Comments on: A Look at Historical Federal Tax Brackets

By: Haresh Patel

Haresh Patel — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 01:20:12 +0000

So he should pay a billion dollars and he will get there much faster like Lehman brothers? To pay that kind of money he has to be con artist forming a public corporation using public money and bribe the politicians to bail him out after he ransacks the business and the economy.

By: Haresh Patel

Haresh Patel — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 21:22:34 +0000

The solution to our current problems is the top tax rate like 94% of the year 1945 and for CEO’s of public high tech companies it should be extended to 99% because they are giving away America’s technology to foreign nations to make a quick multimillion or multibillion dollar at the expense of killing their own company and other American companies. For example if GE gives away jet engine technology to China for short term gain USA will lose the Aerospace business in the near future killing both GE’s jet engine business and Boeing and likely the European companies. This is how we have lost all technology developed by America. The CEO’s do not need a job after that one year bonus. It may seem unfair to some people like patriot who made 5 million dollars by hard work. Well, he need not work so hard. He should enjoy life in Hawaii and give other people chance to make some money instead of grabbing all for himself. He does not realize, he is exploiting 200 of his employees to make money and 5 million dollars is more than fair compensation for an individuals own compensation. How about somebody making 10 billion dollars? Is he working 100000 times harder than an average American? Remember that a CEO of a public company gambles with public funds and not liable for a penny of loss. In fact he has obscene golden parachute and then just walks over to another public company to spin the wheel again. He is not the guy who sweats out the details of the business.

By: Reese

Reese — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:40:04 +0000

What is it to you what a company pays to its highest leader (CEO)? Start your own company and pay the person you put in charge $1,000 a year! See where that gets you.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 01:28:26 +0000

Dale, your argument flies in the face of current evidence. We are really interested in what you are basing your argument on. Even David Stockman has pronounced the curent tax scheme as disastrous for America. CEO pay is now well over 400 times the pay of their workers. And, this seems alright to you as middle class income has flatlined over the last ten years?
Tax rates have been lower for the past ten years than th-ey have been since 1932 (with the exception of the recesson-inducing G. H. W. Bush Economy, 88-92), and the rich are richer than they have ever been, however, they are, definitively, NOT creating jobs. There is ZERO dispute on that fact. The lie that the poor do better when the rich keep their money is a large part of the perversity that has poisoned this nation’s future.

Please post the research you have done to arrive at your conclusion.

By: Zeph

Zeph — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:26:01 +0000

Interesting stuff. Strangely, if you compare top marginal tax rate with economic growth in the last few generations, there is a fairly pronounced overall positive correlation (ie: more growth with higher rates), which is exactly opposite of what many of us would expect. I don’t blame folks for guessing that lower taxes = more growth, it’s a reasonable hypothesis that certainly “makes sense” to me – but it should still be a testable hypotheses. And it appears to fail the real world tests.

It appears however that some economic models are more faith based than evidence based. The less evidence some people have for the economic stimulus of lower top tax brackets, the more indignant and hostile advocates become to any objective analysis.

I don’t know if anonymous was correct about higher top taxes encouraging investment while lower ones encourage cash-out, but that hypothesis does appear to be more consistent with the data and deserves consideration.

A capitalist incentive of earning more if you work harder and smarter seems to pay off for a society; but it’s far from clear that therefore the larger the differential between the rich and the poor the better it works. The executives of the 1950′s were just as smart, just as hard working and incentivised, and far more successful than today’s, while earning only dozens as much as their workers rather than hundreds to thousands as much.

As the middle class gets squeezed out, between the “live from paycheck to paycheck with barely any accumulated net worth” niche at the bottom, and the top which concentrates ever higher portions of total income and total wealth into smaller percentages of the economic elite – the system is likely to become more unstable. Our only hope is a rational and objective view of the big picture, without ideological blinders of left or right.

Yeah, right.

By: Bob Carroll

Bob Carroll — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:00:36 +0000

When in crisis, as we are how with the debt,
who paid the bills? It was the rich. So what is
the rich? I am retired and once thought I was
middle class. I think anyone with and annual
income of more than a half million dollars is
rich!
At present a income of more than $150,000
is required to make ends meet and send three
kids to a decent collage. Take a look at history.

Who paid the cost for the World Wars? -the
interstate system? The poor and the middle class can not do it. The Republicans must get
their s–t together and accept a tax increase
to get us out of this mess. -as was most certainly done in our history.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 21:03:43 +0000

does this mean that loweriong tax rates on top incomes create jobs?

By: fred eades

fred eades — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:28:58 +0000

If the bush tax cuts work then why are we in such bad shape economicly.
The us tax rate is at historic lows, is it solving our debt problem? NO
After WW1 we raise taxes to pay for the war, same was true after WW2.
Today we want to rage war, not pay for it, keep taxes low for the rich.
Then tell everyone we are broke. When will america wake up and quite giving the corperation welfare on the backs of the poor. I see alot of whining by the rich that call themselves patriots, but what I see is alot of traitors crooks and theives doing there best to destroy amarica.

By: dj

dj — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:30:18 +0000

Patriot, is $5 Million your adjusted gross? Also, how much of that counts as capital gains and not wage income? As I understand it, someone making about $5 Million annually makes very little of that in w-2 taxable wages.

So as an example, if I may, let’s say you really bring in $6 Million, but after deductions etc you now make $5 Million AGI. Let’s say 40% of that is capital gains and 60% is wage income. That means $2 million is taxed at the 15% rate, and $3 million is taxed at the 35% rate. (and actually, the top rate is for every dollar over $379,000, and the lower amounts are lower rates. The average from dollar $0 to dollar $378,999 is about 9%).

So the first $379,000 = about $32,000
from $379,000 to $3 million = about $910,000
$2 million capital gains = $300,000

$1,242,000 total federal tax, which is just 25% of the $5 million, but remember gross income is $6 million so the actual federal tax amounts to just over 20%, not 35%.

California tax works much the same way. The average tax on income under $1million is about 5%, and dollars over $1million are at the full 9% (10% I thought). So you effective rate on the whole is about 8%. Total between federal and state is 28%, not “almost half” your income.

By: tom

tom — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 02:48:20 +0000

I think you will remember before 1980 the tax code had several exemptions and credits for business expenses which allowed the corporations to become very strong finacially.
while managments personal income was low because of the high marginal rate. After the tax cuts the asset rich companys were liquidated by the corporate raiders and other companys assets were raided by the managment taking big saleries and bonuses. Which is one of the reasons the middle class is suffering.

By: NoelV.

NoelV. — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 14:29:51 +0000

Everyone wants to point fingers and blame someone else. I was in the mortgage field for 5 yeas as a succesful Account Exec. and in heavy building materials industry for 2yrs. I lost both of those jobs and now work in auto ins field making half of what I use to make. Somehow I don’t blame the gov. or executives for wanting to be succesful. The greed was by the consumer that wanted something for nothing and living beyong their means. If anything maybe the gov. should invest more in education. This after all is the land of oppourtunity, right? But appearently if your to oppourtunistic the gov. frowns on this, I’m baffled? Don’t work and get paid? Work hard and get taxed? For those on the receiving end of small businesses, don’t bite the hand that feeds you!

By: Patriot

Patriot — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:18:07 +0000

I make about $5 million per year and dont mind paying a higher percent of tax than people that make less. (I am paying the top rate of 35% federal and another 9.6% for California state). That is about half of my income going to taxes. Obama needs to be extremely careful….there is a straw that breaks the camels back.

I can tell you with certainty that myself and other high earners are not stupid and most have worked very hard to get to this level of success. If that tax rate goes up substantially, I would immediately shut down one of my businesses if not both. It would not be worth it to me to work so hard, incur so much liability, and have to manage over 200 employees to retain 25 cents for every dollar I make. I would buy a house in Hawaii, shut down my two businesses so the Government would now be getting ZERO tax from me, and leave over 200 more people unemployed in our great country. “REWARDING SUCCESS BREADS SUCCESS, PUNISHING SUCCESS BREADS DISASTER”. Be very careful Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama…you are playing with fire. You will certainly not redistribute my wealth

By: David

David — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 04:54:38 +0000

The solution to this problem is simple: we need a wealth tax.

By: L. Sanders

L. Sanders — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:52:05 +0000

CapitalistMom, I sympathize with your family’s financial circumstances. However, I wonder if your and your husband’s economic woes are aren’t more a reflection of the overall economy that this administration inherited than imagined or potential future tax impact? I wonder if you blame your husband’s unemployment on Obama, only in office 1-2 months when he lost his job? I wonder if your company is paying your staff’s health care insurance? If so, you should have been up on a soapbox advocating for health care reform to help reduce your liability and that of other small businesses like yours. If you weren’t advocating reform, you are part of the problem. If you don’t pay for your staff’s health care, with the rapidly escalating costs how is your staff going to pay for their health care without substantial salary appreciation, probably larger than the taxes that you anticipate coming? As far as Obama’s staff jumping ship, you must have forgotten the exodus of staff that left Bush’s administration. Oy!

By: CapitalistMom

CapitalistMom — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:49:16 +0000

No wonder you want to remain anonymous, with an illogical conclusion such as the one you’ve drawn there.

First, cash held by a corporation is capital not capitol. The capitol is that big fancy building with the columns on it where your state legislature does their business.

Next, higher tax rates discourage me from hiring employees. In fact, the new health care bill inflicts my business with new taxes and fewer business opportunities. For example, my all commission sales business is down by about 70% since August of 2008. My husband lost his job in April of 2009, and in his field of residential design, there is almost 90% unemployment. Amidst this economic adversity, I have done everything in my power to retain my assistant. But the increases in health care costs that are coming, coupled with the new taxes that are built in to much of the new legislation, buried deep within, are very likely to result in me having to lay off my assistant. THere simply isn’t enough revenue to pay all these fun new fees and to keep her! So- boom- another middle class job bites the dust, courtesy of President Obama and his fiendish friends Nancy Pelousi and Harry Reid.

I am a small business person with a corporation. My corporation provides 2 jobs, and the “change” the president has begun to straddle me with is putting one employee out in the cold. If my tax burden/rate were reduced, I would be able to offer her more hours, more time on the job. But higher taxes to my corporation mean less money for me to spend on my advertising and supply vendors, and less money to spend on my employees wages, and therefore, less money out in circulation for all of my vendors and my employee. This is the part of the equation that those currently in power are not grasping. This is why Obama’s economic advisors are advising that he renew the Bush Tax Cuts and dropping like flies from their administration posts. Oy!