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Biggest Reform EVER passed thread

palmab03 said:
So instead of $1,800 I now get $1,650 using the "napkin math" I was using $12,700 standard deduction instead of $12,000, erroneously.

So roughly 10% of the population loses on average -$840, meaning the other 90% of the population gains on average $1,300 to get to the total average of $1,080. I think its safe to estimate the median person will save roughly $1,500 (opposed to the $1,800 I used).
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No, that's not right either. The total average is 840. 90% of the population gains an average of $1080.
 
I’m eating a donut, Palma gets some donut crumbs, on average we both get half a donut. The crumbs are delicious though, open wide.
 
But basically in looking at page 3, Everyone making roughly $40k-$4 million sees the same % decrease in their taxes of 1.3%, except for a sliver of people making $300-750k get 2.3%. Those who make more than $4MM get less.

None of that seems terribly unfair (although some people, accountants and lawyers get screwed, and other businessmen do much better off)
 
Very rough math, but if didn't give any cuts to people making >$200k, we could approximately triple the cuts going to everyone making <$100k (all in 2019, not taking into account the cuts expiring and whatnot). Not that I'm endorsing doing that, but that's the relative magnitude of the cuts.

And palma is right about some of this stuff. I think we underrate how much small sums help people, whether they notice it or not. I just think we could do WAY better.
 
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Right. If the goal is to help out low and middle income people, we could surely do it better.
 
tiltdeac said:
Very rough math, but if didn't give any cuts to people making >$200k, we could approximately triple the cuts going to everyone making <$100k (all in 2019, not taking into account the cuts expiring and whatnot). Not that I'm endorsing doing that, but that's the relative magnitude of the cuts.

And palma is right about some of this stuff. I think we underrate how much small sums help people, whether they notice it or not. I just think we could do WAY better.
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For example, two people in my immediate family make roughly $25k/yr. Last year I gave both somewhere between $2-3k when they asked, and it drastically changed their life. My family can use this bill. I'm not gonna vote no because a few hundred people save on estate taxes.
 
palmab03 said:
For example, two people in my immediate family make roughly $25k/yr. Last year I gave both somewhere between $2-3k when they asked, and it drastically changed their life. My family can use this bill. I'm not gonna vote no because a few hundred people save on estate taxes.
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10% of their total salary vs 1.3% of their taxes. Great comparison.
 
palmab03 said:
For example, two people in my immediate family make roughly $25k/yr. Last year I gave both somewhere between $2-3k when they asked, and it drastically changed their life. My family can use this bill. I'm not gonna vote no because a few hundred people save on estate taxes.
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Dude, it would be great if we could get them $2-3k! This bill will do almost nothing for them in the short term, almost certainly hurt them in the long term, and may result in the loss of benefits they rely on in the interim.
 
It is not clear to me why giving Middle Class Joe $800 today is a slam-dunk good thing, when that $800 is being borrowed and the only plan to pay it back involves taking away Middle Class Joe's healthcare and retirement benefits in future years. I mean surely there is room for some discussion that maybe giving that $800 away today is not in Middle Class Joe's long-term best interest. Funny that the Republican Party always claims to be the adults in the room just looking out for everyone's Long Term Best Interests by making sure they don't get dependent on money today, we can't run up the debt, etc. I mean my God, what happens if Middle Class Joe takes that money and buys a new iPhone! Or (dare I say it) gets a tattoo?! I've been told that if a person does that with any money they get from the government they deserve to be drawn and quartered and their children publicly starved to death to teach future generations a lesson.
 
tiltdeac said:
Dude, it would be great if we could get them $2-3k! This bill will do almost nothing for them in the short term, almost certainly hurt them in the long term, and may result in the loss of benefits they rely on in the interim.
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I mean we already are already at the point where a family making $80k with 3 kids goes from $3k to a $-0- federal tax liability ($6,400 in taxes less $6k in child tax credit) as a result of this new tax plan. That seems pretty generous. Asking for more seems like a stretch, no?

I've been trying to figure out who the main losers are that results in your tax policy center changes being different than my numbers, and all I'm mainly coming up with are people who use the student loan interest deduction lose about $600. Are there any other subsets of people who end up losing? I'm having a hard time seeing it.

I mean WHO are the 10% of people who end up worse off? People with low income and tons of kids who don't get the refundable portion of the tax credit? People with large amounts of assets but low income (retirees) who are paying off a mortgage?
 
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palmab03 said:
I mean we already are already at the point where a family making $80k with 3 kids goes from $3k to a $-0- federal tax liability ($6,400 in taxes less $6k in child tax credit) as a result of this new tax plan. That seems pretty generous. Asking for more seems like a stretch, no?
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In a non-trolling manner, this is the 2nd time I've posted an argument as such which resulted in liberals having no way to respond. Its hard to get more progressive than we are now.
 
You keep making the same points and everyone else gives the same responses. There's no need to repeat them. The three posts before you posted that address your point just fine.
 
Repeating the same thing that looks good in of itself and not getting the world doesn’t operate that way.
1. If tax code was for the middle class it would be structured in a way that helps them more, not corporations and the rich.
2. To pay for the cuts required a large increase in the deficit and debt, if you care about that then it’s bad.
3. The most important point and one that you even showed in your argument. The reason why it’s hard to help middle class and lower class people is because they already almost pay zero dollars in income tax, lots of other taxes, but this reform deals with income tax. So in the end you have a reform that does very little for people that don’t pay much in taxes to begin with in order to sell it while you provide nice cuts to people that pay more in taxes like the rich and corporations. The people passing these cuts have already stated they are going to look for savings by cutting social safety net programs. So for a lot of people they get very little savings to begin with and in the real world are actually losing out because programs they rely on will be cut to pay for rich people’s cuts.
 
palmab03 said:
In a non-trolling manner, this is the 2nd time I've posted an argument as such which resulted in liberals having no way to respond. Its hard to get more progressive than we are now.
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the problem you're having is you're not willing to address the cost of this paltry "gift"
 
palmab03 said:
In a non-trolling manner, this is the 2nd time I've posted an argument as such which resulted in liberals having no way to respond. Its hard to get more progressive than we are now.
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The chick in your .gif avatar has huge cans.
 
palmab03 said:
In a non-trolling manner, this is the 2nd time I've posted an argument as such which resulted in liberals having no way to respond. Its hard to get more progressive than we are now.
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You could easily get more progressive that we are now.
 
Interesting fact: the US tax system (well, right now) is actually more progressive than a lot of Euro countries. However, when you take into account the distribution of government spending, net government income and expenditure is much more regressive here than in most of the OECD. If the tax restructure passes under current general outlines occurs, and Paul Ryan's plan to close the resulting deficits with cuts to social spending follows on*, both our tax system and our social spending will become significantly more regressive than peer countries.

*I am skeptical that Republicans will pass big cuts/restructures in Social Security and Medicare in an election year when things are already looking bad for them, but they seem to be defying low approval ratings so far.

ETA: this is a little dated, but does a good job explaining what I am talking about. https://www.cbpp.org/research/what-do-oecd-data-really-show-about-us-taxes-and-reducing-inequality
 
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