An idea for bipartisan tax reform

That is not what the data from your links show. You are comparing the percent of federal income tax paid vs. all taxes paid. Since the discussion was about the effects of the federal income tax cuts, that is the only thing we should be comparing. Your link from ITEP shows federal, state, and local taxes.

The Tax Foundation link shows the top 1% paid 37.2% of all federal income taxes. It did not drop to 22.9% as your claim and that is not what your links show.

My source is the IRS/CBO data but I can using the data from the Tax Foundation link you provided.

Percent of Federal Income Taxes Paid (2016)

Top 1%: 37.3%
Top 5%: 58.2%
Top 10%: 69.4%
Top 50%: 97.1%
Top 25%: 85.9%

This percent has risen steadily (1986)
Top 1%: 25.8%
Top 10%: 54.7%

So, opposite from your claim, higher income groups have paid an increasing share of federal income taxes according to your link. I will comment on the tax rates separately.

https://taxfoundation.org/federal-income-tax-burden/

"As Top Marginal Rates Have Fallen, The Tax Burden on the Rich Has Risen"

https://taxfoundation.org/top-1-percent-tax-rates/

Leftists are stupid. They don't understand complex financial discussions
 
Obviously, that's an irrelevant comparison, in the context of this discussion, since comparing a period before the tax cut to some other period before the tax cut tells us nothing about the impact of the tax cut. What we want to know is what percent of taxes the rich paid before the tax cut and what percent they paid after. Do you have a source for such data? As you can see, my second source shows that the top 1% used to pay 23.2% of the total federal,state, and local taxes, pre-TCJA, and tat they pay 22.9% post-TCJA. It also showes a drop from 15.4% to 15.1% for the next 4% below them.

So, now that you know how wrong you were, do you care to share where you got your false notion?

You are making a bogus comparison. Why are you being dishonest?

Since the only thing that was cut was federal income taxes, doing a comparison including state and local taxes is bogus as your comparison could be impacted by the other three and not just the federal. You aren't controlling for the other two factors yet want to lay the blame on just one of them

Dishonest analysis. You should be embarrassed
 
Obviously, that's an irrelevant comparison, in the context of this discussion, since comparing a period before the tax cut to some other period before the tax cut tells us nothing about the impact of the tax cut. What we want to know is what percent of taxes the rich paid before the tax cut and what percent they paid after. Do you have a source for such data? As you can see, my second source shows that the top 1% used to pay 23.2% of the total federal,state, and local taxes, pre-TCJA, and tat they pay 22.9% post-TCJA. It also showes a drop from 15.4% to 15.1% for the next 4% below them.

So, now that you know how wrong you were, do you care to share where you got your false notion?

My notion came from the Tax Foundation link you gave which is the same as CBO and IRS data which is their source. That is the same source you used. My original claim was that federal income tax cuts have shifted a larger part of the tax burden to the wealthy and that is exactly what the data shows. I made no claim about what happens immediately after a tax cut. I was talking about who has been paying an increasing share of federal income taxes.

The point is the long-term trend which shows that over time the share of all federal income taxes (and other taxes as well if you include payroll and excise) paid by the wealthy has continued to increase. What happens immediately after a tax cut only shows a very short-term measurement which can be affected by the state of the economy and changes in the tax structure do no always show up the following year.

Again, your data shows federal, state, and local taxes and obviously state and local are not going to be impacted by changes in federal tax rates.

Also, your ITEP link says the source of the data is the ITEP itself, so there is no way to check the data. The chart at the end of the ITEP link shows the top 1% pays 28.5-30.3% of all federal, state, and local taxes, not 22%.

Again, the percentage of all federal income taxes paid by the wealthy has continued to increase since the 1980's when the data began for your Tax Foundation link. It has been increasing over an even longer period of time but I can't find that data right now.
 
But the link says this:

So, corporate taxes accounted for 33 percent of all tax revenue in 1952 but just 10 percent in 2013. The 2013 figure is slightly higher than what Sanders said, but his claim is basically accurate on the numbers.

That said, the measurement Sanders used may not be the best. Economists told us that it would be more useful to know what corporate taxes were as a percentage of gross domestic product.

But looking at it that way, the general pattern also holds. In 1952, corporate taxes accounted for 5.9 percent of GDP, a figure that has fallen to 1.6 percent today.

Uh, oh. Bad faith on your part. You only cited the article to the point where it used traditional measures. You completely omitted the part that showed corporations pay much more in taxes than just looking at the C-corporation taxes.

"Changes in tax rates and rules for C- and S-corps contributed to more firms becoming S-corps and thus paying individual rather than corporate income tax," said Kyle Pomerleau, an economist with the Tax Foundation. That has boosted individual income-tax collections and reduced corporate income-tax collections.

Between 1980 to 2010, the category of businesses that includes S-corporations, sole proprietorships, partnerships and LLCs has increased by 10.9 million to over 30 million, while the number of corporations has declined, Pomerlau said.

This means there are fewer corporations to pay the corporate income tax. In addition, the amount of business income generated by these types of businesses has risen as well, Pomerlau said. Between 1980 and 2010, this type of income has increased fivefold, from $320 billion to more than $1.6 trillion, he said.

"In fact, most recent data shows that (these) businesses are earning more total net income than traditional C-corporations," Pomerlau said. "In 1980, it was the complete opposite."

So, only C-corporations pay a smaller share of income taxes than the past. But S-corporations are more numerous with more revenue and they pay more taxes than the C-corporations. These taxes are omitted from the Sanders claims.
 
That stupid Repub argument that the wealthy pay a huge portion of the taxes proves they are too burdened, is just so wrong. The top tax rate has been slashed from 90 percent in Ikes time to about 30 now. The fact that they pay a big share of revenue collected, tells you they have all the fucking money. That is all it says.
 
Uh, oh. Bad faith on your part. You only cited the article to the point where it used traditional measures. You completely omitted the part that showed corporations pay much more in taxes than just looking at the C-corporation taxes.

"Changes in tax rates and rules for C- and S-corps contributed to more firms becoming S-corps and thus paying individual rather than corporate income tax," said Kyle Pomerleau, an economist with the Tax Foundation. That has boosted individual income-tax collections and reduced corporate income-tax collections.

Between 1980 to 2010, the category of businesses that includes S-corporations, sole proprietorships, partnerships and LLCs has increased by 10.9 million to over 30 million, while the number of corporations has declined, Pomerlau said.

This means there are fewer corporations to pay the corporate income tax. In addition, the amount of business income generated by these types of businesses has risen as well, Pomerlau said. Between 1980 and 2010, this type of income has increased fivefold, from $320 billion to more than $1.6 trillion, he said.

"In fact, most recent data shows that (these) businesses are earning more total net income than traditional C-corporations," Pomerlau said. "In 1980, it was the complete opposite."

So, only C-corporations pay a smaller share of income taxes than the past. But S-corporations are more numerous with more revenue and they pay more taxes than the C-corporations. These taxes are omitted from the Sanders claims.

Right, rich people shifted their corporations to S-Corps and LLC's to take advantage of the lower rates (at the time, the corporate rate was 35%, it's 21% now) for individuals because that is a progressive system and the corporate rates are not, the effective rate overall declines.

So, while income may have increased, the loss of C-corp revenue was not offset by the gain of S-Corp revenue.

That's the point.

They basically replaced paying the flat 35% corporate tax using tax avoidance laws to pay a lower effective tax.
 
Ask almost any Canadian if he/she would want to change his/her healthcare system in Canada for the "healthcare system" of the United States...

...and he/she would laugh in your face.

So would almost every citizen of every other industrialized nation on the planet.

Digest that...and you will understand why your question is bullshit.

So you can't answer the question. Great.
 
So you can't answer the question. Great.

Seems to me I did answer the question...but on the chance that I missed:

The answer to your question (Why do so many Canadians come to the US for treatment?) is...I do not know.

About 50,000 Canadians DO come to the US for treatment...I grant that. But I DO NOT KNOW WHY THEY DO.

Over 1,000,000 Americans go out of country in order to get medical treatment.

I do not know why that happens either.

Do you?
 
Seems to me I did answer the question...but on the chance that I missed:

The answer to your question (Why do so many Canadians come to the US for treatment?) is...I do not know.

About 50,000 Canadians DO come to the US for treatment...I grant that. But I DO NOT KNOW WHY THEY DO.

Over 1,000,000 Americans go out of country in order to get medical treatment.

I do not know why that happens either.

Do you?

I have a hunch. Canadians enjoy both a public system (CHC) and a private system, USHC. If they want a better/faster surgery, they come to the US where they can take advantage of our private HC.

If they want govt funded, they can stay in Canada. So they enjoy both a public and private system.

Something we should have here in the US as well.

BTW, I admire your intellectual honesty by saying you didn't know, vs shouting left wing talking points. :thumbsup:
 
My notion came from the Tax Foundation link you gave which is the same as CBO and IRS data which is their source. That is the same source you used. My original claim was that federal income tax cuts have shifted a larger part of the tax burden to the wealthy and that is exactly what the data shows.

The link shows that the tax cuts shifted a larger part of the tax burden AWAY FROM the wealthy. What made you think otherwise? Could you point to the specific table/link/source that you see as showing a growing share of the tax burden on the wealthy since the cut (note, I'm not asking what happened in the many years before that cut, since obviously we had some good leadership in prior periods, such as Clinton, which involved the rich paying something closer to their fair share following upper-class tax hikes).
 
You are making a bogus comparison.

What makes you think so?

Since the only thing that was cut was federal income taxes, doing a comparison including state and local taxes is bogus as your comparison could be impacted by the other three and not just the federal.

Are you under the impression that federal tax burden was not shifted away from the rich? If so, what makes you think so? The data show the share of total federal, state, & local taxes paid by the right fell after the tax cut. For very obvious reasons, that's the relevant analysis, not just federal taxes, since the tax plan changed deductibility of state and local taxes. But, if you prefer to look at just what happened to federal taxes, then share the data. Don't expect to see a big difference, though, since there wasn't a sudden shift to making ourt tax system less progressive at the state or local level in that year, such that you might expect the drop in total tax share for the rich to be due to changes there, rather than the federal tax cut they got. The big change that year was at the federal level, and it appears to have significantly dropped the share of taxes being collected from the rich.... as one would expect from a tax cut that was tailor made for wealthy people.

We'll know for sure when the IRS eventually releases more up-to-date figures on tax burden, but right now the most recent they've reported is for 2016, which is before the cut. So, we're relying on tax modeling, rather than actual returns, to know who is paying what since the Republicans handed that windfall to the wealthy.
 
What makes you think so?



Are you under the impression that federal tax burden was not shifted away from the rich? If so, what makes you think so? The data show the share of total federal, state, & local taxes paid by the right fell after the tax cut. For very obvious reasons, that's the relevant analysis, not just federal taxes, since the tax plan changed deductibility of state and local taxes. But, if you prefer to look at just what happened to federal taxes, then share the data. Don't expect to see a big difference, though, since there wasn't a sudden shift to making ourt tax system less progressive at the state or local level in that year, such that you might expect the drop in total tax share for the rich to be due to changes there, rather than the federal tax cut they got. The big change that year was at the federal level, and it appears to have significantly dropped the share of taxes being collected from the rich.... as one would expect from a tax cut that was tailor made for wealthy people.

We'll know for sure when the IRS eventually releases more up-to-date figures on tax burden, but right now the most recent they've reported is for 2016, which is before the cut. So, we're relying on tax modeling, rather than actual returns, to know who is paying what since the Republicans handed that windfall to the wealthy.

Again, you are making a bogus and uninformed comparison. Unless you can control for every other factor you can't make a conclusion about the tax cut. It is simplistic thinking. Don't be a simplistic thinker

And since ONLY federal income taxes were cut you can ONLY compare federal tax returns. The deductibility of state and local taxes is irrelevant to the conversation as they are still being paid at the state and local level, they are just not allowed to have their high taxes subsidized by the rest of the country anymore.
 
Again, you are making a bogus and uninformed comparison.

No. As you're aware, I'm making a meaningful and informed comparison, showing that after the tax cut, the rich paid a smaller share of taxes. If you'd like to make some other comparison -- like how they did just counting federal taxes, feel free to post data making that comparison. But, as I said, don't expect to see anything different than what the total-tax data says, since there wasn't some big change at the state level to explain that move.

Don't be a simplistic thinker

I'm not. I think maybe you lost track of the thread. As a reminder, Flash argued "the Republican tax cuts have shifted the tax burden to the wealthy...." He presented that without any supporting evidence at all (though, obviously, you wouldn't respond to that by whining about his simplistic thinking, since you're a partisan and he was on your side). I presented the best evidence I could find for testing the idea -- showing that the share of taxes paid by the wealthy fell following the tax cut. If you have better evidence, just present it. But try to avoid whining -- argue with evidence, not with personal insults. If you have better evidence than mine, just present it.

The deductibility of state and local taxes is irrelevant to the conversation as they are still being paid at the state and local level, they are just not allowed to have their high taxes subsidized by the rest of the country anymore.

Obviously, they're highly relevant, since the issue for the rich wasn't just what they pay at the federal level, but what they pay overall. But, if you prefer to look at just the federal tax burden, then present the data: how much of the federal tax burden fell on the rich before and after the Republicans gave them the windfall of that tax cut?
 
Again, you are making a bogus and uninformed comparison. Unless you can control for every other factor you can't make a conclusion about the tax cut. It is simplistic thinking. Don't be a simplistic thinker

And since ONLY federal income taxes were cut you can ONLY compare federal tax returns. The deductibility of state and local taxes is irrelevant to the conversation as they are still being paid at the state and local level, they are just not allowed to have their high taxes subsidized by the rest of the country anymore.

As mentioned, the actual IRS distributional data isn't available yet for the post-cut period. So we're stuck working with projections based on models. However, here's another source making a similar point:

https://taxfoundation.org/the-distr...e-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-over-the-next-decade/

As you can see, the top 1% would see its after-tax income rise by 3.8% in 2018, compared to less than 2% for the middle and lower classes. And keep in mind, that's coming from the Tax Foundation, which is a right-wing propaganda outlet that exists to whore for the tax interests of the rich.

As you can see, even according to them, the wealthy get the best deal:

FF596_1.png


And that doesn't even get into the impact of the corporate tax cut, which the Tax Foundation anticipates will go 92.3% to capital and only 18.7% to labor.
 
As mentioned, the actual IRS distributional data isn't available yet for the post-cut period. So we're stuck working with projections based on models. However, here's another source making a similar point:

https://taxfoundation.org/the-distr...e-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act-over-the-next-decade/

As you can see, the top 1% would see its after-tax income rise by 3.8% in 2018, compared to less than 2% for the middle and lower classes. And keep in mind, that's coming from the Tax Foundation, which is a right-wing propaganda outlet that exists to whore for the tax interests of the rich.

As you can see, even according to them, the wealthy get the best deal:

FF596_1.png


And that doesn't even get into the impact of the corporate tax cut, which the Tax Foundation anticipates will go 92.3% to capital and only 18.7% to labor.

I don’t do mathematical models. They are inherently flawed. It is how we get climate science junk. I am willing to wait for IRS data. Why aren’t you? Don’t be so impatient.

Anyone can fudge a mathematical model. They are only as good as the inputs.

And as I said trying to combine state and local data to make conclusions on federal tax rates is dishonest. It is ok if you want to do so. I won’t waste time arguing a premise I believe to be bogus. I will just point out that it is bogus.
 
I don’t do mathematical models. They are inherently flawed.... I am willing to wait for IRS data. Why aren’t you? Don’t be so impatient.

Notably, you didn't whine that way when Flash claimed "the Republican tax cuts have shifted the tax burden to the wealthy...." That's what I'm responding to. The best available evidence that I've been able to find, right now, is the modeling (multiple models from different organizations). Those suggest Flash was wrong.... as does common sense, when you look at what happened to the tax brackets. It was a tax change tailor made for the rich, and I think you fully expect that when the IRS data comes out it will confirm it shifted the tax burden away from the rich. You can feign skepticism about that, but we both know what's coming.

And as I said trying to combine state and local data to make conclusions on federal tax rates is dishonest.

It's the best available data I could find. If you can find better, share it. But, as I said, don't expect it'll show anything different if you look just at federal data, since there's no reason to think that state or local taxes tended to become meaningfully more regressive in that one year. There was no sweeping systemic state or local tax revision process in that year, so the reasonable expectation is the lion's share of the shift to less tax burden for the rich was due to the known shift of the federal tax structure to lower upper-class taxes.

But you know that. Why pretend you don't? Doesn't it make you feel dishonest? It sure makes you look that way.
 
Notably, you didn't whine that way when Flash claimed "the Republican tax cuts have shifted the tax burden to the wealthy...." That's what I'm responding to. The best available evidence that I've been able to find, right now, is the modeling (multiple models from different organizations). Those suggest Flash was wrong.... as does common sense, when you look at what happened to the tax brackets. It was a tax change tailor made for the rich, and I think you fully expect that when the IRS data comes out it will confirm it shifted the tax burden away from the rich. You can feign skepticism about that, but we both know what's coming.



It's the best available data I could find. If you can find better, share it. But, as I said, don't expect it'll show anything different if you look just at federal data, since there's no reason to think that state or local taxes tended to become meaningfully more regressive in that one year. There was no sweeping systemic state or local tax revision process in that year, so the reasonable expectation is the lion's share of the shift to less tax burden for the rich was due to the known shift of the federal tax structure to lower upper-class taxes.

But you know that. Why pretend you don't? Doesn't it make you feel dishonest? It sure makes you look that way.

You admit you are using bogus data. Just wait until the IRS reports it

Also tax rates aren’t the only factor in tax revenues. Anyone who understands economics should understand that.

We have a complex economic ecosystem. Anyone thinking they can distill an outcome to just one input without controlling for other factors is just pulling shit out of their ass

As I said. I reject your premise.
 
You admit you are using bogus data.

As you know, that's a lie. I admitted nothing of the sort. Why did you choose to lie about that? Did you imagine that someone lurking in this thread would see that and think I'd made such an admission, and not even think to look back in the thread and realize otherwise? Don't you worry that people will come to regard you with contempt when they realize you traffic in lies that way?

Just wait until the IRS reports it

Feel free to tell Flash that, since he's the one who jumped the gun. But you and I both know that he was wrong, since the best available evidence shows that the tax burden will have been shifted away from the rich.

Also tax rates aren’t the only factor in tax revenues.

Yes, understood. If you look at the Tax Foundation's "dynamic scoring" (which assumes the tax cut will impact pre-tax earnings), you'll see that the windfall for the rich is expected to be even greater when that is factored in.
 
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