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Comment by hitpointdrew | Hacker News Reader

You should review the tax code, instead of parroting talking points. The top 5% already pay the vast majority of the tax dollars.

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This argument is weak in that it only compares percentage alone, rather than qualifying that in terms of impact to the individual/family. A family that makes $200,408 gross taxed at 18.38% is still left with $163,573. A family making $12,439 @ 9.78% only has $11,223 where every dollar counts in terms of trying to keep a roof overhead and bellies full. The wealthy have a higher tax burden because they have most of the money and have the most to gain from a smoothly operating society (which whether we like it or not, requires investment). I’m not even going to get into the disruptive nature of ultra wealthy people in a “free” society that is dominated by wealth more than any other attribute.

I’m not saying the rich family’s needs are irrelevant, but I mean… come on; if we’re gonna advance an argument that beats around the bush of being fair, this one is DOA.

I don’t enjoy paying taxes anymore than the next person, especially when so much of it is squandered and misappropriated, but I’ve been on both ends of my example.

> the wealthy have a higher tax burden because they have most of the money

Well duh. This isn't really an argument. This is one of those "facts" that is so obvious, yet people think it should be somehow shocking, like "90% percent of accidents happen 5 miles from the home", well no shit, you have to drive in the 5 mile radius to go anywhere, or to get back home.

> A family that makes $200,408 gross taxed at 18.38% is still left with $163,573. A family making $12,439 @ 9.78% only has $11,223 where every dollar counts in terms of trying to keep a roof overhead and bellies full.

And...what is your point? This is perfectly reasonable. Look generally speaking (of course there are outliers and edge cases), but the more money you make the more responsibility you have. A line cook doesn't have as much responsibly as a franchise manager, a franchisee manager doesn't have much responsibility as corporate district manager, etc. Why would anyone strive to have jobs with more responsibility, if you are just going to tax them to oblivion where a senior VP now takes home the same as line cook? Having the senior VIP take home much more money, is reasonable and fair.

Ideally taxing income is generally immoral, IMO. A much fairer system would be to ditch income tax entirely and just have a VAT. But somehow people are deluded into thinking VAT is "regressive", which its not.

because the top 5% have the vast majority of the money... meanwhile their effective tax rate is lower than the bottom 50% (at the least) and they are audited way less than those with less money and have to jump through fewer hoops for their benefits (what the rich refer to as handouts or entitlements when it comes to poor people)

By "dollars" people often mean cash. That which the top 5% has is largely assets, not cash.

The king of my country is an stark example of the difference.

Real estate is more valuable the closer it is to the castle, and the king owns the castle, which is in the very middle of the most valuable area. It's never been sold, so its value can only be estimated. Estimating from its location, it's vastly valuable, from which follows that the king is very rich and should pay a lot in taxes, right? Or you could say that it's not saleable, so what the king has is a leaky old building with high maintenance costs and negligible utility, negative value, and from that follows that the king shouldn't pay anything in taxes (well, disregarding his other property in order to simplify the argument).

Most of the top 5% have this issue, of course not as starkly as in the case of a king.

Taxing assets is tricky. Thinking of assets as though they were cash muddles teh issue, and makes it more difficult to find fair tax rules.

It always weirds me out to think that most of "wealth" nowadays is "virtual".

You have stock valuation, you have property valuation. Which we tell is gone or lost when prices drop, but where did it really come from in first place? Exactly same thing just got value higher... There is some base line there, but property is good example. Value drops for reasons outside damage or wear, was the wealth there in first place then? There is always some bottom like replacement value if there is still desire. But overall it is rather weird situation foten.

It's always been like that. Well, as long as we've had assets.

Money is just a way to assess the value of assets. The assets are real, the assessment is more or less a matter of opinion, and opinion changes.

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