[seanlinehan]

The top 1% of income earners pay 40% of all the federal taxes collected. The top 25% pay 89% of taxes.

Net of transfers, 60% of households receive more from government transfers than they pay in taxes.

The idea that rich people don't pay taxes is just not correct. The entire system is basically rich people subsidizing everybody else through byzantine distributional systems.

[hn_acc1]

The top 1% also owns something like 70% of all the wealth, IIRC. The should be paying MORE than 40% of all the taxes.

[danny_codes]

GINI is still going up. That means we are getting less equal over time. The entire system is subsidized by the rich because nobody else has any money! By definition rich people have to pay.

If we have a pool of $100 and I take $99 and you get $1, and then I get taxed $5 and you get taxed $0, I still have almost everything. Is this.. unfair to me?

It's in fact the opposite of what you said: everyone else is subsidizing the rich, who have gamed the system to live extravagant lifestyles. Eventually this will lead to a revolution and all us rich people will be beheaded. It's the normal outcome of this sort of thing.

[lokar]

There is no ability to accumulate and hold wealth without a stable society. That means broad rights, democracy and limits to inequality.

Stop acting as if taxation if theft, it’s the fee that allows everything else to function.

[seanlinehan]

I didn't say any of that. Taxes are fine.

[lokar]

And also, the idea that highly progressive taxes (enough to limit inequality) is somehow unfair.

The primary role of the state is to protect private property, why not charge by value?

[seanlinehan]

Also didn't say that. You're arguing phantom arguments I very clearly didn't make.

[outside1234]

I'm not talking about the top 1%. I'm talking about the top 0.01%.

[seanlinehan]

The top 0.01% still pay enormous taxes. Elon one year personally paid $11B in taxes.

I get that a lot of people think people's unrealized capital gains should be taxed, so maybe the argument you're making is something like:

"People with very large paper-gains based on appreciation of the market-value of the assets they own pay 0% taxes on those unrealized gains"

In which case, yeah, that's definitely true. But if they sell those assets, they pay taxes. Some of the taxes from those sales can be offset by doing things like donating enormous sums of money to charity. And sometimes people take loans against their equity, which is not a taxable event. Though, in order to pay those loans back, they have to sell something (taxable) or earn money elsewhere (also taxable). So loans are tax deferral...

But eventually the tax man comes for everybody.

[hilariously]

Buy assets (stocks, real estate, etc.) Hold them as they appreciate (no tax on unrealized gains) Borrow against them (loans are not taxable income) Die without ever selling

(you are wrong)

[watwut]

What is happening is that they are becomming richer and lower ranks are becomming poorer. Simply, they are so much richer that the little fraction they pay on taxes looks big.

[seanlinehan]

This perception that "lower ranks" are becoming poorer is just empirically not true.

On every metric, people in all income brackets are earning more on both a gross and COL-adjusted basis. It is the case that top quintile income has increased more than bottom quintile income, but a faster relative increase does not mean the other group is getting poorer.

The other very interesting thing is that there is statistically not really a "upper ranks" and "lower ranks". The majority of people in the 1% each year are there for the first (and often only) time. And a very, very small percentage of people in the bottom percentiles remain there for their whole life.

Some interesting research:

* 12% of the population will find themselves in the top 1% for at least one year

* Nearly 70% will spend at least one year in the top 20%

* More than half will have at least one year in the top 10%

* While 12% may reach the top 1% at some point, a mere 0.6% stay there for 10 consecutive years

All of that is to say, the idea that there are is some entrenched upper class waging war against some entrenched lower class is just empirically not true. If you dig through the data what you'll find is:

1. People who are just entering the workforce don't make a lot of money

2. As people spend time in the workforce, they make increasingly more money

3. When they retired, they start making less money but tend to have assets to live on

It's far more dynamic than most people's intuition leads them to believe.

[tikkabhuna]

Billionaires aren’t becoming billionaires from income. It’s increased stock valuations that create that level of wealth.

I constantly see posts focused on high earners already paying tons of tax. They do, but this should reinforce the point that the ultra wealthy should be paying more tax. People aren’t saying the guy on £500k should pay more, they’re saying the guy with £100m in assets should be.

[frm88]

IRS files have entered the chat: https://projects.propublica.org/americas-highest-incomes-and...

Eta: these data are from 2018 before the BBB