A nice piece NY Times. Any feedback is welcome. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/business/putting-numbers-to-a-tax-increase-for-the-rich.html?_r=1
Does it make a difference if it was? This site is filled with people that actually want to be in the 1% (not just say that and then go back to their mediocre lives without doing nothing) and as such, the vast majority wouldn´t want that their hard earned income (if they ever get there) to be further taxed just so that politicians could get votes from the "winning people with mediocre jobs" that think that they are the "honest good people" that only get ripped off by the "bad bad rich people" and blame the misery of their lives on the rich. I´m not rich, but I won´t be a hypocrite and say that I´d find this good now and complain later if I ever get to be in the 1%. Regardless of that, because of all this, this is essentially a political issue, the old discussion between the lazy and the ones that actually do something to get to a good place in their lives without blaming others for their misery. Nothing new, regardless of what article is used to disguise the fact that it is exactly this that is being brought up. Besides, also imho this should not be in this section, that should be about the technical aspect of taxes and not the usual useless discussions about politics (which have their own section in the website).
There is a problem with the definition of the '1%'. Politicians typically want the masses to believe that the so-called '1%' are people owning super yachts, dozens of luxury mansions around the globe and private jets. In reality the income level to become part of the 1% is about USD 380.000 annual income in the United States or EUR 180.000 in Germany. Well-off, but hardly really 'rich'. The people with the private jets are actually more like the 0,001%. Of course, those '0,001%' often simply don't care about the level of income taxes at all, because the have ways and means to avoid them. So, raising taxes for the '1%' actually doesn't target the super rich; it targets people which are more like upper-upper middle class: Doctors, lawyers, architects, small and medium size business owners. It's all propaganda bullshit.
What Could Raising Taxes on the 1% Do? Surprising Amounts In a theoretical perfect simple world...yea, I would suppose -- but like everything...it's usually much more complicated than that.
Wonder why a doctor on 250K pays the same marginal tax as a hedge-fund manager that pulled in $1bill (assuming they didn't find ways to avoid it). I am in favor of widening the tax income bands as income increases, but not setting a maximum rate ... just increase it as much as to 95% for income above $10bill (and include capital gains in the mix - no reason to compound indefinitely while I incur tax for switching from MSFT to CSCO) first 10K 5% next 20K 10% next 40K 15% next 80K 20% . . next $1billion 95% next $2billion 96%
I think taxes on the 99% i.e. the 'poor' should be increased. There's so many of them! Think about how much extra tax could be raised by say, an extra 10% on all income up to $250k. Or maybe a sliding scale would work best. Say the first $25k is taxed at 50%, the next $25k up to $50k at 40%, etc. Any income ABOVE $150k should be tax free. This would serve a number of purposes. First of all, it would address the argument that the rich pay a lot of tax but don't receive much back in return. The prime beneficiaries of taxes are the 'poor' in terms of benefits and the like, so it makes sense for them to pay that tax in the first place! Second, it would motivate people to make money. If they knew the more they made, the less tax they would pay in percentage terms, well, it would really drive people!!! I recommend this proposal to the House.
The flaw in that article is that it does not take into account the smaller productivity growth that would result in taxing the wealthy more. If you taxed those groups more, they would have less to save and invest, the government would have more. Usually, government investments are not as productive as the private sector. This would have long-term implications to GDP growth and hence tax revenue growth. The 'net' gain in tax revenues would be smaller as a result. That said, I have no doubt they will do that at some point (whether the president is a Democrat or Republican). The fiscal hole in the US is so large that is almost impossible to close it without raising taxes