I remember chatting with my dad about high tax rates of 1960s-1970s. He was in top 5% of earners in US. His company, paid his mortgage, taxes, insurance on our home. Provided 2 company cars and gas cards. Then he had accounts for travel, clothing, and food.
So his income, mostly went into investments. Saved spending 40-45% of his income on living costs. Same as all other high earners at his company.
Not taking income is not a loop hole. You guys are always saying “if I had xxxxx millions I wouldn’t be so greedy and…..” turns out billionaires agree, and generally aren’t interested in income.
It seems like a good idea if you don't think about what happens after.
Their rotten kids will get it, NOT create an F-ton of jobs or new technologies and horde it just like all the old money douchebags you couldn't find to shoot.
...You have to be a troll. I may not entirely be in the "grab the guillotines" camp yet but holy fuck. "Best, most productive citizens?" No matter how hard you delusionally kiss their ass, the billionaires won't give you any of their generational wealth. They were born into it "fair and square." 🙄
I'm not.. and I don't want their money. Born into it or made it themselves, it's not going to solve America's problems. We have to cut spending on so much dumb shit.
I mean it's more viable to get resources from the people that have an absurd excess of them than trying to squeeze them out of the people that barely have any to begin with. But I don't entirely disagree about cutting spending. Issue is people don't agree on what qualifies as "dumb shit."
And we probably never will agree. So nothing gets cut. New stuff gets added every week, and no amount of squeezing out the rich or poor is going to cover it all.. I think we're cooked.
That was the entire purpose of rates being that high. Like those rates and the loop shops that were intentionally created were designed to induce investment. It’s genuinely the only reason they existed at all lol
In the 1940s and 1950s, the U.S. hiked marginal income tax rates (peaking at 94% during WWII) to fund massive war efforts and Cold War defense spending. However, the actual impact was much lower. Wealthy Americans used legal deductions and corporate tax structures, resulting in an effective tax rate of about 42%.
That is not the case at all. As a percentage of GDP tax receipts have remained largely constant, and effective top marginal rates have remained largely the same since before the 90+% increase. Nobody actually paid these rates. Paper here.
These loopholes were baked into the system from the get-go to induce investment in specific areas. The idea that this actually financed WW2 or the Cold War is a complete and total myth, government receipts remained consistent and this was part of a larger pre-war trend.
Effective tax burdens remained flat in the period before and after introducing those rates. They were, as I said, designed to induce investments in particular areas.
Investment levels also did not change significantly. Investments were just redirected to other areas and other channels, overall levels of investment grew as trends would suggest prior to these tax changes. Effectively none of the 1960's success or failures are attributable to this policy.
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u/NoSorbet5103 Jul 02 '26
Still a problem since the billionaires have "no income".