US billionaires paid lower tax rate than working class in 2018

Ken-1122

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Their core business model is to buy properties that are "not so great" (often times inhabited by poor people), make modest upgrades, then jack up the prices.

If you look at how another company from the list I sent before worded it (I believe it was the number 2 or 3 company on the list), these are their target properties for acquisition.

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An example of that would be...
Let's say you an area where there are 5 apartment complexes.
2 are "luxury apartments" that poor people could never afford ($1700+/month)
1 is moderately priced at $1200/month
1 is reasonable $900/month, but filled up and with a waiting list
1 doesn't look the greatest, but is $750/month.

The last one on the list (inhabited by the people who are tighter on cashflow) would be the kind they target. (based on their own statements)

They'd make some modest upgrades to the units and slap a new coat of paint on the outside, and use that as justification for bumping the prices up $850/month.

Now, if you're a poor person living there, they've increased the price as such, where you don't really have any other option but to suck it up and stay there. There's no way you could afford 3 of them, and the one that's even remotely in the same price range is filled up.
I've got a feeling if you actually asked those involved, you would see they did a lot more than just slap on a coat of paint, however it sounds like what they do is gentrification; which the poor often hate, but those who are actually invested in the community love.
 
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Veritas

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A new book-length study on the tax burden of the ultrarich begins with a startling finding: In 2018, for the first time in history, America’s richest billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than the working class.

But the tipping point came in 2017, with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That bill, championed by President Trump and then-House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, was a windfall for the wealthy: It lowered the top income tax bracket and slashed the corporate tax rate.

By 2018, according to Saez and Zucman, the rich were already enjoying the fruits of that legislation: The average effective tax rate paid by the top 0.1 percent of households dropped by 2.5 percentage points. The benefits the bill’s supporters promised — higher rates of growth and business investment and a shrinking deficit — have largely failed to materialize.

The "ultrarich" tend to be very left-leaning like Gates, Buffett, Soros, Bezos, etc. They could pay more to the US Treasury any time they wanted. But they don't. However, regardless of whether one agrees with their views, they tend to give a lot away. So what's the problem?
 
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Veritas

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This is an old canard that the Left pushes all the time, especially during election time. If you read the article carefully, they muddy the waters by throwing in all sorts of other fees and taxes like your annual car tabs, etc. Then the leftwing author's of the study go on to blame Trump's tax cuts for causing this. Trump's tax cuts only impacted federal income taxes. This absurd convoluting of tax burden is designed to enrage the average person and drive votes towards democrats who will "soak the rich". When will the left stop with the class warfare?
 
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essentialsaltes

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So what's the problem?

A Fox & Friends diner guest tells Pete Hegseth that the wealth gap "is just deplorable," and that "back in the 60s and 70s, if you were a millionaire, your taxes were awfully high ... nobody *****ed about it then."
 
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ThatRobGuy

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I've got a feeling if you actually asked those involved, you would see they did a lot more than just slap on a coat of paint, however it sounds like what they do is gentrification; which the poor often hate, but those who are actually invested in the community love.

In some cases, it's a full blown gentrification project. For instance, the city of Westlake here in northeast Ohio. It's an area that's and a huge upturn in higher end stores & restaurants over the past few years...and knowing those things draw a higher end crowd, some developers have knocked out old unused buildings, or bought complexes that were adjacent to the big outdoor shopping centers, and put in full blown luxury apartments.

However, that's not what's happening in a lot of other areas, a more common approach is the "New Kitchen Upgrades!" strategy. If you'll notice a lot of these properties that get bought up by these property management investment companies always boast that on their website.

If you just browse a few of their properties, you'll see things like:
NEWLY UPGRADED SUITES, with granite countertops, elegantly-designed fixtures and finishes, and beautiful wood-style plank flooring!

...basically, they put in the cheapest granite they can buy in a relatively small kitchen, put in snap together faux-wood flooring planks over top the existing linoleum, and put in nicer doorknobs and lighting fixtures, then use that as an excuse to jack up rent prices.


...but we're probably getting off into the weeds here.

The bottom line is, it's an example of rich property investors taking advantage of the other people by exploiting limited supply of apartments in certain areas.
 
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Ken-1122

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In some cases, it's a full blown gentrification project. For instance, the city of Westlake here in northeast Ohio. It's an area that's and a huge upturn in higher end stores & restaurants over the past few years...and knowing those things draw a higher end crowd, some developers have knocked out old unused buildings, or bought complexes that were adjacent to the big outdoor shopping centers, and put in full blown luxury apartments.

However, that's not what's happening in a lot of other areas, a more common approach is the "New Kitchen Upgrades!" strategy. If you'll notice a lot of these properties that get bought up by these property management investment companies always boast that on their website.

If you just browse a few of their properties, you'll see things like:
NEWLY UPGRADED SUITES, with granite countertops, elegantly-designed fixtures and finishes, and beautiful wood-style plank flooring!

...basically, they put in the cheapest granite they can buy in a relatively small kitchen, put in snap together faux-wood flooring planks over top the existing linoleum, and put in nicer doorknobs and lighting fixtures, then use that as an excuse to jack up rent prices.


...but we're probably getting off into the weeds here.

The bottom line is, it's an example of rich property investors taking advantage of the other people by exploiting limited supply of apartments in certain areas.

It’s not like all the poor neighborhoods are being gentrified, and the poor have no place to go. Yes there are people who will invest in poor neighborhoods, making them more presentable, thus making them more expensive to live in. In this case, those poor people will have to find some place else to live. But it goes both ways ya know; I know of people who invested all their money in a nice house in a decent neighborhood only to see gang activity move in a few years later, and their house value plummet. Because they bought the house, it is much more difficult to sell the house and relocate to another decent neighborhood, than it is for the poor to take their meager funds and find another poor neighborhood to live in, because their current house lost a lot of value. Whether you rent or own, middle income or poor, there are no guarantees sometimes crap happens and you just have to deal with it.

I don’t view the examples of gentrification you gave as examples of the rich exploiting the poor any more than my examples of decent neighborhoods going to slum as an example of the poor exploiting the middle class.
 
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Ken-1122

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A Fox & Friends diner guest tells Pete Hegseth that the wealth gap "is just deplorable," and that "back in the 60s and 70s, if you were a millionaire, your taxes were awfully high ... nobody *****ed about it then."
Just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen. People have always *****ed about taxes.
 
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