How so? It appears to me we are engaged in the very pursuit described in the OP
Yeah. It’s not OUR fault that the Right doesn’t have a logical or reality-recognizing bone in their collective body…
Fairness is also a function of whether you are a member of the ingroup or outgroup. I remember a few Thanksgivings ago, someone on here was asking for the best arguments against Trump. One of the first points at the top of a lot of many lists was “Puts kid in cages.” What they didn’t realize is that Trumpers don’t care because, illegal immigrants aren’t a member of their ingroup. In fact, in the eyes of a Trump supporter, it’s the illegal immigrants that aren’t playing “fair.”
That’s not the kind of thing I meant, though. I meant that there are different types of framework for deciding what’s fair; not that people are applying the same framework differently to different people (though I agree that also sometimes happens.)
If progressives actually do want to make ‘an honest attempt to see the other side’, and not just to snarl at them, it’s necessary to recognize the existence of those different frameworks. That doesn’t mean to agree with them; but to be able to see them.
It seems like Sam has brought a pretty good cite from a trusted source. It should be up to you to counter.
Yeah. I’m in favor of a progressive tax but I cringe when people use “fair share”. The phrase has too much baggage and is ambiguous.
I don’t need to counter. The cite Sam offered up speaks only in terms of Adjusted Gross Income.
His cite makes my point.
Let me quote the preface to the statistics from the cite that Sam provided:
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has released data on individual income taxes for tax year 2017, showing the number of taxpayers, adjusted gross income, and income tax shares by income percentiles
[bolding mine]
That sets the stage: we’re only going to be talking about AGI.
That’s why I said that the particular statistic from Sam’s cite –
The share of reported income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers rose to 21 percent
Has to be talking about AGI. It’s the way his source framed their bullet points.
A couple other points worth making on the income tax thing:
I just checked the source data from Sam’s cite. It’s all AGI (, too).
If the wealthiest Americans were really paying – in terms that should matter to all of us (ie, total taxes paid / total dollars made) – as much as we’re led to believe they’re paying … we’d have a flat tax tomorrow.
I don’t think images like this, or the revelation that DJT paid $750 in Federal Income Taxes two years in a row, should lead us to believe that there is not a significant difference between total income and AGI – that is: I think we’re safe in concluding that the wealthiest Americans have deductions that would boggle our minds.
And probably pay astoundingly less in Federal Income Tax than we are led to believe they do.
Anatomy/physiology Biology and political orientation - Wikipedia
and environment/culture.
I understood what you meant - was just offering another way in which concepts of fairness differ.
I think I understand what you’re trying to say and I could go along but I run into this:
Your “led to believe” statement means (I think) that you don’t trust Sam’s source but you kind of hand-wave it away without giving me much reason to agree with your opinion.
There’s a trope (possibly true) that rich people don’t pay any taxes. Anecdotally Trump illustrates it but whenever these discussions come up nobody can seem to prove it as a whole and the stats I’ve seen (like Sam’s) say otherwise.
It seems to me that you were describing a way in which the same concept of fairness was being applied differently to different people.
The problem is with the metric itself – Effective Tax Rate (ETR).
ETR is defined as:
[total paid in Federal Income Tax ] divided by [Adjusted Gross Income ]
Take a look at IRS Form 1040:
To the overwhelming majority of Americans, “how much money did you make” points to Line 7b – total income. Right ? That’s how much money you made.
But ETR uses as the denominator of its fraction … Line 8b – adjusted gross income.
You’ll notice what happens on IRS Form 1040 to get from Line 7b to line 8b:
8a Adjustments to income from Schedule 1, line 22
What does this line look like for the wealthiest 1% ? For the wealthiest 0.1% ?
How do the Schedule 1 deductions available to a person with a total income of $200,000 per year compare with the deductions available to a person with a total income of $200,000,000 per year ?
[see DJT’s tax returns in the picture for a graphic depiction]
And why in the world should we use Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) to “determine” whether or not our tax rates are truly progressive – that is: if the rich really do pay their fair share ?
Sam’s reference doesn’t prove anything. That’s exactly my point: I’ve never been able to find a true indicator of our progressive tax policy … of “tax fairness …” which most people would probably define as (again):
[total federal income tax paid] divided by [total income ]
I found an interesting quote in this document:
Reasons for Nontaxability
Taxpayers may have their tax liability reduced—possibly to
zero or beyond—in numerous ways. These include claiming
tax credits, which directly reduces an individual’s tax liability;
claiming various deductions, which reduces taxable income;
and receiving income that is excluded from the calculation of
taxable income.
As I keep saying … I doubt Trump’s anything like an exception.
I also think it’s ludicrous for the IRS to define “high income” as $200,000 or more.
The median household – not individual, household – income in the USA in 2019 was $68,703. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html
Which means half of all households – and considerably more than half of all individuals, since many households have more than one income provider – brought in less than that.
So yes, I’d say that 200K for an individual is high income. It might well make sense to have another category, however, because there are people for whom 200K is pocket change.
I’m sorry. I wasn’t clear.
In trying to understand tax fairness, it’s probably better to use breakdowns found in other sources, like …:
Top 0.1%
Top 1%
Top 5%
Between 5% & 10%
Top 10%
Between 10% & 25%
Top 25%
Between 25% & 50%
Top 50%
Bottom 50%
I’m not saying $200k isn’t a good bit of money. I’m saying that I suspect that people making $200k don’t have nearly the access to deductions and avoidance strategies as people making orders of magnitude more money.
It’s worth clarifying: I don’t know, so I can’t say that “rich people don’t pay any taxes.”
I do see a problem with the metric used – a problem that may or may not be meaningful.
And I do see a problem accepting as true that the Effective Tax Rate really is the most meaningful metric to use, largely because – again – it would indicate that the wealthiest Americans would be passionately in favor of a Flat Tax.
I was. My comment’s weren’t an addition to your examples of fairness, but another example of how the fairness issue is particularly complex.
I also want to qualify that one statement (and then I’ll leave this issue alone on this thread):
Form 1040 Line 7b doesn’t take into account Schedule 1 Part I “Additional Income,” which could be negative (ie, losses), and which could have a dramatic effect in reducing even Line 7b “total income,” and with numbers that are buried in no end of other IRS Forms associated with a given return.
See what I mean ?
paid [divided by] made
just shouldn’t be that difficult to get at.
But it is.
[out]
One thing that I do notice from many on the right, they even ignore that they are falling for how the powerful interests are also controlling the misleading narrative that paints the efforts as being wasteful or that we will go to the stone age if we follow the best recommended solutions like from scientists like Richard Alley (Republican BTW, but I would not be surprised that he is an independent nowadays).
And usually that bit comes from the same powerful interests and ignorant media from the right.
To summarize, none of the mechanisms which facilitated previous climate change can explain the rapid rise in both CO2 and temperature observed over the past 150 years. However, human-released CO2 explains both!