Taxing the 1 per cent: Public Opinion vs Public Policy | Basically the rich are under-taxed

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[–]ageingrockstar 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Arguing/discussing rates of income tax is mostly pointless I believe, and a distraction

Instead we need to talk about what we should tax

Income taxes are theft and mostly date from WWI

(I don't believe in the simple formulation "Taxation is theft" but in the case of income tax, yes, it is theft and regressive taxation)

Income taxes steal from ppl's wages

The class that should be getting targeted isn't so much the rich but the rentier class - those who make the bulk of their wealth not through productive work but by sitting back and sucking rents out of productive society

And the best tax for targeting the rentier class is a land tax, which, the Georgists argue, might be able to replace all other taxes

I'm not so sure of that, so I would suggest augmenting a land tax with pollution taxes (which simultaneously cut pollution and make industry more efficient)

But fuck off with income tax (which is what this paper mostly focuses on)

[–]NetweaselContinuing the struggle 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

in the case of income tax, yes, it is theft and regressive taxation

I am curious about this point....

How do you figure the US Federal Income Tax to be a regressive tax?

[–]ageingrockstar 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

What is meant by 'regressive' ?

Investopedia looks at it only within the domain of income :

The term regressive tax refers to a tax that is applied uniformly regardless of income. Regressive taxes take a larger percentage of income from low-income earners than from middle- and high-income earners. As such, the tax burden decreases with regressive taxes as income rises. It is contrasted with a progressive tax, which takes a larger percentage from high-income earners. Common forms of regressive include sales tax, gas tax, and payroll tax.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regressivetax.asp

In that sense, no, income taxes, which commonly have an increasing rate as income increases are not regressive.

However, let's look at Wikipedia's definition :

In terms of individual income and wealth, a regressive tax imposes a greater burden (relative to resources) on the poor than on the rich: there is an inverse relationship between the tax rate and the taxpayer's ability to pay, as measured by assets, consumption, or income. These taxes tend to reduce the tax burden of the people with a higher ability to pay, as they shift the relative burden increasingly to those with a lower ability to pay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

Now the domain has been expanded to 'income and wealth'. That comes closer to what I mean, but is still not sufficient. I don't necessarily have it in for the rich, I have it in for those who leech off and harm society. The more you leech off and harm society the more you should be taxed. This is the rentier class and those who 'externalise costs' while retaining profits, i.e. push them onto society by pollution or by having society pay for their losses through bailouts and so on. The people who benefit from the financialisation of the economy, while ordinary workers, who pay income tax, get shafted.

[–]RandomCollection[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://archive.ph/n5CDY

I find that within the top 1 per cent, tax rates are far below (by as much as 23 percentage points) where citizens want them to be. A follow-up survey showed that this divergence is entirely driven by capital incomes being taxed too low. My results suggest that even in a reasonably egalitarian society like Norway, the rich get away with paying considerably less in tax than what people deem fair.

If Norwegians (who are known for their high taxes) think the rich are under-taxed, what does that mean for the US?