Taxes

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

At some price for oil, they tip the world into recession and revenues fall.

Agreed, and if they have their hands on the tap, they have the excess production capacity to set the price anywhere they want from $50/bbl up to about $400/bbl. Purely at their whim (although I suspect that once they get over $250 - 300/bbl, their revenue starts to fall fairly dramatically somewhere in that neighborhood.

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

Your table doesn't take into account the fact that Janitor and the Guard are getting 6x the benefits per dollar put into SS. Do it on a net basis and you get a very different picture.

You are also aren't taking into account the diminished returns on muni bonds (which have to be a portion of AGI to produce a tax rate that low.)

None of which make this state of affair anything approaching just. Progressive taxation should tax the millionaires at four to five times the rate of hourly employees.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

I'm not sure that it would raise that much money, although I expect that it would raise some, especially if you treated cap gains and dividends identially so that there was no market incentive to structure the financed of companies to favor one over the other.

There's a chance that it would raise some additional revenue, but at the cost of producing distortions and perverse incentives. As I said earlier, when there are capital flow impediments to highest and best uses, everybody loses.

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

And if you exempt the first $5k - 10k of cap gains and dividends from the normal tax rates -- as I proposed in my original post -- I doubt that you're going to have many of the elderly poor who get fucked out of their meager savings.

I think you missed my point. It wasn't that dividend tax hikes would serve to fuck the poor out of their meager savings. It was that non-wealthy retirees who depend in part on dividend income, but are not in high tax brackets, would suffer some degree of capital loss due to downward price pressure caused by asset sales of wealthier high-bracket individuals. High-dividend stocks would obviously be far less attractive to such investors after a big tax hike. Analysts hold differing opinions concerning the quantity of this effect, but hardly anyone thinks it would be zero -- and I daresay no one who has actually managed portfolios for very high net worth individuals.

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

However, to me, it is as much an issue of economic fairness as anything. Warren Buffet's oft told story of how his secretary pays a much greater percentage of her income in income taxes (since it's salary) than he pays of his (since it's all cap gains) perfectly illustrates this point.

Buffett is a liberal Democrat who believes that you should pay a much higher tax rate if you're moderately affluent (but not wealthy). However, you might note that he has no intention of doing the same. He's perfectly free to fill out the Treasury form and contribute, but he doesn't do so as far as I know. However, he has set up a foundation through which he will donate all his wealth to presumably excellent causes. Good for him; I applaud that action and urge everyone with significant net worth to do the same.

I understand your point that the tax system seems unfair. My key point is merely that you can't travel very far along the road to "fairness" simply by hiking the top tax rate on capital gains. It just doesn't work that way. Total revenue to the Treasury is about the furthest thing from simply a linear function of the tax rate that you could possibly imagine.

[discreetgent]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

Agreed, and if they have their hands on the tap, they have the excess production capacity to set the price anywhere they want from $50/bbl up to about $400/bbl. Purely at their whim (although I suspect that once they get over $250 - 300/bbl, their revenue starts to fall fairly dramatically somewhere in that neighborhood.

I would suggest much lower than that. There is empirical evidence that when gas hit $4/gallon in the US consumption dropped fairly dramatically, I think that translates to around $120/barrel

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by discreetgent

I would suggest much lower than that. There is empirical evidence that when gas hit $4/gallon in the US consumption dropped fairly dramatically, I think that translates to around $120/barrel

I generally agree, but would put the crude price likely to correspond to $4/gallon gasoline perhaps a bit higher. When the price spiked to about $147/bbl. in 2008, we saw national average prices just a bit higher than $4 at the pump, as I recall. A lot of analysts say that in this crude price range, a $10/bbl. move tends to change the pump price around $0.25/ gal.

In any event, experience showed that significant demand destruction was beginning to occur when the pump price approached $4.

[discreetgent]

Thanks for that, I did not remember what price per barrel was at that time, still well below 250.

Decent analysis: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/bu.../28oil.html?hp

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

None of which make this state of affair anything approaching just. Progressive taxation should tax the millionaires at four to five times the rate of hourly employees.

I must have missed where this was writ in stone.

[Texas Contrarian]

This chart is something of an eye-opener for those who consider the U.S. tax system unfair to the non-affluent, and who mistakenly believe that affluent individuals pay for most of the costs of a typical European social democracy:



As you can see, the French tax burden falls most heavily on the middle class, and especially on the working poor. The tax burden on the top decile is not that much greater than it is in the U.S.

More info here:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20.../?ref=business

[gnadfly]

The author said he excluded state and local taxes in the US graph. I wonder if there are equivalent French taxes. My guess would be anybody making a middle class income and owning a home has to be paying AT LEAST 50% in taxes when you include FICA, state and local taxes along with the various Federal excise taxes.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by gnadfly

The author said he excluded state and local taxes in the US graph. I wonder if there are equivalent French taxes. My guess would be anybody making a middle class income and owning a home has to be paying AT LEAST 50% in taxes when you include FICA, state and local taxes along with the various Federal excise taxes.

Are you suggesting that a family earning, for example's sake, $60K annually is likely to pay total taxes of $30K? I think that's way off the mark.

The author notes that the representation shown in the graph excludes "miscellaneous taxes and fees collected by state and local governments", but includes state sales tax, payroll taxes, property taxes, and state income taxes.

"Miscellaneous taxes and fees" are hardly likely to add much more than a percentage point or two to the total burden.

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Are you suggesting that a family earning, for example's sake, $60K annually is likely to pay total taxes of $30K? I think that's way off the mark.

I'm sure WTF has a link that will prove that it is true.

[Texas Contrarian]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

I'm sure WTF has a link that will prove that it is true.

Yeah, I remember that one. Seems like I also recall that you effectively debunked it.

[atlcomedy]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

I'm sure WTF has a link that will prove that it is true.

or at a minimum convince himself it is true

Originally Posted by gnadfly

The author said he excluded state and local taxes in the US graph. I wonder if there are equivalent French taxes. My guess would be anybody making a middle class income and owning a home has to be paying AT LEAST 50% in taxes when you include FICA, state and local taxes along with the various Federal excise taxes.

FICA isn't a tax...ostensibly it is a benefit/entitlement

As for owning a home, what is your thinking in adding this? Economically everyone is paying property taxes to include renters, it is just a pass-thru

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by atlcomedy

FICA isn't a tax...ostensibly it is a benefit/entitlement

And a very progressive one at that -- the low income participants get about 6x the benefit per dollar invested that the high paid ones do.