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this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Do you honestly think someone who earns 100k a year works twice as hard as someone who earns 50k a year?
And if the 50k earner only pays 20% and the 100k earner pays 40%, they are still earning 50% more than the low earner. Even theoretically it's not particularly unfair.
The most shocking thing to me here is the tax rates. Everywhere I've lived, the lowest bracket of income tax rate is 20-30% rising to 50% for high earners. The fact that the highest earners in the US (literally multi-millionaires and billionaires) are only paying 25% is outrageous to me. The average income tax paid for the 1% bracket is $400k, meaning they are still going home with at least $1.2mil a year. Why are the bottom 50% even paying anything? It's obscene.
That's not the point of taxes. At least not in a civilised society. People who can't afford to contribute should be getting most value out of it.
You think the more taxes you pay the more value you should get out of them? Real "I pay cops wages so they work for me" and "I got mine, pull the ladder up" vibes.
And FYI I would not be in the bottom 50% here, so it's not some "freeloader trying to get myself a tax cut" opinion. I already pay a considerably higher percentage of income tax than your billionaires! I'm happy to pay taxes because they are for the good of the society I live in and because I have empathy for those in need, but that's evidently not the prevailing sentiment over there.
So here I will use doctors as an example.
To earn near or just over 100k a year you need to be a specialist surgeon for 10 years. That's not including the years it takes to become a surgeon anyway.
And so what? In this one hypothetical, the skilled experienced surgeon still gets more money to take home than the less skilled, less experienced worker.