The top 1% of America pays 40% of the federal income taxes.

Getting rid of the rich is probably a pretty bad idea for the rest of us.

overfeed 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The 1% hold more than 40% of the wealth, and therefore should be paying much more than 40% of income taxes, based on proportion alone - nevermind historic precedence before trickle-down Reaganomics.

When the top 1% are not in the top tax bracket, something is horribly wrong.

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WalterBright 3 hours ago | parent [-]

They are in the top tax bracket.

The federal income tax is based on income, not wealth.

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overfeed an hour ago | parent [-]

> They are in the top tax bracket

They are not in the top bracket by choice - a luxury option unavailable to non-wealthy people in the working middle-class who actually are in the top tax bracket.

As you helpfully noted in your second half of your comment, high wealth, deliberately low income[0] means they are not in the top tax bracket[1] on the basis of their carefully calculated, tax-optimized income.

0. Taxable events need be overhauled to cover loopholes, including removing tax-advantages of borrowing against securities. The legal fiction that allows rich people to spend money not recognized as income is deleterious.

1. Warren Buffet, IIRC, noted his assistant was in a higher tax bracket than him.

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latency-guy2 an hour ago | parent [-]

> As you helpfully noted in your second half of your comment, high wealth, deliberately low income[0] means they are not in the top tax bracket[1] on the basis of their carefully calculated, tax-optimized income.

There is no optimization for anything actually, its just income. There's lots of different forms of taxes that the US government takes part in as you know. Quitting your day job removes the income part until distribution/settlement for any owned assets.

You can argue for a wealth tax, but conflating two separate concepts is not how you do it.

	▲	overfeed 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> You can argue for a wealth tax My footnotes are the entirety of my argument, and it's not even as radical as a wealth tax. My argument has 2 easy steps: 1. Remove the arbitrage between actual liquidity events and the limited set of what the IRS currently considers taxable events. Borrowing against securities not being taxable is an example of what's broken. Arbitrage using trusts or LLCs needs to be deleted, based on controlling interests and/or ultimate beneficiary. 2. Align tax rates on capital gains vs. income

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7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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wewtyflakes 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is a byproduct of wild wealth disparity, not because the rich are so generous with paying the government.

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WalterBright 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And if you take away their money, then who is going to fund the government and all those wealth redistribution programs?

	▲	laughing_man 24 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There are US state governments discovering this right now. I would have thought it was obvious.

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blanched 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Right - and iirc the bottom of the 1% is somewhere around 700k. Still a ton of money, but very very far off from a billion.

	▲	fsckboy 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>700k. Still a ton of money, but very very far off from a billion that 700K is income, but the billion is assets. earning 700K is the income from $10 million in the stock market (although working to earn $700K is in exchange for you time while the income from $10 mil is passive. OTOH people with the work ethic to earn like that tend to like what they do. a billion in the stock market is $70 million a year, a large number but far from a billion. TLDR: 700K compares to a billion 1 in 1000, but the truth is closer to 1 in 100

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fsckboy 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>a byproduct of wild wealth disparity, not because the rich are so generous with paying the government

you're overcorrecting WAY too far. Tax rate percentages are much higher on high income people, and THAT is why they pay most of the federal budget, it's forced generosity paying the government.

and it's actually the top 20% who dominate income and taxes, but including that extra 19% is important because that is the class of people ("coastal elites") who have a (all too human) tendency to rig the system in favor of their children in terms of good schools, universities, learning high status pasttimes, "internships" at prestigious institutions, rent paid in high value/opportunity areas after university etc. These high income people basically earn their livings from the 1%.

(that should not be interpreted as a pure sign of oligopoly, capitalist markets measure productivity, and that's how it works out, production in these industries is highly valued by the populace, but turnover of these people is high, where the top of the list is almost invariably new people each generation.)

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hnav 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The top %1 is a strawman invented by the top 0.01%.