<story><title>USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources</title><url>http://usafacts.org/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Pokepokalypse</author><text>In practice; we currently have a very UN-progressive system. Where the very wealthy get excessive tax breaks, and pay even less than the middle and upper-middle class (who are getting fucking murdered: at least that&amp;#x27;s my experience).&lt;p&gt;Would a flat-tax fix this?  In theory: but if we set that &amp;quot;flat tax&amp;quot; to 15-17%; (and simply pocket the cost savings from simplification of tax code) - that seems like a win. But the very poorest quintile can&amp;#x27;t pay that. (and are equipped to dodge that, by simply not working and collecting aid or taking black-market work - cash-basis labor, or selling drugs, etc.) - the top quintile will also have the means to avoid paying their fair share. As always.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s those in the middle, who have to work REAL jobs, and can&amp;#x27;t hide their income though either black-market means, or tax-shelters: which still work in a flat-tax system.&lt;p&gt;The government will need to raise overall rates to compensate for this, and the middle gets screwed even more.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s an IDEAL system.&lt;p&gt;In the REAL world: the wealthy will still lobby for special deductions.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;d like to see the mortgage deduction go away for non-primary residences.&lt;p&gt;Stuff like &amp;quot;dancing-horses&amp;quot; deductions and the absolute murder &amp;quot;small businesses&amp;quot; get away with, (like; taking their personal Truck as a deduction, by calling it a &amp;quot;work truck&amp;quot;) - that can be horse-traded around.  But I think there is the most to be gained from the mortgage deduction on non-primary residences. This is probably America&amp;#x27;s most sacred cow. And therefore, is most likely politically impossible.  This is why we&amp;#x27;ve been at a stalemate over tax-reform since 1980.</text></item><item><author>shmageggy</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Lastly, it seems that Government revenue for Federal and State&amp;#x2F;Local has actually increased pretty linearly with the population. Despite all the different changes in the income tax rate&amp;#x2F;other progressive taxes. This supports an overhaul to the tax code to a more simple, flat tax system. From another data source outside this report, I&amp;#x27;d have to find it, but historically, no matter the top bracket tax rate, the Federal government collects about 15-17 % income tax. Including when the top rate was 90%+.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This seems like a pretty poor argument for a flat tax and in fact could be seen as an argument against it. If raising top end bracket taxes didn&amp;#x27;t increase overall income, then it must be the case that it reduced the tax burden on lower incomes -- which is the entire point of progressive taxes. So progressive taxes work, let&amp;#x27;s keep them!&lt;p&gt;I view this as mostly orthogonal to the issue of tax simplification, however, which I think is probably a good idea.</text></item><item><author>Cshelton</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m seeing many things (if this data is accurate, which assuming it is as it&amp;#x27;s from all government sources) and trends that go against a large percentage of what the media on both sides are perpetuating. That is my first takeaway at a glance.&lt;p&gt;My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It&amp;#x27;s been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclusion. The way Social Security works is not sustainable. Period. Something has to give. A $405 B shortfall on SS in 2015. If that was at least half, we would actually not be running a deficit. We would have a budget surplus if we actually made Social Security&amp;#x2F;other Gov. retirement program replacement actually sustain itself perpetually. What. A. Concept.&lt;p&gt;A quick third take away seems to be the unprecedented rise in non-cash government aid (food stamps) during the Obama administration. The data is there, needs more analyzing of course.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, it seems that Government revenue for Federal and State&amp;#x2F;Local has actually increased pretty linearly with the population. Despite all the different changes in the income tax rate&amp;#x2F;other progressive taxes. This supports an overhaul to the tax code to a more simple, flat tax system. From another data source outside this report, I&amp;#x27;d have to find it, but historically, no matter the top bracket tax rate, the Federal government collects about 15-17 % income tax. Including when the top rate was 90%+.&lt;p&gt;As far as the presentation, my favorite part is each piece of government data is tied to 4 distinct duties of government outlined in the Constitution. That&amp;#x27;s pretty brilliant.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hwillis</author><text>&amp;gt;In practice; we currently have a very UN-progressive system. Where the very wealthy get excessive tax breaks, and pay even less than the middle and upper-middle class (who are getting fucking murdered: at least that&amp;#x27;s my experience).&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not really true.  99.9% of the tax system is progressive[1] and the middle (14% effective tax rate on 59k annual) and upper middle (17.5% on 95k) classes pay less than the highest quintile (27% on 260k).  Even the top 1% (35% on 1,570k) pays fairly reasonably, although capital gains eats into that- it would be closer to 45% if it was taxed at the same rate.&lt;p&gt;The real problem is the .1%, the people who&amp;#x27;s annual income is in the hundreds of millions.  These are athletes&amp;#x2F;actors and &amp;quot;businessmen&amp;quot; who are really just investors in their own company, and they form two distinct taxpayers.  The athletes&amp;#x2F;actors pay rates ranging from 20% to 35%.  The ultrarich businessmen are heavily clustered around 10-20%.  So heavily that both groups together paid an average rate of 16.62%[2] in 2007.  That&amp;#x27;s just... incredibly insane.&lt;p&gt;I think part of the opposition to fixing this problem comes from framing it as a middle class issue.  It&amp;#x27;s not even a middle class + rich issue, it&amp;#x27;s an issue for even the extremely rich.  It&amp;#x27;s not an &amp;quot;us vs. CEOs&amp;quot; issue.  It&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;everybody vs a subset of the richest thousand people&amp;quot;.  There isn&amp;#x27;t an income level above which you are the enemy, the enemy is all of the people who skirt by paying taxes.  Long term capital gains taxes are too low and ultrarich tax loopholes are abused liberally.&lt;p&gt;[1]: see page 35 of this CBO report- &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbo.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;114th-congress-2015-2016&amp;#x2F;reports&amp;#x2F;51361-HouseholdIncomeFedTaxes_OneCol.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.cbo.gov&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;114th-congress-2015-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: page 10 of this IRS report: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.irs.gov&amp;#x2F;pub&amp;#x2F;irs-soi&amp;#x2F;07intop400.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.irs.gov&amp;#x2F;pub&amp;#x2F;irs-soi&amp;#x2F;07intop400.pdf&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from government sources</title><url>http://usafacts.org/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Pokepokalypse</author><text>In practice; we currently have a very UN-progressive system. Where the very wealthy get excessive tax breaks, and pay even less than the middle and upper-middle class (who are getting fucking murdered: at least that&amp;#x27;s my experience).&lt;p&gt;Would a flat-tax fix this?  In theory: but if we set that &amp;quot;flat tax&amp;quot; to 15-17%; (and simply pocket the cost savings from simplification of tax code) - that seems like a win. But the very poorest quintile can&amp;#x27;t pay that. (and are equipped to dodge that, by simply not working and collecting aid or taking black-market work - cash-basis labor, or selling drugs, etc.) - the top quintile will also have the means to avoid paying their fair share. As always.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s those in the middle, who have to work REAL jobs, and can&amp;#x27;t hide their income though either black-market means, or tax-shelters: which still work in a flat-tax system.&lt;p&gt;The government will need to raise overall rates to compensate for this, and the middle gets screwed even more.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s an IDEAL system.&lt;p&gt;In the REAL world: the wealthy will still lobby for special deductions.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I&amp;#x27;d like to see the mortgage deduction go away for non-primary residences.&lt;p&gt;Stuff like &amp;quot;dancing-horses&amp;quot; deductions and the absolute murder &amp;quot;small businesses&amp;quot; get away with, (like; taking their personal Truck as a deduction, by calling it a &amp;quot;work truck&amp;quot;) - that can be horse-traded around.  But I think there is the most to be gained from the mortgage deduction on non-primary residences. This is probably America&amp;#x27;s most sacred cow. And therefore, is most likely politically impossible.  This is why we&amp;#x27;ve been at a stalemate over tax-reform since 1980.</text></item><item><author>shmageggy</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Lastly, it seems that Government revenue for Federal and State&amp;#x2F;Local has actually increased pretty linearly with the population. Despite all the different changes in the income tax rate&amp;#x2F;other progressive taxes. This supports an overhaul to the tax code to a more simple, flat tax system. From another data source outside this report, I&amp;#x27;d have to find it, but historically, no matter the top bracket tax rate, the Federal government collects about 15-17 % income tax. Including when the top rate was 90%+.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This seems like a pretty poor argument for a flat tax and in fact could be seen as an argument against it. If raising top end bracket taxes didn&amp;#x27;t increase overall income, then it must be the case that it reduced the tax burden on lower incomes -- which is the entire point of progressive taxes. So progressive taxes work, let&amp;#x27;s keep them!&lt;p&gt;I view this as mostly orthogonal to the issue of tax simplification, however, which I think is probably a good idea.</text></item><item><author>Cshelton</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m seeing many things (if this data is accurate, which assuming it is as it&amp;#x27;s from all government sources) and trends that go against a large percentage of what the media on both sides are perpetuating. That is my first takeaway at a glance.&lt;p&gt;My second takeaway at a glance is the giant problem that is Social Security. It&amp;#x27;s been said over and over, and the aggregation of more data into charts comes to the same conclusion. The way Social Security works is not sustainable. Period. Something has to give. A $405 B shortfall on SS in 2015. If that was at least half, we would actually not be running a deficit. We would have a budget surplus if we actually made Social Security&amp;#x2F;other Gov. retirement program replacement actually sustain itself perpetually. What. A. Concept.&lt;p&gt;A quick third take away seems to be the unprecedented rise in non-cash government aid (food stamps) during the Obama administration. The data is there, needs more analyzing of course.&lt;p&gt;Lastly, it seems that Government revenue for Federal and State&amp;#x2F;Local has actually increased pretty linearly with the population. Despite all the different changes in the income tax rate&amp;#x2F;other progressive taxes. This supports an overhaul to the tax code to a more simple, flat tax system. From another data source outside this report, I&amp;#x27;d have to find it, but historically, no matter the top bracket tax rate, the Federal government collects about 15-17 % income tax. Including when the top rate was 90%+.&lt;p&gt;As far as the presentation, my favorite part is each piece of government data is tied to 4 distinct duties of government outlined in the Constitution. That&amp;#x27;s pretty brilliant.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tbihl</author><text>While most of what you said is spot on, people often misunderstand what constitutes the super rich group with big tax breaks. It&amp;#x27;s way less than one percent, because it&amp;#x27;s the big investment money that&amp;#x27;s getting out of so much taxation. People who earn high salaries are actually paying quite substantial taxes.&lt;p&gt;For some perspective, &amp;quot;the 1%&amp;quot; starts at about $350k annual salary (think middle-of-the-pack surgeon.) At that level, you&amp;#x27;re paying a lot of taxes.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s an excellent recent Econtalk on taxation in the US.</text></comment>