The ones with the absolute most, are, by and large, contributing the absolute least?
Ah but they’re contributing in many other ways! Like, um… uh… let me think for a second…
Hmmm… I’m sure it’ll come back to me eventually…
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/
I hate to be that guy but the top 5% pays nearly 50% of all income taxes paid.
Don’t get me wrong the system is broken.
And the top 10% owns 67% of all the wealth (I’m not seeing an option to show just the top 5%). Considering how many millions and billions of dollars they all own, it only makes sense that they’re also paying the most. Especially since they can easily afford it without lowering their standard of living.
Absolutely agreed they can afford it. I just don’t like having disingenuous data presented. The % shown makes it look like they’re not paying as much taxes as the rest of us. The reality is they pay the most. We shouldn’t have to stoop to creating fuzzy charts, we don’t need to because the other numbers are even worse, as you have shown. They own 67% of all the wealth, which is insane.
I just don’t like having disingenuous data presented
The difference between fighting disingenuous data and reframing the issue to favor another party is the degree in which the so-called disingenuous aspect actually matters.
In this case, the fact that the top 4% pay materially more than the rest doesn’t actually matter because they own the vast majority of the wealth. If that same wealth were evenly distributed, more of it would be paid into the system. And that is the point.
What you are doing is not representing the other side of a disingenuous issue, what you are doing is framing the issue in a way that favors the wealthy by citing a statistic that is beside the point.
That in itself is dishonest and a talking point that the wealthy use regularly to try and convince people that they are actually the good guys.
The graph is showing who pays the least as a percentage of family income. I really don’t think it’s disingenuous to be talking about tax rates as percentages rather than the total amounts paid.
The % shown makes it look like they’re not paying as much taxes as the rest of us.
That’s because proportionally, they are paying less. Millionaires and billionaires are paying taxes at a lower rate then everyone else, even though they have so much more disposable income.
I don’t know what your ideal version of talking about this would be, but these three facts, that the top 1% pay the least proportionally, the top 5% pay the most in absolute terms, and the top 10% control two thirds of all the wealth, are all related in a pretty basic way.
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming all have no state income tax. Am I missing something, or is this graph just misinformation?
Penny power bitches.
Looks like mods gay
i’d be ok if we move income tax onto the corpo side of things.
Would mean that it’s the companies responsibility to pay that tax, and no longer forces the IRS to go after joe shmoe, who fudged his finger on a 0 while it was still wet.
Or we could also just remove individual taxes, and tax corpos, that’s where all money is anyway.
You can’t tax companies.
Where do you think business and property taxes come from?
From your pocket. Are you really that naive?
yeah which is exactly why i dont want to fucking pay tax myself. Just let the fucking corpo that pays me do it instead.
But it still comes out of your pocket.
The optimal clearing price for a good or service doesn’t map to the tax rate. That’s why schemes like a gas tax cut and cuts to real estate rates don’t reduce the price of energy or rent. Also why voucher programs and other tax rebates tend to pair with inflationary prices.
Businesses just pocket the gains in the same way they’re forced to eat the losses when taxes rise.
Well, I don’t know how it works in US, but tax cuts do result in lower prices here in UK. For example, we have 0% VAT on groceries and they tend to be cheaper than elsewhere in Europe.
And no sane business will eat losses, that’s how you run out of business. So every tax penny always comes from your pocket. Always.
For example, we have 0% VAT on groceries and they tend to be cheaper than elsewhere in Europe.
The rest of Europe has some strict protectionist policies on food imports to prop up their own agricultural economies. UK is a net importer, so it gets to buy out of both the US and EU agriculture surplus.
Fly over to the US (which doesn’t have a sales tax on groceries) and compare prices to Mexico (which also doesn’t have a sales tax on groceries). You’ll consistently find US prices to be higher because (a) vendors know Americans have more money so they can be charged higher prices and (b) the US is a net-agg exporter and regularly dumps its surplus into Mexican agg markets. This has destroyed the Mexican agg sector and produced a bunch of north-bound migration as a result. But it also makes food rates in Mexico cheaper, as you can bid between local output (produced at lower-than-US wage rates) and surplus foreign imports (sold at dumping rates, because there’s too much of it).
And no sane business will eat losses
Businesses routinely eat losses. Some businesses have literally never turned a profit - Lyft, AirBnB, and Reddit have never shown a profit. Amazon famously took 20 years to show a profit, with Tesla and Spotify coming in close behind.
But even after becoming profitable, firms will periodically gain or lose profit margin relative to the prevailing market. A company with a 10% profit margin in Year 1 that sees the marginal rate fall to 8% in Year 2 can’t necessarily raise prices to increase profits, because increasing prices will cut into sales volume.
Companies that rely on large pools of customers and lengthy supply chains can and will periodically operate at a loss on the fringes of their business, if they see those fringes as loss-leaders with the potential for growth in future years. Walmart pioneered this strategy back in the 1980s, building unprofitable storefronts in growing neighborhoods under the theory that stacking a claim early on was easier than acquiring property after a development had been completed and filled in.
So every tax penny always comes from your pocket.
Just the opposite. All tax revenue must ultimately come from business revenues, as businesses fund the salaries of the state’s labor force. In a state like Alaska or a country like Saudi Arabia, residents get a negative tax based on the gross exports of the local business interests in a given year.
In states like California and New York, the tax base is entirely predicated on the high incomes of locals. And those high incomes are predicated on tech and finance companies paying out enormous salaries. These are functionally taxes paid by the business to employ high-demand staffers, who predominantly live in these states.
States invest in infrastructure to attract workers (most commonly public utilities, police/fire/EMS, and schools). Skilled workers become a magnet for businesses. And businesses pay taxes - both directly to the state and indirectly through taxation on salaries.
Get rid of the infrastructure and public services (as Kansas tried to do a few years back) and you lose the workers. You lose the workers and you lose the businesses. You lose the business and you lose the tax base.
Because, in the end, all tax revenue comes from business activity. If you have a bunch of consumers who do nothing but eat, your state has no real revenue stream.
The rest of Europe has some strict protectionist policies on food imports to prop up their own agricultural economies. UK is a net importer, so it gets to buy out of both the US and EU agriculture surplus.
Britain was part of EU just recently and still has the same policies for the most part. And being a net importer it means that prices should be higher. And they actually did increase after Brexit.
Fly over to the US and compare prices to Mexico
There’s no point comparing two countries so far apart in economical development. The prices in Mexico are lower because Mexican labour is much cheaper. You should compare US to similar countries like Canada or European counterparts.
Some businesses have literally never turned a profit - Lyft, AirBnB, and Reddit
You misunderstand their business model. You are not a consumer of their product, you ARE the product. And their business model is not to turn profit on intercations with you, but to milk venture capital. The side effect is that their actual profit is not treated as profit from tax perspective, so they have free money essentially.
A company with a 10% profit margin in Year 1 that sees the marginal rate fall to 8% in Year 2 can’t necessarily raise prices to increase profits, because increasing prices will cut into sales volume.
A successful management will think in decades, not years. Just like a good investor. There are good years and there are bad years, but the balance sheet must workout in the end. Also businesses has plenty of other ways to increase profits: redundancies, wage stagnation, debt, etc.
All tax revenue must ultimately come from business revenues
A business is a virtual entity. No matter how you twist it, taxes are paid by people. A business can’t pay shit, it’s just a record in the Company House.
This is hard to look at!
Tax the rich!
The rich don’t have income, they are not represented here at all.
The rich don’t have income
They certainly have revenue.
And it’s taxed differently and not present on these graphs.
And it’s taxed differently
More “taxed not at all”.
Well, that’s a different problem.
I guess I need to start making a lot more money, so I can pay lower taxes.
You will pay far more taxes. These stats are just based on percentages. The rich pay more in taxes each year than most people will make in their entire lives. As someone who makes a ton of money and pays a crap ton of taxes, the people who make these graphics are clueless idiots.
This graphic is based on the percentage of income paid to taxes. A family making $500k a year paying a higher dollar amount than one making $50k a year is expected, but the higher earners should also be paying a higher percentage because 20% to them means a lot less sacrifice than 20% to a low income family. The sacrifice of not buying that third or fourth house is a lot less than whether the low income family goes to the doctor for a checkup.
Taxes should be treated like insurance. If you’re more likely to use social services, then you should pay more taxes. Those who do not require public social services should not pay taxes at all.
Taxes should be treated like insurance. If you’re more likely to use social services, then you should pay more taxes. Those who do not require public social services should not pay taxes at all.
Who’s more likely to need and benefit from a well funded police force? A wealthy man with a lot of property that needs to be protected? Or a poor man with little property, nothing to lose, and a grudge against the rich man hoarding his wealth?
The wealthy have their own security. Police is for the poor.
Clearly you’ve never done a hard day’s work in your miserable life, which I hope doesn’t last much longer. People like you disgust me.
I worked my way up from poverty. And I did it the hard way. Heat stroke. Broken bones. 75 hour work weeks. Coming home every day covered in dirt and sweat and too tired to even shower.
Now I make good money and I am honored to pay taxes. Taxes kept me from the brink. Taxes funded the work-study programs, the food banks I visited, the shelters I stayed at while homeless. I pay a TON of taxes and that is fucking GREAT. It’s an investment in my neighbors. I want to live in a good place. I want others to have the opportunities I did.
And I don’t fucking delude myself into thinking I made it out because I’m just that awesome. I worked hard, but I also got LUCKY. My taxes make it more possible for others to follow in my footsteps.
You’re such a funny 13 yo kid…
So high income people don’t use roads, fire, police, the FAA, tax breaks for businesses, etc? They don’t indirectly benefit when their lower income employees, people at the store, people that use whatever drives the high income people’s earnings, etc. are using these social services including food assistance and Medicaid? Do high income people just live in a magical bubble where people have no interaction and connections to each other and they earn money without the input of anyone else? I’d love to live in this fantasy land with you.
No one needs lower income employees.
