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No, they weren't really high. Effective tax rates on the richest Americans post war averaged around 40% until the TRA '86.
Now they are ~17%. Per the 3rd richest guy in the world.
As I said many times, the purpose of high taxes isn't to extract $$$ from the wealthy, but to steer their wealth towards invention and productive infrastructure in the US... instead of encouraging them to extract cash and invest overseas, and inflate assets (RE and stocks being the main ones).
Now they are ~17%. Per the 3rd richest guy in the world.
As I said many times, the purpose of high taxes isn't to extract $$$ from the wealthy, but to steer their wealth towards invention and productive infrastructure in the US... instead of encouraging them to extract cash and invest overseas, and inflate assets (RE and stocks being the main ones).
One person's effective tax rate from 2010 is hardly indicative of the group or what's happening today. Warren's ETR is probably higher now since the rate on cap gains and qualified dividends for someone like him has gone up. The Tax Foundation shows the effective tax rate in 2016 for the top 1% at 26.9% down from 33.1% in 1986.
The article also states
"The top 1 percent’s effective tax rate has consistently been below the top marginal income tax rate. Though this IRS data set only reaches back to 1986, another data set shows that the difference between these two tax rates used to be even greater. For example, in the 1950s, when the top marginal income tax rate reached 92 percent, the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid an effective rate of only 16.9 percent. Although the two data sets are not strictly comparable, they nevertheless show the consistency of the gap between the top marginal income tax rate and the effective rate."
The Tax Foundation shows the effective tax rate in 2016 for the top 1% at 26.9% down from 33.1% in 1986.
Most of the top 1% are working slobs, not people living high on investments. Try top 0.1 or 0.01%.
Plus... this really has nothing to do with the points I was making. Didn't I say the point of high tax rates is to manipulate behavior, not extract $$$? US policy over the last 40 years as been very effective at making the mega rich a lot richer at the expense of everyone else. Taxes are certainly not all of it, but a big part. Median real income has gone up only ~10% vs nearly 200% in the similar prior time period.
Most of the top 1% are working slobs, not people living high on investments. Try top 0.1 or 0.01%.
Plus... this really has nothing to do with the points I was making. Didn't I say the point of high tax rates is to manipulate behavior, not extract $$$? US policy over the last 40 years as been very effective at making the mega rich a lot richer at the expense of everyone else. Taxes are certainly not all of it, but a big part. Median real income has gone up only ~10% vs nearly 200% in the similar prior time period.
Hey, look at this! rruff has picked up on the Winterfall Shuffle!
I didn't think that would spread to more posters, but I guess I was wrong.
Most of the top 1% are working slobs, not people living high on investments. Try top 0.1 or 0.01%.
Plus... this really has nothing to do with the points I was making. Didn't I say the point of high tax rates is to manipulate behavior, not extract $$$? US policy over the last 40 years as been very effective at making the mega rich a lot richer at the expense of everyone else. Taxes are certainly not all of it, but a big part. Median real income has gone up only ~10% vs nearly 200% in the similar prior time period.
maybe we could make it the top .01347%, I'm sure someone has that statistic somewhere. Maybe that will give you the stats you want to make your point.
You talk about driving innovation, what makes government the be all end all for innovation that collecting more $'s is needed for this? The R&D credit is in the Internal Revenue Code for a reason, and lots of companies do take advantage of it. The capital that's invested in those companies is not just driving up asset prices. Many more business tax credits out there that businesses take advantage of because they have the invested capital to make those expenditures.
Infrastructure's another story. Until all the children in Washington decide to play nice and figure something out, it's a bit of a moot point though.
He shoots... He Scores! AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!
However the final results are to follow. It appears most of the scoring in the game was performed by high scorers. These will be worth 1.5 points each instead of 2. Benchwarmers will be granted 2.3 points per score.
And suddenly the game stop focusing on how to get buckets and starts focusing on how to influence the rules.
Most of the top 1% are working slobs, not people living high on investments. Try top 0.1 or 0.01%.
Plus... this really has nothing to do with the points I was making. Didn't I say the point of high tax rates is to manipulate behavior, not extract $$$? US policy over the last 40 years as been very effective at making the mega rich a lot richer at the expense of everyone else. Taxes are certainly not all of it, but a big part. Median real income has gone up only ~10% vs nearly 200% in the similar prior time period.
Can you explain how if one person gets rich, it is at the expense of someone else exactly?
Most of the top 1% are working slobs, not people living high on investments. Try top 0.1 or 0.01%.
Plus... this really has nothing to do with the points I was making. Didn't I say the point of high tax rates is to manipulate behavior, not extract $$$? US policy over the last 40 years as been very effective at making the mega rich a lot richer at the expense of everyone else. Taxes are certainly not all of it, but a big part. Median real income has gone up only ~10% vs nearly 200% in the similar prior time period.
And you can't tie this to the millions of illegal immigrants flowing across the border and driving labor prices down?
You talk about driving innovation, what makes government the be all end all for innovation that collecting more $'s is needed for this?
Government sets the rules of the game and enforces them. The rules were changed ~40 years ago to make it easy for the rich to extract capital from the US economy and invest it overseas (for big profit). I said in the post you quoted that collecting $$$ isn't the point, rather influencing behavior... steering investment towards increasing domestic productivity. Production (and productive investment) are naturally depressed because wages (and buying power) are depressed. You can't expand debt to make up the difference forever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grlzrl
Can you explain how if one person gets rich, it is at the expense of someone else exactly?
Prosperity is the sum of all goods and services produced. How the wealth from that gets divvied up is highly variable (and flexible!). If one is gathering $1B/yr into their accounts, that must necessarily subtract from the accounts of others. That isn't too esoteric is it?
Ideally you like the ones doing the "most good" to least get enough to give them an incentive to keep doing what they do. But the people who contribute most to our collective prosperity are inventors, scientists, and engineers who drive technological progress. Nearly all of them receive modest compensation, even the ones who come up with the most successful innovations.
Just as a random example, take the guys who got rich by engineering the financial debacle that hit the fan in 2008. Was their contribution to our society greater or less than the woman cleaning toilets for MW? Obviously that is an extreme example, but increasingly the way to get rich in our society is not by actually producing anything useful at all, but rather causing harm. The "game" has been rigged that way... and all of us "pay" for it.
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