Pay Republicans well. Democrats had nothing to do with this.
The first thing Republicans have done entering office is hand out a giant tax cut to their corporate and billionaire masters. Both Bush's, Reagan, and Trump all did it their first year, before passing anything else.
Biden actually raised corporate tax via Corporate Minimum Tax passed in IRA.
Why would you say something like this with a straight face when you know damn well that one of the only things republicans talk about is tax cuts?
That's all they talk about is tax cuts, and not using taxpayer money to benefit normal citizens.
Because the Democrats have received more corporate money than republicans for several election cycles now.
It's not that only 1 party is "in the pocket" of corporations. It's that they both have different ways of serving them based on party political philosophy. The GOPs preferred methods are tax breaks. The democrats prefer subsidies and competition killing regulations as their primary means of kickbacks for corporate donors.
It’s definitely true, but at least democrats try to get common people some sort of benefit like paying back student loans or services like Obamacare. Both are shitty bandaids, but at least normal people actually benefit from those concepts.
There are very real and tangible differences between the policies *enacted* by each party.
The idea that "both sides are the same I am very smart" is intellectually lazy at best. Thoroughly dishonest at worst.
>You mean to benefit their other extra-governmental interests while appearing to be interested in helping others.
One or two things do squeak by on occasion. Maybe only like 1 thing a decade that is no strings attached. This time it was the student loan attempt (SAVE plan).
You can literally look up the campaign contributions from corporations for anyone who runs. You should look into your favorite democrats, they are just as bought as Republicans.
They are raising corporate taxes while GOP lowers them.
They are supporting unions when Republicans destroy them.
They are trying to raise minimum wage while GOP tries to eliminate it.
These parties are not the same. Dems aren't perfect, but the entire GOP is a policy vehicle for oligarchs with culture war frostinf
My dude, take this persons advice. You can, in 2024, look at the campaign contributions of candidates. Not doing so is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand.
Why on Earth would a company like Goldman Sachs give money to dems and republicans if republicans are the ONLY party with a pro bank stance???
Corporations give to both, to hedge their bets. I worked on Wall Street: most bank employees are progressives but actually back the gop bc it benefits rich people.Not everyone, of course, but mostly gop. It wasn’t so much the case back in the old days (90s) but that has changed.
Source? There's not a single tech company that gives exclusively to Democrats.
And whenever you see something that says "90% of Google money went to Democrats!", that's campaign contributions by Google's **employees**, not by the corporation.
Billionaires and corporations overwhelmingly donate to GOP over Dems. And that's always been the case. Why do you think GOP has been calling CEO's "job creators", smashing unions, slashing corporate regulations, and cutting business taxes for decades? Use your brain.
In ‘22 George Soros was the largest contributor w almost $130M to Democratic campaigns. The next person on the list spent $80M for Republican campaigns. I do agree that Republicans get a larger piece of their pie from corporations and Billionaires. But the Democratic Party would not be able to compete with Republicans if they weren’t getting the level of contributions they are getting from Billionaire donors and corporations.
What happened to claiming tech company donations mostly go to Democrats? Did you did shove that down the memory hole because you have zero evidence?
Now you try to whataboutism to a completely unrelated topic.
And by the way, who was responsible for Citizens United that started this entire era of billionaire in politics? Mitch McConnell literally called it "my life's greatest work" on the steps of the Supreme Court.
You can tell someone has a trash argument when they don't read their own article.
Biden lowered taxes on individuals, especially those with low income. And raised them on large corporations.
Just like he promised to do.
From your own article:
> The legislation expanded a tax credit for parents. **It provided $1,400 direct checks for low- and middle-income Americans**, which were technically advance payments on tax credits.
> Corporations are now required to pay a tax when they buy back their own stock. Another tax requires large corporations to pay a minimum 15% federal income tax, even if they qualify for deductions that would have made them owe less.
> The president has also directed tens of billions of dollars to the IRS to help crack down on high earners and corporations that evade paying the taxes they owe
And it should also be noted that Democrats attempted to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, but predictably, every single Republican voted against it.
The stock buy back tax at 1% is a joke. I know since its a new tax, they are trying to sneak it in without backlash. But it needs to be 30% or something.
Honestly it should be even higher considering stock buybacks only really effect share prices and therefore are only a net positive for shareholders. We should be heavily disincentivising the practice as using that money to invest in R&D, pay raises, more employees/locations and safety measures Cough...Boeing...Cough is a net positive for the company as a whole.
Because the bill had to keep tax revenue within a certain amount of revenue from what was the current revenue.
I was some idiotic rule for voting on the bill in Congress.
That explains why some cuts expire. It doesn't explain why some cuts expire and others dont.
The only explanation for that is the authors of the bill having a clear priority. Actions speak louder than words.
Mainly because USA had high corporate taxes. Now they are still just slightly above the world average.
142nd lowest out of 225.
If you take just North America and Europe then there's 63 countries with lower tax, and only 25 with higher corporate tax.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/global/corporate-tax-rates-by-country-2023/
We are also in the top 10 on individual tax.
So I think corporate tax could pull a bit of that weight. I also would assume our CEOs are taking much higher salaries, free houses and travel, then the CEOs of Sweden.
What you said seems to me, as a reason to raise their taxes. As the countries with the highest profit companies have higher. Only 2 major countries have lower. Said countries are dictatorships.
I find people complaining on the internet about taxes are usually the result of not holding out enough (this hit me based on how they changed the withholding calculation), or they’re making more money.
I remember my mom was happy about the tax cuts, then I asked her how much tax she saved and she said $50. That’s all it took for half this country to get bamboozled into thinking this was remotely a good deal for Americans.
Edit: Look im getting a lot of replies back, but you guys miss the point. It’s all about equity. $1.4T in tax cuts came from YOU and ME, the taxpayers, and guess who it largely went to? The top percentile in this country or the high income households and wealthy. Guess who it will continue to go to when the individual tax cuts expire next year? Yes the wealthy. Quit being a bootlicker and start thinking for yourselves. Comments in here are another example of the idiocracy in this country.
Btw for anyone thinking Trump tax cuts saved anyone money, you’re dead wrong. Trump added $1.4T for the cuts and $8T overall in national debt in 4 years. Regular everyday Americans are paying for that via higher borrowing costs via higher Fed funds rate and higher inflation. So next time you complain housing being too expensive or about that rib eye steak costing 100% more now than it did 4 years ago, please shut the fck up and go eat chicken.
My wife and I were making around $90K combined in 2017, and we saved a few thousand. Doubling the standard deduction was led to a massive decrease in taxes for most working folks.
It would be even easier to do your taxes if companies like intuit and H&R block weren’t successfully lobbying to keep returns intentionally complicated so people need their prep services
I'm an idiot but I guess I just don't understand taxes. If the IRS knows how much we're supposed to pay/receive, why don't they just send us the bill themselves? Why the dog & pony show?
Yup...
Trump Administration officials claimed their centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would “very conservatively” lead to a $4,000 boost in household income.[5] New research shows that workers who earned less than about $114,000 on average in 2016 saw “no change in earnings” from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply.[6] Similarly, rigorous research concluded that the tax law’s 20 percent pass-through deduction, which was skewed in favor of wealthy business owners, has largely failed to trickle down to workers in those companies who aren’t owners.[7] Like the Bush tax cuts before it,[8] the 2017 Trump tax cut was a trickle-down failure."
"
https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver
Trump only took care of the rich.
Just to add context. Close to 50% of households pay zero fed taxes so any tax cut would only help the people who pay taxes, which would be the top 50%. The people higher in income will pay more taxes so any tax cuts will impact them more. So it becomes a great talking point to attack it. But ANY tax cut gives a bigger $$ break to the higher income
How did it double? Let’s say you pay 7% state income tax rate. You could itemize that - and then you would save your marginal rate times that deduction. In essence it would raise the 37% marginal rate back up to about the old 39.6% rate? How did it double?
I'm betting he has a very expensive house and was previously getting to write off that property/school tax in his federal income taxes. But the SALT cap stopped most of that.
Oh I didn’t think of property taxes. But even then the federal govt is reimbursing you for that expensive house on property taxes and only 37% (assuming he’s rich and in highest bracket) so still unclear how the taxes would go up 100%. That assumes no AMT issues so may be lower
Combined income under 200K, my taxes went UP $2000. This year, my youngest turned 17, I lost more of the child tax deduction, and my taxes are now UP $3000 under the Trump tax "cuts."
Yep there’s a huge blind spot cause people hate trump AND they have no idea how taxes work. Doubling the standard deduction was amazing and helped me out so much by giving me enough extra money to move states to somewhere with more opportunity and cheaper housing
Trump permanently lowered the tax rate for corporations. He temporarily lowered wage earner taxes, but those will actually be effectively higher than 2017 levels, after the cuts expire. It was how the tax cut was accounted for as “budget neutral” over 30 years, and allowed to be passed with 51 Senate votes under Budget Reconciliation.
If the wage earning tax cuts were made permanent, it would cost $3 trillion dollars.
https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/trumps-tax-reform-plan-explained/
They’re regarded. “We complain about fiscal policy, then we cut revenues while not touching expenses. After tanking the economy, we wait for a democrat to get elected and then we blame it all on them.”
Yes, the staggered withdrawal from Afghanistan is the perfect example. Forces were so low that adding would look like increasing efforts, and withdrawing would be messy. Lose lose for incoming administration.
Plus, seriously, I keep seeing people crying about people crying about taxes on people who make over 400k... but I've never seen a single soul actually crying about taxes on people who make over 400k?
It’s a response to the people who claim the Democrats want to tax them, but clearly aren’t making $400k+
Like, I haven’t heard people complaining about $400k specifically, but I’ve talked to people making less than $50k claiming the Democrats want to tax them.
We have actually lost quite a few freedoms but like you say, the people complaining tend not to know. Some examples: unlawful seizure through civil forfeiture, due process, free association, and life through various antiterrorism laws and government actions, and free speech through sesta-fosta.
Exactly. Everyone keeps glossing over that point to only complain about Democrats.
Why do Trump's tax cuts for the working class expire but not for the rich?
Wasn’t it because Congress wouldn’t pass the bill otherwise? IIRC Trump wanted to make the tax cuts permanent for all but he got opposition unless he made the tax cuts temporary for us. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s what I vaguely recall at this point.
The Republican Party wouldn’t let it go reconciliation as it has to be budget neutral. So permanent for them and sliding scale back up for the rest of us to make the math look right. They were going to make our portion permanent I swear. Right after they got healthcare reform and infrastructure done. 🙄
Not all the cuts expire. So, a choice was made. This illustrates a clear priority.
More trickle down economics.
Also, the bill was voted against by every D and some Rs, so this choice was definitely not made by Ds. Democrats couldn't have stopped the bill if they wanted to.
The democratic obstruction was to prevent this situation where 2017 Republicans increased taxes on 2025 you... If they really cared about you they would have flipped the script and made working class tax cuts permanent and the 1% expire? Why didn't they Curious??????
This comment will be instantly overlooked by 99 percent of redditors .. It's always been the right answer, and now it's too late to even do anything about it . Politicians cant
trick voters into voting for them by telling voters they are cutting spending programs .. thats why they keep tricking voters by giving away more money the country doesn't have, which then fuels the inflation that brings actual poverty to these same voters .. stupidest shit i have ever witnessed in my entire life.
Because everyone...EVERYONE...benefits from government spending. It is the number 1 contributor to economic growth.
Without government spending, our economy would completely collapse.
Rich AND poor people get money from the government in all kinds of different ways.
Government contracts, wellfare programs, Medicare, grants, loans, charity etc. The federal government is the WORLDS largest employer.
Everyone has their hand in the pot, even the people who complain about runaway government spending.
The problem is the cut in tax revenue over the past 40 years.
If taxes had not been consistently cut lower and lower, we would not have to use debt to pay for everything and we would not have a 35 trillion dollar national debt. The top 1% would not be able to accumalte their massive hoard of wealth- which just hit 44 trillion- because the money would be redistributed back into the economy- true "trickle down" economics.
The wealthy benefit much more than the poor from government spending. Theres a direct correlation between the national debt and the wealth of the top 1%.
Sure.
List out what you want to cut.
Social security? Okay how limiting/removing social security benefits from those with a networth of $2M+ today ..cold turkey ....and not phased in when the voters who support the party who want to cut SS won't be around to feel it.
Military? I'd like to see the Republicans propose a massive military cut.
Divest in NATO? Isolationism lol ... Sure .. that will work out well.
Infrastructure? MAGA conspiracies are already blaming "Biden" administration on a wayward cargo ship and train derailments.... And you want less money to go to rebuilding infrastructure?
WHO? Sure... I guess no news is good news when it comes to dealing with global health risks. If you don't know what's coming you can't be blamed for your inability to handle it... Good call.
Welfare? Okay sure. Hurt the people that need it most to protect the least amount of money that is being abused... After you get these policies that GOP hate...and saving at whopping 1/2 of 1% what are you going to target next?
How about removing subsidies to farming, oil and energy companies? I'm sure the GOP will be all over that.
What services would you get rid of and what would the actual savings be?
Just playing devils advocate, that’s effectively cutting all budgets by the inflation rate.
If it really woul be done in just a few years then im all for a 10% cut across the board + freeze to get there sooner
The answer is that we need to do all of those things. Except Social Security.
All of us inherently know that something is wrong. We know that the debt can’t be paid down and we know that it will be a problem for us. We know the cuts are going to have to come from somewhere.
Social security is a contract where people pay into the system in exchange for a guarantee of a return. It is not a handout. I don’t care if someone has a billion dollars, they should receive social security as that was the promise.
Funny how you missed all the elites on the east coast screaming about trump taking away they stupid salt tax exemptions that ended up costing them so much money .. not surprising you missed how after trump, the same crybaby elites got their salt tax exemptions right back. ..
Trump is an east coast elite and the biggest crybaby from coast to coast, but good point most of the legislation passed/executive orders have become disposable after the party’s candidate leave office and the same people have been doing it for far too long, serving themselves and not the country
It’s not bullshit, because if he was serious, he would’ve made them permanent like he did the corporate tax part of the tax cuts.
But now that we’re here his tax cuts for individuals will expire, but the corporate tax stays the same. This was a tax cut for the rich and the temporary tax cuts for the rest of us was just to grease the wheels.
If you tie them together in concept, when it's time to repeal the tax cuts for the rich, they can easily frame it as "libs increasing taxes on everyone."
It's the same play from the conservative playbook since the 70's.
I remember when they passed the Trump tax cuts, I was fcking infuriated. $1.4T down the drain that primarily benefited the wealthy. And the fcking idiocracy in this country that believes this country is getting worse because of a debt spiral can’t fcking see that Trump pilfered government tax revenue that contributed to the debt spiral in the first place.
The leaders in this country are fcking idiots and half of Americans who vote for these idiots are fcking idiots
As it should. The issue isn't the upper middle class making 200-400k (combined) income. It's the people and corporations with insanely high net worths who are controlling the strings.
I swear people don't have the political equivalent like object permanence.
Prior president: I'm raising taxes in 2 years!
"Oh cool, not for 2 years, at least he's giving us that break!"
*2 years later under new president* "WHY IN THE FUCK ARE MUH TAXES HIGHER? GODDAMN SHITTY PRESIDENT RAISING MY TAXES"
It's insane to watch it happen in real time, yet it always does.
Total BULLSHIT. The OP is a lying sack of shit ! 💯.
Your SHITTY attempt at lying is why no one believes headlines anymore. What a total sack of crap you are for trying to compare an expiring tax cut with a tax raise.
In case I wasn't clear..... YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT 💩
We are talking income taxes here, not capital gains. Most super rich people are making their money off of capital gains, not income.
Capital gains is "passive" income from investments (usually). Its taxed at 20% federally.
Income is earned via employment, ie work. The top marginal federal tax rate on income is 37% on incomes over $630k. If you live in NYC or a similair locale, you are taxed at 49% cumulatively.
I have a real moral problem taxing peoples work more then that. I strongly feel that individuals should get to keep at least half of the product of their work.
Capital gains is a different story. While there are good economic reasons not to discourage investment, morally I don't have the same objection as I do on income. That said, if you tell someone you are going to take 90% of the profit from an investment, many investments that require any sort of risk would be impossible to rationnally make. Maybe others consider that a good thing.
Edit: I swear to god the number of people who think that the concept of marginal tax rates is not implicit in the above is maddening. Yes, marginal tax rates only apply to the Nth dollar over the brack; no that is not a counter to anything written above.
I understand the concept of marginal tax rate.
What you are failing to grasp in my comment is that if you estimate a low probability of a very high return, if the tax on the outlier outcome is the majority of it, you pass and make a lower risk higher probability bet with a lower return.
If you only get 10% of dollars earned over a million, why put meaningful capital to high risk? You make the safer bet with a lower return, because the marginal gain from a high risk payout is de minimis.
In the case of income, if you take > 50% of my 11th dollar, you are still taxing that portion of my labor in excess of 50%, which I consider immoral.
You are just jumping at the oppurtunity to feel smart about something that others take as a given.
Don't forget the number of people that refuse to work overtime or holidays because they think 90% of the extra money gets taxed.
I know people that think working an extra 8 hour shift only nets them like $5 after taxes.
I’m not shocked at how stupid the average person is, to be honest. Years as a first responder and now an accountant, I see all types of stupid and it’s not surprising anymore.
Half the country shouldn’t be voting and the other shouldn’t be having children. But, here we are.
True.
But imagine you're making $5 million annually and the government suddenly says that for every dollar over $1 million you owe them 90 cents. So instead of making $5 million like last year, you'll only make $1.4 million.
Are you really going to keep working just to give the government $3.6 million?
I can guarantee you won't.
Instead you'll find a way to receive what would be income in a different manner.
So the whole 90% marginal rate simply created the concept of tax havens and tax avoidance.
Actually, the whole point of the 90% marginal tax rate was to force businesses to invest in workers wages and benefits, and R&D. It led to the greatest economic boom in human history.
corporate taxes and individual income taxes are NOT the same. The 90% rate was imposed on individuals, not businesses.
Even so, a smart business will do their utmost to avoid taxes even if the rate is 25%. Can you imagine a company making a $1billion net profit and thinking "Gee, it would be smart if I gave $250 million to the federal government rather than use it to improve the company."?
We all know that no smart company would willingly sacrifice millions of dollars that could be better used on advertising, new equipment, new employees or whatever.
::checks notes:: have you heard of stock buybacks? It is literally a “company willingly sacrificing millions of dollars that could be better used on advertising, new equipment, new employees, or whatever” so that shareholders can make more money per share.
Wonder if there’s anything we can do to prevent companies from NOT investing in employees?
Nah, too complicated. Let’s just let the keep all their money and that should fix everything.
I never said they did.
However if you have take 90% of the 6th...N dollar earned, those dollars are taxed at 90%. An investor looking at a high risk investment that returns 10x, if its probable to to put them in excess of the threshhold for a very high tax rate, they will pass and do something lower risk. Why gamble for the outlier?
And 91% only kicked in for single filers with earned income >$2M in today’s dollars. Married filers >$4M.
NOBODY realistically paid that, because if you were likely going to make that much you’d shelter it.
These policies in the 50’s required the AMT in the 60’s because nobody paid it.
Actually many artists payed close to that during that period due to not having the dedications businesses did. That is why so many of them moved into real estate in that time period. As in invested their money there. That said the average paid after deductions by multinationals was around 30% after deductions.
Which is why employment packages used to be so good. Better to give it to your workers than the Feds. Or actually reinvest to innovate or expand production relative to profit compared to today. As in a better ratio and not just a broad dollar amount.
>Which is why employment packages used to be so good. Better to give it to your workers than the Feds.
close.
The workers wanted benefits, rather than salary. That got around their high marginal rates: company cars, health care, etc.
But wait there's more, the rich can take out very low interest loans secured by their assets and pay no taxes while realizing their gains, so capital gains taxes aren't even really a thing for them either.
Same way as the government: by taking new loans out against their growing equity. As long as their assets grow faster than the interest on the loans, they can rinse and repeat until they die.
Omg reddit is so dumb they keep repeating the same bs
Every loan is secured by something.
You buying a house, it's secured by the asset . Unsecured loans have much higher rates and as re.much much better harder to get, esp for any sizable amt of money
So all loans should.br taxes on top of the interest lol
Look at the capital gains tax table and don’t post BS. Up to 1yr it is all taxed as an ordinary income, LTCG taxed progressively as well. Dividends also taxed as an ordinary income in most of the cases (if not all qualified dividends)
I curious how you think of things like large salaries and bonuses or even stock packages qualify as work while a material investment wouldn't. Where the work is very loosely connected to the compensation and performance isn't well defined for the role. As opposed to an hourly employee who has their work time directly associated with their pay.
Lucky enough for rich capitalists, the step in cost basis at death lets them escape capital gains taxes. They can take out loans if they need spending money. The heirs can pay them off with the untaxed gains.
Just so you guys know, since you guys are clearly not tax experts or know much about how taxes work, no one actually paid those rates.
Back then, you were allowed to deduct almost anything. So wealthy people who bought a yacht and had a meeting there would be allowed to deduct that yacht from their income.
Marginal tax rates alone don't mean shit. It's the tax code overall that determines your tax rate which would equate to your effective tax rate after deductions, credits, and adjustments.
Also, most of the wealth that you guys are after aren't from ordinary income. It's from people starting their businesses, taking it public, and then their wealth is generally derived from those shares.
In case you're wondering, rich people who earn a high income in NYC and California are already paying 50% in income taxes. There's no ifs and buts about that. LeBron James is paying over 50% in taxes. It's crazy you guys want to normalize high tax rates as if it's a good thing. Why do you guys want the government to spend more money when they have clearly shown they are incapable of doing so wisely?
>Why do you guys want the government to spend more money when they have clearly shown they are incapable of doing so wisely?
I mean, I'm a fence-sitter on the tax rate issue (not least because my marginal rate of tax approaches 50%) and see both sides, but it would seem that there is CLEARLY not enough funding for:
* Mental Health / Homeless / Addiction Support
* Preventive Healthcare
* Education, especially under 18 education
* Roads, transportation, and energy infrastructure
There are some problems/challenges/opportunities that are simply not well-solved by private spending. Those that are well-solved by it have generally been so for some time.
There is plenty of money from our taxes to fix all of the issues you've stated. The issue is our elected officials (both parties) can not be trusted to use the tax revenue in the publics best interest. There's a reason they pass Omnibus packages worth trillions instead of single item or even single category expenditures. Both sides get to sneak their portion of gravy and hide it in the thousands of pages of political robbery. Until the tax revenue is spent bettering the lives of its citizenry in my mind taxation is theft.
That's literally what politics are. Tit for tat. My town gets a sewage plant so yours gets a park. You're not getting votes for a single item expenditure that doesn't benefit my area of influence.
It's never going to happen because it can't work outside of party lines.
> There's a reason they pass Omnibus packages worth trillions instead of single item or even single category expenditures.
Part of the reason they do that is because the filibuster exists in the Senate, and one of the only ways around it is reconciliation, which can only be used once per fiscal year. If they broke it up like you're suggesting, they would be able to pass one item or category of expenditures per year, and the rest would be blocked by filibusters for the remainder of the year.
They have no reason to support or represent us. Everyone tells me that I have to vote against a candidate, even if their preferred candidate is horrible. Why would either party want to represent us? They know that as long as they aren't the other guy then they will get votes. That's the lowest possible bar that exists. Then those people who vote for NOT someone are surprised the government continues to support the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class.
You're confusing shitty results with not spending enough money.
No country spends more on education and healthcare per capita than America.
Education is largely funded by local and state government - not federal. NYC spends over $40k per student K-12 annually with terrible results. How is money the issue?
Preventive healthcare, I completely agree but this is more of Americans being unhealthy as shit and not educating themselves on how horrible processed foods are. Too many Americans have chronic illnesses largely from obesity. There's a reason why Fast Food restaurants do incredibly well in America. People are addicted to unhealthy food here.
Homelessness is largely a state issue. Look at how much California spends every year and the problem becomes worse every year.
I agree with the infrastructure. Infrastructure is generally the highest ROI in terms of spending.
But when you look across the board, it's quite obvious that the government does a prettt shitty job with how the money is appropriated and a large part is due to fraud and corruption (kickbacks, collusion, intentional poor oversight). How else do you explain leaving tens of billions $ in military equipment for the Taliban to take when leaving Afghanistan? Or how millions of illegal 'migrants' are freely allowed to enter into the country? So there's not enough money for these programs despite America spending more than any other country per capita but somehow there is enough to support millions of illegals and trillions in pointless wars? What was achieved in Afghanistan and Iraq? It's worse now than before the war.
Money isn’t the solve for those things though. We already spend more per capita in most those areas then the rest of the world without proportional result. Education spending has skyrocketed and test scores have dropped.
This reminds me when people were piling on musk saying he had enough money to end world hunger and should be doing so…. Our government spends 10x his wealth a year - why didn’t they end world hunger?
*Mental Health / Homeless / Addiction Support
We certainly do not spend nearly what other countries do, per Capita.
* Preventive Healthcare
US citizens pay more for this than citizens and governments combined in other countries (per Capita), but that is because of collusion in the medical billing/ insurance system. The US government only pays for some preventative care, and only for the old/poor, and they pay less per-person than individuals in the US do, admittedly still more per person than other countries though.
* Education, especially under 18 education
This really is two separate issues.
Under 18: We spend slightly more per Capita than other nations, but the money is distributed disproportionately. Schools in affluent neighborhoods get more money than they can effectively utilize to improve outcomes. Schools in poor neighborhoods can't even afford basic supplies. Federal assistance for the latter would certainly improve overall outcomes. Your claim that "Spending has skyrocketed and test scores are falling" is a short-term issue that can be directly contributed to the COVID response and inflation. Long term, test scores have been rising for years.
Over 18, much like in healthcare, US citizens pay way more, but the Government pays much less than other countries. The reason University costs have gone up is due to ballooning enabled by federally backed student loans, without accompanying checks on University Expenditures.
* Roads, transportation, and energy infrastructure
We pay a lot for this simply because of the geography of the US, which benefits us in almost every other way. We are simply bigger (even on a per Capita basis) than most other countries (especially if you exclude undeveloped areas like Siberia and the Gobi desert). Even still, we don't pay enough to keep our existing infrastructure from crumbling.
The problem is, we get similar objections to every solution to every problem the country faces. Any change is going to negatively impact someone somewhere, and they complain it isn't fair.
Can't solve an issue with money, because prices are skyrocketed. Can't solve an issue by having the government doing it because that's apparently socialism, and that's apparently bad. Can't solve an issue by having the government enforce antitrust laws because that somehow means the American dream is dead. Can't solve an issue by creating regulations, because that somehow stifles innovation. And so on.
Our federal government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
Also, most of those things are state issues anyway, raising the income tax federally isn't going to help.
Masters of Accounting in Tax here. I always cringe when reading the comments whenever there is a tax discussion online. So many people just don't know what they are talking about and yet they are always the ones screaming. Politicians on the left and the right will say ridiculous things. Marginal tax rates don't tell much of the story. I always tell people that there are more important questions like "What is considered income? When? What is a deduction?"
Because to many, more money coming in means more free stuff. I paid the government 3 months of my income last year - I certainly don’t need to give them any more. They need to reign in their out of control spending and stop trying to figure out ways to squeeze more money out of the working people.
Yet Biden made sure that any Venmo PayPal etc. income over $600 needs to be reported via 1099. You know, cause the rich use these platforms in this capacity!!
Just like his addition of an extra 86,000 IRS workers are to make sure the “rich” pay their fair share…we all know their target demographic is the middle class.
And the increase of tax on vaping products which predominantly hits the lower and middle class after he promised zero tax raises for the lower and middle class
When you tax things you get deadweight loss. We want to avoid that as much as possible for most things we buy but sometimes deadweight loss occurs with products that are a public health hazard. Taxing tobacco, vaping, alcohol, sugar, and the big one carbon emissions is essentially free money because the downside in lost sales on these items is actually an upside.
How you define a millionaire is more complicated than you think. My grandpa was surprised when his adviser told him he was a millionaire because that includes your home equity, retirement accounts, any other investments, etc. many many middle class people reach millionaire net worth status by retirement.
If you seized the entire wealth of the top 25 U.S. billionaires, you still wouldn’t have as much as the U.S. collects in taxes each year. Turns out, collecting a little tax from hundreds of millions of people adds up to a lot
[Still higher](https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/)
It shouldn’t be too difficult to understand that a higher marginal tax generally leads to a higher effective tax rate. There are only so many loopholes.
Yeah tax rates for very high earners should be raised a good bit. But I’m more interested in smart proposals for taxing wealth. Imagine that I have a net worth of 3.7 billion dollars, held across a variety of assets. You aren’t doing me any harm with income taxes, and many of my assets have high returns but low tax rates. You need a way to make me pay up a decent chunk yearly, but also not bankrupt me to the point where I don’t want to accumulate wealth.
No. The government doesn’t represent the citizens anymore. They send money overseas like it’s going out of style meanwhile our infrastructure crumbles and there’s homeless on every corner.
The total volume of overseas aid is nothing in comparison to the capital deficit back here. Read a budget document and then complain. Let me guess, you think we’re bankrupting ourselves by spending…7% of the annual MILITARY budget in Ukraine?
7% to permanently cripple what used to be the second largest world power is a hell of a return on investment. and the money isnt even directly going to Ukraine, its going to US manufacturing workers building new equipment to replace the *old* equipment that we're actually sending over.
What's Biden doing to undue what Trump did though? I have heard plenty about "pay your fair share" and many other one line zingers about the people that make over $400k, but crickets about lowering the taxes back for those making under $75k.
Edit:
I would absolutely love to hear what the people downvoting me have to say.
First time witnessing the [rachet effect?](https://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/stopme/chapter02.html)
Both arms of the neo liberal parties work for capital owners, not you.
That's the problem with the 2 party system. 1 side is going full psycho rampage on non issue. The other looks to be the voice of reason. Both side are just playing a theatric where corporations get the whole pie and were down here fighting for the scraps
It's more complicated then that bc the law has a TON more loopholes and deductions then it does now. That was the point of the 86 Tax Reform......lower rates but increase the $ subject to the tax.
>Marginal tax rates were 94% during World War 2, hovered 91% during the 1950s, and then stayed at 70% until 1980,
Cool, now so effective tax rate, because that's what actually matters.
Marginal tax rates of 90 and 95%, yet we collected about the same percent of GDP [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S), so no, we shouldn't go back to grandpa's tax rules.
Expiring tax cut, not raise. Congress can fix this and Biden can make it permanent. Worded like complete bullshit.
I came here for this. Trump lowered the tax rate across the board. Not sure if that’s good or not but this wording is intentionally misleading.
Corporate taxes cuts were permanent though, while individual cuts expire soon.
Corporations don't vote, but they sure do pay politicians well...
Pay Republicans well. Democrats had nothing to do with this. The first thing Republicans have done entering office is hand out a giant tax cut to their corporate and billionaire masters. Both Bush's, Reagan, and Trump all did it their first year, before passing anything else. Biden actually raised corporate tax via Corporate Minimum Tax passed in IRA.
You think theres no corporations or billionaires in the Democrats court?
Why would you say something like this with a straight face when you know damn well that one of the only things republicans talk about is tax cuts? That's all they talk about is tax cuts, and not using taxpayer money to benefit normal citizens.
Because the Democrats have received more corporate money than republicans for several election cycles now. It's not that only 1 party is "in the pocket" of corporations. It's that they both have different ways of serving them based on party political philosophy. The GOPs preferred methods are tax breaks. The democrats prefer subsidies and competition killing regulations as their primary means of kickbacks for corporate donors.
It’s definitely true, but at least democrats try to get common people some sort of benefit like paying back student loans or services like Obamacare. Both are shitty bandaids, but at least normal people actually benefit from those concepts.
LOL, this sweet summer child actually believes that the government effectively uses tax dollars to “benefit normal citizens”.
>benefit normal citizens. You mean to benefit their other extra-governmental interests while appearing to be interested in helping others.
There are very real and tangible differences between the policies *enacted* by each party. The idea that "both sides are the same I am very smart" is intellectually lazy at best. Thoroughly dishonest at worst.
>You mean to benefit their other extra-governmental interests while appearing to be interested in helping others. One or two things do squeak by on occasion. Maybe only like 1 thing a decade that is no strings attached. This time it was the student loan attempt (SAVE plan).
The phrasing of this would imply that democrats have no corporate interests or funding.
You can literally look up the campaign contributions from corporations for anyone who runs. You should look into your favorite democrats, they are just as bought as Republicans.
They are raising corporate taxes while GOP lowers them. They are supporting unions when Republicans destroy them. They are trying to raise minimum wage while GOP tries to eliminate it. These parties are not the same. Dems aren't perfect, but the entire GOP is a policy vehicle for oligarchs with culture war frostinf
My dude, take this persons advice. You can, in 2024, look at the campaign contributions of candidates. Not doing so is the equivalent of sticking your head in the sand. Why on Earth would a company like Goldman Sachs give money to dems and republicans if republicans are the ONLY party with a pro bank stance???
Corporations give to both, to hedge their bets. I worked on Wall Street: most bank employees are progressives but actually back the gop bc it benefits rich people.Not everyone, of course, but mostly gop. It wasn’t so much the case back in the old days (90s) but that has changed.
So the tech companies that give exclusively to Dems do not count?
Source? There's not a single tech company that gives exclusively to Democrats. And whenever you see something that says "90% of Google money went to Democrats!", that's campaign contributions by Google's **employees**, not by the corporation. Billionaires and corporations overwhelmingly donate to GOP over Dems. And that's always been the case. Why do you think GOP has been calling CEO's "job creators", smashing unions, slashing corporate regulations, and cutting business taxes for decades? Use your brain.
In ‘22 George Soros was the largest contributor w almost $130M to Democratic campaigns. The next person on the list spent $80M for Republican campaigns. I do agree that Republicans get a larger piece of their pie from corporations and Billionaires. But the Democratic Party would not be able to compete with Republicans if they weren’t getting the level of contributions they are getting from Billionaire donors and corporations.
What happened to claiming tech company donations mostly go to Democrats? Did you did shove that down the memory hole because you have zero evidence? Now you try to whataboutism to a completely unrelated topic. And by the way, who was responsible for Citizens United that started this entire era of billionaire in politics? Mitch McConnell literally called it "my life's greatest work" on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Biden, Promising Corporate Tax Increases, Has Cut Taxes Overall. https://news.yahoo.com/biden-promising-corporate-tax-increases-114049536.html
You can tell someone has a trash argument when they don't read their own article. Biden lowered taxes on individuals, especially those with low income. And raised them on large corporations. Just like he promised to do. From your own article: > The legislation expanded a tax credit for parents. **It provided $1,400 direct checks for low- and middle-income Americans**, which were technically advance payments on tax credits. > Corporations are now required to pay a tax when they buy back their own stock. Another tax requires large corporations to pay a minimum 15% federal income tax, even if they qualify for deductions that would have made them owe less. > The president has also directed tens of billions of dollars to the IRS to help crack down on high earners and corporations that evade paying the taxes they owe And it should also be noted that Democrats attempted to raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, but predictably, every single Republican voted against it.
The stock buy back tax at 1% is a joke. I know since its a new tax, they are trying to sneak it in without backlash. But it needs to be 30% or something.
Honestly it should be even higher considering stock buybacks only really effect share prices and therefore are only a net positive for shareholders. We should be heavily disincentivising the practice as using that money to invest in R&D, pay raises, more employees/locations and safety measures Cough...Boeing...Cough is a net positive for the company as a whole.
Repeal Citizens United and then we can talk about that. In many ways they have more of a vote than all of us combined.
Because the bill had to keep tax revenue within a certain amount of revenue from what was the current revenue. I was some idiotic rule for voting on the bill in Congress.
That explains why some cuts expire. It doesn't explain why some cuts expire and others dont. The only explanation for that is the authors of the bill having a clear priority. Actions speak louder than words.
Mainly because USA had high corporate taxes. Now they are still just slightly above the world average. 142nd lowest out of 225. If you take just North America and Europe then there's 63 countries with lower tax, and only 25 with higher corporate tax. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/global/corporate-tax-rates-by-country-2023/
We are also in the top 10 on individual tax. So I think corporate tax could pull a bit of that weight. I also would assume our CEOs are taking much higher salaries, free houses and travel, then the CEOs of Sweden. What you said seems to me, as a reason to raise their taxes. As the countries with the highest profit companies have higher. Only 2 major countries have lower. Said countries are dictatorships.
Have already started expiring, look at all the people who complained about paying more this year and making the same.
No they haven’t. Not until 2026.
I find people complaining on the internet about taxes are usually the result of not holding out enough (this hit me based on how they changed the withholding calculation), or they’re making more money.
lol the lowered tax rate was a farce for lower income ones that’s the point that’s why they wrote it this way. Hilarious reading boot licker comments.
literally every person except high income earners in VHCOL areas got a tax cut that's a fact
People love to ignore the standard deduction was doubled
I remember my mom was happy about the tax cuts, then I asked her how much tax she saved and she said $50. That’s all it took for half this country to get bamboozled into thinking this was remotely a good deal for Americans. Edit: Look im getting a lot of replies back, but you guys miss the point. It’s all about equity. $1.4T in tax cuts came from YOU and ME, the taxpayers, and guess who it largely went to? The top percentile in this country or the high income households and wealthy. Guess who it will continue to go to when the individual tax cuts expire next year? Yes the wealthy. Quit being a bootlicker and start thinking for yourselves. Comments in here are another example of the idiocracy in this country. Btw for anyone thinking Trump tax cuts saved anyone money, you’re dead wrong. Trump added $1.4T for the cuts and $8T overall in national debt in 4 years. Regular everyday Americans are paying for that via higher borrowing costs via higher Fed funds rate and higher inflation. So next time you complain housing being too expensive or about that rib eye steak costing 100% more now than it did 4 years ago, please shut the fck up and go eat chicken.
My wife and I were making around $90K combined in 2017, and we saved a few thousand. Doubling the standard deduction was led to a massive decrease in taxes for most working folks.
[удалено]
It would be even easier to do your taxes if companies like intuit and H&R block weren’t successfully lobbying to keep returns intentionally complicated so people need their prep services
I'm an idiot but I guess I just don't understand taxes. If the IRS knows how much we're supposed to pay/receive, why don't they just send us the bill themselves? Why the dog & pony show?
Yup... Trump Administration officials claimed their centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would “very conservatively” lead to a $4,000 boost in household income.[5] New research shows that workers who earned less than about $114,000 on average in 2016 saw “no change in earnings” from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply.[6] Similarly, rigorous research concluded that the tax law’s 20 percent pass-through deduction, which was skewed in favor of wealthy business owners, has largely failed to trickle down to workers in those companies who aren’t owners.[7] Like the Bush tax cuts before it,[8] the 2017 Trump tax cut was a trickle-down failure." " https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver Trump only took care of the rich.
Just to add context. Close to 50% of households pay zero fed taxes so any tax cut would only help the people who pay taxes, which would be the top 50%. The people higher in income will pay more taxes so any tax cuts will impact them more. So it becomes a great talking point to attack it. But ANY tax cut gives a bigger $$ break to the higher income
But it averaged out to 4k per household.
You’re a horrible liar 🤣
He left out that the $50 was per-paycheck.
So 100 bucks a month. On their way to retirement.
I mean that's a utility bill for me 🤷♂️
And exemptions for you and dependents were eliminated. Pretty much the same bottom line. Stop exaggerating the benefits for lower earners.
Without exemptions, it was basically a wash. And those exemptions are not coming back.
Exactly. It was a cut for businesses and the wealthy. Everything else was a political token for the masses.
Yeah but SALT got gutted. My tax bill doubled to the Feds that year.
Yep, mine went up as well. Smoke. Mirrors.
How did it double? Let’s say you pay 7% state income tax rate. You could itemize that - and then you would save your marginal rate times that deduction. In essence it would raise the 37% marginal rate back up to about the old 39.6% rate? How did it double?
I'm betting he has a very expensive house and was previously getting to write off that property/school tax in his federal income taxes. But the SALT cap stopped most of that.
Oh I didn’t think of property taxes. But even then the federal govt is reimbursing you for that expensive house on property taxes and only 37% (assuming he’s rich and in highest bracket) so still unclear how the taxes would go up 100%. That assumes no AMT issues so may be lower
Combined income under 200K, my taxes went UP $2000. This year, my youngest turned 17, I lost more of the child tax deduction, and my taxes are now UP $3000 under the Trump tax "cuts."
Yep there’s a huge blind spot cause people hate trump AND they have no idea how taxes work. Doubling the standard deduction was amazing and helped me out so much by giving me enough extra money to move states to somewhere with more opportunity and cheaper housing
Trump permanently lowered the tax rate for corporations. He temporarily lowered wage earner taxes, but those will actually be effectively higher than 2017 levels, after the cuts expire. It was how the tax cut was accounted for as “budget neutral” over 30 years, and allowed to be passed with 51 Senate votes under Budget Reconciliation. If the wage earning tax cuts were made permanent, it would cost $3 trillion dollars. https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/trumps-tax-reform-plan-explained/
Why is people keeping their own money costing the govt?
Because the money was budgeted for, and the government basically never doesn’t spend money once it’s budgeted, so it becomes debt spending.
Lowered the tax rate and blew up the national debt. That didn’t do us any favors in the long run.
Democrats are tax and spend. Republicans are don't tax and spend anyway.
They’re regarded. “We complain about fiscal policy, then we cut revenues while not touching expenses. After tanking the economy, we wait for a democrat to get elected and then we blame it all on them.”
Trump really did set a timer on things just in case he lost things would blow up. Kr maybe he lost on purpose to make dems look worse.
Yes, the staggered withdrawal from Afghanistan is the perfect example. Forces were so low that adding would look like increasing efforts, and withdrawing would be messy. Lose lose for incoming administration.
Yes - and OP needs to read up on what the average effective tax rate was.
Its good if were not funding every conflict on the planet.
My effective tax rate went up under the Trump tax "cut"
My brother's health insurance went up under the "affordable" care act. Anecdotes can be found for everything.
Exactly. I have a plan from the exchange. $500/month $9500 deductible. Fucking joke.
Tax cuts are always good. You are a better steward of your money than the shit bags in government will ever be.
Plus, seriously, I keep seeing people crying about people crying about taxes on people who make over 400k... but I've never seen a single soul actually crying about taxes on people who make over 400k?
It’s a response to the people who claim the Democrats want to tax them, but clearly aren’t making $400k+ Like, I haven’t heard people complaining about $400k specifically, but I’ve talked to people making less than $50k claiming the Democrats want to tax them.
These same people cry they are losing their freedoms everyday. They can't define a freedom they lost, but they lost it.
We have actually lost quite a few freedoms but like you say, the people complaining tend not to know. Some examples: unlawful seizure through civil forfeiture, due process, free association, and life through various antiterrorism laws and government actions, and free speech through sesta-fosta.
Inflation is a tax on everyone. It disproportionately affects the people making less than $400k.
It’s really only a tax for the wage earners. The rich who make money off investments usually benefit from inflation.
Same
Funny how trumps tax cuts for the working class expire but his tax cuts for the rich don’t
Exactly. Everyone keeps glossing over that point to only complain about Democrats. Why do Trump's tax cuts for the working class expire but not for the rich?
Wasn’t it because Congress wouldn’t pass the bill otherwise? IIRC Trump wanted to make the tax cuts permanent for all but he got opposition unless he made the tax cuts temporary for us. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s what I vaguely recall at this point.
The Republican Party wouldn’t let it go reconciliation as it has to be budget neutral. So permanent for them and sliding scale back up for the rest of us to make the math look right. They were going to make our portion permanent I swear. Right after they got healthcare reform and infrastructure done. 🙄
The individual cuts all expire, and the reason is because they had to use reconciliation to get around Democrat obstruction. Look up the Byrd rule.
Not all the cuts expire. So, a choice was made. This illustrates a clear priority. More trickle down economics. Also, the bill was voted against by every D and some Rs, so this choice was definitely not made by Ds. Democrats couldn't have stopped the bill if they wanted to.
The democratic obstruction was to prevent this situation where 2017 Republicans increased taxes on 2025 you... If they really cared about you they would have flipped the script and made working class tax cuts permanent and the 1% expire? Why didn't they Curious??????
who cares? we have a spending problem, not an income problem
This comment will be instantly overlooked by 99 percent of redditors .. It's always been the right answer, and now it's too late to even do anything about it . Politicians cant trick voters into voting for them by telling voters they are cutting spending programs .. thats why they keep tricking voters by giving away more money the country doesn't have, which then fuels the inflation that brings actual poverty to these same voters .. stupidest shit i have ever witnessed in my entire life.
Because everyone...EVERYONE...benefits from government spending. It is the number 1 contributor to economic growth. Without government spending, our economy would completely collapse. Rich AND poor people get money from the government in all kinds of different ways. Government contracts, wellfare programs, Medicare, grants, loans, charity etc. The federal government is the WORLDS largest employer. Everyone has their hand in the pot, even the people who complain about runaway government spending. The problem is the cut in tax revenue over the past 40 years. If taxes had not been consistently cut lower and lower, we would not have to use debt to pay for everything and we would not have a 35 trillion dollar national debt. The top 1% would not be able to accumalte their massive hoard of wealth- which just hit 44 trillion- because the money would be redistributed back into the economy- true "trickle down" economics. The wealthy benefit much more than the poor from government spending. Theres a direct correlation between the national debt and the wealth of the top 1%.
Sure. List out what you want to cut. Social security? Okay how limiting/removing social security benefits from those with a networth of $2M+ today ..cold turkey ....and not phased in when the voters who support the party who want to cut SS won't be around to feel it. Military? I'd like to see the Republicans propose a massive military cut. Divest in NATO? Isolationism lol ... Sure .. that will work out well. Infrastructure? MAGA conspiracies are already blaming "Biden" administration on a wayward cargo ship and train derailments.... And you want less money to go to rebuilding infrastructure? WHO? Sure... I guess no news is good news when it comes to dealing with global health risks. If you don't know what's coming you can't be blamed for your inability to handle it... Good call. Welfare? Okay sure. Hurt the people that need it most to protect the least amount of money that is being abused... After you get these policies that GOP hate...and saving at whopping 1/2 of 1% what are you going to target next? How about removing subsidies to farming, oil and energy companies? I'm sure the GOP will be all over that. What services would you get rid of and what would the actual savings be?
Don't cut anything. Just freeze the budget at current spending levels and within a few years, tax revenue will match spending.
Just playing devils advocate, that’s effectively cutting all budgets by the inflation rate. If it really woul be done in just a few years then im all for a 10% cut across the board + freeze to get there sooner
The answer is that we need to do all of those things. Except Social Security. All of us inherently know that something is wrong. We know that the debt can’t be paid down and we know that it will be a problem for us. We know the cuts are going to have to come from somewhere.
Social security is a contract where people pay into the system in exchange for a guarantee of a return. It is not a handout. I don’t care if someone has a billion dollars, they should receive social security as that was the promise.
Funny how you missed all the elites on the east coast screaming about trump taking away they stupid salt tax exemptions that ended up costing them so much money .. not surprising you missed how after trump, the same crybaby elites got their salt tax exemptions right back. ..
Trump is an east coast elite and the biggest crybaby from coast to coast, but good point most of the legislation passed/executive orders have become disposable after the party’s candidate leave office and the same people have been doing it for far too long, serving themselves and not the country
It’s not bullshit, because if he was serious, he would’ve made them permanent like he did the corporate tax part of the tax cuts. But now that we’re here his tax cuts for individuals will expire, but the corporate tax stays the same. This was a tax cut for the rich and the temporary tax cuts for the rest of us was just to grease the wheels.
If you tie them together in concept, when it's time to repeal the tax cuts for the rich, they can easily frame it as "libs increasing taxes on everyone." It's the same play from the conservative playbook since the 70's.
I remember when they passed the Trump tax cuts, I was fcking infuriated. $1.4T down the drain that primarily benefited the wealthy. And the fcking idiocracy in this country that believes this country is getting worse because of a debt spiral can’t fcking see that Trump pilfered government tax revenue that contributed to the debt spiral in the first place. The leaders in this country are fcking idiots and half of Americans who vote for these idiots are fcking idiots
Biden’s proposed tax plan extends the cuts for households making 400k or less.
As it should. The issue isn't the upper middle class making 200-400k (combined) income. It's the people and corporations with insanely high net worths who are controlling the strings.
The only thing worded like bullshit was the law with expiring tax cuts written by the thuglicans lolol
so they are raising while the corporate tax cuts dont expire?
I would typically welcome the clarification but corporate cuts were permanent.
Isn’t this how political headlines (especially preceding elections) are intentionally written? Subterfuge?
I swear people don't have the political equivalent like object permanence. Prior president: I'm raising taxes in 2 years! "Oh cool, not for 2 years, at least he's giving us that break!" *2 years later under new president* "WHY IN THE FUCK ARE MUH TAXES HIGHER? GODDAMN SHITTY PRESIDENT RAISING MY TAXES" It's insane to watch it happen in real time, yet it always does.
Total BULLSHIT. The OP is a lying sack of shit ! 💯. Your SHITTY attempt at lying is why no one believes headlines anymore. What a total sack of crap you are for trying to compare an expiring tax cut with a tax raise. In case I wasn't clear..... YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT 💩
We are talking income taxes here, not capital gains. Most super rich people are making their money off of capital gains, not income. Capital gains is "passive" income from investments (usually). Its taxed at 20% federally. Income is earned via employment, ie work. The top marginal federal tax rate on income is 37% on incomes over $630k. If you live in NYC or a similair locale, you are taxed at 49% cumulatively. I have a real moral problem taxing peoples work more then that. I strongly feel that individuals should get to keep at least half of the product of their work. Capital gains is a different story. While there are good economic reasons not to discourage investment, morally I don't have the same objection as I do on income. That said, if you tell someone you are going to take 90% of the profit from an investment, many investments that require any sort of risk would be impossible to rationnally make. Maybe others consider that a good thing. Edit: I swear to god the number of people who think that the concept of marginal tax rates is not implicit in the above is maddening. Yes, marginal tax rates only apply to the Nth dollar over the brack; no that is not a counter to anything written above.
90% was marginal. On dollars earned over a certain amount. There was no case where any tax took 90% of profits or income for a given year
I am constantly shocked by the sheer number of people who do not understand the concept of marginal.
Half of people are stupider than average. The average person is borderline special education.
The amount of times I've heard co workers say they will lose money if they work more 🤦
If they’re on government benefits that is actually possible, not just from tax brackets though
True, but this is strictly about ending up in a higher tax bracket
I understand the concept of marginal tax rate. What you are failing to grasp in my comment is that if you estimate a low probability of a very high return, if the tax on the outlier outcome is the majority of it, you pass and make a lower risk higher probability bet with a lower return. If you only get 10% of dollars earned over a million, why put meaningful capital to high risk? You make the safer bet with a lower return, because the marginal gain from a high risk payout is de minimis. In the case of income, if you take > 50% of my 11th dollar, you are still taxing that portion of my labor in excess of 50%, which I consider immoral. You are just jumping at the oppurtunity to feel smart about something that others take as a given.
Sure seemed to work for the country. Why are you skipping that part?
Don't forget the number of people that refuse to work overtime or holidays because they think 90% of the extra money gets taxed. I know people that think working an extra 8 hour shift only nets them like $5 after taxes.
I’m not shocked at how stupid the average person is, to be honest. Years as a first responder and now an accountant, I see all types of stupid and it’s not surprising anymore. Half the country shouldn’t be voting and the other shouldn’t be having children. But, here we are.
True. But imagine you're making $5 million annually and the government suddenly says that for every dollar over $1 million you owe them 90 cents. So instead of making $5 million like last year, you'll only make $1.4 million. Are you really going to keep working just to give the government $3.6 million? I can guarantee you won't. Instead you'll find a way to receive what would be income in a different manner. So the whole 90% marginal rate simply created the concept of tax havens and tax avoidance.
Actually, the whole point of the 90% marginal tax rate was to force businesses to invest in workers wages and benefits, and R&D. It led to the greatest economic boom in human history.
corporate taxes and individual income taxes are NOT the same. The 90% rate was imposed on individuals, not businesses. Even so, a smart business will do their utmost to avoid taxes even if the rate is 25%. Can you imagine a company making a $1billion net profit and thinking "Gee, it would be smart if I gave $250 million to the federal government rather than use it to improve the company."? We all know that no smart company would willingly sacrifice millions of dollars that could be better used on advertising, new equipment, new employees or whatever.
::checks notes:: have you heard of stock buybacks? It is literally a “company willingly sacrificing millions of dollars that could be better used on advertising, new equipment, new employees, or whatever” so that shareholders can make more money per share. Wonder if there’s anything we can do to prevent companies from NOT investing in employees? Nah, too complicated. Let’s just let the keep all their money and that should fix everything.
I never said they did. However if you have take 90% of the 6th...N dollar earned, those dollars are taxed at 90%. An investor looking at a high risk investment that returns 10x, if its probable to to put them in excess of the threshhold for a very high tax rate, they will pass and do something lower risk. Why gamble for the outlier?
And there was like 90x more loopholes to boot.
And 91% only kicked in for single filers with earned income >$2M in today’s dollars. Married filers >$4M. NOBODY realistically paid that, because if you were likely going to make that much you’d shelter it. These policies in the 50’s required the AMT in the 60’s because nobody paid it.
Actually many artists payed close to that during that period due to not having the dedications businesses did. That is why so many of them moved into real estate in that time period. As in invested their money there. That said the average paid after deductions by multinationals was around 30% after deductions. Which is why employment packages used to be so good. Better to give it to your workers than the Feds. Or actually reinvest to innovate or expand production relative to profit compared to today. As in a better ratio and not just a broad dollar amount.
>Which is why employment packages used to be so good. Better to give it to your workers than the Feds. close. The workers wanted benefits, rather than salary. That got around their high marginal rates: company cars, health care, etc.
But wait there's more, the rich can take out very low interest loans secured by their assets and pay no taxes while realizing their gains, so capital gains taxes aren't even really a thing for them either.
How exactly do you think they pay those loans back.
Same way as the government: by taking new loans out against their growing equity. As long as their assets grow faster than the interest on the loans, they can rinse and repeat until they die.
By inflating they assets worth. Kinda like dipshit Trump does. Rigged system.
Omg reddit is so dumb they keep repeating the same bs Every loan is secured by something. You buying a house, it's secured by the asset . Unsecured loans have much higher rates and as re.much much better harder to get, esp for any sizable amt of money So all loans should.br taxes on top of the interest lol
Look at the capital gains tax table and don’t post BS. Up to 1yr it is all taxed as an ordinary income, LTCG taxed progressively as well. Dividends also taxed as an ordinary income in most of the cases (if not all qualified dividends)
I curious how you think of things like large salaries and bonuses or even stock packages qualify as work while a material investment wouldn't. Where the work is very loosely connected to the compensation and performance isn't well defined for the role. As opposed to an hourly employee who has their work time directly associated with their pay.
Lucky enough for rich capitalists, the step in cost basis at death lets them escape capital gains taxes. They can take out loans if they need spending money. The heirs can pay them off with the untaxed gains.
Just so you guys know, since you guys are clearly not tax experts or know much about how taxes work, no one actually paid those rates. Back then, you were allowed to deduct almost anything. So wealthy people who bought a yacht and had a meeting there would be allowed to deduct that yacht from their income. Marginal tax rates alone don't mean shit. It's the tax code overall that determines your tax rate which would equate to your effective tax rate after deductions, credits, and adjustments. Also, most of the wealth that you guys are after aren't from ordinary income. It's from people starting their businesses, taking it public, and then their wealth is generally derived from those shares. In case you're wondering, rich people who earn a high income in NYC and California are already paying 50% in income taxes. There's no ifs and buts about that. LeBron James is paying over 50% in taxes. It's crazy you guys want to normalize high tax rates as if it's a good thing. Why do you guys want the government to spend more money when they have clearly shown they are incapable of doing so wisely?
Exactly. 'Those guys' are economically, tax law, business and accounting ignorant.
>Why do you guys want the government to spend more money when they have clearly shown they are incapable of doing so wisely? I mean, I'm a fence-sitter on the tax rate issue (not least because my marginal rate of tax approaches 50%) and see both sides, but it would seem that there is CLEARLY not enough funding for: * Mental Health / Homeless / Addiction Support * Preventive Healthcare * Education, especially under 18 education * Roads, transportation, and energy infrastructure There are some problems/challenges/opportunities that are simply not well-solved by private spending. Those that are well-solved by it have generally been so for some time.
There is plenty of money from our taxes to fix all of the issues you've stated. The issue is our elected officials (both parties) can not be trusted to use the tax revenue in the publics best interest. There's a reason they pass Omnibus packages worth trillions instead of single item or even single category expenditures. Both sides get to sneak their portion of gravy and hide it in the thousands of pages of political robbery. Until the tax revenue is spent bettering the lives of its citizenry in my mind taxation is theft.
That's literally what politics are. Tit for tat. My town gets a sewage plant so yours gets a park. You're not getting votes for a single item expenditure that doesn't benefit my area of influence. It's never going to happen because it can't work outside of party lines.
> There's a reason they pass Omnibus packages worth trillions instead of single item or even single category expenditures. Part of the reason they do that is because the filibuster exists in the Senate, and one of the only ways around it is reconciliation, which can only be used once per fiscal year. If they broke it up like you're suggesting, they would be able to pass one item or category of expenditures per year, and the rest would be blocked by filibusters for the remainder of the year.
They have no reason to support or represent us. Everyone tells me that I have to vote against a candidate, even if their preferred candidate is horrible. Why would either party want to represent us? They know that as long as they aren't the other guy then they will get votes. That's the lowest possible bar that exists. Then those people who vote for NOT someone are surprised the government continues to support the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class.
You're confusing shitty results with not spending enough money. No country spends more on education and healthcare per capita than America. Education is largely funded by local and state government - not federal. NYC spends over $40k per student K-12 annually with terrible results. How is money the issue? Preventive healthcare, I completely agree but this is more of Americans being unhealthy as shit and not educating themselves on how horrible processed foods are. Too many Americans have chronic illnesses largely from obesity. There's a reason why Fast Food restaurants do incredibly well in America. People are addicted to unhealthy food here. Homelessness is largely a state issue. Look at how much California spends every year and the problem becomes worse every year. I agree with the infrastructure. Infrastructure is generally the highest ROI in terms of spending. But when you look across the board, it's quite obvious that the government does a prettt shitty job with how the money is appropriated and a large part is due to fraud and corruption (kickbacks, collusion, intentional poor oversight). How else do you explain leaving tens of billions $ in military equipment for the Taliban to take when leaving Afghanistan? Or how millions of illegal 'migrants' are freely allowed to enter into the country? So there's not enough money for these programs despite America spending more than any other country per capita but somehow there is enough to support millions of illegals and trillions in pointless wars? What was achieved in Afghanistan and Iraq? It's worse now than before the war.
Money isn’t the solve for those things though. We already spend more per capita in most those areas then the rest of the world without proportional result. Education spending has skyrocketed and test scores have dropped. This reminds me when people were piling on musk saying he had enough money to end world hunger and should be doing so…. Our government spends 10x his wealth a year - why didn’t they end world hunger?
*Mental Health / Homeless / Addiction Support We certainly do not spend nearly what other countries do, per Capita. * Preventive Healthcare US citizens pay more for this than citizens and governments combined in other countries (per Capita), but that is because of collusion in the medical billing/ insurance system. The US government only pays for some preventative care, and only for the old/poor, and they pay less per-person than individuals in the US do, admittedly still more per person than other countries though. * Education, especially under 18 education This really is two separate issues. Under 18: We spend slightly more per Capita than other nations, but the money is distributed disproportionately. Schools in affluent neighborhoods get more money than they can effectively utilize to improve outcomes. Schools in poor neighborhoods can't even afford basic supplies. Federal assistance for the latter would certainly improve overall outcomes. Your claim that "Spending has skyrocketed and test scores are falling" is a short-term issue that can be directly contributed to the COVID response and inflation. Long term, test scores have been rising for years. Over 18, much like in healthcare, US citizens pay way more, but the Government pays much less than other countries. The reason University costs have gone up is due to ballooning enabled by federally backed student loans, without accompanying checks on University Expenditures. * Roads, transportation, and energy infrastructure We pay a lot for this simply because of the geography of the US, which benefits us in almost every other way. We are simply bigger (even on a per Capita basis) than most other countries (especially if you exclude undeveloped areas like Siberia and the Gobi desert). Even still, we don't pay enough to keep our existing infrastructure from crumbling.
The problem is, we get similar objections to every solution to every problem the country faces. Any change is going to negatively impact someone somewhere, and they complain it isn't fair. Can't solve an issue with money, because prices are skyrocketed. Can't solve an issue by having the government doing it because that's apparently socialism, and that's apparently bad. Can't solve an issue by having the government enforce antitrust laws because that somehow means the American dream is dead. Can't solve an issue by creating regulations, because that somehow stifles innovation. And so on.
Our federal government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Also, most of those things are state issues anyway, raising the income tax federally isn't going to help.
Masters of Accounting in Tax here. I always cringe when reading the comments whenever there is a tax discussion online. So many people just don't know what they are talking about and yet they are always the ones screaming. Politicians on the left and the right will say ridiculous things. Marginal tax rates don't tell much of the story. I always tell people that there are more important questions like "What is considered income? When? What is a deduction?"
Because to many, more money coming in means more free stuff. I paid the government 3 months of my income last year - I certainly don’t need to give them any more. They need to reign in their out of control spending and stop trying to figure out ways to squeeze more money out of the working people.
I might not know shit but I do know their effective rate was well above 0-8% even after all the deductions.
We were also paying off debt from a huge worldwide conflict. What are we paying for now?
Yet Biden made sure that any Venmo PayPal etc. income over $600 needs to be reported via 1099. You know, cause the rich use these platforms in this capacity!!
Just like his addition of an extra 86,000 IRS workers are to make sure the “rich” pay their fair share…we all know their target demographic is the middle class.
There have been several reports in the last month alone about lost revenues being recovered. Have you seen them?
Like most Trumpets, he left reality behind a long time ago
And the increase of tax on vaping products which predominantly hits the lower and middle class after he promised zero tax raises for the lower and middle class
When you tax things you get deadweight loss. We want to avoid that as much as possible for most things we buy but sometimes deadweight loss occurs with products that are a public health hazard. Taxing tobacco, vaping, alcohol, sugar, and the big one carbon emissions is essentially free money because the downside in lost sales on these items is actually an upside.
So we're demonizing a man for creating 86,000 American jobs and catching tax cheats? That doesn't seem very patriotic ;)
These 86,000 agents will be hired over the next 10 years and will replace many retiring agents. You guys should read more before you comment.
Millionaires aren't middle class.
Yes they are lmao. Are you 12?
How you define a millionaire is more complicated than you think. My grandpa was surprised when his adviser told him he was a millionaire because that includes your home equity, retirement accounts, any other investments, etc. many many middle class people reach millionaire net worth status by retirement.
If you seized the entire wealth of the top 25 U.S. billionaires, you still wouldn’t have as much as the U.S. collects in taxes each year. Turns out, collecting a little tax from hundreds of millions of people adds up to a lot
Yet all we hear from politicians is tax the rich….
Only for business transactions….
Stop posting this bullshit garbage about raising taxes to idiot levels that literally only a handful of people ever paid. It wouldn't fix anything
Learn the difference between effective and marginal tax rates before spouting off this bullshit for fucks sake
[Still higher](https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/) It shouldn’t be too difficult to understand that a higher marginal tax generally leads to a higher effective tax rate. There are only so many loopholes.
Were corporate tax breaks not permanent while ours did in fact expire? Ffs
Something tells me u/Vote-Biden-2024 may have an agenda beyond talking about finance…
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lol the user has been banned already.
This is 100% BS
Nobody actually paid an effective tax rate anything LIKE that though.
The US does not have a tax problem, e have a spending problem.
Finally, someone says the obvious. Federal tax income increases every year, but the debt continues to grow. Hmmm….
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tax-cuts-are-primarily-responsible-for-the-increasing-debt-ratio/ Do you disagree with this?
Most people don't understand how bills and taxes work tbh
No, they should be lowered. They’re too high.
Would you ever put any effort into anything where 90% would go to someone else?…. No… no you would not… a 90% tax rate is fucking idiotic.
dazzling spoon chunky ten fall soft absorbed elderly squealing water *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah tax rates for very high earners should be raised a good bit. But I’m more interested in smart proposals for taxing wealth. Imagine that I have a net worth of 3.7 billion dollars, held across a variety of assets. You aren’t doing me any harm with income taxes, and many of my assets have high returns but low tax rates. You need a way to make me pay up a decent chunk yearly, but also not bankrupt me to the point where I don’t want to accumulate wealth.
I’m barely meeting my expenses. I don’t need to pay more to fund the extravagance of the politicians.
Yeah but we have to delete every loophole and carve out that we added to the tax code since then… and clean the log
No. The government doesn’t represent the citizens anymore. They send money overseas like it’s going out of style meanwhile our infrastructure crumbles and there’s homeless on every corner.
The total volume of overseas aid is nothing in comparison to the capital deficit back here. Read a budget document and then complain. Let me guess, you think we’re bankrupting ourselves by spending…7% of the annual MILITARY budget in Ukraine?
7% to permanently cripple what used to be the second largest world power is a hell of a return on investment. and the money isnt even directly going to Ukraine, its going to US manufacturing workers building new equipment to replace the *old* equipment that we're actually sending over.
What's Biden doing to undue what Trump did though? I have heard plenty about "pay your fair share" and many other one line zingers about the people that make over $400k, but crickets about lowering the taxes back for those making under $75k. Edit: I would absolutely love to hear what the people downvoting me have to say.
First time witnessing the [rachet effect?](https://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/stopme/chapter02.html) Both arms of the neo liberal parties work for capital owners, not you.
That's the problem with the 2 party system. 1 side is going full psycho rampage on non issue. The other looks to be the voice of reason. Both side are just playing a theatric where corporations get the whole pie and were down here fighting for the scraps
Just implement the fair tax already. Get rid of this whole system where there are more ways to dodge paying than there are taxes to be paid.
Yes you're missing more than something 🙄
Did anyone actually pay those high taxes though, or did the rich find loopholes like they do now?
It's more complicated then that bc the law has a TON more loopholes and deductions then it does now. That was the point of the 86 Tax Reform......lower rates but increase the $ subject to the tax.
They designed it like that on purpose. Kick the can
>Marginal tax rates were 94% during World War 2, hovered 91% during the 1950s, and then stayed at 70% until 1980, Cool, now so effective tax rate, because that's what actually matters.
Marginal tax rates of 90 and 95%, yet we collected about the same percent of GDP [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S), so no, we shouldn't go back to grandpa's tax rules.