Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than the rest of America's taxpayers, new study finds

[Swammerdami]

Here's the actual paper: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34170/w34170.pdf?utm_campaign=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_medium=PANTHEON_STRIPPED&utm_source=PANTHEON_STRIPPED

"Table 2 presents our results on effective tax rates in 2018-20. For the top 400, the total effective tax rate is 23.8%. It increases as one moves down the distribution: from 22.0% for the top 100 to 26.6% for the next 300. We can compare these rates to the effective tax rate of top labor income earners, which is around 45%.11 We can also compare them to the total effective tax rate of the US population as a whole (i.e., adding all taxes paid by US residents divided by their total economic income), which is 30.2% in 2018-20.12 When taking a comprehensive view of taxation and income, ultra-high-net-worth individuals appear less taxed than the average American."​

The paper spends pages and pages explaining how the 24% on the top 400 was calculated; as for how the 30% rate for all other U.S. taxpayers was calculated, you're looking at it. So when the authors say "the average American", they mean averaged by dollar, not averaged by head. According to US Treasury data here, https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/131/Graph-Distributional-Analysis-2024-11162023.pdf, the households paying over 24% are the top 5%. So the paper is actually a comparison of the hyper rich with the merely rich, not with those whom any normal person would call "the average American". Labeling the results "Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than the rest of America's taxpayers, new study finds" is highly deceptive.

Not this again. Haven't we been through this ground before?

Billionaires pay approximately 0% in payroll taxes, while workers earning less than some $176,000 pay 15.3% in payroll taxes. 15.3%. That's not 24%, but it's close especially when you recall that taxes on gasoline and other sales tax are paid most heavily by the low-paid -- (High-income individuals invest, pay for untaxed services, etc.) -- and above a threshold these folk are also paying income tax.

Did the paper cited point this out? Did it speak of "all taxes" or just "income tax"? Don't know, don't care. We're not bound by errors or omissions in that paper; we're here to treat the facts. Payroll tax burden and sales tax burden are not eliminated by the incantation "Oh! We're speaking of income tax."

And the fact is that with the 15.3% payroll tax, and the regressive nature of sales tax, the working class IS paying about as high a percentage as the super-rich.

Yes, yes, a portion of the 15.3% tax is paid by employer in SOME cases. So what? It's an employer cost that comes with the employee's pay-check and reduces what he will afford as wage. IOW, the effect of the 15.3% payroll tax is unaffected by how it's split between employer and employee. (An employer might cut your wage $1000 while paying an additional $1000 of your SocSec tax. Net effect equals Zero.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well, duh, higher on the ladder generally means a higher percentage of their income is from capital gains.

This still comes down to the basic issue that you are paying tax on "gains" that are just keeping up with inflation.

Gains are gains. I don't see why gains you don't put in any actual effort to realize should have lower taxes than the alternative. I think it should be the reverse.

It's capital gains vs income. At that level you can figure income will keep up with inflation.

Some people do better, some do worse, but it averages out that the tax rates are about the same. But the true tax rate on dividends is much higher.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

With the proliferation of electric cars, paying for roads with the gas tax is stupid -- we need to check people's odometers and tax them based on the difference in the reading after a year.

Electric cars are still a small fraction of all cars on the road. And we should encourage their proliferation, and not hamstring them by piling new taxes. That is is counterproductive to their widespread adoption, and to reducing carbon emissions. Unfortunately, that is exactly what Democrat-run Oregon is doing.
Oregon could join Hawaii in mandating pay-per-mile fees for EV owners as gas tax projections fall

Now, eventually, when EVs are the majority of cars on the roads, a road use tax will become necessary. But it should not be a flat fee like the Oregon plan, but should scale with the size of vehicle. That system effectively subsidizes behemoths like Ford F250 which tear up the roads and use up far more space than regular cars. Extra-large vehicles should not be advantaged by the tax code, but rather disadvantaged.
.

Yeah, the gas tax is quite unfair. Per-mile actually is a reasonable component of it as there's an inherent cost to have roads apart from the wear. But only a component, as wear goes at IIRC the 4th power of the load imposed by the vehicle. (Note that this is not the same as the weight--spreading the weight over more wheels reduces the wear.) I'd like to see per-mile, per-wheel-mile-dry-load, and per-wheel-mile-max-load, weights of each factor determined by the engineers. In climates that are harsh on roads there would be more of the per-mile, in climates that don't eat the roads (the road out front is nearly 30 and looks pretty close to new other than the patches over spots the utility companies dug up, I have never seen any sort of maintenance done to it) it would be more based on load.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Inflation is just another form of tax. The government "deserves" to benefit from inflation for the same reason it deserves to benefit from any other tax. Because the tax will be used to provide services to the people. And yes, sometimes assets are exposed to more than one single tax. This isn't a novel concept.

If you're going to call it a tax recognize that it's a regressive tax. Regressive taxes are bad for the people.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Not this again. Haven't we been through this ground before?

Billionaires pay approximately 0% in payroll taxes, while workers earning less than some $176,000 pay 15.3% in payroll taxes. 15.3%. That's not 24%, but it's close especially when you recall that taxes on gasoline and other sales tax are paid most heavily by the low-paid -- (High-income individuals invest, pay for untaxed services, etc.) -- and above a threshold these folk are also paying income tax.

Not this again. Payroll taxes fund Social Security/Medicare. Above the $176k threshold your benefits will not rise at all, why should you pay for something you will not receive? You're going to turn it into a welfare program and the result would be benefits creeping down.

 

[zorq]

Inflation is just another form of tax. The government "deserves" to benefit from inflation for the same reason it deserves to benefit from any other tax. Because the tax will be used to provide services to the people. And yes, sometimes assets are exposed to more than one single tax. This isn't a novel concept.

If you're going to call it a tax recognize that it's a regressive tax. Regressive taxes are bad for the people.

I do recognize it as regressive. I also recognize it as inevitable. Unless you really think deflation is a desirable alternative.

Inflation should exist. But kept as small.

 

[Swammerdami]

Not this again. Haven't we been through this ground before?

Billionaires pay approximately 0% in payroll taxes, while workers earning less than some $176,000 pay 15.3% in payroll taxes. 15.3%. That's not 24%, but it's close especially when you recall that taxes on gasoline and other sales tax are paid most heavily by the low-paid -- (High-income individuals invest, pay for untaxed services, etc.) -- and above a threshold these folk are also paying income tax.

Not this again. Payroll taxes fund Social Security/Medicare. Above the $176k threshold your benefits will not rise at all, why should you pay for something you will not receive? You're going to turn it into a welfare program and the result would be benefits creeping down.

Wow.
Spoiler alert: Social Security payroll TAXES are NOT a defined-contribution investment vehicle. Instead they are TAXES.

tax
/taks/
noun

1. a compulsory contribution to state revenue,

The argument Loren offers could just as sensibly be applied to income taxes, which are also TAXES. After all, some of the taxes go to fund (at least in the olden pre-Trump days) food provided in public schools for the children of low-income families. The affluent send their kids to private schools and do not benefit from this portion of their tax payments: Why should they contribute to others' children? For that matter, why should money be stolen at gunpoint^* from the rich for the upkeep of national parks the rich will never visit? (The rich prefer their holidays in the South of France.)

But Loren's apparent dislike of stealing money from the rich at gunpoint^* is irrelevant. The dispute is about simple arithmetic. I am refuting the claim that the super-rich pay as much, proportionally, as the working class do in TAXES, at least when TAXES are defined to include all TAXES.

* - "stealing money from the rich at gunpoint." I don't know if Loren would endorse this hyperbole, common among many "fiscal conservatives" and "libertarians." But he certainly doesn't endorse Marx's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." At this point in our political dysfunction if you walk like a right-winger and talk like a right-winger, I shall treat you as a right-winger.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, the gas tax is quite unfair.

I agree.

Per-mile actually is a reasonable component of it as there's an inherent cost to have roads apart from the wear. But only a component, as wear goes at IIRC the 4th power of the load imposed by the vehicle. (Note that this is not the same as the weight--spreading the weight over more wheels reduces the wear.) I'd like to see per-mile, per-wheel-mile-dry-load, and per-wheel-mile-max-load, weights of each factor determined by the engineers. In climates that are harsh on roads there would be more of the per-mile, in climates that don't eat the roads (the road out front is nearly 30 and looks pretty close to new other than the patches over spots the utility companies dug up, I have never seen any sort of maintenance done to it) it would be more based on load.

There is nothing so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.

The underlying assumption, that the driver should pay for the roads in proportion to the damage done by their vehicle, is flawed, so accurately assigning the correct share of cost to him is futile.

The driver is not the only beneficiary of his journey.

If I drive to work, my boss benefits. His customers benefit. I get paid, so I benefit too; But sorting out who ultimately benefits from the existence of roads and of other infrastructure is a massively complex problem.

Fortunately, while we can't determine who benefits from a particular road, or from roads in general, we CAN determine who benefits, and by how much, from the general provision of infrastructure aggregated across the entire economy: That benefit is proportional to income.

So fund all infrastructure (including, but certainly not limited to, roads) from income taxation, and your problem is solved. Without any particularly hard maths.

 

[bilby]

why should you pay for something you will not receive?

Because it's the only way to ensure that, if necessary, you will receive things you didn't pay for?

Society is an insurance scheme. Paying for stuff you hope never to receive is a good idea.

 

[ZiprHead]

Not this again. Haven't we been through this ground before?

Billionaires pay approximately 0% in payroll taxes, while workers earning less than some $176,000 pay 15.3% in payroll taxes. 15.3%. That's not 24%, but it's close especially when you recall that taxes on gasoline and other sales tax are paid most heavily by the low-paid -- (High-income individuals invest, pay for untaxed services, etc.) -- and above a threshold these folk are also paying income tax.

Not this again. Payroll taxes fund Social Security/Medicare. Above the $176k threshold your benefits will not rise at all, why should you pay for something you will not receive? You're going to turn it into a welfare program and the result would be benefits creeping down.

Libertarian claptrap.

I'm old and I never had any kids. Why should I have to pay for schools? I'm also a guy. Why should I have to pay for WIC? Why should I have to pay for FEMA? That money mostly goes to southern coastal states. I could go on and on.

 

[Swammerdami]

why should you pay for something you will not receive?

... Society is an insurance scheme. Paying for stuff you hope never to receive is a good idea.

Will this become a debate about what "society" should or should not mean? Wiktionary offers six definitions of this English word including

A number of people joined by mutual consent to deliberate, determine and act toward a common goal.​

This definition may be compatible with bilby's, but this view is not universally held. For example, on 14 July 1789 a group of French citizens informed their government that they had not given consent and that any goal was not held in common. And right here in this thread we see Infidels who seem to agree that "society" should be managed to favor the interests of the wealthiest land-owners, rather than any mutual consent to serve any common goal.

Storming of the Bastille followed the publication of Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique by Jean-Jacques Rousseau but, as we see in this thread, the Enlightened view has not yet taken full hold in America.

I herewith ask that a translation of Du contrat social be incorporated into the record by reference. Hence I can confine my further remarks to information gleaned from the Wiktionary page.

The etymology is interesting:

PIE /*sekʷ/ (“to follow”) > /*sokʷ-yo/ (“companion”) > Latin socius (“associated, allied; partner, companion, ally”) > societās, societātem > Old French societé​

Certainly the word's source ("ally", "companion") is incompatible with apparent present-day American "conservative" belief that regression to a "society" featuring landowners and serfs should be the goal.

Something else caught my eye -- or rather caught my EAR -- as I pursued the Wiktionary page. It pronounces the word "society" BOTH in an English voice and in an American voice. Listen to them! The UK woman gives the word a reverent, almost sexy tone. The US woman renders the word more bluntly (one second instead of two) and in a dismissive tone. Could this relate to the cross-Atlantic confusion about the nature of society?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Wow.
Spoiler alert: Social Security payroll TAXES are NOT a defined-contribution investment vehicle. Instead they are TAXES.

Doesn't change the basic nature that they're retirement funding, what you get out is capped so what you put in should also be capped.

The argument Loren offers could just as sensibly be applied to income taxes, which are also TAXES. After all, some of the taxes go to fund (at least in the olden pre-Trump days) food provided in public schools for the children of low-income families. The affluent send their kids to private schools and do not benefit from this portion of their tax payments: Why should they contribute to others' children? For that matter, why should money be stolen at gunpoint^* from the rich for the upkeep of national parks the rich will never visit? (The rich prefer their holidays in the South of France.)

But Loren's apparent dislike of stealing money from the rich at gunpoint^* is irrelevant. The dispute is about simple arithmetic. I am refuting the claim that the super-rich pay as much, proportionally, as the working class do in TAXES, at least when TAXES are defined to include all TAXES.

* - "stealing money from the rich at gunpoint." I don't know if Loren would endorse this hyperbole, common among many "fiscal conservatives" and "libertarians." But he certainly doesn't endorse Marx's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." At this point in our political dysfunction if you walk like a right-winger and talk like a right-winger, I shall treat you as a right-winger.

Taxes are for running society. Social Security & Medicare are for retirement, if you don't pay in you don't get anything out.

 

[Bomb#20]

Saez and Zucman are leading proponents of instituting a U.S. wealth tax to help address widening inequality between the haves and have-nots. That idea has been embraced by some lawmakers, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont.
[...]
The findings about the richest 400 Americans suggest that a wealth tax is still needed to curb inequality in the U.S., Saez said.
"The wealth tax is the most direct and powerful way to specifically target the ultra-rich and increase tax progressivity at the very top," he said. "The wealth tax on the ultra-rich is also popular but will obviously be fought by billionaires, and they have disproportionate influence."

The whole study seems to be a vehicle for advocacy for wealth taxes.

Yes, exactly. The government is paid for almost entirely by the rich. What the study shows, essentially, is that the 1% are paying quite a bit more than their fair share compared to what the .0001% pay. But the average American, quite rationally, doesn't really give a rat's ass how the rich and the superrich divide up the bill among themselves, just as long as they're paying the bill and she isn't -- a thousand-dollar-an-hour law firm partner getting taxed extra so that a million-dollar-an-hour tycoon can get a break on his taxes is kind of the king of first-world problems. So for Saez and Zucman to get the average American riled up enough about the situation to support wealth taxes, they need to lie about who it is that's getting taxed extra -- they need to pretend the average American is paying more than the tycoon.

 

[Bomb#20]

"... We can also compare them to the total effective tax rate of the US population as a whole (i.e., adding all taxes paid by US residents divided by their total economic income), which is 30.2% in 2018-20.12 When taking a comprehensive view of taxation and income, ultra-high-net-worth individuals appear less taxed than the average American."​

The paper spends pages and pages explaining how the 24% on the top 400 was calculated; as for how the 30% rate for all other U.S. taxpayers was calculated, you're looking at it. So when the authors say "the average American", they mean averaged by dollar, not averaged by head. ...

Not this again. Haven't we been through this ground before?

Are you telling me these guys aren't the first academics to propagandize for their policy preferences by lying about who's paying how much tax?!? Next you'll be telling me water is wet.

Billionaires pay approximately 0% in payroll taxes, while workers earning less than some $176,000 pay 15.3% in payroll taxes. 15.3%. That's not 24%, but it's close especially when you recall that taxes on gasoline and other sales tax are paid most heavily by the low-paid -- (High-income individuals invest, pay for untaxed services, etc.) -- and above a threshold these folk are also paying income tax.

Did the paper cited point this out? Did it speak of "all taxes" or just "income tax"? Don't know, don't care. We're not bound by errors or omissions in that paper; we're here to treat the facts. Payroll tax burden and sales tax burden are not eliminated by the incantation "Oh! We're speaking of income tax."

For someone who doesn't know and doesn't care, you are doing a lot of trumped-up imputation. No, they didn't say "Oh! We're speaking of income tax." Yes, they claim their numbers are for pretty much all taxes.

And the fact is that with the 15.3% payroll tax, and the regressive nature of sales tax, the working class IS paying about as high a percentage as the super-rich.

Show your work. Your numbers are absurd. 15.3% is far below 24%. What, you think the working class spend their entire take-home pay on products subject to sales tax, leaving nothing for food, rent or mortgage, insurance, etc.? (Speaking of which, how solid is the case that sales tax is regressive, anyway? The poor spend more of their income on those tax-free products.)

And that's leaving aside the fact that the workers get most of our payroll tax back with interest when we retire.

Yes, yes, a portion of the 15.3% tax is paid by employer in SOME cases. So what? It's an employer cost that comes with the employee's pay-check and reduces what he will afford as wage. IOW, the effect of the 15.3% payroll tax is unaffected by how it's split between employer and employee. (An employer might cut your wage $1000 while paying an additional $1000 of your SocSec tax. Net effect equals Zero.)

Why on earth do you believe that? What, do you think employers make wage decisions by consulting the philosophy in the Swami Little Red Book? If an employer didn't have to pay $1000 in SocSec tax, why would he give the whole $1000 to the employee instead of pocketing as much as he can? Look at a supply-and-demand chart. How that 15.3% tax is split between employer and employee depends on the elasticities of supply and demand for labor.

 

[Bomb#20]

* - "stealing money from the rich at gunpoint." I don't know if Loren would endorse this hyperbole, common among many "fiscal conservatives" and "libertarians." But he certainly doesn't endorse Marx's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." At this point in our political dysfunction if you walk like a right-winger and talk like a right-winger, I shall treat you as a right-winger.

Are you suggesting agreeing with Karl Marx is the criterion for being a non-right-winger?!?

 

[laughing dog]

Saez and Zucman are leading proponents of instituting a U.S. wealth tax to help address widening inequality between the haves and have-nots. That idea has been embraced by some lawmakers, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont.
[...]
The findings about the richest 400 Americans suggest that a wealth tax is still needed to curb inequality in the U.S., Saez said.
"The wealth tax is the most direct and powerful way to specifically target the ultra-rich and increase tax progressivity at the very top," he said. "The wealth tax on the ultra-rich is also popular but will obviously be fought by billionaires, and they have disproportionate influence."

The whole study seems to be a vehicle for advocacy for wealth taxes.

Yes, exactly. The government is paid for almost entirely by the rich. What the study shows, essentially, is that the 1% are paying quite a bit more than their fair share compared to what the .0001% pay. But the average American, quite rationally, doesn't really give a rat's ass how the rich and the superrich divide up the bill among themselves, just as long as they're paying the bill and she isn't -- a thousand-dollar-an-hour law firm partner getting taxed extra so that a million-dollar-an-hour tycoon can get a break on his taxes is kind of the king of first-world problems. So for Saez and Zucman to get the average American riled up enough about the situation to support wealth taxes, they need to lie about who it is that's getting taxed extra -- they need to pretend the average American is paying more than the tycoon.

I read their study. The denominator for their tax rate is "economic income" which generally exceeds the normal or bookkeeping (love that word, a triple double letter one) thinking of income.

According to the authors, the 30% "average" rate is literally total taxes paid by US people and US institutions divided by total national income (which is less than GDP). It certainly does not represent what a regular (i.e. non-economist) would view as the effective tax rate faced by the average citizen. It does represent the portion of income earned by US citizens and their businesses that ends up remitted as taxes.

So, a more accurate interpretation of their findings is that the members of the Forbes 400 pay a smaller share of their economic income than the US citizens and their businesses pay out of their totally earned income. In my view, at the aggregate or macro level, national income is the same as their economic income. I am not sure the authors would agree. but if they do, then their results indicate that the Forbes 400 have a lower tax burden than all US citizens and their businesses. Whether that statistic is accurate or meaningful or helpful, I leave to the individual readers. In that light, I find their comparison interesting, but I don't see that it leads to any policy conclusion since our society does not embrace an economic view (or Haig-Simons view which the authors also use for alternative calculations) of income for policy purpposes.

I seriously doubt the authors are trying to rile the average American. They may be trying to rile the average professional public finance or tax or public policy economist.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

With the proliferation of electric cars, paying for roads with the gas tax is stupid -- we need to check people's odometers and tax them based on the difference in the reading after a year.

Electric cars are still a small fraction of all cars on the road. And we should encourage their proliferation, and not hamstring them by piling new taxes. That is is counterproductive to their widespread adoption, and to reducing carbon emissions. Unfortunately, that is exactly what Democrat-run Oregon is doing.
Oregon could join Hawaii in mandating pay-per-mile fees for EV owners as gas tax projections fall

Now, eventually, when EVs are the majority of cars on the roads, a road use tax will become necessary. But it should not be a flat fee like the Oregon plan, but should scale with the size of vehicle. That system effectively subsidizes behemoths like Ford F250 which tear up the roads and use up far more space than regular cars. Extra-large vehicles should not be advantaged by the tax code, but rather disadvantaged.
.

Yeah, the gas tax is quite unfair. Per-mile actually is a reasonable component of it as there's an inherent cost to have roads apart from the wear. But only a component, as wear goes at IIRC the 4th power of the load imposed by the vehicle. (Note that this is not the same as the weight--spreading the weight over more wheels reduces the wear.) I'd like to see per-mile, per-wheel-mile-dry-load, and per-wheel-mile-max-load, weights of each factor determined by the engineers. In climates that are harsh on roads there would be more of the per-mile, in climates that don't eat the roads (the road out front is nearly 30 and looks pretty close to new other than the patches over spots the utility companies dug up, I have never seen any sort of maintenance done to it) it would be more based on load.

While a use fee being incorporated into car use has logic, the fact of the matter is, the economy is dependent on the existence of those roads. Trying to per mile / per axle local roads is silly. That makes a bit more sense on limited access roads, but for local roads, everyone is dependent on them existing or there would be a much smaller economy as we attempt to goat path our way to wealth.

So it is time that we stopped trying to come up with fancy equations and just admit, it costs Area A about B dollars to maintain the public infrastructure and it is funded X, Y, and Z from federal, state, and local funds, respectively.

And lets get to the point, If you think that a rinky dink bridge in some rinky dink county isn't needing federal funds to be built, you are so unbelievably uninformed that you should disqualify yourself from being involved in these discussions. Public infrastructure and utilities are so woefully funded, that it is a pathetic joke. Simple projects really heavily on Federal Funds to be built, especially in red states. Gas taxes don't come anywhere near close to paying for roads.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Saez and Zucman are leading proponents of instituting a U.S. wealth tax to help address widening inequality between the haves and have-nots. That idea has been embraced by some lawmakers, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont.
[...]
The findings about the richest 400 Americans suggest that a wealth tax is still needed to curb inequality in the U.S., Saez said.
"The wealth tax is the most direct and powerful way to specifically target the ultra-rich and increase tax progressivity at the very top," he said. "The wealth tax on the ultra-rich is also popular but will obviously be fought by billionaires, and they have disproportionate influence."

The whole study seems to be a vehicle for advocacy for wealth taxes.

Yes, exactly. The government is paid for almost entirely by the rich.

They make most of the money. Why shouldn't we tax wealth? We need the money... have you seen the size of the deficits, just so we can pay for adequate health care and help the elderly not have to live on the streets?

Why is there this religious idolization of ridiculous levels of wealth? These wealthy seem to have forgotten what happened to the uber-wealthy occasionally when the peasants had had enough. The Romans understood you need to through the proletariat a few bones. The very wealthy have mistaken that to be meant as literal.