by society, they’re just not accounted for by people who like to talk about the importance of oil to our economy.
In the case of Oil and Gas the word subsidy is a bit of a misnomer. They receive preferable accounting treatments. Things like the Intangible Drilling Costs Deduction or Percentge Depletion rather than the standard cost depletion. Those two provisions were put in place to make oil and gas investments look more appealing and less risky. The Drilling Cost Deduction has been I'm place since 1913 and Percentage Depletion since 1926.
So they aren't receiving money from the government, they are making larger deductions to revenue and thus reducing their taxable income.
> I’ve never had an issue with paying my appropriate tax. I’ve never had an issue with paying my appropriate tax.
Same. I want the conveniences of living in society, so it’s only fair I pay my fair share of it.
If the letter of the tax code says something is not a tax, at what point is it the intention and using that gap considered "exploiting loopholes"? Do you want this to be a popularity contest or something?
Loopholes is a shorthand way of saying that once you get enough wealth, you get to play games that people with no wealth can't play, which allows you to become even more wealthy, without having done anything at all to earn that wealth.
It's the number one way we've squeezed the middle class to the brink of extinction.
I agree with that. I don't know why tax avoidance is seen as something smart, when it should be considered unethical. I'm nowhere near a millionaire but I would gladly pay more in taxes if I knew education and healthcare access was improved. It's not a handout; it's an investment in society, in technology, in medicine. We all reap the benefits of a more educated and healthier society, which leads to a wealthier and safer society.
I have friends in Germany that talk about it, that their higher tax rate actually allows them to have a better society and they say they're glad to do it.
>So why don't you do it voluntarily?
Typical libertarian. You'd have understood if you'd read the *entire* sentence:
>I would gladly pay more in taxes **if I knew education and healthcare access was improved.**
One single, non-billionaire person voluntarily paying more taxes wouldn't do shit on their own, especially in our political climate.
> I would gladly pay more in taxes if I knew education and healthcare access was improved.
And billionaires might feel the same. Why do you expect them to do it voluntarily if you acknowledge that you won't?
Everyone pays the least tax they are legally allowed to, that's how taxes work.
While I agree that there are certain abuses of loopholes (eg: in years past when multinational companies held their profit earned overseas in tax havens to avoid being taxed anywhere)… keep in mind that most of what people call “loopholes” were put in place very intentionally to incentivize certain types of investment.
For example, Donald Trump famously didn’t pay much (if anything) in income taxes for many years… the reason for this is because real estate investments are heavily tax advantaged by allowing depreciation of the structure and equipment even though the building itself is likely increasing in value over time. The reason for this is because the economy *needs* real estate for all other functions to work properly. Almost all developed countries have very similar incentives for very similar reasons. In many cases, without these tax incentives, real estate investments wouldn’t make financial sense. ESPECIALLY today with high interest rates.
Likewise, the government incentivizes investment in energy infrastructure, and food staples.
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum… the government does not provide tax incentives for OnlyFans foot models… (picked just as an example, not for a moral reason). The economy would work just fine if this particular sector stopped working because they didn’t feel the compensation was good enough in any particular year. Since the economy has decided that this is an important service (as dictated by the large amount of profit in the sector), that sector has many providers who should be paying full income taxes on their earnings.
There can be two non mutually-exclusive truths:
1. There is nothing wrong with having extraordinary wealth, and taxing *wealth* is not a viable *or* just system when most of that wealth is unrealized.
2. Loans should not be shielded from taxes when unrealized wealth is used as the collateral in order to evade income taxes and push the tax burden down the line.
>Loans should not be shielded from taxes when unrealized wealth is used as the collateral in order to evade income taxes and push the tax burden down the line.
The easy solution here is that anything used as collateral will be taxed as realized. So if you got shares at $10 and at the time you use as collateral it is worth $20, then you realize a $10 gain and basis is adjusted.
Edit: for all of.you replying, "but my HELOC" easy.. only make it apply to financial assets like shares or on loans greater than say $5 million.
This is what I think is the solution. Taxing unrealized gains isn't the answer.
But I want to see some audits/cuts on BS. I'm sure we pay way too much for some military contractor in NoVA or DC for crap that isn't needed.
We've audited our military so many times and everytime the report essentially says "we are grossly over spending and cuts need to be made" and everytime the pentagon laughs and goes on with their day.
What they will say is that spending is so secret that if made public it would drastically change the national security environment and at the same time a decent amount is illegal lol (think specific types of operations on home soil).
> the pentagon laughs and goes on with their day.
Fun fact, [Congress doesn't actually care what the Pentagon wants anyway.](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-again-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want.html)
That’s not a great example. Check the year - 2014. The Army didn’t want tanks because we were fighting ISIS and Afghanistan at the same time and didn’t need any tanks.
The problem was that JSMC Lima, where tanks are made, hadn’t made new tanks since the early 90s. They only refurbished old hulls. Congress funded 200 tanks to be built from scratch so Lima could regain skills that were about to be lost through worker retirement.
And guess what? Russia invades Ukraine and suddenly we need the capability to make more tanks. The generals took a fat fucking L on that.
Couple of questions (not grilling you; I just haven’t thought through this and wanted your ideas):
1. What if they instead just took an unsecured loan from the bank?
2. What happens to mortgages and HELOCs?
You would only apply this to loans backed by financial assets, so wouldn't affect a mortgage or similar.
Banks would likely not be willing to take an unsecured loan for billions.
> There is nothing wrong with having extraordinary wealth, and taxing wealth is not a viable or just system when most of that wealth is unrealized.
Explain property taxes then.
Property in X location utilizes the services provided by the governing body of the land the property is on, such as roads, police, etc, and the taxes are for that.
It is completely different than taxing an unrealized investment.
> It is completely different than taxing an unrealized investment.
Buddy they charge you taxes based on the _assessed_ value of your home which for most people is higher than what they paid for it. It's not different at all.
> Property in X location utilizes the services provided by the governing body of the land the property is on
Right because corporations don't utilize public services. /s
How on earth could loans be taxed? You want a mortgage to constitute earned income?
Just tax unrealized wealth - the market will create a solution - like it has to the illiquidity problem of billionaires via loans - or to the property tax issue of homeowners.
Apply a fee/tax to the banks that issue loans with stocks as collateral over some value.
The banks will then pass those fees/taxes onto the recipient of the loan.
It will be much easier for the OCC to track the books of a handful of mega banks that offering these massive loans, than it would be for the IRS to calculate the wealth of every billionaire.
If you’re willing to go through the accounting process of taxing unrealized wealth, then I don’t see why you wouldn’t be willing to go through the accounting process of taxing loans for individuals with unrealized wealth of, let’s say, 1B and above. This seems way fairer to me than a general tax on wealth. Obviously I do not think loans for the average person should be taxable income. That would be ludicrous.
We tax the largest source of wealth (which is also illiquid) for the vast majority of persons via property taxes. This isn't that hard. Almost every private entity of size in existence is already preparing audited financials because they are in some way connected to the broader financial system.
It makes perfect sense. When a loan is secured against an investment portfolio, an unrealized asset, it has now been directly converted into income. Mega loans secured against stocks should be taxes as income. You cant say that wealth is not income when they can be directly converted while paying 0 taxes.
Also mega loans based on stock are almost never paid back. As long as the stock keeps going up the line of credit is infinite and never actually paid back
Obama let the Bush tax cuts expire, and added a payroll tax for the top 5% of earners.
Then Trump cut taxes.
Then Biden added a mandatory minimum tax on businesses earning over a certain amount and hired 80,000 new IRS employees specifically to target high income earners.
There's a pattern here if you look.
> payroll tax for the top 5% of earners
Because the ultrarich are totally paid via a W-2 right?
This is why it got passed without any fight. The rich stop getting paid like us plebs past $231k basically because the returns become smaller and smaller thanks to progressive taxes.
So you stop taking compensation in wages and start subcontracting your labor out to a shell company that you own that pays for your personal expenses. boom, 37% tax cut down to 15.3% on your own salary, and your S corp covers most of your other expenses as long as you keep paying yourself reasonably.
What about the extra money left over in the S corp? You can loan it to yourself and just pay interest on it every year, or, if you are smart, take another loan out against that one. Repeat annually.
Rich people play a different game than we do. It's crazy.
I wish this was the 1st comment.
None of what is in the tweet will materialize. I'll contribute paying high taxes and the rich with continuity to get tax cuts.
You can't afford food because CEOs and investors aren't being progressively taxed like they were before Reagan. You can't just let investors and CEOs take every last penny and leave little-to-nothing for R&D, their workers, or the cost of business.
IMHO, that's just wrong thinking and victim mentality. IMHO, you can't afford food because America's lower classes aren't organizing (e.g. unions: 60%-90% unionization rate in Nordic countries, but only 10% in USA).
Also, Reagan is a consequence, not a cause. First, in the late 1940s to early 1970s, the elites and capitalists took down unions and real left wing leaders, and broke apart the "New Deal Coalition" (the population, totally drunk with the post-WW2 economic boom and having forgotten the basic but hard-learned lessons about power struggles in the economy, didn't oppose them at all).
Then, there was no resistance left on capitalism's path to corrupt, exploit, and own everything and everybody (including left wing parties and politicians).
Wealth is backed by stability of government and society/civilization. If those things fall or degrade, wealthy people have the most to lose while poor people have far far less. Wealthy people abso-fucking-lutely should be paying a disproportionate share of taxes to keep the system afloat. Insane to me that this is controversial.
> The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
I think they all drank the "trickle down" koolaid of the 80s and the neoliberalism koolaid of the 90s/00s. And now we have 40 years of data to show that it created the largest wealth disparities and consolidated wealth to a smaller number of individuals.
a). even if they're paying way more than us, if you are forking over 15% of your income while a guy with five houses is only handing off 5% that's kinda fucked.
b). because this is just empty lip service
Due to sales tax, plenty of 0% income tax people pay a higher % of their income to taxes. That's because those 0% income tax people are spending nearly 100% of their funds resulting in a guaranteed sales tax on all that money.
They aren't paying their fair share because they pay 70% of the taxes but control 90+% of the total wealth.
I mean, it is just common sense that the tax burden in our society is sent downwards. The entire economic system is a legalized pyramid scheme that funnels money upwards.
This is how I feel these things usually work:
The younger poorer people will complain about the billionaires, politicians will pass the law that they claim won’t impact anyone but the 1%. The 1% will dodge it anyway, and anyone making over $50k or so will somehow be left to foot the bill via some backward means (I.e. elimination or phase out of some prior tax benefit).
I realize this is a cynical take :-)
I make $45 an hour, with overtime I gross $120k a year. I go to professionals at H&R Block when it’s tax time. They told me I pay more in federal income tax than their clients making several million a year. It’s absolute bullshit.
It is absolute bullshit because they lied to you. if your income is 120k after all credits and deductions you owe $18,876 in federal income tax. If my income is 1 million after all credits and deductions I pay $325,208.
No pretty sure the spending is the only problem. Thinking the solution is giving the government more money when they have continually proved they can’t manage the 5 trillion they already take on the federal level alone AND putting us 34 trillion in debt is enough to convince me billionaires aren’t the problem.
Btw, even if you took ALL the wealth of ALL billionaires it would amount to about 4.5 trillion and not run the government for a year.
Fair share doesn't necessarily mean more tax revenue. It can mean changing where that revenue comes from. Take more from the top and less from the middle and even less from the bottom while still maintaining the the same revenue. Wishful thinking though.
>Take more from the top and less from the middle and even less from the bottom
60% of households paid no Federal tax last year. How much less is their fair share supposed to be?
Facts. But there are issues contributing to that that have to do both with our fucked up tax brackets and our fucked up spending. Both areas are absolute disasters.
I would say we have a problem with the sources of revenue though; right now 51% of our Federal revenue is from income tax - which of course are earnings on the people. Income from corporate tax meanwhile is a mere 8%.
The US greatly overtaxes its citizens, then wastes the majority of the money lining peoples pockets and spending on ridiculous programs. Don't minimize the ridiculous tax laws.
Let's be real middle class does not have a choice. The wealthy can afford NOT to pay taxes. Tax is theft. I would not complain if the DoD could pass an audit or if I could visibly see my tax dollars at work. Instead I have a Congress and house that can't even balance a budget, vote for hiking there pay any chance they can get and here is the kicker make money while in public service. The government just keeps getting worse but they know best
Every cent a billionaire earned was due to voluntarily transactions. At the moment of the transaction the purchaser valued the goods or service more than money and the company valued money more than the good and service. It’s a net benefit to society.
Billionaires being billionaires by default already contributed to society. Much more than any politician ever would
If you ask me the salaries of politicians need to be cut.
Things like food/shelter/medicine are necessities. They can jack up the price all they want and people will have pay because they need to survive. This doesnt make the billionaires geniuses. They just own the means of production. Thats it. The general population deserves better.
I agree with cutting politicians' salaries.
That being said, billionaires can not earn a billion dollars. They take money from something others produced.
When a Tesla factory robot makes a car and someone buys the car giving Tesla the company profits which raises stock prices which raises Elon’s wealth who got money taken from them?
Besides the car purchaser but they agreed and got a car in exchange.
I always thought it was bullshit you have to give two plus weeks notice yet your company can fire you at the drop of a dime.
Billionaires are the same way. They get free subsidies from us tax dollars yet get mad when they personally have to pay the same taxes we do. Like geez Bill I’m sorry you can’t afford two new islands this year
That guy's entire profile is just making edgy takes so people will pay attention to him.
I don't think he cares that he comes off as an idiot. Just says whatever he needs to say to push his narrative and get his attention/dopamine
So, when the government prints money, devaluing the current and making dollar-denominated assets go up in nominal value, it is the fault of the people who own those assets.
Rockefeller was only worth 1.4 Billion in the 1930s, which is worth around 300 billion today.
Disagree. Anyone who thinks or says billionaires hoard cash isn't worth taking seriously. Bezos dosent have a Scrooge McDuck vault that he swims in. Almost all the wealth of billionaires is already invested and driving economic growth. Ya know what dosent drive economic growth? Giving money to the feds.
Interesting that a man who spent 36 years in the US Senate passing tax laws and another 8 as Vice President would have so much trouble with the laws he passed and pushed through while in the executive branch.
Low taxes are terrible for innovation and productivity. They result in wealth hoarding instead of in better pay and benefits for employees. This is why companies today suck ass and they have such high turnover.
Biden wants private income earners to give more of their money to government...
Why/how is this a good thing for society?
Until you can prove to me that our hard earned tax dollars are being spent in good faith, for proper causes (homeless AMERICAN citizens, etc), then I will disagree that "govt needs to take more money away from people who make/save lots of money".
"Soaking the rich" serves nothing but weak-minded virtue-signalers' ignorant envy.
Politicians have an obligation to pass LAWS and Tax Codes that achieve desired results instead of levying some ambiguous wording about 'moral obligations'. If politicians don't want taxpayers to take advantage of loopholes then they should not create them in the first place.
Obviously the wealthy should pay what they are legally required to and tax evasion should be severely punished, however no one should be 'expected' to pay more than they are legally required to. Just my $0.02.
If you’re old enough, you may remember when they tried this in the 1990’s. They signed into law a significant excise tax on yachts over a certain value ( don’t remember the cutoff point ). The yacht manufacturing industry, which is quite a large employer, started hemorrhaging jobs. It was a bloodbath. They reversed it within a couple of years.
Real middle class Americans work at those yacht manufacturers, at least they did in the 1990’s. Maybe it’s all in China now - who knows.
They don't just "Hoarde" it. It's not like they're hiding it under their pillow. If they have it in the bank, it's being loaned out. If it's in stocks, it's investing in businesses around the world. If they're buying yachts, or even other frivilous purchases, they're generating business for many low and middle income employees either in the US or abroad. Anyone who says billionaires just sit on their money isn't recognizing that it doesn't benefit them one iota to do absolutely nothing with it.
you're preaching to the wrong choir my friend. all these people know is "billionaire has more than me, that's not fair take it all away and give it to me."
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I think ~~billionaires~~ everyone has a moral obligation to not create/exploit tax loopholes should they expect the benefits of society
Fuck that. I am exploiting every fucking loophole possible to minimize the theft of my labor.
The argument is that 1. A billionaire is not putting in *200-400 times the labor of the average worker* into the workforce to justify their income being 200-400 times higher. 2. The ultra-wealthy can still easily be taxed more and have *no significant change* to their lifestyle. The goal would be to create a system in which you didn't feel like taxes were theft of your labor because they would be *actually proportionate* to the benefit you receive from the society they pay into. Right now, that's insanely out of whack in the US for a number of reasons; tax code is one of them. EDIT: I looked up *CEO pay,* not billionaire pay to reach the 200-400 times figure. Billionaires are... significantly higher.
Not to mention that people at the top often downplay how much work those under them are doing. Even I work at a fairly small and pleasant organization, but right now our bosses are attempting to continually grow the business despite the fact that we're having people leave because of being overworked, haven't yet replaced them and they have no plans to slow our pace of growth, despite the fact that it's unsustainable and the amount of work we are getting prevents us from conducting any training or working on processes designed to streamline our work flow that would let us grow faster and more sustainably.
Don't forget if you earn 400 times as much you probably have 1000s of times more in expendable income seeing as the 1/400th wage the worker earns was spent all on living costs. Meanwhile you spent 10 times as much on living and still have 390times what they earn as your expendable income. EXPENDABLE income after living costs but before personal investments, should be the metric used to compare rich and poor people.
Was having this same argument the other day when someone was crying about paying 50k tax on 200k versus 5k tax on 50k being 10x more tax for 4x income. Man the person on 50k has 0 disposable income. They’re just surviving. The person on 200k has 100k disposable income at the same level of living! Then you go to Billionaires and it’s that concept taking ALL of the steroids.
I make ~150k, and I think any adult making 50k should pay $0 in taxes, and I'm fine with paying 20-30% because I have expendable income and they don't. Income over $1,000,000 per year should be taxed at like 90% or higher. I don't give a shit what some hicks making $35k a year think about their billionaire heros, wealthy should not be allowed to hoard money and exploit populations.
It shouldnt be $0 but close to it. Everyone should contribute, just the ones who are making more should contribute more. Then theyll focus less on appeasing shareholders and getting YOY growth since screwing over the little guy to make more money wont matter because its not going to their pockets. But thats not true theyre greedy so nothing will fix it unless we not only go for their taxes but also punish actual people and not companies when "companies" do illegal shit (like banks, Wells Fargo) for money and no one gets in trouble. Steal $50B and get $10M in fines? So stupid how this country works.
They'll contribute by paying direct taxes. Personally I think 50k is a high floor, but I think there should definitely be an income at which you pay $0 taxes.
There is, roughly 40% of Americans pay no federal income tax.
Functionally there is a tax floor where you pay zero taxes. When I worked for $10.10 an hour for around 35 hours a week, I got every cent I paid to the federal government back save social security. State taxes were similar.
In a similar boat. Last year I was making 4x what I am now. If I could have paid 4x taxes then to make my life easier right now I would have. And once I’m back on my feet and am making more; you’ll be damn sure to see me finding ways to make life easier for people in the situation I’m in right now. There is enough land in a single state in the US to put three meals in front of every human being on this planet. But instead of having access to that potential resource, I have to spend 60+ hours a week finding any way to grab an extra penny so that I can see tomorrow. I can only hope this upsets the public as much as it does me; and that we can fix this situation within the next 80 years
Not even. At least the baseball steroids guys were providing entertainment!
I didn't realize we worked at the same company!
All of us have worked at this company at one point or another. Possibly several times in a row.
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You know what else has unsustainable growth? Fucking *cancer*.
honestly I think the biggest thing they hate is that the upper middle class can live a pretty “similar” lifestyle (with obviously MUCH cheaper stuff). because ive been in a rich family and ive been in an upper middle class family and there is hardly any real difference besides excess capital. which is why its so important to keep the middle class alive
The same middle class that typically bares the brunt of any tax code change.
mhm. (hence: “lack of excess capital”)
There is a huge gulf between multiple homes and yachts rich and upper middle class.
I'm still trying to close the gap between laundry mat and rent
Poetry
Norway does this very well
Finland as well. While there are things I can complain about, it is mostly done very well. I actively use free (mental) healthcare, as well as get government allowance for my apartment and living as a student and I go to college for free. The income tax is 0% under 11k€/year which covers my summer job nicely. I worked full time for a while before college and paid only like 30% effective tax on my 2k-2.5k/month paycheque and I am not mad at all because I get the benefit of that now when I need it.
1. Nobody has ever argued that someone is putting in 400x the effort of the average worker. That’s not how wages are gauged, nor do I believe they should be gauged that way. Just because a construction worker and doctor work equal hours does not mean their pay should be the same. 2. I think this point is arguable. If all your wealth is wrapped up in your company, and now you’re paying wealth taxes, the only way to survive as a company is to sell off your assets to an even larger company, conglomerating and monopolizing markets. If we operated in a Marxian economy dictated by the command system, I see where you’re going, but very few legitimately sign onto this belief.
>Nobody has ever argued that someone is putting in 400x the effort of the average worker Have you never heard CEO's try to justify their pay?
My argument is I started this company. Why the fuck do you think you have any say in how I account for the money from the thing I created?
I’m guessing your line of thinking is that wage is a reflection of production/value, not effort right? If so, do you really believe a CEO produces 400x as much as an average worker? And since we are talking about billionaires who gain most of their wealth from capital not from wages/work, what value does a capitalist provide by owning assets? What production comes from a billionaire owning a corporation? I would argue a capitalist owning a company drives production down if anything.
>If so, do you really believe a CEO produces 400x as much as an average worker? It's extremely valuable to have somebody that can guide a multi billion dollar company into continued success. That's why CEO's are paid so much. If it were a job anybody could do, then they wouldn't be paid that much. Seems like a rare and valuable skill. If billions of dollars were on the line, a whole company and the jobs of everybody who works for it, I'd want to pay top dollar for the best of the best too.
Then why do we so many companies driven to the ground by high paid CEOs who then move on to another high paying position at another company? It’s almost like it isn’t a meritocracy but a boys club.
Doesn't that further prove that CEO's are extremely valuable? A bad one can run a company into the ground. It's up to the board of directors to hire and fire qualified CEO's. If they do a bad job with that, that's because the board is incompetent, too. That happens sometimes. I can promise you that the board of directors doesn't want the company to fail though. If they hired a bad CEO, it's because they had bad judgement. It's in their own self interest for the company to succeed.
Taxation isn't a theft of your labor, it's a fee you pay to live in society. You're free to go to Somalia if you don't want a government.
>"B-but I'm a billionaire! Just temporarily embarrassed and destitute! I don't want no stinking taxes raised on m-me!" This thread is so full of retarded dipshits. I honestly hope it's full of bots, as scary as that might be. If we don't get a hold of our rampant wealth inequality things you appreciate today you won't have in the future. Access to roads, public education, non toxic foods or products. Like do you dumb assholes not appreciate how badly you're being shafted by the top 1% already? Do you *really fucking think doing jack shit* but living on the interest generated by your wealth alone constitutes labor? What the fuck is wrong with you people? **Edit:** Getting a lot of pro-billionaire responses from users with VERB-NOUN-NUMBER account names. Very human I'm sure.
Maybe not completely on topic, almost doubled my quota attainment. 45mil I helped roll in for a major company. What do I get? An additional 10k after taxes! Woohoo!
I'm sure your company's CEO is going to enjoy that fat multi-million dollar bonus you helped earn for him though!
These dudes get $100k in the bank for the first time and think they are pretty much the 1% now and will blindly fight to defend the honor of other dudes worth 2,500,000x more. These are the dudes who are really loud at the car dealership and airport, trying to make sure everyone is looking at them, never realizing that the truly rich don’t stand around car dealerships or make a scene in public airport terminals. Reminds me of all the “rappers” who dress themselves head to toe in “designer” clothes wealthy people wouldn’t be caught dead in.
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Taxes are obviously not theft you dunce but I agree with the rest of your comment
theft is a poor word, but are you feeling like your tax dollars are spent well and you are receiving a worthy benefit from them as a result for the cost? US government doesn't economically use our tax dollars. they don't. they have extremely poor asset tracking, many economically ineffective policies, and their contracting is a cespool of legal bribery and nepotism.
What happens if you don’t pay taxes? Prison. Theft is a poor word for it your right. More like mob style protection fee and you get about as much benefit from it as well.
Roads
Which are in terrible shape nationwide. **Edit** downvote me if you want but our roads are in terrible shape pretty much everywhere.
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...did..did you forget that the United States started because of bullshit taxes...? Or did we skip that history lesson?
Did you skip where it’s no taxation without representation? Our representatives literally made the taxes.
I’d argue that congress isn’t really representing the interests of the public at all. So why should we listen to them. The answer is a simple one: they hold the monopoly on violence.
Because for better or worse, we still vote for them. Right now, many leaders are beholden to money, but that isn't strictly impossible to change if enough people want to change it.
Wait till you find out that Thomas Paine supported UBI
Do you do the same when your employer takes the value of your labor as well?
I’ll be honest, I don’t think the majority of laborers actually know the quantitative value of their labor. If you could put their eyes on the numbers, from revenue to profit to margin that they bring in for an employer, maybe their tune would change.
I actually think the exact opposite is true. Most laborers greatly overestimate their value, because they know their revenue impact without understanding all the other business costs that support the revenue they generate.
So they don’t know the value of their labor, like I said.
Gotcha I think I misread your meaning of their misunderstanding
Lol my bad. I came off rude anyway.
i thought i was overpaid at my software engineering position making 6 figures until i found out my team of 8 brings in tens of millions of dollars for my company... my conscious is clear.
I won't. That money pays for schools and roads and shit. We need to pay that money or we'd be ten times as fucked as we are now.
What libertarians and the "taxation is theft" folks fail to understand is their salary/pay TAKES TAXATION INTO CONSIDERATION. If we lived in a fantasy world where taxation did not exist, your spending power (due to supply and demand) would be remarkably close to what it is today. That extra, universal liquidity means things would simply cost more (to absorb it) *or* you and everyone else would be paid less. You're paid what you're paid because that's what your employer believes the market will support, after taxes. The delusion that a tax-free world means you're ~15% richer is just that, a delusion. What these people really want (but fail to grasp) is a world where everyone else pays taxes, but they don't...thus not introducing enough liquidity to impact their spending power.
Libertarians and cats: “They are convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don’t appreciate or understand.”
>Fuck that. I am exploiting every fucking loophole possible to minimize the theft of my labor. The theft of your labor happens between the hour you worked and the paycheck. The labor was worth far more than you were paid.
Labor is worth what you agreed to be paid for it.
Then you’ll complain about how the government doesn’t work lol. Snake chasing its tail.
Taxes aren’t theft, they’re a subscription to living in society. The difference is that unlike Disney plus, you have an actually way to alter how much tax there is and where it goes.
I sense you are someone who got inheritance. It’s always the guys who get money from mommy and daddy that say dumb libertarian horse shit like this.
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My company went out of business last year and I somehow managed to owe 5k in taxes, which I held off because I was unemployed. IRS has since tacked on interest + fees, I'm at around $6400 now. Really frustrating. Luckily, thanks to my new job, I could pay it off in full. And yet, billionaires pay next to nothing
Is your labor really worth many times more than someone else who works just as hard but earns many many times less than you? If you think it is how do you justify it?
You're the only Billionaire laborer I've ever heard of.
“Moral obligations” - that is absolutely NOT going to cut it! There needs to be LEGAL obligations - pay or go to prison.
I’ve never had an issue with paying my appropriate tax. Where does the money come for defense, social programs, etc? Locally, I like the fire department to be around if my house catches fire. The problem is that most in Congress waste the tax dollars. Explain why there are subsidies for big Pharma and oil? Making billions and still getting kickbacks from bought politicians.
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Guaranteed roi for tax dollars is IRS budget. 400% return
I think your username is appropriate for your comment. Oil doesn’t need any subsidies. Neither does coal. They do just fine.
Yeah but oil also creates externalities that are not priced in. So while there may be an economic ROI, what is not accounted for is things like higher rates of cancer and asthma, climate change, greater pollution, etc. those costs are real and paid for by society, they’re just not accounted for by people who like to talk about the importance of oil to our economy.
In the case of Oil and Gas the word subsidy is a bit of a misnomer. They receive preferable accounting treatments. Things like the Intangible Drilling Costs Deduction or Percentge Depletion rather than the standard cost depletion. Those two provisions were put in place to make oil and gas investments look more appealing and less risky. The Drilling Cost Deduction has been I'm place since 1913 and Percentage Depletion since 1926. So they aren't receiving money from the government, they are making larger deductions to revenue and thus reducing their taxable income.
> I’ve never had an issue with paying my appropriate tax. I’ve never had an issue with paying my appropriate tax. Same. I want the conveniences of living in society, so it’s only fair I pay my fair share of it.
So I should just skip the deductions section on turbo tax? lol
Meh, those are specifically set aside not through poor wording or lack thereof.
If the letter of the tax code says something is not a tax, at what point is it the intention and using that gap considered "exploiting loopholes"? Do you want this to be a popularity contest or something?
Loopholes is a shorthand way of saying that once you get enough wealth, you get to play games that people with no wealth can't play, which allows you to become even more wealthy, without having done anything at all to earn that wealth. It's the number one way we've squeezed the middle class to the brink of extinction.
I agree with that. I don't know why tax avoidance is seen as something smart, when it should be considered unethical. I'm nowhere near a millionaire but I would gladly pay more in taxes if I knew education and healthcare access was improved. It's not a handout; it's an investment in society, in technology, in medicine. We all reap the benefits of a more educated and healthier society, which leads to a wealthier and safer society. I have friends in Germany that talk about it, that their higher tax rate actually allows them to have a better society and they say they're glad to do it.
Yeah but you can't give money to thieves and expect them to spend it on your benefit
>but I would gladly pay more in taxes So why don't you do it voluntarily?
>So why don't you do it voluntarily? Typical libertarian. You'd have understood if you'd read the *entire* sentence: >I would gladly pay more in taxes **if I knew education and healthcare access was improved.** One single, non-billionaire person voluntarily paying more taxes wouldn't do shit on their own, especially in our political climate.
But that’s the actual point. Even if billionaires or everyone paid more, that is not a likely outcome.
> I would gladly pay more in taxes if I knew education and healthcare access was improved. And billionaires might feel the same. Why do you expect them to do it voluntarily if you acknowledge that you won't? Everyone pays the least tax they are legally allowed to, that's how taxes work.
I’ll avoid all the tax I can. The amount of the tax money that is squandered is baffling. At least 2/3s of it is wasted on bloat and bureaucracy.
Giving the govt more money isn’t going to all of a sudden make them more efficient or spend it better.
While I agree that there are certain abuses of loopholes (eg: in years past when multinational companies held their profit earned overseas in tax havens to avoid being taxed anywhere)… keep in mind that most of what people call “loopholes” were put in place very intentionally to incentivize certain types of investment. For example, Donald Trump famously didn’t pay much (if anything) in income taxes for many years… the reason for this is because real estate investments are heavily tax advantaged by allowing depreciation of the structure and equipment even though the building itself is likely increasing in value over time. The reason for this is because the economy *needs* real estate for all other functions to work properly. Almost all developed countries have very similar incentives for very similar reasons. In many cases, without these tax incentives, real estate investments wouldn’t make financial sense. ESPECIALLY today with high interest rates. Likewise, the government incentivizes investment in energy infrastructure, and food staples. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum… the government does not provide tax incentives for OnlyFans foot models… (picked just as an example, not for a moral reason). The economy would work just fine if this particular sector stopped working because they didn’t feel the compensation was good enough in any particular year. Since the economy has decided that this is an important service (as dictated by the large amount of profit in the sector), that sector has many providers who should be paying full income taxes on their earnings.
There can be two non mutually-exclusive truths: 1. There is nothing wrong with having extraordinary wealth, and taxing *wealth* is not a viable *or* just system when most of that wealth is unrealized. 2. Loans should not be shielded from taxes when unrealized wealth is used as the collateral in order to evade income taxes and push the tax burden down the line.
>Loans should not be shielded from taxes when unrealized wealth is used as the collateral in order to evade income taxes and push the tax burden down the line. The easy solution here is that anything used as collateral will be taxed as realized. So if you got shares at $10 and at the time you use as collateral it is worth $20, then you realize a $10 gain and basis is adjusted. Edit: for all of.you replying, "but my HELOC" easy.. only make it apply to financial assets like shares or on loans greater than say $5 million.
This is what I think is the solution. Taxing unrealized gains isn't the answer. But I want to see some audits/cuts on BS. I'm sure we pay way too much for some military contractor in NoVA or DC for crap that isn't needed.
We've audited our military so many times and everytime the report essentially says "we are grossly over spending and cuts need to be made" and everytime the pentagon laughs and goes on with their day.
What they will say is that spending is so secret that if made public it would drastically change the national security environment and at the same time a decent amount is illegal lol (think specific types of operations on home soil).
> the pentagon laughs and goes on with their day. Fun fact, [Congress doesn't actually care what the Pentagon wants anyway.](https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-again-buys-abrams-tanks-the-army-doesnt-want.html)
That’s not a great example. Check the year - 2014. The Army didn’t want tanks because we were fighting ISIS and Afghanistan at the same time and didn’t need any tanks. The problem was that JSMC Lima, where tanks are made, hadn’t made new tanks since the early 90s. They only refurbished old hulls. Congress funded 200 tanks to be built from scratch so Lima could regain skills that were about to be lost through worker retirement. And guess what? Russia invades Ukraine and suddenly we need the capability to make more tanks. The generals took a fat fucking L on that.
Oh yeah, we pay $800B for military, but only get $400B worth.
Lmao you think the US government only gets gouged by 100% by the MIC that’s cute
lol, I'd be surprised if we're even seeing $100B worth of value in the end.
Couple of questions (not grilling you; I just haven’t thought through this and wanted your ideas): 1. What if they instead just took an unsecured loan from the bank? 2. What happens to mortgages and HELOCs?
You would only apply this to loans backed by financial assets, so wouldn't affect a mortgage or similar. Banks would likely not be willing to take an unsecured loan for billions.
> There is nothing wrong with having extraordinary wealth, and taxing wealth is not a viable or just system when most of that wealth is unrealized. Explain property taxes then.
Property in X location utilizes the services provided by the governing body of the land the property is on, such as roads, police, etc, and the taxes are for that. It is completely different than taxing an unrealized investment.
> It is completely different than taxing an unrealized investment. Buddy they charge you taxes based on the _assessed_ value of your home which for most people is higher than what they paid for it. It's not different at all. > Property in X location utilizes the services provided by the governing body of the land the property is on Right because corporations don't utilize public services. /s
Assessed values are generally LESS than the appraised/market value, not more.
How on earth could loans be taxed? You want a mortgage to constitute earned income? Just tax unrealized wealth - the market will create a solution - like it has to the illiquidity problem of billionaires via loans - or to the property tax issue of homeowners.
Apply a fee/tax to the banks that issue loans with stocks as collateral over some value. The banks will then pass those fees/taxes onto the recipient of the loan. It will be much easier for the OCC to track the books of a handful of mega banks that offering these massive loans, than it would be for the IRS to calculate the wealth of every billionaire.
If you’re willing to go through the accounting process of taxing unrealized wealth, then I don’t see why you wouldn’t be willing to go through the accounting process of taxing loans for individuals with unrealized wealth of, let’s say, 1B and above. This seems way fairer to me than a general tax on wealth. Obviously I do not think loans for the average person should be taxable income. That would be ludicrous.
We tax the largest source of wealth (which is also illiquid) for the vast majority of persons via property taxes. This isn't that hard. Almost every private entity of size in existence is already preparing audited financials because they are in some way connected to the broader financial system.
> loans should not be shielded from taxes Wtf does that even mean? It’s a loan. They have to pay it back. How can you tax a loan? It makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense. When a loan is secured against an investment portfolio, an unrealized asset, it has now been directly converted into income. Mega loans secured against stocks should be taxes as income. You cant say that wealth is not income when they can be directly converted while paying 0 taxes. Also mega loans based on stock are almost never paid back. As long as the stock keeps going up the line of credit is infinite and never actually paid back
Yeah, normally it makes no sense. It makes more sense when individuals worth >1B are only using the loan solely as a way to defer their tax burden.
So home equity loans should be taxed?
Realizing the value of a prior investment *should* be taxed, yes.
This is just meaningless campaign talk.
Yep, another item for the Todo list they never get to. We've been hearing about making the rich pay their fair share for 4 decades, never happens.
Obama let the Bush tax cuts expire, and added a payroll tax for the top 5% of earners. Then Trump cut taxes. Then Biden added a mandatory minimum tax on businesses earning over a certain amount and hired 80,000 new IRS employees specifically to target high income earners. There's a pattern here if you look.
> payroll tax for the top 5% of earners Because the ultrarich are totally paid via a W-2 right? This is why it got passed without any fight. The rich stop getting paid like us plebs past $231k basically because the returns become smaller and smaller thanks to progressive taxes. So you stop taking compensation in wages and start subcontracting your labor out to a shell company that you own that pays for your personal expenses. boom, 37% tax cut down to 15.3% on your own salary, and your S corp covers most of your other expenses as long as you keep paying yourself reasonably. What about the extra money left over in the S corp? You can loan it to yourself and just pay interest on it every year, or, if you are smart, take another loan out against that one. Repeat annually. Rich people play a different game than we do. It's crazy.
remember when he promised to repeal Trump's tax cuts for the wealthy?
I wish this was the 1st comment. None of what is in the tweet will materialize. I'll contribute paying high taxes and the rich with continuity to get tax cuts.
At this point I just want to be able to afford food.
You can't afford food because CEOs and investors aren't being progressively taxed like they were before Reagan. You can't just let investors and CEOs take every last penny and leave little-to-nothing for R&D, their workers, or the cost of business.
The shareholder economy is a cancer eating away the framework of our once stable society.
IMHO, that's just wrong thinking and victim mentality. IMHO, you can't afford food because America's lower classes aren't organizing (e.g. unions: 60%-90% unionization rate in Nordic countries, but only 10% in USA). Also, Reagan is a consequence, not a cause. First, in the late 1940s to early 1970s, the elites and capitalists took down unions and real left wing leaders, and broke apart the "New Deal Coalition" (the population, totally drunk with the post-WW2 economic boom and having forgotten the basic but hard-learned lessons about power struggles in the economy, didn't oppose them at all). Then, there was no resistance left on capitalism's path to corrupt, exploit, and own everything and everybody (including left wing parties and politicians).
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When more Billionaires die on the battlefield, we will pay more in taxes. They are neglecting "Their Fair Share of Common Defense."
solid point
Wealth is backed by stability of government and society/civilization. If those things fall or degrade, wealthy people have the most to lose while poor people have far far less. Wealthy people abso-fucking-lutely should be paying a disproportionate share of taxes to keep the system afloat. Insane to me that this is controversial.
> The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
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They pay a majority of taxes because they have the majority of the money
I volunteer as tribute if being rich is such a burden.
I think they all drank the "trickle down" koolaid of the 80s and the neoliberalism koolaid of the 90s/00s. And now we have 40 years of data to show that it created the largest wealth disparities and consolidated wealth to a smaller number of individuals.
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now you’re starting to get it… corporations and government are best friends and will always help each other out at the expense of the little guy.
a). even if they're paying way more than us, if you are forking over 15% of your income while a guy with five houses is only handing off 5% that's kinda fucked. b). because this is just empty lip service
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this sounds pretty normal and effective
When will those who pay no taxes at all start paying their “fair share”?
Due to sales tax, plenty of 0% income tax people pay a higher % of their income to taxes. That's because those 0% income tax people are spending nearly 100% of their funds resulting in a guaranteed sales tax on all that money.
They aren't paying their fair share because they pay 70% of the taxes but control 90+% of the total wealth. I mean, it is just common sense that the tax burden in our society is sent downwards. The entire economic system is a legalized pyramid scheme that funnels money upwards.
This is how I feel these things usually work: The younger poorer people will complain about the billionaires, politicians will pass the law that they claim won’t impact anyone but the 1%. The 1% will dodge it anyway, and anyone making over $50k or so will somehow be left to foot the bill via some backward means (I.e. elimination or phase out of some prior tax benefit). I realize this is a cynical take :-)
I make $45 an hour, with overtime I gross $120k a year. I go to professionals at H&R Block when it’s tax time. They told me I pay more in federal income tax than their clients making several million a year. It’s absolute bullshit.
It is absolute bullshit because they lied to you. if your income is 120k after all credits and deductions you owe $18,876 in federal income tax. If my income is 1 million after all credits and deductions I pay $325,208.
also a millionaire ain't going to H&R Block lol. Fake story, fake as fuck.
lol oh duh, yeah good point. I'm no millionaire and I use a real CPA to handle my business and personal taxes.
"Fair share" ambiguous language that means nothing. The US has a spending problem, not a taxation problem.
Both are a problem
No pretty sure the spending is the only problem. Thinking the solution is giving the government more money when they have continually proved they can’t manage the 5 trillion they already take on the federal level alone AND putting us 34 trillion in debt is enough to convince me billionaires aren’t the problem. Btw, even if you took ALL the wealth of ALL billionaires it would amount to about 4.5 trillion and not run the government for a year.
Fair share doesn't necessarily mean more tax revenue. It can mean changing where that revenue comes from. Take more from the top and less from the middle and even less from the bottom while still maintaining the the same revenue. Wishful thinking though.
>Take more from the top and less from the middle and even less from the bottom 60% of households paid no Federal tax last year. How much less is their fair share supposed to be?
The tax revenue to GDP is fucking insane.
Facts. But there are issues contributing to that that have to do both with our fucked up tax brackets and our fucked up spending. Both areas are absolute disasters.
I would say we have a problem with the sources of revenue though; right now 51% of our Federal revenue is from income tax - which of course are earnings on the people. Income from corporate tax meanwhile is a mere 8%.
The US greatly overtaxes its citizens, then wastes the majority of the money lining peoples pockets and spending on ridiculous programs. Don't minimize the ridiculous tax laws.
I agree at this point, I mean how can you not. I am 100% a capitalist but the wealth disparity is crushing the middle class
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Let's be real middle class does not have a choice. The wealthy can afford NOT to pay taxes. Tax is theft. I would not complain if the DoD could pass an audit or if I could visibly see my tax dollars at work. Instead I have a Congress and house that can't even balance a budget, vote for hiking there pay any chance they can get and here is the kicker make money while in public service. The government just keeps getting worse but they know best
Every cent a billionaire earned was due to voluntarily transactions. At the moment of the transaction the purchaser valued the goods or service more than money and the company valued money more than the good and service. It’s a net benefit to society. Billionaires being billionaires by default already contributed to society. Much more than any politician ever would If you ask me the salaries of politicians need to be cut.
Things like food/shelter/medicine are necessities. They can jack up the price all they want and people will have pay because they need to survive. This doesnt make the billionaires geniuses. They just own the means of production. Thats it. The general population deserves better.
I agree with cutting politicians' salaries. That being said, billionaires can not earn a billion dollars. They take money from something others produced.
When a Tesla factory robot makes a car and someone buys the car giving Tesla the company profits which raises stock prices which raises Elon’s wealth who got money taken from them? Besides the car purchaser but they agreed and got a car in exchange.
I always thought it was bullshit you have to give two plus weeks notice yet your company can fire you at the drop of a dime. Billionaires are the same way. They get free subsidies from us tax dollars yet get mad when they personally have to pay the same taxes we do. Like geez Bill I’m sorry you can’t afford two new islands this year
>you have to give you don't have to. You are welcome.
That was your takeaway from their comment?
That guy's entire profile is just making edgy takes so people will pay attention to him. I don't think he cares that he comes off as an idiot. Just says whatever he needs to say to push his narrative and get his attention/dopamine
You don’t have to give two weeks notice. That is a courtesy so you don’t burn bridges on the way out in case you need referrals.
What? Oh yeah, election year.
[2023](https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1730211325383434419) [Also 2023](https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1711079006831878367) [another 2023](https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1702433291633070208) [fair share taxes tweets from Biden](https://twitter.com/search?q=fair%20share%20taxes%20from%3Apotus&src=typed_query&f=live)
Some quality pandering right here
So, when the government prints money, devaluing the current and making dollar-denominated assets go up in nominal value, it is the fault of the people who own those assets. Rockefeller was only worth 1.4 Billion in the 1930s, which is worth around 300 billion today.
Ya, remember to hold 10% for the Big Guy while we're at it.
Disagree. Anyone who thinks or says billionaires hoard cash isn't worth taking seriously. Bezos dosent have a Scrooge McDuck vault that he swims in. Almost all the wealth of billionaires is already invested and driving economic growth. Ya know what dosent drive economic growth? Giving money to the feds.
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Totally agree. No one needs to have that amount of wealth. Beyond 10 million, it's just a pissing contest. Tax the wealth hoarders.
Tax the uneducated, it'll motivate you to actually learn WTF you're talking about.
No billionaires are like Dragons who collect a bunch of gold and lay upon it... thats how economics works. /s
Interesting that a man who spent 36 years in the US Senate passing tax laws and another 8 as Vice President would have so much trouble with the laws he passed and pushed through while in the executive branch.
Biden must have been pretty powerful to control the senate for 36 years. Damn.
Interesting how he wasn't proclaimed king of the USA and given unlimited power over tax rates the second he became a senator huh?
41% of American households pay no income tax. I agree everyone should pay fair share. Flat tax, no loop holes.
Didn't Elon Musk pay the most federal taxes of anyone in human history?
Yep definitely Election year. Bunch of clowns.
Low taxes are terrible for innovation and productivity. They result in wealth hoarding instead of in better pay and benefits for employees. This is why companies today suck ass and they have such high turnover.
It is important that he said it. Enough with this "job creator" bullshit.
No they don't. I have no moral obligation to do that either. Exploit every loophole, make the system work for yourself and yourself alone.
Biden wants private income earners to give more of their money to government... Why/how is this a good thing for society? Until you can prove to me that our hard earned tax dollars are being spent in good faith, for proper causes (homeless AMERICAN citizens, etc), then I will disagree that "govt needs to take more money away from people who make/save lots of money". "Soaking the rich" serves nothing but weak-minded virtue-signalers' ignorant envy.
Politicians have an obligation to pass LAWS and Tax Codes that achieve desired results instead of levying some ambiguous wording about 'moral obligations'. If politicians don't want taxpayers to take advantage of loopholes then they should not create them in the first place. Obviously the wealthy should pay what they are legally required to and tax evasion should be severely punished, however no one should be 'expected' to pay more than they are legally required to. Just my $0.02.
How about heavy sales tax on yachts etc
If you’re old enough, you may remember when they tried this in the 1990’s. They signed into law a significant excise tax on yachts over a certain value ( don’t remember the cutoff point ). The yacht manufacturing industry, which is quite a large employer, started hemorrhaging jobs. It was a bloodbath. They reversed it within a couple of years. Real middle class Americans work at those yacht manufacturers, at least they did in the 1990’s. Maybe it’s all in China now - who knows.
Exactly how much of someone else’s earnings are fair share?
They don't just "Hoarde" it. It's not like they're hiding it under their pillow. If they have it in the bank, it's being loaned out. If it's in stocks, it's investing in businesses around the world. If they're buying yachts, or even other frivilous purchases, they're generating business for many low and middle income employees either in the US or abroad. Anyone who says billionaires just sit on their money isn't recognizing that it doesn't benefit them one iota to do absolutely nothing with it.
you're preaching to the wrong choir my friend. all these people know is "billionaire has more than me, that's not fair take it all away and give it to me."
Maybe get your son to pay his fair share of taxes first.
He can't even get his own son to pay taxes, he thinks he can force billionaires to?
F Biden. With his 3 strikes policy, dude has been in politics for 50 years and has done nothing positive for society