Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than the rest of America's taxpayers, new study finds

[Shadowy Man]

Is the Strategic Defence Initiative still going? I presime a lot of programs (including that one) got the axe when the USSR dissolved.

Apollo program ended. Space Shuttle Program ended, as well as its immediate successor, the Ares rocket. Now we are on SLS.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Is the Strategic Defence Initiative still going? I presime a lot of programs (including that one) got the axe when the USSR dissolved.

It is, it's just not strategic anymore. Or defensive.

 

[bilby]

Can you think of any government program that has ever been discontinued after congress has created it? I know I can't.

So, this rhetorical question is one that you found compelling. You saw it, and thought, "That's a killer argument. The government is out of control, and only a radical outsider like Donald Trump can save us from it".

The problem being that it's actually a total and utter lie. Ask an uninformed person - that is, almost any US citizen - that question, and a large fraction of them will start to genuinely believe that no government program has ever been discontinued. But they will be utterly wrong to believe that.

This is what propaganda is. Making a lot of people believe a lie. Why? To get Trump (re)elected.

Ask informed people, and you get a list as long as your arm of discontinued programs. The whole thing is exposed as a cruel hoax. So, how do you respond to that?

Do you try to get informed? Maybe you start actually looking for the answers to such supposedly rhetorical questions, to find out if the things they are hinting at are lies. Maybe you start to question the firmness of your own beliefs - after all, you believed this lie because it fitted with what you already wanted to be the truth.

Or do you look a bit deeper, and ask yourself, "If Donald Trump had a good reason to deserve my support, why does he tell me lies about reality, rather than telling me things that support his rule that are true?" If there are any really good arguments, why are so many bad arguments being made, and where are those good ones?

Maybe you should think long and hard about the possibility that all of your "reasons" for supporting Trump are untrue. Maybe he's not even a "radical outsider", but is just a lying piece of shit who has only his own wealth and status in mind, and doesn't care if he utterly destroys your life, livelihood, family and country in his pursuit of those things.

Do you have the bravery to challenge your own pre-conceptions in that way? It takes serious balls to stand up, not only against a big, powerful, propaganda campaign that tells you lie after lie, but also against your own ingrown desire to believe that you have not been duped.

Stand up for yourself. Stop believing the lies. When you next see a rhetorical question that makes you think, "That's so true! The whole system needs to be changed!", stop and check - is it true? Or are you going to make a clown of yourself by putting the question to people who are going to stop and check, and then are going to expose your gullability?

 

[Emily Lake]

On the other hand, I've never understood why capital gains aren't taxed the same as any other income when they're realized.

I don't understand what it is you don't understand.
There area short term and long term flat rates when they are realized. Kinda like, well, anything else.

WHY are they flat rates?

When you realize gains, that becomes actual real income. It should be included in your income for that year. If that pushes some of your aggregate income into a higher bracket, it should be taxed at the same higher rate as any other income. If your gains are small, and you have no other income, then it should get taxed at a lower rate.

Income is income is income, and all of it should be taxed on the same scale. That's my take on it.

 

[laughing dog]

On the other hand, I've never understood why capital gains aren't taxed the same as any other income when they're realized.

I don't understand what it is you don't understand.
There area short term and long term flat rates when they are realized. Kinda like, well, anything else.

WHY are they flat rates?

When you realize gains, that becomes actual real income. It should be included in your income for that year. If that pushes some of your aggregate income into a higher bracket, it should be taxed at the same higher rate as any other income. If your gains are small, and you have no other income, then it should get taxed at a lower rate.

Income is income is income, and all of it should be taxed on the same scale. That's my take on it.

It’s a direct application of the notion of horizontal equity and of economic efficiency in economic theory and practice.

You’d find the idea that income is income for tax purposes in most public finance textbooks.

 

[Elixir]

When you realize gains, that becomes actual real income. It should be included in your income for that year.

It is.

 

[Emily Lake]

On the other hand, I've never understood why capital gains aren't taxed the same as any other income when they're realized.

I don't understand what it is you don't understand.
There area short term and long term flat rates when they are realized. Kinda like, well, anything else.

WHY are they flat rates?

When you realize gains, that becomes actual real income. It should be included in your income for that year. If that pushes some of your aggregate income into a higher bracket, it should be taxed at the same higher rate as any other income. If your gains are small, and you have no other income, then it should get taxed at a lower rate.

Income is income is income, and all of it should be taxed on the same scale. That's my take on it.

It’s a direct application of the notion of horizontal equity and of economic efficiency in economic theory and practice.

I don't know what that means. What is horizontal equity?

You’d find the idea that income is income for tax purposes in most public finance textbooks.

Why don't we treat it like it's all income regardless of source? I'm not arguing, I'm asking. It's never made sense to me.

 

[Emily Lake]

When you realize gains, that becomes actual real income. It should be included in your income for that year.

It is.

Except that capital gains are taxed differently than other incomes.

 

[Elixir]

When you realize gains, that becomes actual real income. It should be included in your income for that year.

It is.

Except that capital gains are taxed differently than other incomes.

Sure - and long term capital gains gains are taxed differently from short term ones. Wages are treated as short term, and taxed as earned income.
You can probably educate me on this because I am a tax ignoramus who would rather pay higher taxes than learn about it.
But I’ve seen the forms and given the tax dude the info he asks for. Looks to me like there are all kinds categories of wages, taxable interest income, short and long term asset sales incomes with an array of deductions like mileage, selling expenses etc., acquisition of material assets that are valued with offsetting depreciation schedules, and a bunch of other taxable stuff.
Somewhere in the main form there’s a box labeled “total taxable income” and afaik everything in that box is subject to the same rate or rate graduations.
Is that wrong?

 

[Emily Lake]

When you realize gains, that becomes actual real income. It should be included in your income for that year.

It is.

Except that capital gains are taxed differently than other incomes.

Sure - and long term capital gains gains are taxed differently from short term ones. Wages are treated as short term, and taxed as earned income.
You can probably educate me on this because I am a tax ignoramus who would rather pay higher taxes than learn about it.
But I’ve seen the forms and given the tax dude the info he asks for. Looks to me like there are all kinds categories of wages, taxable interest income, short and long term asset sales incomes with an array of deductions like mileage, selling expenses etc., acquisition of material assets that are valued with offsetting depreciation schedules, and a bunch of other taxable stuff.
Somewhere in the main form there’s a box labeled “total taxable income” and afaik everything in that box is subject to the same rate or rate graduations.
Is that wrong?

Lol, I don't know!

@laughing dog feel like giving us some education here?

 

[laughing dog]

On the other hand, I've never understood why capital gains aren't taxed the same as any other income when they're realized.

I don't understand what it is you don't understand.
There area short term and long term flat rates when they are realized. Kinda like, well, anything else.

WHY are they flat rates?

When you realize gains, that becomes actual real income. It should be included in your income for that year. If that pushes some of your aggregate income into a higher bracket, it should be taxed at the same higher rate as any other income. If your gains are small, and you have no other income, then it should get taxed at a lower rate.

Income is income is income, and all of it should be taxed on the same scale. That's my take on it.

It’s a direct application of the notion of horizontal equity and of economic efficiency in economic theory and practice.

I don't know what that means. What is horizontal equity?

Incomes of the same value, regardless of the source(s), are treated the same.

You’d find the idea that income is income for tax purposes in most public finance textbooks.

Why don't we treat it like it's all income regardless of source? I'm not arguing, I'm asking. It's never made sense to me.

Special interests and poor economic reasoning is the short answer.

 

[Emily Lake]

Special interests and poor economic reasoning is the short answer.

The older I get, the more I think that paid lobbyists might be the greatest evil we ever came up with.

Although I'm also pretty cynical about the stock market, and especially derivatives.

 

[bilby]

The purpose of any system is, by definition, to do the thing(s) the designers wanted that system to do.

From that tautology, we can see that the primary purpose of the US tax system is to make people hate the US tax system, and by extension, taxation as a whole.

A tax system that was instead designed to fund government in an equitable and fair way, would look totally different (and individual taxpayers would barely notice it).

But the US tax system is designed by politicians, many of whom are ideologically opposed to the existence of (and therefore to the funding of) government. And it shows.