Why The Rich Should Pay Higher Taxes

Many people think we should. For instance, the New York Times author Patricia Cohen argues in her article, “What Could Raising Taxes on the 1% Do? Surprising Amounts”, that raising taxes on the top percent of Americans would bring in much more revenue to the government and cause little to no damage on the economy (Cohen par. 18). Furthermore, she explains that if we increase the tax rate to 40% in the top 0.1% of households, which have an average income of $9.4 million, then that would give around $55 billion in extra revenue the first year alone (Cohen par. 12). This is a great amount of revenue that could pay for a wide variety of government programs such as economic stimulus packages.

If the government starts doing that it would be fairer because everyone is getting the right amount of tax based on their income. But right now the rich and poor have to pay the same amount of money and it doesn’t matter about their income. Right now the rich should not really care about the taxes because they are rich and it doesn’t matter to them. But the taxes do matter to the poor people because they have really less amount of income and a large amount of taxes will affect them. The government has all records of people’s incomes and other information, so if the government makes a rule that the people with more income pay more taxes and the people with less income pay fewer taxes, it would be much better. But the taxes go to the government and the government makes the America better by making newer roads, better environment, and

Generally, the income earners pay less income tax and more payroll taxes while the high-end income earners pay more income tax and less payroll taxes. The low income earners however get credit benefits as the government pays for their payroll taxes. Therefore, the high income racket still suffers the burden of individual taxes. In 2014, the bottom 20% had an effective tax rate of -4.5% while the top 1% faced an average of 24.6% a margin of 29% creates a very huge economical gap between the rich and the poor. This only ends up hurting the economy more. As a result, I believe the highest effective tax that should be applied to the top 1% should not be more than 20%. If it goes beyond 20%, they shall start demanding for tax cuts and further design ways to evade the tax payments.

Amity Shlaes talks about how presidents such as Nixon, and Bush removed millions of Americans from the tax bracket completely and that those same exact people don’t want a proportional tax rate and want to tax the rich because “they can afford it”. That just seems unfair and unjust. The first video was very opinionated saying that the rich now make more money than before, of course they have the money now due to war times & depressions being over however, the less money they have the less likely they’re to make more investments into other things such as creating more offices, and hiring more people to work for their company

Before delving into the topic at hand, a look at the current and projected tax system will help understand the predicament of taxing the upper class. According to Bardes, Schmidt, and Shelley, in the textbook American Government and Politics Today: Brief Edition, Americans pay a variety of federal, state, and local taxes, which are all assessed on most sources of income, sales and land. Bardes et al, made their agenda clear by pointing out that “the wealthy receive a much greater share of their income from these sources (capital gains, rents, royalties, interests, dividends, or profits from business), than others do (315).” But what is considered wealthy? In the article, Who gets to be “Rich”, Jordan Weissmann reported that a household income of around $113,000 lands one at the top 10% of income earners, while $394,000 makes one a

Another huge problem is the way that the tax code works. As Warren Buffett explains, the “tax code is tilted towards the rich and away from the middle class.” It’s actually upside-down those with more pay fewer taxes, than people with less. Though the top rate for wage-based income is 39.6%, the rate for income from investments (capital gains) is only 20%. That means wealthy people pay a lower tax rate than the rest of us. Examples include Buffett, whose tax rate is about 17%, while

The United States Federal Government currently functions on a “progressive tax system”. A progressive tax system is based on ability to pay and therefor requires members of higher socioeconomic standing to pay higher federal income tax rates. The idea is that wealthy people, whether they are wealthy as a product of their own intelligence and labor or wealthy by inheritance, can afford to pay higher tax rates and still maintain a quality of life well beyond what is considered livable or even standard. This procedure understandably creates a lot of upset in the upper-class community. According to the IRS, in 2007, more that 44% of income tax revenues came from the top 5% of earners and more than 50% came from the top 10%. In the same year, the 400 wealthiest Americans, bringing in an average adjusted gross income of $345 million paid an average federal income tax rate of 17%, whereas the average tax payer during the same time period paid only 9.3% of their gross income to the federal taxes. In 2010, about 45% of all

Tax rates have been falling around the world for decades. In the countries where there are the lowest taxes, such as Chile and Singapore, there is the fastest economic growth. If the U.S wants the economy to grow, then they should not raise taxes. First, the U.S tax system is already wrong and unfair. Americans that make a lot of money, pay more in taxes. According to John Lott, “Fives times more income means paying 33 times more in federal taxes”. Most Americans work incredibly hard for their money, especially business owners. Decreasing tax rates will allow more Americans to want to work and will help the economy grow.

There has always been a large amount of discussion on the topic of the federal income tax. Specifically, the discussions have revolved around how exactly the people should be taxed. There are several ways in which tax rates can be determined, and all of them have some form of a strong argument behind them. The flat tax is the best option as, by nature, it is the most fair. Tax rates are measured by percentages, and when taxes are collected by percentages, the wealthy are already paying more money than the poor. For example, if a flat tax rate of 20% is in place, and one person has an annual income of $150,000 while another person has an annual income of $40,000. The person who has the income of $150,000 is paying $30,000 in taxes while

I don't believe that the wealthiest Americans have a "moral" obligation to pay higher taxes. These individuals have earned where they are today to be consider the wealthiest Americans. They may be more successful in the manner of making money, but they shouldn't be penalized for it. While education is extremely important to young children, the statement "It takes a refined theory to say to billionaires that it's easier to take three weeks of school away from kids in Los Angeles than it is to take 3% away from people who make hundreds of millions of dollars a year," said Brown in an interview with The Financial Times was appalling to me. I felt as though this very statement was to guilt citizens into believing if the rich don't pay higher taxes,

This is something that the rich Donald Trump can receive from the government for example. “That option is rarely available to poor families. Instead, they pay taxes on their income when they receive it, whether or not they are just coming off a difficult year.” While the rich don’t even stress and reject nor receive taxes. Not only is there benefits for the rich when it comes to taxes, there are benefits for the environment when they pay more taxes too. “It redistributes income and wealth in ways that help all of us. Currently, a few people receive most of the income and own most of everything. A very high top tax rate reduces this concentration of wealth.” ("Taxing the Rich Will Improve the US Economy." by Dave Johnson) As well if you look at an economic growth rate chart, it shows a steady decline in the decades since top tax rates began to

Taxing the upper class and large corporations offer many benefits such as bringing back loss revenue and employing that money to create more government programs for the population. It is also fair because the rich have found ways to avoid paying taxes by hiding their earnings in another location. With Sanders’ proposal, loopholes in the tax code will be closed and the opulent will have to pay taxes. Nonetheless, this proposal will raise taxes for the population, which will also affect the middle class. Although this tax raise mostly targets the affluent, the middle class will see a decrease of 10.56 percent in their after tax income and an average decrease of 12.84 percent of after tax income for all classes, excluding the lowest class (Edwards).

There are limits to everything, even to the economy. At some point during the economic stability, the government will intervene. The top one percent of the population will get richer and richer. There is nothing to stop their growth, their profit, and their income. The limits for the top one percent are set by the government. They use different methods to interfere the extreme growth. One of them is taxes. Everybody, who lives or works in the United States has to pay taxes, no matter how rich or poor an individual is. The rich, especially have to pay more because they earn more. Higher taxes for the rich sounds like a good idea except it's not. David Leonhardt, a managing editor of the New York Times mentions that, “When income or wealth is

The United States debt and defecit is a major problem in our society. One thing I would propose to the President would be to tax the rich. Time. It's useful to keep in mind how the rich are different. When you are poor, you are willing to trade your time to earn money. When you are rich, you trade your money to get more time. For example, the rich hire people to clean their homes, and they don't waste time shopping for bargains. In business school I learned that when people have different preferences, you can usually find a way to engineer a deal. Gratitude. Imagine that the government arranges to provide genuine person-to-person gratitude to the rich in exchange for higher tax rates. Suppose (bad idea alert) the government makes it a

Today, one percent of the total global population takes more than twenty percent of the global economy, which is twice the fateful dinner. An increase in the taxes leads to a massive economic growth of a country. On the other hand, lower rates of tax in any country leads to slow economic development, thus resulting in economic stagnation of such country. The top earners always modify their salaries to decrease the tax rates, which are imposed on them. They, therefore, evade paying tax or pay minimal tax which further leads to widening of the gap between the rich and the poor.