What is the "Fair Share" that democrats talk about?

[Nap]

No one took multi million dollar salaries and that was the purpose of those punitive rates . CEO's made 20 times their workers salaries not 300 times like now. Profits were shared with the workers because it was stupid to pay those high rates if they took all the increased profits for themselves. The high rates made greed unacceptable and now it is the rule.

CEOs in general do not make 300 times their employees salaries.

 

[LouC]

I have discussed "fair share" over the years but never as any advocate. I too have asked Leftists and Rightists to give me the definitive answer as to what constitutes a persons "fair share". It is always the same, they can't.

 

[Helix]

i'm an anti-Trumpist independent, but i'll weigh in. i support taxing all individual income as income above a cap at marginal rates similar to what we have now. when the country is engaged in any military action, i also support a war tax for all brackets.

 

[Vadinho]

I would imagine he leans towards cutting expenditures......

As far as coming up with 3 Trillion, we wouldn't need to if we cut the federal government down to an appropriate level.

Well, I challenge you to take a whack at it then. You won't like your choices once you get to cutting.

 

[Vadinho]

"...so they need to pay more"? What gives you the power to decide that? You sound much more communist than liberal.

You folks go for that ring on the merry-go-round next election. Please.

When the left is in charge, they get the right. When the right is in charge, they get the right. Does this confuse you or do we need to go over basic civics with you?

 

[cpwill]

Republicans want to make America great again, so let's return to 1960 when the top marginal tax rate was 91%.

See, but that's not a share of federal income tax revenue. That is a marginal tax rate. The question was - what is the fair share that ya'll keep talking about.

 

[smallvoice]

So what did make America great, then? And no vague bumper sticker slogans, please. Be specific.

Hard work, driven by the knowledge that what you earned, you kept (most of it).
IOW, capitalism.

 

[smallvoice]

So nothing but bumper sticker slogans, then. Shocker.

You would be wrong.Nothing he listed is a bumper sticker.

 

[Integrityrespec]

So do we want to be Communist, socialist or capitalist?

Communism and socialism are economic and political structures that promote equality and seek to eliminate social classes. The two are interchangeable in some ways, but different in others.In a communist society, the working class owns everything, and everyone works toward the same communal goal. There are no wealthy or poor people -- all are equal, and the community distributes what it produces based only on need. Nothing is obtained by working more than what is required. Communism frequently results in low production, mass poverty and limited advancement. Poverty spread so widely in the Soviet Union in the 1980s that its citizens revolted. Like communism, socialism’s main focus is on equality. But workers earn wages they can spend as they choose, while the government, not citizens, owns and operates the means for production. Workers receive what they need to produce and survive, but there’s no incentive to achieve more, leaving little motivation. Some countries have adopted aspects of socialism. The United Kingdom provides basic needs like healthcare to everyone regardless of their time or effort at work. In the U.S., welfare and the public education system are a form of socialism. Both are the opposite of capitalism, where limitations don’t exist and reward comes to those who go beyond the minimum. In capitalist societies, owners are allowed to keep the excess production they earn. And competition occurs naturally, which fosters advancement. Capitalism tends to create a sharp divide between the wealthiest citizens and the poorest, however, with the wealthiest owning the majority of the nation's resources.

 

[cpwill]

Typical dumb right wing comment, not even original. This is nothing more than a dumb deflection because you don't want to actually discuss the merits of the real argument because you have nothing.

1% of the population having 90% of the wealth, is that fair share?

Depends. Is this population run along a market economy, where people build wealth by providing others with goods or services that they appreciate enough to pay for?

Because if so, then probably, yes.

A middle class person paying 29% of their salary in taxes and struggling vs a milliionaire or billionaire that gets all these write-offs and tax breaks and pay either none or very little percentage of their income.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, as of 2005, the middle quintile paid an effective total federal tax rate of 14.2%, while the top income quintile paid an effective rate of 25.5%. That's all taxes added up, mind you; when you shift over to Individual Income taxes, the rate for that middle quintile drops to 3%.

So, if you are middle class today and paying an effective rate of 29%, gosh, I feel bad for you You must live in a very, very blue state indeed.

You can even go back to the pre-Reagan days. They have all the wealthy, they have all the power, they own the politicians, they benefit from tax funding more than the average person, so they need to pay more.

And yet when you look at the actual portions of who pays revenue, the top 1% pay just under 40% of federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% of the country only paid 2.7% and the bottom 90% only paid just under 30% of total federal income tax revenues.

Sounds like the upper income folks are paying quite a bit more than their fair share, tbh.

 

[cpwill]

its a fair question. I would start the debate by stating principles first and then moving towards a number that meets those principles. For instance:

1. Most of the earned income in America goes to the top 1% in the form of wages, dividends, capital gains and so on. First principle is to treat all forms of income the same in terms of taxation and deductibility.

2. Everyone should have a minimum tax liability that cannot be lowered by any means at all. Second principle would be to create a floor of tax rates at various levels which would force everyone to pay something in federal tax dollars on every dollar earned using principle 1 as the basis, no preferential treatment of any income or gain.

3. This nation was founded as a revolt against landed gentry, the aristocracy and vast inherited wealth that created a class based society for generations. Third principle is a steep inheritance tax with no way of avoiding it via a trust or other means.

4. No person needs or earns billions upon billions of dollars therefore some of these fortunes are nothing more then excessive lottery wins for those lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Fourth principle is to put a ceiling on after tax incomes over a certain amount per year. Lets make it 50 million a year, everything after that is taxed at 100%.

1. I think this is a great way to get capital to flood out of the country, collapsing our economy.

2. While you agreed that it was a fair question, I can't help that you also didn't answer it - preferring instead to discuss marginal income tax rates.

 

[cpwill]

"Expansive land that allowed ambitious people to create homesteads" certainly needs some workshopping, but it's just as vague and insubstantive as bumper stickers usually go.

:lol: Unlike "Fair Share", which isn't vague, insubstantive, or built for a bumper sticker at all

 

[iguanaman]

CEOs in general do not make 300 times their employees salaries.

It varies but not by much.

 

[smallvoice]

When the left is in charge, they get the right. When the right is in charge, they get the right. Does this confuse you or do we need to go over basic civics with you?

I thought I was talking about you having that power. Do I need to go over staying on the subject with you?

 

[iguanaman]

See, but that's not a share of federal income tax revenue. That is a marginal tax rate. The question was - what is the fair share that ya'll keep talking about.

The "fair share" is whatever rate it takes to slow the flow of wealth to the 1%. Their current share of income is unsustainable. If we don't do that we are heading for another Great Depression. The chart says it all.

 

[Conaeolos]

Everything you said could be said about my house.

Yes. A house and amazon stock are just assets with different costs, risks and benefits. There are plenty of different assets in this world. If your current ones aren't working for you, it might be time to work on changing them up.

You conflate a corporation with an individual.

All corporations can be broken down into individuals by way of their ownership division. Why should I draw a distinction? They are the economic engines and the largest determiner of wealth. If we want to talk wealth, we need to talk the assets which are working and the assets which don't.

This thread is about the individual not Amazon.

Yes, which is why I kept bringing it back to the individual. By multiplying by 17%, as that is how much relates to the individual. Amazon is an asset. Jeff owns 17% of that asset. The other 83% by other individuals.

Let us say I have one billion dollars in Amazon stock and one billion dollars of real estate. Both are subject to the vagaries of the market yet one is taxed every year, the other is not.

I went over both being taxed in the first post.

If you bought a billion dollars in real estate, I'd bet you'd charge rent and use that revenue to pay those property taxes. When you buy stock you have ownership of material assets some aspect of which is taxed however covered by the company[asset itself]. There little distiction.

What about a stock in a company with no physical taxable assets or profits etc? I suppose, in that case sure but what you will find there is they will pay more dividends and have higher employment as a percentage of their worth. So….its still taxed just not based on wealth because it doesn't exist in the physical world like amazon or your house. Heck paying rent is paying taxes - just with someone else holding the risk.

You might feel its unfair you made the choice to buy such a house as to have to pay property tax out of personal income. But bothing but a choice is stopping your from buying two, charging rent on the second and paying both taxes from that revenue coming out ahead and gaining increased net-worth more rapidly. This being appealing yet somewhat complicated was obviously just made easier with "stocks", "stock-markets","funds" and "corporations".

If we tax personal stock holdings and the corporations themselves we're literally double-triple+ taxing and losing tax revunue. When we tax just corporations we are double taxing but we also try our best to account for it when those people extract from their investment income.

You want fairness and high tax revenues you can only tax "income" or "spending" or "physical property" because they are universal, you can't fairly tax wealth because wealth is relative. Taxing working capital is counter productive and will hurt tax revenues not help. The principle of taxing wealth comes from feudalism/ancient times it drives inequality not equality.

Watch what happens when any 0.01% consume their billions instead of keeping it invested it as working capital. It gets taxed really quick and that wealth goes down faster than you might imgine.

 

[Integrityrespec]

See the discussion goes on. The left cannot tell you what is "fair share" . If we went to a fair tax, say 10%. I'll dumb is down to make it a little simpler. 10% sales tax paid on everything you purchase
(actually it goes up to 30% with new goods and services) but this replaces income taxes. So the wealthy who have more money, spend more money, thereby pay much more tax. For instance on their more expensive cars, home, boats, planes etc. So if they make 10 million, they would be paying 1 million in tax on their money as a base line that could go up to 30% if the purchases are new goods or services. So possibly to 30% or up to 3 million. The numbers can be debated. The flat tax everyone pays a flat income tax, say 14% of their gross. You might want to keep a few basic deducts like child care of home mortgages. But you get the general idea. You make more yo definately pay more. But still do you want them to pay a percentage of what they make or a percentage of the total tax. Which is more fair?

 

[Integrityrespec]

The taxing of working capital is what liberals, socialist hate because it leaves money in the hands of capitalist to use to make more money, and create more jobs.

 

[Nap]

It varies but not by much.

You may want to look at the bottom of your chart......

It is showing the ratio for the largest 350 companies. You are taking the top .01% and implying that is the average when that is simply not true.

 

[Bullseye]

Republicans want to make America great again, so let's return to 1960 when the top marginal tax rate was 91%.

Unless, that is, there's something entirely different about that time period Republicans want to return to.

And then Kennedy lowered the rate to vitalize the economy and then Reagan lowered them even more and kicked off an economic boom. And then Clinton lowered rates and . . . well you get the idea.

 

[Bullseye]

Typical dumb right wing comment, not even original. This is nothing more than a dumb deflection because you don't want to actually discuss the merits of the real argument because you have nothing.

1% of the population having 90% of the wealth, is that fair share?

A middle class person paying 29% of their salary in taxes and struggling vs a milliionaire or billionaire that gets all these write-offs and tax breaks and pay either none or very little percentage of their income. You can even go back to the pre-Reagan days. They have all the wealthy, they have all the power, they own the politicians, they benefit from tax funding more than the average person, so they need to pay more.

More money in the hands of the rich, doesn't do anything to add wealth to the country. more money to the middle class, they will spend that, and we have a consumer economy.

Typical dumb left wing comment, not even original. Not even the highest earners pay and effective tax of 29%, you "middle class person" is likely paying 12-15% effective rates. "Write-offs" and "tax breaks" are loony left urban legends. Here's the facts - liberals sing in unison "Nuh-UH". :lol

 

[cpwill]

The "fair share" is whatever rate it takes to slow the flow of wealth to the 1%.

Setting aside the deeply flawed assumption that "wealth is flowing to" the top 1%, instead of being created by them (wealth, after all, has grown and Americans are moving into the middle and upper middle classes).... okedoke:

Are you willing to sustain economic harm to the bottom 99% in order to reduce the top 1%? Are you willing to hurt the middle class in order to hurt the upper class? Because that is going to be an effect of any measure capable of achieving your goal.

Their current share of income is unsustainable.

Other than "people are broken and evil, and hate others who do better than them", which I agree, is politically troublesome, I don't see any reason to conclude that.

If we don't do that we are heading for another Great Depression. The chart says it all.

That's a good point. Correlation is always causation.


Fortunately, back during the Great Depression, the majority of photography was taken in black and white - whereas now the majority is in color. So, we are at no risk of a Great Depression because of that correlation. Whew!

 

[Bullseye]

Here's the official left wing algorithm used to calculate "fair" tax rates: Take whatever rate "the rich" are paying now, increase it by 20%. Repeat as necessary. When questioned sing in unison "Rate was 91% in 1960 and we did ok then".

 

[iguanaman]

Setting aside the deeply flawed assumption that "wealth is flowing to" the top 1%, instead of being created by them (wealth, after all, has grown and Americans are moving into the middle and upper middle classes).... okedoke:

Are you willing to sustain economic harm to the bottom 99% in order to reduce the top 1%? Are you willing to hurt the middle class in order to hurt the upper class? Because that is going to be an effect of any measure capable of achieving your goal.



Other than "people are broken and evil, and hate others who do better than them", which I agree, is politically troublesome, I don't see any reason to conclude that.



That's a good point. Correlation is always causation.


Fortunately, back during the Great Depression, the majority of photography was taken in black and white - whereas now the majority is in color. So, we are at no risk of a Great Depression because of that correlation. Whew!

You do understand that a basic flaw of capitalism is if left unchecked it can encourage wealth disparity and there are limits to how much of it can be tolerated without a financial collapse. When so much of the total income goes unspent it slows growth too. That was the reason for the punitive tax rates of the postwar period. They were meant to discourage hoarding of wealth. When they were eliminated the hoarding began again. It is unsustainable. The middle class thrived like no other time when the punitive rates were still in effect so your claim that high top rates hurt the middle class is dead wrong. The opposite is what happened.

 

[TurtleDude]

You do understand that a basic flaw of capitalism is if left unchecked it can encourage wealth disparity and there are limits to how much of it can be tolerated without a financial collapse. When so much of the total income goes unspent it slows growth too. That was the reason for the punitive tax rates of the postwar period. They were meant to discourage hoarding of wealth. When they were eliminated the hoarding began again. It is unsustainable. The middle class thrived like no other time when the punitive rates were still in effect so your claim that high top rates hurt the middle class is dead wrong. The opposite is what happened.

winners win, losers lose-which is far less unfair and artificial then political determinations of who wins and who loses. Why should anyone be punished for being a winner?