Most Americans Want the Rich to Pay Higher Taxes, According to Every Poll Everywhere

Herdfan

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Who or what defines "Rich"?

To someone earning $40K/yr, that middle manager with the 3-series making $100K is rich. To that person, the VP with the new i8 making $250K is rich. And so on. What is the line where we stop.

Biden says those making under $400K/yr wouldn't be affected by his plan, but when you get down into the weeds, they are even if not directly.
 

ouimetnick

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Who or what defines "Rich"?

To someone earning $40K/yr, that middle manager with the 3-series making $100K is rich. To that person, the VP with the new i8 making $250K is rich. And so on. What is the line where we stop.

Biden says those making under $400K/yr wouldn't be affected by his plan, but when you get down into the weeds, they are even if not directly.

Most of the people I know that make $30k-$100k don't consider say $250k to be rich, but well off.. I suppose it depends on where you live, but people like Gates, Bezos, Cook, Buffet, etc to be filthy rich. Even folks with 10 million dollars (Hieveryone) aren't the big problem.. those with hundreds of millions that pay next to nothing are.
 

Eraserhead

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One is the limitation on allowing 401(k) contributions to be deducted for anyone making over $80,250. That is in effect a tax increase on someone making less than $400K.
It’s hard to say people who can make large pension contributions are poor - but it depends on the exact terms.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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Most of the people I know that make $30k-$100k don't consider say $250k to be rich, but well off.. I suppose it depends on where you live, but people like Gates, Bezos, Cook, Buffet, etc to be filthy rich. Even folks with 10 million dollars (Hieveryone) aren't the big problem.. those with hundreds of millions that pay next to nothing are.

On depending where you live, this is where I live.


Lucky me? Making under 100k practically makes you part of the working poor. 400k is probably lower middle class.
 

Eraserhead

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On depending where you live, this is where I live.


Lucky me? Making under 100k practically makes you part of the working poor. 400k is probably lower middle class.
$400k in San Jose is still a lot of money. I mean you can get a pretty nice house for like $1 million - https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/306-Vineyard-Dr-San-Jose-CA-95119/19839535_zpid/
 

Edd

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I’m baffled by people worth 8 or 9 figures that dodge taxes. The job creators among them likely justify it by telling themselves they’re contributing to society in a different way but that’s weak fucking sauce. It’s fully amoral. I just don’t get the desire to collect ever more $ when your personal needs are met thousands of times over. It’s so fucked.
 

Chew Toy McCoy

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$400k in San Jose is still a lot of money. I mean you can get a pretty nice house for like $1 million - https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/306-Vineyard-Dr-San-Jose-CA-95119/19839535_zpid/

That same house would probably be 1/2 to 1/3 that asking price just about anywhere else in the country.

My posts might insinuate that I think setting the bar at 400k is too low, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m actually fine with that. I was just posting my regional wealth reality. Most people make south of 100k here. And while we do have poor by country wide standards, we also have people having income that is considered poor here but rich in a lot of other parts of the country. Here making 60k a year puts you at the high end of qualifying for government backed affordable housing, a form of welfare.
 

Eraserhead

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That same house would probably be 1/2 to 1/3 that asking price just about anywhere else in the country.

My posts might insinuate that I think setting the bar at 400k is too low, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m actually fine with that. I was just posting my regional wealth reality. Most people make south of 100k here. And while we do have poor by country wide standards, we also have people having income that is considered poor here but rich in a lot of other parts of the country. Here making 60k a year puts you at the high end of qualifying for government backed affordable housing, a form of welfare.
I guess what I’m saying is that here a house might be $1500sqm or $150sqft cheaper and yet average incomes are probably only $50k a year.

I do agree that living where you do on $60k a year is going to be more challenging than elsewhere in the US for sure. Perhaps it’s even more challenging than $40k a year here when our houses are smaller and when some of the fixed costs such as healthcare and mobile phone contracts are super expensive in America.
 

SuperMatt

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Big accounting firms send employees to work in the federal government. They sneak loopholes into laws and/or figure out loopholes during their time working for the government. Then they quit the government and return to their old job, getting huge promotions and bonuses.

The LAST thing anybody needed was a corporate tax cut in 2017. The tax rate was high because of all the loopholes. As we saw, the law didn’t fix any loopholes, because when the rate was dropped, companies suddenly had tax bills of $0.

I’m not sure how to prevent these crooked companies from doing what they are doing.


In the last four presidential administrations, there were at least 35 instances of round trips from big accounting firms through Treasury’s tax policy office, along with the Internal Revenue Service and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, and back to the same firm, according to public records and interviews with government and industry officials.

In at least 16 of those cases, the officials were promoted to partner when they rejoined their old accounting firms. The firms often double the pay of employees upon their return from their government sojourns. Some partners end up earning more than $1 million a year.

Federal rules prohibit government officials from working on many matters in which they have financial interests, like having an unwritten agreement to return to their prior firm. The purpose of the rules is to avoid having officials beholden to private parties instead of working on behalf of the public, though it is hard to prove the existence of such financial entanglements.
 

Eraserhead

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Big accounting firms send employees to work in the federal government. They sneak loopholes into laws and/or figure out loopholes during their time working for the government. Then they quit the government and return to their old job, getting huge promotions and bonuses.

The LAST thing anybody needed was a corporate tax cut in 2017. The tax rate was high because of all the loopholes. As we saw, the law didn’t fix any loopholes, because when the rate was dropped, companies suddenly had tax bills of $0.

I’m not sure how to prevent these crooked companies from doing what they are doing.

I saw this earlier. So the deal is that people earn $500k a year working for EY etc. Then they work for government for a couple of years and earn less and then they go back to EY and earn $1 million a year?

So in which case pay the people who write the tax code $500k a year plus public sector pension and make some of that money (perhaps the top $200k a year and the pension) pay out only if you stay in the public sector for x years? And also you need to make the public sector a bit more lean/agile so that the working culture is at least as good as EYs.
 

SuperMatt

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I saw this earlier. So the deal is that people earn $500k a year working for EY etc. Then they work for government for a couple of years and earn less and then they go back to EY and earn $1 million a year?

So in which case pay the people who write the tax code $500k a year plus public sector pension and make some of that money (perhaps the top $200k a year and the pension) pay out only if you stay in the public sector for x years? And also you need to make the public sector a bit more lean/agile so that the working culture is at least as good as EYs.
They linked to some of the letters written from financial firms to the government in that document. The government officials did exactly what the tax-dodgers asked them to do in the letters. Shouldn’t they have intentionally done the opposite? You know their motivation is to pay as little tax as possible, but you implement the rules THEY want?

There are some rules supposedly prohibiting this revolving door approach, but they seem to be ignored or skirted by basically everybody.

What you want are top lawyers and accountants who got screwed by their firms in some way to work for the IRS. They know the inner workings, and they hate the company. They know exactly how to prevent them from avoiding taxes. You know a competing firm would be salivating at hiring a disgruntled former employee of one of these firms. The government should feel the same way.
 

Eraserhead

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They linked to some of the letters written from financial firms to the government in that document. The government officials did exactly what the tax-dodgers asked them to do in the letters. Shouldn’t they have intentionally done the opposite? You know their motivation is to pay as little tax as possible, but you implement the rules THEY want?

There are some rules supposedly prohibiting this revolving door approach, but they seem to be ignored or skirted by basically everybody.

What you want are top lawyers and accountants who got screwed by their firms in some way to work for the IRS. They know the inner workings, and they hate the company. They know exactly how to prevent them from avoiding taxes. You know a competing firm would be salivating at hiring a disgruntled former employee of one of these firms. The government should feel the same way.
True. But you also need to pay them enough to cover their (likely inflated) life expenses - I.e their big house, private school for their kids etc.

I mean they are likely rich enough they should pay 10-20% more of their income in taxes over time. But they aren’t so rich that it’s fair to give them a 50% haircut which is what you are asking for them to take up public service without moving back afterwards.
 

SuperMatt

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True. But you also need to pay them enough to cover their (likely inflated) life expenses - I.e their big house, private school for their kids etc.

I mean they are likely rich enough they should pay 10-20% more of their income in taxes over time. But they aren’t so rich that it’s fair to give them a 50% haircut which is what you are asking for them to take up public service without moving back afterwards.
I don’t think we want the grifters in public service at all. They just use their time there to enrich themselves and their private firms.

As for the disgruntled former employees, maybe they won’t bite on a government salary. That is true.

I think the argument that we “need” experts from the big firms working in government because they “know how it works” has been shown to be utter nonsense. They don’t give any any advantage to to the Government at all. They actually are a detriment.
 

Eraserhead

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I don’t think we want the grifters in public service at all. They just use their time there to enrich themselves and their private firms.

As for the disgruntled former employees, maybe they won’t bite on a government salary. That is true.

I think the argument that we “need” experts from the big firms working in government because they “know how it works” has been shown to be utter nonsense. They don’t give any any advantage to to the Government at all. They actually are a detriment.
I think you need experts from the big firms who are compensated well enough that it’s worth putting up with the bullshit of government to make a more positive difference.

You also need to compensate them well enough so they are be prepared to burn their bridges with the big four.
 
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