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rinx  ·  2972 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Free Money

    We can plan on taxing income every year, but we can only tax a dollar of wealth once, then it's not available in following years.

That doesn't make sense, why would that be the case? Wealth taxes can be yearly just like income tax.

    Taxing that doesn't even come close to the tax burden we put on the middle class.

Lets explain it this way. Let's say I'm rich. I have 5 million in a trust that I live off of. Every year I draw down 3%, about 150,000, and that is what I live on for the year. At most and assuming my tax guy is a total idiot, I pay 15% capitol gains tax or about $22,500 for the year.

Now lets say I'm upper middle class and I earn that 150,000 in my job. I'm paying about 28% of that in taxes, even if I've managed to property caffeinate my tax guy. That's $42,000 for the year.

The burden of taxes for the person still working is much, much higher then the rich guy. Many wealthy people I know don't pay taxes as they are able to keep their reported income below 20k.

Edited for typos