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What killed the middle class?

yeah we owned a small business previously. What are the marginal income levels for those percentages?
 
WakeandBake said:
yeah we owned a small business previously. What are the marginal income levels for those percentages?
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What was your effective tax rate as an owner? And what do you feel is a fair tax rate for owners?

You were the one who posted "It is absurd that the ownership class is not paying more".

So what did you pay as an owner? And how to you quantify "more"? Is it 5%? 10%? 20%?
 
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Colonel Angus said:
What was your effective tax rate as an owner? And what do you feel is a fair tax rate for owners?

You were the one who posted "It is absurd that the ownership class is not paying more".

So what did you pay as an owner? And how to you quantify "more"? Is it 5%? 10%? 20%?
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Why, it should be progressive on scale with our income from the store, your gotcha on the term "owner" notwithstanding. The term "ownership class" was used to describe the owners of the means of production, the capitalists, as it were. I think you knew that was how I was using it. But you got me, we did own it, even though we didn't earn very much income from it.

edit - in fact you illuminate a big problem with supply-side tax or flatter tax philosophy in your post. mom and pop owners are not the same as billionaire capitalists and financiers, and are taxed unfairly in comparison.
 
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The loss of unions has directly impacted the middle class. This is one of Reagan's biggest legacies. When he destroyed the air traffic controllers union, it opened the floodgates.
 
WFcatamount22 said:
Couldn’t the rise in the lower class be attributed to the increase in divorce rates and single parents?
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If any of you didn't have "family values" as your free space in "Why are the poors so awful?" BINGO, go ahead and mark it now.
 
It’s all relative to what the buying power of the middle class actually is. So the middle falls into some spectrum in the 60s where a single income earner can pay for a family of four, cars, a house, healthcare, and education. While in 2018 a two house income that’s defined as today’s normal struggles with the same.
 
well, somebody gotta pay for government; the poors can't pay 'cause they don't have money; the rich don't pay 'cause they got accountants and lawyers to help them get away with it; so, that someone who pays is a gonna be you! dig deep
 
WakeandBake said:
edit - in fact you illuminate a big problem with supply-side tax or flatter tax philosophy in your post. mom and pop owners are not the same as billionaire capitalists and financiers, and are taxed unfairly in comparison.
Click to expand...

Not a surprise... but I disagree.

A partnership/corporation should be taxed at the same rate as the mom & pop. 20% is still 20% whether it's on a basis of $100M in earnings or $100k in earnings.

Why should you be punished by paying a more progressive tax rate (i.e. 50%) if your store was very successful and you expanded to multiple locations and created many more new jobs?

And who determines the sliding tax rate scale based on income? The federal government?
 
Paying a higher tax rate as income increases need not be considered punishment.

It can be considered a privilege.


And business income reinvested to create more business need not be taxed.
 
Colonel Angus said:
Not a surprise... but I disagree.

A partnership/corporation should be taxed at the same rate as the mom & pop. 20% is still 20% whether it's on a basis of $100M in earnings or $100k in earnings.

Why should you be punished by paying a more progressive tax rate (i.e. 50%) if your store was very successful and you expanded to multiple locations and created many more new jobs?

And who determines the sliding tax rate scale based on income? The federal government?
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Well, we were discussing Grabs Turds Bare's post about the absurdity of his tax rates as a mid-to-lower middle class worker. What you argue is essentially supply-side which rewards capital and investment, not production and labor. So, his taxes are more burdensome than mine as the successful mom and pop turned mid-sized private company in the scenario.

But if Grab's Turds is one of my managers, and the people living in his middle class neighborhood are my employees, I am better off as an individual and a business owner if they are able to take advantage of services that tax dollars provide like, say, single-payer coverage for his family and his kids were going to well-funded schools and able to go to college, and the infrastructure he relies on to provide clean water and safe roads and safe neighborhoods was well-funded That is good for me and the other SMB owners in my area, as well as Grabs Turds. Maybe some childcare and elderly care assistance as well. It takes tax revenue to do that.

Your model rewards the risk-taker and the investor, which creates he jobs in the first place - I get it. I don't think anyone is advocating taxing out the incentive to start/own a business, I think that I am trying to be pragmatic. Right now people can't afford these services and the federal govt is in massive debt for he shitty ones we do have.

Cue the "cut services for the lazy" post onslaught.

edit - also, I was referring to income tax not corporate tax. If the mom and pop owner pays himself with dividends from the company that should be taxed at the same rate as Grabs Turds payroll income.
 
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