this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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I've posted this before and next time it comes up I'll probably post it again,
Way it should be in my eyes,
Set the brackets at calculated thresholds for the 20th percentile, 40th percentile, 60th percentile, 80th percentile, 95th percentile, and 99th percentiles of incomes.
And just to turn the dial up even more, find the median income in the 20% bracket, and apply just the teensiest percent multiplier to the nominal rate for every time someone's income tips over another twenty times that median
Doesn't just keep tax rates dynamic to reflect the economy, it also ramps up the pressure extremely quickly against wealth accumulation, and suddenly inclines the rich to start eating each other, because now they're all in direct competition to have the most while cutting each other all down to avoid their tax rates spiking, and since it's a flat multiplier instead of a more complex formula, those 99 percenters can get titanically screwed by actually losing money for getting too much, since anything above a third of the nation's wealth means they're paying a dollar and change for every dollar they make. They'll become each other's worst enemies since anyone who starts hording raises the tax pressure on everyone else.
Oh and just to make sure it stays that way, anyone who peaks the 99% club, you are officially acknowledged as "doing well and good enough", and are barred from public office for the next ten years following the last time you pay in that bracket. Just picture it, a government with no one percenters in it, and instead of trying to lobby their way back in they're all too busy trying to tear each other down for a decimal point off their nominal rate.
Got dang this sounds hot hot hot
Quick i need a republican to tell me how this hurts the children or stifles muh innovations or something
Nine
Eleven
thunderous applause from the sticks as the rubes vote to hamstring themselves
The main problem is it can't be trivially based on income. You have to figure out how to tax things like stock and "I got a low interest loan from the bank". Things that aren't a check your employer sends you every two weeks.
Probably taxing unrealized gains would do it? If you own stock that's worth a shit load of money, you pay something.
I think people also use stock as a collateral to get loans. That should probably not be a thing you can do to avoid taxes.
Also there probably shouldn't be a marriage tax break. I'm pretty sure that came from some rich asshole who didn't want to pay taxes, so he said half his income was his stay at home wife's to lower his burden. There's a book "the whiteness of wealth" that talks about this, and how it tends to help white people more than anyone else.
I just want to say implementing a mathematical function is far more convenient then using brackets. That way you can make sure anybody who gets a raise also gets to keep more, but pays more taxes at the same time. Because you will never jump a bracket which reduces your income because of higher taxes. The other benefit is, that you can easily implement a negative income tax. This would make sure that anybody who is working, has more income than people who don't work. This would be an incentive for anybody to work what they can, even if it is very little.
Thats not how the tax brackets work. Only the amount that is in that bracket is taxed at that rate. What can happen is a loss of income based social services and tax breaks for lower income families.
You are obviously right. I always mix this up (see Bracket creep why I mix this up). But otherwise my point still stands. In this stackexchange is a graph with an example how tax brackets turn out at each income. My actual point ist, that the graph is not smooth and I don't like that. Also there is a highest bracket, which will allows the super rich to keem growing their wealth. The fact, that super rich people are hiding their actual wealth for example via credits, is a separate issue, which obviously can't be tackled by income tax alone.