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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#43326: Dec 10th 2012 at 9:40:48 AM

[up]

Its kind of both.

technically they pay 35%. But after you factor in their write offs and loopholes, its more like..17%

Not to mention most economists who have studied the subject say that 70% is about the right tax rate where people still make so much money that they can easily live on, and yet also still not discourage people to seek wealth.

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#43327: Dec 10th 2012 at 10:18:53 AM

[up] Yep. Most of the superwealthy make their money of capital gains which are not taxed. As a result their tax rates tend to be at about the same rate as the poorest Americans. They have a lower effective tax rate than anyone who isn't living in abject poverty.

So we both want them to pay more taxes and to pay their fair share of taxes. The same applies to large corporations that often don't pay any taxes despite record profits thanks to creative accounting and tax havens.

In other news, here's an editorial that was in one of the local papers on What the Republican Party needs to do to get the youth vote.

edited 10th Dec '12 10:25:39 AM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#43328: Dec 10th 2012 at 10:37:39 AM

[up]

the sad thing is the republican party cant do any of that without tanking their religious and libertarian voting blocs

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#43329: Dec 10th 2012 at 10:44:11 AM

[up]

The Republican Party of today is not one party but three. The first is composed of theocrats who want to impose their social values on everyone else. The second is composed of libertarian Tea Partiers who worship free markets and who wouldn't know sound economics if it attacked them in the shower and the third is composed of the old, pro-business moderates. The only one that can be reasoned with or which has a chance of being elected is the third.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#43330: Dec 10th 2012 at 10:46:19 AM

@ shima:

What? The US doesn't have a Capital Gains Tax?

Keep Rolling On
shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#43331: Dec 10th 2012 at 10:47:50 AM

[up] No, there is a very weak 15% one in theory, but Republicans have largely eliminated it on the basis that it's double taxation and their funders don't want to pay it.

edited 10th Dec '12 10:49:02 AM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#43332: Dec 10th 2012 at 10:48:45 AM

[up]

It does. It will also have a million and one loopholes or deductions available.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#43333: Dec 10th 2012 at 10:50:51 AM

Here's Wikipedia on it.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#43335: Dec 10th 2012 at 11:10:39 AM

We and everyone except the GOP and its rich sponsors agree.

edited 10th Dec '12 11:10:54 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Iaculus Pronounced YAK-you-luss from England Since: May, 2010
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
#43336: Dec 10th 2012 at 11:12:15 AM

Eh, the sponsors probably agree, too. They just don't see the uselessness as a problem.

What's precedent ever done for us?
shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#43337: Dec 10th 2012 at 11:13:37 AM

And it's one of the big reasons we can't balance our budget.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#43338: Dec 10th 2012 at 11:22:25 AM

Tax rates act as economic incentives. The low tax rate on capital gains incentivizes the shifting of income from salaries to investment, and disproportionately benefits the top 1-2% of earners, more so as you climb up that ladder.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#43339: Dec 10th 2012 at 11:34:41 AM

[up]

The low tax rate on capital gains incentivizes the shifting of income from salaries to investment, and disproportionately benefits the top 1-2% of earners, more so as you climb up that ladder.

Then, presumably, it can be a tax that be increased in line with increased Capital Gains? I'm sure other countries do so...

Keep Rolling On
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#43340: Dec 10th 2012 at 11:47:46 AM

It's already lower for lower income brackets, which seems somewhat akin to giving poor people tax breaks for buying gold-plated cars. Anyway, you already get incentives for putting money in retirement accounts, which are tax deferred.

edited 10th Dec '12 11:49:23 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#43341: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:04:00 PM

What would it take to close out all the loopholes? And to also build up more support for increasing/strengthening the capital gains tax?

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#43342: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:12:55 PM

The loopholes, such as they are, don't mean much to individual incomes, unless you're willing to hurt a lot of poor and middle class taxpayers. Closing the capital gains "loophole", which is probably the single largest, would return a lot of money; I don't remember the exact figure but it's somewhere in the 800 billion range. The mortgage interest deduction is another doozy.

But regardless of whether you call it a loophole, a tax rate, or whatever, it's still increasing taxes. Republicans seem to have this fixation on the marginal rate, which is interesting but irrelevant — it's the effective/real rate that matters.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#43343: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:28:52 PM

Not to mention most economists who have studied the subject say that 70% is about the right tax rate where people still make so much money that they can easily live on, and yet also still not discourage people to seek wealth.

I was discussing this with Fighteer. The above comment seems to suggest that if you make over a certain amount of money, you shouldn't get to keep it.

Is this so?

It was an honor
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#43344: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:32:49 PM

Actually, all that statement really says is economists studied how high the tax rate has to go before people are discouraged from seeking wealth. Which is apparently %70, which is higher than I think a lot of people would have expected. There was no moral statement involved there.

It's basically social science and statistics. Also history, since we actually had that tax rate and higher in our past.

[up][up]Thanks for clearing that up. I'm no economist, so I tend to get confused when people talk about closing loopholes vs. raising taxes.

edited 10th Dec '12 12:33:41 PM by AceofSpades

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#43345: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:39:03 PM

Well, that brings us to the question. Why, exactly, are we sitting on about 800 billion dollars in revenue that would end this situation at once...but we aren't using it??

[down] Explain please.

edited 10th Dec '12 12:39:53 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
SomeSortOfTroper Since: Jan, 2001
#43346: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:39:15 PM

[up][up]And yet you know what's funny, if you work in a hedge fund or equity fund, you typically get 20% of what you make over the hurdle.

[up]If you work in a private equity fund or the like then typically how you get paid is you are given somebody else's money, you promise to make a profit on it and for making a profit up to what they call a "hurdle" (imagine something around 8% profit on the initial investment) you get paid an income. But if you make more than that then you get to keep 20% of the extra profit you make and this extra profit isn't treated as income, it's treated as the capital gains on the other guy's investment so you only get taxed 15% on it and this sort of rule works with partnerships (not corporations) so you don't pay corporation tax neither.

This extra 20% share is called carried interest, it's actually the bigger share of the hedge fund managers's incomes than the official income- it's part of why Mitt Romney had such a low tax rate- it's what motivates all those masters of the universe but it's less than the 30% that that study said would leave people not bothered to work as hard so if things worked like that you'd have thought that the number would have swung upwards.

edited 10th Dec '12 12:53:33 PM by SomeSortOfTroper

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#43347: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:44:43 PM

"Gospel of Wealth". If you don't know what that is you should look it up. The rich think they deserve it because they're morally superior. Or some such ridiculous nonsense that blinds the supposedly Christian majority to the idea that we're supposed to be good to our fellow man.

The current situation stands with the rich and big business doing what they can to retain truly massive amounts of wealth because they don't want to share. And politicians who want to redistribute that can only do so much without public support of the people. Politicians have to convince the people in order to get a lot of stuff done, as well as other fellow politicians.

(This is why Obama's out there talking to people about Michigan GOP's attempts to switch to Right To Work and about raising taxes. Public support or opposition to big changes is incredibly important, because it creates pressure on politicians to act in a certain way. I believe this is what's called populism.)

Trivialis Since: Oct, 2011
#43348: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:46:35 PM

That's not the Gospel of Wealth. It's an idea that made the rich be philanthropists.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#43349: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:49:06 PM

Not the way I was taught the concept. Maybe I'm remembering the phrase wrongly. Because the idea that the wealthy deserved it as a moral thing and that the poor deserved to be poor was definitely something that existed.

Wait, maybe it's "Prosperity Gospel"?

edited 10th Dec '12 12:50:38 PM by AceofSpades

Ekuran Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#43350: Dec 10th 2012 at 12:52:11 PM

Triv is referring to this. There's probably a similar sounding concept that's exactly what you thought the Gospel of Wealth was, though.

Found it.

edited 10th Dec '12 12:53:29 PM by Ekuran


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