# Make the rich pay their fair share! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 1, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019 "2024-12-01T15:38:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/201 "2024-12-05T22:01:00Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > I really have no access to such strategies. Do the lower middle class have access to Home Mortgage deduction? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/202 "2024-12-05T22:04:31Z")
I suspect that they do not since many of the lower middle class need to rent their housing. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2024, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/203 "2024-12-05T22:08:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Do the lower middle class have access to Home Mortgage deduction? Not if they’re taking the standard deduction. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/204 "2024-12-06T12:09:19Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Do the lower middle class have access to Home Mortgage deduction? Are you trying to create an equivalency between shielding virtually all your wealth from any tax and the mortgage deduction? Which, nowadays, has to be more than what, $29,000 to exceed the standard deduction for a married couple. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/205 "2024-12-06T13:53:19Z")
Right- the issue is more that the super-rich are able to avoid paying estate taxes, which are pretty steep in fact. They need to tighten a lot of that up. Not make the threshold go down; often estates are a prime way that families can give themselves a helping hand, and it’s set right now at a point where it doesn’t really affect the upper middle class, but the truly wealthy. (it’s about a 12 million dollar estate). But if somehow Jeff Bezos were to die tomorrow and _not_ pay that 40% estate tax, something is wrong and needs to be rectified. Ultimately though, the issue isn’t that he’s a billionaire, it’s that the government has set things up such that they don’t get the appropriate tax from him and people like him, on income or estates. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2024, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/206 "2024-12-06T19:53:15Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Right- the issue is more that the super-rich are able to avoid paying estate taxes, which are pretty steep in fact. , let us say there was a tax- 100% of everything earned over $1billion. Sure- “steep”, but not really relevant, as few if any have taxable income that high. Estate taxes range from 13% to 40%, but dont start nowadays until $13.66 million, which is ridiculously high. If we roll it back to 2002, it would be $1M exclusion (+ extras for one residence or farm or family business, plus whatever the spouse got), with a top rate of 50%. That is a much better deal. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/207 "2024-12-07T17:55:01Z")
I’d probably put it a bit higher- maybe 5 million. Ultimately, do we want the government to forcibly remove wealth, or do we want families to be better off? Just because there are other poor people out there, doesn’t mean that others should be prohibited from becoming wealthy. We just don’t need them to be _too_ wealthy. But a net worth of a million bucks is absurdly low for estate taxes to kick in; all you’ve got to do in order to have a net worth over a million bucks in your late 50s is invest in your 401k in a non-half-assed fashion for most of your career and buy a house that went up in value. And being able to give that to your kids is a great way to give them a leg up without making them particularly wealthy. A half million bucks isn’t really _that_ much when it comes right down to it. Personally, I’d set the estate tax at some sort of obvious break that would exclude the doctors, lawyers, and other people who work for a living, and include the investment class who primarily live off the proceeds of their wealth. And I’d make it more than 40% as the amount went up- up to 90-95%. I might consider adjusting it by the number of entities receiving money in the will; if someone leaves their wealth to legitimate charities, let that slide instead of just having Uncle Sam suck it all up. Or maybe set an inheritance limit rather than a straight-up estate tax; that way families could be economically boosted, without the spectre of Uncle Sam taking most of the estate before it’s even distributed. Basically keep the money in the family (it’s probably better off staying in the economy than in the government’s pocket), but each person can only get a set percentage of the estate that varies by the number of heirs. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/208 "2024-12-07T18:05:14Z")
> [@bump](#): > > (it’s probably better off staying in the economy than in the government’s pocket) The government’s pocket is in the economy. The family’s pockets might or might not be, especially for the super rich. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/209 "2024-12-07T18:34:11Z")
Agree. As absurd as it sounds, as someone who can remember when $27k/year was middle class, a million dollars today is still middle class. And it probably should matter how it’s being divided- $3 million divided among four kids is nice, but it isn’t quit working and retire to Bora Bora nice. And remember, these guys are avoiding estate taxes on money they managed to avoid regular taxes on for their whole lives. Finally, exponentially expanding generational wealth isn’t healthy. An aristocracy by another name. Figure out a way to sever the connection between wealth and power and I’ll care a whole lot less. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/210 "2024-12-07T18:52:48Z")
You can also avoid a lot of estate taxes by giving your money to your heirs before you die. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/211 "2024-12-07T19:04:40Z")
I’m no expert but for a large sum, I think you start running into the gift tax limitations. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/212 "2024-12-07T19:06:28Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > As absurd as it sounds, as someone who can remember when $27k/year was middle class, a million dollars today is still middle class. Exactly. In old movies or books, people talked about millionaires in awed tones. By 1996, Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko could write _The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy_. Today, the median price of homes in New York and San Francisco is over a million. I wouldn’t put anyone under $100,000,000 in the _rich_ rich. Part of that is simple inflation as well as the increasing wealth inequality. > [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’m no expert but for a large sum, I think you start running into the gift tax limitations. Ninja’d on this. There’s a limit on the nontaxable size of the gift, known as the Basic Exclusion Amount. > **[Estate and Gift Tax FAQs | Internal Revenue Service](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/estate-and-gift-tax-faqs)** > > On Nov. 20, 2018, the IRS clarified that individuals taking advantage of the increased gift tax exclusion amount in effect from 2018 to 2025 will not be adversely impacted after 2025 when the exclusion amount is scheduled to drop to pre-2018 levels.... ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/213 "2024-12-07T19:14:32Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Today, the median price of homes in New York and San Francisco is over a million. Yeah, but can you point to that as meaning that a million isn’t rich when at the same time so many are complaining that the cost of houses means they don’t see themselves ever owning a house? ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/214 "2024-12-07T19:22:43Z")
Primary housing shouldn’t be considered as an indicator of wealth, really. My father is living in a million dollar house near Boston that he paid $45,000 for. He was a construction worker and my mother was a stay at home mom, then worked various odd jobs for some extra money when we were old enough. By no reasonable definition are they now, nor were they ever, rich. And the reason housing costs are so high, at least around here, is entirely a supply side issue (IMO). And if we fixed that, or if we didn’t let it get to where it is, my father wouldn’t be living in a million dollar house. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/215 "2024-12-07T20:06:00Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > Yeah, but can you point to that as meaning that a million isn’t rich when at the same time so many are complaining that the cost of houses means they don’t see themselves ever owning a house? A hundred years ago, when a millionaire was _rich_ rich, most of the country was complaining they didn’t ever see themselves owning a house. > [@OldOlds](#): > > My father is living in a million dollar house near Boston that he paid $45,000 for. OlderOldOlds is sitting on a million dollars of wealth. Do you think he considers himself to be rich, let alone _rich_ rich? The post-WWII era was a wild outlier anomaly in the country’s economic history. People need to stop thinking of it as the norm, because that warps all understanding. People also forget the antecedents to that anomaly. A horrifying decade-long Depression when many lost their homes or farms. A total war where the government pumped in tens of billions into the economy when a billionaire was an incomprehensible number. A nationwide commitment to buying government bonds in lieu of spending on consumer items. A giant shortfall of workers as the military ranks swelled, leading to vastly increased wages. A two-decade lapse in building new housing. Then at the end of the war, the tsunami of forced saving of higher wages was matched by an all-out effort to build _cheap_ homes everywhere. Fearing labor wars, the big corporations made peace with unions and provided lifetime employment and pensions, all made temporarily feasible by America’s unique status as the only untouched power, giving corporation world dominance. Those conditions are not returning. We have been seeing a return to the mean, where houses are expensive and wages are low and jobs have little permanence, just like it’s been for most of our history. And just try to sell people the houses built in the 1950s. The $8,000 Levittown house had 750 sq. ft. One cannot say that the median price for a home ($900,000 for the entire state of California!) is the province only of the rich. The term loses all economic meaning. A million dollar house today connotes the same wealth and status as the $45,000 house of yesterday. If only the _rich_ rich could afford million dollar homes (yes, I’m aware of how mortgages work) then the entire state of California would collapse. There simply aren’t enough rich rich. That’s the definition of wealth inequality! You’re contradicting your own argument. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/216 "2024-12-07T20:16:59Z")
You’re simultaneously arguing that many people can afford home ownership, and that few can. And the value of @OldOlds ’ father’s house only matters if he’s selling it. For so long as he doesn’t, he has the same asset as he had when he bought it. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/217 "2024-12-07T20:44:10Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The $8,000 Levittown house had 750 sq. ft. Well, as a separate issue people have to get used to the idea that owning one’s own home will more and more mean a condo. There simply aren’t enough 1/4 acre lots left near the places where jobs are. That’s a place I think we agree- but not really the point of it. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > There simply aren’t enough rich rich. That’s the definition of wealth inequality! You’re contradicting your own argument. I’m not sure to whom this was directed. My argument is that the truly rich are not taxed equitably to the rest of us. It isn’t class warfare or sour grapes. Simply that I, as a relatively high income earner, pay federal tax on (almost) every penny, and my marginal rate is extremely high. While a billionaire could, in theory, make $105,000,000 per year and actually pay less in taxes, and then still not pay taxes when he dies. WTF? And I don’t know where you get the idea that there aren’t enough “rich rich.” The top 1% owns more wealth, $39 trillion, than the whole of the middle class. And I’m sure you know that within that 1% it’s basically a logarithmic scale. So I’m not sure if you mean there aren’t a lot of them (ok, true) or they don’t hold a lot of wealth. Again, and I think this is important, I’m not some sour grapes struggling to get by. And I don’t complain about my taxes- I get that I have a life of relative privilege. It’s the inequity of it, and the excessive influence had by the “rich rich.” ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/218 "2024-12-07T20:46:07Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Exactly. In old movies or books, people talked about millionaires in awed tones. And his wife. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/219 "2024-12-07T20:48:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And the value of @OldOlds ’ father’s house only matters if he’s selling it. For so long as he doesn’t, he has the same asset as he had when he bought it. And, as a retiree with a modest income, he can’t really tap that wealth because he’d have to make payments on it, barring something stupid like a reverse mortgage. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2024, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019/220 "2024-12-07T21:00:55Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Exactly. In old movies or books, people talked about millionaires in awed tones. We watch a lot of old movies, and whenever there’s a sum of money mentioned that everybody in the movie gasps when they hear, we google its current value. I can remember a diamond bracelet that cost $25k. That’s a lot, but not outrageous for the one shown. In today’s dollars that’s nearly $600k. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share/1011019.md?page=12)