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The wealthy really do pay less in taxes than you do


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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html

 

But if you raised their taxes they'll just find ways around it!!!!!

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The data here come from the most important book on government policy that I’ve read in a long time — called “The Triumph of Injustice,” to be released next week. The authors are Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, both professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who have done pathbreaking work on taxes. Saez has won the award that goes to the top academic economist under age 40, and Zucman was recently profiled on the cover of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine as “the wealth detective.”

 

They have constructed a historical database that tracks the tax payments of households at different points along the income spectrum going back to 1913, when the federal income tax began. The story they tell is maddening — and yet ultimately energizing.

 

“Many people have the view that nothing can be done,” Zucman told me. “Our case is, ‘No, that’s wrong. Look at history.’” As they write in the book: “Societies can choose whatever level of tax progressivity they want.” When the United States has raised tax rates on the wealthy and made rigorous efforts to collect those taxes, it has succeeded in doing so.

 

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I already know what some critics will say about these arguments — that the rich will always figure out a way to avoid taxes. That’s simply not the case. True, they will always manage to avoid some taxes. But history shows that serious attempts to collect more taxes usually succeed.

 

Ask yourself this: If efforts to tax the super-rich were really doomed to fail, why would so many of the super-rich be fighting so hard to defeat those efforts?

 

Soak the rich

 

 

  • Guillotine 2
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It's the same issue in Canada (with collecting unpaid taxes from the rich). Because they are so good at evading, it takes a lot more effort to collect the same amount of money as going after 2,000 middle-class people...so the government goes after the middle-class people. It really does need to be a concerted effort from the top in order to get the rich to pay. My friend worked at the CRA (Canadian IRS) as a corporate auditor, and one reason he quit is because they were told to focus on small businesses since it was easier to get them on evasion than large corporations.

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They should just rewrite the tax code for income over $750k to be 

 

“pay 100% of what we tell you, when we tell you. Failure to comply in any way will result in passports being terminated, a warrant for your arrest, and 100% of your assets seized. Life in prison if you move your money out of the country to foreign banks to avoid the US government.”

 

Not much wiggle room there. 

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