80% Effective Marginal Tax rate

[makattak]

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2009/10/80-marginal-.html

N. Gregory Mankiw (Harvard University, Department of Economics) speculates that marginal tax rates under the Baucus health care "concept" could be as high as 80%:

Jim Capretta looks at the Baucus healthcare bill and concludes that, because the subsidies phase out as income rises, it imposes an effective marginal tax rate on income of about 30% for many families. Add that figure to the income tax, the payroll tax, and the phase-out of the EITC and "the effective, implicit tax rate for workers between 100 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line would quickly approach 70 percent — not even counting food stamps and housing vouchers."

Indeed, Jim seems to understate matters, as he includes only the employee half of the payroll tax. Including both the employee and employer halves, as economic theory says is appropriate, appears to give a marginal tax rate closer to 80%. And, of course, many states impose income and sales taxes as well, and these would further raise the overall marginal tax rate. Jim was doing a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation.

I hope some Congressman asks CBO to do a more thorough analysis of the issue. Given all the income-linked programs already in existence and now being contemplated, what would effective marginal tax rates be for typical families? This is surely a question that needs answering before Congress can cast an intelligent vote on the healthcare bill.

Soooo, when I get to keep what I earn one day out of a five day week.... that's not slavery?

Work for the master 4 days, work one day for yourself.

Going Galt is looking more and more attractive...

[AZRedhawk44]

Going Galt is looking more and more attractive...

When does it ever NOT look attractive?

[Viking]

Think 80% is bad? How about 102%? Yep, I'm serious...

In 1976, a scandal arose in Sweden when (Astrid) Lindgren's marginal tax rate was publicized to have risen to 102%.

All your income and then some. :rolleyes:. THAT is slavery.

[El Tejon]

Wow, spooky.  I know I've yammered about this before but when I was at the Chapman Academy years ago I went through a class with 2 FBI Agents who worked in an office involving "research and planning".

The feds told us that the most likely catalyst for a civil insurrection scenario that the FBI forecasting/planning for was not gun confiscation but a tax revolt.  They told us by 2015 that the USA had to have a tax rate of 80 to 90% as the Welfare State could not sustain itself otherwise and there was too much power at stake to dismantle the Welfare State.  They forecast civil unrest that would lead to an organized resistance.

[makattak]

Wow, spooky.  I know I've yammered about this before but when I was at the Chapman Academy years ago I went through a class with 2 FBI Agents who worked in an office involving "research and planning".

The feds told us that the most likely catalyst for a civil insurrection scenario that the FBI forecasting/planning for was not gun confiscation but a tax revolt.  They told us by 2015 that the USA had to have a tax rate of 80 to 90% as the Welfare State could not sustain itself otherwise and there was too much power at stake to dismantle the Welfare State.  They forecast civil unrest that would lead to an organized resistance.

Interesting. I have always assumed when the welfare state can no longer be supported, we'd simply become a failed state like Argentina.

I wonder if the American psyche is substantially different from those other countries that just accept the new paradigm and move on.

[AZRedhawk44]

Spooky, El T.

So, did those agents care to advertise what side of the issue they and their agency came down on?  Did their research department intend to support an 80% or higher tax rate, or were they warning as an arm of bureaucracy of impending danger and trying to inform higher-ups?

[MicroBalrog]

Think 80% is bad? How about 102%? Yep, I'm serious...All your income and then some. :rolleyes:. THAT is slavery.

...wait, Astrid Lindgren?

You mean these vermin stole the profits she got from Karlsson  and Detective Blomkvist?

...what new socialist monstrosity is this?

[El Tejon]

So, did those agents care to advertise what side of the issue they and their agency came down on?  Did their research department intend to support an 80% or higher tax rate, or were they warning as an arm of bureaucracy of impending danger and trying to inform higher-ups?

It wasn't a matter of support.  It is more of a matter of getting prepared for what is to come.  Just like FEMA, DHS, FBI, etc. is doing now.

An agency has to know what scenarios they are to ready for, so these guys sat around and wargamed them out before the training and resources needed to be allocated.

[Viking]

...wait, Astrid Lindgren?

You mean these vermin stole the profits she got from Karlsson  and Detective Blomkvist?

...what new socialist monstrosity is this?

Yep, Astrid Lindgren.
Apparently they "fixed it" to a reasonable level - knowing that the tax rates began to spike in the 70's when we were busy with social engineering and such, I'd guess she still paid quite a bit of her income to the state :rolleyes:.
From what I've understood, the tax rates were comparatively low up until the 70's, when the politicians started to go overboard with their social engineering. Hell, there was even an old social democrat who said something along the lines of "taxes are a necessary evil, and every wasted krona is an insult to the tax payers". He's probably rotating at high speed in his grave now.

[RevDisk]

Wow, spooky.  I know I've yammered about this before but when I was at the Chapman Academy years ago I went through a class with 2 FBI Agents who worked in an office involving "research and planning".

The feds told us that the most likely catalyst for a civil insurrection scenario that the FBI forecasting/planning for was not gun confiscation but a tax revolt.  They told us by 2015 that the USA had to have a tax rate of 80 to 90% as the Welfare State could not sustain itself otherwise and there was too much power at stake to dismantle the Welfare State.  They forecast civil unrest that would lead to an organized resistance.

Technically, we should have a tax rate of 80-90% at the moment.  If we averaged taxes now, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 40-45% at the moment.  We're running at roughly 50% deficit spending.  To run a balanced budget, we would need to double tax revenues (slightly more than double tax rates).

The FBI's forecasting is simply common sense and looking at the majority of previous internal revolutions.  Folks do not rebel against their government when their government takes away their liberty, folks rebel when they get (metaphorically) cold, hungry and have nothing to lose.

[Balog]

Technically, we should have a tax rate of 80-90% at the moment.  If we averaged taxes now, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 40-45% at the moment.  We're running at roughly 50% deficit spending.  To run a balanced budget, we would need to double tax revenues (slightly more than double tax rates).

The FBI's forecasting is simply common sense and looking at the majority of previous internal revolutions.  Folks do not rebel against their government when their government takes away their liberty, folks rebel when they get (metaphorically) cold, hungry and have nothing to lose.

Or, you know, literally cold and hungry. :)

[AZRedhawk44]

Folks do not rebel against their government when their government takes away their liberty, folks rebel when they get (metaphorically) cold, hungry and have nothing to lose.

Except for, you know, America.  This country here. :rolleyes:

[MicroBalrog]

Folks do not rebel against their government when their government takes away their liberty, folks rebel when they get (metaphorically) cold, hungry and have nothing to lose.

That's just a plain historical untruth.

There are numerous example of people around the world rebelling 'just' for liberty, without a massive decline in their quality of life to serve as the trigger.

[Balog]

Maybe he meant "successfully" rebelling.

[RevDisk]

Balog is correct, as usual.

Yes, I am aware that folks can and have rebelled to secure liberty.  I'm also saying...  It's pretty rare.  Necessity or throwing off foreign occupation is much more likely of a cause.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Necessity indeed.

...All experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed...

[Strings]

Ok... so I have to ask...

Given El T's scenario... how exactly would that start out?

Are we talking overtaxed Americans revolting (an extreme version of what we're seeing in the TEA Parties), or welfare recipients revolting when the public teat dries up?

Or maybe some combination of the two?

[Monkeyleg]

...or welfare recipients revolting when the public teat dries up?

Already starting to happen in Detroit. Everybody thinks Obama's going to give them money (and they do think it's Obama who's giving them money). But there's not going to be enough to go around. Watch the fires burn when more than three quarters of those folks don't get money.

[Thor]

Already starting to happen in Detroit. Everybody thinks Obama's going to give them money (and they do think it's Obama who's giving them money). But there's not going to be enough to go around. Watch the fires burn when more than three quarters of those folks don't get money.

I had heard that some 50,000+ people showed up for some 3500 applications. 1/10th of the people will maybe get their applications approved.

[El Tejon]

Are we talking overtaxed Americans revolting (an extreme version of what we're seeing in the TEA Parties), or welfare recipients revolting when the public teat dries up?

The FBI Agents mentioned Argentina, Central America and Mugabestan.

The Parasitic Class keeps demanding free stuff, the Productive Class gets a clue and starts to flee or drag their feet (not pay, not declare income, etc.), and Government has to Hyperinflate the money to keep paying benefits.

Riots break out and feed on themselves.  Government overreacts which causes organized resistance to take shape.

[HankB]

We're getting there on tax rates.

I have a pretty decent salary so far, but I don't consider myself wealthy. (My congresscritter makes considerably more $$$ than I do, and don't get me started on benefit comparisons!)

But just from adding up what I can actually put a hard number on, I pay more in taxes than I do on food, clothing, shelter, and transportation combined - and this doesn't include the "hidden" taxes in the goods & services I purchase.

And yet the <expletives> in Washington say that's still not enough. 

At some point - after the Bush tax cuts expire (Thanks for putting in an expiration date, GOP!), if cap-and-tax is imposed, if health care taxes are imposed, if Nancy Pelosi's VAT proposal gets traction . . . I can see things getting ugly. Maybe to the point where normal law enforcement won't be able to handle the unrest . . . whereupon the military may be called on.

A few years ago, this would have been solidly in tinfoil-hat territory . . . but now, I'm not so sure.

I'm not looking forward to that sort of thing. 

[RoadKingLarry]

Nothing to worry about as long as we still have Monday Night Football and And "whichever bogus reality show is currently popular" on TV.
Won't be no rebellin' goin' on as long as people can set on their butts and watch the idiot box.
Take away the pacifier and the baby might get fussy.

[MicroBalrog]

Maybe he meant "successfully" rebelling.

English Revoluton.

First French Revolution (far more successful than people give them credit - 500,000 people were freed from serfdom, and about that same number - from actual slavery).

[Balog]

English Revoluton.

Which one?

The term "English Revolution" has been used to describe two different events in English history. The Glorious Revolution of 1688, whereby James II was replaced by William III and Mary II as monarch and a constitutional monarchy established, was described by Whig historians as the English Revolution.[1] In the twentieth-century, however, Marxist historians used the term English Revolution to describe the period of the English Civil Wars and Commonwealth period 1640-1660, in which Parliament challenged King Charles I's authority, engaged in civil conflict against his forces, and executed him in 1649. This was followed by a ten-year period of republican bourgeois government, the "Commonwealth", before monarchy was restored in the shape of Charles' son, Charles II, in 1660.

First French Revolution (far more successful than people give them credit - 500,000 people were freed from serfdom, and about that same number - from actual slavery).

That is a questionable example.


So..... even allowing your examples, that's two in the history of the world. Are you familiar with the term "anomaly"?

[MicroBalrog]

That is a questionable example.

Unless you were a slave or a serf, I suppose.

Which one?

Glorious.

So..... even allowing your examples, that's two in the history of the world. Are you familiar with the term "anomaly"?

They're examples. The world's history knows hundreds upon hundreds of revolutions.