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Millionaires: Raise Our Taxes To Address Poverty, Fix Roads (go.com)
jones_supa writes from an article on ABCNews: More than 40 millionaires, including members of the Rockefeller and Disney families, are asking to have their taxes raised to help address poverty and rebuild failing infrastructure. The millionaires wrote a letter to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and top New York lawmakers proposing new, higher tax rates for the top 1% of earners in the state. The letter says that additional revenue would help addressing child poverty, homelessness and aging bridges, tunnels, water pipes and roads. "As New Yorkers who have contributed to and benefited from the economic vibrancy of our state, we have both the ability and the responsibility to pay our fair share," the letter states. "We can well afford to pay our current taxes, and we can afford to pay even more." The tax plan, known as the one-percent tax plan, was worked out in conjunction with the Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-leaning economic think tank.
So open your checkbook and voluntarily pay more taxes. Don't take the tax deductions and credits you're taking.
Or maybe they were but their competitors were not.
Given they're trying to speak on behalf of many others that like as not don't feel as they do, it seems disingenuous. Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Translation: "Please, we're sorry we were so stingy! Raise our taxes a little before the people vote in somebody who will raise them to where they should be!"
Captcha: unrest
They could just give more money but participating in this publicity is better for them.
Just treat all income the same. Wages, dividends and capital gains should all be taxed as regular income. Where do you think the 1% make most of their money? Hint: it's not from their paycheck.
Here you go:
https://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/...
Even tax return has a box right near the end that says "contribute extra to US/state treasury".
Use it.
Uhh... Checking.
- Abril Fool's Day? No, too soon;
- Apocalipse? (go to the window, checks the telescope) No, no asteroids coming;
- Hell frozen? (as my nickname implies I can check this possibility)... DAMMIT, Hell has frozen.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
^that. I don't know why these stories never read as "millionaires have used existing mechanisms to voluntarily pay more in taxes". Somehow it never quite reads like that.
There's already a spot on tax forms to contribute more if you like. The Rockefeller's in particular, and the Disney family is in bed with them don't actually want their taxes raised, because they can silently raise them all by themselves with that one little blank on the tax form and send in all they want. (we'll ignore the fact many of them have bought personal loopholes that eliminate or greatly reduce their taxes for now) They want to hinder the nouveau riche from reaching their level and to install multiple levels of glass ceilings to keep people from breaking into the next bracket and becoming competition.
If you've got someone else who's got a lot of money - even if it's not as much as you have - the price of bribing your favorite politician goes up.
The motive here isn't to help those of use struggling to make it, it's to make sure more people are struggling.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I suppose a millionaire can opt to give money to fix roads and bridges via their tax returns. The problem with this solution is a sort of prisoner's dilemma though; you need everybody to participate with commensurate participation, or the volunteerism simply doesn't work. This is probably why they want to see the solutions codified in the tax code rather than be voluntary.
Competition is why. Think about it. If `everyone` has to pay, the playing field is level. This is what Warren Buffet has been explaining tirelessly for decades. So yeah, this question goes in the "answered a long time ago" bucket.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Then they shouldn't say "We can well afford to pay our current taxes, and we can afford to pay even more." They should make it clear that they also want to take from other people who have not signed on to their cause. But they never do. It's always this altruistic "Oh, we can pay more." So yeah, your answer goes in the "non-responsive to the actual situation" bucket.
Wrong. they need everyone to pay more so that they can contribute more without giving their competition an advantage. They want to pay more AND they want to maintain a level playing field AND they don't want to be sued by stock holders.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Baby boomers are retiring and the workforce is shrinking in the next 20+ years. Social Security and Medicare will consume two-thirds of the federal budget. Taxes will have to go way up to pay for everything else.
If you collect more taxes, how much of that will go to things you want to have fixed and not for things like bombs and oil subsidies. I would think if you had money and you see a problem you could more easily direct that money to the problem yourself. I mean, the roads and bridges in and around Disney World are pretty nice.
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Given they're trying to speak on behalf of many others that like as not don't feel as they do, it seems disingenuous. Besides, nothing is stopping them from giving more if they really feel that strongly about it.
Nothing disingenuous with stating your own opinion that you'd be ok with higher taxes. The operating assumption of most politicians, especially in the GOP, is that "TAXES ARE EVIL!", so if you remind them that not everyone feels that way (at least if taxes are going to a good purpose), that's your right as a citizen. Feel free to disagree and write your own letter, but in the case of these millionaires, they wanted to point out that the assumption that all rich people don't want tax increases is wrong.
While you can write a check to the Treasury if you really felt like it, its a bit moot if there isn't an accompanying budget. What is preferable is that a tax rate is set that funds a certain budget with a set of priorities, so you know for sure that the law requires your extra tax money go to pay for education, roads, etc., rather than going into a US Treasury slush fund that is used for who knows what, including probably tax rebates for corporations that don't need them. The letter is not just asking for tax increases, but asking for a budget that prioritizes these services and raises taxes as a way to pay for it.
It seems not one poster here considered that they see they are capable of paying more and not being harmed BUT they know they can't solve all of those problems unless their fellow millionaires who are equally capable of paying but not equally willing kick in their part.
They are not hypocrites.
Actually they are. For example Warren Buffet, while saying his taxes should be raised in political venues, in real life dodges taxes. He is dodging inheritance taxes by transferring money to the Gates foundation. Why? Because he thinks Bill and Melinda can more effectively use his money to address social issues than the government, that they will do more "good" per dollar.
Well it is more complex than that.
Raising taxes means taxes are raised for their competitors as well. If they just raised the employee salaries and their competitors don't then their competitors can get an advantage over them.
Then there is the crazy aspect of accounting. Where employee salaries are categorized differently than taxes. As well for the Share Holders they show a big booming company for taxes they show a poor nearly bankrupt company.
I am not saying there isn't a problem, it is just very complex, and raising taxes would be easier.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A second problem, though, is that most of this spending shouldn't be federal to begin with. Road infrastructure should largely be paid for by local and state taxes. And federal entitlement programs simply aren't helping people because they are badly designed and badly administered; throwing more money at them won't fix those problems; and if you fix federal entitlement programs, they won't need more money, since we are already spending a lot more than other countries.
a lot of these people don't make money from jobs, they get it from investments and family trust funds that buy up housing for them to live in for free. and they own a lot of property. dividends and investments are taxed at lower rates than income. unless they raise the dividend tax rates or get rid of tax benefits in tax free municipal bonds these people are blowing hot air and simply taxing others to make money for themselves calling for higher taxes on income means newly successful people pay more and have a harder time buying their own property and moving up creating a class of royalty. this is how it works in NYC. they reduce income taxes by a pittance but the property taxes keep going up which means rents go up and higher rents mean higher property taxes and profits for the landowners.
If you give the state more money, it will help improve roads the same way giving a beggar $10 will buy a meal at Dennys and not a bottle of vodka...
Never give an addict more of what they crave.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
this is for income taxes stupid. most of these people make most of their income from dividends and other non-salary income which is taxed at much lower rates and i don't see anything about taxing it at higher rates. this is a tax on the newly uppity former poor people who made it out of rags and moving into neighborhoods they shouldn't be moving into.
Hell, all they have to do is not itemize and take no deductions, exemptions, or any other tax shelter's dodges, etc.
Determine absolute Gross income and send in 39% of it.
This whole "I think I should pay more, make me do it" crap is stupid.
And if their excuse is that they won't step up until everyone does, then their concern for the poor, infrastructure, etc. rings hollow.
Try actually doing it, then shaming others into doing the same instead of trying to use the Government to be the enforcers for your altruism.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
They're introducing a law that everyone gets to vote on about the relative taxes everyone pays. This particular law says everyone making millions will pay more.
Those other millionaires will have their say at the vote. Or they can introduce their own legislation. Then, after everyone votes, the thing becomes law if the majority agree.
That's how democracy works. They're imploring other millionaires to vote the same and using themselves as examples as well as trying to appeal to their sense of duty.
It's funny how the "you don't speak for us" sentiment doesn't surface when, say, a tax break is offered into law.
You've never paid property tax have you? That's exactly how property tax (the one that funds your local government, schools, etc) works.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Infrastructure is a worthy cause and you should allow voluntary contributions as a tax deduction. Hell just let rich people set the priority and you'll see those funds. Let them bling out their roads.
Is that fair to poor communities?
I think so as long as it doesn't reduce current funding on their roads. You can even add a surcharge on the rich roads to pay for the poor roads.
this is for income taxes stupid. most of these people make most of their income from dividends and other non-salary income which is taxed at much lower rates
"Qualified" dividends are taxed at a lower rate, "ordinary" dividends are taxed as ordinary income. I know, I get both from my investments, in addition to income from my job.
Qualified Dividends vs. Ordinary Dividends
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Paradoxically, raising taxes is not likely to increase revenue. The higher taxes are, the harder people try to avoid them. Techniques include such things as deferring income, hiding income, leaving the country and changing citizenship. A favorite of people like the Clintons is to put money into their tax-exempt foundation, and then having the foundation pay for nearly all of their living expanses.
Furthermore, old-money millionaires don't care what the income tax rate is. They've got their bundle and can live off it; they don't think higher income taxes affect them.
The total richness of a country is a function of accumulated wealth, ongoing production, and the introduction of new products. High taxes on income reduce or remove the incentive to produce and innovate. The country as a whole loses with high taxes, and that affects everyone. The longer the time ovre which this phenomenon is examined, the more obvious it is.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
These same people, who get most of the spending pay nothing. The need is not for the worth to donate. The need is to force the scrounging rich to pay up.
You are very misguided....
From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.
Normally I don't reply to AC, but there is so much stuff that is so wrong with this post, I couldn't resist...
If someone holds stock for 20 years and it goes from being worth $100,000 to $20,000,000 there is nothing to tax.
There is if you sell it. There would be a taxable gain of $19,900,000. We're talking about taxable events, like selling things, receiving a dividend, or earning a paycheck.
Any more than you can tax someone on their home value increasing or someone holding an asset that becomes more valuable with time.
My annual property tax bill disagrees with your completely wrong assertion.
Plus rich people are smart, you don't cash in the stock --- you do things like take a loan against the stock.
Oh, my. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm sure somewhere at some point you read about some rich person 'taking a loan against their stock'. But I think you misunderstand why they do that. A CEO of a company might want to cash out (for whatever reason), but doesn't want to make it look like he is bailing out on his company. Or somebody has stock that has a sell restriction on it. Because, you see, there isn't a good TAX reason to take a loan against the stock. You have to pay that loan back, with interest. How do you pay the loan back? With... wait for it... MONEY! That money has to come from somewhere. Probably from, oh, I don't know, selling some stock? Which generates a taxable gain. So they haven't avoided any taxes at all.
Or you don't sell a building --- you sell the company that owns the building --- thus no real estate transaction occurred.
[face-palm] Wow. Just... wow. You do realize that the building is part of the value of the company. And you will be taxed on the gain of the value of the company. So, unless they plan to sell the company at a loss, I don't see how they avoid paying taxes. Again. As far as property taxes go, that only helps the purchaser of the company/building. It in no way helps the seller, because they no longer own the building. Obviously.
Corporation account and wealthy people accounting is in an entirely different dimension.
And your understanding of either is nearly non-existent.
You don't understand accounting at all
[giggles]
You are very misguided....
From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.
Of course, in the US the top 1% own 40% of the countries wealth, and the top 10% own somewhere around 80%.
Stephan
high taxes on income reduce or remove the incentive to produce and innovate. The country as a whole loses with high taxes, and that affects everyone. The longer the time ovre which this phenomenon is examined, the more obvious it is.
Really? tell that to Sweden, Norway,Denmark and Finland.. High wages, high taxes, higher standard of life and much happier nations :-)
The multiple comments of 'they could donate if they wanted to' demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of how important it is for society to work together to achieve goals. No wonder America is so messed up.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Quite simply:
You can't budget based on individual charity. The rates set a reasonable expectation of incoming receipts for not just the next year, but future years.
Saying, "Check the box" doesn't provide anything that anyone can build a budget on.
Tell that to Churches and many other non-profits.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
...and there's no way to plan multi-year projects when dealing with voluntary contributions.
From Google: The top 10 percent pays 53.3 percent of all federal taxes. When looking at just federal income taxes, they pay 68 percent of the burden. The top 1 percent pays 24 percent of all federal taxes compared to 35 percent of all federal income taxes.
While it's true that taxation is indeed progressive, and that, generally speaking, higher earners pay progressively larger shares of the tax burden, this isn't necessarily an insightful observation.
Let's look at your first claim: the top 10 percent pays 53.3% of all federal taxes. This seems to suggest that they pay more than "their share" of taxes, right? Well, there's not sufficient data in your post to come to that conclusion. To demonstrate, consider this thought problem. If the top 10 percent makes 90 percent of the income (they don't, but hypothetically, if they did), an entirely flat non-progressive system of taxation would have them paying 90% of the federal tax burden. Not 10%. So, what we need to know is what percentage of income goes to the top 10%. If it were 53.3% of the income, then we'd have an effectively flat non-progressive system of taxation. If it's greater than 53.3%, we'd actually have a regressive tax system. If it's less than 53.3%, then we'd have a progressive system. In reality, based on a cursory web search, it seems that the top 10% make roughly 30% of the income. This suggests that we do indeed have a progressive system of taxation, and that the rich pay more than "their share" of taxes. However, your post did not contain sufficient data to support such a conclusion. Furthermore, it may have exaggerated the degree to which our tax system is progressive.
Disclaimer: This is a single look into a single data point, and taxation is a complex issue. Our tax code is progressive, but not progressive enough to prevent unchecked growth in wealth stratification.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Your understanding is also flawed. If you have enough stock, you don't need to repay loan during your lifetime. When you die, the loan is repaid from your estate. Crucially, this repayment happens before estate taxes are paid.
So, yes, there is a way to avoid paying taxes on stocks that you receive, even though you were able to turn the stocks into cash.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I just realized where Ted Cruz gets his economic policies. He just quotes AC and takes out all the F-words.
"Saying, "Check the box" doesn't provide anything that anyone can build a budget on."
The various governments of the United States (city, state and nation) have been ignoring reality when building budgets for quite some time. How do you really think this would impair them?
[I first wrote this in 2012, so the "In the last year for which data is available" is wrong, and I could take the time to update the numbers, but the picture painted will not change...]
In the last year for which data is available, 2008, the highest marginal tax rate was 35%. This rate was paid on AGI above $357,700. Certainly someone with AGI over that value is in the well-to-do category, but may not be "millionaires and billionaires" (OTOH Mr. Obama seems to think income of $250,000 equates to "millionaire", but this is immaterial to my point). According to the IRS, the number of returns that were in this highest marginal rate was 971,510. So there's nearly a million households in this country that are, at least by the IRS bracket definition, "rich". Not too shabby, it seems the USA is indeed the land of opportunity.
According to the IRS, the cumulative amount of AGI subjected to this highest rate was $622,765,389,000, so let's round up to $622.8B. The taxes generated on this money is therefore $218B (the IRS reported $217,967,886,000). The overall effective rate for these returns (taxes paid / income) was 28.9%.
Let's assume for a moment (no matter how unrealistic the assumption is) that no one affected would change a lick of their income-generating behavior as a result if we raised the top marginal rate to 100%. How much revenue would that generate? Why, all of $622.8B, if no one modified their behavior in any way that affected their income and tax impact. That is, it would generate an additional $404.8B in revenue relative to the current 35% bracket.
If you added that $404B to the revenue pot, our deficit this year would still be over $1T...
[You need to visit the IRS web site to see the actual numbers, but when I last did it in 2012, the data was as shown here.]
In 2008, for example, the top .1% earned 9.96% of the income, and the top 1% earned 20.00% of the income, the top 10% earned 45.77% of the income, while the bottom 50% earned 12.75% of the income (cry about income inequality later).
They paid, respectively, 18.47% (top 0.1%), 38.02% (top 1%), 69.94% (top 10%) and 2.70% (bottom 50%) of all the federal income taxes.
Note that the rich pay twice as much of their share of taxes relative to their income.
As for taxes paid as a percentage of their income, the top 0.1% paid effective rate of 22.70%. The top 1% paid 23.27% (the highest effective rate is this paid by this group), and the top 10% paid 18.71%. The bottom 50% paid 2.59%.
Bear in mind also that some 46 million households have zero or negative income tax liability, and another 15M households do not file income tax returns, and further, that some 12% of filers not only have enough refundable credits to render their income tax liability zero or negative, but to more than cover all of their payroll taxes too.
According to the IRS historical tax data for 2013, there were 41,520 returns filed in the State of New York with an Adjusted Gross Income greater than $1,000,000.
The total amount of income reported by that group was $161,908,290,000, or a round $162 billion. Taking a quick calculation of 1% of that gives $1.62 billion.
The total State of New York Education Budget for 2013 was $72.3 billion, of which that $1.62 billion is an extra 2.25%. It may not seem like much from a percentage, but the goal isn't to replace existing funding but supplement it to improve services -- and that amount can do some serious good.
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2013NYbs_17bs2n_20#usgs302
https://www.irs.gov/uac/SOI-Tax-Stats-Historic-Table-2
And no, for anyone in that income bracket this isn't a speed-bump to moving up the ladder. You're already in the nose bleed section and can handle this without losing a step. There is a much greater benefit for those in the bottom 50% getting up a rung than someone of my ilk going from Top 5% to Top 4%.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
According to this website (https://billionairemailinglist.com/billionaires-list.html), there are 490 billionaires in the US in 2016. Topping the list is Bill Gates, at $78B, followed by Warren Buffett at $65.6B. At the bottom is Fred Chang, Newegg.com Founder - online retailer of computer hardware and software, with a measly $1B.
If you confiscated every penny of their collective wealth, it would not fund the US government for about 6 months. Their collective wealth is $2.273T, while the US government spends about $4T per year.
And, of course, a that point you're plumb out of billionaires until some new ones work their way above that magical line. But how many would work toward that goal if they knew that the minute they get there, their wealth will be "reset" to $0 by taxation.
How do you think they come to be in a position to earn that much income? Just hard work? Barring a few exceptions, the ability to invest previously held wealth has a lot to do with being able to earn higher incomes. Even more so than that, the wealth of your parents determines a lot about how your life goes in ways that affect your earning potential: what neighborhood(s) you grow up in, what schools you go to, what connections you have to get your first jobs, maybe even investment networks to chip in to fund your first business... it's much more of a challenge to come up with instances in which earnings do come independent of wealth. (And when that is the case, we're usually talking about someone who's benefitted from some governmental policy!)
> Really? tell that to Sweden, Norway,Denmark and Finland..
Not terribly innovative.
If I had to depend upon them for my health, I would be DEAD.
"happiness" and "standard of living" are things that get reduced to meaningless statistics spun to support whatever agenda is on tap.
They fail to capture the things like lack of central heating and high electricity costs that drive people to use pellet driven space heaters that would make American trailer trash chuckle.
The stuff in bold is to highlight what absolutely serious bullshit you just uttered. ....
https://healthmanagement.org/c...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
They have a better health care which is paid through taxes. now while private healthcare is also available , which gives choice, the state healthcare there is top notch and for you to suggest otherwise is either blatant ignorance or wilful ignorance or.. just disingenuous.
BTW you do realise that they have central heating in abundance.. oh and electricity is CHEAPER in Sweden, for example, than the USA
Basic (Electricity, Heating, Water, Garbage) for 85m2 Apartment 148.31 $ (1,221.12 kr)(USA) 86.48 $(712.04 kr) (SWE) -41.69 %
-41.69% cheaper....
so how are you trailer trash chuckling now at paying nearly 42% more than those pesky Scandinavians?
If you are going to make a statement about something , make sure your argument cannot be humped with very very very very little effort
As Oliver Wendall Holmes said "Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society." How much we pay is the subject of endless arguments but I'll just say I don't feel particularly over-taxed right now.
First, you are the government's master, or can be if you want to be. Pay attention when public opinion really swings against something. They jump through their asses like their anuses are on fire. Second, you owe an amount that covers how you benefit. And there's the rub. People want a one-to-one direct correlation they can follow, like a lunch bill. They don't consider what they don't see or don't see directly connected. But, for example, the state department and the defense department make the world safe for American business. They -- and their counterparts in other countries -- make global corporations possible. So the people who benefit more from what the government provides should pay more taxes. People like to look at a person getting $12K or $24K in entitlements and say they're making more from government. Meanwhile, Wal Mart can only sell cheap Chinese goods as inexpensively as they can because the Navy and the Coast Guard make sure the shipping lanes are open and free of pirates. Imagine how costs would soar if our ports looked like the coast off Somalia and the corporations had to pay for their own security, didn't have the State department making treaties and solving problems so they could do business overseas as easily as they can, etc. Wal Mart would go under about three months after their current stock ran out. So the Walton family should pay not only more taxes, but a higher percentage of taxes.
There are only three line items over $500B a year: pensions (including SS), health care (including Medicaid and Medicare) and defense. Your "half a trillion" is a fairy tale. I didn't watch your video, because there's always a conspiracy theory to back up any contention. If we were spending almost as much on welfare for immigrants as we spend on Defense everyone would know it, not just the people who watch certain YouTube videos.
If you don't like rent you pay
The country is not the property of the government, and neither am I.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."