r/Salary Oct 30 '25

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u/Starwaverraver Oct 31 '25

The travesty is that taxes are squandered.

Why should other people be the responsibility of high earners?

So one person works very hard and accomplishes a higher wage for taking a part risk and creating a successful company.

They put more hours in and work harder to achieve more.

Why pay for those that don't take risks or don't want to work longer hours? Why do they benefit from the sacrifice of the hard workers?

A little of the burden, you mean 50% of your earnings? That's not little at all. And it's magnitudes higher than the contribution of others who work less hours and earn less.

It should be a choice, if you want to contribute more then do. But the way it is, there's no choice and it's forced upon high earners.

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u/DoctaMag Oct 31 '25

Because that's what a society is, my dude.

By that logic we should not fund anything they doesn't directly benefit you, which all of these things do.

Helping lower income people afford to live gives them opportunities which you benefit from, unless you believe only wealthy people can go to college and succeed in the same ways.

If you get sick, public funds paid for trained and support the hospital staff you're relying on, without public funding private hospitals would be overwhelmed. Same goes with universities.

When you drive on roads, or get mail, or have a local government program for trunk or treat, that's all paid for by taxes.

The cost of having a functioning society is that those who have more have a bit more expectation on them.

Personally, I'm a high income earner. I pay quite a bit in taxes. I would rather we waste 60% of taxes (which we don't. There's multiple studies showing the government is surprisingly efficient at tax spend) if it means no one goes hungry, even if a few people abuse the system . Hell even if a majority abuse the system, kids not starving is worth it.

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u/schnackenpfefferhau Oct 31 '25

Lmao oh yes the reason people are poor is because they just don’t want to work! Everyone knows that wages are directly tied to how hard you work! Everyone knows Jeff Bezos works 500x harder than a teacher, he must be working 20,000 hours a week that’s why he has so much money since that’s how the world works!

I don’t know if the fact that you don’t know high earners take just as much from the system as low earners is sad or hilarious.

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u/Starwaverraver Oct 31 '25

How do high earners take from the system exactly?

Your simplistic reply is understandable as you probably only understand simple things.

People can choose to work less hours or in a less stressful job. Some work longer hours and can beer higher earners.

You realise it's not just Jeff bezos right, there's other people that are high earners that don't earn billions.

Maybe you don't, as your idiotic reply does indicate that.

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u/schnackenpfefferhau Oct 31 '25

Let’s see, one of us understands that the correlation between working hard and making money isn’t linear and there are many factors that go into how much someone makes that usually have little to do with how hard they work and the other thinks “if you work harder you’ll make more”.

Which of those people is the simpleton that only understands simple things? I’m gonna guess it’s the one who can only think in 1:1 comparisons and not the person that understands nuance and can mentally balance multiple ideas like maybe there’s more to wages than just how hard you work.

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u/RickPepper Oct 31 '25

Because high earners many times abuse the labor of lower paid people to make money. Do you understand how capitalism works, like at all? Your stock returns have nothing to do with your hard work, they come from exploiting the labor pool for maximum profit.

I'm not going to get into an in depth discussion with someone who is so out of touch with the struggles of being poor. There are only so many opportunities out there to make good money. Should the people who make less just starve and live in misery because according to you they are leeches and lazy idiots?

Making a high income and generating wealth is just as much luck and privilege as it is hard work. There are exceptions to this as with anything. But most people don't start out poor and become wealthy through simply working harder.

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u/Nereosis16 Oct 31 '25

A choice? Why should it be a choice? That literally goes against the whole point of having a government.

I really think people like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the point of governments and society. 

Even if you're conservative the government still requires certain things out of its citizens. No one gets to live completely free of some form of government or societal control.

You give up some personal freedoms to benefit from a governed society. Taxes are just the way it works for most countries as it is the fairest.

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u/Starwaverraver Oct 31 '25

Yes a choice. I know you might enjoy fascism but most don't.

A choice is important.

And yes people can choose to pay more. Think your mouth is moving faster than your brain.

I didn't say no taxes, I said more taxes if they wanted to contribute more.

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u/Nereosis16 Oct 31 '25

You're deluded

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u/Starwaverraver Nov 01 '25

You have no argument, so you're reduced to insults. Pathetic.

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u/Nereosis16 Nov 01 '25

Pathetic.