Re:How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits
by UncleMeat on Sunday July 30, 2023 @09:35AM
(#36931018)
> What about sales tax, VAT, fuel levies, consumption taxes, gift taxes, inheritance taxes, etc. Your state or country may not have all of the above.
Sales tax adds less than 1% to my overall effective tax rate. Sales taxes are disproportionately low for high earners because high earners save larger portions of their income rather than spending it.
Gift and inheritance taxes don't start until eight figures. Not exactly something I'm especially worried about.
> Same goes for withholding or "Pay as you earn" taxes which serve to not let you see how much taxes you are paying.
???
You can adjust your W4. The very wealthy also have considerably more flexibility with withholding since less of their income is W2 income from an employer.
> No one will be happy if more than half their labour is taken from then.
If I made the 7+ figures annually or whatever I needed to approach 50% effective taxation I'd be pretty damn happy. If my taxes were raised considerably without a change in my income it wouldn't really change my life either. I'd just retire early a little bit later.
> it's a few steps away from slavery
Extremely high earners who have very high effective tax rates have some options available to them. They can change careers or work less to reduce their income. They'd just earn an income that was more comparable to the typical worker. Or they could stop working entirely - extremely high earners have plenty of opportunity to save enough money that they could live off a typical budget indefinitely using their savings. Or they can advocate politically for policies they prefer - even by spending their money to influence elections via nearly unlimited and unbounded political contributions.
Slaves can be arrested, tortured, and murdered for fleeing their captors. Heck, they can be tortured and murdered pretty much for no reason whatsoever. They can be raped and forced to bear their children of their captors. Their children (whether conceived through consent or through rape) can be permanently taken from them and also forced into slavery. They can have literacy denied to them. They can be worked to the bone in extreme conditions. And all this for a fat zero dollars in income over their entire lives.
So I'd say that there are more than "a few steps" between these things.
Sales tax adds less than 1% to my overall effective tax rate. Sales taxes are disproportionately low for high earners because high earners save larger portions of their income rather than spending it.
Gift and inheritance taxes don't start until eight figures. Not exactly something I'm especially worried about.
> Same goes for withholding or "Pay as you earn" taxes which serve to not let you see how much taxes you are paying.
???
You can adjust your W4. The very wealthy also have considerably more flexibility with withholding since less of their income is W2 income from an employer.
> No one will be happy if more than half their labour is taken from then.
If I made the 7+ figures annually or whatever I needed to approach 50% effective taxation I'd be pretty damn happy. If my taxes were raised considerably without a change in my income it wouldn't really change my life either. I'd just retire early a little bit later.
> it's a few steps away from slavery
Extremely high earners who have very high effective tax rates have some options available to them. They can change careers or work less to reduce their income. They'd just earn an income that was more comparable to the typical worker. Or they could stop working entirely - extremely high earners have plenty of opportunity to save enough money that they could live off a typical budget indefinitely using their savings. Or they can advocate politically for policies they prefer - even by spending their money to influence elections via nearly unlimited and unbounded political contributions.
Slaves can be arrested, tortured, and murdered for fleeing their captors. Heck, they can be tortured and murdered pretty much for no reason whatsoever. They can be raped and forced to bear their children of their captors. Their children (whether conceived through consent or through rape) can be permanently taken from them and also forced into slavery. They can have literacy denied to them. They can be worked to the bone in extreme conditions. And all this for a fat zero dollars in income over their entire lives.
So I'd say that there are more than "a few steps" between these things.