Ocasio-Cortez floats 70% tax on top earners

Mountainmanbob · Jan 5, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez floats 70 percent tax on top earners to fund Green New Deal

SkyWriting · Jan 5, 2019

Mountainmanbob said:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez floats 70 percent tax on top earners to fund Green New Deal

What I don't understand is why not tax the top 25% at 99.5%?
The rest should pay nothing. I mean, is that not fair?
How does she compute what is fair?
Why is taxing the rich and no taxes for the poor fair?
What is the standard of fairness? How much the poor can get away with tax-free?

dysert · Jan 5, 2019

Mountainmanbob said:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez floats 70 percent tax on top earners to fund Green New Deal

Although it unfortunately wouldn't affect me, I have to wonder why a rich person should give the government more of their income than they keep for themselves? Seems to me it would kill the incentive to try to grow a business if you know that once you hit a certain revenue number you'll be working more for the government than you will be for yourself.

HTacianas · Jan 5, 2019

SkyWriting said:
What I don't understand is why not tax the top 25% at 99.5%?
The rest should pay nothing. I mean, is that not fair?
How does she compute what is fair?
Why is taxing the rich and no taxes for the poor fair?
What is the standard of fairness? How much the poor can get away with tax-free?

Trust me. The records on that are permanently sealed. Next time someone says somebody else should pay their "fair share" simply ask them what that is and see how fast they run away.

Percivale · Jan 5, 2019

What I find interesting is that 70% is what top earners paid in the 1950s, a time period that conservatives in particular look back to nostalgically.

There’s no way to determine what is fair. It could as easily be fair that what people get to keep be proportional to their effort, which would be highly progressive. I think it would be better to just focus on choosing the tax system that works best for the country as a whole, which I think would be moderately progressive.

SkyWriting · Jan 5, 2019

Mountainmanbob said:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez floats 70 percent tax on top earners to fund Green New Deal

I came up with a very fair number:

770 billion divided by 325.7 million residents = $2364.13 per year per person.

So if you want to redistribute wealth then find another way. But this is the fair number for the Federal Budget.

Percivale · Jan 5, 2019

SkyWriting said:
I came up with a very fair number:

770 billion divided by 325.7 million residents = $2364.13 per year per person.

So if you want to redistribute wealth then find another way. But this is the fair number for the Federal Budget.

That would not be fair either, why should someone who makes $10 an hour have to work for the government for 200 hours a year while someone who makes 100 an hour only has to work 20 hours to pay the tax?

Mountainmanbob · Jan 5, 2019

Percivale said:
What I find interesting is that 70% is what top earners paid in the 1950s, a time period that conservatives in particular look back to nostalgically.

There’s no way to determine what is fair. It could as easily be fair that what people get to keep be proportional to their effort, which would be highly progressive. I think it would be better to just focus on choosing the tax system that works best for the country as a whole, which I think would be moderately progressive.

Do you have a link?
I'm thinking the figure back then was more like 30%.
Goat guess.
M-Bob

SkyWriting · Jan 5, 2019

Percivale said:
That would not be fair either, why should someone who makes $10 an hour have to work for the government for 200 hours a year while someone who makes 100 an hour only has to work 20 hours to pay the tax?

So that may be more fair then. You've convinced me.
Lets go with 8.4% for federal tax on everyone.
That's 200 hours. But government is a bit too big
so lets go with 8%.

Lets have the states collect all the tax and the Fed can
tax the states a percentage. So your local elected officials
control all the taxing.

Percivale · Jan 5, 2019

Mountainmanbob said:
Do you have a link?
I'm thinking the figure back then was more like 30%.
Goat guess.
M-Bob

Did the Rich Really Pay Much Higher Taxes in the 1950s? The Answer Is a Little Complicated.
It looks like the highest rate at one point was actually 91% but there were enough ways of getting around it that most rich people paid someone more in the 40% range.

Percivale · Jan 5, 2019

SkyWriting said:
So that may be more fair then. You've convinced me.
Lets go with 8.4% for federal tax on everyone.
That's 200 hours. But government is a bit too big
so lets go with 8%.

Lets have the states collect all the tax and the Fed can
tax the states a percentage. So your local elected officials
control all the taxing.

I’d be OK with a proportional tax rate if we could shrink the federal government enough; I’d rather the states do more and the federal government less. But a moderately progressive tax, say 45% for the highest earners, makes sense to me too. I think it is fair considering that employers have a lot more bargaining power than employees and so they get a bigger share of the profit from the employees’ labor than the employees themselves do.

Having states collect the federal tax didn’t work, when they tried it in the beginning under the articles of Confederation. That’s one of the big reasons that they made the constitution instead.

SkyWriting · Jan 5, 2019

Percivale said:
I’d be OK with a proportional tax rate if we could shrink the federal government enough; I’d rather the states do more and the federal government less. But a moderately progressive tax, say 45% for the highest earners, makes sense to me too. I think it is fair considering that employers have a lot more bargaining power than employees and so they get a bigger share of the profit from the employees’ labor than the employees themselves do.

Having states collect the federal tax didn’t work, when they tried it in the beginning under the articles of Confederation. That’s one of the big reasons that they made the constitution instead.

"Not Work" as in government shut down? We got that now.
Make it work.

Albion · Jan 5, 2019

I find it interesting that Ocasio-Cortez wants the super-rich to be taxed out of their income but she was complaining that after she was elected to Congress, but not yet a member of the House of Representatives, she had to pay for her own apartment. She thought she was going to be on Easy Street simply for having won her election.

Isn't that the way Socialism always works? The claim is that the poor--or everybody in general--should get a better deal, but it is always the administrators of the Socialism who do!

Hank77 · Jan 5, 2019

Mountainmanbob said:
Do you have a link?
I'm thinking the figure back then was more like 30%.
Goat guess.
M-Bob

In 1944, the top rate peaked at 94 percent on taxable income over $200,000 ($2.5 million in today’s dollars3). That’s a high tax rate.

The 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s

Over the next three decades, the top federal income tax rate remained high, never dipping below 70 percent.
https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Income-Tax-Rates.aspx

Hank77 · Jan 5, 2019

SkyWriting said:
Lets have the states collect all the tax and the Fed can
tax the states a percentage. So your local elected officials
control all the taxing.

And that wouldn't be fair to the states unless they taxed per population of each state individually. States with higher populations have more expenses than those with lower populations, schools, roads, etc.

Hank77 · Jan 5, 2019

Percivale said:
Having states collect the federal tax didn’t work, when they tried it in the beginning under the articles of Confederation. That’s one of the big reasons that they made the constitution instead.

Things are very different today, personally like the idea. The constitution doesn't say that the federal government has to collect taxes from individual people.

Mountainmanbob · Jan 5, 2019

Hank77 said:
In 1944, the top rate peaked at 94 percent on taxable income over $200,000 ($2.5 million in today’s dollars3). That’s a high tax rate.

The 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s

Over the next three decades, the top federal income tax rate remained high, never dipping below 70 percent.
https://bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Free_Resources/Federal-Income-Tax-Rates.aspx

Try taxin the corporations like that today and once again they will start moving out of the United States a fact well proven.

My Brothers Roofing Manufacturing Company was thinking about moving to Mexico until Trump was elected. He stated Obama was killing his business.

M-Bob

Hank77 · Jan 5, 2019

Mountainmanbob said:
Try taxin the corporations like that today and once again they will start moving out of the United States a fact well proven.

My Brothers Roofing Manufacturing Company was thinking about moving to Mexico until Trump was elected. He stated Obama was killing his business.

M-Bob

If you had looked at the link you would see that this is talking about individual's taxes, not corporate taxes. Corporations can't use form 1040, they use 1120, etc.

Mountainmanbob · Jan 5, 2019

Hank77 said:
If you had looked at the link you would see that this is talking about individual's taxes, not corporate taxes. Corporations can't use form 1040, they use 1120, etc.

Are you saying that our new little congresswoman wants to tax me 70%?
M-Bob

Hank77 · Jan 5, 2019

Mountainmanbob said:
Are you saying that our new little congresswoman wants to tax me 70%?
M-Bob

You know as well as I do that we were talking about income tax rates in the past.

Ocasio-Cortez floats 70% tax on top earners

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