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by refurb 2985 days ago
Taxing the rich seems to be one of the hardest things in the world to do.

In the US at least, the rich (top 1%) pay almost 40% of all taxes. Look at the top 10% and it's 71% of all taxes.[1]

Why do you say it's hard to tax the rich?

[1]https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...

3 comments

And if one person owned all the income, that one person would pay 100% of the nation's taxes. How unfair!

The fact that the 1% can pay 40% of all taxes and still be wealthy is an indication of how massive inequality is on the US.

Of course it wouldn't be unfair for one person earning 100% of all income to pay 100% of all taxes!

So let's see if that's happening...

Top 1% pay 40% of all taxes. How much of total income do they earn? Interesting, only 21%. Looks like they already take on a much higher burden than their income alone would suggest.

What we need to look at is their net income after taxes, and there the 1% is still doing much better than the median taxpayer. If you look at the top 0.1% earners, it's obscene, let alone the 0.01%.
From your link:

The only tax analyzed here is the federal individual income tax, which is responsible for more than 25 percent of the nation’s taxes paid (at all levels of government). Federal income taxes are much more progressive than federal payroll taxes, which are responsible for about 20 percent of all taxes paid (at all levels of government), and are more progressive than most state and local taxes.

Does anyone here believe the top 1% and 10% are being taxed enough? The most oft-expressed opinion I’ve seen, even expressed below, is that the rich don’t pay enough as a percentage of their income.
The real question is - what is enough?

Should the top 1% be paying 100% of all taxes? 90%?

If we had a target we'd know how to get there.

Apparently the answer is, more than is being paid now.