Posted on 03/13/2019 11:04:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Do you pay enough taxes? What is enough?
When asked on "60 Minutes," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez didn't seem to have a specific tax rate in mind, but then she said, "back in the '60s ... you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent."
Suddenly, 70 percent tax rates are a progressive plan, although Rep. Ilhan Omar added, "We've had it as high as 90 percent."
She's right.
That was the top tax rate when I was a kid, and today, many Democrats say if we'd just raise rates on rich people, government would have plenty of money to pay for our wonderful programs.
But it's a myth. What progressives don't say, perhaps because they don't know it, is what economic historian Dr. Phillip Magness explains in my new video: "No one actually paid anywhere close to those rates."
For more than a decade, Magness has researched old taxes.
He discovered that America's 90 percent tax bracket didn't bring in much extra money. That's because rich people found loopholes.
Then, because of that, and because the high tax rates discouraged work, President Kennedy backed a bill that lowered the top rate to 70 percent.
But it turned out that the 70 percent rate wasn't very real either.
"A millionaire on average would pay 41 percent," says Magness, because of "all these deductions and exemptions and carve-outs that are intentionally baked into the tax code."
If you look at newspapers of that time, you see ads promoting things like free $2,499 ocean cruises.
"(B)asically take a vacation around the Caribbean," explains Magness, "but while you're onboard the ship you attend, say, an investing seminar or a real estate seminar, and then write off the trip."
Some rich people bought musical instruments for their kids and deducted the cost because, say, a clarinet would supposedly provide "therapeutic treatment."
Instead of investing in ideas that might create real wealth, rich people hired accountants to study the tax code.
"Who can afford the best accountants? It's always the wealthy," says Magness.
Today, our top tax rate is 37 percent. A dozen years after President Kennedy's tax cuts, Ronald Reagan proposed reducing the 70 percent rate, saying, "Our tax system could only be described as un-American."
"Democrats actually agree with him," recounts Magness. "Reagan goes to the table and says, 'Let's make a deal ... cut the rates ... and in exchange, we'll consolidate the tax code."
They did.
Surprise -- the lower rates brought in just as much money.
It turns out that tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product stays about the same no matter what the top bracket is. Higher tax rates don't necessarily get rich people to pay more taxes.
"They'll change where they earn their income," economist Art Laffer told me about what he'd once said to President Reagan. "They'll change how they earn their income. They'll change how much they earn, when they receive the income. They'll change all of those things to minimize taxes."
President Trump, who in some years paid zero income tax, understands that. Before he became president, I asked him about a proposed tax hike. "Look, the rich people are going to leave -- and other people are going to leave!" he told me. "You are going to end up with lots of people that don't produce. And then, that's the spiral. That's the end."
That happened in Europe, recounts Magness: "France attempted a massive tax on its wealthiest earners. ... the business people left in a mass exodus from the country."
But today's progressives are selective when they look at history. On TV, Ocasio-Cortez said, "Under Republican administration ... Dwight Eisenhower, we had 90 percent marginal tax rate."
I asked Magness what would happen if the U.S. were to return to those rates -- while also eliminating the deductions that came with them.
"You're asking for an economic disaster," he answered. "I ask the question: Do we leave (wealth) in the private sector where the market decides? Or do we subject it to corrupt politicians?"
Please, let's leave most of America's wealth in private hands.
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Why not 200 percent? More is better right?
Sort of like the question: What would the average temperature be for a perfect global climate?
What is the fair share of hours worked per week?
[They did.
Surprise — the lower rates brought in just as much money. ]
Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Anyone?
Something “d-oh-oh economics”.
Anyone?
I wasn’t in class that day so I missed it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA
“Your Fair Share: How Do we Determine This?”
Well if you are citizen, donate enough to keep you out of the Middle Class. If you are a member of Congress, you do the same thing you did with Obamacare. Exempt yourselves.
Beatles
I happen to like something like a flat tax, Fair Tax, or something like that. The precise number is debatable, but if we say "everyone pays 10%", that seems like the very definition of "fair". Because "everyone" is paying "the same" rate. Doesn't matter who you are, you are all treated the same. Sounds Fair to me.
But the do-gooders like to hand-pick the winners and losers. They like to single out some people for higher rates. Through a whole lot of choosing and social engineering, they hope to achieve some mystical outcome which they (and they alone) will consider "fair".
It's ridiculous.
[What is the fair share of hours worked per week?]
Perhaps 90% of 168....so.......let’s just call it 151 hours a week (we’ll round down).
Because that’s what people taxed at 90% are going to need to work.
Well, the fact that Congressmen are bribed to put loopholes into the tax code isn’t news.
The REAL “fair share” issue is never defined.
Not one “fair share” politician or voter can tell you WHAT constitutes the “fair share” of any income bracket.
LOLOL
Not to long ago I was cleaning out my file system and found my tax return from my first year of work out of college in the late 70’s. I made $27k that year, a pretty good salary. The total gov’t take from my pay check, Fed, state, and social security was $14K. I got to keep less than half. Of course today someone making $27k would pay just about nothing.
Though the “tax rate” may have been 70% or 90%, or whatever, nobody, NOBODY, ever paid that much, unless they has a really stupid accountant.
You see, the tax code was once riddled with many more “special case” exemptions that could be used by ANYBODY, once they were discovered, that had been placed there as a “special favor” for some individual or organization, probably in exchange for a campaign donation. It was mutual cooperation between the oligarchs of government and the fat cats of corporations that first wrote the law with the punitive taxation rates, then inserted numerous exceptions that could be used to offset a very large portion of that bite on income.
The Democrats, and particularly the Progressives, have been using the same playbook since the days of Woodrow Wilson, and very likely many parts of that playbook went back to the very founding of our nation.
Now if we get stupid our competitors will thank us for all the business we lose.
Tax laws determine that. That “your fair share” nonsense comes from socialists.
The poor must be taxed for their fair share
I think they should FIRST tell us on what they’re going to spend it, THEN we can tell them what’s fair. Fair?
At those high rates there were few limitations on deductions. Interest on everything was deductible. Depreciation was generous. All those so called loop holes were available to every tax payer.
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