Comment by crmd
6 days ago
According to the Tax Foundation[1], for tax year 2021, the top 1% of U.S. earners—those with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $682,577 or more—accounted for 26.3% of total AGI and paid 45.8% of all federal income taxes.
My personal opinion is that income tax should be more progressive, but I know that plenty of smart people disagree on that.
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in...
Your source leans right-center, so probably good reason to suspect their reported top 1% AGI is low and their reported federal income tax estimate is high.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/tax-foundation/
It’s IRS data. You can download it from the IRS website and replicate the analysis and prove them wrong if you’d like.
https://fee.org/articles/5-reasons-to-avoid-ad-hominem-argum...
1. Does not follow. Just because you don't like someone's politics doesn't mean they're dishonest.
2. Your own link contradicts you. It says explicitly that that site hasn't failed any of their fact checks and doesn't use loaded words that they say are typical of that category. It says the categorization is because the site promotes libertarian policies.
There are a lot more taxes than the federal income tax. It happens to be one of the most progressive taxes. Anyone focusing on that and ignoring all the others is trying to scam you.
This is true for ultra high net worth individuals. They can do schemes like borrowing against equities and using the tax-free cash for expenses or purchasing other assets.
It is also true for many “normal” one percenters. For example there is a service for incorporated anesthesiologists where you tell them where you plan to go on vacation and what dates, and they create a bullshit anesthesiology conference, including the brochure and other artifacts, that meet the letter of the law IRS definitions for a valid business expense. None of this stuff ever hits AGI.
A simpler example: social security taxes hit a cap at a bit under $200,000/year. Somebody working fast food at minimum wage is paying 6.2% on every dollar they earn, while with my fancy tech job I’m paying a substantially lower percentage.
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That's wild. I searched, though, and this is the closest I found: https://www.cerebraltaxadvisors.com/blog/vacation-business-t.... Is there a link you could share for the actual fake conference approach?
> This is true for ultra high net worth individuals.
Anyone can borrow money against their stocks, house, or credit card. It's tax-free as well.
> They can do schemes like borrowing against equities and using the tax-free cash for expenses or purchasing other assets.
Um, borrowing money is not "income". You have to pay it back, with interest.
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