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Bad News If You Make $150,000 to $300,000: Higher Taxes for Many (wsj.com)
From a WSJ report: If President Donald Trump sticks to what he has said, Americans earning between $149,400 and $307,900 are most likely to see an increase in their taxes as a result of tax reform (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled). Those figures come from a recent study by the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group in Washington, and are based on Mr. Trump's statements and proposals. The study concludes that nearly one-third of about 19 million households in that income range could see tax increases averaging from $3,000 to $4,000 a year. By contrast, less than 10% of households earning the least or the most -- below $25,000 or above $733,000 -- would owe more after a tax overhaul. Over all, the study found that about 20% of taxpayers would owe more after tax reform than before it. The issue of tax reform's winners and losers has resurfaced after top congressional Republicans and the Trump administration released a set of broad principles for tax policy on Thursday containing few details.
You all voted for conservative politicians in the States who ran on cut now pay later starting with Reagan and vodoo economics.
Later is here! No it is not Obama's fault. It is yours and your parents. The banks need their money and it is not fair for the rest of us to pay higher taxes and no services for things like healthcare. Pay the piper man and in 30 years we can pay off the interest and $19,000,000,000,000!
Oh and lets blame it on the liberals so you can keep your nice home? Well expect a dollar crash and Great Depression 2.0 as the value of the dollar is nothing because the credit built on a house of cards for tax cuts and spending increases comes crashing once bankers start demanding a return on their money.
http://saveie6.com/
As a higher earner (well, when I'm not in startup mode), I don't actually have a problem with being taxed more - provided those that earn even more than me are not able to avoid the tax. The thing is, once you earn over about $100k, pretty much all your extra money is just going into bidding up the prices of a limited pool of assets such as housing. This doesn't benefit you or your fellow high earners, because if we can't build more, say, London housing when a rickety Victorian hovel costs over $1 million, then bidding up the prices to even more ridiculous levels isn't going to deal with the fundamental supply issue. All that happens is a parasite class forms around these things, consisting of speculators, gamblers and real estate agents. The same houses are still being traded between the same pool of high earners.
If we had higher taxes, then it would help to curb speculation activity by preventing this form of asset inflation, and governments could use the money to redirect economic resources towards, say, actually creating new housing supply through transport infrastructure or training new engineers and doctors. Of course there is a big if there, because the government could also just use those resources to create more bureaucracy, but that is probably still better than real estate agents.
The big problem, though, is that once you move into the 0.1% nobody is paying any taxes. I mean, the wealthy are even quite open about this - its not some sort of conspiracy. The problem then is that if you just tax the upper middle income earners more, all you do is allow the ultra rich to hoover up all the assets off them even faster than they are doing now. It is a one way road towards neo-feudalism.
There is no easy solution. Probably a land tax would help, but that is almost impossible to achieve politically. France tried a wealth tax, and London is now stuffed full of rich French people. An aggressive death tax is probably the best solution, but again this is incredibly hard to achieve politically. Of course the natural solution is a revolution where the masses just confiscate everything. I really hope we can avoid this.
The rich don't have income, they have capital gains. The rich also never learn. This will end badly. Very badly.
middle class?!
fucks sake i make less than 50.000$ a year in Sweden an pay 33â... of that in taxes!!! and i try to consider myself middle class.
anyone with a salary of that kind should pay a minimum of 60% in taxes and yeap, for that kind of taxes free health care, child support, free education for children, excellent roads on winter time and so on.
you guys in America are waay gone, have people living in New York going suicide for not affording health care but still refuse to pay more taxes, geez..
It's called "trickle-down economy". You asked for it, you got it. Staying rich becomes easier, getting rich harder.
You are obviously not poor and still fit and well.
It is easy to complain about taxes until one day, maybe, when you need it. Then you learn that it is morally just for people to pay taxes to help others.
Here in Australia we pay what you would call high taxes. The society seems to accept paying taxes as it has value. We have free health care and a safety net for those who need help whether they are old or handicapped you name it. Not perfect, but it gets tweaked over time.
It is possible to have a very good standard of living with 'high' taxes.
At > $150k you are living a good life. Good for you, but care for others.
Sweden's Government, by and large, governs appropriately and efficiently. The United States Government is self serving and power grubbing. Besides, they get more than enough money - our Defense Budget alone is more than the next 3 countries combined; meanwhile we have people literally starving in the streets, bridges collapsing due to an inability to maintain them properly, and nearly every one of our politicians is in the pocket of big business.
Never having lived in Sweden I don't know if that's comparable or not, but I suspect not.
The current model of governance was created as an alternative to a monarchy centuries ago. And it is time to start to think how to modernize it.
I have got an impression that the "elected" officials represent mostly themselves.
"Small government" is just rule by the rich. We've tried that already. In fact, it's the thing we've spent most of human history trying. It's a terrible system for everybody except the few people at the very top. Honestly, I don't think there's anything less "out of the box" than "let's let all the rich people make the rules and not try to constrain them in any way". Why is it that no conservatives have any working knowledge of history?
The vast majority of people would benefit from a larger government funded by higher tax rates. The rich fight this tooth and nail because they think it will be worse for them and they do not care at all whether it's better for everybody else, which is just selfish and evil, but the most important part is that it's not even true. A society in which public infrastructure is more effective and plentiful benefits EVERYBODY, including the people paying for the largest portion of it. It's incredibly obvious, but selfishness has a powerful ability to blind, it seems.
$150K-$300K isn't middle class. That's fucking rich. Yes, I know, you whine about the cost of living when you chose to live in a rich neighborhood. Howeveer, that's your choice for living in a rich neighborhood.
The US gov. is a mirror of the society, the politicians are a mirror of YOU, the ones that vote them, the ones that support them.
Stop blaming others.
I did not hear of you guys "hanging" all those politicians, bankers and lobby-ist that led to crashing the system in 2008 and destroyed the middle class. I did not hear you guys asking the banks to pay all those trillions back with interest directly to all those affected. I do not hear you guys asking for the army to be reduced and stop fighing others wars, impose gun control and more (free or subsidized) education for all, more taxes and transparency of all those taxes and fucking the lobby-ists and whatnot. I do not hear you guys asking for smaller car engines, smaller houses, modest living, helping your own people in need, decency allaround.
Guys, you went over board with the capitalism and perverted the democracy. I really hope you figure it out.
So you get to decide what is morally right and force your views...interesting indeed.
That is a very concise explanation of laws.
Either way I've seen what happens when poor Americans get ill.
Since they can't afford healthcare they have to rely on handouts.
In that situation there are two kind of people. Good ones that cares for others and that pays up a small sum so no-one has to die, and then there are people that keeps their money to themselves.
So, the choice is between a society where:
1) people dies in the street.
2) good people have to pay for everyone healthcare and uncaring people can keep their money.
3) everyone is taxed so that people don't have to die and good people don't have to pay for everything themselves.
You may not like paying taxes but you are defending a situation that benefits psychopaths more than anyone else.
You forgot to mention the set of people who don't have HC will go to the Emergency room. ERs have to help people who have a immediate life threatening condition. So this very expensive service is passed onto that one hospital's customer base. But normally because the condition is so far along, the results are poor and people still die.
Those with a future appt with death can't use ERs and need to rely on charity. Which also has really poor results because again they can't do preventative, ongoing, and stable treatments in that financial situation.
You'll notice that those that ask for this are also the ones that demand fairness in tax burden. Exempting those that could bear more than those that get to pay the lion's share is by no means fair.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Maybe, but that's a result of lifestyle choices. $150000 for a family of four is definitely easy street in terms of income.
I do acknowledge, however, that many families in that bracket can feel like they are struggling.
It's actually going to be more painful for those expensive areas like SF.
One of the proposals in Trump's tax plan is to drop the deductions for state and local taxes, and for mortgage interest. The areas where people earn $150-300k are usually the areas with high state and local taxes, and where houses cost a lot.
Maybe, but that's a result of lifestyle choices.
Not always where health expenses come into play. The out of pocket expenses can be staggering. Even more so if congress again will allow lifetime maximums.
Not to mention those who care for family members that don't have adequate insurance or pensions, like parents or grandparents. The family typically end up with the bills, and grin and bear it.
If the law says that's how it is and you want to live in a developed country then sorry, but that's how it works. Otherwise nobody pays for anything and it all turns to shit.
Perhaps Somalia would be more to your liking?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Education in Sweden is free. In contrast, a family with 3 children in USA is expected to pay over from 20k to 50k per year for 10 years of schools and over $150k per year for 4 years of college. Not to mention other big expenses, like housing or healthcare...
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
Now that it's the micro-handed crotch grabber's policy more taxes are bad? What happened to "I like paying taxes" and "taxes pay for civilization herp derp?"
As one of the people in the $150k-$300k range, I do feel I should be paying more taxes. The problem is if the increase tax burden is hitting the upper middle class harder than it is hitting the upper class. Just as I feel my tax burden as a percentage of my income should go up more than those in the middle class, the tax burden of the wealthy should go up more as a percentage of their income than mine does. Federal taxes are the primary form of progressive taxation in the US and one of our few tools to combat wealth inequality.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
America has such a love of sociopathy that psychologists have had to adjust the score downward in America vs. Europe
You will pay either way. If you simply allow people to go bankrupt, then there are significant legal and societal costs attached to major medical interventions. If they have no money or assets at all, then they still get the hospital treatment, and your taxes end up paying for their health care anyways. Unless your talking about literally throwing anyone out on the street who doesn't have health care, then you will still pay.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Well, mission accomplished. We're all arguing about whether $150K is rich or middle class - and not talking about the fact that the pain stops at $300K - which, coincidentally, is probably where the most egregious tax inequities start. It's pretty hard to make >$300K a year without a lot of that being in the form of tax-preferred passive income like dividends and capital gains. There are more Americans than you'd think in this income bracket, and a truly disproportion of total US income is attributable to that group.
So Trump has us middle-to-upper-middle classers arguing about whether or not we're really rich, and the truly rich are getting to keep all the bounty. Kind of a clever trick for a moron like Trump. But then again, the summary starts with "If Trump sticks to what he has said", and Trump has never stuck to anything he's said, so why are we even discussing this. We were supposed to have "a great and beautiful healthcare system with lower cost and far better coverage" by now. "And it'll be really easy, believe me"...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I'm a family of 3 earning slightly less than that (within 10k of it though) and I can say its not 100% easy street. I'm a single income household, so it's just me working. I work over an hour from home (I would not be able to earn that income closer to home), so I have to pay for 2 cars. I then have to insure them. I have the mortgage on my modest home (It was only $211,800, so it's not exactly a mansion or anything -- your basic 2 story 2 car garage in the suburbs type deal). Groceries, health care (and I'm lucky my health insurance is cheap with generous benefits -- I used to pay a lot more) , gasoline to work (it adds up due to distance -- I easily drive 80 miles round trip commuting in one of the worst traffic cities -- Atlanta), payments on the appliances, telecommunications (can't live in the modern age without cellphones and Internet), travel costs to see the in-laws on a regular basis, etc... I know a lot of people have it a lot worse than me (my in-laws make $60k in Toronto and struggle a lot more than I do since the cost of living there is insane), but it's not like I'm flush with cash. I live pretty much paycheck to paycheck, it's just my expenses are higher due to various reasons.
Trump's policy statements are barely more relevant than they were during the Apprentice. Just look at what happened with health care, it's the congressional republicans driving legislation and Trump is essentially tweeting randomly based on clips he saw on TV.
Now, when it comes to tax policy his personal beliefs, give rich people a tax cut, are in line with Republicans as a whole, and he might actually push a specific policy because it personally affects him. But I don't think he has the basic competency to impose that view on congress. Paul Ryan's view is the one that really matters.
I stole this Sig
The whole Trump "administration" is fraudulent. They will have to pass a blank tax bill before actually writing something with content. Republicans have had a long time to plan what they would do if they were in power. All that they can do still is to attack the Democrats. It is always Obama and Hillary's fault even when in control of all three branches. If that doesn't work, go after the Media.
There is no Republican tax plan! They have forgotten how to make a plan.
In Manhattan or San Francisco? Say, are you the old lady who lived in a shoe?
Then you didn't watch the news. What do you think Occupy Wall Street was? The result involved a great many arrests, water cannons, and tear gas.
Well, mission accomplished. We're all arguing about whether $150K is rich or middle class - and not talking about the fact that the pain stops at $300K - which, coincidentally, is probably where the most egregious tax inequities start.
Nearly the entire Republican party is built upon a foundation of people who resent professionals (engineers, doctors, lawyers, managers) but idolize the wealthy. People are more likely to see $600k McMansions near where they live and resent those who can afford them, but they more rarely see the $6 million dollar homes of the rich. They assume those who gather extreme wealth are the best among us and deserve every penny, but those in the upper middle class are just pompous liberals who never had a hard days work in their life.
Class warfare is alive and well, and the wealthy are winning by a large margin.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Call it what you will, but $150K puts you firmly into the top 10%, and most of that $150K-$300K range will put you well into the top 5% of income earners. Most would consider the top 5-10% as "rich"...
Most would consider the top 5% to be rich. But that is because most people don't have a very good grasp on money and income distribution. The average American thinks the average manufacturing CEO makes 20 times more than their factory workers while they actually make 354 time more. The average American thinks the top 20% richest among us have 59% of the wealth, while they actually have 84% of it. I agree that your opinion is what most people believe, I'm just telling you you're wrong.
Someone just barely in the top 5% of family income makes $215k per year. This income level is far more comfortable than a standard middle class income, but it does not come close to affording the type of lifestyle people describe when they think of rich. You probably don't own a yacht or a private jet. You probably don't own a second home and if you do it probably isn't that nice. You probably don't have a $100k+ car. You probably don't have a $1+ million home. You probably make sacrifices when planning a vacation instead of just doing whatever you want.
They certainly have a much more comfortable life than a median income family, but the upper middle class resemble the middle class far more than they do the wealthy.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
No, no they don't. Have you actually ever met a female?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You can always pay more. Please do. I prefer not to contribute to the water and corruption. More government money does not equal better outcomes. You are free to pay more. And I have no problem if you do, but I have a big problem of you force others to be equally foolish.
I challenge you can name a developed country, or any large successful country in history, which was primarily funded by voluntary donations. You can't do it because it is not a reasonable funding method. The tragedy of the commons helps describe why this strategy is a fools errand. Whenever you have a situation where each individual sacrifice only hurts the individual, but collective sacrifice helps everyone, mandatory sacrifice is the only legitimate strategy.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
our Defense Budget alone is more than the next 3 countries combined;
Don't forget that at least 30% of that is not really defense. What do you folks do who graduate high school and have no idea what to do? Right, they join the armed forces.
The armed forces provide more social services than any other government funded program, all paid out of the Defense budget. And you know what? I like that. Because those youngsters don't end up on the street getting welfare and joining gangs, but they end up learning discipline, trades, and are ready to defend the country if needed.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Correction. An income of $150000 for a family of four is "easy streets" IF:
1. No one has any chronic or unexpected medical problems.
2. None of the kids are in college.
3. There is a limited amount of debt (college loans are paid off, no maxed credit cards from hard times, etc.)
4. You live in an area where the standard cost of living is at par or less with the income.
5. The family doesn't have to deal with care costs for parents.
So on and so forth. That money doesn't go nearly as far as people think it does.
~X~
You are aware that the US has some of the worst average health outcomes of the industrialized nations, right? Even if bankruptcy were no big deal (which, of course it is, and Trump has never gone personally bankrupt) the US health care system is absurdly expensive, on top of poor outcomes.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No it doesn't. It's total BULLSHIT.
The max consumer burden for a good US private insurance policy is $6000 or less. That's pocket change for anyone making $150K. Or rather it should be.
That isn't true. I currently pay $1200/mo for Silver coverage for a middle aged couple. HSA/visit fees and deductible are added on top of that.
Maybe you meant $6000/per person per year + deductible?
No it doesn't. It's total BULLSHIT.
The max consumer burden for a good US private insurance policy is $6000 or less. That's pocket change for anyone making $150K. Or rather it should be.
That isn't true. I currently pay $1200/mo for Silver coverage for a middle aged couple. HSA/visit fees and deductible are added on top of that.
Maybe you meant $6000/per person per year + deductible?
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Note to self: Remember to preview prior to posting to make sure quote boundaries are correct :-(
Actually you can cherry pick infant mortality rates. The US counts an infant as a live birth if it you know, is alive when it is born. Many counties fudge their numbers by not counting them as live births if they die right after birth. So if different countries use different rules, you can't compare them the same.
Infant mortality is defined as the number of deaths of children under one year of age, expressed per 1 000 live births, so your example does not really work. If an infant dies within 1 year after birth, this is counted in the infant mortality rates for all OECD countries.
However, there is a difference in that the United States and Canada are two countries which register a much higher proportion of babies weighing less than 500g, with low odds of survival, resulting in higher reported infant mortality. In Europe, several countries apply a minimum gestational age of 22 weeks (or a birth weight threshold of 500g) for babies to be registered as live births.
https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/infant-mortality-rates.htm
Our political parties are not a good representation of our populace. Years of gerrymandering, corporate lobbying, and manipulation of the polls with things like voter ID laws have led us to our current political landscape. Less than maybe 35% of population really supports the kind of extreme conservatism that the majority of the republican party leaders espouse, but the republicans still hold majority in both halves of our legislature; as well as our presidency.
So I disagree that our gov is a mirror of our society. The gov is a perverted and twisted result of years of allowing certain government systems to proceed unchecked certainly. But I don't think our congress really mirror our populace.
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
So you want taxes to pay for things that benefit you personally, and screw everything (and everyone) else. Typical libertarian.