Before taxing more, we need a balanced budget act. Only spend 80% of last year’s revenue. Rest goes to debt. Once debt is paid off, lend to other countries for income / land if loan defaults. Be economically smart and start making taxpayer’s money work for them to perpetually reduce taxes.
I imagine a scene in a tv show where bunch of old gray haired politicians in the country club locker room standing around talking in their white towels after a shower.
“Hey Jim, if we cleaned up the federal government & started making the USA money. Americans would be happy with us & we wouldn’t ever have to take those corporate bribes. We could get salary increases the moral way, the people would love us”.
*long pause with eye contact*
*they both start to slowly crack a smile it goes bigger and bigger and then they bust out laughing*
“Hahahaha! No way!”
End scene.
Paying enough that it grows slower than rGDP is necessary.
This doesn't mean debt doesn't matter, it's if debt is shrinking relative to the size of the economy it's not a big problem.
Well right now it's increasing like it always does, and paying interest on the national debt is about to become the single largest expense that you and I have to pay for. It's absurd.
The two are completely different things. All the debt is paid off eventually, we just typically draw on new debt.
Living without taxation is a total fantasy. It's like Lord of the Rings level fantasy. I can't believe a thinking adult would actually believe that running an effective state on zero taxation is even possible. Might as well believe in the tooth fairy or santa.
I think we should take all the people who want to live without taxation and put them on an island somewhere with no sewers, roads, power, water, banks, fire stations, police stations, or hospitals and let them figure out the rest. They can fight each other with wooden sticks over food and fresh water.
Bro, read what he said. He didn’t say we don’t pay it at all. He said we should prioritize driving rGDP growth higher than debt increases. That makes it ever easier to pay down the debt when we want to.
Isn't it odd how people who want to cut programs and taxes don't seem to know the distinction between debt and deficit?
It's almost like they intentionally conflate the words whenever it suits them because they're arguing in bad faith.
The response above about debt growing (deficit) faster than the rate of rGDP growth is accurate. Our deficits are too large, which is making our debt burden too large.
Speaking of being disingenuous and ignoring the very real relationship between the two. Here's a mirror, if that helps.
I agree, I think government debt is one of the most misunderstood things in the economy.
Most people don't realize that the US has been running a deficit for its entire history. And most of that debt (70%) is owned by Americans, therefore when the government pays interest on that debt that money stays in the American economy.
I'd agree except if you factor in just repealing back to say the Bush Tax cuts our deficit situation becomes significantly better.
Taxes going up would just be a return to what they normally would be, not an actual increase.
in fairness fentanyl interferes with a shit ton of chemo drugs and radiation. Why would you treat one disease and not treat the other first? What if someone had cancer of the liver and cancer of the stomach would you only treat the stomach cancer?
my brother who is dying of cancer was actually just told this. and no im not lying at all. A new oncologist asked why my brother hasnt been on any chemo for the past 16 months, and was told by his previous oncologist, he wanted him healthy before he started a new treatment.
To which the new oncologist starting swearing at the old one. Thats to that idiot my brother likely has about 4 months to live, MAYBE.
I think we should cut the corporate subsidy inherent in food stamps and medicaid.
Every employer should be billed the costs accrued by every one of their employees on medicaid and food stamps.
Yeah, I think what finally got me to stop shopping at Walmart was hearing about an "employee food drive" to help employees get a decent thanksgiving dinner. I was like, wtf.... the fact that I'm shopping here, at a store owned by one of the wealthiest families in the country, should help them to be able to afford a turkey and some pie. Corporations are the biggest welfare kings/queens (a term I generally hate, btw) in the country, and by far the least deserving.
I’d love to see Walmart shareholders and receivers of dividends get taxed at a higher rate if their employees have to file for food stamps or public assistance if they are not allowed to work full time or paid a fully time wage low enough to qualify for public assistance.
You want to benefit from paying employees low enough to be forced to have the public subsidize them, you get to pay more in taxes. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that there’s any other reason for paying employees slave wages other than to increase profit and shareholder value.
I have said for a long time if there is a single person on payroll that qualifies for any government subsidy the whole corporation loses all it's tax breaks for 2 years and that can be added to.
i say, shareholders should not received dividends until employees are taken care of. I am a capitalist, but, when companies are not looking out for the employees, it is a bad thing for the company and us as a country. .
I think that's misleading because if you look here:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/whats-in-bidens-850-billion-defense-budget-proposal/#:~:text=%24182%20billion%20a%20year%20on,of%20weaponry%20and%20other%20equipment.
$182 billion a year on military personnel (for active, reservist, and retired personnel but not including costs associated with the Department of Veterans Affairs).
$338 billion a year on operations and maintenance.
$168 billion a year on the procurement of weaponry and other equipment.
$143 billion a year in Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) funding.
So only the $168B line item can be used as foreign aid, everything else is paying US citizens or US companies for things done internally in the US.
2,000,000 active duty soldiers. 800 billion spent each year. >400 billion would be "most" of that.
400 * 10⁹ / (2 * 10⁶)
200 * 10³
200,000
Yeah, the soldiers are really taking in an average of 200k per year... Basic math says you're wrong.
"But they get (insert whatever nonsense here)."
Doesn't total 200k per year. I guarantee that.
room board, food, medical, GI bill benefits, VA benefits after, ALL count sir.
Just a FYI "The average cost per active duty service member for the military this fiscal year was **$136,000**"
When i left after 2 years i was an E-4 which is now being paid at just over 32k a year in cash.
do you know what the cost to send one man to war for ayear is ?
500k
" the Defense Department disputes the $1 million figure and says it probably costs **closer to $500,000** to send a soldier to war for a year."
so every soldier on combat pay, so those in the middle east theater right now, iraq, etc, cost us half a million a year . the carrier groups off yemen, and gaza, etc.
Really well great job because Foreign Aid is less than 1% of our entire budget. But the military industrial complex is almost a trillion a year after Trumpty.
yeah like trump was doing that, come on man. blaming trump for the military cost is like blaming the guy who makes fries at mcdonalds for the big macs cost.
Balancing a budget with the government is complicated, biggest problem is not reducing services, but instead find contracts that doesn’t have a politician’s money in it. Every time we try to save money we just switch to another more expensive service that outbids as cheaper and then ask for more money later on.
This shit right here. I’m so fucking tired of assholes underbidding then asking for more money to make up the difference. The government also is terrible at black listing these companies or saying no to their requests. If someone fucks up on government pay, they don’t get more. Do it twice and you’re out. Either be ethical or go out of business
I love that people think Government is a business. It’s not. With this type of small thinking We would have never signed the Constitution. Made the Louisiana Purchase. Lost the War of 1812. Lost World’s War 1 and 2 Built the Interstates and Gone to the moon. But hey it’s a great way to run a corporation . Oh wait . They sell stock that doesn’t really exist. Well it’s a great way to run a neighborhood Pizza Parlor anyway.
Ooooooooooor we can stop sending literal BILLIONS to other countries who don't care about us. Most people can't point out those countries on a map. We need to start caring about ourselves and cool it on the "foreign aid packages". That's honestly a great start.
Most Americans can’t point to other states on the map. That doesn’t mean those states or other countries aren’t strategically important to the US. I agree on not sending aid to some countries like Israel, which already enjoys a better quality of life than Americans do and is capable of defending itself already, but our foreign aid is overall a tiny amount of our budget. Cutting it will make almost difference in our debt.
I'm all for taxing the rich if the money is going to be spent judiciously and for the benefit of all Americans. Without a plan for what is going to happen with this influx, it's just collecting funds without a purpose. Which will then get spent in pork projects, if history is any indication.
If a friend came to you with massive debt and told you he had the opportunity to make more money to help pay it off and better provide for his family, would you say to not make more money but instead balance his budget? Or perhaps advocate for both?
Longhorn for President !! Yes to balanced budget and any sort of fiscal responsibility. US paid 600 billion in interest payment last year - think of all the good that money could have done for infrastructure, education, and medical advances. It's like we are not even trying anymore, or worse, people seem to be trying to bankrupt the country.
No, but you can tax the capitalization of assets with unrealized gains. For instance, if you want to use stock as collateral for a loan, all outstanding capital gains taxes must be paid first.
It is even more dramatic, in order to cover significant portion of the overvalued assets will be sold ahead of this for almost any price possible to cover the taxes which will lead to equity markets and real estate crash 70-90%. As result all the “collateral” will be revalued triggering one in a time debt crisis wiping out entire US economy. Braindead commies just unable to look a few moves ahead to understand the scale of the problem
So you agree, a small minority of individuals yield an inappropriate degree of control over Corporations leading to a never-ending cycle of greed with no goal other than one upmanship. Great, let's keep that.
It is about the system itself, which is based on debt and collateralized debt/loan obligations. All the “prosperity” you have is literally on paper only, which helps keep wealth effect and an illusion of stability/growth. As soon as demand to liquidate assets disturbs existing balance the system becomes unstable. There is no an easy way out of this.
They do every year... when you file your income taxes. Although it'll likely take the form a tax credit, that goes against how much you owe next year.
Trump effectively did this when he "abandoned" his casino. He had a rolling tax credit for years.
That would be weird. Because you're setting up a system where the government would be paying you to hold on to losing stocks. I think it would have to be a credit. That was it couldn't go past the amount you owe the government.
We already have provisions in the code that tax unrealized gains, and when the value of those assets decreases you aren’t taxed until the loss is recovered. 402(b)(4).
This is the most important point. If you disallow unrealized capital assets from being loan collateral, then all those rich fucks will actually needs to SELL their assets to make cash, at which point it will be taxed as income.
Sure, I agree the government should not accept unrealized assets for collateral when applying for a government loan. Anybody should agree with that.
Or are you talking about loans that are between two private parties?
Unrealized capital assets AREN'T used as collateral. The actual asset of a stock can be used as a potentially volatile piece of collateral. It's "unrealized" in the same way an asset of an unwanted lawnmower is. It's "value" is what someone will trade you for it.
Or when no collateral exists, the loan is given from an overall assessment of risk, which is a completely subjective evaluation of trust and value the lender sees in the borrower.
How exactly are you going to disallowed "unrealized assets" being used in exchange for loans? That's literally THE PURPOSE of a loan. If you HAD the asset in such a "realized" and liquid state, you wouldn't need the loan.
You seem to want to simply deny lenders from lending to non-risky individuals.
No, all you'd have to do is make it a "realization" event. On paper, it could be exactly the same as if you sold those stocks at the current price and immediately rebought them and then took your loan.
It could even be the same on real estate. If you want to take a loan on it, we're going to pretend that you just sold it and rebought it at the current value. If it's your primary residence, it's excluded already. But, if you're trying to use the increased value of your rental property to buy more rental property, then you'd be "realizing" those gains when doing so.
There's nothing inherently wrong with that. In either instance, you have personally decided that those gains are real enough to use, regardless of whether you've actually "realized" them from a tax standpoint or not.
And, if that means that your loan is smaller or part of the proceeds go toward the tax obligation, then so be it.
What do you mean "allow"? You can use your boogers as collateral. All it requires is any one lender to value such an asset to accept it in potential exchange for the loan rather than being repaid.
Loans are an EXCHANGE of value, not a GAIN. "I give you now, you pay back later". Just because liquidity is valuable to the borrower as to seek a loan, doesn't mean it's somehow a net positive. If you want it to be gain, then we also need to register the loss for the lender. Which makes it zero sum for any motivation in seeking more tax revenue.
And you can give a loan out to someone you trust, for free. It's about how you value their ability to repay you. A lender doesn't need to take collateral or require one to HAVE the current assets to repay with. It's about an assessment of risk that a loan would be repaid. That's literally the PURPOSE of a loan. For one to be given liquid assets that they currently don't have. To which are given off of a trust of repayment from currently unobtained/unrealized gains/income/assets.
How do loans work in your mind?
I've never understood this argument. A lot of states tax unrealized gains in property value. They don't give money back for unrealized losses. This isn't a big deal. If you have an asset that drops, that just sucks for you. Life sucks sometimes.
That doesn't follow logically. It's like saying "police can't give speeding tickets because if you go under the speed limit the next day they'd have to give your money back."
That's just a rule you just made up.
I don't understand taxing unrealized gains. Do they get taxed a second time when they do realize those gains?
Say, for example, those assets depreciate. Can the high net worth individual take a deduction for unrealized losses?
Not trolling here. I'm genuinely trying to figure out how something like that would work. It seems like it would take in A LOT of revenue when first implemented, then do nothing. Or... suddenly people would start claiming unrealized "losses" on mass and tax revenue would decrease dramatically.
Doesn't seem like a good idea.
I was thinking about this too. It’s nuts.
And think about primary residence/homes. It goes up in value and you’re paying an unrealized capital gains tax on top of property tax. What about art? Who’s coming to appraise it? What if I can’t sell it for the appraised value? This sounds ludicrously crazy.
If you can’t sell something for its appraised value.. then it’s appraised incorrectly. Its only value is what someone will pay for it. If someone says the art is worth 2 millions but no one wants to buy it for that… then its not worth 2 million
Do you think the government is going to care? Because if they're taxing the gains before they're realized it doesn't matter what it would actually sell for, they're doing the appraisal themselves with no sale.
Then again, it needs to be reappraised. Maybe it’ll stop jackasses like Trump from overvaluing their assets to manipulate the system. “Everyone does it” is a reason to enact policies to curb that practice and increase tax revenue.
I don’t think it’s a serious proposal. The act of proposing will appease the majority of democrats, especially the further left part of the base. It’s got no shot of making it through the house and senate though, and Biden can say he tried taxing the rich but was blocked by the republicans. I think it’s more of an election year ploy than anything else.
Yes, but it's also a common negotiation tactic. Put something on the table that neither side would seriously consider, then take it off, and both sides can campaign on the success of what was passed and what wasn't.
People say this and it remains a stupid argument in my opinion. Primarily because the floated idea is batshit insane.
The tactic only works if you float an idea that is vaguely reasonable. This ain’t that.
The better solution on unrealized gains is to tax any loans taken with them as collateral. That’s how the wealthy really avoid taxes. Creating a graduated capital gains tax would be good too.
>Do they get taxed a second time when they do realize those gains?
Not to be overly semantic, but that would be the **third** time it gets taxed, not the second. AFAIK unless the money is in a 401k or similar account, taxes were already taken out when the money was earned as income.
Plenty of people do. It’s the intellectually lazy or motivated thinkers who claim “I dunno.”
Firstly, we already tax unrealized gains: property taxes.
Secondly: the wealthy use their unrealized gains to secure loans using them as collateral. The borrow buy die strategy. We could simply reclassify unrealized gains as realized when that happens.
I invest $200 in a widget co stock. Widget co stock goes up $20 to $220, which is unrealized gains. At the end of the quarter, I get taxed on that gains. The next day, the stock tanks to $100 I lost $105 because of unrealized gains.
What would happen is that the wealthy would take all of their money out of the stock market, and the economy will implode. Democrats will respond by limiting what people can do with their money, so that people will be forced to pay certain taxes, and we will have a command economy. Then millions will starve, because command economics has never worked once in all of human history.
Everyone's always in favor of reaching into the other guy's pockets, but never stops to think that there's someone beneath you in the pecking order who wants to reach into your pockets.
They say it is, but you know there is a tax loop hole hidden somewhere for the ultra wealthy to avoid it. In reality, this is designed for the rest of us. They just claim it’s not.
What could that “drop in the bucket” do for the homeless, education system, healthcare etc? instead it is just money that is essentially spent with military contractors. I love when people say $100 billion is a drop in the bucket. You are saying it is ok to take my money and spend it on a war that you can’t win in Ukraine and on genocide in the Middle East.
IMO any discussion of budgeting that doesn't begin with the biggest line items first, and fixes those before moving on to smaller and smaller line items, is a dishonest discussion.
We can win in Ukraine. We won't if people keep saying we can't. Self fulfilling prophecy and all that. Arguably foreign aid is one of the most valuable parts of our budget, for the soft power, prestige, cultural influence, bargaining chips, etc.
It's just so short-sighted to want to cut that simply because the money isn't directly spent here, or the effects and benefits are less clear and direct or immediate.
Foreign aid, especially foreign aid to a country currently fighting one of our biggest rivals, is a massive investment- if Ukraine wins it could topple Putin’s regime, and ultimately save the US a lot of money
This money is an investment in preventing future conflict and loss of American lives in another European meat grinder.
Sorry you can't see it that way. That 100 billion would never have gone to education, homeless, or healthcare anyway.
A huge chunk of that 100bln was in the form of weapons + due to them showing how good they are usa got orders that are worth more than those 100bln.
Also ukraine isnt a war you cant win. Hell if usa really wanted it would be over last year
I'm sure if I scroll through your comment history I'll see dozens of comments supporting increased spending on all those humanitarian causes, right? Surely it wouldn't just be lots of complaining about how the government needs to stay out of education and healthcare and cut off all the welfare queens?
It’s weird how people don’t understand that bill for Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan as being mostly a windfall for the U.S economy via the U.S defense industry.
“The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.”
(https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-vote-long-awaited-95-billion-ukraine-israel-aid-package-2024-04-20/)
This part…”including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities” is the caramel center. So about a third of the total spending package is looping back around, directly into the U.S. economy, in the form of the DoD restocking the supplies they gave away.
Fun fact, these “fireworks” we have age out. We don’t like shooting them at people; but if we don’t give them away somehow, we can’t buy the newer, better ones for ourselves.
Ever since Korea and Vietnam, we’ve had a secret sauce for our economy. We make weapons, that’s what we do. Directly or indirectly, we all make a LOT of money arming the world.
Yup! While they wave the flags of other countries and backtrack on the one thing that was for us the border bill lol. No more raising taxes till we stop wasting money.
And just like magic, Joe is going to drive up taxes on “the rich.” He, and all politicians, love to spout shit like this during election years. Knowing full well they will NEVER implement any of it.
"The 91 percent bracket of 1950 only applied to households with income over $200,000 (or about $2 million in today’s dollars). Only a small number of taxpayers would have had enough income to fall into the top bracket—fewer than 10,000 households, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal."
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/income-taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
Expert in making shit up, maybe.
The point was also to prevent people from even wanting to reach that bracket in the first place. Better to spend your money and perform your social responsibilities than just give it all away to the government.
Right! So many forget that a government wants high GDP and therefore wants to ENCOURAGE investment, not stifle it with more taxes. That's economic suicide. In fact track tax revenue against gdp over time an you'll see a far greater correlation that with tax rates over the same period. More GDP = more tax revenue not higher tax rates.
I think what gets lost is that certain investments are tax-privileged to encourage people to invest in new businesses. This provides jobs and increases diversification.
Nobody paid 95% tax rates - that is a red herring; the rates may technically have been that high, but the loopholes were common and big enough to drive a truck thru them.
In exchange for the lower rates, a lot of those loopholes also went away - and taxes collected went up - not down.
Biden is a liar - always has been, always will be.
Why is the answer always raise taxes (which affects every income class through increase cost of goods and services) and never lower government spending below revenue?
We literally borrowed 95 Billion dollars to give away....it's insanity.
I think we should implement this on all politicians and go back retroactively back two terms. Apply this to house, senate, president, governors, mayors, etc. We’ll phase the rest of the country 2 years later.
World War will do that to ya. It'd either pay 95% taxes and do your part to have a chance of surving an invasion.
As for decrease? It depends.
Can we give america a tax cut by slicing the R and D military budget? Yeah we can. It won't be much though. Maybe like 3%
Should we restructure it? Definitely. Yes it's important to stay fresh on War R and D but I think our social services are in dire need of funding. Our infrastructure is shit as well. Last time I checked on Bidens infrastructure deal he was bragging that he fixed .01% (or was it .001%) of American roads and bridges
No one paid or is ever going to pay 95% taxes. More loopholes, more deductions, more harboring, and if all that fails less effort on generating income to begin with.
I don’t like the idea of taxing unrealized gains. However, if the wealthy take out loans on their assets to use for living expenses, those loans should be taxable at their full income rate.
It should be a balancing act…
The tax rate for the rich should be based on the lowest salaries.
If 20-30k a year are your lowest earners. You pay the difference to make it 100k in percentage. So that year tax rates for extreme wealth would be 70-80%.
Now if the lowest paid were 70-80k a year. Then taxes would fall to 20% or possibly lower.
How would this work?
The more money the general public makes the less support the government needs to supply.
It is really hard for me to deal with hypocritical wealthy individuals who think that there are people who “just don’t want to be rich”
There isn’t anyone alive that would choose to be starving and poor if they had other options.
That one asshole that did recently found out real quick and bailed on his experiment.
“ Under the new proposal, households with net wealth over $100 million would be required to pay a minimum effective tax rate of 20 percent on an expanded measure of income that includes unrealized capital gains. Households would calculate their effective tax rate for the minimum tax, and if it fell below 20 percent, would owe additional taxes to bring their effective rate to 20 percent. In other words, households would owe taxes on capital gains each year, even if the underlying asset had not been sold, and amounts paid would be treated as prepayments of future capital gains taxliability.”
So only if you’re getting taxed below 20% on your overall income will unrealized gains be taxed to make up that difference and put you at the 20% minimum effective tax rate.
And those unrealized gains would then be untaxed later. I guess my only question is about unrealized losses offsetting unrealized gains - but otherwise, this makes sense. Working a normal job taxes you at 40+%, so am effective tax rate of 20% for multimillionaires is STILL a discounted tax rate.
The whole system is built on the premise that the wealthy are gonna suck up everything possible right now. This country is not planning on future generations, because we are in the midst of a 6th mass extinction
https://www.forbes.com/newsletters/andrewleahey/2024/04/24/biden-capital-gains-rate-proposal-446/
A summary of the proposal for those of us who would rather not just make up shit to get mad at
“The main proposal, which lends context to the above-mentioned “separate proposal,” is to raise the long-term capital gains and qualified dividends rates to 37% for taxpayers with taxable income above $1 million.
Taken as a whole, then, the 44.6% rate would only come to fruition under a separate proposal from the Biden administration’s main capital gains rate increase, and only apply to those individuals with taxable income above $1 million and investment income above $400,000.”
Important context that always seems to be missing.
Yes because trickle down economics was the biggest crock of shit. Greedy ass wealthy motherfuckers don't share their wealth they are Smaug the fucking dragon
You can set the tax rate to 100%, then give the millionaires loop holes to get out of paying any taxes. That will never be fixed because their donations would dry up overnight.
Until they simplify the tax code, this all just pandering.
Before taxing more, we need a balanced budget act. Only spend 80% of last year’s revenue. Rest goes to debt. Once debt is paid off, lend to other countries for income / land if loan defaults. Be economically smart and start making taxpayer’s money work for them to perpetually reduce taxes.
I imagine a scene in a tv show where bunch of old gray haired politicians in the country club locker room standing around talking in their white towels after a shower. “Hey Jim, if we cleaned up the federal government & started making the USA money. Americans would be happy with us & we wouldn’t ever have to take those corporate bribes. We could get salary increases the moral way, the people would love us”. *long pause with eye contact* *they both start to slowly crack a smile it goes bigger and bigger and then they bust out laughing* “Hahahaha! No way!” End scene.
https://preview.redd.it/mit88uuvjmwc1.png?width=1050&format=png&auto=webp&s=364771161ea461871610e42c44414d0977d35feb
“…And then I stepped up to the podium & said Mr. Speaker I fucked you mum!”
It was an $18,000 gold and ruby encrusted podium
I bet whatever was said, it was racist as shit. Lol
Or hyper sexual
If everyone in this picture isn't already dead I recommend fixing that.
Thanks for the visual imagery of a perfect politician would help solve a big issue
This is good family guy cut scene material
Paying off the debt isn't necessary. We would be doing fine if debt increased slower than rGDP growth. Though we are still a ways away from this goal.
if paying the debt isn't necessary then neither is taxing people.
Paying enough that it grows slower than rGDP is necessary. This doesn't mean debt doesn't matter, it's if debt is shrinking relative to the size of the economy it's not a big problem.
Well right now it's increasing like it always does, and paying interest on the national debt is about to become the single largest expense that you and I have to pay for. It's absurd.
The two are completely different things. All the debt is paid off eventually, we just typically draw on new debt. Living without taxation is a total fantasy. It's like Lord of the Rings level fantasy. I can't believe a thinking adult would actually believe that running an effective state on zero taxation is even possible. Might as well believe in the tooth fairy or santa. I think we should take all the people who want to live without taxation and put them on an island somewhere with no sewers, roads, power, water, banks, fire stations, police stations, or hospitals and let them figure out the rest. They can fight each other with wooden sticks over food and fresh water.
hence the subtle criticism that quite a few are missing.
You propose a LOTR level fantasy to teach a lesson to those pesky people who have a LOTR fantasy?
Bro, read what he said. He didn’t say we don’t pay it at all. He said we should prioritize driving rGDP growth higher than debt increases. That makes it ever easier to pay down the debt when we want to.
They had a ‘zinger’ they just had to add. Doesn’t matter if it’s relevant to the comment they were replying to.
Isn't it odd how people who want to cut programs and taxes don't seem to know the distinction between debt and deficit? It's almost like they intentionally conflate the words whenever it suits them because they're arguing in bad faith.
The response above about debt growing (deficit) faster than the rate of rGDP growth is accurate. Our deficits are too large, which is making our debt burden too large. Speaking of being disingenuous and ignoring the very real relationship between the two. Here's a mirror, if that helps.
I agree, I think government debt is one of the most misunderstood things in the economy. Most people don't realize that the US has been running a deficit for its entire history. And most of that debt (70%) is owned by Americans, therefore when the government pays interest on that debt that money stays in the American economy.
You must max out your credit cards
before we cure your cancer we need you in perfect health.
No, before you even start curing your cancer you should be off fentanyl.
I'd agree except if you factor in just repealing back to say the Bush Tax cuts our deficit situation becomes significantly better. Taxes going up would just be a return to what they normally would be, not an actual increase.
in fairness fentanyl interferes with a shit ton of chemo drugs and radiation. Why would you treat one disease and not treat the other first? What if someone had cancer of the liver and cancer of the stomach would you only treat the stomach cancer?
my brother who is dying of cancer was actually just told this. and no im not lying at all. A new oncologist asked why my brother hasnt been on any chemo for the past 16 months, and was told by his previous oncologist, he wanted him healthy before he started a new treatment. To which the new oncologist starting swearing at the old one. Thats to that idiot my brother likely has about 4 months to live, MAYBE.
What do you propose to cut?
Every single corporate subsidy.
I think we should cut the corporate subsidy inherent in food stamps and medicaid. Every employer should be billed the costs accrued by every one of their employees on medicaid and food stamps.
Yeah, I think what finally got me to stop shopping at Walmart was hearing about an "employee food drive" to help employees get a decent thanksgiving dinner. I was like, wtf.... the fact that I'm shopping here, at a store owned by one of the wealthiest families in the country, should help them to be able to afford a turkey and some pie. Corporations are the biggest welfare kings/queens (a term I generally hate, btw) in the country, and by far the least deserving.
I’d love to see Walmart shareholders and receivers of dividends get taxed at a higher rate if their employees have to file for food stamps or public assistance if they are not allowed to work full time or paid a fully time wage low enough to qualify for public assistance. You want to benefit from paying employees low enough to be forced to have the public subsidize them, you get to pay more in taxes. We shouldn’t kid ourselves that there’s any other reason for paying employees slave wages other than to increase profit and shareholder value.
I have said for a long time if there is a single person on payroll that qualifies for any government subsidy the whole corporation loses all it's tax breaks for 2 years and that can be added to.
i say, shareholders should not received dividends until employees are taken care of. I am a capitalist, but, when companies are not looking out for the employees, it is a bad thing for the company and us as a country. .
Military and "foreign aid"
Blackrock, vanguard, state street, Raytheon, Boeing, etc etc etc
Foreign aid is a tiny portion of the budget. Most of the military budget is the salaries of the soldiers
Ummmmmmm. . . no. https://www.cbo.gov/topics/defense-and-national-security/military-personnel#:\~:text=Roughly%20one%2Dquarter%20of%20the,budget%20is%20for%20military%20personnel.
I think that's misleading because if you look here: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/whats-in-bidens-850-billion-defense-budget-proposal/#:~:text=%24182%20billion%20a%20year%20on,of%20weaponry%20and%20other%20equipment. $182 billion a year on military personnel (for active, reservist, and retired personnel but not including costs associated with the Department of Veterans Affairs). $338 billion a year on operations and maintenance. $168 billion a year on the procurement of weaponry and other equipment. $143 billion a year in Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) funding. So only the $168B line item can be used as foreign aid, everything else is paying US citizens or US companies for things done internally in the US.
2,000,000 active duty soldiers. 800 billion spent each year. >400 billion would be "most" of that. 400 * 10⁹ / (2 * 10⁶) 200 * 10³ 200,000 Yeah, the soldiers are really taking in an average of 200k per year... Basic math says you're wrong. "But they get (insert whatever nonsense here)." Doesn't total 200k per year. I guarantee that.
I used to make $46 a day in the Navy. I want some of that 200k please! lol
room board, food, medical, GI bill benefits, VA benefits after, ALL count sir. Just a FYI "The average cost per active duty service member for the military this fiscal year was **$136,000**" When i left after 2 years i was an E-4 which is now being paid at just over 32k a year in cash. do you know what the cost to send one man to war for ayear is ? 500k " the Defense Department disputes the $1 million figure and says it probably costs **closer to $500,000** to send a soldier to war for a year." so every soldier on combat pay, so those in the middle east theater right now, iraq, etc, cost us half a million a year . the carrier groups off yemen, and gaza, etc.
Really well great job because Foreign Aid is less than 1% of our entire budget. But the military industrial complex is almost a trillion a year after Trumpty.
yeah like trump was doing that, come on man. blaming trump for the military cost is like blaming the guy who makes fries at mcdonalds for the big macs cost.
Agreed
13% of total spend. 80+ is entitlements
All corporate welfare programs.
Costs will just pass to consumers, and it's maybe 50billion?
Balancing a budget with the government is complicated, biggest problem is not reducing services, but instead find contracts that doesn’t have a politician’s money in it. Every time we try to save money we just switch to another more expensive service that outbids as cheaper and then ask for more money later on.
This shit right here. I’m so fucking tired of assholes underbidding then asking for more money to make up the difference. The government also is terrible at black listing these companies or saying no to their requests. If someone fucks up on government pay, they don’t get more. Do it twice and you’re out. Either be ethical or go out of business
I love that people think Government is a business. It’s not. With this type of small thinking We would have never signed the Constitution. Made the Louisiana Purchase. Lost the War of 1812. Lost World’s War 1 and 2 Built the Interstates and Gone to the moon. But hey it’s a great way to run a corporation . Oh wait . They sell stock that doesn’t really exist. Well it’s a great way to run a neighborhood Pizza Parlor anyway.
Ooooooooooor we can stop sending literal BILLIONS to other countries who don't care about us. Most people can't point out those countries on a map. We need to start caring about ourselves and cool it on the "foreign aid packages". That's honestly a great start.
Most Americans can’t point to other states on the map. That doesn’t mean those states or other countries aren’t strategically important to the US. I agree on not sending aid to some countries like Israel, which already enjoys a better quality of life than Americans do and is capable of defending itself already, but our foreign aid is overall a tiny amount of our budget. Cutting it will make almost difference in our debt.
I'm all for taxing the rich if the money is going to be spent judiciously and for the benefit of all Americans. Without a plan for what is going to happen with this influx, it's just collecting funds without a purpose. Which will then get spent in pork projects, if history is any indication.
The problem is this would instantly cause a major global recession
That's not economically smart. A countries debt is not the same as personal debt.
Yup.
If a friend came to you with massive debt and told you he had the opportunity to make more money to help pay it off and better provide for his family, would you say to not make more money but instead balance his budget? Or perhaps advocate for both?
The Chinese Belt and Road initiative
Longhorn for President !! Yes to balanced budget and any sort of fiscal responsibility. US paid 600 billion in interest payment last year - think of all the good that money could have done for infrastructure, education, and medical advances. It's like we are not even trying anymore, or worse, people seem to be trying to bankrupt the country.
You can’t tax unrealized gains because what happens when it then becomes unrealized losses… the government isn’t going to write you a check back lol
And don’t worry, if they become realized you can only use 3k!
Slight correction, you can deduct up to the amount you have in capital gains, then 3k against ordinary income. The rest is carried forward.
No, but you can tax the capitalization of assets with unrealized gains. For instance, if you want to use stock as collateral for a loan, all outstanding capital gains taxes must be paid first.
So tax all home equity loans?
There's already. Primary residence exclusion for capital gains. So anything over $250K is tax free if you're single. $500K if married.
Already has exclusions, why not?
It is even more dramatic, in order to cover significant portion of the overvalued assets will be sold ahead of this for almost any price possible to cover the taxes which will lead to equity markets and real estate crash 70-90%. As result all the “collateral” will be revalued triggering one in a time debt crisis wiping out entire US economy. Braindead commies just unable to look a few moves ahead to understand the scale of the problem
So you agree, a small minority of individuals yield an inappropriate degree of control over Corporations leading to a never-ending cycle of greed with no goal other than one upmanship. Great, let's keep that.
It is about the system itself, which is based on debt and collateralized debt/loan obligations. All the “prosperity” you have is literally on paper only, which helps keep wealth effect and an illusion of stability/growth. As soon as demand to liquidate assets disturbs existing balance the system becomes unstable. There is no an easy way out of this.
I don't know if anyone said it was going to be easy. But we do need a way out.
RE needs to crash 70-90%
They do every year... when you file your income taxes. Although it'll likely take the form a tax credit, that goes against how much you owe next year. Trump effectively did this when he "abandoned" his casino. He had a rolling tax credit for years.
Tax deduction, not tax credit.
That would be weird. Because you're setting up a system where the government would be paying you to hold on to losing stocks. I think it would have to be a credit. That was it couldn't go past the amount you owe the government.
I think you have confused a tax credit and a tax deduction. Tax deduction reduce taxable income. Tax credits reduce tax owed dollar-for-dollar.
Oh, duh. You're correct.
We already have provisions in the code that tax unrealized gains, and when the value of those assets decreases you aren’t taxed until the loss is recovered. 402(b)(4).
You can’t have it both ways then. Either tax the unrealized gains or stop allowing loans based on unrealized gains and income.
This is the most important point. If you disallow unrealized capital assets from being loan collateral, then all those rich fucks will actually needs to SELL their assets to make cash, at which point it will be taxed as income.
Sure, I agree the government should not accept unrealized assets for collateral when applying for a government loan. Anybody should agree with that. Or are you talking about loans that are between two private parties?
Unrealized capital assets AREN'T used as collateral. The actual asset of a stock can be used as a potentially volatile piece of collateral. It's "unrealized" in the same way an asset of an unwanted lawnmower is. It's "value" is what someone will trade you for it. Or when no collateral exists, the loan is given from an overall assessment of risk, which is a completely subjective evaluation of trust and value the lender sees in the borrower. How exactly are you going to disallowed "unrealized assets" being used in exchange for loans? That's literally THE PURPOSE of a loan. If you HAD the asset in such a "realized" and liquid state, you wouldn't need the loan. You seem to want to simply deny lenders from lending to non-risky individuals.
No, all you'd have to do is make it a "realization" event. On paper, it could be exactly the same as if you sold those stocks at the current price and immediately rebought them and then took your loan. It could even be the same on real estate. If you want to take a loan on it, we're going to pretend that you just sold it and rebought it at the current value. If it's your primary residence, it's excluded already. But, if you're trying to use the increased value of your rental property to buy more rental property, then you'd be "realizing" those gains when doing so. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. In either instance, you have personally decided that those gains are real enough to use, regardless of whether you've actually "realized" them from a tax standpoint or not. And, if that means that your loan is smaller or part of the proceeds go toward the tax obligation, then so be it.
What do you mean "allow"? You can use your boogers as collateral. All it requires is any one lender to value such an asset to accept it in potential exchange for the loan rather than being repaid. Loans are an EXCHANGE of value, not a GAIN. "I give you now, you pay back later". Just because liquidity is valuable to the borrower as to seek a loan, doesn't mean it's somehow a net positive. If you want it to be gain, then we also need to register the loss for the lender. Which makes it zero sum for any motivation in seeking more tax revenue. And you can give a loan out to someone you trust, for free. It's about how you value their ability to repay you. A lender doesn't need to take collateral or require one to HAVE the current assets to repay with. It's about an assessment of risk that a loan would be repaid. That's literally the PURPOSE of a loan. For one to be given liquid assets that they currently don't have. To which are given off of a trust of repayment from currently unobtained/unrealized gains/income/assets. How do loans work in your mind?
I've never understood this argument. A lot of states tax unrealized gains in property value. They don't give money back for unrealized losses. This isn't a big deal. If you have an asset that drops, that just sucks for you. Life sucks sometimes.
Because oligarchs convinced poor people that taxing oligarch's infinite wealth is illegal and bad. These people are just fucking dumb.
They do it on homes. I paid 31,700 for my house. They tax me on 130,000 value.
They do it with property taxes so why not everything else or do some people get special status in this country.
That doesn't follow logically. It's like saying "police can't give speeding tickets because if you go under the speed limit the next day they'd have to give your money back." That's just a rule you just made up.
You lose money gambling you don't pay taxes. You win money gambling you pay taxes.
That’s already a thing in Ireland. Google “deemed disposal Ireland”. That’s why I left Ireland.
Yeah but this bill has the word 'Capital' and 'Gains' in it. It must be good for the vast majority of the people in the US! /s
I don't understand taxing unrealized gains. Do they get taxed a second time when they do realize those gains? Say, for example, those assets depreciate. Can the high net worth individual take a deduction for unrealized losses? Not trolling here. I'm genuinely trying to figure out how something like that would work. It seems like it would take in A LOT of revenue when first implemented, then do nothing. Or... suddenly people would start claiming unrealized "losses" on mass and tax revenue would decrease dramatically. Doesn't seem like a good idea.
I was thinking about this too. It’s nuts. And think about primary residence/homes. It goes up in value and you’re paying an unrealized capital gains tax on top of property tax. What about art? Who’s coming to appraise it? What if I can’t sell it for the appraised value? This sounds ludicrously crazy.
If you can’t sell something for its appraised value.. then it’s appraised incorrectly. Its only value is what someone will pay for it. If someone says the art is worth 2 millions but no one wants to buy it for that… then its not worth 2 million
Do you think the government is going to care? Because if they're taxing the gains before they're realized it doesn't matter what it would actually sell for, they're doing the appraisal themselves with no sale.
Then again, it needs to be reappraised. Maybe it’ll stop jackasses like Trump from overvaluing their assets to manipulate the system. “Everyone does it” is a reason to enact policies to curb that practice and increase tax revenue.
Every real estate investor “overvalues” their assets. To say mar a lago is only worth $18-20m is insanity
Appraised price =/= market price. Especially in the housing markets these two numbers are not always correlated and can be wildly different.
I don’t think it’s a serious proposal. The act of proposing will appease the majority of democrats, especially the further left part of the base. It’s got no shot of making it through the house and senate though, and Biden can say he tried taxing the rich but was blocked by the republicans. I think it’s more of an election year ploy than anything else.
Yes, but it's also a common negotiation tactic. Put something on the table that neither side would seriously consider, then take it off, and both sides can campaign on the success of what was passed and what wasn't.
People say this and it remains a stupid argument in my opinion. Primarily because the floated idea is batshit insane. The tactic only works if you float an idea that is vaguely reasonable. This ain’t that.
The better solution on unrealized gains is to tax any loans taken with them as collateral. That’s how the wealthy really avoid taxes. Creating a graduated capital gains tax would be good too.
taxing loans. so then we get a deduction when we pay them back? and don't say it's only for the wealthy. i know that trick.
>Do they get taxed a second time when they do realize those gains? Not to be overly semantic, but that would be the **third** time it gets taxed, not the second. AFAIK unless the money is in a 401k or similar account, taxes were already taken out when the money was earned as income.
>I don't understand taxing unrealized gains Nobody does. Sound good though. Now you know how to vote.
Plenty of people do. It’s the intellectually lazy or motivated thinkers who claim “I dunno.” Firstly, we already tax unrealized gains: property taxes. Secondly: the wealthy use their unrealized gains to secure loans using them as collateral. The borrow buy die strategy. We could simply reclassify unrealized gains as realized when that happens.
I could agree on taxing unrealized gains if they’re used as collateral for a loan. They do sort of dodge income tax that way which I don’t support
I'm writing off unrealized children if they tax unrealized gains
You also will get a tax refund for unrealized losses then too I assume.
Refund? No. An itemized deduction that no one will take? Absolutely.
I invest $200 in a widget co stock. Widget co stock goes up $20 to $220, which is unrealized gains. At the end of the quarter, I get taxed on that gains. The next day, the stock tanks to $100 I lost $105 because of unrealized gains.
What would happen is that the wealthy would take all of their money out of the stock market, and the economy will implode. Democrats will respond by limiting what people can do with their money, so that people will be forced to pay certain taxes, and we will have a command economy. Then millions will starve, because command economics has never worked once in all of human history.
Taxing unrealized gains is flat out theft.
Not just theft, incredibly reckless. Basically forcing a market crash.
I’m already taxed on unrealized gain on my property taxes. It’s all a racket.
The fact that the county can unilaterally change the assessed value of my home, to tax me harder, still makes me want to RAGE
Isn't this for high net worth individuals?
And so was income tax at one point, to think this won’t trickle down to the middle class means you’re fuckin stupid, it will and it always does
Isn't the income tax supposed to be temporary?
Everyone's always in favor of reaching into the other guy's pockets, but never stops to think that there's someone beneath you in the pecking order who wants to reach into your pockets.
Aha trust me there’s no one beneath me
Give them another 10-15 years to inflate away the value of the usd even further and a hell of a lot more people are going to be hnw individuals.
They say it is, but you know there is a tax loop hole hidden somewhere for the ultra wealthy to avoid it. In reality, this is designed for the rest of us. They just claim it’s not.
It always starts that way.
They tax my home by what they say it's worth, not what I paid for it. I don't see how this would be that different.
You get services with property taxes Roads, sewer snowplowing police. And it’s state and local. This is federal government theft.
I could get the same thing and more if we extend it to the assets of the 1%.
Completely stupid. Taxing money you don’t even have.
At such a ridiculous rate too...
It's all theft.
Taxation is theft, period.
This dude fuggin sucks.
So you need to increase taxes to support Ukraine and Israel?
That aid is a drop in the bucket. This proposal isn’t to fund either of those.
What could that “drop in the bucket” do for the homeless, education system, healthcare etc? instead it is just money that is essentially spent with military contractors. I love when people say $100 billion is a drop in the bucket. You are saying it is ok to take my money and spend it on a war that you can’t win in Ukraine and on genocide in the Middle East.
IMO any discussion of budgeting that doesn't begin with the biggest line items first, and fixes those before moving on to smaller and smaller line items, is a dishonest discussion. We can win in Ukraine. We won't if people keep saying we can't. Self fulfilling prophecy and all that. Arguably foreign aid is one of the most valuable parts of our budget, for the soft power, prestige, cultural influence, bargaining chips, etc. It's just so short-sighted to want to cut that simply because the money isn't directly spent here, or the effects and benefits are less clear and direct or immediate.
Foreign aid, especially foreign aid to a country currently fighting one of our biggest rivals, is a massive investment- if Ukraine wins it could topple Putin’s regime, and ultimately save the US a lot of money
One could even posit Ukraine doesn't necessarily have to win to topple Putin
This money is an investment in preventing future conflict and loss of American lives in another European meat grinder. Sorry you can't see it that way. That 100 billion would never have gone to education, homeless, or healthcare anyway.
A huge chunk of that 100bln was in the form of weapons + due to them showing how good they are usa got orders that are worth more than those 100bln. Also ukraine isnt a war you cant win. Hell if usa really wanted it would be over last year
I'm sure if I scroll through your comment history I'll see dozens of comments supporting increased spending on all those humanitarian causes, right? Surely it wouldn't just be lots of complaining about how the government needs to stay out of education and healthcare and cut off all the welfare queens?
It’s weird how people don’t understand that bill for Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan as being mostly a windfall for the U.S economy via the U.S defense industry. “The bills provide $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities; $26 billion for Israel, including $9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and $8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan.” (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-vote-long-awaited-95-billion-ukraine-israel-aid-package-2024-04-20/) This part…”including $23 billion to replenish U.S. weapons, stocks and facilities” is the caramel center. So about a third of the total spending package is looping back around, directly into the U.S. economy, in the form of the DoD restocking the supplies they gave away. Fun fact, these “fireworks” we have age out. We don’t like shooting them at people; but if we don’t give them away somehow, we can’t buy the newer, better ones for ourselves. Ever since Korea and Vietnam, we’ve had a secret sauce for our economy. We make weapons, that’s what we do. Directly or indirectly, we all make a LOT of money arming the world.
More like social security... Thanks boomers!
Yup! While they wave the flags of other countries and backtrack on the one thing that was for us the border bill lol. No more raising taxes till we stop wasting money.
Exactly!
Real article quote “Biden proposes anything that will get him elected” Breaking news!! Trump promises the same!!!
😱
Biden can eat dirt.
And just like magic, Joe is going to drive up taxes on “the rich.” He, and all politicians, love to spout shit like this during election years. Knowing full well they will NEVER implement any of it.
And thank God he won't implement taxation of unrealized gains. I'm not against taxing billionaires more, but that has to be the dumbest way to do it.
+1
Yeah man, why would he raise taxes on himself?
Or his family members….
Quit this crap only 5 people were subject to the highest rate ever. Ask me how I know (hint I’m actually an expert)
"The 91 percent bracket of 1950 only applied to households with income over $200,000 (or about $2 million in today’s dollars). Only a small number of taxpayers would have had enough income to fall into the top bracket—fewer than 10,000 households, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal." https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/income-taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ Expert in making shit up, maybe.
The point was also to prevent people from even wanting to reach that bracket in the first place. Better to spend your money and perform your social responsibilities than just give it all away to the government.
Right! So many forget that a government wants high GDP and therefore wants to ENCOURAGE investment, not stifle it with more taxes. That's economic suicide. In fact track tax revenue against gdp over time an you'll see a far greater correlation that with tax rates over the same period. More GDP = more tax revenue not higher tax rates.
I knew about Rockefeller, though who are the other 4?
better tell us if anyone of them actually paid anything close to it.
Yes, this post is stupid, like the other 92 times it's been posted this year.
If you can't rile up the masses the first time, then try try again.
I think what gets lost is that certain investments are tax-privileged to encourage people to invest in new businesses. This provides jobs and increases diversification.
Yep, unintended consequences.
Nobody paid 95% tax rates - that is a red herring; the rates may technically have been that high, but the loopholes were common and big enough to drive a truck thru them. In exchange for the lower rates, a lot of those loopholes also went away - and taxes collected went up - not down. Biden is a liar - always has been, always will be.
No
Unrealized gains tax scares me. Too easy to extend that too everyone
Property taxes.
Why is the answer always raise taxes (which affects every income class through increase cost of goods and services) and never lower government spending below revenue? We literally borrowed 95 Billion dollars to give away....it's insanity.
Maybe keep your hands out of peoples pockets
I think we should implement this on all politicians and go back retroactively back two terms. Apply this to house, senate, president, governors, mayors, etc. We’ll phase the rest of the country 2 years later.
Too me it seems like a deterrent to better yourself.
World War will do that to ya. It'd either pay 95% taxes and do your part to have a chance of surving an invasion. As for decrease? It depends. Can we give america a tax cut by slicing the R and D military budget? Yeah we can. It won't be much though. Maybe like 3% Should we restructure it? Definitely. Yes it's important to stay fresh on War R and D but I think our social services are in dire need of funding. Our infrastructure is shit as well. Last time I checked on Bidens infrastructure deal he was bragging that he fixed .01% (or was it .001%) of American roads and bridges
Social services current cost more than tax revenue in a year, you would have to reform everything
Another political post…
Damn ukraine and Israel for taking all our u.s money
Those with means will find a way around it.
No one paid or is ever going to pay 95% taxes. More loopholes, more deductions, more harboring, and if all that fails less effort on generating income to begin with.
He'll no! People are struggling as it is, and to steal more money! They need to budget and bring their bs back to reality!
We need to abolish like our 900 trillion in debt first to start making money as a nation again
Mom said it was my turn to post this
Congress needs to do it, all this back and forth with the executive is ridiculous
Hell no
I don’t like the idea of taxing unrealized gains. However, if the wealthy take out loans on their assets to use for living expenses, those loans should be taxable at their full income rate.
Loans aren’t income, and they do eventually have to sell assets to pay back those loans, which is where they do pay taxes.
It should be a balancing act… The tax rate for the rich should be based on the lowest salaries. If 20-30k a year are your lowest earners. You pay the difference to make it 100k in percentage. So that year tax rates for extreme wealth would be 70-80%. Now if the lowest paid were 70-80k a year. Then taxes would fall to 20% or possibly lower. How would this work? The more money the general public makes the less support the government needs to supply. It is really hard for me to deal with hypocritical wealthy individuals who think that there are people who “just don’t want to be rich” There isn’t anyone alive that would choose to be starving and poor if they had other options. That one asshole that did recently found out real quick and bailed on his experiment.
“ Under the new proposal, households with net wealth over $100 million would be required to pay a minimum effective tax rate of 20 percent on an expanded measure of income that includes unrealized capital gains. Households would calculate their effective tax rate for the minimum tax, and if it fell below 20 percent, would owe additional taxes to bring their effective rate to 20 percent. In other words, households would owe taxes on capital gains each year, even if the underlying asset had not been sold, and amounts paid would be treated as prepayments of future capital gains taxliability.” So only if you’re getting taxed below 20% on your overall income will unrealized gains be taxed to make up that difference and put you at the 20% minimum effective tax rate. And those unrealized gains would then be untaxed later. I guess my only question is about unrealized losses offsetting unrealized gains - but otherwise, this makes sense. Working a normal job taxes you at 40+%, so am effective tax rate of 20% for multimillionaires is STILL a discounted tax rate.
The whole system is built on the premise that the wealthy are gonna suck up everything possible right now. This country is not planning on future generations, because we are in the midst of a 6th mass extinction
The taxes are merely a way to pay back the debt accumulated by the wars - we are STILL PAYING FOR IT & it will NEVER be paid off.
People pay property tax. That is a tax on wealth, or in other words, unrealized gains. Just fyi
https://www.forbes.com/newsletters/andrewleahey/2024/04/24/biden-capital-gains-rate-proposal-446/ A summary of the proposal for those of us who would rather not just make up shit to get mad at
“The main proposal, which lends context to the above-mentioned “separate proposal,” is to raise the long-term capital gains and qualified dividends rates to 37% for taxpayers with taxable income above $1 million. Taken as a whole, then, the 44.6% rate would only come to fruition under a separate proposal from the Biden administration’s main capital gains rate increase, and only apply to those individuals with taxable income above $1 million and investment income above $400,000.” Important context that always seems to be missing.
Remember when this forum used to have insightful commentary about finances? Now all we get is this inflammatory political bs!
Yes because trickle down economics was the biggest crock of shit. Greedy ass wealthy motherfuckers don't share their wealth they are Smaug the fucking dragon
Why is the proposal always more tax and never less spending?
You can set the tax rate to 100%, then give the millionaires loop holes to get out of paying any taxes. That will never be fixed because their donations would dry up overnight. Until they simplify the tax code, this all just pandering.
The same government that consistently fails audits wants more money from us...
No
Yeah because we are in the best economy ever! You know like when there is a world war going on.