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What to do about Jeff?

kellyb said:
Is that accounting for capital gains, loopholes, deductions, etc?
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I believe so because it is the actual amount from the total taxes line and the AGI from the return.

Probably does not include tax exempt bonds and some other items. Also doesn't include payroll taxes.
 
Disbelief said:
But do the top 1% earn 39% of the money or more than that?
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As I said it depends upon what someone considers as fair.
I think they pay a fair share and I am not in the 1% (anymore).

I think table five says they earned 20% of the income.
 
eeyore1954 said:
As I said it depends upon what someone considers as fair.
I think they pay a fair share and I am not in the 1% (anymore).

I think table five says they earned 20% of the income.
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Yeah, the concept of "fair" is a personal opinion more than an objective fact.

I see this as just... wrong.
https://www.politifact.com/wisconsi...-sanders-madison-claims-top-01-americans-hav/
The top 0.1 percent was composed of 160,000 families with average wealth of $72.8 million. All told, they owned 22 percent of the nation’s wealth.

Meanwhile, the bottom 90 percent -- 144 million families with average wealth of $84,000 -- owned only 22.8 percent of the wealth.

In other words, the top 0.1 percent and the bottom 90 percent of U.S. households own virtually the same share of all the nation's wealth.
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The standard of living (including life expectancy!) is falling for the lower brackets. It's not that America can't afford the universal benefits seen in the other developed nations, but we can't without taxing the uber rich more.
 
eeyore1954 said:
Depends upon what you consider to be a fair share.

The top .1% do typically pay the highest rate.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2016-update/
Table 8. 27.67%

Or The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (39.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.1 percent).
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The overwhelming majority of the wealth of the 1% is not classed as Income, it's classed as Capital Gains, which is taxed at a lower rate. Further, the 1% have far more access to tax shelters and other loopholes and "incentives" that help them shield their wealth from taxes. The main reason so many contribute to charities is for the tax breaks that result.

In fact, among the top 20 wealthiest individuals and corporations, most not only do not pay any notable amount in net taxes, but a few even received enough rebates and incentives to have negative taxes.

Looking only at income misses most of the picture. Further, it also fails to take into account the disproportionate impact of taxes on the wealth of the lower brackets compared to the upper brackets. In order for the tax rates for the top 1% to have a similar impact on total wealth that the 25% income tax rate has on the median income bracket, they would have to pay double or triple that rate with no recourse to shelters or loopholes.

Disbelief said:
But do the top 1% earn 39% of the money or more than that?
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The top 1% own a bit more than 40% of the nation's total wealth; but that's a bit misleading without context.

The top 1% own more wealth than the entire bottom 90% combined. Changing the numbers a bit, the top 20% own 90% of all the wealth in the nation. 90%, leaving only 10% for the bottom 80% of us. Further, the share of wealth owned by the top 1% has continued to increase, while the share owned by the bottom 90% has continued to decline, further widening the gap.

Add to that, the bottom 90% also carries 73% of all the debt in the nation, further increasing the inequality.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-in-the-past-50-years/?utm_term=.d94231809928
 
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kellyb said:
Works for me, but I wasn't really joking about also taking most of his assets/wealth. Money is power, and that is far too much for any one person to have.
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What do you think the limit should be?
 
Mycroft said:
What do you think the limit should be?
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Off the top of my head, I guess really firm taxation should start decreasing wealth accumulation starting around $10 million or so. Not a hard cap, but enough to where it'll take a few more decades of work to double or triple it from there. Something like that.
 
luchog said:
The overwhelming majority of the wealth of the 1% is not classed as Income, it's classed as Capital Gains, which is taxed at a lower rate.
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it's classed as Capital Gains, which is taxed at a lower rate.
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Not sure what you mean because capital gains are income and are included in the charts I pointed to. Now there is such a thing as unrealized capital gains which is wealth not income and that is not taxed at all until the property is disposed or death.

The main reason so many contribute to charities is for the tax breaks that result.
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I don't know how you can ascertain the motives of those who donate large sums to charity. Of course they usually do so in the most tax advantageous way.

The charts I showed are taxable income before itemized deductions and charitable contributions are an itemized deduction.

In fact, among the top 20 wealthiest individuals and corporations, most not only do not pay any notable amount in net taxes, but a few even received enough rebates and incentives to have negative taxes.
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Do you have any links for that as it pertains to individuals?

Looking only at income misses most of the picture.
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I agree with that.

Further, it also fails to take into account the disproportionate impact of taxes on the wealth of the lower brackets compared to the upper brackets. In order for the tax rates for the top 1% to have a similar impact on total wealth that the 25% income tax rate has on the median income bracket, they would have to pay double or triple that rate with no recourse to shelters or loopholes.
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Why should it have a similar impact? I don't think it should.
 
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Darat said:
When you demonstrate the facts behind your initial claims of his tax situation I'll consider linking to the many on line reports of how his wealth is structured....
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Fair enough. Let's start with taxation of stock sales. It's been proposed upthread that one way Bezos generates income is by selling stock. For the sake of argument, let's assume that's true.

Hopefully the premise that stock sales are taxed is not controversial or disputed in any way. But just in case, here's a few articles that demonstrate that paying taxes on stock sales is taken for granted as a normal part of selling stock:

https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/tax-penalties-for-selling-stock.aspx
https://www.investopedia.com/taxes/...alculate-taxes-owed-on-stock-sales-2013-04-09
https://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/investing_taxes.moneymag/index2.htm

So I think we can agree that in the normal course of things, when (if) Jeff Bezos sells stock, he pays taxes on it just like everyone else. Which brings us to the conclusion that if you want to claim that Bezos exploits some tax loophole to avoid paying taxes on stock sales, the burden is on you to describe the loophole and demonstrate that Bezos is exploiting it.
 
eeyore1954 said:
Not sure what you mean because capital gains are income and are included in the charts I pointed to. Now there is such a thing as unrealized capital gains which is wealth not income and that is not taxed at all until the property is disposed or death.
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No, that's not the case. Income is defined and taxed differently in the US tax code than Capital Gains are. My comments were a bit oversimplified, as there are two types of Capital Gains, and they are taxed at different rates. For the purposes of this discussion, I was referring to Long Term Capital Gains -- assets held for longer than one year -- which are the bulk of the Capital Gains that comprise the wealth of the 1%.

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/an...-between-income-tax-and-capital-gains-tax.asp
 
eeyore1954 said:
Why should it have a similar impact? I don't think it should.
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Because otherwise the tax is regressive and effectively penalizes people for being poor. The less you have, the less you should be taxed.

And I think you're ignoring the scale of the problem.

The US median income is a little below 60,000, which is taxed at a rate of roughly 25%, based on the latest 2017 rates. The highest tax bracket is just under 40%, which requires an income of 400,000 to 500,000 depending on filing type.

Let's break that down. At 25%, the person making 60,000 will have a tax burden of 15,000, and therefore a net income of 45,000. One person can manage to survive on this moderately well. A family cannot, and that 15,000 can mean the difference between affording to pay for medication and food in the same month, or being forced to choose between them. Or it can mean being able to afford a new car when the old one dies, or being stuck riding the bus.

By comparison, someone making 400,000 with a tax bracket of 40% has a tax burden of 160,000, and a net income of 240,000. That's over five times the median income individual makes, and that 160,000 is not going to make a significant difference in their lives. At most, they'll have to downgrade the Ferrari to a Corvette, and vacation in Key West instead of the French Riviera.

Likewise that median income is not going to allow the family to buy a house, whereas the upper-income has the ability to own a primary residence and a summer house. The median income is going to find it effectively impossible to save for retirement, whereas the upper-income has investments for retirement, and quite possibly tax shelters as well, further reducing his tax burden and increasing income.

And the moment you get into the millions, the tax burden is going to be easily ignored, it will have no significant impact on the life of the millionaire. at 2,000,000, they will still be netting 1,200,000. Few people can spend that much money, and most of it will be going into investments and tax shelters that will reduce the tax burden even farther.

And by the time you get into the really big money, 10,000,000 or more, you're reaching the bracket where you can start paying politicians to pass legislation that reduced your taxes, even though you can easily afford to pay far more without the slightest noticible impact to your own life and lifestyle.

And, again, this is just Income. In real life, the overwhelming majority of the wealth of income brackets over about 1-200,000 will come from investments, aka Capital Gains, which are only taxed at 20%, cutting their tax burden almost in half, give or take.

The tax burden should absolutely have a similar impact to all people, or you're no longer looking at a society based on equality, you're looking at a society based on privilege. An equal society would greatly reduce the tax burden on lower income brackets, moderately increase it on upper income brackets, close shelters and loopholes, and bring Capital Gains rates in line with Income rates.
 
luchog said:
The overwhelming majority of the wealth of the 1% is not classed as Income, it's classed as Capital Gains, which is taxed at a lower rate.
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eeyore1954 said:
Not sure what you mean because capital gains are income and are included in the charts I pointed to.
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I believe luchog is referring to long term capital gains while you are referring to short term capital gains.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/capital-gains-tax-rates/
In 2018 the capital gains tax rates are either 0%, 15% or 20% for most assets held for more than a year. Capital gains tax rates on most assets held for less than a year correspond to ordinary income tax brackets (10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% or 37%).
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caveman1917 said:
You seem to dream primarily of "doing business with" the bourgeoisie. Tell me, what kind of anti-capitalist revolutionary (whether it be Marx, Lenin, Parsons or Bakunin - since you felt the need to bring my sig line into it) gets his panties in a knot over the thought that the bourgeoisie might not "do business with" them? If you think Marxism is a way of doing business with the bourgeoisie then I'd posit you are the one misinterpreting Marx according with your own bias.
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Your strawman is pretty absurd. I don't dream of "doing business" with the bourgeoisie, but I do it all the time (also with Jeff Bezos) and so do you (but maybe not with Jeff). The bourgeoisie owns most of the stuff that we need to live, which is why everybody is forced to do business with it. Unless you stole the laptop that you're using to write your posts, you did business with the bourgeoisie! Unless you grow your own food, you do business with the bourgeoisie ...
You and your sig line revel in devastation, destruction and annihilation. Karl Marx didn't. It's as simple as that. And he wouldn't have owned the anti-communist quotation because it's anti-communist. But so are you, apparently.

ETA: Since you seem so concerned with anti-communist inventions of fake quotes and brought my sig line into it. Here's a fake quote the Chicago Tribune attributed to Lucy Parsons:

You know what the response of Parsons and the other anarchists was when this fake quote was attributed to her? They owned it, recuperated it and started using it as if true. A bit like how gay people recuperate the term faggot. You know what they didn't do? Get all upset that it would make their position unappealing to the bourgeoisie who might not "do business with them" anymore.
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Parsons and "the other anarchists" appear to be anti-communist idiots. Faggot was just a stupid word. Gay people didn't recuperate the accusations that they were all perverted pedophiles.


ETA: Anti-communists refuse to give up the idea that the fake Lenin quotation wasn't actually written by Marx: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12396127#post12396127
 
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caveman1917 said:
You know what the response of Parsons and the other anarchists was when this fake quote was attributed to her? They owned it, recuperated it and started using it as if true.
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I'm going to have to weigh in and say that historical revisionism is indeed counter-revolutionary. Fake quotes need to be abolished alongside private property. :)

eta:
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or
the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact
and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true
and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.
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luchog said:
Because otherwise the tax is regressive and effectively penalizes people for being poor.
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The real poor are not penalized for being poor by taxes. They pay little or no net federal income taxes. Other taxes depend upon where they live.
Also is paying taxes a penalty?

The less you have, the less you should be taxed.
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That is the way it works now.


The US median income is a little below 60,000, which is taxed at a rate of roughly 25%, based on the latest 2017 rates. The highest tax bracket is just under 40%, which requires an income of 400,000 to 500,000 depending on filing type.

Let's break that down. At 25%, the person making 60,000 will have a tax burden of 15,000, and therefore a net income of 45,000.
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I don't think it really matters to your argument much but you should get your facts straight.
A single person no children making 60,000 had federal taxes of 5,639 in 2017 according to an H and R Block calculator. In 2018 it would go down to about 4,400. They also will have paid in about 4600 to social Security.

A married family with two children and 60,000 in wages had federal taxes of 1,713 in 2017. Around 3%

A family with 400,000 in wages had a tax of 102,773 a little above 25%

A family with about 49,000 in wages pays zero in federal income taxes and starts getting money back from the government.

One person can manage to survive on this moderately well. A family cannot,
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I know many people with families surviving moderately well on 60,000 a year even where I live in Long Island with a home.

And, again, this is just Income. In real life, the overwhelming majority of the wealth of income brackets over about 1-200,000 will come from investments, aka Capital Gains, which are only taxed at 20%, cutting their tax burden almost in half, give or take.
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I don't have the statistics in front of me but I believe the majority of income for incomes up to a million is still wages.

The tax burden should absolutely have a similar impact to all people,
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To do that you would have to take probably everything above 50,000 -100,000 in taxes. Some feel that is the proper answer, not me.
 
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