[robocat]

Republicans Are Floating Plans To Raise the Endowment Tax. Here’s What You Need To Know : https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/2/11/increasing-endo...

Proposed College Endowment Tax Hike: What to Know : https://thecollegeinvestor.com/52851/proposed-college-endowm...

  College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017 law imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small group of wealthy private universities. A new proposal seeks to increase the endowment tax rate to 14%

Other article:

  proposing an 8.6 percent tax hike

When hacking the government rules is used against you.

[hnburnsy]

>A new proposal seeks to increase the endowment tax rate to 14%

That would be great that Harvard pays %14 on investment income on its 50 billion fund, considering I pay a minimum of 20% on my 'way less than $50 billion' in taxable investments, which was funded by my already taxed earnings, where as Harvard gets much of its endowment funds gifted to it.

[deepsun]

But I don't understand why 14%? It should be the same as you, 20%.

Same goes for religious organizations, but it would be extremely hard to enforce, as they might say "government is interfering us practicing our religion", as practicing religions helps to not pay taxes and protected by the Constitution.

[johnnyanmac]

>But I don't understand why 14%? It should be the same as you, 20%.

Taxing donations is really thorny. If people realize that the government is taking money they want to give away... they stop giving away money. It's a self-terminating cliche in action. So you either leave it alone if you want to encourage people stimulating charities, or you make the tax very small.

>Same goes for religious organizations,

I don't fully know. Some attempt at separattion of church and state. The government tries to maintain that except when other boundaries are crossed.

It does sort of fall into the same umbrella though, when regarding tithes.

[WrongAssumption]

There are several proposed bills, including one that raises the tax to 21 percent.

https://nehls.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/nehls.house.gov/f...

[ookblah]

because then those churches and schools will just leave the US! /s

[yieldcrv]

if your argument is "but they're not getting screwed equally" then its a completely flawed argument benefiting the government

you should be questioning why you are getting screwed at all. it doesn't solve the government's revenue problems or even make a dent.

[glompers]

People already paid their taxes on all of the principal before they donated it to fund education. You and I are not chartered as an educational endowment; things like Roth IRAs exist for us.

[jcalvinowens]

> People already paid their taxes on all of the principal before they donated it to fund education

That's not true, the donations are tax exempt (deductible).

[johnnyanmac]

I think the point is that money for many was taxed before the paycheck ever came in. And you have no control over it. Part of your W-2 goes to fund social security, part of it to fund the federal, part of it to fund the state.

Taxing donations is just double dipping on your money. That's how you discourage donating.

[qwertygnu]

holy shit dog, you make over $533,000???

[Daneel_]

Expletive aside, I think they’re talking about their total investment rather than their income.

[Brian_K_White]

"funded by my already taxed earnings"

Why did you even try that? Blew your whole argument.

[johnnyanmac]

why do you disagree? Most people working a job do have taxes taken out. That's why you get a "return" when the IRS realizes they took too much or you provide other means to deduct your taxes.

[Brian_K_White]

The comment attempts to suggest that something is being taxed twice. It is not. The original income that funds some investment is taxed. After that, only further income is taxed. The existing principle is not.

Nothing that was taxed was "already taxed".

[JumpCrisscross]

Eh, colleges were originally religious institutions. (Harvard was founded to train clergy [1].)

Converting the Corporation to Harvard Church is about the least shenanigany thing I could think of in this tale.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University

[abirch]

This is genius. Next up, Apple could easily convert into a church with its many disciples.

[giardini]

And this is why I believe governments should tax nonprofit organizations!

[eastbound]

In France, we ran an NGO whose music festival got a bit big… a million or two of beer sales. Tax office came in and put that part of the NGO under the business rules, ie we paid and received VAT, paid the corporate tax at the normal rate, etc. We ended up putting the entire charity under the business rule because it was more profitable (saving VAT on all providers, while our donations were exempt of VAT).

I’m surprised USA doesn’t have a rule that industrial/commercial sections of any org is liable to all corporate tax laws.

[johnnyanmac]

we "sorta" do. It's an all in or all out matter with 501c3's. You declare a non-profit and essentially all your money needs to be funneled back to the company. There's many other regulations to prevent the most obvious means of fraud.

[Thorrez]

Well, a nonprofit cannot have owners. Apple has owners.

[blitzar]

OpenApple, a privately owned public benefit corporation.

[Thorrez]

Public benefit corporations have to pay tax.

[blitzar]

If they become a church they will have to buy private jets for the faculty.

[adfm]

No skin in the game, but curious to know why any Republican would want to raise taxes. Is this some sort of power play like the tariffs? Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz.

[mmooss]

They don't care about taxes - they are happy to implement regressive taxes that disproportionately burden the middle class and poor, such as sales taxes, Social Security, etc. They just don't want to pay taxes themselves.

[andsoitis]

> They don't care about taxes - they are happy to implement regressive taxes that disproportionately burden the middle class and poor, such as sales taxes, Social Security, etc. They just don't want to pay taxes themselves.

A very large portion of the country vote Republican, and I would be surprised if they are by and large the most well-off part of the American public.

[t-3]

The voters are not the party and the party is not the party leadership. The actual policies that end up being supported have little-to-nothing to do with the stuff that gets talked about while campaigning, and this only gets more true the further away from the actual voter the position is.

[Aeolun]

Yeah. You can implement any policy you want if you can always blame the other party for it (and have your voters eat it up).

[ringeryless]

These voters were scammed. Many still don't realize or believe this, and they avoid real news for the purpose of keeping faith in the easter bunny they voted for.

[johnnyanmac]

And you are right... that's why "The Party" instead appeals to "the party" with various single issues (you know all the hot topics) and implement (or perhaps, pretend to implement) those while the real bills "The Party" want are passed under their nosess. "The Party" spends a dollar on "the party" while grabbing hundreds from the vault they all pitched into.

Worked for decades. Not so well when Trump so publicly tanked the economy and snatched one of the 3 untouchable things.

[pjc50]

It's about punishing their enemies.

> Feels like they’re ghost riding the economy for the lulz

Yes. The abstract of "the economy" doesn't matter. The priorities are "owning the libs" on Twitter and other media, and their own personal bank accounts which can benefit from insider trading the tariffs, state-sponsored memecoins and so on.

[soundnote]

Easy, Harvard is essentially a training center for their ideological enemies on top of providing an actual education. They're just putting the boot down and saying stick to teaching instead of implementing and advancing a specific ideology. If taxes are the tools, so be it.

[johnnyanmac]

Harvard is a private instutution. If they want to teach underwater basket weaving, there's not much you can do to stop that. Anymore than Trump can raid apple and tell them to start making Androids. I thought a billionaire businessman would understand that much; imagine if Clinton back in the day tried to seize Trump Towers.

And while we long forgotten: don't forget that all of this is illegal. to retract congressionally appropriated funds that were already budgeted. The time to yoink this stuff legally was a month ago.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.

[Braxton1980]

The current admin is openly anti-intellectual.

Edit:

"We need to attack the universities in this country"

"The professors are the enemy"

Specific clip https://www.reddit.com/r/ABoringDystopia/comments/1ichg58/ya...

If you want the full speech it's on YT so if you reply with "context" you should back that up

[amiga386]

I'd agree with you that the current admin is anti-intellectual, but this speech is not a smoking gun.

For those who need spoonfed, here is the full speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FR65Cifnhw

It's JD Vance's keynote speech at the 2021 National Conservatism conference. The speech, which I've just skimread, is mostly well-worn US conservative complaints about US higher education. He also talks about red-pilling because he's down with the kids, and he adds Jesus sprinkles in case you forgot he's Christian.

The speech is dull but it's bookended with two spicy statements, both of which you mostly quoted. The latter statement is not his words but a quote from Nixon.

Opening statement: «So much of what we want to accomplish, so much of what we want to do in this movement in this country, I think are fundamentally dependent on going through a set of very hostile institutions - specifically the universities which control the knowledge in our society, which control what we call truth and what we call falsity, that provides research that gives credibility to some of the most ridiculous ideas that exist in our country and so I'm excited to close this conference with this particular set of remarks, because I think if any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country, and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.»

Closing statement: «I really want to end this on an inspirational note [...] and the person whose quote I ultimately had to land on was the great prophet and statesman Richard Milhous Nixon [...] there is a season for everything in this country and I think in this movement of National Conservatism, what we need more than inspiration is we need wisdom, and there is a wisdom in what Richard Nixon said approximately 40-50 years ago. He said, and I quote: "the professors are the enemy".»

EDIT: And for the context of the Nixon quote, it comes from a private conversation Nixon had with Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office on December 14, 1972, recordings of which were released in 2008: «Henry remember... we're gonna be around and outlive our enemies. And also, never forget, the press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. The professors are the enemy. The professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times and never forget it.». It's worth noting that Nixon was already keeping an "enemies list": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon%27s_Enemies_List

[Braxton1980]

It doesn't matter what Nixon's context was Vance was quoting him literally by proclaiming it a piece of wisdom.

Posting the entire speech only bolsters my view. For example

"[To accomplish goals].. I think are fundamentally dependent on going through a set of very hostile institutions - specifically the universities..."

I'm confused about your argument. I don't consider it a smoking gun just a concise example of what Vance and MAGA Republicans belive. There's no context confusion, it's on video, and it being dull only shows how comfortable he is exposing insane views.

[amiga386]

The spicy soundbites on their own are scary and do suggest the state wants to destroy intellectuals.

The speech they're from doesn't.

The speech defends and praises universities and their role in society. Vance even claims some academics prefer to ignore evidence that refutes their positions, and he's against that; that would be a valid pro-intellectual position if true (but it's completely nebulous and unsourced)

The thesis of his speech was he doesn't like the content of what academics profess and he thinks they ought to teach his political views (and his audience's political views) instead. That's not anti-intellectualism, i.e. "don't trust those book-learning types, look to the common man for answers". This guy still wants ivory towers provided his cronies are in them.

Also it's interesting to see where his quote came from. He clearly picked an on-theme Nixon quote just to appeal to his audience, and he seems to miss the context of the Nixon quote in that Nixon is a paranoid nutter saying it, not coming from a rational place like Vance thought he just did.

[Braxton1980]

>The speech defends and praises universities and their role in society

Which part ?

[imgabe]

Current universities are openly anti intellectual.

[Braxton1980]

What evidence do you have of this?

[imgabe]

What evidence does the parent comment provide?

[Braxton1980]

Just edited my comment. How many quotes do you need? I can supply many

[gaze]

if you hate universities it makes obvious sense

[aikinai]

I’m not half the country, but I can explain it to you. Billionaires already pay tax on investment income. Universities are exempt but now the proposal is that they pay as well, just like individuals (including billionaires) and other profit-making groups.

[VincentEvans]

… or churches

[radicaldreamer]

Politics of resentment where elite colleges and universities are unjust scams and billionaires are just the pinnacle of self actualization.

[pqtyw]

Doesn't this tax only apply to "net investment income"/realized gains? Billionaires technically already have to pay it at a higher rate. And well they generally do? I mean when they personally actually sell stock and or receive dividends and interest.

[andoando]

Most of the wealth being in stock is really tricky. You can't really tax stock ownership, but at the same time stock can be leveraged against business deals (Musk for example bought Twitter with largely stock, without having to sell it first and therefore being subject to tax), and you can take out loans with stock as collateral.

[arrosenberg]

It's not that tricky. All you have to do is make it a taxable event to collateralize stock.

[twoodfin]

Should we similarly tax collateralizing real estate as in home equity loans?

[arrosenberg]

Sure, if you exclude primary residence. We aren't trying to fuck with the middle class, just the uberwealthy. I'd be fine with only taxing collateralized stock on people with over $20M in net worth too. We just don't need to provide tax breaks to the rich to make them more rich.

[mindslight]

When the amount of equity pulled out from the loan exceeds the cost basis, why not?

[phkahler]

How? That makes little sense to me from an implementation standpoint.

[arrosenberg]

When I bought my home I had to sell $XXX,XXX of stock to make the down payment. If Jeff Bezos wants to buy the same house, he would use a line of credit from the bank, collateralized by his Amazon shares (or whatever source of wealth) and pay with that. I paid 15% in long-term capital gains, he pays 0%. Under my plan, he would pay 15% LTCG for collateralizing his stock,. If I had to pay it, then it's entirely fair and reasonable that we expect him to pay his fair share too.

[_DeadFred_]

If I get something of worth, non-related to the stock/ownership, for the current value on my stock/ownership, I should pay taxes on that amount. I am using the stocks value to gain something. If I take out a loan for businesses needs, that is in the interest of the thing I own. If I take out a loan to buy a separate thing, I have leveraged the current value and have therefor realized the current value and should pay accordingly.

[NewJazz]

Lenders would have to report loan origination for secured loans where some specific asset classes are acting as the collateral.

[overrun11]

Why does it matter? It eventually gets taxed through estate tax and at a higher rate than income. This obsession with taxing them _now_ only makes sense if the point is to punish the the rich.

[peterbecich]

Agreed. For the revenue tax activists want from billionaires, it would necessitate a wealth tax, which I believe is unconstitutional. The non-profit tax exemption fight is about "income taxes" which billionaires already have to pay (but avoid). So it is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

[triceratops]

> it would necessitate a wealth tax, which I believe is unconstitutional

I take it you haven't heard of property taxes.

[peterbecich]

I'm not a lawyer but I do not consider a property tax to be the same thing as a wealth tax.

If I own a house or condominium in San Francisco, at a fundamental level I do not own the land or space the residence is sitting on. "Ownership" is basically a lease of the parcel from the city. The house structure is an improvement on leased land; this ties the property tax calculation to the value of the structure. The property tax is the rent on the land/space. I believe this is the constitutional justification for property taxes (no opposition from me).

[thaumasiotes]

> If I own a house or condominium in San Francisco, at a fundamental level I do not own the land or space the residence is sitting on. "Ownership" is basically a lease of the parcel from the city.

It's interesting to me that medieval European peasants "renting" the land they farmed had much stronger ownership rights than Americans who "own" land do today.

> I believe this is the constitutional justification for property taxes

It isn't. The constitutional justification for property taxes is that they're assessed by the states, not by the federal government.

The federal government is free to assess property taxes too, except that it must apportion them between the states: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S9-C4-1/...

> An 1861 federal tax on real property illustrates how the rule of apportionment operates. Congress enacted a direct tax of $20 million. After apportioning the direct tax among the states, territories, and the District of Columbia, the State of New York was liable for the largest portion of the tax [...]

What this meant was that the federal government delegated tax quotas to the states and the states were responsible for collecting them as they saw fit.

[zeroonetwothree]

The Supreme Court explicitly allowed property taxes in Pollock decision. They haven’t for wealth taxes (they still might allow it but they also might not).

[pclmulqdq]

A federal property tax is also unconstitutional.

[nrclark]

what is unconstitutional about a wealth tax?

[rufus_foreman]

>> what is unconstitutional about a wealth tax?

Article I, Section 9, Clause 4:

"No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken"

A wealth tax is generally considered to be a direct tax. If you wanted to enact one at the federal level, my understanding is that it would have to be done in proportion to the census. So, given that Mississippi is around 1% of the total US population, Mississippi would have to pay 1% of the wealth tax. Mississippi is the poorest US state, so that would be a very regressive tax.

An income tax is also considered to be a direct tax, that's why it took an amendment to the Constitution to enact one.

The Constitution applies to taxes at the federal level, not state. States could enact a wealth tax the same way they enact property taxes now (depending on their state Constitutions). The problem for them is that wealth is a bit more mobile than property.

And yes there are arguments about what a direct tax really meant in the language at the time the Constitution was written, there are arguments that the income tax should have been legal without an amendment. But that's not how it went down.

[zeroonetwothree]

It’s not totally clear if it would be but here’s a summary: https://city-countyobserver.com/the-constitutionality-of-a-w...

[peterbecich]

I'm not a lawyer but my reasoning is this:

- as far as I know, double taxation by any given entity (Federal Gov) is unconstitutional

- a given dollar is taxed once as income. A federal wealth tax on the remainder of that dollar would be double taxation.

That does not prohibit the Federal Gov from taxing once, and your residential state from taxing you a second time.

There are other arguments about "direct taxation" I don't fully understand.

[vel0city]

"Double taxation" is absolutely constitutional. Tons of things are double, triple, quadruple and more taxed.

I make a W2 salary. I pay federal income taxes on it. I pay FICA taxes on it. My employer pays payroll taxes on it. I might pay state income taxes on it. One event, tons of taxes. I take that quadruple taxed money and buy a dinner with a beer. Sales taxes on the overall sale, additional taxes on the alcohol, additional sales tax riders because I bought it in the touristy night life area. Triple taxes on my quadruple taxes, good lord! Unconstitutional!

Worthless phrase, "double taxation".

> That does not prohibit the Federal Gov from taxing once, and your residential state from taxing you a second time.

Once again, the several different taxes applied to my salary income. Then on that I go buy a gallon of gasoline, uh oh, federal gas taxes on that. Or I buy a plane ticket and that gets Federal Excise Tax (7.5% of the base fare), the Federal Segment Fee (currently $5.20 per segment), the TSA Security Fee ($5.60 per passenger), and more. Oof, "double taxation"! Even at the federal level!

[johnnyanmac]

Why do you expect a billionaire to steal from billionaires? a portion of non-essential stealing comes from respct, and of course these billionaires are all a part of the same club.

The other lens is simple as well: big fish don't go after the other big fish. That just ends in two hurt fish and no food. Trump thought he was going after a small fry and underestimated the response. just because Columbia folded doesn't mean all universities will.

lens #3: this clip explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLbWnJGlyMU

He's a bully but if everyone realizes they outnumber (and outmatch him) he loses his power).

[WalterBright]

Billionaires do pay income tax on investment income.

[triceratops]

If they sell and incur capital gains. But they have so many better alternatives than you or me. And if they do incur capital gains they pay the same tax rate (or maybe 5 basis points higher, depending on your income) as you or me.

[WalterBright]

What alternatives are those, that enable realizing income without incurring income tax?

[triceratops]

Borrowing against assets. Wealthy people get low, low rates, much lower than the hoi polloi would get on a HELOC or brokerage account margin loan. Banks like having them as clients.

[sph]

Not only they get low rates, but if they have friends in the palace, they tend to be beneficiaries of large governmental contracts; during times of economic upset, they are the beneficiaries of large “monetary injections” that later cause inflation and prices to rise for all of us. During 2008, COVID, and the Mango recession the wealthy got much much wealthier, and all we got was expensive eggs and higher costs of living.

[jstanley]

And how do you pay back the loan without realising a gain?

[WalterBright]

Really? They're not going to get below prime. Nobody loans out money with a guaranteed prospect of below market returns. It's going to be above prime.

Usually about the lowest rate you can get is a mortgage on your house.

Of course, if your credit is bad, you're not going to get a good rate.

[ajross]

Only short term gains are taxed as income. Long term capital gains tax caps at 20%, wildly lower than the top income tax bracket of 37%. And it's always possible to defer short term gains (e.g. put your trading money in an IRA).

[throwaway-blaze]

IRA contributions are drastically limited to a $7000 cap per year under 50. Whether they should be is another question, and one worth exploring.

Long-term investment is rightly seen as something to be encouraged hence the lower tax rates. You can make the argument that the rate should be more like 0% since the money invested and risked was already taxed most likely...20% is a reasonable value for the market regulating infrastructure provided by gov't entities.

[UncleMeat]

IRA caps are low, but loads of people earning enough that they'd reasonably save more than 7k annually have access to 401ks or similar accounts that raise the annual cap to >30k, vastly more than the typical person is saving.

The middle class isn't taking advantage of low capital gains rates to earn more from their taxable brokerage accounts because they haven't even filled up their tax-advantaged accounts.

[ajross]

There are loopholes to roll all sorts of nonsense into an IRA though. There was a whole news cycle in the 2012 election about Mitt Romney's $4M "IRA" or somesuch. And IRAs are hardly the only shelter from income tax, they're just the most obvious.

The simple truth is that wealth beyond the ~$10M level in the US pays essentially zero "income tax". It just doesn't happen, no one does it. Short term gains are only taxed for small investors who don't know any better.

[WalterBright]

According to Google:

"Entrepreneur Elon Musk announced on social networks that this year he will pay 11 billion dollars, thus becoming the largest taxpayer in the history of the USA."

[sunflowerfly]

Not at rates anywhere near tax rates on wages of a middle class worker.

[rtp4me]

Because investment income is not the same as wage income. Nor should they be.

[brewdad]

Why not? Money is fungible. A dollar is a dollar. Why should investment dollars be taxed less than those earned through the sweat of one's brow?

[rtp4me]

Mainly to encourage people to save their money. You know, "work smarter, not harder"...

[cactacea]

So we can tax it at a higher rate? Couldn't agree more.

[WalterBright]

Short term dividend income is taxed at the same rates as wage income.

[rtp4me]

Thanks, I should have been more clear.

[Sonnigeszeug]

When i needed money for a house, without a good security i had to pay 1.6 and with 0.8.

Rich get richer, poor never see this advantage.

[zeroonetwothree]

Billionaires do not get a tax exemption

[killjoywashere]

No but their earnings are mainly in their companies, and those can hire fleets of tax attorneys and accountants to crush their tax burden.

Once the money is in stocks, it doesn't get taxed unless you draw on it, but the billionaires can use strategies like buy, borrow, die (which last I checked only really works if you're north of ~ $300M) to avoid personal taxes.

[Retric]

Billionaires benefit most from the largest tax exceptions. No tricky accounting needed it’s baked blatantly into the tax code. Long term capital gains are specifically lower than short term capital gains. Further gains are only taxed on sale allowing a lifetime of growth to pass to the next generation tax free.

They also operate at a scale where many tax breaks become viable. CEO owners aren’t paying themselves nominal salaries because they are actually working for free. Creating a shell company to own your 50k car isn’t useful but it’s damn well worth it if you’re buying a 50+m dollar yacht for personal use. Turning depreciation into a nominal loss offsetting capital gains etc.

Meanwhile people of lesser means get stuck with all kinds of crap like a 10% early withdrawal penalty on 401k plans.

[palmotea]

>> College endowments are typically tax-exempt, but a 2017 law imposed a 1.4% tax on investment income for a small group of wealthy private universities.

> LoL - why it makes any sense to do this for universities and not billionaires is beyond me, but I'm sure half the country can explain it to me like I'm 5.

Because they already do it for billionaires: unlike university endowments, billionaire investment income is not tax-exempt by default, it's already subject to income tax [1].

[1] At least theoretically, ignoring the loopholes and tax-dodges billionaires can take advantage of with literal armies of accountants.

[hnburnsy]

Billionaires pay 37% or 20% on their investment gains, can't really explain it to a 5 year old because congress and the IRS make it complex.

[radicaldreamer]

They don't pay anywhere close to that, there are tons of tricks to avoid paying that % on gains and the more money you have the more leeway for loopholes.

Very relevant in startup ecosystem as well (look up exchange funds, opportunity zones etc.)

[WalterBright]

40% of Federal income tax revenue comes from the top 1%.

[rurp]

Imagine how much federal revenue would increase if that 1% paid the same effective rate as say a typical plumber, rather than the <10% they currently pay. That might actually put a dent in the trillions of dollars this congress is about to add to the national debt.

[coffeecat]

shrug

I hear that sentiment a lot, but it doesn't seem right to me. My salary is pretty close to the median plumber's income, and my family's effective tax rate last year came in at... 1.6%. And that's with all retirement account contributions going toward Roth accounts. If we'd chosen to contribute to traditional IRA/401k accounts instead, the EITC and child tax credit would easily turn our tax bill negative.

[inglor_cz]

"That might actually put a dent in the trillions of dollars this congress is about to add to the national debt."

It might also result in even more spending. I don't think that there is any "natural ceiling" when it comes to willingness of politicians to spend other people's money. The only ceiling is external - how much will the system bear.

[WalterBright]

> rather than the <10% they currently pay

I suspect you're using a different definition of "income" than the IRS. What is it?

[twoodfin]

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/18/who-pays-...

For one thing, many plumbers do make it to the 1%: Trades are a profitable line of work for the industrious.

But the median 1%’er is paying 3-4X the effective rate of the overall median earner.

[triceratops]

What percent of all income do they make?

Edit: it's an honest question. Maybe the top 1% paying 40% of all income taxes is too much tax. Maybe it's not enough. Without knowing how much of all the income they make it's a meaningless number.

[crmd]

According to the Tax Foundation[1], for tax year 2021, the top 1% of U.S. earners—those with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $682,577 or more—accounted for 26.3% of total AGI and paid 45.8% of all federal income taxes.

My personal opinion is that income tax should be more progressive, but I know that plenty of smart people disagree on that.

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...

[rayiner]

20%. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/income-share-top-1-before...

[caslon]

The top 1% of people make 20.7% of the country's income. Given progressive tax rates, they should be paying a lot more than 40% of Federal income tax revenue, but rates don't scale enough, and aren't lax enough on other classes.

[listenallyall]

Can you explain your reasoning behind "they should be paying a lot more"? I kept hearing that they didn't pay their "fair share" when in fact it appears they pay double. It just seems like whatever they actually pay, measured in dollars or as a percentage, will always be widely regarded as not enough.

[refurb]

What is the right percentage for the 1% to pay? State a percent.

I keep here this “the rich should pay more”, but rarely do I hear a number.

[stolati]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/fact-check-richest-1...

[specialist]

That seems excessive.

Corporations are persons, right? Why is their tax rate just half that of real people?

Why aren't all persons taxed equally?

[chris_wot]

The top 1% own 39% of everything in the U.S. You are not in the top 1%. Why are you complaining again?

[WalterBright]

The city claims to own my house, as they charge me rent every year, and have a long list of things I'm not allowed to do with it.

That rent went up over 10% last year. For contrast, the rent control people want to cap rent increases to 7%.

[eli_gottlieb]

If they don't wanna pay so much in taxes, they should stop having so much money. Taxes function to raise revenue and thus have to go where the money is.

[Jabbles]

This conversation is about billionaires, not the top 1%.

[hnburnsy]

There are no loopholes for investment gains. If you are talking about offsetting losses and delaying gains, those options would likely be available to endowment funds.