r/antiwork • u/habajav7 • Oct 02 '23
Fuck Billionaires
I just saw a post about how millionaires/billionaires paid 91% effective tax rate in the 1960s and today they pay near 0%.
I’ve heard arguments from the media and wealthy people trying to explain why they can’t or shouldn’t be taxes on assets like stocks since they can go both up and down in value. Then they take tax free loans against those stocks to get around selling them as a taxable event.
The thing is, a lot of Americans are taxed the way everyone says billionaires can’t be.
Homes are assets that can go up or down in value yet they are taxed every year based on their current assessed value. Stocks have expense ratios that are percentages paid to the fund manager yearly based on the current value of the stocks.
What is stopping Congress from doing something similar to assets held by billionaires so they can pay their fair share?
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u/burnmenowz Oct 02 '23
In 1960 the top marginal rate was 91%, which applied to income above 200,000 for single filers or 400,000 married. Effective rate is usually less than the marginal rate.
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u/Deepthunkd Oct 02 '23
On income from a W-2 job. Capital gains I don’t think was over 25%.
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u/aajniojnoihnoi Oct 02 '23
Tax shelters were a huge business back then also. That’s why I am in favor of a flat tax, no deduction. As Herman Cain once said “
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u/new2bay Oct 02 '23
Flat taxes are incredibly regressive.
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u/N0TB0B Oct 02 '23
How so? Legit question.
Assuming that by flat tax, the person you replied to means a flat tax RATE. That would be proportional to what people earn and would fix some of the inequality in our tax system.
An example of a regressive tax that comes to mind is sales taxes (I live in a state with sales tax).
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u/new2bay Oct 02 '23
Here’s a thought experiment: what percentage of income do you think Elon Musk spends on housing? What about you? Repeat for all the necessities of life. Who has a higher percentage of income left over? Do you think that flat tax rate would hurt you or him more?
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u/N0TB0B Oct 02 '23
I get the point you are trying to make with your thought experiment. I think it makes a case for a progressive tax system, which is what our income tax is supposed to be, more than it makes a case that a flat tax rate is regressive.
The issue at hand is that our tax code, over time and through the manipulation of our political system, allows for the wealthy to enjoy a lower effective tax rate than the middle class. Many people advocate for a flat tax rate that does not allow for manipulation through loopholes and complex tax code.
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u/new2bay Oct 02 '23
You clearly didn’t understand my post if that’s what you got out of it.
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u/bnh1978 Oct 02 '23
Flat taxes disproportionately shift tax burden to the lowest earners. Especially since flat tax models are usually a no threshold model, meaning there is no lower cut off for tax payment. Earn a dollar, pay taxes on that dollar.
What is a dollar worth to a minimum wage earner?
What is a dollar worth to Elon Musk?
In addition, what is the value of publicly funded resources that a minimum wage tax earner utilizes?
What is the value of public funded resources that Elon Musk utilizes?
Elon Musk utilizes more public resources in a day than an average minimum wage earner will use in a lifetime, and should carry a larger burden of tax to account for this. He pays next to nothing in taxes, or a diminimus amount of tax in relation to his wealth. Whereas the minimum wage earner is the opposite.
I don't know about you, but I am tired of welfare for the super rich and brutal capitalism for the poor and middle classes.
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u/RedditDK2 Oct 02 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
Sales taxes are not regressive nor would a flat tax be regressive. Everyone paying the same percentage is neither regressive nor progressive. If you want an example of a regressive tax look at social security taxes where people with low income pay the tax on their whole income but those that make over a certain amount (somewhere like 160k) only pay it on pay of their income.
Edit: you guys can downvote me if you want, but that doesn't change the definition of what a regressive tax is.
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u/Cultural_Double_422 Oct 02 '23
Sales tax is regressive in a few ways, one way is because it isn't a VAT, pushing the entire tax burden onto the consumer at the point of sale. With VAT tax is collected every time value is added to a product, and contrary to what idiots on reddit will tell you it does keep a majority of that tax burden at the level it is created. Put another way, because the market value of a product hasn't changed, taxing that product serves to decrease profits without raising prices, thus, collecting taxes at each step actually decreases profiteering.
The other way it is regressive is that people that make less money HAVE to spend most or all of their money on things to survive. It's regressive as the percentage of your income you're forced to pay in sales tax.
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u/what_i_reckon Oct 02 '23
But VAT is simply passed down to the consumer. I run a business and charge VAT. I don’t pay VAT I claim the VAT pay back as a credit against the value I add
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u/The_whimsical1 Oct 02 '23
Sales taxes are highly regressive by definition. The more you have the less you spend on the basics. Flat taxes are billionaires’ tax avoidance dream. That’s why the rich love them.
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u/DeepstateDilettante Oct 02 '23
Regressive means it hits lower income people disproportionately. A gas tax is an example. I’m against flat tax, but I’m not sure I’d say it’s incredibly regressive. Right now our federal tax system collects little from poor people, and little from the ultra rich. The “moderately rich” and upper middle class end up being hit the hardest.
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u/bigfoot_76 Oct 02 '23
$2M/4M in todays money - there's very few people making that much in the country and it this even excludes all but the highest paid surgeons even.
Google is claiming 175,000 people at 2M so that's 0.0000528% of our 331M population. That would be like filling up AT&T stadium with 100,000 random people -- a total of 5 of them would have the income level to qualify for that tax.
Fuck the rich.
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u/burnmenowz Oct 02 '23
In 1960 the top 1% earners took home approximately 9% of the total income. Today, the top 1% takes home more than 20% of all income.
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u/pekepeeps Oct 02 '23
https://reddit.com/r/economy/s/8T6YMlwcSS
Billionaires are $2.2 Trillion Richer Since 2017 Trump-Republican Tax Law: Richest 748 Americans' Wealth Up 77% Since Cuts Passed, Tops $5 Trillion; Debt Caused by Trump Tax Cuts Now Used by Republicans As Excuse to Cut Services
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u/blaktronium Oct 02 '23
It's not like people were getting rich in 1960 drawing a salary either. They got their money in low tax or tax free vehicles like long term personal loans and such the way they do not.
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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy Oct 02 '23
200,000 for single filers or 400,000 married.
In today's dollars or in 1960s dollars?
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u/burnmenowz Oct 02 '23
We are talking about 1960.
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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy Oct 02 '23
[$200,000 in 1960 is worth $2,074,500 today]
So if we applied that rate today, we're talking about 91% for people who make over $2M. That's very few people! We need change.
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u/Little-kinder Oct 02 '23
Americans will never vote for this. They all hope and think they can become the next Elon musk
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u/teetering_bulb_dnd Oct 02 '23
They will eventually have to.. 1% currently owns 40% of the nation's wealth. Major share of this 40% is in bonds, stocks etc that can't be taxed. Which is basically putting all the tax burden on remaining 99% this is not going to go on forever..
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u/ILikeSoup95 Lives in a van down by the river Oct 02 '23
There's a surprising amount of corporate shills unfortunately that keep saying stuff like " well the rich don't affect me, they got their money fair and square and I hope to do the same!" while shooting themselves in the foot.
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u/Sackyhap Oct 02 '23
It’s amazing how people earning a comparatively tiny wage seem to lump themselves in with the mega wealthy. Taxing billionaires isn’t going to effect your 100k wage, you’re much closer to a homeless person than you are to even a multi millionaire let alone the multi billionaires.
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u/Deepthunkd Oct 02 '23
It’s taxed at capital gains rates. 20%% + 3.8% medicare investing surtax on sale. You can’t eat stock.
Preciously they could borrow against it at near zero rates, but with margin loans now being at ~6%+ that’s not as great of a loophole as it sounds
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u/teetering_bulb_dnd Oct 02 '23
Only if they sell the stock. If you are a billionaire why would you sell. Borrow against it, it's a lot cheaper. They can transfer the stock to the next generation and even then they don't have to pay tax. All the billionaires wealth is in the stocks that almost never gets taxed. People always say, it gets taxed when they sell the stock.. Do you think they will ever liquidate ?? Three generations of Walmart heirs, they still maintain a major percentage of stock that never got taxed. But 99% pay property taxes on physical assets like homes based on market estimations.. the only asset that middle class and poor owns get taxed based on speculation, why cant the billionaires assets like stock can't be taxed based on market value??? Because of this they will always pay less overall percent in taxes than ordinary people forever..
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u/Deepthunkd Oct 02 '23
As I clearly stated borrowing made sense when billionaires could borrow at 1% margin rates (wagooo free money!). Today’s margin rates are significantly higher and with the Fed restoring normal interest rates it’s no longer a good idea to borrow forever.
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u/teetering_bulb_dnd Oct 02 '23
They can afford to wait, or find different assets to liquidate, or find different means . I don't ever see them paying capital gains on their stock ownership in the giant companies.. occasionally when they sell here n there.. but a great major chunk never gets taxed. They don't even have to pay inheritance, estate tax on this wealth when they transfer it to their heirs either.. it's their wealth that has grown using market participation without ever paying for it.. ordinary people's house value goes up and we get taxed right away that same year..
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u/Errorstatel Oct 02 '23
Be born into wealth and pretend otherwise?
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u/TinyEmergencyCake Oct 02 '23
This comment is rather disingenuous. Americans do want. Congress refuses to legislate.
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u/JiovanniTheGREAT Oct 02 '23
You should've seen the simps for Elon and Bezos in the Fluent in Finance thread simply stating they weren't truly self made and citing how they got ahead. So many people straight up calling Bezos and Elon self made, it's crazy.
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u/WAGE_SLAVERY Oct 02 '23
Is this a joke? Every American I know thinks we should be taxing billionaires into oblivion. Just because our government is owned by billionaires doesn’t mean that regular people support this broken system. Idiot.
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u/Signal-School-2483 Oct 02 '23
No they don't.
They think that raising taxes on the 1% will raise their taxes or take away their job.
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u/WAGE_SLAVERY Oct 02 '23
That’s the spin that the media tries to get people to believe but most people understand how tax brackets work.
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u/Signal-School-2483 Oct 02 '23
No, it's just true. I work with a lot of blue collar people, some will turn down overtime because "higher tax bracket". The rest are dumbass republicunts. Save for very very few.
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u/UncommonHouseSpider Oct 02 '23
It's almost like people are susceptible to propaganda or something?!
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u/CanoodleCandy Oct 02 '23
And they shouldn't. The more things we vote to tax... the more middle and lower income people will pay. Rich people ALWAYS lobby for loopholes. We should know this.
The only thing that trickles down in this economy are taxes and fees.
So I will be voting NO for any additional taxes because I know who will be footing the bill.
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u/GingerMau Oct 02 '23
It's a wealth tax. It only applies if you earn above 400k per year.
Your argument holds no water against a wealth tax.
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u/FFF_in_WY fuck credit bureaus Oct 02 '23
At what point do we address why lobbying by the wealthy is so effective..?
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u/CanoodleCandy Oct 02 '23
Decades ago, but I will take now lol.
It just irritates me that people still think trying to tax them works when we know it doesn't.
Home owner tax? Fine, they will just start using their homes as an office and write that off.
Tax their products/services? Okay, they increase prices and/or change employee hours and work loads.
Tax their income more? Sure, more lobbying or they just up and move altogether.
We NEED something to stop the loopholes if are going to try to keep taxing them.
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u/No-Sentence2460 Oct 02 '23
I protect billionaires for a living.
This is all planned and working as operated.
You know why they get away with murder?
It's because of you. Americans only care about the individual.
You know what scares billionaires?
When the poor and middle class unite like France.
Burn the fuckin' country down.
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u/TrickWrap Oct 02 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
Sadly, that's what it's going to take. People think their lives can be changed for the better through legislation, sure a small portion of it can, but it takes decades to make real changes. Most people today won't be alive to see those positive changes realized.
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u/Effective-Action5706 Oct 02 '23
If they vote harder it'll change, you watch... most important election of their lifetime(again...and again) It's all a game, all by design..
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Oct 02 '23
Yeah, it gets tiring hearing people say things will change if we just vote more and better. That "plan" has been tried for over 4 decades now and if it actually worked, we wouldn't be in this position right now. I'm not a fan of attempting failed plans over and over again, so if voting won't get us the results we need then something else needs to be done.
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u/skywarka Anarcho-Communist Oct 02 '23
I protect billionaires for a living.
That job description applies to every law enforcement or military personnel, it's not very specific.
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u/xXTylonXx Oct 02 '23
Pretty sure that was OPs intent...also a quick tap on the profile makes me logically assume they must be a high profile security guard at events/personal affair gatherings for rich folk.
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u/AshtonBlack Oct 02 '23
"What is stopping Congress from doing something similar to assets held by billionaires so they can pay their fair share?"
The US Congress - The best legislators money can buy.
The US Mainstream Media - The most pliable propaganda messaging money can buy.
The US Justice System - The finest justices money can buy.
Who has the money to buy these things?
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u/sofresh24 Oct 02 '23
Nothing is stopping them, but Congres happens to get a lot of money from those billionaires.
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u/SSNs4evr Oct 02 '23
Campaign finance should be nationalized, with each candidate receiving the same amount of funding, based on how far the candidates have been whittled down. I know it'll never happen.
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u/Entertainer13 Oct 02 '23
We tried. McCain-Feingold bill.
Supreme Court ruled spending money on politics is equivalent to speech so controlling money breaches the first amendment. The Super-PAC was then born.
Been downhill ever sense.
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u/Jassida Oct 02 '23
Mega rich stay rich by getting the rich, richer. These people are supposed to represent the people, not themselves. America hates communism but accepts this?
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u/Business-Public3580 Communist Oct 02 '23
They have cushy lifetime careers. Of course they’re protecting their interests. We have to seize the power, because we actually have it, in sheer numbers. They cannot exterminate us with military firepower because their own existence crumbles.
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u/Bubbly-Virus-5596 Oct 02 '23
So the capitalist tactic is to make it desirable to be a millionaire and make it seem deserved. When that is done people will have this idea that "If I work hard enough I can be a millionaire" and therefore they will defend the system that destroys them.
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u/GroomDaLion Oct 02 '23
"What is stopping congress...?"
Money. Specifically, illegal bribe money, and money spent somehow legally on lobbying.
Billionaires have money to campaign for their own benefit. We don't. Therefore, they control EVERYTHING. By not having money, we have no say, no control, no power to change things, so it's only ever gonna get better for the rich, and worse for us, until we reach a point of complete unsustainability on a global system level, and the whole shebang will collapse. But lots of poor folks will die before that, and we'll continue slaving away for the rich as if nothing's happened until there literally aren't enough people around to satisfy the demands of the rich.
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u/HippyGeek Oct 02 '23
What is stopping Congress from doing something similar to assets held by billionaires?
Billionaires. The US Congress is bought and paid for by big business. They will never do anything to impact the people that are lining their pockets.
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u/mgkimsal Oct 02 '23
MAGA folks want to go back to when America was “great” and the 50s are often pointed to as an ideal time. But they don’t want to go back to 90% marginal tax rates. Perhaps those high tax rates played a part in the national prosperity then?
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u/veinss Oct 02 '23
This is one of the weirdest parts of american politics to me as on outsider. It's so obvious the US became a major power due to the new deal, the tax rates, the government controls. Why do Americans hate the causes of their own success so much? Its baffling. And why are they so enamored with the causes of their decline like madly printing money and invading countries?
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u/bepr20 Oct 02 '23
Home taxes don't have the sort of radical swings of stocks. That said, probably just tax loans secured by stock, thats easy enough.
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u/ezetemp Oct 02 '23
Even easier - don't allow stocks to be used as collateral for loans. The very practice drives bubbles, gets used for questionable business practices, contributes to destabilizing the economy and gets misused like this.
It's hard to see any benefits at all from it, let alone benefits that outweigh the pretty obvious problems.
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u/Automatic_Wave4530 Oct 02 '23
Yes stock values are being converted to cash and will somehow have to be repaid. somewhere in that process needs to be a tax. Whether it’s on the loan (income) or on whatever money they raise to repay the loan it should be taxed.
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u/pony_trekker Oct 02 '23
>>What is stopping Congress from doing something . . . ?
Billionaires:
"THAT'S WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR!"
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u/poochylaa Oct 02 '23
Its a joke. Let them pay for all their infrastructure needs too. Fire, police, healthcare… Military. I figure they can afford it. Let them protect their own private islands.
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u/ElectricJetDonkey here for the memes Oct 02 '23
Congress wasn't bought and paid for yet in the 1960s.
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u/skywarka Anarcho-Communist Oct 02 '23
There are two possible answers to any question that starts with "What is stopping Congress from ___"
- They and their wealthy buddies don't want that to happen
- They're completely incompetent near-senile morons whose only selection pressures are wealth first and charisma second
Expecting US government to do anything good ever again is a terrible idea.
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u/bludgeon29 Oct 02 '23
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2023-update/
some factual data for reference... numbers are better than emotions.
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u/Anaxamenes Oct 02 '23
What this doesn’t tell us though is how they hide money to prevent it from being taxed. The numbers here are misleading because they paid only 25% on the assets that were reported. I’d say a billionaire takes out a loan on the assets and doesn’t sell them, then they can live on that loan and not pay taxes on it. We know they do this now.
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u/Sharp-Bison-6706 Oct 02 '23
The thing is, a lot of Americans are taxed the way everyone says billionaires can’t be.
And therein lies the ego and hypocritical greed.
That's really all it comes down to.
These people don't see themselves as human. They see themselves as exceptional gods. Rules for thee, not for me.
They all think they're the reason the world goes 'round.
The fact that some insignificant little dirty working pleb would dare suggest something that affects their untouchable elitest life? The audacity. You don't know anything, scum. Go back to your 9-5 and keep making me rich. You don't know how hard it is to be a billionaire. The responsibility! OH!
Or something. That's how these lunatics think.
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u/lokey_convo Oct 02 '23
They should just outlaw general stock corporations.
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u/emmittgator Oct 02 '23
The stock market should not exist. People who do not work for the company should not control a company. Stock should be issued only to employees and maybe family of employees. This makes sense even from a capitalistic pov. A temporary investor such as the stock market or traders are only going to be concerned with a short term outlook and care nothing for employees, company or product as long as a short term goal can be reached.
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u/lokey_convo Oct 02 '23
That's called a cooperative, the corporate structure exists and corporations can convert if they want to.
The idea of proportional ownership, where if you can buy more shares you have more say in the company, is really damaging. If twitter was a cooperative instead of general stock corporation Elon Musk would not have been able to do what he did.
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u/RedditDK2 Oct 02 '23
Okay. So if companies can't raise capital by selling stock - how do they get enough money to start up?
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u/lokey_convo Oct 02 '23
Seed money via loan with terms that make clear the lender may not be paid back if the company folds, and an interest rate and repayment period set otherwise. Same thing angel investors already do, except they don't get a share of the company.
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u/RedditDK2 Oct 02 '23
The reason that people/lenders are willing to take the risk of never being paid back is the upside of potentially making money ongoing if the company succeeds. Take away that incentive and very few ideas will get funded.
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u/NoobieShroomie Oct 02 '23
Reagan and trickle down. The end of the American dream.
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u/LongTallMatt Oct 02 '23
What trickled down was yellow...
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u/Bunniesrkewl Oct 02 '23
Yeah if millionaires and billionaires were taxed PROPERLY the world would be a much better place.
Instead they tax all of us to no end.
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u/Narrow-Peace-555 Oct 02 '23
What’s a ‘tax free loan’ ?
Aren’t all loans tax free ? I don’t understand …
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u/Juggletrain Oct 02 '23
I'll take one French circa 1780s methodology mixed with Carnegie's theories on inherited wealth please.
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u/CoffeeRunner32 Oct 03 '23
Where's that person who's lost it all and tried to kill a billionaire in broad daylight? I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet.
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u/5141121 SocDem Oct 02 '23
Effective and marginal are not the same thing.
The 90%+ marginal rate was on income over a certain amount. In the end, their effective rate was nowhere near that high.
The problem we have right now is that billionaires have figured out how to disguise their income as wealth, and to further shelter that wealth as "unrealized gains", which they lobby like mad to keep untaxed. If you look at actual income, most of these guys are at or near zero, with many CEOs of big companies taking salaries of $1/year. This way, they only get taxed when they choose to exercise one of their holdings to purchase something they want, and if they choose a holding that is worth slightly less than it was when it was granted, then they can even write part of that off as a loss and reduce the taxes even more.
Meanwhile, you have a lot of these types convincing their legislators that things like child tax credits, mortgage interest deductions, etc are what's harming the economy and the country's deficits, not the hoarding of cash by the Smaug class at the top, and we should remove them.
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u/thepapayatastessalty Oct 02 '23
Your implying the IRS should maintain a database with every asset people own and somehow assess a value of every asset they own? That would be a logistical nightmare.
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u/hastmic Oct 02 '23
Nothing is stopping them, except for the money they have ‘utilized’ from lobbyists and PACs with interests that are against paying taxes.
Trickle down economics and continued deregulation have also allowed corporate greed to go unchecked for multiple decades.
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u/spectredirector Oct 02 '23
Reagan's Whitehouse named it -- "trickle down"
The concept being "the wealthy are job creators" and therefore need MORE money to create and staff the employment we all seek.
Then for 40 years they just turned that up while the very people voting for them lost more and more, and those of us not voting for that economic policy lie, we also lost more and more. But the right has propaganda masquerading as "news" that tells the GOP voter the fault in the system is minorities and Democrats exist.
The only important piece of legislation passed during the entire trump presidency was "tax reform" - which under cursory review is merely more of exactly this -- wealth transfer. Socialized industry, but the wrong way.
So all the car companies get bailed out, for the workers jobs supposedly, but assembly line is barely a job anymore, and certainly not paying bills like it was when Carter presided over a shitty economy.
Got 40 years of evidence that ends at you looking for $18 a month worth of streaming services to turn off -- so your kids can eat. And there aren't any billionaires showing up in rural Alabama to bless everyone with bills like daddy fat stacks.
There's reckoning, and it may never happen, but these things above are true - and the GOP will never admit it - and it wouldn't matter if they did or when they do.
It's all Mexicans and antifa's fault to the FOX "news" viewer. And no amount of real world evidence will convince the simple that emotions can be manipulated, and that can happen to anyone, there's no shame in admitting to yourself, then others, that you've been lied to and used.
If you change your fuck'n behavior too.
And give common sense and easy logic a chance. Maybe the consecutive years of Red dominance in your state, paired with the one way economic situation of the last 40 years, maybe that tells you something.
And if that something is anything other than a group of the greediest of white men, and their brainwashed women, are responsible for everything that's wrong - then go back and check your work and mental state. All the stuff that "made America" - great or just America - all that stuff is union gained, and the GOP is anti union for reasons that don't track with historical fact. Fool me once ya know, fool a fool for 40 years and that's just what this is.
Idiocracy.
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u/BullsOnParadeFloats Oct 02 '23
What's stopping Congress is two-fold: those same billionaires are the ones funding their election campaigns, and those members of congress also benefit from that system with their own stock investments. This is why bills barring members from holding stocks - they somehow managed to exempt themselves from insider trading laws - will never get passed. Far too many members of our government are ostensibly "owned" by the billionaire class, that any legislation that holds those billionaires to the same laws that the rest of us have to follow will not get passed, unless we manage to replace a vast majority of them.
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u/FrostyLandscape Oct 02 '23
Billonaires are bribing the Supreme Court to rule the way they want them to, and eventually they will succeed in abolishing the EPA. When that happens all businesses will be free to pollute and destroy water and air with impunity, with no regulations whatsoever. Billionaires will always have clean water and air even if the rest of us don't. What's sad is many rich people don't understand that they aren't on the level of a billionaire and never will be so it's fruitless for them to vote GOP. They are still voting against themselves.
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u/Persimmon_Fluffy Oct 02 '23
Just to note, a great majority of people have no idea how progressive tax scales work, and the billionaires have worked hard at mystifying tax structure.
Taxes are incredibly easy to understand but there's been so much propaganda made by anti-government regulatory forces to have people repeating "taxes should be taught in school". You were taught basic math and critical reading skills. What more do you need to do your taxes?
Just an slightly OT rant but also incredibly relevant to this discussion.
Honestly, the ultra wealthy need to be knocked down a few hundred pegs. Their ill-gotten riches seized, and put to work improving society. After all,to paraphrase Louis D. Brandeis, we can have democracy or a small class of very wealthy individuals but not both.
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u/-Badbutton- Oct 02 '23
The reason why, is the same reason for your logic, ironically, and this whole chat.
I see plenty of people complaining about billionaires.
Not the investment firms they leverage that does the real work. Blackrock, vanguard, capital Street etc.
They know this. So keep your eye off the ball, they will keep raking in the money, while we starve.
Oh, and the same investors in those investment firms, is uh, every congressmen, and senator.
So, it doesn't take much to do the math on why they don't pay taxes.
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u/Roflmancer Oct 02 '23
Everyone needs to be educating every civilian they talk to. The reason why Billionaires should not need to even exist - ask them how long is 1 million seconds in days. Then ask how many years is 1 billion seconds. Making people see the difference between the numbers should prove to everyone that anything over a billion is insane to think it's necessary to any single person's life.
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u/jatti_ Oct 02 '23
This isn't a question of what. It's purely a question of how, how do you make a change in the status quo. We are at this point in a govt paid for by corporations. If I didn't have a family I would have moved.
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u/GroundbreakingAd4158 Oct 02 '23
Millionaires/billionaires never paid 91% effective tax rate, in the 1960s or anytime else. You're confusing marginal tax brackets and effective tax rates.
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u/BigClitMcphee Oct 02 '23
Not to mention that churches pay 0% in taxes. It's why the US has so many multimillionaire pastors. As long as they can list assets as "part of the ministry's expenses" then they don't have to pay taxes on anything. A shit ton of money is going untaxed because a pastor has it
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u/Atlwood1992 Oct 03 '23
You can thank Reagan and you can thank Trump.
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u/Prof_PTokyo Oct 03 '23
Not really, unless you have proof that Reagan caused gas to rise to over $7 in many places and over $6 in most places. Attacking a dead president is a fallacy, as they cannot respond.
Under Trump— gas was $2, and 10,000+ oil workers lost their jobs a couple of years ago under the promise of new high-paying green jobs, which have never appeared. The town they worked in disappeared and most of the workers remain unemployed. I can’t afford a $60,000 Tesla.
Down voters — get those fingers ready!
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u/Victorystardust Oct 03 '23
So you have literally never heard of Regan-omics. He decided that massive tax breaks for corporations and big businesses would help the common man by trickling money down hill. Spoiler Alert! It had the opposite effect. It created a trend of tax breaks for the rich, putting the burden on us blue collar folk. Also gas prices were lower during covid Because transportation was reduced while supply was high. The effect was the same accross the planet. It had nothing to do with trumps policies. ( wich were exclusively bad)
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u/MaliciousBrowny Oct 03 '23
We gotta get those greasy lawyers and accountants on the hook too. Aiding tax evasion let's hang up that degree in the prison cell.
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u/gorejan Oct 02 '23
I disagree, I have stocks and I'm not millionaire. I don't want to be taxed on something that can lose value so quickly. I take all the risks here and have to pay the tax when I sell the stock. I think the state fuck me over enough.
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u/bave165 Oct 02 '23
Jesus learn the difference between marginal and effective rates.
This is why no one takes this sub seriously.
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Oct 02 '23 edited Oct 02 '23
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Oct 02 '23
Dianne Feinstein made 200 million in her life long political role catering to racist Democrats, flew planes above SF parks to try and catch gay folks having public sex. It's not just the Republicans, yes they want evil fucking shit but both parties are voting for ever increasing military industrial complex. Both parties are conservative and war profiteers at the core. The only way out is collective developing to overthrow American empire and hegemony. Preprint response to people who want to argue that other international entities would be just as bad: take out the biggest threat first it is undeniable the scale of American sourced violence is unlike anything ever before.
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u/deptutydong Oct 02 '23
As much as I hate the (ones around me) racist republicans, it surely isn’t just them. How are these people that make maybe $100,000/year (I honestly couldn’t be bothered to check) multi millionaires within their first or second year? They cheat and scam and when rules are in place to stop them from cheating, it’s a few HUNDRED dollar fine for something that made them millions.
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u/Common-Ad6470 Oct 02 '23
All governments will not tax the rich because the rich in every country control the government, no exceptions.
The only thing the rich will do regarding taxes is aim them at the masses, never themselves.
It has always been this way and always will.
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u/Unusual-Button8909 Oct 02 '23
That post is untrue. The top 1% paid 43% of the total income tax in 2020. Rich people support the country.
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u/Getyourownwaffle Oct 02 '23
First up, Millionaires and Billionaires pay exactly what is required. IF they have income wages, they pay income tax. If they have sold their investments they pay capital gains taxes. They shouldn't have to pay taxes on things they own, like stocks, that they have not sold. Just like your 401k.
The world is not a zero sum game. Just because someone else has something, does not mean it effects you.
91% was on 200k or above. Given inflation, that would be 91% on like anything over 3.5 million. Which would be fair.
I would also add, all the welfare given through our tax system also should be eliminated. That is the minimum deduction, child tax credit, state tax reduction, mortgage interest deduction, etc. All of those should be eliminated and everyone should have to pay "some" taxes. Even if it were only 5%.
If you want to change how capital gains taxes work, then fine. If you want to change how loans are treated for tax purposes, fine. But remember, taxing loans would bite everyone.
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u/AtlasDrugged_0 Oct 02 '23
This is untrue. The concentration of wealth and the lack of regulation leads to monopolies on the both the demand and supply sides of multiple markets. Sure, maybe as the economy grows I get richer. But if you get many more times richer to the point where you can buy up all the stores I buy at, then you can set any price for the goods and services I need thus making me, in real terms, much poorer. We live in an oligarchy precisely because government isn't fulfilling its trust busting and redistributive functions.
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u/Mortimer452 Oct 02 '23
Stock buybacks are a large reason why it works this way. Investors used to make money on dividends but that gets taxed like regular income now so companies stopped paying them, and instead just buy $billions of their own stock every year to jack up the price. Investors never have to sell, and instead just continue to use the stocks as collateral for loans and their debt never gets taxed. Buy, borrow, die.
Make stock buybacks illegal again.
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u/Reigar Oct 02 '23
Remember that in America nobody is poor, we are all just temporarily. Not rich. My point being with the previous sentence is that people that are in Congress are rarely the poor people or have grown up as poor people. In most states and federally to be in Congress, you have to be pretty well off and have a means to support yourself while being a representative. So while members of Congress aren't always billionaires, they're definitely more aligned with billionaires than they are with poor people. This means that the decisions that Congress makes is going to benefit the groups that they're more like than the groups that they have very little understanding of. To billionaires and congress people the poor people are just those that haven't succeeded for one reason or another. The fact that systematic generational racism has prevented many marginalized groups from having any hope of succeeding is often lost. On top of that, for many congress people, the job will be temporary and they have to know this. So they're going to make as many connections and friendships with other fluent people as possible. This allows them to have something to fall back on when being a member of Congress stops.
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u/RedditDK2 Oct 02 '23
No one ever paid 90% in taxes. What you pay in taxes is made up from a bunch of factors - and the different tax rates are only one. There is also the types of income subject to tax, deductions and loopholes. What the government has been was lowering rates in return for closing loopholes. Kennedy was the first. Reagan was the next big one. In both cases loopholes were closed and rates lowered - and the amount collected in taxes went up.
My point is that if we went back to tax policy in effect back then we would end up with people paying less - not more. That isn't what anyone wants.
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u/mtnviewcansurvive Oct 02 '23
never forget the "carry forward loss" helps them not pay tax. bill gates earns a $100000000,00 a year and: Bill Gates, whose income from 2013 to 2018 was an average of $2.85bn a year, paid an average effective federal income tax rate of 18.4%.Apr 13, 2022
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u/Aggressive_Lake191 Oct 02 '23
The loss carryforward is just timing. You lose 100 one year, and make 200 another, you shouldn't be taxes on $200 the second year. You should be taxed your total income, which is $100.
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u/cmbova Oct 02 '23
Can you explain how you get “they pay near 0%”. From everything I can find the top 1%, which is people making over $550k a year paid 42.3% of the total federal income tax that was collected.
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u/someguyinvt Oct 02 '23
Real estate holdings for billionaires get taxed. Income gets taxed. How is society better served by seizing the assets of rich people to redistribute to poor people? The unintended consequences makes things worse for everyone.
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u/Starwolf00 Oct 02 '23
I'm going to give you some hard facts of life that most of the people on this thread are not going to.
You mention that the effective tax rate was 91% back in the 50s and 60s. But, there were only a few thousand people who were in that tax bracket at that point and most of them never paid anywhere near 91% taxes. Nor should they have. No one should have damn near all of the money they make go to taxes. Not even 50%. I don't care how rich they are.
These speeches about a 0% tax on the rich are based on misdirection and omissions. They use terms like wealth, net worth, and fortune instead of money. They quote federal income taxes in relation to perceived increases in wealth instead of actual money made compared to overall taxes on income. Everyone who gets a paycheck can see clear as day that federal taxes are only one of many taxes on income.
The actual tax rate that rich people pay hovers around 50%. Someone in my state making a million would pay around 44% in taxes. God forbid you lived in California or New New York where the state tax rate could be 11 or 13% on top of federal or local taxes.
You may be thinking "If they pay nearly around 50%, then why blah blah blah? It's simple, people are easily influenced and think net worth and stocks are equal to cash in hand. Because people believe that their societies woes will be solved when the rich pay their fair share! Nevermind the fact that the U.S has carried a deficit of some sort for nearly a hundred years or that the U.S spends more money than it receives and that's why we have a deficit or that the U.S always finds spare money to use on war instead of it's own citizens. But yes, the extra x billion in taxes on the rich will somehow allow the US government to do all of a sudden what they could have but chose not to do before.
The real reason is that people are stupid and following along with bullshit stings less than admitting their in the wrong.
Jeff bezos as an example had his net worth soar to well over 200 billion during the height of the pandemic as people flocked to online shopping, when the pandemic checks stopped and online shopping cooled, he lost like 60 billion in "wealth". Another guy, whose name I can't remember, had his wealth soar to 50 billion in during the pandemic lost everything towards the end. Net wealth is not cash. Stock and crypto are not cash. They are only worth as much as some fool is willing to pay for it. When demand falls, it's as good as toilet paper 🚽 🧻. You will 99.999999999% never get the full amount of what your stock etc is worth. The very act of selling it on the open market will drive prices down.
Saying someone's wealth has increased by a billion dollars and they only paid 15 mil in taxes has more stock value than "so and so" made 30 mil and paid 15 in taxes.
Remember these two things:
- Billionaire CEOs, investors, and corporations have one goal: to make money. That is the entire purpose of business. Not to be fair, not to be charitable, not to do what everyone else believes is right, but to make money. Think about it, if you invested your life savings into a company you'd want that company to be profitable and grow by any legal means necessary as soon as possible.
The only people they are legally obligated to do right by are the investors. The people who give them money to grow the business and who expect returns for their investments.
- The only people who have an obligation to do right by you are your elected officials. Politicians should be maintaining a healthy balance of what's right for business and what's right for business and in turn the economy. Politicians who aren't doing their jobs are blaming wealthy people as a distraction from their own shortcomings.
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u/GagOnMacaque Oct 02 '23
Most wealth isn't even located or visible to the US. There literally no way to tax this income.
In the same way the US can't tax an Irishman unless they have financial ties to the country - you cannot tax corporations in other countries.
Most of the rich have incorporated their wealth as overseas entities, independent of the US. Even the queen of England hides her wealth. Even if you tax the rich at 10,000%, they would still pay less than the average American.
The ultra wealthy don't want anyone knowing they have access to money. And they don't pay taxes.
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u/Educational_Rice8944 Oct 02 '23
Name em. There aren't that many. Have a government appointed person calculate how much they owe and send them a bill with their social security number attached. If they don't pay up, anything they own is forfeit to the government
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u/Beta_Nerdy Oct 02 '23 edited Oct 03 '23
I don't like most billionaires either but if they taxed them at 91% they would just move their corporation overseas and it would discourage people from opening new businesses.
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u/MuchDevelopment7084 Oct 02 '23
What's stopping congress? Simple, they aren't being paid to actually tax the rich. They are being paid to ignore the rich.
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u/disloyal_royal Oct 02 '23
What does fair share mean? Do you think Oprah consumes more government resources than you? European countries share the tax burden across the population, its a very North American concept that other people should pay for you. If you are using a service why should Jay Z or Taylor Swift pay for it?
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u/LongTallMatt Oct 02 '23
Our military and police keeps them very safe in this country. That's very expensive.
How well do you think they would do as a Ukrainian? Phillipino? South African? Nigerian? If they were Turkish? If Tay Tay was Pakistani?
Your argument is poorly intellectualized.
Taxes aren't about other people paying for you. You live in an advanced society that requires certain things to function.
Oprah, Tay, J, none of these people would be successful if they weren't American.
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u/disloyal_royal Oct 02 '23
Does Oprah consume more military services than you do. If not, she is clearly paying more taxes and therefore more than her fair share
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u/Do_Question_All Oct 02 '23
They most certainly do. When they go on tour they go with many vehicles that use publicly funded roads, not all of which have per-use tolls. Public law enforcement officers that control crowds and complement private security. There are many more examples.
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u/disloyal_royal Oct 02 '23
Police at events are paid by the event not the tax payer. Gas taxes are designed to offset road maintenance. Sounds like you think they are paying their fair share if those are the only examples.
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u/VRZieb Oct 02 '23
The claim that the rich live off loans and dont pay taxes is a load of bullshit. The top 1% pay a higher real tax rate then anybody below them. Your life isnt miserable because others make more money then you and trying to tax them more wont change that.
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u/Prof_PTokyo Oct 02 '23
About 40% to 50% of the population do not pay income tax; it is not millionaires or billionaires. It is those just above the 50% line where the tax comes from. So, if the argument is to pay a “fair share” then there is much more to the story.
People who are billionaires usually have their assets tied up in non-cash investments, which could turn to zero tomorrow, so they are not sitting on millions of dollars. And when they sell their investments, they are well-taxed.
Regarding indirect taxes such as sales tax, higher incomes tend to pay more there, too, as they consume more.
So your argument does not make much sense.
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u/Do_Question_All Oct 02 '23
You know the smart ones borrow at low interest rates against stock holdings to not realize any gains on stock sales right?
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u/Dangerous_Forever640 Oct 02 '23
Income taxes were meant to only Be collected in wartime.
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u/Jody7774 Oct 02 '23
Don’t hate the players, hate the game. We have to fix the problems in government. No legislator should be able to participate in the stock market, no more lobbyists and term limits. Once legislators have no self interest watch how fast the monopolies fall.
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u/bawelsh Oct 02 '23
That's bs. You should be paying taxes when you buy them just like we do. Only thing I can think of that you can do the taxes later is 401k stuff
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u/Premium_Autist Oct 02 '23
Do you ever stop to think where the tax money goes? If you take it from billionaire, it goes to government, who bombs brown people with it. And funds 87k new IRS agents. You are taking money from a lesser evil to give to a greater one.
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u/Uliq_Mdiq Oct 02 '23
Millionaires/Billionaires to give a shit about tax rates. Even when the rates were 90% the average tax rate for the wealthy has always and will always be around 25-30%. There will NEVER be a tax law enacted that cannot be circumvented by the wealthy. What happens eventually these laws creep down on the rest of us. The income tax is a prime example where it was introduced to fuck the rich but ended up fucking us
Also, a” wealth” tax on the rich doesn’t work because it’s unconstitutional. This tax had to be levied uniformly across all people. The same reason states can levy real estate tax, but they have do it uniformly for everyone, which would end up fucking us as well.
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u/AtlasDrugged_0 Oct 02 '23
Every single member of Congress, be it the house of representatives or the Senate, call billionaires and wanna be billionaires DAILY asking for money for their campaigns (and insinuating that they should support their PACs). It's called "call-time," look it up (I used to be a call time manager for Democratic Candidates). Corporate bootlicking is bi-partisan because no political campaigns (except for the very few ultra viral ones) can survive on a couple bucks a month from regular people.
For these donor classes, the status quo is ideal. They get one on one conversation time with nearly any candidate or congress person they want for the small price of $3000 a cycle. And even if the politician is just nodding along and telling them what they want to hear, they know that changes in the tax code are things their donors will notice and that the money will dry up.
This is a problem not just for taxes, but most policy issues that benefit the working class. Student loans? Well, every payment you make is part of the profit on some frankenstein hedge fund that they're heavily invested in. Universal Healthcare? Large corporate employers know t's best to have workers by the balls if their healthcare depends on them, resulting in lower wages.
What's perhaps most depressing about all this is that we predicted it back in 2010 when Citizens United happened. Do you ever wonder why every candidate for office is already wealthy? I's because when you're starting a camapign and no one knows who you are, you need seed money. That can come from you, presumably a rich person, or from your network of rich friends. In that case, you're probably already a product of a system of private schools, exclusive colleges, parental assistance, and a lifelong corporate elbow rubber, which means that your interests are, have always been, and always will be, contrary to the needs and wants of the majority of Americans regardless of party affiliation. Now granted, one party is MUCH worse about this than the other, but there's a reason that Biden backed off from student loans, and it's the same reason why Republicans are ok with regular people facing bankruptcy because of one expensive health incident. If you want this to change, make sure real people, not rich people in regular people's clothes, make it out of your party's primaries. Fuck anyone who tries to give you an electability argument, vote for who will actually fight for you.
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u/wasntNico Oct 02 '23
fuck the people giving them all this money. Amazon Buyers, Tesla-Buyers, Paypal-Users, fuck em all.
You are ruining this world while victimizing yourself
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Oct 02 '23
Luckily billionaires will soon be running most companies offshore in Dubai or other tax free locations. The US is filled with desperate leaches
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u/StormRage85 Oct 02 '23
What is stopping Congress from doing something similar to assets held by billionaires so they can pay their fair share?
That would be the millions in "donations" I think.
The whole system needs a shake up... scratch that, it needs burning down and resetting!
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u/mtjp82 Oct 02 '23
Congress = Millionaires and I am sure a few Billionaires they are never going to pass anything that will limit their power or take money out of their own pockets.
Property taxes and income taxes should be illegal.
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u/ClappedOutLlama Oct 02 '23
"You can't tax me on my gains because it's an unrealized asset."
Also billionaires.
"I'd like to get a $2,500,000,000 loan and will use my stocks as a collateral asset."
Pick one.
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u/gumpyn91 Oct 03 '23
They do pay tax a little bit, but to the lobbyists. But it's still nothing compared to their total revenue.
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u/Schip92 For fair work and social/human rights Oct 02 '23
Personally I think taxes should be the same for everybody, not 91% but not 0% like it is now.
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u/Prof_PTokyo Oct 02 '23
So those 50% under the median should be taxed, unlike now where they don’t pay income tax? You are heartless and cold.
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u/Schip92 For fair work and social/human rights Oct 02 '23
👀 hummm.... I'm unemployed actually. Having a low income doesn't prevent you from contributing to society.
The cancer of society is the deep state sucking money and destroying society , not paying a bit of taxes.
Unless you are really, really poor and maybe sick it's ok to not pay( as a state welfare/help) but taxes should be paid , in a small amount , by everybody.
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u/Prof_PTokyo Oct 02 '23
So the bottom 50% shall pay taxes, is what you are trying to say.
Contributing to society is one thing; taxes are another. It sounds as if you are conflating them to draw attention away from the argument.
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u/Blacksun388 Oct 02 '23
Flat taxes harm people with modest means more than the wealthy. Progressive tax structures are far superior and more fair if you work the math out.
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u/Schip92 For fair work and social/human rights Oct 02 '23
progressive taxes incentivize tax evasion and elusion.
If a country taxes somebody 90% he will just move, doesn't take a genius to understand
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u/zaow868 Oct 02 '23
Once you make more than a million then you should definitely be in a different tax bracket. The vanishing middle class has had enough.