{"id":2793,"date":"2009-05-05T10:52:52","date_gmt":"2009-05-05T15:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=2793"},"modified":"2009-05-05T11:42:12","modified_gmt":"2009-05-05T16:42:12","slug":"taxing-the-wealthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/?p=2793","title":{"rendered":"Taxing the Wealthy"},"content":{"rendered":"

[digg-reddit-me]Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenues – high income tax rates on the wealthy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s George Will<\/a> in his most recent column. As phrased, I’m not sure it makes sense. A tax rate is not a source of revenue. A tax is. And while an income tax rate can be volatile – that doesn’t seem to be Will’s point – it is that the revenue generated from the tax is. So, let me correct Mr. Will:<\/p>\n

Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenues – taxes paid by the wealthy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I won’t argue about the volatility of any financial strategy based on depending on just a few individuals to generate revenue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But let’s pose a hypothetical for a moment. What if those that made over $200 million were taxed at a lower rate than everyone else – let’s say 18% – and those who made less than $100,000 were taxed at a 35% rate. And what if – even given this, the revenue generated from taxing those making over $200 million far exceeded the vast majority who made less.<\/p>\n

Wouldn’t that complicate things just a bit?<\/p>\n

And now, what if it were true?<\/a><\/p>\n

The stats here are national – not based on California which Will is talking about. And there are only concerning the top 400 taxpayers who despite being just over 1\/one millionth of the population, pay nearly 2% of all income taxes. But based on my previous research, I’m pretty confident the pattern holds – that those at the top of the income scale pay a lower rate of taxes than those at the bottom (Warren Buffett famously explained that he was taxed at a lower rate than his secretary<\/a>) \u00a0– and yet because wealth and income is so concentrated in America, the richest 5% pay about 60% of all taxes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Volatility is built into any system in which wealth is concentrated – which is why I’m not sure Will’s point here is well-founded. What does he suggest is a more stable type of taxation? If wealth were distributed more broadly, then our economic system – and tax revenues \u00a0– would undoubtedly be more stable – but I doubt this is what Will wants. If consumption were taxed rather than income, then the system would likely be even more unstable – especially in a downturn such as now when everyone is cutting back. So, what is the solution?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[digg-reddit-me]Liberal orthodoxy has made the state dependent on a volatile source of revenues – high income tax rates on the wealthy. That’s George Will in his most recent column. As phrased, I’m not sure it makes sense. A tax rate is not a source of revenue. A tax is. And while an income tax rate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[47,544,4,458],"tags":[272,698],"class_list":["post-2793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criticism","category-economics","category-politics","category-the-opinionsphere","tag-george-will","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8qcx-J3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2793"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2807,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2793\/revisions\/2807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2parse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}