Taxing the "rich"

The BBQ Pit
41

I wouldn’t draw the line at any particular percentage. Whichever percentage works out to fit my idea of rich is the number I would go with, if I had to go with one. To me, the only reason to use a percentage figure to define rich is to justify hitting those particular people with a larger tax rate, and perhaps to play on the resentment that some people feel toward those who have a lot more than they do.

What if the top income level in America was $50,000, and only 2% of the population reached that amount? Would you define them as rich? I don’t think so.

Again, no matter how you cut it, rich is a function of net worth rather than income or purchasing ability.

42

Uh, whut? “Rich” as a definition, at least in this thread, is needed to apply some new tax. If you are going to define it as people who have “lots of money left over after bills”, then apparently the way to get out of taxes is to go buy shit.

OK. “I’d base the definition more on net worth rather than income. That will shift the rich demographic to a higher age group.” looked like a suggestion.

43

I certainly would. You seem not to grasp the relative value of assets, preferring some amorphous number that defines “rich” in the absence of any relative measure. That is just ignorant.

44

Funny, that’s the same thing I think when Democrat politicians attempt to redefine wealth by framing it in terms of annual income.

And as some of the posts to this thread show, they are having some success.

I said no such thing. You are conflating two different things. Tax rates have traditionally been based on income. Wealth has traditionally been understood to apply to a person’s net worth. Obviously you don’t need to be wealthy to be taxed. So net worth isn’t what people are taxed on, their income is. The problem arises when certain politicians attempt to use income as a means to redefine wealth, and they do that because it has become generally accepted that the wealthy should pay higher taxes. So, in tried and true fashion, they try to change the terms to suit their purpose. A lot of people resent it that some people are rich while others are not, and they will happily support “sticking it to the rich” vs. simply being told that we ought to raise taxes at higher income levels.

I understand the relative value of assets; but I don’t think that if everyone is earning roughly the same amount of income that the upper two percent are ipso-facto rich. In other words, lets say that almost everyone in the country was making at least $48,000 a year. The fact that a few may be making $50,000 is not a significant enough difference to quality them as “rich”, even though they may be in the top 2% or whatever in terms of income. “Rich” is not another term for income, in other words, and percentages don’t have anything to do with it other than as a way to set a certain number of people apart for revenue collection purposes. Wealth is wholly dependent on assets and has nothing to do with whatever percentage of the population has less.

45

I’m with SenorBeef on this one, the term ‘rich’ just grates. After years of living off of around $20k before taxes, my income almost doubled to $42k/year with my new job. Let me tell ya, I feel pretty damn rich. I can eat out when I feel like, can justify buying any video game I want on the latest Steam sale, and can even buy as much steak as I care to eat. On top of all that, I can still pay off about $1,000 in debt every month. Hell if I know what I’d do with $1,000/month once the debt is paid off. Saying $250k isn’t rich is just plain idiotic.

46

Anyone making six figures and up should pay more taxes.

Too fucking bad if you are one of these people and don’t like it. Then give all your money to charity and go beg on the streets if it bugs you that much, you cheap asshole.

47

Here’s a way of characterizing the issue that conservatives will understand: Tax cuts are APPEASEMENT.

The rich demand tax cuts or else they won’t create jobs. So we give them a tax cut and what do they do? Of course–demand more tax cuts.

48

Kill the rich. Kill them and eat them. It’s really the only answer.

49

I don’t believe that is the point under consideration.

50

I know reality is a foreign concept to you, but please try to stay within hollerin’ distance with your analogies.

51

In other words you got nuthin’.

52

What about the truly wealthy whose income is all or mostly from capital gains? Aren’t they still paying a 15% tax on all their income? Forget the progressive income tax rates, that’s where the real crime is happening.

53

Yet, by your definition, I could be “rich” . :smiley:

54

Lol what?

Are you just so locked into the “OH AND YOUR SIDE DOES ” mentality of thinking and posting that no matter what something has to be countered with that?

The change from “rich” to “job creators” is very much Orwellian. They literally seek to stop people from using the word rich, and only use the word job creators. They do this because it’s more in line with the way they wish to change the public mindset towards taxation on higher incomes.

On the other hand, the idea of the democrats trying to take a complex issue like wealth vs income, on which there are meaningful differences, and they’re not attempting to simply replace the language because they’re two seperate concepts - this has absolutely nothing to do with that.

Income and wealth are seperate issues. A wealth tax would be difficult to implement. Calculating wealth is trickier than calculating income. Wealth also can be static - you’re not necesarily gaining wealth all the time. Wealth can also be gained in forms that aren’t really taxable - if your home’s value goes from 1m to 1.2m, should you pay tax on that 200,000 because in theory your net worth has increased by that much? What if all of your net worth is tied up in that house and you simply lack the cash to be able to do that?

Taxing income is simpler, because you’re taxing when something is increased. There’s always more leftover after you tax it. If you tax static wealth, you can eventually wear it down to nothing, because wealth isn’t necesarily the sign of growth in any particular time. We know by taxing income people have the money to pay the taxes, since they’re getting paid in liquid assets. They may not have the liquid assets to cover a wealth tax. Income is easier to measure.

There are very valid reasons for treating income and wealth differently, so the idea that democrats are just trying to use a literal simple word swap to replace one concept with the other is absurd. Seriously, if you see someone make a point about something, and your brain automatically compells you to say “but yeah your side _____ so we’re even” in every single case, there’s a 99% chance that everything you say is worthless.

Not only that, but your point doesn’t even make sense beyond that. If the democrats tried to tax wealth, rather than income, you’d fucking flip your lid, so it makes no sense to blame them for wanting to tax income as if that were somehow sneaky or inferior.

55

This might be one of the dumbest things you’ve ever said.

Seriously? Someone who can afford to spend $2,000,000/yr on hookers and blow isn’t rich? Seriously???

What if he chose to spend $100,000,000 (out of his $100,100,000 annual income) on hookers and blow? Still not rich?

56

When the Starving Artist tax code is adopted, offshore accounts will be largely replaced by a boom in the cocaine and hooker industries (thus ushering America into another Golden Age).

57

I kind of doubt it would be sustainable, but what the hell, sign me up.

58

Good grief! That post is so full of answering arguments I never made that I’m at a loss where to start. It also ignores the question you posed in the OP, which is why some people raise their eyebrows at the term “rich” and put it in quotes, and which is what I’ve been trying to explain to you. If you want to move the goalposts, you should at least do so in advance of expecting an answer.

Yep, seriously. Rich is not the same as income. Rich happens after the fact. What if a person were to hit the lottery and win a million dollars and immediately lose it all in a bad business venture. Would you still call him rich? Rich isn’t what’s coming in; it’s what you have. I don’t know how many times and ways I’m going to be expected to say that.

If you want to tax people based on their income, then all you have to do is say that. There is no reason other than cynical political semantics to attempt to boost affluent income earners into the realm of “the rich” in order to do so.

59

I didn’t move the goalposts of my original point, I’m responding to your specific point.

My point was that the republicans are literally attempting to replace the word “rich” with “job creator” - just a literal word swap.

You responded by saying yeah well democrats talk about income sometimes when their statements might be more appropriate to direct at wealth. Whatever this is, it isn’t remotely a word swap to attempt to control the debate. “Income” and “wealth” are not simply two phrases meant to indicate the same thing (as for republicans “rich” and “job creator” are), so these statements are not remotely analogous. So your attempt to say “yeah but your side does something similar! hypocrite!” failed massively.

60

I would also just like to reiterate the main point of this thread, since it’s just tossed aside. The argument is not whether or not 250K/year is rich (or in reality it’s 380k). Because, as I said, someone making 380k is not taxed a dollar more if we increase the 380k+ tax rate. In fact, let’s say we increased the 380k+ bracket by 3%.

If a person made 400k, only their last $20k of taxes would go up by 3%. So only 1/20th of their tax rate goes up by 3%. Which is to say that their overall tax rate only increases 0.15%, or less than a fifth of a percent. Someone making 500k in this scenario would only pay 3% extra on their last $120k of income, which means a rough overall tax burden increase of 0.75%.

So in other words, to even feel this tax, to have their overall tax rate increased by 1%, someone has to be making around $550,000. To see a tax increase of 2%, someone would have to be making around 1.15 million a year.

So my whole point was the argument of “people that make 250k (or, corrected, 380k!) aren’t rich!” is irrelevant. They’re not the ones who will be taxed. The only way you can think that it’s a meaningful counter-argument is if you think you only have one tax rate and it goes up depending on what bracket you’re in, but this is simply not how our tax code works.

It doesn’t matter if 380k is rich. People making 380k will have a 0% tax increase in this scenario. Someone making $550k will have a 1% tax increase. Someone making 1.2 million will have a 2% tax increase. And this, again, refers to post-deduction income, meaning that the people in question will actually be taking home far more than the abovementioned numbers.

Does that put anything into perspective?