It should be a moderately progressive income tax. That is to say the lowest earning bracket should pay nothing as a percentage of their income, the next bracket should pay a little bit, the next bracket a little higher % of their income, all the way up to billionaires who should be taxed out of billionaire status. I can certainly afford to pay a higher % of my income to taxes than someone who isn’t sure where their next meal is coming from, but my bosses and their bosses, and the people who own the building should be paying way more on their income than me. Also we need to get rid of the shenanigans that allows the ultra wealthy to avoid income tax altogether through loans and what not.
For clarity, say Kalkaline earns 100k a year. Ideally the billionaires would bring home exactly the same on their first 100k as Kalkaline does.
Marginal tax rate means the higher tax brackets only tax you in the money made above a certain amount. And it’s the same for the next higher up tax bracket, which doesn’t apply to any lower money.
If you’re not getting welfare, there is no “next tax bracket” that’s going to make you bring home less when earning more. That’s not a thing.
If you get a bonus, that might be taxed withheld at 50% because payroll is too lazy to figure out your taxes. You get the remainder back when you file your taxes. (Note this may mean you owe $200 at the end of the year instead of owing $1000. That still counts as you “getting” $800.)
We could put an 80% marginal tax rate on incomes above a billion dollars, and it wouldn’t really touch someone who was only bringing home 1,030 million dollars a year.
If you get a bonus, that might be taxedwithheld at 50% because payroll is too lazy to figure out your taxes. You get the remainder back when you file your taxes. (Note this may mean you owe $200 at the end of the year instead of owing $1000. That still counts as you “getting” $800.)
I’d prefer a 70% tax on billionaires, but I’d settle for 50% for anything above 5million. Take Elon for example, the guy makes an estimated $50,000USD per minute. Yes folks, the guy makes more per minute than the average American does in a year.
prove to me that billionaires should exist. Tax them accordingly.
Progressive tax brackets make things complicated, in myt opinion.
I always like the idea of a large tax free bracket and then taxing. 30-40% for the rest. No tax deduction, everybody has to pay up. You could also go for fixed tax brackets like 15%, 25% and 35% and also no tax deductions.
The problem is that tax deductions/credits are a useful tool for guiding certain activity. We want people to put up solar panels, so we give a tax credit for that.
The other argument for a progressive system is using money for necessities instead of luxuries or investment. Your first $40k or $50k or so is spent on the basic cost of living. After that, you’re using increasing amounts for things you don’t strictly need. So you want to tax that first $50k or so very little, perhaps none at all, and then ramp it up on the people who are just spending money on fast cars or dumping it into SPY or whatever.
There’s a ton of twisty little ways the tax system makes everything fair-ish. Turns out, running a country of 330M people and an annual GDP of $25T is complicated. It’s not always a fair system, but it’s more fair than it looks at first glance.
It should be a moderately progressive income tax. That is to say the lowest earning bracket should pay nothing as a percentage of their income, the next bracket should pay a little bit, the next bracket a little higher % of their income, all the way up to billionaires who should be taxed out of billionaire status. I can certainly afford to pay a higher % of my income to taxes than someone who isn’t sure where their next meal is coming from, but my bosses and their bosses, and the people who own the building should be paying way more on their income than me. Also we need to get rid of the shenanigans that allows the ultra wealthy to avoid income tax altogether through loans and what not.
For clarity, say Kalkaline earns 100k a year. Ideally the billionaires would bring home exactly the same on their first 100k as Kalkaline does.
Marginal tax rate means the higher tax brackets only tax you in the money made above a certain amount. And it’s the same for the next higher up tax bracket, which doesn’t apply to any lower money.
If you’re not getting welfare, there is no “next tax bracket” that’s going to make you bring home less when earning more. That’s not a thing.
If you get a bonus, that might be
taxedwithheld at 50% because payroll is too lazy to figure out your taxes. You get the remainder back when you file your taxes. (Note this may mean you owe $200 at the end of the year instead of owing $1000. That still counts as you “getting” $800.)We could put an 80% marginal tax rate on incomes above a billion dollars, and it wouldn’t really touch someone who was only bringing home 1,030 million dollars a year.
One very slight correction in bold.
Also it’s 22% and it’s not solely because payroll is lazy. It’s actually set by federal statute
That must be before other, additional payroll taxes.
Yeah add SS and Medicare to that if you’re not capped already. And of course any state taxe
Edited, thanks.
I’d prefer a 70% tax on billionaires, but I’d settle for 50% for anything above 5million. Take Elon for example, the guy makes an estimated $50,000USD per minute. Yes folks, the guy makes more per minute than the average American does in a year.
prove to me that billionaires should exist. Tax them accordingly.
Removed by mod
Progressive tax brackets make things complicated, in myt opinion. I always like the idea of a large tax free bracket and then taxing. 30-40% for the rest. No tax deduction, everybody has to pay up. You could also go for fixed tax brackets like 15%, 25% and 35% and also no tax deductions.
The problem is that tax deductions/credits are a useful tool for guiding certain activity. We want people to put up solar panels, so we give a tax credit for that.
The other argument for a progressive system is using money for necessities instead of luxuries or investment. Your first $40k or $50k or so is spent on the basic cost of living. After that, you’re using increasing amounts for things you don’t strictly need. So you want to tax that first $50k or so very little, perhaps none at all, and then ramp it up on the people who are just spending money on fast cars or dumping it into SPY or whatever.
There’s a ton of twisty little ways the tax system makes everything fair-ish. Turns out, running a country of 330M people and an annual GDP of $25T is complicated. It’s not always a fair system, but it’s more fair than it looks at first glance.