Show of Hands

Well very high

I'd be interested in working with you on this as well. Obviously this is too much a shift too fast for most people right now.

I don't see why you think that. It's still the harder the work the more you make. At most it's a reduction of incentive and maybe would require a little better monitoring of tax havens.

This.

You're literally calling for a tax system where people who make upwards of $300,000 a year are taxed at 70% of their income. That's not even including state and local taxes, payroll taxes, alternative minimum taxes, ultimately the estate tax, and all the other taxes you pile up on hard-working job creators.

How much can you take from someone before they decide it's not worth it to invest in our economy? When people can't even get one fourth of what they earned, then they are going to retire early and stop producing economic growth.

You poor thing, I'm sorry you can't live off of 100k. I hope things get better for you.

Why do you believe people should be punished for being more successful?

Because oftentimes success comes from abusing workers and manipulating currency.

And again, at a certain point you have enough money.

you must be smoking some strong stuff bower

They earned the money. People choose to work for the company. Saying that at some point people have earned enough money is ridiculous. If I were to decide you have too much money and took it from you you wouldn't like that, would you? Doesn't sound very fair.

If anything you'd be the one screwing people over. The companies will begin to lay people off, move to other countries, lower incomes, etc. All in the name of "fairness."

Personal taxes aren't corporate taxes though?

Most small businesses operate using income taxes instead of corporate taxes.

Do you actually think that people are going to cut corners less because they make less money? It's more likely they'll take theirs business to a place that doesn't tax their income an absurd amount.

Punishing people for making money isn't the way to go. Go on, tell me how you would feel if I decided to take almost all your money because you made too much

I would mostly be confused. The different is any less of my income I have to take out a second mortgage, for somebody with hundreds of thousands of dollars it's how many houses they can buy.

Ah, but you're making too much.

Looks like you're gonna have to cut a lot of things to keep your house. What a shame. But at least you aren't making too much money, right?

Do you seriously believe Business will stay if you tax them at 70%?

Businesses will leave no matter what. Unless we want to tax so little we become a third world country, there will always be business's seeking tax havens.

Xemanis, did you not even bother to listen what I said? When you're living in luxury you can afford this. When you're living paycheck to paycheck you can't.

Bad answer. Businesses are more likely to leave the more you tax them. One business or two businesses leaving annually is not the same thing as a mass exodus of companies due to insanely high tax rates. Your logic is flawed.

I would recommend considering the logic behind your comments before posting them.

Leave is underestimating it, they will evacuate. Someone making 350k per year will end up with 100. Do you know how much money have to be moved to profit 350k per year? Many many millions which all that business will go somewhere else, and the few leftover will raise prices exponentially

The fact is we need higher taxes and more revenue in order to provide for our people and pay of the national debt.

Perhaps then we should seek options that do not involve the companies we tax leaving.

Such as? I'm open to alternatives

No you need more growth and to cut spending on entitlements for temporary political points like Obamacare

What Bert said.

We don't need more programs that drag people down. If we want to fix society we need a system that allows people to thrive without having others drag them down. I suggest we greatly cut welfare and get rid of programs like Obamacare that needlessly waste money and drag people down.

Yeah, I disagree. Welfare is essential is our crony capitalist economy.

What we need to do is encourage more economic growth. With more economic growth, you create more wealth for everyone, and with more wealth being created there will be more tax revenue being generated. You don’t create more economic growth by raising taxes, especially so drastically like in this bill. We need to lower taxes and reform/simplify the code to encourage more economic growth, and therefore generate more wealth and tax revenue to improve our safety net programs and lower the national debt.

That doesn't work though. All the growth in the last few decades has gone almost exclusively to the top 10%.

Welfare is not necessarily essential. While there are people who require disability benefits, there are others who abuse the system. Not everyone who has welfare truly needs welfare. We cannot coddle our citizens and expect our nation to flourish. Either you're strong enough to provide yourself or you fail. We cannot go on with a nation of coddled weaklings. We need to provide for ourselves. It is a waste of taxpayer money and serves only as a partisan tool to garner votes. Forget the political parties, set aside your love for those that take advantage of you. This is the United States of America we are talking about. The United States of America is considered one of the greatest nations in the world by many and there are those who would kill to be here and work hard to strengthen our great country, yet we could be even better. We have yet to reach our full potential because of the very people that seek to take advantage of you. This is our country and we should make it the best place

on Earth. If you do not wish this simply for your country, do it for the advancement of the human race. We are considered one of the world's greatest leaders. It is time to set an example worth following.

That’s why we desperately need tax reform. There are many ways to improve our tax code to benefit those with lower and middle income levels while also promoting economic growth and promoting individual responsibility by increasing the incentives to work hard and become successful.

Lol, you know the happiness countries one the planet are the ones with strong welfare systems, right?

I am tired of hearing "work hard and become successful", that's not how it works and you know it. I could be the hardest worker in the world and still die poor.

There will always be poor because there will always be slackers, they contribute less to growth and society than higher earners. By rewarding that behavior you are only ensuring that their children will follow in their footsteps.

There are people who are poor because they are slackers. There are also people who are poor because of season outside of there control

Also. Are you saying we shouldn't be trying to end poverty?

Work somewhere else in the same field when it's another states season, problem solved. There is no excuse to claim your seasonal job is a full time job.

I didn't say you should become a millionaire or perish. I just said that taking advantage of the welfare system happens too often and it should be changed.

I even just said that some people require welfare, like for disabilities and other things out of their control. No, we shouldn't try to prevent self induced poverty. We can take care of our citizens better when those kinds of people aren't dragging the entire system down.

Again, I want to point out that the most prosperous Nations (Nordic countries, Germany, ect) got There by the welfare state

They got there because the US funded them to get there and presidents took the role of sucker in chief, the US is an industrial welfare state. France is having a lot of economic problems at the moment from their hostility towards the rich, their exports are focused on cultural values, which they are simultaneously destroying as well

Explain why you think countries become richer and more successful from giving their money away.

I don't. I am just saying the Nordic and Northern European models are the most successful in the modern world.

Then it won't help us.

Why not? Shouldn't we be looking at one creates economic prosperity and following it?

Didn't you just say you don't believe it causes economic prosperity?

No? I didn't mean to. They are clearly the most prosperous countries.

Then what are you trying to say?

I'm trying to say standards of livings rise with welfare

People might be happy that they can live their lives without having to do anything sure, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing for the rest of us. It is a burden on our society. Our money is better spent on things that benefit it rather than supporting people who don't want to do anything to help us

I encourage you to do more research on the Nordic states.

I thought this was a debate

It is but you clearly don't understand how their economies work

'Go do research' isn't a valid argument for a debate

Tell me how here in the United States of America giving our money away would be beneficial to us

This is what the tax bracket would look:

$387k - 70% = $117k
$218k - 55% = $119k
$143k - 45% = $64k
$71k - 20% = $57k
$17k - 10% = $15.3

*This is the amount left over after taxes*

Taxes don’t work like that. Only the income earned above $387k is taxed at 70%. All the income below that is taxed at each tax bracket level.

I know that, I’m just putting the minimum amount for each bracket.

It's still deceptive to frame it that way. Nobody making at least 387 will end up with as low as 117, period.

The real numbers are (mental math, might be off a bit)

$17k -> $17k
$71k -> $65.6k
$143k -> $123.2k
$218k -> $164.4k
$387k -> $215k

That's like $100k difference for the 387 person. It's important.

These numbers are way off. $387k would be $193k if you only take away 50%.

387 + 70% = 270
387 - 270 = 117

You only pay the 70% on the income that's over 387. In the case of someone making 387, the amount your paying at 70% on is 387-387=0.

If you make 387 you're really paying 17(0) + (71-17)(0.1) + (143-71)(.2) + (218-143)(.45) + (387-218)(.55) which is about 172 if my mental math was right. In other words, just because you cross into the top bracket, doesn't mean you pay the top rate on all the income before that, you're only taxed the higher rate on the income in excess of the threshold you crossed.

I. Income tax rates shall be adjusted as set forth in (a)-(f). This shall not be understood as affecting any exemptions or credits.
(a) The tax rate on income below $17K is hereby lowered to 0%.
(b) The tax rate on income above $17K is hereby lowered to 10%.
(c) The tax rate on income above $71K is hereby lowered to 20%.
(d) The tax rate on income above $143K is hereby raised to 45%.
(e) The tax rate on income above $218K is hereby raised to 55%.
(f) The tax rate on all income above $387K is hereby raised to 70%.

Summary: Estimated cost $4B/yr. according to Splitwise's (admittedly slightly outdated) tax revenue estimation tool.

Sorry it cut off the end.
(f) The tax rate on all income above $387K is hereby raised to 70%.