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Comment by eridius | Hacker News Reader

No, this is a hit on the upper middle class. The actual rich aren't feeling the pain.

It's actually a hit on economic growth, since it discourages local tax-funded programs that produce a net gain in output (even after considering their costs); it literally creates a structural incentive for reduced economic growth through suboptimal local and state decision-making.

It's a product of of irrational anti-tax dogmatism.

Spoiler alert: if you make over $200,000 a year, you are the rich compared to most of the rest of the country.

I love that a factual statement is getting downvoted, btw. Get a grip on your frame of reference, HN.

Rich is relative to housing costs.

Your $200,000 a year will get you by very nicely here in the Midwest. We even have jobs and accept the same currency you're paid in over in SV, imagine that!

Feel free to move.

Rich in the bay area is somewhere in the neighborhood of $500k-$1MM/year.

"in the bay area" is not relevant. Living in the bay area is not a right. If the taxes or cost of living is too high, then you can't live in the bay.

Wealth is relative. "In the bay area" is absolutely relevant. Companies in SF pay so much because the cost of living is so high. Someone with $20 is not richer than someone with $10 if it costs the first person $15 to buy lunch and it costs the second person $2 to buy the equivalent lunch.

I realize that cost of living has an impact on wealth.

But, we're talking about taxes and mostly about a couple specific provisions: SALT deduction, mortgage interest deduction, and the higher-end tax rate. Relative wealth is definitely not relevant to the SALT and mortgage interest deductions. (To review, the mortgage interest deduction subsidizes the rich and the SALT deduction forces people in low tax states to subsidize people in high tax states)

The only one left is tax brackets. You could argue that tax brackets should take into account cost of living. So, if you earn 100k in Nebraska you'd pay a higher percentage of that than a similar person living in SF. But, I think that doesn't take into account the fact that SF is such an in-demand place to live. You don't have to live in SF. Basically, I'm not convinced that cost of living differences should play a role in taxes.

Honestly the upper middle class should do pretty well, if you're not currently earning income through a pass-through s-corp I'd suggest looking into setting one up.

We dev folks will be fine, it's the classic american middle-management folk who will be put through the ringer with this bill.

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