Skeptic Ginger
Nasty Woman
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Thanks. That's fascinating.
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Trump's tax returns
- Thread starter kookbreaker
- Start date
Thanks. That's fascinating.
I guess we just have different ideas about what "finished" means.
It's a joint committee -- House and Senate -- and decision-making is handled by the career professional staff. From the above link:
Also:
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/02/9194...een-reviewing-trump-tax-refund-for-nine-years
The Great Zaganza
Maledictorian
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- 32,779
thanks for the correction
I wouldn't call adding stuff to it, as being rewritten.
So little? The 22,010 people who earned over 10 million in 2018 paid an effective tax rate of 28%. https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-...tables-by-size-of-adjusted-gross-income#_grp1
The top marginal rate under Eisenhower may have been 90% but nobody paid it. The effective rate for the 1950's was closer to 17%. The super rich are paying more now than they did at 90%
And that's the problem with taxes, very few people understand them enough.
Like real talk. Do I, on some real deep and honest emotional level, think that I personally, pay enough taxes?
I... have... no... idea. Because I have no idea how much in taxes I pay for what. And have no idea what my taxes pay for. And I have no idea which of these are local, state, and Federal.
I mean don't misconstrue I understand the math. I understand it on an intellectual level. I'm fully "aware" of it. But it's always just a little bit too complicated for me to have a real visceral gut reaction to.
I know how much comes out of my paycheck every month and I know I have roads and a military and a fire department and a police force. Are my taxes "worth" it? Yes. No. I dunno. Yes I guess. But it's that weird kind of "Yes" that yes that if any number where any different (within normal parameters) I have a sneaking suspicion that my answer would still be "Yes" which doesn't mean "Yes" is the wrong answer but it's not a very useful one.
And I don't think I'm alone in this and I don't think this being the default "mental association with taxes" is an accident.
Like real talk. Do I, on some real deep and honest emotional level, think that I personally, pay enough taxes?
I... have... no... idea. Because I have no idea how much in taxes I pay for what. And have no idea what my taxes pay for. And I have no idea which of these are local, state, and Federal.
I mean don't misconstrue I understand the math. I understand it on an intellectual level. I'm fully "aware" of it. But it's always just a little bit too complicated for me to have a real visceral gut reaction to.
I know how much comes out of my paycheck every month and I know I have roads and a military and a fire department and a police force. Are my taxes "worth" it? Yes. No. I dunno. Yes I guess. But it's that weird kind of "Yes" that yes that if any number where any different (within normal parameters) I have a sneaking suspicion that my answer would still be "Yes" which doesn't mean "Yes" is the wrong answer but it's not a very useful one.
And I don't think I'm alone in this and I don't think this being the default "mental association with taxes" is an accident.
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Where does that come from? We get that "marginal" applies to the last dollar. Nobody ever pays the top marginal rate because it doesn't apply to their total income. But it's a big stretch to imagine that the wealthiest people in America are paying less now than they would have in the '50s. The concentration of wealth in America has intensified measurably in the last 30 years or so. Income, capital gains and inheritance tax rates have all dropped dramatically.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
In the UK we get an annual tax summary with a pie chart showing what we contributed to 15 different categories of public spending. So, for example, from the most recent one I know that I contributed £515 to state pensions, £28 to the EU budget, £49 to overseas aid etc. The biggest chunks are welfare and health (£962 and £605 respectively).
99% of people don't get inheritance of any real monetary value and don't even know what the capital gains tax is.
"Taxes" for most people is "I make X amount of dollars but when I take my paycheck home I only have Y percent of it to spend on my own wants and needs."
Talking about taxes that aren't sales, payroll, and a small handful of other taxes is just another variation on the whole "Well the economy is doing good because the stock market is going up!" thing. I don't care how good the stock market is doing if I'm eating my own shoes.
"Taxes" for most people is "I make X amount of dollars but when I take my paycheck home I only have Y percent of it to spend on my own wants and needs."
Talking about taxes that aren't sales, payroll, and a small handful of other taxes is just another variation on the whole "Well the economy is doing good because the stock market is going up!" thing. I don't care how good the stock market is doing if I'm eating my own shoes.
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xjx388
Penultimate Amazing
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This is a very interesting thought. We hear a lot about "fair share," but what the hell does that even mean? How can we measure what a "fair share," is? If you end up paying 15% of your income in tax and I end up paying 24%, is that "fair?" Better said, is that equitable?
I think it is in the only sense that matters: Did we each pay all taxes we were legally required to pay? Did you fill out the form, take every exemption you were entitled to, take advantage of every credit, use loopholes as legally designed -i.e., played with the numbers until the tax was as low as it can get legally? Then you paid your fair share, bottom line. The problem, of course, is the complexity of the tax code and the number of write-offs and loopholes only available to the rich and corporations. Another problem is the lack of resources to pursue the biggest tax evaders. Which means that it's entirely possible that Trump only had to pay $750. Amazon, as an example, has gotten away with paying zero taxes for several years and only paid about 1.2% in effective taxes in 2019.
So I always think of it in those terms when I think of the equity of the tax system. Our effective tax rate has been in the mid 20%s for a long time now. If my family can do that, I see no reason why Donald Trump and Amazon can't also do that. I'm all for simplifying the tax code so that all but the poorest of us pay 20-25% of all our income, regardless of source. It's a sad state of affairs when I know this is a political impossibility.
And I think something along those lines would help America massively. It wouldn't fix everything obviously, but it would give us a bedrock to argue from.
But again I've seen enough to accept that our taxes being too complicated for the average voter to fully get their head around is a feature, not a bug, to the people in power.
Yeah I've used similar arguments in the past and I agree mostly, the simple fact that literally nobody pays MORE taxes then they are literally forced to kind of settles the whole "Fair share" argument for all time.
I don't want to send up a signal flare to get the Internitarians in here with their "All taxes are theft!" chant going but taxes do always seem to be something everyone agrees "other" people should pay more of, and even the few who claim they are willing to pay more of their "fair share" never seem to be in a hurry to do it until someone makes them which... yeah kind of tips everyone hands a little doesn't it?
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But my statement was related but slightly different.
Right now anyone living in America raise your hand if you really, honestly and truly know how much you pay in taxes? And really think about it before you raise your hand.
When you buy a Coke do you know how much of that 75 cents is sales tax? Multiply that by everything you purchase. Do you know every weird one off tax you pay for special purchaes? On your investments? On your retirement?
If gave you a number that represented all the money you made this year could you really give me an accurate ballpark estimate of all the taxes of various kinds you paid this year?
I think that is a bigger deal then the actual legit end number being 22.2% or 22.5%. It's the fact that it's this big, complicated mystery.
Right now anyone living in America raise your hand if you really, honestly and truly know how much you pay in taxes? And really think about it before you raise your hand.
When you buy a Coke do you know how much of that 75 cents is sales tax? Multiply that by everything you purchase. Do you know every weird one off tax you pay for special purchaes? On your investments? On your retirement?
If gave you a number that represented all the money you made this year could you really give me an accurate ballpark estimate of all the taxes of various kinds you paid this year?
I think that is a bigger deal then the actual legit end number being 22.2% or 22.5%. It's the fact that it's this big, complicated mystery.
https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
Which is why I discussed it in the terms of effective tax rate. Because that is what is important. What is actually paid. You could run it up to 100% but what difference does it make if people don't pay it legally?
I'm not sure what you mean. In most states and cities, sales taxes are separate line items on the receipt, and any special assessments or fees would be listed separately too. Our pay stubs show the deductions for income tax withholding, FICA and Medicare. We get bills for our real estate taxes. If we don't know how much we pay in tax, it's not because we can't find out.
If you are asking whether we know how our tax dollars are spent, that's a whole different discussion.
There is no fair in taxation. I prefer the term legally mandated. Every time I hear someone say "fair share" I ask them to define it. I don't think it's ever been anything other than everyone else should pay more.
Nobody would agree on everything. But I think you might find common agreement that deductions and exemptions should be limited, that people in similar circumstances should be treated similarly, that people who earn more are benefitting more from living in our society and should pay more, and it should all be transparent. One of the suspicions we all have is that somebody else is getting a break that we can't get.
And the last big tax law included thousands of pages with notes handwritten in the margins. The legislators who passed it didn't understand it themselves, let alone the rest of us. That's not the way to do sensible tax policy.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
I've certainly voted for a party whose manifesto would result in me paying higher taxes.
Exactly. You need someone to make you pay more taxes. You aren't going to do it of your own volition.
You'll vote for more taxes, even on yourself, but you won't pay them voluntarily. That's... weird.
And yes there is a system setup to let individual citizens pay more taxes then they owe. It doesn't get a lot of use.
It's like saying "I'll vote for murder to be illegal, but I won't personally chose to stop killing people until the law passes and the government makes me."
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
The highlighted is news to me.
But if I vote to pay more taxes and I'm outvoted, wouldn't it be undemocratic to do that?
