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by supergauntlet 2554 days ago
Sounds just like Warren Buffett: http://money.com/money/5636661/buffett-wants-to-tax-rich-mor...

Reminder that during the time generally pointed to as 'the good old days' (the 1950s) the top tax bracket was 85% (!): https://web.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Feder...

Now, this doesn't directly translate to higher taxes on the wealthy (there are a lot of factors that go into effective tax rate) but it puts the handwringing around AOC's 70% top tax bracket in perspective.

1 comments

> Reminder that during the time generally pointed to as 'the good old days' (the 1950s) the top tax bracket was 85%

...but pretty much nobody in those brackets actually paid those rates:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-29/hollyw...

(edit)

To the people who don't get the point:

Taxes never were that high in reality, so we can't draw any conclusions on what such a high tax would actually do.

People may have this fantasy about rich people that they're just hoarding money like a dragon hoards gold. In reality, rich people invest their money, which the government wants them to do, so they don't tax investments (capital gains) that highly.

Is your argument that because people can evade taxes that we shouldn't collect taxes?
The argument is that the 85% tax bracket was never really 85%, so it doesn't set a valid precedent.
Which is surely an argument to be careful to avoid evasion loopholes?