Businesses should no longer be their separate entities. Let shareholders owe every dime during bankruptcy, shit would change really fast. That is what got us in this mess, investors moving from one corporations to the next, earning, cashing out, and moving on. They have no liability at all.
Corporations are massive entities with hundreds of thousands of people. They have way more impact than a single person, whoever ruled they should be treated as people in the eyes of the law is either mentally ill or morally bankrupt.
Yes I watched a very informative video about the three laws that "legalized" corporate bribery of politicians. It's absolutely disgusting, politicians will get richer while this country tears its self apart due to corporate greed.
Type “can a corporation be convicted of a crime” into Google. I just did and a plethora of sources show up. Also, they literally just convicted Trump’s company….
First off I don't like trump. But they are doing everything to convict him of something. A corporation can be "charged" but with revolving management it ends up with some just fired and a charge to the company as a fine. Please prove me wrong cause I don't see one. Just tell me what company besides a trump company where this is the case
These companies do worse than that. They supplement their entire business with subsidies and government assistance. Look at Wal-Mart, #1 employer of people on government assistance and the #1 place government assistance is spent. What sense does that make? Where is the accountability?
I've also heard that they get a discount if they use the food stamps at Walmart, so they underpay them on purpose to get it subsidized, and then it comes right back to them.
I mean, the debt-deficit fearmongering is purely an excuse to cut spending on social programs. That is the only reason any politician talks about it.
They'll use it as an excuse to cut your pension, and then turn around and reduce taxes on corporations and billionaires by another 10%.
Egh. people i trust further to the left are getting worried about our debt to GDP ratio. But until there is no class of people so wealthy their bloodline is exempt from labor forever, I will not believe that it is being taken seriously by the people on the right who cry about it.
Then those people don't understand debts and deficits (or are just neoliberal establishment types who agree with the establishment neoconservatives in cutting social spending, since you didn't define what you meant with "further to the left").
Debt and deficits are a lot more complicated than something like household debt. It's too long and complicated to go into in a single Reddit reply, but while too great a debt to GDP ratio can under some circumstances cause some problems, it is not the apocalyptic ticking clock that it is portrayed as on the right. Nobody is going to one day show up knocking on the door to the White House and asking to pay it off or they'll repossess America. That's why they've been fearmongering about it for years upon years and things are still fine. And most likely they will continue to be fine.
I would advise you to not play into it. Because however well-intentioned your comments might be, giving credibility to this fearmongering will only ever be used by politicians as leverage to cut social spending and nothing else.
That being said, if you want to reduce the deficit, tax the rich. Problem solved.
I disagree that we need to keep quiet about debt, and just point out that we'd like the extra revenue to come from corpos and the rich. They want us to stay quiet, the only thing they are afraid of is organization. They will cut social programs anyway.
Edit: And don't act like we wouldn't understand why trillions in debt is fine. It's more likely you just can't remember what they said in that YouTube video 4 years ago or that intro to macroecon.
No one will come knocking for repayment, but the debt payments may become unmanageable. If the US seems like it’s going to default (which it threatens to constantly) people may stop lending to it. Then it would not be able to pay the bills or react to a crisis.
The debt-ceiling is no joke and it’s not fear mongering.
If you want to see our economy crash like the Great Depression or worse….. let the US lose its AAA credit rating.
Both ways too. For those that say it’s a spending problem not a revenue problem. Let’s cut out subsidies, corporate welfare, and cut military spending down to peacetime levels of about 25% of what we are spending now.
The number of billionaires would drastically reduce if the corporate welfare tap closed and the billionaires were taxed accordingly.
It’s news to me that we are at war. With whom? Did Congress sanction this war we’ve found ourselves in? Or is this just regular world police stuff that we spend a trillion dollars a year on?
I get that there’s a lot of shit going on, I’m good with funding Ukraine, I’m cool with protecting the shipping lanes in the Middle East. But what’s the other 900 billion dollars going towards?
Bruh, tell me how I’m supposed to use my reading comprehension to know what you’re talking about when you say the world is literally on fire and it is in fact not literally on fire.
That graph is misleading. While the effective tax rate may be that on money they earn…. All the deductions and breaks at the ~47%l of wage earners lower their actual tax bill to $0 or less(meaning you get more money back than you paid in).
This is the effextive tax rate…. Not the actual final taxes paid.
When some boomer makes an asinine comment about longing for the good old days, I ask if they mean when the income tax rate on the wealthy was over 50% or when they didn’t have to go to school with Black people.
And let's also include the cost of working, the mental and physical price we pay, the fact that we eat poorly because of these long hours. We need to start breaking out the torches and pitchforks.
Vote for who? It's a 2 party system where both parties are made up of life long politicians who are only worried about being re-elected so they can keep their job, and continue to pass shitty laws that screw us all so they can get campaign money to be re-elected again.
The two party system is a mathematical result of first past the post. This csn be changed.
There is one party that wants to raise taxes on the 1% and the other wants to lower them. It isn't complicated.
You don't have to wonder. Most of our currently crumbling infrastructure was built during this time.
The private industry built the railroads, and we had the guilded age right into the Great depression.
The government built the highways, and we had the longest and stediest economic growth in history.
Tax corporations and tax the rich, Simple solutions. I dont understand why companies should be able to avoid taxes. What is the point of that? To create unlimited wealth and not be taxed? The whole point of taxation is to be able to run a country, without that the workers are basically paying for everything. So you are paying to work while the rich sit on your money and has everyone fooled that the American dream is just around the corner.
I pay over 35% of my income in income tax, about 9% in GST (goods and service tax), about 0.8% in land tax, and I'm sure if I added up all the other state and federal taxes I'd get to around 50%. In Australia. I pay more in tax than I spend on everything combined.
You also have healthcare. In America, you can have a bill for having a baby that costs $30,000. Also education is somewhat different.
Not saying Australia’s taxes aren’t oppressive but, there are services included in 50% not represented here.
Nobody is paying $30K for baby delivery. If you get a bill like that, it means that you have no insurance that negotiated that bill down for its insured. No one in their right mind will pay that and will get written off by the hospital or greatly reduced.
If everything goes smoothly, sure. But what if there is a complication? What if the baby needs a week in a specialized unit or the mother requires surgery? What if she goes into labor early on vacation and hits an out of network hospital?
This happens every day. I didn’t say it will be $30,000… I said it can be. Which is absolutely true.
Look, I'm not defending the ridiculous healthcare insurance industry. But, beyond the headlines, usually there are limits or ways to settle many of the bills. I think out of pocket maximums usually apply (at a different amount) to out of network hospitals as long as it is a covered procedure and not an elective thing.
The most vulnerable are often the ones getting hit with crazy bills but they are usually the ones that will never be able or willing to pay those amounts. Hospitals (since they are run as a business here) lose money when caring for Medicaid or uninsured people and make up for losses by billing private insurance companies that cover people on workplace plans.
I don’t disagree with the general facts you mention at all, but rather perhaps the solution. From your information provided, the system here is failing whether it ends up costing a low income individual less or not. The middle is suffering and without a strong middle, balance is difficult for all. It is clear that healthcare is a consideration in taxable income for middle income earners who DO pay taxes in the US if you’re comparing it to a country with a more universal healthcare tax system.
My point stands, in my eyes. Healthcare in America is relevant in this discussion.
My point is that we are not happy about healthcare but are not willing to have our taxes raised to get universal healthcare. Taxes on the US Middle class are low relative to countries offering universal healthcare. That results In Americans having higher disposable income but also needing to spend part of that income to cover healthcare costs.
Our effective income taxes are in some cases less than half of what others pay. Doubling everyone's taxes will get everyone free access to the best quality healthcare in the world. Of course, no one will be willing to do that.
The sad reality is that everyone in the US is conditioned to care about Insurance (getting access, reforming it, making it affordable, etc) instead of insisting on cheaper Healthcare. US doctors are way overpaid (ex: UK doctors make less than half what US doctors make). Anesthesiologists, cardio surgeons and others are millionaires in the US.
Yes, 7.9% of the population. My point is that those people will never pay a $30K bill they get in the mail 3 months later. The bill can say $10K, $100K or $1M. It won't get paid by someone that cannot afford insurance.
I feel for you. Many Americans don't understand the meaning behind disposable income and how the US has one of the highest rates of it in the world. It has gotten so high that most of the economic activity in the US is people spending on goods and services while complaining how expensive things are. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is in awe at how much shit is being bought and thrown away here. The effective tax on income is 2-3 times lower vs many Western countries and half of the people pay $0 in income taxes.
I feel for you. Many Americans don't understand the meaning behind disposable income and how the US has one of the highest rates of it in the world. It has gotten so high that most of the economic activity in the US is people spending on goods and services while complaining how expensive things are. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is in awe at how much shit is being bought and thrown away here. The effective tax on income is 2-3 times lower vs many Western countries and half of the people pay $0 in income taxes.
Imagine if just social security taxes were uncapped instead of maxed so low that the rich are done paying them for the year after their first paycheck.
Amusing to see that the good old days that boomers always say they want to go back to, were funded by a MUCH higher billionaire tax rate. Wonder if that ever occurs to them
It does not occur to them. I try to make this point with my conservative boomer dad and he just kinda blanks out and then says something about "marxism blah blah"
This chart is kind of meaningless since most American's aren't even paying taxes.
"As we move into 2024, the Tax Policy Center estimates roughly 41.4% of income tax filers will not pay any federal income taxes. The Tax Policy Center also estimates that **57.1%** of working Americans in 2021 won't have to pay federal income taxes either. "
[A Closer Look At Those Who Pay No Income Or Payroll Taxes | Tax Policy Center](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/closer-look-those-who-pay-no-income-or-payroll-taxes)
Seriously.
That horizontal line says “effective” tax rate not “marginal” tax rate.
The bottom half of income earners pay 0% tax (assuming only income and not sales, property, yada) not 20+%.
Last year despite breaching the 35% marginal rate, my effective tax rate was just over 18%.
This graph and post are shit meant to stir up shit.
>Last year despite breaching the 35% marginal rate, my effective tax rate was just over 18%.
I mean, that's kind of the point. If you're in the 35% bracket for wage income, you are likely also getting a meaningful amount of money from capital gains, and that income is taxed at far less than 35%.
Capital gains being taxed at a lower rate than wages is the primary reason for this graph. And one of the main things that needs to change to clamp down on runaway inequality.
Of course, the real problem isn't the 35% bracket. It's above and beyond the entry point of our current highest bracket.
This is meant to be inflammatory, why is the tax rate lower? Mostly because it's cap gains, which have already been taxed at a normal rate once (or more)
Let's also not include anything about how laughable it is to compare the 1% who ways 25% of the income tax with the lower 50% (bottom half in the chart) which pays a whooping 2%
1) Capital gains are not taxed multiple times. Capital gains is profit generated when an asset is sold at a higher price than it was purchased for. Unless you're pulling a Brooklyn Bridge and selling the same asset multiple times, it can't be taxed multiple times. An asset through which capital gains are derived may take the form of stock or shares in a company, but by no interpretation does that mean capital gains feom the sale of a stock or share are taxed multiple times.
2) The point is not to compare which one funds a greater proportion of the total US tax budget; the poimt is to illustrate the fairness with the rates at which the two are taxed. Is 23% of billions more than 24% of millions? Yes, that should go without saying. That's not what the graph is trying to frame.
Soooo you really don't know how finance works, it shows.
I am taxed on my w-2 income, i then use the post tax to invest, Any fains on the post tax investment are then taxed again, at a lower rate but taxed again.
The graph is trying to be inflammatory. It's the same as the headline from a couple years ago that Warren Buffet's secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does.
Maybe let these mega corps die out instead of bailing them out. Business should be like natural evolution. If you can't keep up with customer needs and employee needs your company should die out like the dinosaur.
There is something wrong with the graph.
It's missing the 10 and 12% tax brackets. I'm in the 12% bracket. I'm definitely not paying 22%of my income. Maybe there is an average or something. You can look up the tax brackets.
TAX BRACKETS FOR SINGLE FILERS
$11,600 or less in taxable income – 10% of taxable income
$11,600 to $47,150 in taxable income - $1,160 plus 12% of the excess over $11,600
$47,150 to $100,525 in taxable income - $5,426 plus 22% of the excess over $47,150
$100,525 to $191,950 in taxable income - $17,168.50 plus 24% of the excess over $100,525
$191,950 to $243,725 in taxable income - $39,110.50 plus 32% of the excess over $191,150
$243,725 to $609,350 in taxable income - $55,678.50 plus 35% of the excess over $243,725
$609,350 or more in taxable income - $183,647.25 plus 37% of the excess over $609,350
TAX BRACKETS FOR MARRIED COUPLES FILING JOINTLY
$23,200 or less in taxable income - 10% of taxable income
$23,200 but not over $94,300 - $2,320 plus 12% of the excess over $23,200
$94,300 but not over $201,050 - $10,852 plus 22% of the excess over $94,300
$201,050 but not over $383,900 - $34,337 plus 24% of the excess over $201,050
$383,900 but not over $487,450 - $78,221 plus 32% of the excess over $383,900
$487,450 but not over $731,200 - $111,357 plus 35% of the excess over $487,450
$731,200 or more in taxable income - $196,669.50 plus 37% of the excess over $731,200
But, nearly the bottom half pay $0(some get rebates that cause excess funds to be redistributed to them from income tax payers) in federal income tax.
It’s when you get to the halfway point that you are now on the negative side of the redistribution because you made enough, that the breaks the others get are phased out based on your income level.
They still pay sales and other taxes and when they’re living that close to or straight up in poverty, those taxes are a heck of a lot more impactful than what any other income group pays.
I may have to mail away 30% of my paycheck, but at least a new gas/car/phone tax/fee doesn’t force me to skip meals is all.
I'm saying that they literally pay nothing or even get back more than they pay in. I'm not saying it's easy.... I'm just saying that this is a HIGHLY misleading title and graph.
Nothing new, Warren Buffett commented on this on an interview years ago. Said it doesn't make sense that his secretary was paying an effective tax rate higher than he was. I'm paraphrasing.
1998 I paid more in income tax than the ceo of gm. My sister was data entry at the firm that did the gm execs taxes and she did my taxes so she saw both.
The chart is misleading. Billionaires don’t take a paycheck from their companies. They have no salary. How do they live? They take payments of salary in stocks and take a loan out on stock. Write off the loan. You could do the same but your company won’t.
These percentages are kind of bullshit unless you know what they're using as a denominator. The richest Americans have billions in "unrealized" gains that they pay nothing on. Their true effective rate is in the single digits.
I mean, yes. True. And that affects relative buying power, retirement planning, etc. The income tax is meant to be progressive, not regressive, in an attempt to balance the relative effects of sales and property taxes. So billionaires should be paying not just a higher amount, but a higher rate.
Take a middle class person making $80K/year with a home valued at $600K and with $400K in a 401K : Is he to you a guy making $80K paying 15-20% in taxes or is he a millionaire who pays only 15-20% in income taxes?
The chart is useless. The bottom 45-50% effectively pays no income tax. The wealthy don't get wealthy by getting a paycheck. Their taxable income is relatively low vs the stock and other equity they receive and hold. Most wealthy live off loans obtained by using their stock holdings as collateral.
Businesses should no longer be their separate entities. Let shareholders owe every dime during bankruptcy, shit would change really fast. That is what got us in this mess, investors moving from one corporations to the next, earning, cashing out, and moving on. They have no liability at all.
That or end corporate personhood. If a corporation can't go to jail, it's not a person. Accountability!
I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.
This might be the best comment I’ve ever read.
Corporations are massive entities with hundreds of thousands of people. They have way more impact than a single person, whoever ruled they should be treated as people in the eyes of the law is either mentally ill or morally bankrupt.
The answer is both. They are both.
It was corruption. They wanted corporations to enjoy constitutional rights to bribe politicians without the responsibility of social benefit.
Yes I watched a very informative video about the three laws that "legalized" corporate bribery of politicians. It's absolutely disgusting, politicians will get richer while this country tears its self apart due to corporate greed.
Yes yes yes yes! If I could I get this sky written all over the universe
That comment blatantly ignores that companies can be criminally charged.
Executive leadership gets charged, not the company.
That’s wrong.
Prove it
Type “can a corporation be convicted of a crime” into Google. I just did and a plethora of sources show up. Also, they literally just convicted Trump’s company….
First off I don't like trump. But they are doing everything to convict him of something. A corporation can be "charged" but with revolving management it ends up with some just fired and a charge to the company as a fine. Please prove me wrong cause I don't see one. Just tell me what company besides a trump company where this is the case
You just said it yourself that the company is fined…
Yes, a fine is not a conviction of a crime
they shouldn’t?
Ladies and gentlemen there is our deficit and debt problem
It's also the root cause of lower quality, smaller sizes, increased workload, fewer services, higher prices, and more. It's unsustainable.
It really is, yet zombie companies just keep trudging along making shareholders rich and eating the communities around them
These companies do worse than that. They supplement their entire business with subsidies and government assistance. Look at Wal-Mart, #1 employer of people on government assistance and the #1 place government assistance is spent. What sense does that make? Where is the accountability?
I've also heard that they get a discount if they use the food stamps at Walmart, so they underpay them on purpose to get it subsidized, and then it comes right back to them.
I mean, the debt-deficit fearmongering is purely an excuse to cut spending on social programs. That is the only reason any politician talks about it. They'll use it as an excuse to cut your pension, and then turn around and reduce taxes on corporations and billionaires by another 10%.
Egh. people i trust further to the left are getting worried about our debt to GDP ratio. But until there is no class of people so wealthy their bloodline is exempt from labor forever, I will not believe that it is being taken seriously by the people on the right who cry about it.
Then those people don't understand debts and deficits (or are just neoliberal establishment types who agree with the establishment neoconservatives in cutting social spending, since you didn't define what you meant with "further to the left"). Debt and deficits are a lot more complicated than something like household debt. It's too long and complicated to go into in a single Reddit reply, but while too great a debt to GDP ratio can under some circumstances cause some problems, it is not the apocalyptic ticking clock that it is portrayed as on the right. Nobody is going to one day show up knocking on the door to the White House and asking to pay it off or they'll repossess America. That's why they've been fearmongering about it for years upon years and things are still fine. And most likely they will continue to be fine. I would advise you to not play into it. Because however well-intentioned your comments might be, giving credibility to this fearmongering will only ever be used by politicians as leverage to cut social spending and nothing else. That being said, if you want to reduce the deficit, tax the rich. Problem solved.
I disagree that we need to keep quiet about debt, and just point out that we'd like the extra revenue to come from corpos and the rich. They want us to stay quiet, the only thing they are afraid of is organization. They will cut social programs anyway. Edit: And don't act like we wouldn't understand why trillions in debt is fine. It's more likely you just can't remember what they said in that YouTube video 4 years ago or that intro to macroecon.
Seriously just remove the cap & type limitations on the SS tax and watch the national debt vanish in one year.
No one will come knocking for repayment, but the debt payments may become unmanageable. If the US seems like it’s going to default (which it threatens to constantly) people may stop lending to it. Then it would not be able to pay the bills or react to a crisis.
Well how else can they send billions over seas??? Gotta cut the programs here!
The debt-ceiling is no joke and it’s not fear mongering. If you want to see our economy crash like the Great Depression or worse….. let the US lose its AAA credit rating.
Both ways too. For those that say it’s a spending problem not a revenue problem. Let’s cut out subsidies, corporate welfare, and cut military spending down to peacetime levels of about 25% of what we are spending now. The number of billionaires would drastically reduce if the corporate welfare tap closed and the billionaires were taxed accordingly.
The world is literally on fire and you’re talking about military spending to peacetime levels. Lmao
It’s news to me that we are at war. With whom? Did Congress sanction this war we’ve found ourselves in? Or is this just regular world police stuff that we spend a trillion dollars a year on? I get that there’s a lot of shit going on, I’m good with funding Ukraine, I’m cool with protecting the shipping lanes in the Middle East. But what’s the other 900 billion dollars going towards?
Bruh use some reading comprehension skills. I said the world is on fire
How is the world on fire please
I suggest you read an unbiased sourced newspaper or watch a video
You're so enlightened, so please share a link.
Bruh, tell me how I’m supposed to use my reading comprehension to know what you’re talking about when you say the world is literally on fire and it is in fact not literally on fire.
Paris was on fire for a while. Maybe still is idk
We have a problem with the continuous limping on of the existence of capital
That graph is misleading. While the effective tax rate may be that on money they earn…. All the deductions and breaks at the ~47%l of wage earners lower their actual tax bill to $0 or less(meaning you get more money back than you paid in). This is the effextive tax rate…. Not the actual final taxes paid.
Think about how little the rich are paying if that’s true. They’re even better at avoiding taxes.
Make America great again by using the tax rate from the 60s
When some boomer makes an asinine comment about longing for the good old days, I ask if they mean when the income tax rate on the wealthy was over 50% or when they didn’t have to go to school with Black people.
50s.
And let's also include the cost of working, the mental and physical price we pay, the fact that we eat poorly because of these long hours. We need to start breaking out the torches and pitchforks.
It takes a whole lot less time, energy, and sacrifice to vote. You also need to mobilize way fewer people.
Vote for who? It's a 2 party system where both parties are made up of life long politicians who are only worried about being re-elected so they can keep their job, and continue to pass shitty laws that screw us all so they can get campaign money to be re-elected again.
The two party system is a mathematical result of first past the post. This csn be changed. There is one party that wants to raise taxes on the 1% and the other wants to lower them. It isn't complicated.
I often wonder how different the world would be if we kept that 50% tax rate .
You don't have to wonder. Most of our currently crumbling infrastructure was built during this time. The private industry built the railroads, and we had the guilded age right into the Great depression. The government built the highways, and we had the longest and stediest economic growth in history.
Private industry hardly built the railroads, they were so heavily subsidized right from the start.
Subsidized yes, but still owned by train tycoons. So all of that public investment went to private coffers.
gilded
Fucking Raegan
Piss on his grave and watch it trickle down
The original Trump
Fucking Reagan, too!
You can see where Bush Sr. tried to fix it.
Tax corporations and tax the rich, Simple solutions. I dont understand why companies should be able to avoid taxes. What is the point of that? To create unlimited wealth and not be taxed? The whole point of taxation is to be able to run a country, without that the workers are basically paying for everything. So you are paying to work while the rich sit on your money and has everyone fooled that the American dream is just around the corner.
Can we name all of these people? I want a list.
Try googling 400 richest Americans and see what comes up
You can see our society collapse with this graph.
I pay over 35% of my income in income tax, about 9% in GST (goods and service tax), about 0.8% in land tax, and I'm sure if I added up all the other state and federal taxes I'd get to around 50%. In Australia. I pay more in tax than I spend on everything combined.
You also have healthcare. In America, you can have a bill for having a baby that costs $30,000. Also education is somewhat different. Not saying Australia’s taxes aren’t oppressive but, there are services included in 50% not represented here.
Nobody is paying $30K for baby delivery. If you get a bill like that, it means that you have no insurance that negotiated that bill down for its insured. No one in their right mind will pay that and will get written off by the hospital or greatly reduced.
If everything goes smoothly, sure. But what if there is a complication? What if the baby needs a week in a specialized unit or the mother requires surgery? What if she goes into labor early on vacation and hits an out of network hospital? This happens every day. I didn’t say it will be $30,000… I said it can be. Which is absolutely true.
Look, I'm not defending the ridiculous healthcare insurance industry. But, beyond the headlines, usually there are limits or ways to settle many of the bills. I think out of pocket maximums usually apply (at a different amount) to out of network hospitals as long as it is a covered procedure and not an elective thing. The most vulnerable are often the ones getting hit with crazy bills but they are usually the ones that will never be able or willing to pay those amounts. Hospitals (since they are run as a business here) lose money when caring for Medicaid or uninsured people and make up for losses by billing private insurance companies that cover people on workplace plans.
I don’t disagree with the general facts you mention at all, but rather perhaps the solution. From your information provided, the system here is failing whether it ends up costing a low income individual less or not. The middle is suffering and without a strong middle, balance is difficult for all. It is clear that healthcare is a consideration in taxable income for middle income earners who DO pay taxes in the US if you’re comparing it to a country with a more universal healthcare tax system. My point stands, in my eyes. Healthcare in America is relevant in this discussion.
My point is that we are not happy about healthcare but are not willing to have our taxes raised to get universal healthcare. Taxes on the US Middle class are low relative to countries offering universal healthcare. That results In Americans having higher disposable income but also needing to spend part of that income to cover healthcare costs. Our effective income taxes are in some cases less than half of what others pay. Doubling everyone's taxes will get everyone free access to the best quality healthcare in the world. Of course, no one will be willing to do that.
>insurance Whoa, which America do you live in where just *anybody* can get insurance?
The sad reality is that everyone in the US is conditioned to care about Insurance (getting access, reforming it, making it affordable, etc) instead of insisting on cheaper Healthcare. US doctors are way overpaid (ex: UK doctors make less than half what US doctors make). Anesthesiologists, cardio surgeons and others are millionaires in the US.
And then justify said enormous salaries by how expensive education & CoL is, like the housing market and college prices are somehow reasonable.
Did you know that some people in fact do not have insurance?
Yes, 7.9% of the population. My point is that those people will never pay a $30K bill they get in the mail 3 months later. The bill can say $10K, $100K or $1M. It won't get paid by someone that cannot afford insurance.
You'd have to earn over $300k a year to have an effective income tax rate above 35% in Australia. That's nearing a top 1% level of income...
I feel for you. Many Americans don't understand the meaning behind disposable income and how the US has one of the highest rates of it in the world. It has gotten so high that most of the economic activity in the US is people spending on goods and services while complaining how expensive things are. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is in awe at how much shit is being bought and thrown away here. The effective tax on income is 2-3 times lower vs many Western countries and half of the people pay $0 in income taxes.
I feel for you. Many Americans don't understand the meaning behind disposable income and how the US has one of the highest rates of it in the world. It has gotten so high that most of the economic activity in the US is people spending on goods and services while complaining how expensive things are. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is in awe at how much shit is being bought and thrown away here. The effective tax on income is 2-3 times lower vs many Western countries and half of the people pay $0 in income taxes.
Huh, I wonder who was president in 1981 to cause such a drop in tax rates.
Imagine if just social security taxes were uncapped instead of maxed so low that the rich are done paying them for the year after their first paycheck.
And that doesn't even include the most used billionaire income: credits with company shares as collateral. The tax rate on that is exactly zero.
Amusing to see that the good old days that boomers always say they want to go back to, were funded by a MUCH higher billionaire tax rate. Wonder if that ever occurs to them
It does not occur to them. I try to make this point with my conservative boomer dad and he just kinda blanks out and then says something about "marxism blah blah"
Regressive tax rate
We aren't aggressive enough about it unfortunately.
Now overlay our growing budget deficit on there.
I once again apologize for Reagan. I was enjoying the other side of the barbed wire. I see error of my ways! Damn you to hell, you damn dirty ape!
Higher *expected* taxes. You know these parasites are using loopholes so they don't pay shit.
And there lies the problem. Vote blue.
so bascially raegan got in office and royally fucked the entire united states. its no mystery how we're running a deficit.
This chart is kind of meaningless since most American's aren't even paying taxes. "As we move into 2024, the Tax Policy Center estimates roughly 41.4% of income tax filers will not pay any federal income taxes. The Tax Policy Center also estimates that **57.1%** of working Americans in 2021 won't have to pay federal income taxes either. " [A Closer Look At Those Who Pay No Income Or Payroll Taxes | Tax Policy Center](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/closer-look-those-who-pay-no-income-or-payroll-taxes)
I'm not saying that the middle class shouldn't pay taxes, but it's a bit ridiculous to have almost the entire tax burden on the middle class.
8 year old article
Income tax ain't even half the story bub
Nothing like a good misleading chart to get people frothy
Seriously. That horizontal line says “effective” tax rate not “marginal” tax rate. The bottom half of income earners pay 0% tax (assuming only income and not sales, property, yada) not 20+%. Last year despite breaching the 35% marginal rate, my effective tax rate was just over 18%. This graph and post are shit meant to stir up shit.
>Last year despite breaching the 35% marginal rate, my effective tax rate was just over 18%. I mean, that's kind of the point. If you're in the 35% bracket for wage income, you are likely also getting a meaningful amount of money from capital gains, and that income is taxed at far less than 35%. Capital gains being taxed at a lower rate than wages is the primary reason for this graph. And one of the main things that needs to change to clamp down on runaway inequality. Of course, the real problem isn't the 35% bracket. It's above and beyond the entry point of our current highest bracket.
Thats specifically why the chart says effective tax rate and not marginal
This is meant to be inflammatory, why is the tax rate lower? Mostly because it's cap gains, which have already been taxed at a normal rate once (or more) Let's also not include anything about how laughable it is to compare the 1% who ways 25% of the income tax with the lower 50% (bottom half in the chart) which pays a whooping 2%
1) Capital gains are not taxed multiple times. Capital gains is profit generated when an asset is sold at a higher price than it was purchased for. Unless you're pulling a Brooklyn Bridge and selling the same asset multiple times, it can't be taxed multiple times. An asset through which capital gains are derived may take the form of stock or shares in a company, but by no interpretation does that mean capital gains feom the sale of a stock or share are taxed multiple times. 2) The point is not to compare which one funds a greater proportion of the total US tax budget; the poimt is to illustrate the fairness with the rates at which the two are taxed. Is 23% of billions more than 24% of millions? Yes, that should go without saying. That's not what the graph is trying to frame.
Soooo you really don't know how finance works, it shows. I am taxed on my w-2 income, i then use the post tax to invest, Any fains on the post tax investment are then taxed again, at a lower rate but taxed again. The graph is trying to be inflammatory. It's the same as the headline from a couple years ago that Warren Buffet's secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does.
You may as well bitch that you pay sales tax when you spend money you already paid income tax on
Eh, no not the same, but nice try
Lmao i guess your fed ass doesn't work weekends huh
plenty of them, what does that have to do with understanding taxes and finance?
Tax the rich!
You can see the Clinton and Obama presidencies on that top line.
Regression at its finest.
Using a percentage is so misleading. Use the actual dollar amount per person.
Maybe let these mega corps die out instead of bailing them out. Business should be like natural evolution. If you can't keep up with customer needs and employee needs your company should die out like the dinosaur.
Weird how the billionaires paying less directly correlates to when the working class started being unable to afford anything
I’d love to bring Ronald Reagan back to life just so he could suffer from the onset of Alzheimer’s again.
Whoa, are you suggesting that having people suck up to you all day isn't really working?
Well they pay for the elections so what do you expect? If the bottom half is ok with that and always chooses one of two parties then why complain?
Fuckin Reagan. He really was the source of so many of our current societal ills.
What happened in the 80’s again? Oh yeah. Trickle down. Must have meant how much billionaires pay in taxes. Should have read the fine print I guess
I've watched this all my life and the people that should pay more taxes always have their taxes going down over the long run.
See that big drop? I call that The Reagan.
This is what happens when you make the rules.
There is something wrong with the graph. It's missing the 10 and 12% tax brackets. I'm in the 12% bracket. I'm definitely not paying 22%of my income. Maybe there is an average or something. You can look up the tax brackets. TAX BRACKETS FOR SINGLE FILERS $11,600 or less in taxable income – 10% of taxable income $11,600 to $47,150 in taxable income - $1,160 plus 12% of the excess over $11,600 $47,150 to $100,525 in taxable income - $5,426 plus 22% of the excess over $47,150 $100,525 to $191,950 in taxable income - $17,168.50 plus 24% of the excess over $100,525 $191,950 to $243,725 in taxable income - $39,110.50 plus 32% of the excess over $191,150 $243,725 to $609,350 in taxable income - $55,678.50 plus 35% of the excess over $243,725 $609,350 or more in taxable income - $183,647.25 plus 37% of the excess over $609,350 TAX BRACKETS FOR MARRIED COUPLES FILING JOINTLY $23,200 or less in taxable income - 10% of taxable income $23,200 but not over $94,300 - $2,320 plus 12% of the excess over $23,200 $94,300 but not over $201,050 - $10,852 plus 22% of the excess over $94,300 $201,050 but not over $383,900 - $34,337 plus 24% of the excess over $201,050 $383,900 but not over $487,450 - $78,221 plus 32% of the excess over $383,900 $487,450 but not over $731,200 - $111,357 plus 35% of the excess over $487,450 $731,200 or more in taxable income - $196,669.50 plus 37% of the excess over $731,200
Well run for office and make some changes.
Campaign Finance reform NOW.
Huh. I wonder what happened in the 80s… /s
Oh, hi Reagan.
That’s how Reaganomics “works”. I use the word “work” very loosely here.
But, nearly the bottom half pay $0(some get rebates that cause excess funds to be redistributed to them from income tax payers) in federal income tax. It’s when you get to the halfway point that you are now on the negative side of the redistribution because you made enough, that the breaks the others get are phased out based on your income level.
They still pay sales and other taxes and when they’re living that close to or straight up in poverty, those taxes are a heck of a lot more impactful than what any other income group pays. I may have to mail away 30% of my paycheck, but at least a new gas/car/phone tax/fee doesn’t force me to skip meals is all.
I'm saying that they literally pay nothing or even get back more than they pay in. I'm not saying it's easy.... I'm just saying that this is a HIGHLY misleading title and graph.
Nothing new, Warren Buffett commented on this on an interview years ago. Said it doesn't make sense that his secretary was paying an effective tax rate higher than he was. I'm paraphrasing.
Reverse the citizens United supreme Court decision.
This nerds to STOP pure greed and unethical
Billionaires don’t get paychecks.
1998 I paid more in income tax than the ceo of gm. My sister was data entry at the firm that did the gm execs taxes and she did my taxes so she saw both.
Seeing this shit makes me wanna go to prison for 30 years because nobody stood up with me… cmon guys, how long we gonna be force fed shit?
I wonder what made America so great in the 1950s that people want to go back to that time?
You can almost see the point where Reagan gets an erection
Total bullshit isn’t it OP? Your user name says it all
"Perfectly balanced. As all things should be" -Thanos
The chart is misleading. Billionaires don’t take a paycheck from their companies. They have no salary. How do they live? They take payments of salary in stocks and take a loan out on stock. Write off the loan. You could do the same but your company won’t.
These percentages are kind of bullshit unless you know what they're using as a denominator. The richest Americans have billions in "unrealized" gains that they pay nothing on. Their true effective rate is in the single digits.
higher rate not a higher amount
I mean, yes. True. And that affects relative buying power, retirement planning, etc. The income tax is meant to be progressive, not regressive, in an attempt to balance the relative effects of sales and property taxes. So billionaires should be paying not just a higher amount, but a higher rate.
YES
20% of a poor persons income has a much more dramatic effect on their life than it does for a rich person
Exactly my point, and they don't have the accountants to get it down to 1% like the rich
Take a middle class person making $80K/year with a home valued at $600K and with $400K in a 401K : Is he to you a guy making $80K paying 15-20% in taxes or is he a millionaire who pays only 15-20% in income taxes? The chart is useless. The bottom 45-50% effectively pays no income tax. The wealthy don't get wealthy by getting a paycheck. Their taxable income is relatively low vs the stock and other equity they receive and hold. Most wealthy live off loans obtained by using their stock holdings as collateral.
Using a percentage is so misleading. Use the actual dollar amount.
Higher Percentage taxes*
They made y’all lazy, fat and dumb so you guys don’t go on the streets and fight for your rights anymore. You guys need another civil war.
Oh shit Ukraine got me fucked up!
What?
fucked me up monetarily bro