Actually, it is well past time that everyone pay their "fair share." This given the fact that 47% of ALL Americans pay NO Federal income tax at all. Rather, they are content to rail against the size of government, the "waste, fraud and abuse," and then to foist the cost off onto generations yet to be born - and who, not uncoincidentally, therefore get no vote. This being what deficits and debt really are.
In that sense, the system works quite well. The middle class is slothful and self-satisfied. They fancy themselves put upon when in fact they get back about $2.10 in government services for every $1 they pay in taxes. (This why the national debt now exceeds 100% of GDP.) Yet then whine that they are overburdened and overtaxed.
Indeed, the taxes on the evil awful reptilian rich could be raised to 100% - their wealth confiscated - and it would make no difference to the long term fiscal viability of the nation. The two central programs of the welfare state alone are on the verge of insolvency.
Medicare has $43 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Social Security has $22 trillion in unfunded liabilities. The whole of the economy coming to only $23 trillion in GDP. Please note, you could confiscate 100% of the wealth of the rich - and everyone else in the country - and not meet the fiscal liabilities that the country has chosen, and continues to choose, for itself.
In that connection, please note, the American public that whines that it is overtaxed and that the "rich" are not taxed enough have the following profile:
1 in 6 who works, works for government
1 in 7 is a Social Security recipient - and this will only get worse as the population ages. As indeed, it is aging.
1/3 of ALL families, this year, will receive some form of government transfer payment. (Indeed, if you count COVID relief as a "transfer payment," the number shoots to 92% of ALL families.)
All this, to repeat again, as 47% of ALL Americans pay NO Federal income tax AT ALL. This further worsening the fiscal picture as the population ages and the workforce shrinks relative to population. Thus, there will be more retirees taking benefits from the system as there are fewer paying into the system. The irony here being that this becomes a massive transfer of wealth from the relatively poor to the relatively rich as the elderly, as a demographic, are wealthier than the young.
Yet try to modify Social Security or Medicare and the public howls as if someone had just set out to touch up the Mona Lisa with a paint gun. The public's rants about the evil awful reptilian rich always stopping short of the Social Security and Medicare programs. THOSE evil awful reptilian rich are not so bad.
Here then the fallacy in the premise to this question. It presumes to define "fair share" not in econometric terms, but in terms of emotional catharsis. The "rich" don't pay enough, so the argument goes. The fact that the national debt illustrates that the nation as a whole does not pay its' fair share - at least relative to its wants and what it asks from government - is ignored.
My friend brings up the trickle down economy. If rich people have more money, they loose pocket change a little more for people below them. Maybe investing back into their company or for donations. However, maybe there could be encouragements for doing the right thing. But I suppose that's what tax right offs are for...
However, If it's carefully planned maybe something more could happen.. but it should be reasonable and fair to both the rich and the poor. We want to be like robin hood and steal from the rich to give to the poor. but things are not always cut and dry... Things are more complicated than that, every action causes a reaction. It's getting paper on a table with a solution that both rich people and poor people can be comfortable with
you dont get it , most of the billionaires you see , if not , maybe all of the billionaires dont 'earn' an amount that could be taxed , they dont earn a salary of billions that can be taxed , their net worth is in the form of company shares are real estate , which can be only taxed if they decide to sell it to liquify the cash.
ex. elon musk has a net worth of around 150 billion , doesn't mean he earned that 150b by his salary. Tesla is worth around 650 billion dollars , and he owns 21% of tesla , which directly means he is worth 128 billion from tesla itself.
there is no legal way he can be taxed unless he wants to sell his company shares worth 128 billion , even in that case he would be just taxed around 20% in total , pretty neat
Yeap. Amazon paid no taxes last year thanks to trump. A company worth hundreds of billions paid 0 and we had to pay more to cover it.
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Said B, but in that I think everyone should get less taken out in taxes and we should massively cut government expenditures. “Millionaires and Billionaires” pay almost all net taxes in the US
When was it never a good time?
A few hundred extra a month isn't going to make much difference to us. But to a minimum wage family it could mean less\no food on the table. That's the kicker, it's all very well talking democracy and capitalism, until you look and see most of the people are actually paying more than their fair share.
Mainly because the top 10% are hiding 90% of theirs. They would rather pay a tax accountant £10,000 extra a year (tax deductible) and donate a few grand to a politicians fund, all to hide their 100 million plus, from the taxman.
Fact:. The bottom 50% pay little or no taxes at all.
Fact:. The wealthiest people are already paying the majority of taxes on this country.
Fact:. "Sneaky" tax breaks are actually incentives for business owners to buy thing and create jobs.
Jimmy Carter tried a 15% luxury tax, which was a tax on "luxurious" items (yachts, expensive cars, airplanes, mansions). Do you know what happened? People essentially STOPPED buying these items, which had the effect of almost killing the industries that produce luxury items and cost our country THOUSANDS of jobs for middle class people.
Obama was going to do the same thing targeting private jets, then the aerospace workers Union snapped his foolish ass in line and reminded him how many union jobs would be lost.
Please read history and have a basic understanding of economics before posting things like this.
It's definitely time to increase the highest income tax brackets and increase the capital gains tax rate back to historic levels. I'm not in favor of a "wealth" tax. Our problem is not that the stock market has give some companies a very high valuation. The problem is that the social safety net is full of holes. People should not be wondering where they are going to get their next meal, how they are going to pay their rent. or skipping prescribed medications and delaying needed medical care because they cannot afford it.
Every dollar spent on the IRS brings in more than a dollar in taxes. Logic suggests spending more, until that's not the case any more.
"Biden will seek $80 billion for the IRS to claw back $780 billion in unpaid taxes from the rich, reports say"
https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-wants-80b-for-irs-to-claim-780b-more-tax-from-rich-nyt-2021-4
They’ll just pay lobbyists and congressional reps to change the law in their favor. It won’t happen bc the ruling rich don’t want to pay their fair share.
No millionaire or billionaire ever got where they were by being fair or equitable. Philanthropy is a joke. World hunger still exists yet doesn’t have to if one billionaire woke up and thought “today I’m gonna end world hunger.”
These types of people are too greedy to see what type of world they actually live in. Don’t expect that these types will actually contribute, they are leeches sucking society dry at the expense of the working class.
They should, but they probably never will. When somebody has over $1 billion in net worth they can easily hire the best tax experts to find every possible loop hole and avoid paying taxes. Or they could just buy a house in another country with lower taxes.
And we the regular guy get to pay more than our fair share that Biden negelected to mention. This is only the start of the fall of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The price of fuel is way up and going much higher. Price of food way up and starting to have some small food shortages but they will increase soon. ILLEGAL S ENTERING OUR COUNTRY AT ALL TIMES HIGHs will increase every month till we sink under Biden s open borders. The Czar of the border VP Harris has no plans to go and see what goin on says there is no crisis Last night Biden said he created more jobs than any president ever , I THINK NOT
IMPEACH BIDEN AND HARRIS
THey already do. If they didn't you wouldn't be enjoying the amount of public services you do since the income from the taxes of people with a common wage wouldn't be enough to cover the expenses.
If you really want to be pissed at somebody for these reasons, don't look farther than your favourite social networks' owners and people like Bezos or Google.
The top earners alerady paid more taxes than the rest.
Also why do you folks never suggest to tax the lower people less rather than demanding more money from the rich? It's economy 101 that to get the economy running, decreasing taxes is one of the best tools to do it. Remember when Democrats accused Trump of causing Armageddon when he did exactly that? Yeah, reality is it created jobs until covid came along.
This is what I don’t get about people. If someone supports trump or Clinton, individuals who are billionaires and have done awful things in their political careers but are off Scott free. Why do republican supporters or democrat supporters yell and scream at each over socialism or other topics. But give the green light and thumbs up to politicians for doing jack shit? Let that sink in for anyone reading this. Politicians especially in the west, especially in the United States play people for fools. United States is not a democratically sound nation. It is a nation based on a web of lies.
You cannot “ Highly tax” the rich, if you try they move their businesses and money overseas, eliminating themselves from the taxes altogether, firing, eliminating jobs, possibly YOURS. It astounds me the number of uneducated individuals in this country that do not understand supply side economics, supply and demand, free enterprise and Capitalism.
They already do. In Germany at least.
For unmarried people:
Take home pay with 50K is ~2600 EUR
Take home pay with 100K is not gonna be ~5200 EUR but ~4700 EUR
Besides. Taxation is legal fraud. They ain't using it for anything meaningful. They spend our tax money to bribe news stations to feed us with propaganda on the TV and news and stuff like that.
Most of them do pay a good amount of tax. And actually the more you raise tax rates the more incentive they have to find ways around paying them. A simplified tax system with less loopholes would make things more transparent and reduce overheads. Also it's shown that the more you invest in tax evasion you make the money back and then some. There ought to be tougher punishments for anyone who purposefully evades tax, whether that's a millionaire or the local builder/gardener doing cash in hand.
Absolutely. Also, those at the 2021 22% tax bracket should be lowered into the next lowest bracket and have the difference taxed between all of the higher up tax brackets. Those in the 22% tax bracket tend to take home the same amount as those in the 10% bracket, despite the higher earnings, due to the bite in their income from taxes.
What are you talking about the top 20% pays like 87% of taxes. There's about 50% of Americans who don't even pay federal income tax. The truth is billionaires and millionaires pay the vast majority of the taxes where you have about 50% Americans pay nothing and you think they are not paying their fair share even though there paying the vast majority and others are paying nothing.
the top ten percent pay over 70% of all taxes. How about the freeloaders get off their dead ass and go to work. Since when does society owe you healthcare and all this other BS. Cut the federal government down to building roads and protecting our borders and nothing else
The mega-rich don't make up 25% of this website. So you can see the truth for yourself, that in America, poor Republicans never think of themselves as poor. Only temporarily embarrassed millionaires. That is how they can be persuaded to vote against their interests.
Tax breaks for the rich! You may not benefit them now, but tomorrow? Who knows!!
They are very stupid, but they do vote.
Define "fair share". Because if you do it by the numbers the wealthy already pay far more than their share.
They pay over half their income to the state. Also billionaires and Millionaires don't have that much money, most of their wealth is in assets and properties so its you can't really tax that as if it was income.
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