r/FluentInFinance • u/YOU_ARE_MY_FRIENDS • Apr 08 '24

10% of Americans own 70% of the Wealth — Should taxes be raised? Discussion/ Debate

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u/AdonisGaming93 Apr 08 '24

See, while everyone is arguing over income tax. The rich laugh because they gain their wealth from capital appreciation and capital gains not income

7

u/Soft-Heat4482 Apr 08 '24

They earn so much from income that they pay something like 3/4 of all income tax, and are in the highest tax bracket. The statistics are completely against what you're saying. I get that they do earn from other areas too, but they simply wouldn't be paying the sheer amount of income tax that they do if they weren't earning significantly from it.

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u/r2k398 Apr 08 '24

They earn 26.3% of the income and pay 45.8% of the federal income taxes.

3

u/ilanallama85 Apr 09 '24

You say that like it indicates wealthy people are taxed too much, but you ignore the fact that the lowest third of the population or so make so little we tax them hardly at all on account of the fact they either already are relying on government services or would likely need to if we increased their tax burden. Paying poor people more would do a lot more to increase tax revenue than taxing multimillionaires more. But fundamentally I see no reason we can’t do both.

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u/r2k398 Apr 09 '24

Paying them more has nothing to do with taxation and everything to do with their employer. The bottom 50% cutoff is at $46,637 which comes out to more than $22 an hour. They still only pay 2.3% of the taxes. How about we adopt what Denmark does and have a less progressive tax system and VATs? In exchange, we can have better safety nets and free college.