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Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge after 15 years: Only 9 of the 256 billionaires actually followed through on giving away half their wealth (fortune.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
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[–] 44 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Meh. I actually don't think its a good idea. You just draw power away from the best of a segment empowering the biggest assholes. Taxes should be progressive and include all sources of income not just wages and the tax brackets should go all the way up to the highest income level. So there should be a level for over 100 billion and another for over 10 billion and over 1 billion and so on. Five figure income should be zero.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Five figure income should be zero? $10,000/year is not a livable income.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I agree with you and your proposal with the exception of 5 figure income having no income tax. At a billion level it might not be so important the difference between one or two billion. But on the 5 digits salaries, the difference of someone making 30k or someone making 80k is definitely meaningful. And as someone being in a comfy point in between there I do think everyone in my bracket should be paying taxes. Not high, but definitely something. Then lower incomes then yes, definitely 0% tax. But the amount of people on 5 digits salaries that are on the higher end is definitely worth having some tax, even when a small amount it already helps support the system with so many.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    At the upper end you might be able to swing the more modest of housing and put away for retirement and that is great but it is not like changes circumstances that much. I would argue that opposite that the 2billion is one billion of funny money over what the one bilion guy has and should be taxed along the lines of lottery winnings.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (5 children)

    and the tax brackets should go all the way up to the highest income level

    What does that even mean? They're lower limits. Everything that exceeds the lower limit for the top bracket (which has no upper limit) is taxed the top rate.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    It means the highest tax bracket should not be in thousands when the top makes hundreds of billions.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

    The highest rate is on annual taxable income in the hundreds of thousands and up. The hundreds of billions are also getting taxed that top marginal rate.

    Your statement is muddled. Maybe the word same is missing like

    Everyone in the top bracket shouldn't be paying the same marginal tax rate. Beyond the start of the current top bracket, the marginal tax rate should continue increasing (for millionaires & billionaires).

    Some of your ideas are confused. Income taxes are already progressive. Taxable income already includes income other than wages. The standard deduction exempts the low 5 figure annual incomes from taxes.

    The way you suggest realizing things that are already true draws into question whether you've ever filed taxes. Likewise for the people agreeing with you: have they ever filed taxes?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yes what I meant is the rate should not stop increasing at such a low amount. In fact the hundreds of billions do not pay the rate because of the way we tax work higher than returns and because social security and medicare have a max point. Basically the folks paying the highest rate are the folks that make it to that highest rate for what is still a common profession like doctors and lawyers. After that its escape velocity for taxes.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    That makes more sense.

    Long-term capital gains are taxed significantly less than ordinary income: that's partly to incentivize stabler markets by rewarding long-term investments over short-term market timing activity.

    The annual ceiling on contributions to social security is bullshit & needs to be eliminated. However, there's no such ceiling for medicare:

    All covered wages are subject to Medicare tax.

    Have you looked at the taxable income distribution/quantiles? The top marginal tax rate seems to begin somewhere between the minimum adjusted gross income (AGI) for the top 1% & 2%. < 1% have an AGI over $1M. We're talking about increasing marginal rates for the top fractions of a percent here. While that could increase federal revenues, it's unclear that will boost revenues as much as we need.

    For example, the Social Security administration publishes annual reports on solvency proposals with summaries. Eliminating that taxable maximum alone won't save social security. Increasing the payroll tax rate, however, will definitely save it. It'd help to know the effect of taxing all taxable income.

    Keeping programs solvent might require increasing taxes on the bulk or a more significant part of the population.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Im fine with long term capital gains being less than short term capital gains but not less than ordinary income. a 1% transaction tax could drop short term timing more effectively. What you say at the end for social security is another reason regular income tax needs to be very low at the low end.

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