@Niner wrote:
The rich pay the majority of the taxes in this country. I'm personally paying around 40% with state and federal.
The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent).
I was referencing the article linked above, Niner.
October 17, 2019 - [
www.cbsnews.com]
Quoted below:
@ wrote:
For the first time in a century, America's 400 richest families now pay lower taxes than people in the middle class.
That's according to an analysis of tax data by two prominent economists, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley, that is a centerpiece of their new book, "The Triumph of Injustice," to be published on October 15. Saez and Zucman, who have worked with the noted French economist Thomas Piketty to produce seminal research on inequality, also advised Senator Elizabeth Warren on the Democratic presidential candidate's plan to impose a wealth tax on ultra-rich families.
The tipping point came last year when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was signed into law by President Donald Trump at the end of 2017, took effect. While Mr. Trump vowed that middle-class families would be helped by the tax overhaul, experts say most working-class families saw only a minimal benefit, while the wealthiest citizens got the lion's share of breaks. In fact, Saez and Zucman argue, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act turned the tax system on its head.
Factoring in all federal, state and local taxes, those ultra-wealthy households pay a total rate of about 23% — that compares with 24.2% for the bottom half of households, which includes many in the middle class. The richest families also pay a lower rate than those in the upper middle class and even those in the top 1%, who pay closer to 30% of their income in taxes.
There are lot of areas where the rich benefit at the expense of the poor. One area, for example is in the stock market, capital gains taxes, and U.S. central bank monetary policy since 2009.
Capital gains tax, for example, is 15% on average. With 84% of the entire U.S. stock market owned by 10% of Americans, that's a tremendous amount of wealth taxed at relatively low rates. Poor people usually don't own stocks. But, importantly, after the U.S. bailed out Wall Street in 2008, implemented QE (quantitative easing), and cut interest rates to zero for close to seven years, that inflated the stock market massively and screwed over the poor.
With interest rates at zero and bank savings accounts yielding so little, poor people who had so little money earned next to nothing in banks for the past decade. They likely lost money keeping it in banks, due to 2% inflation. Even now, the 10 year U.S. Treasury bond is less than 2%, meaning you're losing money buying U.S. long-term bonds! You'd have to buy stocks (which are taxed at a lower rate than income) to have made money in investments. U.S. stocks have quadrupled since 2009 (14% gain annual average past 10 years).
Historically, stocks have gained 9-10% annually on average and double every 10 years. They quadrupled since 2009! That's due to low interest rates, money printing, and corporate stock buybacks.
That's one way in which the poor in the U.S. have been screwed and the rich gaining so much. Poor people often cannot buy stocks, due to their meager savings and stock market volatility. They might need their savings at a moment's notice and if the market is down 10-15%, then they'd be losing money taking it out. Putting it into savings accounts (even "high yield" ) is money losing almost certainly, due to 2% inflation every year. Again, even the 10-Year U.S. Treasury is LESS THAN 2% now!
Likewise, companies like Walmart, Amazon, etc. don't pay their workers enough, use flex scheduling (less than 40 hours a week, so they don't have to owe them benefits), and pass on the expenses of a living wage to middle-class tax-payers, who pay for their food stamps and other welfare benefits (which those SAME underpaid Walmart workers use right back at Walmart!!!).
Those are just two things off the top of my head at the moment.
By reversing FDR's social safety net protections over the past 40 years, we've created what economists have called the Second Gilded Age in America in terms of inequality.
Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2019 11:44AM by shoptastic.