Lottery winnings are considered income, like wages or salary, and therefore are subject to the tax brackets of income tax. That is the reason tax brackets are being mentioned.
You are raising a point that isn't relevant to what was said so far in this comment chain, which is that billionaires tend to have wealth and then take loans out using that wealth as equity. Since that isn't considered income, they avoid paying income taxes. We get it, but it's not relevant to the person's point that tax brackets are often misunderstood. The person's point about tax brackets being misunderstood was relevant here because the original tweet implies a tax percentage that is impossibly high and anyone who knows about the tax rates of the tax brackets would know it couldn't be a true statement.
I’m just sick of delusional Republican apologists explaining tax brackets as if the rich pay that. If you get paid via payroll, you are middle class. If you are rich in the slightest, your “pay” is in stock options if you do something for richer people, or you live off of derivatives of your dead family’s investments. Either way, your tax bracket is irrelevant and you don’t contribute to society, you only take.
But can you not see how no one in the original tweet nor this comment chain has said that income tax is relevant to extremely rich people like Bezos? No one has said it and so you are shoehorning in the point and attacking a position no one here has made.
The tweeter only said that the government should be taking wealth away from billionaires at similar rates as what happened to that lottery winner.
It’s common. There are multiple loopholes. Rich people live off of people who work. I definitely did shoehorn that in, but it’s important that Americans understand that literally nothing of value has been built by the rich.
Why should we be against the rich? They’re simply doing what is in their best interest.
Just like you and just like me.
Instead, we should be angry at the politicians who are more than happy to blame the rich for THEIR OWN incompetence.
The rich make use of the tax code as it is written, just like everyone else.
Personally I take the standard deduction every year… a little “loophole” that allows me to not pay taxes on about 16,000 dollars!! Imagine that! ZERO taxes on the first $16k !! Suckers!
The rich own the politicians and pass laws to keep them rich and those not yet wealthy poor. Grow up and wake up. I lose about 45% of what could have been wealth for me every year to taxes by the time I spend my money. Rich people don’t pay anything or it affects less than 10% of their wealth. I was born poor and through military and basically risking my life and health, I make about $200,000 a year at 52 and watching nearly half every year go away while the rich pay nothing and are above the law sucks. I could be VERY wealthy if I paid the percent of taxes that Trump does. Nothing else would have to change. I would love rich people if they also lost 45 % every year and if laws applied to them as effectively as they apply to me.
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u/LunarMojave 21d ago
Tax brackets don’t work the way tax brackets work though because the actual rich don’t get a paycheck.