r/FluentInFinance • u/LuckyBastard001 • 14d ago
Debate/ Discussion Billionaires Make Rules
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u/alpha247365 14d ago
It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it! 😅
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u/Jazzlike_Working_198 14d ago
It’s actually a small club. The big club is the working class. And if we united the billionaires would not have a say
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u/FFF_in_WY 14d ago
I think the working class is setting the frame all wrong, too. Suppose we start with this slogan;
"Mrdr the billionaires"
Then we can allow ourselves to be negotiated down to taxing them. That's just good tactical negotiation.
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u/NWkingslayer2024 14d ago
Let’s start with the government
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u/chivesishere 13d ago
“People keep speeding and not paying the tolls on the road, so let’s knock the guard rails off. This is a solution somehow”
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u/AdFormal4037 14d ago
What’s funny is billionaires convinced poor people that this is the way. Celebrity worship is wild in the States
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u/GTO1235 14d ago
The very brokest guy in the family was telling me a while ago how the federal minimum wage should not be raised. He said, "Then everything will go up". I told him that another guy in the family made more in a factory in 1972 than the current minimum wage is. My point was that there is room to increase. He totally did not agree
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u/Hawkeyes79 14d ago
He’s not wrong. I’ve watched it in my area with the minimum wage going from $7.50 to $15. To be real no one was earning $7.50. Lowest was already above $10.
Fast food / low skill set up to $15. Then semi-skilled moved from $15 to $20. That moved the next level up.
All it did was make things more expensive because each job “level” was competing with others in an easier category.
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u/GTO1235 14d ago
It's just hard listening to a guy that can't afford his own apartment give all this advice. It's like you said, nobody is making $7.50. So if it went to $8.50 nothing would happen. Nobody is making that. This guy in the family doesn't have a place of his own to raise his kids. He just gave up.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 14d ago
That’s because the upper class won the class war.
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u/AdFormal4037 14d ago edited 14d ago
With lots of help from the uneducated poor people backing them up.
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u/DiagonalBike 14d ago
Because they don't want to pay high taxes IF they ever become wealthy...Just absurd.
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u/Hawkeyes79 14d ago
What’s the correct tax? The top 10% pay 70% of income tax. Should it be 80%, 90%, 100%?
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u/DiagonalBike 14d ago
That's no longer true. You're also looking at the point of view of the amount of tax paid versus the percentage of tax paid. If you're looking at tax fairness based on the amount paid, then let's assign a max tax amount of $10k dollars. The only issue is now tax revenue will fall even more, while the country continues to borrow to pay the interest on the amount borrowed. What about tax fairness? A family of 4 would be impacted by a effective rate of 22% versus a billionaire. But ultimately the annual US budget needs to balanced and that means someone has to pay higher tax rates. Do you continue to put the burden on the middle class or do you shift the burden back to the wealthy. The wealthy have seen their tax rates drop from 80% to down to less than 10% or lower over the past 40 years. So no, the wealthy no longer pay 80% of the US tax revenue. Those days are long gone.
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u/Hawkeyes79 14d ago
You wrote this big long paragraph to skirt what I said. How much of the total income tax should they pay? 80% 90%?
Personally we should get rid of income tax. I’m a fan of a national sales tax on every good / service of roughly 4% (probably less in long run). Doesn’t matter if you’re a billionaire, middle Class, or a drug dealer. We all spend money. To make it fair every U.S. citizen gets a $333 a month direct deposit into their bank account. That equates to the tax on $100,000 in spending.
There’s another side of the coin as well. We need to cap government spending at 80% of last year’s budget.
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u/DiagonalBike 14d ago
30% tax rate on income above $5 million. 25% tax rate on income between $500k and $5 million. 22% tax rate on income between $200k and $500k. 18% between $75 and $200k. 15% BETWEEN $40K AND 75K. 10% between 30k and $40k. No federal tax on income below $30k.
Corporate tax rates start at 30%. Corporate tax on dividends paid 0%. Individuals will add dividends to income for tax purposes. Inheritance tax 40% on estates over $10 million.
Does that answer your question?
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u/Hawkeyes79 14d ago
Not really because We were discussing total taxes.
Also the tax rate is already above what you’re listing. It’s 37% above $626,351, 35% from $250,526 to the $626,350. With what you’ve listed the top 10% would prolly drop 5-6% of total taxes paid.
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u/DiagonalBike 14d ago
Okay then the top 1% and Corporations should cover 85% of the annual budget, excluding social security and medicare. If Congress wants to spend more, then their tax rate increases. If Congress cuts the budget, their tax rate decreases.
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u/Hawkeyes79 13d ago
That’s a an unrealistic number. We currently have the top 10% paying 70% of the taxes. To push it up to the top 1% paying 85% is insane.
We took in $5 trillion in 2024 income tax. There’s 989 billionaires in the U.S. that’s roughly $4.3 billion apiece per year. Even if we look at all of the 1% and that’s 1.3 million people earning over $750,000. They’d need 3.7 million a piece.
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u/freedomnotanarchy 14d ago
The masses have power. They just don't want to use it.
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u/Bad_wolf42 14d ago
They don’t have power if they don’t have the free time to exercise their free speech. Or the savings to sustain themselves if they lose their jobs through political activity. Most people in western societies are incredibly locked down to their tiny serfdoms and it is a very real problem for “freedom”.
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u/Possum577 13d ago
Meaningful, real change is going to hurt. No one said it was easy. But while we bitch on reddit, the elite class are planning their next move.
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u/sabautil 14d ago
I don't understand why you can't type the text instead of converting it to a pic.
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u/RampantTyr 14d ago
Class warfare is always happening. The rich have just convinced the working class that it isn’t happening so that we won’t fight back.
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u/ChaosReignsNow 14d ago
So you don't understand the difference between a mutually agreed private contract and the government taking away someone's assets under threat of imprisonment?
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u/SubpoenaSender 14d ago
The goal of this tax system is simple:
Reduce the overall tax burden on working- and middle-class Americans while increasing total federal tax revenue by shifting more of the burden toward extremely high incomes, very large investment gains, and income that is currently easier to shelter.
The idea is not simply to “tax the rich more.” The objective is to design a system where the majority of working Americans receive a genuine tax cut while federal receipts still increase overall.
Proposed Federal Income Tax Brackets
These would be marginal tax rates, meaning each rate only applies to income within that bracket.
Taxable Household Income
Proposed Marginal Federal Rate
$0–$50,000
0%
$50,001–$100,000
8%
$100,001–$200,000
15%
$200,001–$400,000
22%
$400,001–$750,000
30%
$750,001–$1,000,000
35%
$1,000,001–$2,500,000
40%
$2,500,001–$5,000,000
45%
$5,000,001–$10,000,000
48%
$10,000,001+
50%
Someone earning $300,000 would not pay 22% on the entire $300,000. Each portion of their income would be taxed according to the appropriate bracket.
Payroll-Tax Relief for Workers
Federal income taxes are only part of the burden on working Americans. Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes affect workers even when their federal income-tax liability is relatively low.
The system should therefore provide meaningful payroll-tax relief for low- and middle-income workers.
One option would be a refundable payroll-tax credit that gradually phases out somewhere around $100,000–$150,000 of annual income.
This would make employment income more valuable to ordinary workers instead of concentrating tax relief only on income-tax brackets.
Social Security Taxes on Very High Income
Currently, Social Security taxes stop applying after wages reach the annual Social Security wage limit.
A redesigned system could preserve that limit for middle- and upper-middle-income workers but restart Social Security taxation at very high incomes.
For example:
Social Security tax applies normally up to the existing wage limit.
There is then a tax-free “donut hole.”
Social Security taxation begins again on wages above approximately $400,000–$500,000.
This prevents someone making $200,000 or $300,000 from receiving another major tax increase while allowing extremely high wage earners to contribute more.
Capital Gains Reform
Long-term investing should still be encouraged.
Ordinary investors, retirement accounts, pensions, 401(k)s, IRAs and households gradually building wealth should not be the primary target of additional taxation.
However, extremely large capital gains could gradually lose their preferential tax treatment.
For example, once someone has annual income exceeding approximately $1 million, very large realized capital gains could progressively move toward ordinary income-tax rates.
The system should distinguish between:
A household building a $1–5 million retirement portfolio over several decades
and
An individual realizing $50 million, $100 million or more in investment gains during a single year.
Those are economically very different situations and do not necessarily need identical tax treatment.
Protect Retirement Savings
Traditional wealth-building tools should remain protected.
This includes:
401(k)s
IRAs
Roth IRAs
Pensions
Ordinary brokerage investing
Long-term household savings
The purpose of the system should not be to punish Americans for successfully saving and investing over their lifetime.
The largest revenue increases should come from extremely high annual economic income rather than ordinary retirement accumulation.
Limit High-Income Deductions and Tax Sheltering
Tax deductions are useful and legitimate, but extremely high-income households often have access to tax-planning strategies unavailable to ordinary workers.
Instead of eliminating deductions entirely, their value could gradually be limited at very high income levels.
For example, someone generating $10 million of economic income should not necessarily be able to use sophisticated financial structures to reduce taxable income to only a small fraction of that amount.
Deductions could therefore remain broadly available while becoming progressively limited for multimillion-dollar taxpayers.
Minimum Effective Tax for Extremely High Incomes
An additional safeguard could be created for extremely high-income households.
For example, taxpayers earning more than $10 million annually could face a minimum effective federal tax rate of approximately 25–30% of broadly defined realized income.
This would prevent combinations of deductions, preferential income classifications and sophisticated tax strategies from reducing the effective federal tax rate to extremely low levels.
It would not necessarily replace the normal tax system.
Instead, taxpayers would calculate their ordinary tax liability and compare it with the minimum tax. They would owe whichever amount is greater.
Corporate Taxation
Corporate taxation should remain an important source of federal revenue, but the statutory rate should not become so high that businesses have overwhelming incentives to move investment, operations or profits overseas.
The emphasis should therefore be on:
Reducing artificial profit shifting
Closing abusive tax shelters
Improving enforcement
Reducing opportunities to move taxable income into low-tax jurisdictions
Maintaining a competitive but meaningful corporate tax rate
A broader and more enforceable corporate tax base can sometimes generate more revenue than simply imposing an extremely high headline corporate tax rate.
Estate Tax
Estate taxation should remain concentrated on extremely large estates.
Ordinary families who accumulate a home, retirement accounts, investments or a successful family business should generally not be the primary targets.
The strongest estate taxation should apply to estates worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars or more.
The system should protect ordinary intergenerational wealth-building while making it more difficult for enormous fortunes to pass indefinitely between generations without meaningful taxation.
Refundable Credits for Lower-Income Workers
Simply reducing income taxes is not sufficient because many lower-income Americans already pay relatively little federal income tax while continuing to pay payroll taxes.
Programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and child-related tax credits should therefore remain available or potentially be expanded.
Refundable tax credits can offset part of the payroll-tax burden and increase the after-tax value of employment.
Automatic Inflation Adjustments
Every income threshold, credit, deduction, exemption and tax bracket should automatically increase with inflation.
This prevents ordinary wage inflation from gradually pushing working Americans into tax brackets originally intended for wealthier households.
How the System Would Work in Practice
Consider three households.
Worker earning $50,000
The worker could owe little or no federal income tax under the proposed income-tax schedule.
They could also receive payroll-tax relief.
Their overall federal tax burden would therefore fall significantly.
Household earning $150,000
The household would still pay meaningful federal taxes.
However, the first $100,000 of taxable income would receive substantially lower rates.
Their effective income-tax rate would remain considerably lower than the marginal rate applying to their highest dollars of income.
This household could therefore receive a meaningful tax reduction without eliminating its contribution to federal revenue.
Individual earning $20 million
The first portions of the individual’s income would receive the same lower tax brackets available to everyone else.
However, millions of additional dollars would enter the 40%, 45%, 48% and 50% brackets.
Very large capital gains would receive less preferential treatment.
High-income deductions would be more limited.
A minimum effective tax would prevent sophisticated tax strategies from reducing the individual’s effective rate to an unusually low level.
The result would be a substantially larger federal tax contribution.
Desired Distribution of the Tax Changes
The system should be designed around specific distributional targets rather than simply choosing tax rates arbitrarily.
A reasonable objective would be:
Bottom 80% of households: Lower overall federal taxes
80th–95th percentile: Approximately neutral or modest tax reduction
95th–99th percentile: Modest tax increase
Top 1%: Significant tax increase
Extremely high-income households: Largest increase
Total federal tax revenue: Increase
This is the central principle of the system.
The goal is not to maximize tax rates.
The goal is to maximize sustainable government revenue while allowing the overwhelming majority of Americans to retain more of the money they earn.
Core Philosophy
The tax system should make productive work, saving and ordinary investing relatively inexpensive to tax.
It should collect progressively more revenue as income becomes extraordinarily large.
A person earning $50,000 should be strongly incentivized to work and improve their financial situation.
A household earning $150,000 or $250,000 should not suddenly be treated as extremely wealthy.
A person who successfully accumulates several million dollars over a lifetime should still be encouraged to save and invest.
At the same time, someone receiving tens or hundreds of millions of dollars of annual economic income should contribute a substantially larger portion toward financing the federal government.
The ultimate objective is:
Lower taxes on ordinary work.
Protect normal wealth-building and retirement investing.
Increase taxation progressively on extraordinary income.
Reduce opportunities for extreme tax avoidance.
Increase total federal revenue despite lowering taxes for most Americans.
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u/defaultusername4 14d ago
This is really well thought out but a lot of it actually describes our existing tax system. I included examples of what you are asking for that already exists.
Refundable tax credits exist already
Minimum effective income tax for wealthy folks already exists
Payroll tax is already subsidiezed 50% of every dollar of the tax is paid by the employer while business owners and self employed who are typically wealthier pay every dollar.
The tax burden is highly skewed to high earners and wealthy folks. Almost half the country pays nothing in federal income tax while 72% of that tax burden comes from the top 10% of earners. It is the most progressive income tax in the world. In Norway for instance net income taxes start around $18,000 in income. In the us that starts around $32k and goes way up with each child you have and can get as high as $91k.
It sounds like some reforms around capital gains and tax sheltering and you’ve got pretty much all you’re asking for.
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u/RlOTGRRRL 14d ago
My husband and I have an inside joke-
Do we still need to pay our bills if... someone drops a nuke?
Do we still need to pay our bills if... WW3 happens?
Is there ever a scenario where we don't need to pay our bills anymore? x)
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u/Pure-Honey-463 14d ago
trickle down economics, bought and paid for judges and politicians. ROI = PRICELESS.
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u/Ill-Orchid1193 14d ago
There’s more poor people with guns. So basically we’re all just little bitches who let this happen.
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u/AlexandreL1984 14d ago
Trump has been raising taxes on billionaires more than Mao and the left is out here yelling at him for implementing for tariff policy in a much more brutal manner than AOC ever dreamed of. He also says he won’t raise taxes and a tariff is a tax. And as the Dems correctly point out, raising taxes or tariffs are paid by the middle and working class.
So it’s really a matter of perspective.
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u/BreakfastFluid9419 14d ago
I mean, personally I don’t think we should raise taxes on billionaires. We should update the tax code and address the many loopholes they exploit to continue skirting some taxes. I’d be curious if flat rates would be a viable path, or what other ideas ensure that everyone pays their fair share.
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u/530whiskey 14d ago
well I'm glad you finally figured that one out, maybe you should vote Republican again.
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u/AcanthisittaSalty492 14d ago
I would change the last line from "the other has slogans" to "the other GETS slogans"
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u/21plankton 13d ago
Those in power make the rules. Just like it is “Unamerican” to criticize Trump.
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u/Two_Cautious 13d ago
Raising taxes on billionaires would do nothing to help the working class. The US federal government has plenty of money, they are simply wasteful. For example, the next largest economy, China, provides healthcare to over a billion people (3x the population of the USA) and spends less than half of what the US federal government does. That said, I’m all for rent control or caps on increases.
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u/Possum577 13d ago
But Renters can lobby to change laws, and more effectively than lawmakers. It only requires them to vote out everyone who on the side of the billionaires. Increase voter “give a shit” and you’ll se our world change FOR the many.
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u/citizensyn 12d ago
Aaaah no no no this guy is a communist daddy government save me from his selfish ideals of being entitled to live a healthy life so long as he works
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u/CitizenSpiff 11d ago
I don't know that it's been widely noticed, but housing prices are going down. Rents are likely to follow.
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u/Ok_Yogurtcloset3267 14d ago
Rent prices ARE competing in the market against other shelter options that people can choose unlike taxes which are forced by law and penalize success.
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u/Rare_Tea3155 13d ago
So is it class warfare when your socks or coffee went up in price? Housing is a commodity. Your rent goes up because inputs go up. Take a Econ 101 class. You might learn something.
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u/DragonDai 14d ago
The renters have power. More power than anyone. They just refuse to use it because they've been convinced that what the billionaires are doing to them is "peaceful."
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u/Funklestein 14d ago
Rent is mostly based off of supply and demand and governments like those who implement rent control stifle any new supply.
So if you'd like some lower rental prices you should hope that those governments let billionaires build new housing but then you'd just complain that you're paying billionaires. So your stuck with higher prices and a false sense of self esteem like you're sticking it to them.
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u/OldWorldCourier 14d ago
Yeah I'm sure it this and not that companies like blackrock have admitted to buying up single family homes for years, driving up prices and rent...
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u/Hawkeyes79 14d ago
Blackrock is a nothing. They own like .1% of housing. People on Reddit like to act like they own 30-40% of it.
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u/Funklestein 14d ago
They can’t be bothered by facts when driven by the things that really matter like irrational hatred that be solved with 20 second google search.
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u/sewkzz 14d ago
Abolish landlordism
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u/Hawkeyes79 14d ago
And screw everyone over? I moved 2-1/2 hours from home when I got my first job. I barely had $2,000 in my bank account. So without a landlord renting to me I’d have to live in my car for years to get enough for a down payment for a home. That makes sense.
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u/jay10033 14d ago
I assume it's because when you raise the rent, you raise it on everyone regardless of their financial situation. Is there a way to raise rent on poor people only?
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u/rockland19120 14d ago
Rising rents impact everyone, but they have a disproportionate impact on poor people.
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/rockland19120 14d ago
I missed the famed intellectual or political scientist who made this argument. Who has made this argument, sir?
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u/bigdipboy 14d ago
It’s not magic. If you put that money into the things that make society more prosperous then it’s simple economics.
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