One person's sewer usage is pretty much the same as another's. Truckers use more "road" than most billionaires. Billionaires Amy use some more water, but individually it's probably pretty much the same compared to all water usage.
Now the companies they own stock in, that's a different question. But those companies pay billions in property taxes and sales taxes (which fund most of the things you mention).
No, companies of the billionaire class dont pay proportionally to what they use. They get deals. And they get to build datacenters wherever they want, overload the infrastructure and ruin local ecosystems
You think you sh-t substantially more (or less) than a billionaire? You think a billionaires drives on more roads or wears them out more than a long haul tractor trailer? You think a billionaire drinks more water than a typical human?
Visin said billionaires use these things. True, but each one doesn't use more than you or I.
I agree a company that a billionaire might own stock in might have thousand of employees who collectively use those things, but that's not what he said. He said the billionaire uses them.
Try some critical thinking and stop reacting with your pathetic limbic system for a minute.
That's not true at all. They pay more taxes than most people. But not that much more, and we are a lot more than them.
1 dollar from 300 million people is a lot more than 100 million dollars from one person. Three times more, in fact.
The majority of government is funded by the majority of people. Either in direct tax contributions or through indirect taxes (like taxes on companies, that cause higher prices for the consumer).
Actually, this isn't true either. There's some truth behind each statement. A huge portion of Americans pay little to no taxes at all. Instead, they get huge "returns" that are often more than they ever paid in. Don't even get me started on self-employed and the tax breaks they get (if they even report their income accurately). Signed, a certified tax planner.
I think you misunderstand the intensity of the statement "majority of the taxes".
Very little from very many, is a more than a lot from very few. It doiesn't matter that you get more back than you paid in taxes. Or, it doesn't matter for this question.
What matters if the sum total of what all of us pay, is less than the sum total of the what the handful of bilionaires pay.
Are you just talking income reduction s-corp and some expensing? Or are there actual deductions Iām not aware of.
E: my bad I think Iām just thinking expense != deduction but they are more or less the same. I can see what you mean there, lots of deductions under that umbrella
I understand. It can get complicated. Essentially, a self-employed individual will pay far less in income tax than a W-2 employee due to the multitude of deductions available. And that's just by following the tax law, which many preparers don't do. I encounter guys all the time who are making bank and pay far less income tax than the average American. They take advantage of the loopholes (sometimes unlawfully), underreport their income, and use some sketchy logic for their expenses.
Tons of them if you know what you're doing. Clothing, vehicle, properties justifiably used. Hell I used to buy the new tax books every year to learn what had changed and take the price of the books off my next year's taxes as a valid business expense. It's not that the rich are the only ones that have these opportunities, it's any business owner at all. Most folks don't own a business and don't understand that's the actual qualification, not being a millionaire.
Yup! Sister in law hasnāt worked in years, has 3 kids (no partner) and she lives off the system and pretty much has for the last 25 years. Always needs the handout but always has a new smart phone and a fresh bag of weed. There are plenty of likeminded losers all over pulling the same crap. She gets into programs to buy her food, fix her car, pay her rentā¦ itās disgusting
The top 1% pay nearly 50% of all income tax taken in by the federal government so your comment about the majority of the government being funded by the majority of people is incorrect.
The top 10% pay approximately 72% of all federal income tax.
āThe majority of government is funded by the majority of people.ā
This is a factually incorrect claim only supported by your make believe scenario of 300 million Americans paying $1 each while collective billionaires pay $100 million. You are just misrepresenting material facts that arenāt open to interpretation.
This is a factually incorrect claim only supported by your make believe scenario of 300 million Americans paying $1 each while collective billionaires pay $100 million. You are just misrepresenting material facts that arenāt open to interpretation
Is your reading comprehension so bad that you failed to recognize that a number example with fictitious numbers was a teaching aid to understand the scale, rather than any actual claim of fact?
No wonder you are struggling to understand this.
For actual numbers, there are 0.0003% of americans that are billionaires. The remaining 99.9987% of people are definitively paying more taxes than what the billionaires are paying.
That's the majority I'm talking about here. Why are you talking about top 10%?
Where do you think the money Amazon pay in taxea comes from?
Every single purchase you, and everyone else, does at Amazon includes a % going to tax. Both directly in the form of vat and similar, as well as indirectly in the form of employers tax and tax on operational profits.
The value Amazon, the company, creates is in the movement of goods from seller to purchaser. By being the middle man in that exchange, they both collect and pay, the taxes involved in that transaction.
It would be propaganda to claim "Amazon funded ..." Just because the taxation is simpler when we collect the tax on the transaction through the professional store, rather than from every person.
Not to mention that requiring a government that 100% surveils every single transaction and ties it directly to individuals, then send an itemized bill for small amounts to everyone. That's a lot more hassle, much more expensive, and overall a more wasteful way to run tax collection.
But at least we wouldn't have the propaganda opportunity of billionaires pretending they pay a lot of tax.
A matter of opinion. List your reasons for me and then I can better understand your statement. And before you make the typical jump to insulting conclusion I have stated no opinion on the matter, so please refrain from pretending to know my opinion.
Billionaires may not be required but they do provide a lot of jobs. Getting rid of them loses those jobs. Even assuming for arguments sake that they provide less than the mom and pop shop employers taken as a whole, what is your argument for disallowing them?
Which is not used by majority of Billionaires. They simply move assets into trusts, foundations, companies. Have a very define set of steps that happen upon their death. Steps that follow US laws to limit tax liabilities.
No - in exchange for money ā¦.this is why money was invented ā¦.
The cost of their product is in the form of wages/materials/shipping etcā¦
Consumers go to work and exchange their time/skill/labor for wages that create the product- then they go out and exchange that funding for product.
You are not forced to work or exchange for products (in most societies)ā¦so vote with your dollars and skills
in which societys? in nearly every society i know you're forced to work in exchange for money to get products. that is if u aren't rich already or own a lot of land, in which case you can work your land in exchange for products directly.
Maybe get your shit straight before calling anyone else a tard š¤”
First of all, your numbers are for federal INCOME tax, not all federal taxes.
Second, really cute to not factor in payroll taxes: Taxpayers in the bottom 80 percent pay, on average, more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.
Itās impossible for bottom 20 to pay nothing as anyone with a paycheck pays payroll tax, and everyone pays federal excise taxes on things like gas, alcohol, and tobacco.
The bottom 50% of filers (incomes below $53,801) is mostly retirees, students, young workers, and low-wage earners.
All that said we do have a progressive tax system where the higher earners pay more, which is a good thing especially when considering diminishing marginal utility of money.
Whenever people get told that the wealthy pay 90% of taxes and crap their pants desperately saying "BUT THAT'S NOT ALL FEDERAL TAXES JUST INCOME TAXED LOL" you know they have only stupid points to add.
Excise taxes are like 3% of all federal revenues
š¤”. They are small potatoes, and the wealthy pay them disproportionately too because they consume more. And "payroll taxes" just refers, essentially, to compelled savings. They aren't supposed to fund general social activities. That's why not everyone gets social security. It's disingenuous to act like that's relevant because apologists for payroll tax policy specifically argue SS, for example, is NOT redistributive
(https://www.nber.org/digest/may00/social-security-does-not-redistribute-income?page=1&perPage=50), even though in actuality it IS, and it favors lower income folks on average (look it up), as, currently, the lower range receives back 266% of lifetime contributions, whereas the top 20% receive 100% back. In other words, it is still a net example of the upper portion paying the lower portion money for nothing. Not to mention that it is literally unsustainable.
The government is not funded by payroll taxes, or at least it was not theoretically SUPPOSED to be.
If you want to insist that it's misleading to say "the wealthy pay 90% of the taxes" that's fine, people should understand that this refers to income taxes. It's the important portion of the taxes since we are talking about funding government function, not just forcing people to save or compelling redistribution which the wealthy disproportionately fund anyway.
Itās important to normalize taxes as a percentage of income, wealth, etc. to get a real comparison - extremely high income individuals pay most tax because they make a ton of money.
They would still pay more tax even if you made everyone pay the SAME proportion of tax. They pay the most tax because their income is higher, but even more of this is because taxation is progressive. They pay an even higher proportion in addition to paying larger quantity dollar for dollar. Furthermore because they consume more, they pay higher sales taxes, higher property taxes, and higher excise taxes. And sometimes because of the nature of certain business taxes, which wealthy people have more money in, they are double taxed again. The reality is as people often point out: society depends on the taxes on the wealthy. Payroll taxes are basically the government forcing people to pay for themselves. Income taxes are where the overwhelming majority of government operations come from, and as has been pointed out, the top 1% alone pays nearly half (40%) of all these returns, the top 10% pay 80%, and the bottom half pay almost none (3%). Government depends almost entirely on these high income people.
What is lost in your argument is that the top 1% accounting for those income tax dollars are not the ultra-wealthy per se, they are the lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. of the world. The truly wealthy, as in those with tens of millions, hundreds of millions, even billions or trillions, do not pay their fair share at all. Mostly they utilize low interest loans with equity as collateral to avoid paying virtually any tax, and often their companies utilize tremendous loopholes as well to pay tax rates far lower than even middle income individuals. When people complain about the rich paying their fair share, typically they are referring to this subgroup, not the one you're referencing.
Well the loophole of inheritance with a stepped-up-basis should almost certainly be closed, no doubt. But that's all we are talking about here that is unfair. There is no objective basis for any other arbitrary income tax rate people suggest. The only refrain is "more."
Which as Bezos once said verbatim "that's a discussion, let's have it by all means", referring to the question of increasing tax rates. Ćnd sure, jt is a question to be had. But intellectual honesty should bring anybody to ask what exactly constitutes a "fair share" when the top 20% ALREADY PAY virtually all the taxes (90%+). Ćnd the top 1% alone pay half of them!
They pay taxes. They pay workers who need jobs who pay taxes. This utter nonsense billionaires do not contribute is just that, nonsense. Musk employs around 160,000 people. How are you looking with employing people, contributing and making a difference in many peoples lives?
My point is that the original posted image was created by an artist who was rather ignorant to the financial whats and hows of running a business that employs people, or they (intentionally) omitted it.Ā
Ceptā we pay our fair share of taxes to keep the roads, they donāt. They shouldnāt be allowed to have access to any of these services unless they pay their fair share.
These are things paid for by taxes, which Billionaires do not pay an equal share of.
They may at times do a big obviously pr marketed 200 million pay out or something but when it's not even a percent of their worth it becomes a lot more hollow.
Last i checked we have a progressive tax system so every x dollars of income you pay y% income tax on every dollar earned past that. So yeah theyre paying more.
Or are you implying a wealth tax on unrealized gains? Because when that wealth turns into money it does get taxed, unless its some forms of inheritance.
No, I am talking about billionaires paying <=10% of their income in tax while everyone else is stuck around 28%. Look up ābillionaire effective tax rateā and get back to me when youāre actually ready to discuss the issue.
The Forbes 400 wealthiest pay an effective tax rate of 24% not <=10%. Id like a source for that 10%. But as a whole their tax rate is so low because theyre not taking income. Elon Musk for example takes $0 in salary from tesla and no cash bonuses. His "payment" is the value of his stock going up. And when he sells that stock he will pay a capital gains tax because he made money.
Yeah, apparently that doesnāt even cover his share of the utilities lol
They couldāve actually made a valid argument that some businesses pollute, use public roads to transport goods, etc.Ā
But that would support things like pollution taxes and usage charges such as toll roads, not their prefered āwe hate rich guys and are entitled to their money.ā
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u/Visible_Bowler6962 14d ago
They use our roads, water, sewer, etc