The Pension Hole for U.S. Cities and States Is the Size of Japan’s Economy

Re:The Pension Hole for U.S. Cities and States Is the Size o... by milesvp on Monday July 30, 2018 @06:21PM (#17648677)

I'm not sure how much I trust these tax rates. My understanding was that government spending is roughly 33% of GDP here in the US. This was true when I was in undergrad, and it looks to be roughly correct today. https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/percent_gdp (not sure how much I trust this site, but it corroborates what I learned in undergrad with only a few minutes of googling). This means that the tax rate must be close to 33%. Else you'd have amazing deficits balooning quite quickly.

Maybe it's ignoring corporate taxes? or ignoring other things on our W-2, like L&I and social security/medicare? It 's also probably ignoring local taxes, a 10% sales tax is hard to ignore.

I once calculated my effective marginal tax rate at 45%, and it stopped me from pursuing a higher paying job, since my take home didn't change enough to be worth the higher stress and the money I'd have to spend to combat said stress.

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Re:The Pension Hole for U.S. Cities and States Is the Size o... by greedo on Monday July 30, 2018 @08:29PM (#17649555)

Federal marginal tax rates for 2018 are capped at 37% if you make $500K ($600K for a couple). If you're hitting that plus 8% for state, then I don't have too much sympathy. And that's a marginal rate, not an effective rate (which it seems you're conflating).

If you earned $500k, and were single/no deps, and just took the standard $12K deduction, your Federal tax would be 29% ($145K). I can't imagine someone with that income not having more deductions or IRA/401 contributions that would minimize the tax burden, but I suppose there's always someone out there completely clueless.

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Re:The Pension Hole for U.S. Cities and States Is the Size o... by sykhic on Monday July 30, 2018 @06:28PM (#17648741)

We do have massive deficits.

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