My question is did the Rich/Wealthy really pay this rate or

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My question is did the Rich/Wealthy really pay this rate or did they keep the profits in their businesses and reinvest the profits ?


A corporate tax rate that is too low actually destroys jobs. That’s because a higher tax rate encourages businesses (who don’t want to pay taxes) to keep the profits in the business and reinvest, rather than pull them out as profits and have to pay high taxes.

http://wweek.com/portland/article-17...e_rich_do.html

Thom Hartmann: But it seemed, just common sense. I remember back in the ‘80s, I owned a business, International Wholesale Travel in Atlanta, Georgia. That business has, since we sold it done over 200 billion dollars in business. And there was a year when we were doing really, really well and I could either write a big check to myself or not. And I decided not to, because I didn’t want to pay the increased taxes. I put it back into the business. How can cutting taxes on rich people, on high income people, do anything other than encourage them to take the money out of their companies, out of their businesses, and buy fancy paintings or yachts or put it in Swiss bank accounts? How conceivably could that help the economy?

http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/201...obsreally'

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Reich: The logic of Taxing the Rich, and Why Dems are Afraid to Use It
Robert Reich makes the case for a more progressive tax structure:

What’s fair? I’d say a 50 percent marginal tax rate on the very rich (earning over $500,000 a year). Plus an annual wealth tax of one half of one percent on net worth of people holding more than $5 million in total assets. Can’t be done, you say? Well, the highest marginal tax rate under Republican Dwight Eisenhower was 91 percent. It dropped under JFK to the 70 percent range. You say the rich will leave the country rather than face a marginal tax of 50 percent? Let them, and take away their citizenship.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/econo ... logic.html

Hard to tell what is you.

Stil ...

Fair? Fair? Who on ANY side of the issue knows or cares from fair?

Fair is - EVERYBODY makes the same lump of cash

OR

Fair is - NOBODY gets taxed

OR

Fair is - everyone is viewed [correctly] as equally valuable.

OR Fair is - more effort or greater contribution gets commensurate reward.

What does everyone think ?

There is definitely a sweet spot to be found in the interaction of business v. Individual rates. I actually prefer them to be similar, so that people make choices on entity structure (some flow through the taxable income to the owners), capitalization v distribution, etc purely on economic factors, and not on tax ones. Right now things are in a pretty good space for that, where we don't play that many games to avoid tax A or B, and I feel that is how it should be.

The area of state taxation, however, is getting interesting ... Probably too interesting, actually.

Ps, may I say how much I DESPISE the auto correct on this iPad? But turn it off and spell check disables, too, on mine, at least. It isn't RIGHT, that is the worst part, and overriding it takes twenty tries.

but the wealthy keep consumer purchasing rates afloat as the top 1% make up 25% of all consumer purchases in this country, and since it is not the wealthy who build their mansions or makes their yacht's, it is middle class jobs that depend on the wealthy and their purchasing power

there is always the talk of that money going outside like a Bentley from Crewe or an expensive art piece from a spanish art gallery. But most of their money stays in the country and employs both production/manufacturing as well as service-based workers.

So the profit is not job-sustaining, not job destroying

Yes, I read him often in the NYT

He would be happy if all the very rich (500,000 a year or more) left the US because then the gap between the rich and the poor would be diminished greatly and we would be a hipper fairer more sustainable version of a third-world country. Poor, but sexy.

Also, please note that we have more then doubled in population since Dwight D Eisenhower, acquired a net value of 56 trillion + dollars.

What's fair?

Every person having the same opportunities to be the best that they can in every possible way - that's what's fair.

Unfortunately, too many people of sound mind and body either do not recognize an opportunity, aren't prepared to exploit that opportunity, or simply ignore the opportunity whether or not they are prepared to exploit it.

Even more unfortunate are those who are born without the ability to make much of themselves, and who must therefor rely on filial piety or the kindness of strangers, both of which are in high demand and short supply.

Just because someone is more wealthy than I, it does not mean that I am entitled to any portion of their wealth if I do nothing to earn it.

As long as we let wealth to be inheritable, that fairy tale about people having equal opportunity does not apply.

So you aren't born into a wealthy family, big deal. People have become successful when they were born into a dirt poor family, it isn't the hand you are dealt with that determines where you end up in life, rather it is how you play the cards.

In each wealthy family, the wealth originated with one dirt-poor individual who had the means, the motivation, and the opportunity to become wealthy, and who did something about it. <-- That is the vital difference.

equal opportunity will always exist so long as the system allows equal access to upward mobility

the top 1% ability to pass on wealth to their children doesn't affect the bottom 50% ability to move from poverty to the lower middle class to eventually the middle class. Tax rates, business-friendly policies, and the suburbs do.

80% tax, no exemptions, on anything over 250 times the median annual income of American workers. 50% on anything over 100 times the median income.

That's an ass pull though.

a) Disclaimer: I do not support wealth redistribution, it is a silly concept.
b) I do find it sillier and even dumb to think that people have equal opportunity. That is complete BS The world is completely random and very unfair.

Oh yes, some poor people managed to construct huge wealth through tons and tons of hard work (and tons and tons of luck). That's great. But Donald Trump kids are born with it without doing any work at all.

You cannot call it "fair". The proportion (hard work over life)/(wealth acquired over life) is absurdly different among just about any random pair of people you pick.

I mean, the world is built onto unfairness. Many people that have wealth do not deserve it and many people that do not have wealth do not deserve not to have it. Maybe they were born without a thumb. It is completely random. If you are lucky and work hard, then maybe, maybe you'll improve your wealth class. Maaaybe. Of course, the next week an anvil could fall on your head and you won't be able to do anything about it.

Equal opportunity is a fairy tale.There is no master plan, there is no godmother that will turn your rats into chariot drivers if she sees that you are working hard. "Playing your cards correctly" is really an euphemism for "be lucky".

I am relatively wealthy for my country's standard, but I am self-aware enough to recognize that it is the product of tons of coincidences. If I didn't go to X school by pure chance I would have most likely not have done everything differently and may not have found the source of wealth I found by pure luck. I would be delusional to think that my greater than average success is because I work harder than other people. I know for a fact that I do not.

I think that it is great to be against wealth redistribution, but if you think the position needs to be 'reinforced' by silly unrealistic claims such as thinking that everyone has equal opportunity then maybe you are not so sure about the topic.