I can’t 100% prove it, but the 70% over 10mm would probably need a lower income floor to even come close to 70 billion. At least, based on the 2016 tax numbers published by the IRS.
Incidentally, those same numbers show the biggest pools of income are filers in the 100k - 500k / yr. income ranges.
AGI (USD)
Total amount (Trillions USD)
Number of Filers
>1mm
1.36
424,870
500k-1mm
0.588
873,450
200k-500k
1.596
5,604,270
100k-200k
2.53
18,689,710
75k-100k
1.129
13,037,450
50k-75k
1.243
20,232,230
25k-50k
1.288
35,586,670
10k-25k
0.554
32,284,230
1-10k
0.109
20,979,270
(Why they don’t aggregate these numbers along the tax brackets, I do not know)
This is why I said in a comment that went out with the bathwater that I think $10M is a good spot even though I agree with @Lexicat that $500k would be a more sensible cut-off.
Chip away at the idea of the “poor” rich person who makes $10M but can’t afford to pay any more into the common good. It’s because the line is at $10M that we get nearly 60% of Americans behind the idea.
Also, I’ve been meaning to note that 59% of Americans and 60% of independents agreed that this was a good policy. It’s just a reminder that while I’m sure many independents choose between R and D, they aren’t (as a group) really between them in a political sense, they are actually out to the left of the democrats.
I saw a stat that said there were 16,000 filers with incomes over $10M. If we assume all of them are at exactly $11M. (I know, assuming is a problem, and there are definitely some much closer to 10, but there’s also some way higher than 11.). That $1M taxed at 70% is $700K times 16,000 is $11.2B. Or, twice the price of The Wall deposit.
So, while $11B is a small portion of $1,000B, it’s not nothing. And other programs have been put on the chopping block for much much less.
Heck yes. And I would be scrambling for the next 10% of 1 million, and as many more after that as I could get. Not to come off as a greedy scumbag, of course. It’s just I kind of think that life is easier for folks with lots of money, and I would like find out for myself. Maybe get some of that sweet sweet health insurance, or pay off my wife’s student loans.
The best I can find on a quick search is this from 2011, which lists 8,274 individuals and households making $10-million+/year. I can’t imagine it’s changed much, but there is room for that number to go up depending on other methods of indexing.
There’s a HUGE difference between that $500,000 number and $10M. The $10M is 20 times bigger if that’s not obvious.
You could have more graduated brackets between $500K and $10M. But, it’s a mistake to think of them as the same. Just like, someone with an income of $200M isn’t in the same category as the $10M income.
At $200M, they’re buying private islands, yachts, and planes.
At $10M, they’re buying something, but not all of them, and not the ones you picture them owning.
At $500K, they’re not buying any of those things.
Don’t get me wrong, at $500K you’re living a very different life than someone at $25K. But, you’re not the ultra rich living the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
I think we’re trying to divide people into Really, Really, Rich and not Really, Really Rich (RRR vs. nRRR). Also we have to recognize that is varies based on circumstance and location.
The $10M line I think is just unarguable. You don’t accidentally catch any nRRRs at $10M+. I assume that’s why they set it so high in the proposal.
But for me, the question isn’t so much what makes you RRR in America, but what makes you RRR in a healthy society. Like, if everything is going well and you aren’t ruled by greed driven psychopaths, how much money would a person make before they and everyone around them would agree that they are RRR.
I think $500k is probably around the right number. But I don’t think you should necessarily shoot for the ideal-world number on the first pass. Higher taxes will change things, change is pain. I sort of like the $10M as a good starting point. But a while down the line, when the sky hasn’t fallen and in fact things have gotten better, would I start looking at lowering that even further? Yeah, I think I probably would.
My guess is that she chose the $10-million number because it’s insanely out of reach for most Americans. AOC probably would have preferred to lower the threshold to somewhere between $2.5-5-million/year (as would I), but knew that the American public isn’t quite ready to accept that they don’t have much of a chance at that, either. As I said above, there’s a lot of delusion in American life even at the $10-million figure – at $5-million the headline here would be very different.
I knew what you meant, was just still reading the rest of the comments. I can’t find the page again.
I’m sure it was the result of reading another post here, or a tweet about the plan.
Part of the problem with typical reporting is it does stuff like group everything over $1M into a single bucket. But, there’s a HUGE difference between $1M, $10M, and $100M.
Self edit before posting, it was the Washington Post.
The standard Libertarian line is that taxes are simply the state “punishing” people, as if those public services and infrastructure (and representation) don’t exist and the state is just doing it to prove its authority or because of some secret Marxist agenda. It’s a petulant child’s argument, consistent with the larger “Mommy can’t tell me what to do!” attitude of these overgrown boys.
Tax brackets themselves always bothered me. Too confusing. I prefer something along the lines of a flat tax after a big deductible. Example (using numbers that make the math easy to follow):
tax=max 50% of (income - 50k) [minimum tax is zero dollars]
The result is:
Income, tax, rate
$0, $0, 0%
$50k, $0, 0%
$100k, $25k, 25%
$150k, $50k, 33.3%
$200k, $75k, 37.5%
$250k, $100k, 40%
$million, ~half million, ~50%
Then you work out the deductible and rate based on revenue needed and a threshold income you don’t want to tax.
Yeah, there are flaws. But there’s a simplicity to it I like.
