Your taxes

[ElNono]

Who give a ? I paid a higher percentage of my income than he did.

why do you hate the rich

[ploto]

All of you guys with your charts...if you have no deductions ( no mortgage, no kids, nothing but charities), then you pay the max rate at each level until you get to that 35% level and then you keep paying that on every dollar after that. So as I mentioned to Ploto,
the rate may not be precisely 35 %, but it is so close as to be a distinction without a difference.

Damn...I was asked what I paid and I said it. Now I'm under attack for it.

We are simply pointing out that what you claimed is incorrect - unless you make literally millions of dollars a year. Do the math.

If you made 1 million dollars in regular income and took the standard deduction and 2 exemptions, then your income tax would still be only at 31.6% of the one million (about $316,000).

You also said that you take the charitable contribution deduction - which means that you would have to be giving more to charity than the amount of the standard deduction -- so your tax rate would be even lower than what I calculated.

You are attempting to represent the rate at which you pay to be at a higher level than is probably true, so why would you expect people not to question that?

[boutons_deux]

"a progressive system discourages you from earning more as your tax rate goes up"

any evidence to support your opinion?

[mavs>spurs]

common sense. why earn more if they're just going to tax you harder? is a disincentive.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

common sense. why earn more if they're just going to tax you harder? is a disincentive.

Not really. Everyone's goal is to maximize after tax wealth and earning more accomplishes that.

Anyone who believes this bull doesn't have the slightest clue how America's tax code works.

[mavs>spurs]

surely in econ you've learned that the labor curve is backward bending..meaning that just because YOU personally would continue to work your ass off and earn as much as humanly possibly regardless, most people have a point where after they make a certain amount of money they actually want to work less. higher marginal rates lower this number for people, after a certain point people would rather just stop working.

[mavs>spurs]

you get diminishing returns on each hour worked after your tax rate starts to hike up is what i'm saying, and at some point it becomes attractive to just not work any more.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

I haven't had an econ professor who believes in the Mitt Romney trickle down theories (and yes, the idea that a regressive tax code will help the economy is trickle down economics whether or not you wanna admit it) you believe in, so no I haven't learned whatever you just said.

I'm curious why taxes, as a percentage of GDP, are lower than they've been since the the 1950s and it hasn't had the effect Republicans say low taxes have. How historically low do taxes need to be before they have this magical effect?

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

you get diminishing returns on each hour worked after your tax rate starts to hike up is what i'm saying, and at some point it becomes attractive to just not work any more.

When do people reach that point?

Be specific.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

The idea that people deliberately chose to make less money because they don't wanna pay taxes is pretty hilarious and it's alarming how many people actually believe it when it doesn't apply to them

[mavs>spurs]

I haven't had an econ professor who believes in the Mitt Romney trickle down theories (and yes, the idea that a regressive tax code will help the economy is trickle down economics whether or not you wanna admit it) you believe in, so no I haven't learned whatever you just said.

I'm curious why taxes, as a percentage of GDP, are lower than they've been since the the 1950s and it hasn't had the effect Republicans say low taxes have. How historically low do taxes need to be before they have this magical effect?

Lol what I'm saying isn't trickle down economics, it may be included in that whole theory but the slightly regressive tax code I'm suggesting isn't anything that radical.

And what we're seeing right now isn't the effect of lower taxes in a vacuum, these things take time and our economy is ed for a mul ude of reasons. It was ed before lower taxes, the only thing that's changed is time.

[mavs>spurs]

The idea that people deliberately chose to make less money because they don't wanna pay taxes is pretty hilarious and it's alarming how many people actually believe it when it doesn't apply to them

The labor supply curve actually is backwards bending, that number where marginal returns start to diminish is different for each person but after a certain amount of wealth people would rather stop working and have more leisure time.

Everyone has this point whether you realize it or not, higher taxes on more income just lowers that number for everyone.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

So the Bush tax cuts need time to take effect

When are they gonna take effect and turn our economy around?

[mavs>spurs]

Now you're just not being intellectually honest. Where did I say that lower taxes would turn this mess around? We have a lot bigger problems right now than taxes.

[Th'Pusher]

Lol what I'm saying isn't trickle down economics, it may be included in that whole theory but the slightly regressive tax code I'm suggesting isn't anything that radical.

And what we're seeing right now isn't the effect of lower taxes in a vacuum, these things take time and our economy is ed for a mul ude of reasons. It was ed before lower taxes, the only thing that's changed is time.

You might be the stupidest person in the world with a degree in finance. Congrats

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

The labor supply curve actually is backwards bending, that number where marginal returns start to diminish is different for each person but after a certain amount of wealth people would rather stop working and have more leisure time.

Everyone has this point whether you realize it or not, higher taxes on more income just lowers that number for everyone.

I'm willing to bet this wasn't a part of whatever econ class you learned about the labor supply curve in. It was just something you/Mitt Romney made up.

[mavs>spurs]

Tbh I took classes at Harvard with Mitt Romney

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Now you're just not being intellectually honest. Where did I say that lower taxes would turn this mess around? We have a lot bigger problems right now than taxes.

The rich are paying lower taxes right now than anytime since the 1950s. I'm curious how much incentive needs to be provided to be rich.

[mavs>spurs]

You might be the stupidest person in the world with a degree in finance. Congrats

nah there is nothing wrong with what i said. our economy is flawed, we don't actually produce anything anymore and we fund everything through a deficit. taxes have very little to do with what's going on today.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Well Bush's tax cuts are a big contributor to our deficit.

[mavs>spurs]

even without tax cuts we'd still be running a huge deficit, it would just take slightly more time to fall off the cliff but in the end it would still be the same result. blaming it all on tax cuts is a really short sighted and dumb approach to looking at it.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

I wasn't blaming it all on tax cuts. That's a strawman. I was just saying Bush's tax cuts were a significant contributor, which they were. His war in Iraq was also a big contributor, and Romney's war in Iran would be as well.

[mavs>spurs]

if we're going to fix the economy it's not going to come through high taxes, first we've got to find a way to combat this outsourcing and actually produce something in this country. we've got to find a way to slice the budget and stop living above our means. all the taxes in the world won't fund this welfare state and world policing we've got going on.

[mavs>spurs]

His war in Iraq was also a big contributor, and Romney's war in Iran would be as well.

yeah agreed on that big time

i'd actually go on the record to say that a war in iran would be the straw that broke the camels back, aka america's downfall from world dominance.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

America is never gonna be the manufacturing power house it was. Reagan and Clinton took our outsourcing beyond the point of no return. Low skill labor jobs are never gonna be the backbone of our economy again. I used to think we needed to bring those jobs home but it's never gonna happen.

The only way we fix the economy is investing in education and innovation. Obama wanted to slice the budget and also raise taxes by a slight amount and the level-headed Republicans in congress wanted to as well, but the tea party threw a tantrum and made sure it wouldn't happen.