Thread in which the world laughs at America

[Dinner]

They already pay a greater percent.

Nope. Warren Buffet pays an actual 18% and he's pretty average for the very wealthy. Most Americans with actual jobs pay much more then that. Also Buffet is right that there is something wrong with a tax system which makes the very wealthy pay lower rates then the middle class.

[Tupac Shakur]

If you include other forms of tax (not even including capital gains tax) that are federal, they do.

No. That graph clearly states that it is dealing with total federal tax.

This is from 2000. What exactly did the Bush tax cuts entail?

Don't know, but I doubt they significantly changed the progressivity of the American tax code given that all tax brackets had their rates reduced by the Bush tax cuts.

Warren Buffet pays an actual 18% and he's pretty average for the very wealthy.

Jesus Christ...

[Jon Miller]

No. That graph clearly states that it is dealing with total federal tax.

So you don't even bother to look at what it means by total federal tax?

I bet it doesn't include the contribution by employers, which definitely impacts the earnings of the employees and should be included in the tax rate (it is sort of a hidden tax).

Took a single click to find out that it was not total federal taxes. Come on Drake.

JM

[Tupac Shakur]

That post doesn't make any sense.

[Jon Miller]

The plot states it is total federal tax, but if you look at the source of it it isn't.

It doesn't include significant factors such as the employer part of the FICA tax.

JM

[Tupac Shakur]

Why the **** should payroll taxes paid by employers be included in a measure of how great a percentage of individual income is paid to the government? Jesus Jon, there's no point continuing this discussion if you're going to go to absurd lengths to avoid acknowledging basic facts.

[Guynemer]

Guynemer's lack of interest in checking threads before *****ing about people not participating in them is really killing this country.

[giblets]

Why the **** should payroll taxes paid by employers be included in a measure of how great a percentage of individual income is paid to the government? Jesus Jon, there's no point continuing this discussion if you're going to go to absurd links to avoid acknowledging basic facts.

Maybe Jon Miller thinks the costs of payroll taxes paid by employers are passed onto employees in the form of lower wages...

[Tupac Shakur]

I understand what Jon is saying, but it's irrelevant to whether the middle class pays a greater percentage of their income in federal taxes than the wealthy. They don't.

[Dinner]

For the very wealthy who are not employed, they don't pay income taxes on unearned income and instead they pay the capital gains rate minus any deductions. The effective average tax rate of the very wealthy is about 18%. FACT!

[KrazyHorse]

Their unearned income has already been taxed twice: once when their original capital was taxed as earned income and once when the corporations most of them have invested in pay corporate income tax.

The rate of taxation on income earned today to be consumed in the future is very high. Close to 60-70% including state taxes and depending on what you believe the relevant elasticities are.

[Dauphin]

Their unearned income has already been taxed twice: once when their original capital was taxed as earned income.

Unless their original capital was obtained by them in the form of loans. Maybe. I haven't thought it through completely.

[KrazyHorse]

Unless their original capital was obtained by them in the form of loans. Maybe. I haven't thought it through completely.

If their capital was obtained in the form of loans then under any rational measure their risk-adjusted rate of return was the same as the interest rate they paid on the loan (ex ante, not ex post, of course).

This is ignoring one major flaw in income tax: that earned income left inside various forms of partnership or corporation is never necessarily subjected to the full brunt of earned income taxation.

All the more reason to prefer consumption taxes, which are easier to enforce...

[KrazyHorse]

Or even to tax the middle class heavily when 70% of your GDP comes from consumption. We need to those sheep shopping.

This makes no sense whatsoever. The instant somebody tells you how much of GDP "comes from" consumption as the basis for any argument, you can immediately begin ignoring everything they say.

[KrazyHorse]

The wealthy get more out of society so they should pay a greater percent.

JM

Has nothing to do with fairness and everything to do with what is reasonable

I have no idea why anybody even bothers responding to you any more, jon.