>> All of the state taxes, last time I checked, are regressive

Wait, what? The state tax in New York State is certainly progresive: it starts at 4% if you earn less than $8k, and goes up to 10.9% on incomes above $25 MM [1]. California is much more progressive: 1% for less than $9k, 13.3% above $1 MM [2].

[1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/new-york-state-tax

[2] https://www.hrblock.com/tax-center/filing/states/california-...

I assume you are looking only at income tax, excluding any other state and local taxes? The effective tax rates in all states are regressive:

https://itep.org/whopays/

Well, at least in New York City, there's a city tax and that is progressive too. There are property taxes, and they are progressive as well. Property sales taxes are also progressive. Not sure how those ITEP guys did their analysis, but for NYC at least, it is way off. There's no way that the top 1% of the people in NYC pay only 7.4% in (non-federal) income tax. You could say that their analysis is for the state as a whole, but it's virtually guaranteed that the vast majority of the top 1% earners live in NYC.

I wonder if you are saying the top 1% as far as making income, or if you mean the top 1% making money - like income vs capital gains.

Not sure if there is an official nomenclature for such, but I often wonder as I get into threads / discussions like these if people are taking into consideration these things or not - are they lumping them together, or is it a different thing.

If I was totally guessing, I would think the top 3% who sleep in NY probably pay no more than a poor school teacher - but if we were talking about the top 1% of people who actually get a paycheck with taxes taken out - then sure - but I think that ignores the bigger money that is moved around in other ways aside from a paycheck / w2s.

This is something that I am not sure if people in other countries would be taking into consideration as well, no idea if they tax the same / don't tax the same.