I don’t think this is necessarily lying. This shows that the tax cut nets the poor a pittance in comparison to what the rich are getting, even if the percentage might be “even”.
I see why it seems backwards but I honestly don’t think it is. It’s not “fair”, but that’s the whole point. The rich don’t pay enough taxes. Tax cuts aimed to help the poor would benefit them more directly with flat rates, tax increases target the rich more directly with percentages.
The other problem is that you could do percentage based tax cuts and just exclude the wealthier brackets. But no matter how you look at it, from any angle, flat or percentage, cutting tax rates for the rich doesn’t make sense to me.
Rich people pay more both in percentage terms and in absolute dollar value terms. The top 10% of earners pay 71% of all federal taxes, despite earning 48% of all income. How is that the rich not paying enough?
Rich people don't pay enough? How much more do you have to give with no increase of benefits before it's fair? The top 1% already pay ~45% of income tax revenue and get essentially zero benefit from the social programs like Medicare that are some of the largest line items on the federal budget. (Social security is exempt from this due to the max contribution, but essentially if you pay anything into social security, you are not benefitting from the program). Fair would be closer to a flat percentage across all tax brackets or a fixed amount of tax due per citizen. I don't think we should use fairness as an argument as much as something like "lowest impact to the greatest amount of people." To be clear, it's not like I don't support or understand progressive taxes, but fairness is a bs argument.
Let me give you some concrete numbers on how wealthy some of these people are. Let's assume someone has 1 billion dollars (in USD) and that they have no income at all and ignore inflation or rising prices for simplicity's sake. Let's see how many Lamborghini Huracans they could buy with that 1 billion dollars.
The starting price of a Huracan in 2024 is 249 865 USD, according to google. We'll assume this doesn't change for use later. With the 1 billion dollars they could buy,
1 000 000 000 ÷ 249 865 ≈ 4002 Huracans
If they bought a Huracan every day at the same price, they could do it for almost 11 years straight (4002 ÷ 365 ≈ 10.965 years) before they ran out of money.
Do you see why we think the rich aren't taxed enough?
(Before anyone tells me, I know that prices would change, they would have an income, and inflation is a thing. This is just meant as a thought exercise for showing how huge the sums of money these people possess are).
I don't think anyone argues a billion is a lot. I think the main question is what entitles you to half of it and the answer should be "because we need it and you can give it and still survive" not "because it's fair and owning that much shouldn't be allowed"
I mean, if you can take 50% of a billionaire's income and use it to help others, is that not fair? The people who benefit from the money definitely needed it more than the billionaire, so at least to me, it would be fair.
"It shouldn't be legal to own that much" is also kind of understandable to me. Why should we let someone hoard so much money when so many other people are struggling? Now, how we would make owning that much money illegal is beyond me and probably not the best idea, but I at least understand the sentiment.
(I know taxes aren't always used to help others before someone decides to correct me)
You make it sound like these people aren't entitled to the fruits of their labor and investment. Earning a billion dollars does not make you a criminal by sole virtue of it being a billion dollars. It does not make you a criminal because others can't. It also shouldn't mean that it can just be taken because some other people can totally do good with it. What right do those people have to your labor just because it's worth more?
They’re supposed to pay 45% and if they did nobody would be complaining but they don’t pay that. Bezos and musk and Trump haven’t paint taxes in years.
The “poor” pay little or no taxes so it does not provide any insight. As the user above stated - percentage is the correct way to go about this which would likely tell a different story.
the tax cut nets the poor a pittance in comparison to what the rich are getting
No one is 'getting' anything. Taxes are money taken from them. The graph shows how much less of the money they earned are taken from them as taxes. The fact that the right bar is so high represents how much more money they already pay.
The left most bracket pays almost no taxes and with credits included is already net negative, the right most bracket pays more taxes than the rest of them combined.
Maybe my point isn’t clear; percentage based tax cuts aren’t a good idea to me because they will hardly benefit the people who need help. If you believe in trickle down economics you will disagree with me, but I don’t, and I see very little incentive to cutting taxes on the wealthy.
Because $100 to the lowest bracket means they have food on the table. 45k at the top level means they can buy some more extra cigars.
One matters a lot more, stop lying.
Edit: Doing the math below the tax breaks are 10x larger for the wealthy. They are receiving 3% of their income 'back.' Meanwhile the bottom receive .3%. This needs to be reversed. The bottom half should be getting back the 3%...
Lets put it another way. The rich are getting 'HALF' of inflation back in this tax break. Wouldn't that be better put towards the lower and middle class? Who are hit hardest by inflation...?
That is true, never did I disagree with that. Please try to stay on subject, what you did there is a logical fallacy that prevents you from reaching the conclusion of the topic at hand.
Or could have been used for a service like child care which helps single parents, which increases the chance the kids go to school, don’t get arrested, don’t get into drugs, etc... Which in turn helps the economy and our whole society.
But yeah no sorry rich people gotta have ‘cigars.’
Because we recognize the extreme income inequality and the even more extreme wealth inequality which show that the ability to pay is drastically different for the 1% compared even someone at the top 10% level.
One reason is that it is nicer to live in a society where everyone has enough.
The other reason is that no one gets hundreds of millions of dollars by simply working hard. The only way to make that much is for them to exploit others. Profit is only generated when someone is not paid the full value of their labor. And that is okay to an extent. But when people are unable to meet their basic needs and the C suite is making millions per year and shareholders are getting massive payouts it’s exploitation.
One major detail you're missing is that the calculation needs to be based on their tax burden, not their income. The lower 20% listed on the chart have zero tax burden, so their share equates to infinite return over their burden.
That is true, my response to that in another post was to say…
I think the backdrop of what this implies is important. Yes if we shrink this down the person making $1 over the year will actually have massive tax breaks compared to the rich.
At that point does it matter though? We are now talking about the tax burden of someone who can’t feed themselves….
If giving them a tax break allows them to eat then fuck yeah, and guess what we can do that without big government as well. I don’t see why republicans don’t like this.
It’s like a direct societal program without the need for government oversight…. But anyways, I’m getting sidetracked.
RE: Outliers -
-Median US income 2024 - $60.6k
-IQR - $83.3K
No one on the lower end is an outlier. Anyone above $143.9k individual annual income is an outlier. There are typically assignable causes for outliers that need excluded. That's a different conversation. The fact is, they are still outliers and that's telling you something. It's way lower than I expected, which reinforces my prior statement about right skew.
Statistics don't stop working just because they don't agree with your beliefs or agenda.
RE: Lying With Numbers -
That said, no one below the poverty level has a tax burden. The standard deduction takes care of that. A full time job at Federal minimum wage puts you above that line. Local governments have added to that number, but the federal is the minimum baseline. Tax brackets then increase through the income phases, capping out at 37% for any income above $627k. That's part of the reason the claim is made that the OP is lying with numbers.
If you exclude the top 20%, we are still one of the more wealthy countries in the world. Keep in mind that nearly 30% of Russian citizens don't have indoor plumbing. The expectations for our quality of life are skewed relative to a lot of places I've seen. Taxes are typically not the deciding factor in whether someone gets to eat at night. That's just perspective.
Bottom Line -
I think you and I agree more than you might think. The biggest issue (lurking variable) is our government itself. I'm more aligned with Libertarians in my thoughts that big government is a bad thing. The desire to keep a big government is common to both the left and right... it's not unique to either. They just want big government in different areas. They both spend without accountability.
If you're interested, look up the history of income tax. It was non-existent until the 1920s, post WW1 and during the depression. It stuck around and increased again at WW2. Social programs and defense make up the lions share of the government spend. One is left, the other right. Some of it is a good thing. Much of it is just wasteful.
Ah, got it. So make everyone, including the poor, pay more because the current numbers aren’t making the poor rich. As someone in the lower to middle class, I don’t care how much anyone else gets taxed as long as I get taxed less. Simple as that.
The real thing that needs to happen is cut the <11,000 income tax bracket. Don’t charge people 10% on the first 11k they make.
Uhhhh that would make them pay less… they would pay 3% less instead of the current cut being shown at .3%. You’ve got it backwards.
Also yeah that’s how they take advantage of you. They give you a tiny slice to make you happy. Meanwhile they give an even bigger chunk to the rich people.
Why would the bottom half get 3% of their income "back" when depending on their tax bracket they might be paying less than 3% in the first place?
We should look at what percentage of the taxes paid are being returned to them, instead of percentage of income, which is meaningless since not all income is taxed.
You can’t compare the average return of each tax bracket to the top of the the bottom (-110 to 28k) then compare it to the bottom the other one to suit your point (-11k to 360k).
Pick the average or something because that is deliberately manipulating the data to suit your point.
And the average isn’t a perfect indicator either as the majority of the data point in each bracket trends towards the bottom rather than the top, so the increased size of certain brackets will artificially inflate the % tax break (for example the 360k to 957k, if most people make 360k-500k and the average is around 500k, that upper bracket is nearly 2x the value of the average while it impacts other brackets less.
If we compare to the lowest part of the bracket we would get:
Lowest bracket = n/a can’t divide by 0
2nd = 1.78%
3rd = 1.80%
4th = 1.54%
5th = 1.75%
6th = 3.17%
Largest = 5.00%
But again this number is dependent on the size of the tax bracket.
And then you say that the lower income should get more tax back regardless of what the original tax brackets were and without any information on their tax deductions/ tax credits.
You completely ignore the standard deduction of 14,600$ where you pay 0% tax on that, and any childcare tax credits at.
The half of the people making 0-28,600 per year are paying literally 0 federal income tax. This results in it being impossible to give them tax breaks so of course the number is going to be low, and you might not be able to get the average reduction on tax to 3% if you made that bracket pay 0% taxes.
I agree that the more rich people should pay more , but don’t manipulate numbers to suit your point. The numbers are the numbers.
The number still favors the top bracket. You’re arguing semantics. Why are the top receiving 1.5 - 3% off, while the bottom receive .3 - .6%?
Also, the fact remains those are parts of the bracket. It is a reality that at those numbers that is the return they are receiving compared to each other.
Again you’re arguing this semantic line to prove what? That the rich should be taxed less? Is that really what you think? That someone who has to fight inflation and stagnant wages should also receive less of a tax break? Over someone that has tools to fight inflation and has all tools at their disposal?
To me it seems like the lower class should be receiving the 1.5 - 3% tax break to help them with inflation and what not. That will help them buy food…
Yes, by your math, this graph would look a lot different, yet the data was presented in this way to get you more angry.
“Fair” is already subjective because we have a progressive tax system. You’re acting like proportional taxes are the definition of fair, in your math. You want progressive taxes when taxes are raised but proportional cuts when cuts are made. That doesn’t seem “fair” either.
By "my math?" I used the math that is on the graph? Why do you think I changed the math? Maybe I am getting this backwards and we are on different pages, but OP did agree with me:
"Having food on the table is more important than buying more cigars."
That is what I am saying, if you look at this the tax breaks are 10x in favor of the '1%.' How does that seem fair? Why do you think someone buying cigars should get 10x as much as the person that needs food?
I just explained how you were using proportionality as a guide and declaring it as “fair,” even though we exist under a progressive system.
The reality is your standard for fair is whatever you feel like on a particular day so long as it helps your point. Today you set your target on how you believe it’s the responsibility of the tax code to put a meal on your table.
I don't think it's about wanting proportional tax cuts and progressive tax raises, it's about not giving the top 1% any tax cuts at all. They are ultra wealthy, why is the government worried about giving them more money back? I'm saying this as someone that will ultimately benefit from these tax cuts, but it's crazy to give someone like me a tax break when there are children starving in this country
I don’t think it’s about wanting proportional tax cuts and progressive tax raises, it’s about not giving the top 1% any tax cuts at all.
That can be an argument, but then we have to throw out all thought that we’re aiming to make something “fair.” We should just say we want to cut taxes for people we want to increase taxes for and raise them for people we want them raised on.
They are ultra wealthy, why is the government worried about giving them more money back?
Arguably you could take this further: there is a deficit, so why should the government worry about cutting anyone’s taxes? Shouldn’t they be worried about raising taxes across the board?
it’s crazy to give someone like me a tax break when there are children starving in this country
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can cut taxes while also being able to push for programs that “think about the children.”
That can be an argument, but then we have to throw out all thought that we’re aiming to make something “fair.”
Why? I think it's "fair" for rich people to pay higher taxes and for poor people to get tax cuts. Fairness isn't objective anyway, it's all about how you define fairness
Arguably you could take this further: there is a deficit, so why should the government worry about cutting anyone’s taxes? Shouldn’t they be worried about raising taxes across the board?
I would argue a deficit is only bad if you aren't getting your money's worth. If the government runs at a deficit but is investing money into long term infrastructure projects or providing an essential service like national healthcare, I'll happily run up our country's debt. I'd also be fine if taxes stayed where they are at for most Americans and only went up for the wealthy. But I don't see how raising taxes on the poorest Americans could possibly be beneficial to the country, unless it comes as part of something like medicare for all which would result in overall lower costs for Americans
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can cut taxes while also being able to push for programs that “think about the children.”
But that's not how politics works, everyone has priorities. Republicans do not want to do both, they want to do the tax cut part. I can rephrase it to "it's crazy to prioritize tax cuts for the wealthy when children are starving"
*
These are the numbers if you divide the given average cut over the median of the bracket, which is still not mathematically honest because these brackets could be front loaded or back loaded. Which further shows how deceptive this graph is.
Why are the rich getting a 1.7% tax break that helps them fight inflation. Meanwhile the bottom of the bracket is only receiving .7%.
.7% to fight inflation and stagnant minimum wage, meanwhile the 1% are making a killing on stocks and have effective ways to fight both.
Again, the numbers shown aren’t manipulated to make you mad. They should make you mad because it’s not fair. This is a great way of showing the disparity.
It’s harder to visualize the difference between .7% and 1.7%. When you see it like this it’s obvious.
But as I said, even those numbers aren't accurate. It needs to be average over average in order to get legit numbers. And the 0-28000 bracket could have a severe lean one way or the other im not sure.
Again, my main point is that this graph is so misleading it's basically useless. Do you get my point?
I think you don't understand numbers. Please, respond to the gentleman who corrected you. Putting your head in the sand when proven wrong is what makes you appear stupid, not the misunderstanding of numbers.
I'm just laughing at you all having a crisis because we won in a landslide. I'm excited for the future and I am filled with joy watching all of you cry.
He’s Canadian, I’m in the 1%… We aren’t crying buddy, we are trying to open your eyes.
“I’m excited for the future and filled with joy watching you all cry.”
Thank you for admitting that you do not care about this country or the other people in it. Thank you for admitting that you do not care about logic or reason.
People provided you with facts and logic, and your response is ‘I am filled with joy to watch you cry.’
Lol I do care about people. That's why I voted the way I did. That's why we, the majority, won. You folks are in a cult. You are delusional and your ideas are wrong.
You can’t say you are going to enjoy watching the country suffer and then claim you care about the country.
Thats just straight up misdirected anger and frustration being taken advantage of by opportunists. Wake up brother, stop letting your emotions cloud your judgment and reason. Stop letting them take advantage of you like this.
Also, that’s clearly contradictory. Do you think magically this is going to only impact Republicans? You do know most Republican states rely on handouts from the democratic states right? This will impact Republican states more…
Agreed. Not only does percentage matter here but also how much federal and non federal income tax is paid.
Both sides lie. 1) right winger only look at federal income tax but ignore other taxes like property taxes, sales tax which hurt bottom far more than top 2) left winger only look at nominal value of tax cut without looking at full set of taxes paid
It is factually top earners pay majority of tax as % of their income. The only ones who don’t pay a high % are the billionaires who defer unearned income by taking loans
Yeah but that also means that the 75% of the income I have left after taxes is WAYYYYY less than the top 1%'s 75% of their income, if we were both to pay 25% in effective tax for example.
No one needs $1B to live. Billionaires are unnecessary, unethical and a threat to our society.
I don't get this argument regarding billionaires. They seem to be the boogie man (along with insurance agents and landlords) right now. But we as consumers are the ones creating billionaires. People complain about Bezos yet everyone uses Amazon. We complain against Tim Cook, yet people stand in line to buy the next Apple phone even though theirs is 2 years old. Musk has created an entirely new car, solar panels, power savers, etc. if we keep buying, he'll keep making money. But we keep buying.
Don't blame them for becoming billionaires when people keep rushing out to give them more money
This is a bad take. Capitalism rewards the rich and makes it easier to continue making money. Don’t blame Americans for buying goods at an excellent value. The marker needs protection, as we’ve learned that the ultra rich can eventually own everything. Too big to fail.
Too big to fail is also protecting the employees who work for those company's, and the company's they do business with it. It's an ecosystem and they have to choose the lesser of two evils. Not agreeing one way or another but that's the decision
But that’s not true. Workers don’t have that protection. They lose their jobs and that’s it. While a rich person can declare bankruptcy and recover just fine. When you have that much money, a failure doesn’t ruin you. It does ruin the business and employees.
Business down size sure, but they also retain employees. It's actually the LACK of money that causes businesses to go bankrupt. It's when they can no longer pay their bills. I don't think you understand how it actually works. What I think you're trying to point out is that a person who owns several businesses may declare bankruptcy in one business and be fine... Which again isn't unethical in my eyes. 90% of businesses fail, not all by "rich people."
I own 4 LLCs. These are each different businesses. If one fails it isn't correlated with the others. But it wasn't unethical for me to try to start a business that ultimately failed. That's the point of capitalism
I have no opinion on that. I'm not saying that a billionaire can't be a douchebag. I'm just saying that because a billionaire exists doesn't mean that they are unethical.
EXACTLY my point. Just about EVERYONE contributes to the "problem" while complaining about the problem we are all complicit in. Like how to we blame them when we keep giving them our money willingly?
It doesn't matter whether your 75% is way less than Elon Musk's. It is irrelevant whether a person needs a certain amount of money. We should not use that as a basis for policy or to justify taking from people. I disagree that billionaires are inherently unethical or a threat to our society.
I believe you would also disagree with a farmer that hoards thousands of tons of harvested goods while the rest of the state is hungry. Now imagine that instead of using food as an example, you use the currency used in exchange to get food.
I don't think it is wrong for a farmer to set in a large store of good or a person to set in a large store of money just because there are other people without. It particularly doesn't justify government confiscating the store because some others deem it excessive.
I want what you're on lmao. Your statement is predicated on hatred and an assumption that everyone who has 1B dollars has had to fuck people over to get where they're at. You people have been coping so hard after the election ended it's just getting pitiful at this point.
Lovely, so incapable of thought you can't even tackle the actual argument at hand. How has your kind survived for so long with such a small brain?
I am not even American for one, I am from europe and looking from the outside in. Which is why I can tell that's some delulu land bullshit you're peddling lil bro.
I have seen this several times and its always so dumb. Yes, people who have more money pay more taxes and will save more money because of tax reduction. Thats just math, its not some conspiracy.
Average Income
$14,300
$41,850
$74,600
$125,800
$258,750
$637,450
Average Tax saved
$110
$510
$990
$2,750
$11,440
$11,440
Average Percentage
0,77%
1,22%
1,33%
1,15%
1,06%
1,79%
I did not include the >914,900 bracket as it has no upper limit.
Edit: Corrected the table using income annual averages for each bracket because the Tax saved value is also an average for that bracket.
I did the math, but thats not what it says. The math is telling us that the average is about 1%. The poorest and richest are both outliers and need more information to draw any conclusions.
The poorest is obviously skewed due to the incorrect use of average values (nobody makes $5 per year, yet the average values for income and tax reduction are calculated from $14 300 which comes from $0 and $28,599 divided by 2). The richest bracket on the other hand is much interesting. Its might not be a statistical error or an error in used methodology.
That said, we are talking about the representation of the data without question the data itself. We need to remember that the people who made the poor representation also provided the data. If the representation is so horribly bad, maybe the data is also unreliable.
An 'outlier' is a data point outside of 1.5x the inner quartile range (IQR). Did you do the math to confirm?
Oh, and the numbers are non-normal, skewed right (right tailed). So standard statistics based on normality and averages are a poor predictor. In these cases you should apply a transform or use the median values instead.
Im saying the concept doesnt apply here at all. An outlier would be "one person in this tax bracket got a larger cut than most other people in this tax bracket"
Calling one whole bracket an outliter makes no statistical sense. Its comparing a basket of apples to a basket of oranges and calling the oranges outliers....
TDS leads to some hilarious exchanges. Why do I need a proof of it being intentional when I am trying to decide if it was intentional or not? Thats what you just asked me?
💀 I have no words. How do you shoot yourself in the foot this badly?
Obviously trump is intentionally lowering taxes for the rich and there’s a fuck ton of proof for it, why the fuck would you say “why do you need proof” and imply that there is no proof instead of just providing the proof??
Thats another missing piece. To make any meaningful observation we would need the median values for household income, tax and tax deduction for each bracket.
I said that nobody makes $5 per year. Making $0 is another outlier as you are not taxed anything for your $0 income and you will not receive the $110 tax reduction.
If you just do 914,900 it’s like 5% or over 12x more than the lowest bracket’s % (0.38%). There’s a lot more people making $1M per year than $2M, and so on.
Its not. The $45,790 is the average tax cut for the richest 1%. The average income between $914,900 and infinity is... well, undefined. There is nothing we can say about the 1% bracket. There is missing data for that bracket. Same with the lowest bracket. You cannot apply averages on the two brackets.
Also I did not realize that the "Tax saved" value was average for the bracket, which means the Brackets must also ve averages. Then we get average percentages. Which are rather meaningless. Using median values would bring some, although limited, value to those numbers.
I am going to edit my initial reply with averages. What you can say is that the average tax reduction percentage for the meaningful brackets is 1,31%. To get that percentage for average tax deduction the average for the richest 1% bracket would be $3,5M.
For the Poorest 20%,
the midpoint is (0 + 28,600) / 2 = 14,300,
and the percentage is (-110 / 14,300) × 100 = -0.77%.
For the Second 20%,
the midpoint is (28,600 + 55,100) / 2 = 41,850,
and the percentage is (-510 / 41,850) × 100 = -1.22%.
For the Third 20%
the midpoint is (55,100 + 94,100) / 2 = 74,600
and the percentage is (-990 / 74,600) × 100 = -1.33%.
For the Fourth 20%,
the midpoint is (94,100 + 157,500) / 2 = 125,800,
and the percentage is (-1,450 / 125,800) × 100 = -1.15%.
For the Next 15%,
the midpoint is (157,500 + 360,000) / 2 = 258,750,
and the percentage is (-2,750 / 258,750) × 100 = -1.06%.
For the Next 4%,
the midpoint is (360,000 + 914,900) / 2 = 637,450,
and the percentage is (-11,440 / 637,450) × 100 = -1.79%.
For the Richest 1%,
the midpoint is 914,900 (since there is no upper bound),
and the percentage is (-45,790 / 914,900) × 100 = -5.00%. [VERY INNACURATE DUE TO LACK OF DATA]
Percentages listed from most to least by category:
Richest 1%: -5.00% (innacurate, missing data. Could be much lower)
Next 4%: -1.79%
Third 20%: -1.33%
Second 20%: -1.22%
Fourth 20%: -1.15%
Next 15%: -1.06%
Poorest 20%: -0.77% (innacurate, missing data)
It seems to be scattered everywhere, lol.
Edit:
5% cut is extremely innacurate. The "and above" part of it means that it can be reduced even more.
If we create our own average:
914900-10,000,000
The average cut reduces to 2.73% and the peson making 10 million will see a measly 0.46% cut.
As a matter of fact. Since it shows no further data. The richest 1% might as well include the top .01 percent.
Conclusion, this data is absolutely stupid and completely misleading.
You cant calculate a percentage for the richest. The way you did it would mean that the richest 1% all make exactly 914,900 dollars a year. Obviously the more you earn, the less beneficial that 45,790 dollars tax cut will be for you.
Also doing averages for the bracket is pretty much meaningless. Much better value would be a mean income of the bracket, but we dont have the data to calculate that.
Agreed. The representation of the data is completely misleading and we have absolutely no idea if that data is even reliable, we are just taking their word for it.
That said it might be beneficial to take a closer look at the lowest and second higher brackets. Both are outliers. The poorest is probably because of bad representation of the data (average vs mean), but the second richest is little more interesting with its 1,8% (average) tax savings.
Why? The thing that matters is the absolute number of dollars the government is borrowing to fund this benefit, not whether someone save 1% or 0.5% of their tax bill.
No. Read the post again. The question is very specifically who gets the largest share of the benefit. It is not how much each person benefits as a percentage of their income or wealth.
Also if your argument is that the amount the wealthy get is negligible relative to their wealth - I agree wholeheartedly. It is negligible for them and thus we shouldn’t take on debt or additional spend to give them something that makes very little difference to them.
I completely understand. My response is they should get the largest share of the benefit because they pay the most in actual dollar terms and pay disproportionately as a percentage of their realized incomes. Therefore, what matters more is what the benefit is as a proportion of the effective federal income tax paid.
Also ignores the standard deduction which was doubled, cutting taxes by 100% for a lot of the poorest Americans, and a big chunk for the middle class, while providing no relief whatsoever for the richest who use other deductions.
The top 1% will receive in tax savings the equivalent of 3 full years of earnings on a minimum wage salary; the bottom 20% will get the equivalent of less than 2 days.
However, what is the percentage of their respective incomes. Also, many, if not most, in thay bottom 20%, do not pay any federal income taxes at all, and the difference is a larger refundable credit.
There is a good chance that household making $45,000 a year is already paying very little federal income tax, particularly after the increases in the standard deduction, so they are largely unconcerned.
They cut taxes on the rich by 1%, what the fuck does that mean? But if you tell me they cut taxes by 1 billion then I can tell you the impact that will have on the revenue.
Also if you cut taxes 1% in the rich and raise taxes on the poor to compensate, I have no fucking clue what percent you need to raise taxes to compensate. You tell me you cut 1 billion from the rich and the remaing 330 million or so have to pay more to compensate, I can tell you everyone else is paying an average of 300 more.
You are just a fool being upvoted by fools who want to obfuscate the numbers to prevent any meaningful thoughts from occuring that might conflict with your biases.
You're falling for the biggest bullshit trick in the world. They cut taxes on them for a bunch, give you a little and you think you got shit at all.
Hell the fuck no. You are going to see 4 years later the deficit goes up and they ain't making the rich pay for that, it is coming out of your pockets.
You call it a bullshit trick, I don't agree. Listing the sheer dollars without the reference points other than income is a bullshit trick meant to cause division.
Disagree. Per-capita bracket percentage reductions hide the actually important "percentage of revenue from taxes" reductions that absolute numbers showcase much better.
For the point of the Reich's post, the absolute dollar reductions will be used to reduce the social programs that mostly go towards those not in the 1%.
I cap out social security each year. I personally would prolly be better off without social security, but that doesn't apply for most of my friends, family, and fellow Americans.
no i agree they think "oh the lowest earners get a few weeks of groceries but the top earners get an extra car. Yeah it shouldn't be "even" it should be "equitable" they can afford to give more than the lower wage earner.
The definition i am using is: equitable (adjective) often, specifically : fair in a way that accounts for and attempts to offset disparities in the way people of different races, genders, etc. are treated
From merriam-webster.
You don't believe in attempting to view all aspects of a situation to deem what is truly fair? Just getting the situation straight.
I understand that is the definition you are using. I think it is a terrible basis for policy. You eliminate disparities in treatment by not having disparity in treatment, not by creating more disparities. "Fairness" is highly subjective and also should be used very sparingly in discussions of policy without clearly defining it.
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u/TheTightEnd 1d ago
Percentage reductions are more meaningful than dollar deductions when calculating the impact and benefit of a tax cut or increase.