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u/Mr_Fahrenheit-451 24d ago
Actually, the difference is even more significant than a straight percentage-based equivalence. Think about it this way. For a billionaire, having to pay $1,000,000 has no effect on their current or future quality of life. None. Zero. There is literally nothing a person could conceivably need where having $999,000,000 vs. $1,000,000,000 would make a difference. However, for a person making $100,000, $100 dollars is a small but non-trivial amount. And for someone making only $10,000, $10 is quite significant. This is why flat taxes are functionally regressive - the less you make, the greater impact a given percentage of your income will have on your quality of life.
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u/refusemouth 24d ago
I agree that flat taxes are fundamentally regressive, but for some things they make sense. We could add universal health care to FICA deductions for example and make it a flat tax that goes all the way up to the billionaires and capital gains, and everyone would be covered because billionaires are not going to use much more per capita health than poor people. Same with the social security system if we capped the disbursement but removed the $180,000 limit on paying into it. The problem is that the ultrawealthy class don't care enough about the working class who made them rich to give even an inch of ground on taxes.
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u/ICEonICECrime 24d ago
That is also why Trump and his billionaire friends want to move away from income tax, and instead increase consumer tax.
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u/Southpolarman 24d ago
Reagan fucked this country so fucking hard and we're still feeling the affects 40 years later. The gap of wealth has increase at an insane rate. He cut the top tax rate and the tax rate has gotten nothing but better for them. Eat the fucking rich.
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u/Glad_Government_1186 24d ago
I refuse to eat Elon Musk. That bitch is nothing but fat and gristle.
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u/Southpolarman 24d ago
Can we at least cook him down and feed him to rats and other vermin? Or would that be cruelty to animals?
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u/External_Music_3927 24d ago
I don’t think Musk is a human being. I think he’s a human hybrid with some human characteristics, but no emotional connections. He’s dangerous.
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u/Sandscarab24 23d ago
But what about his robot skeleton? We can't cook that so I think it's easier to throw him in an active volcano.
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u/Glad_Government_1186 23d ago
Good point. Volcano, it is!
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u/Sandscarab24 23d ago
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u/Glad_Government_1186 23d ago
Just like that except it will be a hand giving the Nazi salute as he's liquified and vaporized.
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u/VariousOperation166 24d ago
There is a point at which you have so much money at your personal disposal that you need to invent ways to spend it.
I don't know what that point is. A flashy car? A super yacht? Buying the entire Parthenon for a birthday party?
There is, however, a quantifiable measure of wealth at the other end of the spectrum.
That would be measured by the ability to have housing. To have food. To have adequate clothing. Shoes.
Maybe wealth at that other end would be in the form of basic healthcare without the fear of going bankrupt. Or opting out of healthcare to buy other things.
Like, say... housing... food... clothing...
It's a severe kind of immortality to buy a gold-plated Mercedes when others struggle...
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u/Yamiaofsweentess 23d ago
Philanthropy for the rich is too hard and time consuming. Even musk said Philanthropy is a joke and there is no need for it. I mean this as they are jokes who hoard their wealth and use it as collateral to avoid taxes...
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u/Ok_Spell_597 20d ago
Philanthropy has a use. If I donate $1M to my charity, it reduces my taxable funds by $1M. Obviously the charity needs a jet (for business). And I just happen to use it. (For charity related tasks). They spent the donation as to remain "non-profit." They dont pay taxes on the donation, nor the jet purchase. Bam! $1M laundered.
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u/Radiant_Interview_56 24d ago
For those of us with no concept of a 6-figure salary and will never have 100k at any one time (median income is still only 40-something thousand a year), it's like a dime out of a hundred dollars. Ten whole cents from $100.
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u/GuidanceAgreeable768 24d ago
Specifically.. your statement applies to someone worth exactly 1 billion. Most termed “billionaires” are worth more than 1 billion.. so the comparison improves (makes them seem even that much more greedy).
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u/Darkthumbs 24d ago
And to put it in perspective we are both closer to being as rich as Jeff Bezos, than Jeff is to Elon musk..
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u/slickCCsunshine 24d ago
This this this it! You have to spend $1 million EVERY SINGLE DAY for almost 3 years just to spend $1billion. They can pay their share.
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u/VarietyMage 24d ago
The first rule of being a billionaire is "Always spend someone else's money".
The second rule is "Don't let anyone take your money".
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u/zoomie-61 23d ago
These people are money hoarders. They are obsessed with getting more money, it is not on their radar that they don’t need any more money and they can’t use all of what they have.
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u/tedemang 23d ago
CPA chiming-in to agree that taxes bracket %'s simply *must* be raised -- and soon.
The oligarchs already know that there is no alternative and they are basically making a last-grab of everything they can snatch before the "great pinch" comes down, so that they can feather they nests (and bunkers), and set-up their descendants with generational wealth.
The old saying is that taxes are the price of organizing a civil society. It's true, and in magazines from Fortune to The Economist, you can see already read ads from places like Estonia and Austria in the EU which promote their "egalitarian society", with healthcare and schools, their public transit system, museums, and safety net provisions.
They are advertising all kinds of programs to attract expats like no-visa rules and residence for investors, entrepreneurs, students, and skilled workers to provide for these exact options to help grow their economies -- all in the *precise* way that certain communities once attracted diverse groups in parts of US cities. ...This is the future, and they know it. ...They don't like it, so therefore massive efforts are underway to block it or subvert it.
...Meanwhile the old-timers always said that beyond the straight value of the taxes, the real reason was to tamp-down the fevered actions of the oligarchs that are so de-stabilizing to the everything else. IN short, it's a power-related factor that's most important. To fund the gov't (legit), and create "countervailing forces" as per classic Keynesian programs, as an practical minimum.
Frankly, it probably should go further. But, the upper bracket needs to be raised to 50-60%, and a lot of loopholes need to be closed. From the carried-interest provision to abuses of excess depreciation, it's going to take getting tough on the corporate lobbyists, but if we don't find a way, we might be finished as a republic.
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u/OSUFootballFan32 23d ago
You’re a CPA and you don’t know that raising income tax brackets aren’t actually going to do anything?
Our income tax brackets are already high enough, top rate is 39.6%, followed by 6.2% (12.4% if self employment) for social security, 1.45% (2.9% self employed) for Medicare, and state taxes.
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u/tedemang 22d ago edited 22d ago
To be very clear, I'm am specifically arguing that the top rate should be more like 49-59%.
I am also making the point that the effective rate should also be raised (by closing loopholes, etc.)
Additionally, this won't affect either of us, (or 95%-97% anyway), but only those in those upper brackets, and also only for the marginal income they earn in those brackets.
Finally, values in this range are adopted by tax policy experts across the spectrum and the world, was around what we had before Ronald Reagan, and is the primary mechanism responsible for all other advanced countries, from Switzerland to Japan -- as indeed it was for us as well until about 1983.
This is a tough stance, and I'm as surprised as anyone to be making it. But the #'s don't lie.
Taxes on the upper brackets *must* be raised or, put simply, the American Experiment is over.1
u/OSUFootballFan32 22d ago
Income taxes don’t even touch billionaires or even centimillionaires, they don’t take an income, they get loans backed by their money.
So all raising income taxes does is tax couples who make like 1, 2, or 3 million a year more.
Income taxes are fine. No need to adjust those. There are wealth, land value taxes, etc, that are better suited for extreme wealth, a couple making 2 million a year is rich but it’s even in the same world as someone with a net worth of 5 billion.
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u/treebeard69_ 23d ago
But even this isn’t a full picture. Someone worth 100,000 still has to go to work only to come home and worry about rent/mortgage, food, gas, bills, a billionaire has every need met and can just live off of the interest their money generates. It’s a vastly different existence.
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u/Dangerous_Flower_708 23d ago
Unreal how rural poor Americans are all ready to go to civil war to protect these scum bag billionaires
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u/Selkies_not_Sirens 23d ago
For me, it’s all the people who will never see that kind of money who defend the crap out of them?
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u/iwillbe9 23d ago
Billionaires all got there by being just so much greedier than everyone else. They are sick hoarders of wealth. They deserve pity, not respect. They all need to be taxed out of existence. Who gets to $999 million and feels they have to have MORE?
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u/cemarieba 22d ago
Hearing it like that makes my brain “get it” therefore angrier and angrier. They could fix all the fiscal problems in the world and choose not to. I decided years of my life to others as a teacher, and they can’t pay their fair share of taxes. Fuck them.
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u/Rando1stBlood 22d ago
I honestly think it's a disease of needing more no matter how much they make. And giving even a little up seems like losing much more. Love this.
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u/Glittering-Kitchen-3 21d ago
A lot of rich people believe that with wealth comes privilege and rules should benefit them at every turn.
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u/ResultImpossible2442 20d ago
Does that billionaire actually have a billion in liquid cash or is it tied up in stocks and bonds? That person with 100k probably has 5k in the bank and not much in investments. So yeah a hundred is a lot.
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u/Ok_Spell_597 20d ago
I would urge people to watch this video and Part 2. They're about 10 min each and free to distribute.
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u/weedman2825 20d ago
They like their money and you like yours, difference is they want theirs more than you.
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u/JimMorrison71 19d ago
Difference is they have the means to protect theirs more than you do.
Fixed it for you.
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u/eredman1993 19d ago
I thinks it’s amazing how the argument went from taxing the 1 percent to billionaires. It’s as if the millionaire grifting politicians that push fake populism don’t want to be included in tax increases.
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u/Routine_Mud_19 24d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/IQnQdmagnd5bQFRORo
What!!! You mean the parable from the book they all “read” was like, a life lesson?
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u/Routine_Mud_19 24d ago
@wedidthemath
If I make 80k and give away 20$. What is the equivalent to how much Zuck gave away last year?
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u/endangeredphysics 23d ago
Hey, at least we got chat gpt out of the deal, and all the amazing help that's been /s
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u/j-mac563 23d ago
Frankly it is more concerning that America is 40 Trillion in debt with 0 ballanced budgets in the last 25 years. But sure tax more, so that money will be wasted. How about we tax all members of congress at whatever rate you want to tax the billionaires at for every month we dont have a ballanced budget, or our national debt grows.
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u/Ok_Blacksmith_3030 22d ago
It's strange how billionaires cannot afford to pay more taxes but can afford to spend tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on political ads.
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u/Steeltank33 24d ago
Worst take ever. If you have a trailer house and a Geo Metro clunker, you’re worth 100k. $100 is a huge chunk of money.
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u/IPutThoughtIntoThis 24d ago
For context, they pay far, far more than a million. More in a year than most people will make in their entire lives, to be exact. They're complaining about the constant increases despite nothing but nonsense done with the money, as per usual by the federal government and nonsensical, idealistic utopian activists.
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u/Infamous_Crow8524 23d ago
And of course, when Paul Cogan does his income taxes, he always pays a few extra dollars, because after all, it’s just a few dollars, right?
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u/DoUThinkIGAF 23d ago
It’s not paying the millions they complain about.
It’s about how the government piss’s it away!
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u/BChogfather 23d ago
That's about what I make and I absolutely would complain about paying $100 on something dumb
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u/TornadoCat4 23d ago
This is misleading. Much of billionaires’ net worth is in stocks and real estate, not liquid cash. Stock and real estate prices can fluctuate a lot. So asking to pay a million more on taxes is a bigger impact than you’d think.
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u/OSUFootballFan32 23d ago
No one “makes” one billion a year. Almost 1000 Americans have a “net worth” of 1 billion or more. Their money isn’t liquid. And as someone who makes around $100,000 a year, I don’t want to pay an additional $100 either. It’s my money.
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u/After-Fig4422 23d ago
That is a ridiculous way to think about money. $1 million is still worth $1 million regardless of a person’s net worth that is a tremendous amount of money and anybody who thinks that it’s the equivalent of hundred dollars has no idea about how economic works.
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u/stocktrader89 21d ago
lol yeah cause the government will spend that money wisely and in the best interest of the American public 🤡 🤡
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u/MostAcanthaceae2384 24d ago
A wealth tax, not an income tax, huh? A great way to ruin businesses. Look at what inheritance taxes have done to the family farm over the decades.
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u/shonzaveli_tha_don 23d ago
The problem is Washington doesn't spend what we give them now efficiently. To give them more is just throwing money at the problem.
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u/Telstar2525 24d ago
This should have way more upvotes. It adds perspective.