[speedplane]

> the bottom 50% accounted for a measly 3% of all tax.

Of course they do, that is a symptom of the problem. Take an absolute extreme of society: one person has all the wealth, and everyone else has nothing. Obviously, that one person will pay 100% of the taxes, and everyone else will pay 0%.

Today, we see a similar but less extreme situation. It's not intuitive at first glance, but think about it for a few seconds and it makes sense: if you want a more balanced distribution of tax burden across society, you need a more balanced distribution of wealth across society.

Accordingly, if you want the bottom 50% to pay more, you actually have to tax the rich more to reach a more equal distribution of wealth.

[inetknght]

> Take an absolute extreme of society: one person has all the wealth, and everyone else has nothing.

Then you don't have a society. You have one person who claims they have "money" while everyone else moves on with their lives.

[thaumasiotes]

> Take an absolute extreme of society: one person has all the wealth, and everyone else has nothing. Obviously, that one person will pay 100% of the taxes, and everyone else will pay 0%.

Only if the only taxes are wealth taxes. You're in a discussion about income taxes.

[speedplane]

> Only if the only taxes are wealth taxes. You're in a discussion about income taxes.

wealth = income - consumption

In the U.S., we tax all three: general income tax, consumption tax (e.g., sales tax), and wealth tax (e.g., property tax). Taxing any one has an effect on the other, and a discussion about one is relevant to all others.

[dragonwriter]

> wealth = income - consumption

No, income - consumption is net increase in wealth. Those are all flows. Wealth is a stock. Wealth taxes are periodic taxes on the value of the stock, income taxes are taxes on the flow.

[speedplane]

> No, income - consumption is net increase in wealth. Those are all flows. Wealth is a stock. Wealth taxes are periodic taxes on the value of the stock, income taxes are taxes on the flow.

You're introducing periodicity, which I did not have in my simple model. Maybe a more complete model would be:

  Wealth_N = Sum {i=1 to N} ((Income_i - Consumption_i)*CapitalGrowth^(N-i))

Where N is some period like a year. Here, we can tax wealth, income, consumption, or capital growth. Regardless, it's silly to think of any one in a vacuum when considering tax policies.

[kmlx]

wealth is not zero-sum, and it's not finite. never has been, never will be. anyone can become rich as demonstrated by all the self made uber rich. if we can't understand this as a group, i don't see how driving away tax income by way of over taxing the rich has anything to do with making the bottom 50% pay their fair share.