The ones with the absolute most, are, by and large, contributing the absolute least?
Ah but they’re contributing in many other ways! Like, um… uh… let me think for a second…
Hmmm… I’m sure it’ll come back to me eventually…
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2024/
I hate to be that guy but the top 5% pays nearly 50% of all income taxes paid.
Don’t get me wrong the system is broken.
Top 5% if AGI. These numbers are based on Adjusted Gross Income. That vastly inflates the portion the truly wealthy pay compared to their wealth. They get to use the stock they own and open lines of credit for cash, then pay down those loans while using them to write off for the little stock they sold. These sort of tricks are why Bezos didn’t pay income tax for two years
https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-did-not-pay-income-taxes-2-years-report-2021-6?op=1
I appreciate your desire for accuracy, but the context is lacking.
Thank you for adding the always missing nuance. But other readers don’t get it twisted; parsing the financials of those too wealthy for mere cash liquidity isn’t simple by design. The context is always obscured in Economics because abstraction makes the bills we all pay on their behalf.
They’re contributing more, but less of their percentage. Like 20% of $40,000 is less than 10% of $700,000,000.
It’s bullshit. Percentage needs to increase with what you make. It will curb inflation and stop the ridiculous wealth disparity from increasing at an ever expanding rate. All the boomers were doing so great in the 1950’s because the wealthy had the shit taxed out of them.
What’s fucked is that when you have more, you can afford to lose a higher percentage of it. Like Chris Rock said, “if you’re worth $30 million and you lose half, you’re probably going to be alright. When you’re worth $30 thousand and you lose half, somebody’s gonna have to die!”.
I am in a high income tax group here in Germany. I am happy to pay almost half of my income in taxes and social security/health insurance, if I see that it gets well invested. We are a society and the stronger should always carry the weaker (both financially and also in other aspects).
BUT: I am really pissed that I have to pay such a high percentage of what I have to work hard for, while those who did nothing but being born into a rich family pay hardly anyything at all. High income taxes should only be a thing when wealth taxes are also high, otherwise it only kills the will to work hard.
I definitely lean more towards a capital gains tax over an income tax. People should be rewarded for what they did this week rather than what their grandfather did forty years ago.
However, I am biased since effectively every cent I have comes from income. So maybe take what I say with a grain of salt.
In percentage yes.
Oh hey! Go Minnesota!
What’s the deal with Minnesota and Wisconsin? I tend to group them together or associate them with each other but one clearly does things differently. Why the contrast?
This is great, thank you.
It feels like a Springfield/Shelbyville rivalry: both areas were colonized by the same sorts of people, but Wisconsinites wanted to marry their cousins.
As someone living elsewhere in the Midwest I have to say…
(Actually that’s a lie, Minnesotans are always super nice to us, but damn do they have their shit together in ways I wish Michigan did…)
based new mexico
Minnesota fistbump
I love it here
I guess I need to start making a lot more money, so I can pay lower taxes.
You will pay far more taxes. These stats are just based on percentages. The rich pay more in taxes each year than most people will make in their entire lives. As someone who makes a ton of money and pays a crap ton of taxes, the people who make these graphics are clueless idiots.
This graphic is based on the percentage of income paid to taxes. A family making $500k a year paying a higher dollar amount than one making $50k a year is expected, but the higher earners should also be paying a higher percentage because 20% to them means a lot less sacrifice than 20% to a low income family. The sacrifice of not buying that third or fourth house is a lot less than whether the low income family goes to the doctor for a checkup.
So you want socialism. No thanks. If I earn $500k a year because I went to college and put in far more effort than someone who makes $50k a year, why should I pay multiples more in taxes than them? Someone earning $50k a year is leaching far more off society than someone making $500k. The $50k per year person buys less and pays less sales tax, they have a far smaller house and pays far less property tax. They will be much more likely to incur medical bills they can’t pay. If you have a disability, great, you get assistance (or should), but if you are lazy, why shouldn’t you pay the same income tax as me? I pay the tax on everything else that I consume.
They will be much more likely to incur medical bills they can’t pay.
Wow, you almost got the point there then got completely lost. Low income people can’t pay medical bills because they don’t have the money to do so. How will taxing them help that situation? You seem like a student of the “fuck you, I’ve got mine” school of thought.
Take the Waltons of Walmart fame as an extreme example. They are some of the richest people in America but their Walmart employees include people that are being paid so poorly they also need to collect social services such as food stamps and Medicaid. Walmart pays low wages knowing the employees can’t survive and will be assisted by the taxpayers. Paying lower wages means more profits and more money in the Waltons pockets at the expense of the employees. Do you think the Waltons are spending all their extra earnings on things that incur more taxes or are they just putting it away like a dragon on their pile of treasure?
Walmart also uses taxpayer funded services like public roads to move goods, the FAA and ATC for their corporate and private jets, tax breaks when they build new warehouses or stores, etc. So, are the underpaid Walmart employees the ones leaching off society or is it the high earners like the Waltons causing the issues?
I am a “fuck you, I am still working hard every day for mine” kind of person. I have known many people who flake out and try to take short cuts, then blame everyone but themselves for their problems. People who work for walmart are idiots. They go find an easy job, then stay long after they should. If walmart had a hard time employing people they would have to raise the wages and benefits. But they don’t, and don’t have to. Supply and demand. If I was a dog walker and walked a millionaires dog every day do you think they owe me a livable wage, a 401k, and Healthcare? Hell no, go find a real job. Yes, underpaid walmart employees are absolutely leaching off society. Go find some real work… take off that dumb blue shirt and either make money with your brain or with your muscles.
If someone is underpaid, that means they are working harder/longer than they should for the pay they get, right? Which means they are giving more than they are getting. That makes it the opposite of leaching.
Walmart is the one getting more than they should for the amount of pay they offer. So isn’t it Walmart that is the leach in this example?
Lol on how Liberals have no idea what socialism is. :)
Not a liberal. I am a hard working capitalist that wants to earn more for working harder. Just read the wiki page. You definitely want socialism. No thanks. This is a very academic idea that would never work, as we have seen. It just allows the lazy to be more lazy, but the people who would innovate in a capitalist economy to have no motivation to take risks and work harder.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
Socialist systems divide into non-market and market forms.[15][16] A non-market socialist system seeks to eliminate the perceived inefficiencies, irrationalities, unpredictability, and crises that socialists traditionally associate with capital accumulation and the profit system.[17] Market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and sometimes the profit motive.[18][19][20] …
By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify anti-capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production.[29][30] By the early 1920s, communism and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement,[31] with socialism itself becoming the most influential secular movement of the 20th century.[32] …
A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.[334]
—Albert Einstein, “Why Socialism?”, 1949
So, high income taxes is the collectivization of the means of production? You wrote a lot of words, but none of them make sense in regards of your original statement.
And yes, I want socialism (though not in the form you probably assume, but this is getting really OT). But we are not talking about socialism here.
Taxes should be treated like insurance. If you’re more likely to use social services, then you should pay more taxes. Those who do not require public social services should not pay taxes at all.
So high income people don’t use roads, fire, police, the FAA, tax breaks for businesses, etc? They don’t indirectly benefit when their lower income employees, people at the store, people that use whatever drives the high income people’s earnings, etc. are using these social services including food assistance and Medicaid? Do high income people just live in a magical bubble where people have no interaction and connections to each other and they earn money without the input of anyone else? I’d love to live in this fantasy land with you.
One benefit rich people get from social services is the poors not dragging them into the street and beating them to death.
No one needs lower income employees.
The rich person is more likely to require more police services. The rich person is pretty much the only sort of person that’s ever going to have the FBI seriously in their corner. That rich person is more likely to care deeply about the interstate system and the FAA. If a foreign military is coming, the rich are the people that would most desperately want the defense. The rich have the government acting on their best interests in meddling in world affairs and negotiating trade.
Though you probably think welfare is what most taxes go toward, but that’s actually a relatively small piece of the tax funded pie.
Clearly you’ve never done a hard day’s work in your miserable life, which I hope doesn’t last much longer. People like you disgust me.
I worked my way up from poverty. And I did it the hard way. Heat stroke. Broken bones. 75 hour work weeks. Coming home every day covered in dirt and sweat and too tired to even shower.
Now I make good money and I am honored to pay taxes. Taxes kept me from the brink. Taxes funded the work-study programs, the food banks I visited, the shelters I stayed at while homeless. I pay a TON of taxes and that is fucking GREAT. It’s an investment in my neighbors. I want to live in a good place. I want others to have the opportunities I did.
And I don’t fucking delude myself into thinking I made it out because I’m just that awesome. I worked hard, but I also got LUCKY. My taxes make it more possible for others to follow in my footsteps.
You’re such a funny 13 yo kid…
the rich pay more in taxes each year than most people will make in their entire lives
Yet even when doing so they also take home more money each year than most people will make in their entire lives.
But you aren’t paying the same amount proportional to what you have and that’s the main point dude. You are comfortable paying that but people making less than you are using more of the limited resources they have to pay taxes while you are living your best life. At the end of the day it only takes so much money to have your needs met after that it’s just extra but these people don’t even have their needs met yet. If you are working that shouldn’t be the case.
You pay more money total, but you have a lot more left over too. You don’t pay more in Washington State unless you own an expensive property, since they don’t have income tax. Well I guess you pay more if you buy more stuff, but that’s a given.
Even in Washington state you have federal income tax. Why should someone who makes $500k pay 10x more than someone who makes $50k? Just because you think they have more? Someone who makes $500k has worked far harder, likely has lots of student loans, and much higher expenses. This is a capitalist country, not socialist. They say eat the rich… I say eat the lazy.
A family who earned $500k is likely putting lots of money into some sort of savings or investments while a family making $50k is likely living paycheck to paycheck. The $500k earner can part with a little extra to help benefit the greater good.
Also, your ridiculous “they worked harder and low income people are lazy” schtick is idiotic. Do you think someone who grew up in a poor family, went to an underfunded school district, had to work to help support the family, couldn’t afford college, and works multiple jobs just to live paycheck to paycheck is lazy? Or are the high income middle managers that grew up in high income families, went to good school districts, had college paid for by their parents, spend weekends at their lake house, have full time child care, and earn money off the backs of the lower income people the lazy ones?
The graphic is about State taxes, not federal. It’s lacking in information though and hard to draw conclusions from. It’s probably intentionally created to cause anger.
In response to your statements though, the idea is that you can comfortably part with a higher percentage of your money. I’m also in a high tax bracket and I’m not really opposed to a graduated tax rate. Someone’s gotta pay for our military, our roads, social services, police, etc. All of that stuff isn’t going to get funded by people with low income. Social programs can help people lift themselves out of poverty and give them a chance to make something of themselves. They also help protect our nation’s children.
That said, I think the big corporations should shoulder a lot larger portion of that burden than they do. I’m also not keen on the competence and lack of efficiency/effectiveness of our government in a lot of areas.
They say eat the rich, you say eat the lazy, I say don’t eat anyone. I’d love to see our country more unified.
By this logic why not just tax high income earners to the point that they make the same as low income earners? After all, they have more money they can part with as you state. Just offering to blindly pay more tax because uncle Sam needs more missiles is a really stupid argument. It leads to gross over spending and negligence. I worked for a government agency for many years and every year they would buy millions of dollars of stuff that never made if off the pallet just because they needed to spend their budget so they got it next year. Not with my money, no thanks.
There’s two facets to consider. -Is government spending well managed, and if not, what to do to improve it? You may have some fair points there
-To the extent government spending is reasonably required, how to handle paying for it? On this, you overextend their point about who can afford. Someone making $30k/year and trying to get by can’t really spare any money. Someone making $500k/year would still have crap tons of money even paying $200k/year in taxes. No one is proposing that making more should make it so you take home less than the low income person, or even close to the low income person, just that the proportion that can go to government comfortably increases.
It leads to gross over spending and negligence
I don’t disagree with you there. I made that very same point. And that’s the answer to your question, as well as part of your previous statement. We’re still mostly a capitalist society, so you get to reap the rewards of your income. But we have socialist programs too, so those who can bear more of the weight do so.
Sounds like you’re making money by working hard, which is a silly way to try to make a lot of money in a capitalist system. The hint is in the name, my friend: it’s not called “workism”.
If only we lived in an economy where your hard work was proportional to your income!
I don’t see what the issue is. The graphic shows percentage. In absolute terms you pay more but in percentage you pay less.
It’s still deceitful to claim that the rich pay less…
They do in percentage.
I’m confused, WA has no income tax, OR has high income tax… As someone who moved from WA to OR, got a raise, and ended up with smaller paychecks I can attest that this doesn’t represent everyone accurately
WA has no income tax, but it does have a state level sales tax. Low income people spend a larger portion of their income on purchases which results in a much higher tax rate.
States like California have both high sales tax and State income tax, so that’s definitely a worse outcome.
I expected better from New England.
Ya know. Seems like a good time for another constitutional convention. Governing our country federally with a document written by rich slave owners pre train let alone pre internet doesn’t seem max optimization for hamburgerland
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming all have no state income tax. Am I missing something, or is this graph just misinformation?
The states that rely on sales taxes for most of their income are the most likely to tax the poor the most, since the poor spend more of their income.
I don’t buy this, man. Groceries aren’t taxxed, and I just don’t see how a lower income individual could physically buy the same amount of taxed goods as a multimillionaire
You are in fact just missing something because having no income tax doesn’t mean that poor people aren’t being taxed. Think of all the other taxes you pay
…sales tax? I don’t believe that that would be higher for lower income individuals, seeing as higher income people would purchase more things that are taxeable than lower income people. The only other tax I can think of is property tax, which again, I would expect to disproportionately be played by higher income people as they are more likely to own property. I’m not saying that taxing the rich is bad, I’m just saying that there is positively no chance that rich people pay less taxes even if you exclude state income tax.
Tax burden is the amount of your income you pay as tax. Poor people spend a larger share of their income.
The cited article is for expenses unrelated to taxes. I would like to reiterate that I am not disagreeing that the system is busted, I’m just pointing out that saying that higher income people pay less taxes in literal tax havens is not possible. If they are only paying for sales tax and property tax, the only individuals who will be paying more taxes are property owners, which because of how fucked the system is, will practically be exclusively higher income individuals. Yes, renting costs more than property tax, but we are talking about taxes. The majority of your rent will not be going back to the government through taxes, but all of your property tax will.
Basic example to help you understand since it can be a little abstract: I make $1000 a week and buy a TV with $10 in sales tax. That comes out to 1% of my income on taxes. You make $2000 a week and buy the same TV. In your case you only pay .5% of your income for taxes on the same item.
Penny power bitches.
Looks like mods gay
- Sales tax
- Property tax
- Income tax
Pretty well every state charges a combination of those to fund their state. Some have all 3, some rely on just 1. But they all combine to be part of a person’s tax burden.
I’m not used to seeing my state (NJ) on a discussion about tax where it’s painted in a positive light. I know my taxes are high but I can thankfully afford it
Most new York residents are renters and don’t pay taxes directly. The cost gets passed onto them by landlords.
Not true - unless you meant NYC and not all of NY. There’s a lot of NY outside of the City, and that’s mostly homeowners by a slight margin.
The majority of people in the stat live in NYC.
How does that change what I said?
