3k a month, who made those financial decisions when you were picking a college!?!
Yeah, that's insane. Mine is like $200ish a month.
Post-grad education in a foreign country. I think I've explained this before? There's an interesting story behind it if you want me to share. It sounds like a lot of dumb decisions, and arguably the decision to become a Veterinarian may have been a financially irresponsible one, but given that she wanted to be a Vet there's really no other choice she could have made, aside from be born to richer parents.
If I had one, it would be something like 1% of each paycheck deducted automatically(just like, say, my medicare levy), as long as I was earning over 37 grand a year. YAY, Australian education system.
Also in that vein, do you try to wriggle your way out of taxes? Romney managed to halve his.
I have no student loans or debt of any kind, and my charitable contributions are driven by generosity moreso than any tax incentive (I often forget to deduct many of them). As a result, there is little to deduct. I make zero effort to decrease by tax burden beyond what is automatic (e.g., 401k, FSAs, transit check, etc...).
Out of curiosity, is that the level at which you would be willing to start paying exponentially greater taxes?
Exponentially greater taxes can mean many things? If you mean marginal rates on income above certain levels, then I'm fine with increasingly large percentages on income above various thresholds. Exponentially increasing the tax on my income beyond say my first $100k still increases my net income as my gross income rises, so I'm still better off than someone making less gross. I've love to see the marginal tax rate approach 90% in the upper echelons.
Exponentially greater taxes can mean many things? If you mean marginal rates on income above certain levels, then I'm fine with increasingly large percentages on income above various thresholds. Exponentially increasing the tax on my income beyond say my first $100k still increases my net income as my gross income rises, so I'm still better off than someone making less gross. I've love to see the marginal tax rate approach 90% in the upper echelons.
Imprecise language on my part, sorry. You often mention favoring marginal tax rates approaching 90% towards the upper echelon, I'm just curious where you think those rates should start increasing at. From my experience, I'd be happy with what you described above: tax anything above $100k at a higher and higher rate. It would have to be coupled with things like revamped deductions for student loans and whatnot (or else no one who can't afford to pay for things like Vet or Med school without large loans would do it), but those could be worked in and revamped.
If you're implying I know you, I'm not yet counting people I only really know via the internet in my comment. In general, I think I know very little about what people I talk with online and what sort of income they would have.
I've love to see the marginal tax rate approach 90% in the upper echelons.
Woah dude, do not want.
Do want. I'm suspecting that you do not undrestand how it works. You would not lose %90 of your moneys total. You would only lose %90 of the dollars you made over $1 million. Let's say the rates looked like these completely made up numbers.
The first 50k would be taxed at 10%, so you get 50k - 10% = 45k left over The next50k would be 20% so you take home 40k more The next 400k would be 50% so you take home 200k The next 500k would be 75% so you take home 125k more The next million would be taxed at 90% so you take home 100k more
So someone who gets in $2 million total would actually have $510,000 left after taxes. So even though it's 90% above a million, they actually only got taxed %74.5 total.
No, I understand exactly what that is and I think that is way too high of a tax rate. You're effectively punishing success at that point.
Not punishing success, just monetarily rewarding it significantly less. It provides less incentive to make lots of money, which may have some economic implications, though I'm admittedly not quite sure what they might be.
I've love to see the marginal tax rate approach 90% in the upper echelons.
Woah dude, do not want.
Srsly? Explain.
The worry is generally that we'll stifle investment, although that would old be a serious problem if we increase the capital gains tax correspondingly. Of course, most really rich people make most of their money off of capital gains, so we wouldn't get as much of their income as we want.
High tax rates encourage those who make a lot to higher people. Why? Tax deductions. If you employ people you can deduct the cost of their employment off of your taxes.
This is why I don't buy the whole, "higher tax rates hurt small business and kill jobs" argument. I've read the tax code on this (at least on the federal level) and most of the normal cost of hiring someone is deductible.
It also encourages philanthropy. Do you want to choose who your money helps or do you want the government to choose who is helped by your money?
Nonsense. The tax rate looked like that during the most prosperous times in American history.
You mean when Europe was rebuilding and buying all our shit?
Wouldn't this be a marketing problem? If you can't make money through finding proper markets, you shouldn't rely on tax refunds/breaks/rates to be a secondary income.
Nonsense. The tax rate looked like that during the most prosperous times in American history.
You mean when Europe was rebuilding and buying all our shit?
Yeah, because there isn't this giant developing world rapidly gaining economic momentum and looking to buy US expertise and heavy manufacturing. But it isn't going to be sustainable unless your government gets it shit together, does some monopoly breaking, gets money out of politics, rebuilds it's infrastructure and stops the pillaging of your country by moneyed interests. That starts with a responsible tax rate and the money being put back into education, the welfare of the people, and infrastructure. Right now, all the low tax rate and permissive lack of regulation is doing is making it very very easy for a small number of extraordinarily rich fucks to divide your nation up finer and finer between them and buy all the dissenting voices.
Nonsense. The tax rate looked like that during the most prosperous times in American history.
You mean when Europe was rebuilding and buying all our shit?
So it was ok, then but not now for what reason?
We were also actively waging a war at that time. Also, payroll tax was effectively non-existant then, today it's an average American's greatest tax liability.
Regardless, I think such a high tax is a disincentive to do work and be successful. It also encourages people to find ways around the tax laws. I'm not saving today's tax rates are great, they aren't. The highest tax bracket in the 60s was $400K, which in today's money is about $3M. Our tax table stops at $380K today, which is way too low, as is capital gains tax. But the greatest offender is probably the sneaky decline of our corporate tax rates and excise taxes. Excise used to be 13% of tax revenue, today's is not even 2. Corporate tax revenue as a percentage of total tax revenue is half of what it was in the 60s.
My solution would probably be a marginal tax rate ramping up to at least a $1M, if not higher, and a marginal rate around 50%. Couple that with an increase in corporate tax rate and capital gains, and a god damn gasoline tax.
Putting aside for a moment whether a 90% top tax rate would be a good idea, why don't we examine the possibility of going in that direction rather than leaping over a chasm?
Increase it to 50%. You still get to keep half of your second million. That's a lot of money. It's a significant tax income as well. I think you guys need to consider whether the government NEEDS to bother with a 90% rate. A very small increase in the top percentage rate can produce a large amount of income. The government need only raise enough to fund the programs it should reasonably provide. Anything more is unnecessary.
Also, we used to have taxes like that and it worked out just fine.
We used to use black people as chattel and it worked out just fine. For their owners. This argument is really not a very good one. (Not that I disagree with you, but "we did it before and it was fine" is a shitty argument.)
Comments
Exponentially greater taxes can mean many things? If you mean marginal rates on income above certain levels, then I'm fine with increasingly large percentages on income above various thresholds. Exponentially increasing the tax on my income beyond say my first $100k still increases my net income as my gross income rises, so I'm still better off than someone making less gross. I've love to see the marginal tax rate approach 90% in the upper echelons.
0-50k - 10%
50-100k - 20%
100k - 500k - 50%
500k - 1 million 75%
1million + - 90%
Now let's say you made two million dollars.
The first 50k would be taxed at 10%, so you get 50k - 10% = 45k left over
The next50k would be 20% so you take home 40k more
The next 400k would be 50% so you take home 200k
The next 500k would be 75% so you take home 125k more
The next million would be taxed at 90% so you take home 100k more
So someone who gets in $2 million total would actually have $510,000 left after taxes. So even though it's 90% above a million, they actually only got taxed %74.5 total.
This is why I don't buy the whole, "higher tax rates hurt small business and kill jobs" argument. I've read the tax code on this (at least on the federal level) and most of the normal cost of hiring someone is deductible.
It also encourages philanthropy. Do you want to choose who your money helps or do you want the government to choose who is helped by your money?
Regardless, I think such a high tax is a disincentive to do work and be successful. It also encourages people to find ways around the tax laws. I'm not saving today's tax rates are great, they aren't. The highest tax bracket in the 60s was $400K, which in today's money is about $3M. Our tax table stops at $380K today, which is way too low, as is capital gains tax. But the greatest offender is probably the sneaky decline of our corporate tax rates and excise taxes. Excise used to be 13% of tax revenue, today's is not even 2. Corporate tax revenue as a percentage of total tax revenue is half of what it was in the 60s.
My solution would probably be a marginal tax rate ramping up to at least a $1M, if not higher, and a marginal rate around 50%. Couple that with an increase in corporate tax rate and capital gains, and a god damn gasoline tax.
Increase it to 50%. You still get to keep half of your second million. That's a lot of money. It's a significant tax income as well. I think you guys need to consider whether the government NEEDS to bother with a 90% rate. A very small increase in the top percentage rate can produce a large amount of income. The government need only raise enough to fund the programs it should reasonably provide. Anything more is unnecessary.
Also, we used to have taxes like that and it worked out just fine.
Also, it creates an incentive for said "successful" people to be charitable to take advantage of their additional income.