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CEOs of top 100 ‘low-wage’ US firms earn $601 for every $1 by worker, report finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
- Workers must join together and fight back for what is rightfully theirs.
- We must not be divided and conquered. Workers gain the most when they focus on unifying issues.
Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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- Better and fewer working hours.
- Stimulating a massive wave of worker organizing in the United States and beyond.
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Sounds great, and sure might as well pass it, but there's a lot of ways to get around it
Ok, let's do it anyway and make them work for their wealth. Instead of doing nothing, and letting them also do nothing to keep their wealth.
There are solutions for all of those loopholes, but it will hurt our congresspeople's investments so it will get shot down
Income tax is just fine thanks.
37% federal plus 5-10% state, plus additional Medicare tax and 3.8% investment income tax and a bunch of others, not good enough for you? That's literally approaching 50% what's your problem?
37% federal means you are in the tax bracket that makes over $578,000/year. You'll be just fine with several more percentage points added on.
That's literally exactly what I'm advocating for word for word. Wealth tax bad, income tax good. Income tax rate too low? Crank it up to your hearts content. Glad we agree.
So then add more percentage points. You don't need a wealth tax to do that. Income tax is fine.
A majority of wealth doesn't come from income so would never be touched by income tax. A "wealth tax" is just a broad term meaning that they should be taxed on the wealth fairly. Like capital gains for instance is a doozy. Way less taxation than what you likely pay (percentage wise obviously).
So "wealth tax" would include an income tax, capital tax, estate tax etc, all just at rates that are equivalent to how well the system treats them. They get a much larger advantage off the system that is set up than most others.
And the ultra wealthy don't even always have an income. You think Bezos has a salary right now that's significantly attributing to his wealth? Or Buffet or even Zuckerberg? I forget, his his salary still $1 a year? You want to tax only that?
You don't get it. Unrealized capital gains are just deferred income. It'll be taxed eventually. Income tax is fine, banish the thought of wealth tax.
But they're literally not counted under income tax law. So you're essentially arguing for the exact same thing if you want it to count under some sort of tax.
Edit: short term capital gains is the only one that counts as income. Long term is not and is severely under taxed compared to income tax. Like, I like your intentions, but you're severely fucking up the details and it details your entire motivation and intentions.
When your comment backed me up, I didn't find any reason to respond. Capital gains tax isn't income tax. You admitted it by typing it out. You're just showing that "wealth tax" is just a tax on various means of wealth. I don't know if English isn't your first language, but you're literally agreeing with everyone but saying you don't.
No one owes you anything, nor do they owe you a response. Especially when it didn't back up your own point.
Thanks for typing out a lot of words to say "you want taxes other than income."
You never even offered a rebuttal to what I said. You're a fucking joke.
Don't talk to me again. You're so unhinged you came back 6 days because someone decided you weren't worth the fucking time to respond to due to your shitty ass logic and poor understanding of language. So again, capital gains tax is not income tax. You agree. Thanks. You understand that "wealth tax" is just a broad term that means taxes on things other than their income (which in many cases is $1, such as Zuckerberg).
You're not a CPA. If you are? I feel bad for your clients as they're gonna get fucked in audits.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
Line 7: Capital gain or (loss)
Cant possibly get more clear than that.
Confidently incorrect as they say. The hubris of talking shit about technical subjects to an sme is just staggering.
That's only short term capital gains tax. Long term capital gains is taxed at a different rate than short term. I literally already mentioned that.
Edit: to be clear, Schedule D would include sales of assets that aren't required to be reported on 1040. https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1040gi you can follow the instructions there and specifically where it tells you how to choose different tax rates than, you know, the income tax rate.
Double edit: and id still argue you want the same as everyone. Changing the income tax rate wouldn't do anything. You have to understand that by this point. You'd need to account for things like capital gains tax and what not. Wealth tax is simply asking for higher tax rates on things like income or capital gains, etc. If you're a CPA, you have to know that if you're going to limit what can be taxed to simply and only the income tax rate, it's easy to hide income in things that are taxed differently. Things like foreign assets, etc. Again. "wealth tax" is not antithetical to what you want. But your claim (which you explicitly gave an income tax rate as your example for income tax) that everything goes through that income tax rate is absolutely false. I think you're just getting confused because these values get combined on one form in the end. But there's a reason there's a Schedule D. Because it's more complicated than just being subject to income tax.
All capital gains and losses foot on schedule D line 16 and flows into 1040 line 7. The worksheet below breaks out items treated differently like section 1250 recapture, qualified dividends and LTCG:
https://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/globalmedia/capital_gain_tax_worksheet_1040i.pdf
It's all income, just different tax rates and rules.If you want higher LTCG tax rates sure, crank it up I don't care.
Wealth tax is NOT simply asking for higher tax rates.
Wealth tax typically includes unrealized capital gains. All unrealized gains eventually become realized one way or another. At that point LTCG tax or estate tax applies.
Taxing unrealized capital gains is a terrible idea. Wealth tax is a terrible idea. Income tax is just fine. Income tax includes realized capital gains. Crank that rate up if you want. Just no wealth tax. These are completely separate concepts.
Understand now?
the fact you even had to say "typically" means its a broad term that just means different things to different people. if someone wanted to tax unrealized gains specifically, they would say that. they didn't. they're essentially just saying they want wealthy people to pay taxes.
this has been repeatedly told to you. you even used a specific rate to describe income tax as being enough. that alone would have excluded your whole, now further expanded upon but originally excluded by definition, explanation.
this was also extremely clear from everything i said. multiple times. but obviously, like i said, multiple times, you're in agreement with me. you just have some hangup on the definition of an ambiguous word that the original user gave no further intent behind and just jumped to your own conclusions on nothing, despite being told, repeatedly.
do you understand now?
I'm done here. I can't believe you're arguing with someone who has repeated been on the same page as you. Nothing you've said is in disagreement with me (except my claim you're not a CPA). Its like you just want to hear yourself talk or "win" something. Especially after that childish rant about someone not responding to you on the internet. Honestly. You should be ashamed of that. I don't get it. Do you want the last word or not? It's behavior like that which makes me believe you aren't a CPA because you're not acting like a goddamn fucking adult.
So you don't get all stressed out or angry or need an extra call to your therapist, i'm not going to respond again, but I might downvote you just for fun. And honestly, why is an upvote without a comment ok but a downvote without a comment isn't? Someone can disagree with you and leave it at that. They don't owe you anything, you entitled ass.
I fail to see the problem with your statement.
50% when you are Uber rich isn’t even that much. In plenty of countries you have that at a much lower level of income. Perfectly doable and fine
So crank it up to 60, 70, or 99%! You don't need a wealth tax to do that.
Why not both?
The problem is that once you are super rich you don’t really have an income anymore. You just expand your wealth and you end up paying way less taxes on that.
This is something that the common mortal can’t even think of.
You're delusional. High and UHNW individuals also tend to have high income.
Income expands wealth. Unrealized income will be taxed eventually.
Thank god you're here to tell us these things. Did you get your accounting degree from university of american samoa too? Please just stop
The upper-class does not rely on income the same way the middle and lower class do. Taxing income affects us much more than it does them, that's why you institute a wealth tax to spread the burden.
You simply don't understand. All income flows into wealth. All wealth is eventually becomes, one way or another, taxable income. You can defer it for a while but it's literally all the same thing.
You're talking about legislating a massive clusterfuck, like you can't even imagine how messy it would be, that pretty much nobody would comply with free of errors and omissions, all over a timing difference.
Just please, I'm fucking begging you, stop talking about a wealth tax, especially when you don't understand how tax works to begin with.
Whatever.
It starts with paying their employees a dignified wage.
The point is that if max pay gap laws are passed, CEOs will just hide their actual pay in external resources and normal employees will still make exactly the same.
Good. Make them hide it. Then make it illegal to hide income(if it already isn't). Tax agencies like the IRS are really good at catching this sort of thing.
Make it difficult for them and their companies.
Make them have to spend to hide it. If they get caught, the money goes back to the economy. If they don't get caught, at least some the money they spend on law firms and accounts goes back to the economy.
That’s the system we have right now and it doesn’t work. Soooo…