> From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> The tax system is clearly progressive.
"Progressive: increasing as a proportion of the sum taxed as that sum
increases : steeply progressive income taxes." -- Oxford Dictionary.
The poor-to-middle-class transition may be mildly progressive, but
the middle-class-to-rich transition clearly is not, if you consider
actual taxes paid, rather than tax rates, and if you include Social
Security.
> The fact that you personally don't like it doesn't make it
> fallacious or disingenuous.
No, but presenting an argument that tax is progressive based on
totals, rather than proportions, is clearly fallacious -- at least
according to Oxford Dictionary, above.
In the US, investment is rewarded more than labour. *This* is the
regressive part, since the upper incomes typically have large amounts
of capital gains and the lower incomes typically do not. If you
simply look at the tax tables, then it would seem that the US tax
system is mildly progressive. But if you look at what the top incomes
actually pay in taxes, you'll find a strongly regressive system.
I know -- I used to be a part of it! :-) It was fun getting those tax-
free muni checks each month, and juggling investments to concentrate
capital gains. I got my whole IRA out of hock that way! (Took paper
losses in order to convert regular IRAs and other retirement savings
into Roth IRAs.) But just because I was a beneficiary doesn't mean I
think it's at all fair.
You may argue that it is fair, or is not fair, but it clearly is not
progressive at the higher income levels, because a large proportion
of those are paying 15% (capital gains rate) or less (munis, tax
shelters), with NO Social Security (SS is only on *earned* income)!
If you're making the argument that the US tax system is "clearly
progressive" by excluding Social Security and by ignoring the special
capital gains tax rate, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
I'm only talking about actual dollars paid in tax divided by actual
dollars of income.
:::: The biggest crime of all that Microsoft commits is getting
people accustomed to huge, slow, unstable software as the norm." --
Jay Maynard
:::: Jan Steinman <http://www.Bytesmiths.com/Item/003AA23>
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