"Design" implies intent requiring coordination and effort on the part of a group of people strategically situated to deliver a result. "To benefit the wealthy" identifies a clear and well-defined objective as the focus of such activities.
Who came up with the original idea to "design" a tax code "to benefit the wealthy"?
Was it more than one person? Names please.
What were the design principles? No hand-wavy stuff, looking for specific objectives, etc.
Over what period of time?
Can you provide a year-by-year (or close enough) summary of the progression of this design and how it met your stated purpose?
How? By this I mean: How was such a coordinated effort organized and run over, presumably, decades and through various generations of politicians participating in the process.
And, for all of the above, documentation please.
I remain puzzled about whether people just stay stuff like this or actually believe it. You don't have to make too much of an effort in digging into these ideas to fully identify them as nonsensical. Yet people believe this stuff without having one shred of proof, evidence, history or documentation. Not very different from folks who believe the COVID vaccine injects you with tiny little robots the government can use to control you (one of the things people say and I don't really know how to react other than to shrug and wish them well).
I'll add my own observation to this: No, the US tax code is not designed to benefit the wealthy. It is based on incentivizing behavior through tax breaks/credits.
For individuals the simplest example is the ability to deduct your mortgage interest from your income. Another example is the 30% solar system tax credit (I think it's down to 26% now).
At the business level you get such things as Section 179 tax credits, which allow you to reduce your tax burden by as much as 100% of the purchase value of qualifying business property. For example, when we purchased our last Haas CNC vertical machining center and all the tooling and software required to design, program and run it, we got a Section 179 tax credit of nearly $250K.
The theory behind these incentives is to promote behaviors. We bought equipment. The tax code treats this as a desirable behavior because it creates jobs. The options were: Send the IRS a check for $250K or send them $0 and use that money to buy additional machining capabilities. This is what is called a "no brainer". Everyone wins.
This is why businesses can seem to pay zero taxes. Well, if they invest enough money into things the tax code wants them to put money into, they get to pay less taxes. Yet, in certain circles, this is treated with blinding ignorance; the headlines often reading company "x paid zero taxes". Nobody bothers to understand any of it.
For the record, I don't like the idea of using the tax code to control behavior. I think this is (was) a terrible idea. It gives politicians tools they should not be able to access. Taxation should be as simple as possible, to a limit. The problems start once you try to simplify it. For example, "You must pay 10% of your income". OK, someone sets up an LLC and pay themselves very little. They pay very little in taxes. This is a very simplistic example to say that one of the reasons for which the tax code quickly gets convoluted is because, in software developer terms, it has to be a massive chain of "if-else if" statements in order to address all permutations and limit cheating to the extent possible. Once you start down that path you end-up with never-ending complexity because we don't have a way to control it.
Perhaps a simpler approach would have no income tax at all for anyone (state of federal). All the money needed to run governments at various levels comes from taxing transactions. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of options here. For example, tax every electronic funds transfer; tax every single imported good; national VAT, etc. Not a simple idea. There are no simple options. Maybe that's my point. It wasn't designed to benefit the rich, it turned into a monster that requires more and more "if else-if" statements to be added every year because we find more and more conditions that require evaluation. It's crazy. Not sure what they right answer might be. Not sure there is a right answer at all. And, no, what they do in (country) "m" has no bearing whatsoever on what is done or should be done in any other country. Tax codes evolve almost like natural selection, they respond to evolutionary pressure and each makes sense (to the extent possible) within the nation it evolved from.
It’s everybody. Politicians lobby for breaks for their constituency, as well as increasing taxes to raise revenue. Companies lobby for breaks for their industry. Issue groups lobby for breaks (or taxes) to encourage behaviours they want to see. Even the poor do this, albeit typically via unions or other collective means.
This isn’t going to be a popular comment, yet, it has to be said because it is painfully obvious reality escapes some.
Here it goes:
The poor do not elevate the poor out of poverty.
If you want to chip away at poverty you have to create incentives for entrepreneurs, investors, business people and, yes, the rich, to engage in favorable economic activity. One of the simplest ways to do this is through the tax code. As much as I hate using taxation to promote behavior, that’s the best way we know so far.
We have lifted more people out of poverty through these methods than any other way.
Be careful what you wish for, because government has never, in the history of humanity, elevated the poor. Quite to the contrary.
For one, taxes are levied by governments not the free market. China has lifted 800 million out of poverty and wasn't because they all of a sudden decided to collectively pull their bootstraps. The free market is what doesn't alleviate poverty, quite the opposite.
> China has lifted 800 million out of poverty and wasn't because they all of a sudden decided to collectively pull their bootstraps.
The disconnect in what you are implying here is astounding.
China elevated massive numbers of people out of poverty precisely because they turned violently capitalistic and entrepreneurial when it comes to business, far more so than likely any other society on the planet. The main decision their government made was to get the heck out of the way.
I can understand that people who might not do business directly with Chinese companies likely lack an understanding of what things look like. Well, I do, have been for decades. I am sad to say doing business with Chinese companies can be massively easier than with US companies. The entrepreneurial spirit and drive in China is incredibly strong and refreshing to watch. You actually want to do business with them because they want to get things done.
If you think government has the power to raise 800 million people out of poverty in complete isolation of a massive step change in business activity you don't have even the most fundamental understanding of economics.
This is one of the most perplexing things I continue to experience on HN. This is a Y-combinator related forum. You'd think people voicing opinions here would have a modicum of business and economics chops. You'd think that, at the very least, they would devote a bit of time to doing simple math before forming opinions. And yet, what you see here time and time again are comments such as yours, which reveal a deep disconnect between even the most basic understanding of how the world operates and the importance of business.
FDR’s New Deal certainly helped a lot of poor people in the USA, as did the roll out of the welfare state and NHS in the UK, and pensions in Germany.
That said, government intervention is not sufficient. It must come with structural improvements, and not just be free handouts. And too much help can also be counter-productive by crowding out the very thing it’s trying to nurture.
> FDR’s New Deal certainly helped a lot of poor people in the USA
Not quite. As is usually the case with such programs, people tend to form opinions based on what is easily and externally visible. Reality isn't every that simple. The truth of the matter is that the not-easily-visible aspects of this plan harmed the poor and middle class for decades. Yes, lots of people were busy, but, no, it didn't elevate millions out of poverty and into the middle class.
This article touches the surface of some of the issues:
Reality is not described by a single variable, it is a complex multivariate problem. A program that promises more jobs is never without consequences. The details are always in the unseen variables that don't make it into political speeches or headlines. Nobody talks about them, and yet, that's where reality lies.
If you give a starving person food so that they might live, and then the number of people who depend on free food goes up, did you do a good thing? That's an ethical question with no "right" answer.
I suspect most libertarians and those who lean to the right would say "no, you saved one person but weakened the system as a whole, and thus you have created more hungry people". Whereas socialists and those who lean to the left would say "yes, because saving a human life when you can is always a good thing".
As I see it, the biggest problem in modern society is that we've stopped respecting the right for everybody to have their own view on issues like that, and instead come to believe that "the other" is so wrong that they must be corrected at all costs. I believe the Cato Institute is just as guilty of that as AOC's horde of Twitter followers.
> The poor do not elevate the poor out of poverty.
What a bizarre, paternalistic take. This is the same sort of narcissistic logic that led to Reagan's golden showers^W^W trickle-down economics.
I mean, I agree about entrepeneurs. Historically, the thing that has lifted communities out of poverty has been entrepeneurs in that community that contribute back to it. In other words, the poor very much elevate the poor out of poverty.
The rest of your comment (e.g. "and, yes, the rich") is just weird apologetics for people that don't need it, and can pay for it anyways, so why are you wasting your time doing it for free?
Really? I can understand if the truth might be offensive to you...yet that doesn't mean it isn't true or that the statement is mean-spirited or paternalistic.
Try to start a company without money and see how well it goes. I mean, you are reading this an a forum run by Y Combinator. Easy questions: In the history of humanity, how many sizeable companies were financed and launched by the poor? I think the number is pretty close to zero. In the context of the history of business, less than a rounding error.
> Historically, the thing that has lifted communities out of poverty has been entrepeneurs in that community that contribute back to it.
This is a fantasy. The best you are going to get in this scenario are a smattering of small businesses that will produce low and mid skill jobs and low wages. While it does happen, the percentage of these businesses that make it big is but a rounding error. There are examples, like the pizza joint of fast food restaurant that went national. Think places like Dominos and McDonalds. Rare, very rare, and we might even argue about who they actually elevated and where. Most local businesses remain small mom-and-pop entities incapable of elevating communities, as you put it, out of poverty. There are entire towns we can use as examples of how what you say simply does not work.
> In other words, the poor very much elevate the poor out of poverty.
No. Save very rare corner cases, the only way you elevate large numbers of people out of poverty is through massive external investments. This means people or companies with money come into a town and make very large investments that results in large numbers of jobs as well as opportunities to ascend through the ranks.
Please post a link to a business school study that explains how a 100% poor community without external investment elevated itself into the middle class. Since you say that this is "historically" the case, there ought to be thousands of such studies for you to pull from, hundreds, certainly. All I want is one.
They really don't. You're misusing the word "lobby".
Churches and charities don't lobby politically for poor people, they take them on as a righteous burden to bear. Some churches and charities are even used as tax breaks for rich people.
Unions used to, to some degree. They've mostly been neutered and have very limited political capital.
That’s a “no true Scotsman” argument if ever I’ve heard one. You can’t say nobody helps the poor, then disparage the significant amount of help people do give.
I belong to a church, and the minister frequently represents vulnerable people in the local community to politicians. He’s also sponsored by the church to attend events campaigning on behalf of low-paid people in the UK. And we contribute to a fund which publishes articles and runs events to raise awareness about homelessness.
If that doesn’t count as lobbying for people then I don’t know what does. I do wish it were more effective.
It's not a "no true Scotsman" argument because "help" is a vague term to begin with.
Lots of churches say nice things while extracting maximum revenue from their congregation. Can you point to any actual political changes that have occurred as a result, or is it just some nice words?
I get the feeling I could write a long list with everything religious groups have done to help the poor - from the abolition of slavery, to Sikh Gurudwaras providing food, to groups like “Christians Against Poverty” campaigning against excessive interest on payday loans - but somehow none of that would count.
I got a tax benefit semi-recently by buying an electric car, about $7500. It was the largest I've ever gotten. Compare that to one small crumb of Trump's tax deductions that was covered by the New York Times. A $70k tax deduction for hair styling.
It's just not the same. Wealth gives you an outsized influence on politics, which lets you accumulate more wealth, at a faster rate than those poorer than you.
Every celebrity hires armies of people to look after them. They sell their image and likeness. Everything about their public appearance is part of their business. In this context, paying $70K for a hair stylist is not different from paying $70K for a personal trainer, beautician, tanning service, nail service, massage, etc. Their business has expenses and parameters not found in other businesses.
I pay a service to come clean our office, CNC and electronics manufacturing shop. This becomes a deduction. Trump, Bill Maher or Dua Lipa don't have that deduction. They have stuff like hair and clothing.
I have a friend who is a real estate agent. Part of his tax deduction profile includes such things as washing and detailing his car as well as some allocation for clothing. My wife is a doctor, she gets to deduct work clothing, safety equipment, seminars and other business expenses.
Yes, the tax code is a rotten mess. I agree with this 100%. I would much rather have a nominal flat tax and no deductions of any kind for anyone. Our current tax code wasn't the result of a conspiracy to benefit the rich. It's the result of decades of pushing and pulling by a bunch of different groups, each with a different objective.
Where the little guy gets screwed is that the individual has very few deductions, while businesses have tons. That's the bottom line. This has nothing to do with the rich. You can go form an LLC today --HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!-- and access deductions you could not as an individual. None of these deductions have "rich person" written on them. All you need is an LLC, which isn't that expensive or difficult to create. And all you need to be a business is to sell a few items per year on eBay (or whatever).
Simple example: I can deduct business mileage use of a vehicle when going to see clients. An individual can't deduct miles driven to and from work. I think this is wrong. Yet, again, it has nothing to do with benefiting the rich, you don't have to be rich to have access to these deductions, you just have to be on the side of the tax code that enables access to them. If you are puzzled by the possibilities, talk to a tax accountant and ask them if you would benefit from forming an LLC and, if you did, how you should use it.
Doing a bit of sea lioning at the beginning there buddy. Who specifically won a football game? And when? And who came up with the idea? The outcome is the result of all the actions of all the members, coaches and owners of the winning team, and of the losing team that was working against them, over the entire duration of the game. It's an emergent, complex/chaotic system. But the winning team intended to win.
You can't claim that taxation is a complex subject, yet begin by asking simplistic questions about it. Even then the concept is easy to understand, and expected rational behavior: the wealthy evade taxes because they like money and use their considerable resources to get it done. It's a fact that has thousands of years of historical precedent.[1] It's a pattern of behavior well documented in books, documentaries, and research on the subject. It's even part of the backdrop for dramas based on historical events, like the French Revolution.
It doesn't require any conspiracy, only self interest. Even then, the wealthy do have yearly economic summits where tax policy is discussed. Why would you assume it's about how to raise their own taxes instead of the opposite?
> Can you provide a year-by-year (or close enough) summary of the progression of this design and how it met your stated purpose?
There's a fairly good summary at Brookings.[2]
> I'll add my own observation to this: No, the US tax code is not designed to benefit the wealthy. It is based on incentivizing behavior through tax breaks/credits.
Yes it is. Even narrowing the focus to their personal income tax after it's loopholed through corporate tax shelters, the extremely wealthy pay have a lower tax rate than workers earning $45k.[3] Workers who make $140k pay as much into social security as the richest people on earth who also have US citizenship. What's the benefit to society having less money for shared infrastructure, and what's the benefit of rewarding people who find a way to avoid paying into that?
> And, no, what they do in (country) "m" has no bearing whatsoever on what is done or should be done in any other country
Eliminating the chance to learn from other nation's policy mistakes and successes is a terrible idea.
> You can't claim that taxation is a complex subject, yet begin by asking simplistic questions about it.
Are you the only one identifying some of the sarcasm in my post? Good.
The idea of the tax code being "designed to benefit the rich" is beyond ridiculous. This is as ridiculous as me asking a simplistic question about the origins of any part of of the rotten stinking mess this tax code has become.
I'd much rather have a flat tax system with no deductions at all for anyone.
I would also propose that taxing businesses is wrong. Why? Because you tax the employees of the business already. Taxing the business stinks of double taxation and removes capital that could be used for growth and to create more jobs over time.
Think of it this way. Let's say ten people as a group product furniture and sell it. They make money and pay themselves salaries. They also pay taxes. However, let's pretend they can do this without forming a legal entity we call a business. The just do the work, pool the money, pay themselves salaries, pay expenses, pay taxes and life goes on.
Now we come along and say: Wait a minute! You are working together to make tables. Because of that, we are going to take another 30% in taxes out of all of you. It isn't enough that each of you pay 30% in taxes, we want 30% from what remains.
Sounds silly, doesn't it? Well, it is. At least I think so. Could be wrong.
"Design" implies intent requiring coordination and effort on the part of a group of people strategically situated to deliver a result. "To benefit the wealthy" identifies a clear and well-defined objective as the focus of such activities.
Who came up with the original idea to "design" a tax code "to benefit the wealthy"?
Was it more than one person? Names please.
What were the design principles? No hand-wavy stuff, looking for specific objectives, etc.
Over what period of time?
Can you provide a year-by-year (or close enough) summary of the progression of this design and how it met your stated purpose?
How? By this I mean: How was such a coordinated effort organized and run over, presumably, decades and through various generations of politicians participating in the process.
And, for all of the above, documentation please.
I remain puzzled about whether people just stay stuff like this or actually believe it. You don't have to make too much of an effort in digging into these ideas to fully identify them as nonsensical. Yet people believe this stuff without having one shred of proof, evidence, history or documentation. Not very different from folks who believe the COVID vaccine injects you with tiny little robots the government can use to control you (one of the things people say and I don't really know how to react other than to shrug and wish them well).
I'll add my own observation to this: No, the US tax code is not designed to benefit the wealthy. It is based on incentivizing behavior through tax breaks/credits.
For individuals the simplest example is the ability to deduct your mortgage interest from your income. Another example is the 30% solar system tax credit (I think it's down to 26% now).
At the business level you get such things as Section 179 tax credits, which allow you to reduce your tax burden by as much as 100% of the purchase value of qualifying business property. For example, when we purchased our last Haas CNC vertical machining center and all the tooling and software required to design, program and run it, we got a Section 179 tax credit of nearly $250K.
The theory behind these incentives is to promote behaviors. We bought equipment. The tax code treats this as a desirable behavior because it creates jobs. The options were: Send the IRS a check for $250K or send them $0 and use that money to buy additional machining capabilities. This is what is called a "no brainer". Everyone wins.
This is why businesses can seem to pay zero taxes. Well, if they invest enough money into things the tax code wants them to put money into, they get to pay less taxes. Yet, in certain circles, this is treated with blinding ignorance; the headlines often reading company "x paid zero taxes". Nobody bothers to understand any of it.
For the record, I don't like the idea of using the tax code to control behavior. I think this is (was) a terrible idea. It gives politicians tools they should not be able to access. Taxation should be as simple as possible, to a limit. The problems start once you try to simplify it. For example, "You must pay 10% of your income". OK, someone sets up an LLC and pay themselves very little. They pay very little in taxes. This is a very simplistic example to say that one of the reasons for which the tax code quickly gets convoluted is because, in software developer terms, it has to be a massive chain of "if-else if" statements in order to address all permutations and limit cheating to the extent possible. Once you start down that path you end-up with never-ending complexity because we don't have a way to control it.
Perhaps a simpler approach would have no income tax at all for anyone (state of federal). All the money needed to run governments at various levels comes from taxing transactions. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of options here. For example, tax every electronic funds transfer; tax every single imported good; national VAT, etc. Not a simple idea. There are no simple options. Maybe that's my point. It wasn't designed to benefit the rich, it turned into a monster that requires more and more "if else-if" statements to be added every year because we find more and more conditions that require evaluation. It's crazy. Not sure what they right answer might be. Not sure there is a right answer at all. And, no, what they do in (country) "m" has no bearing whatsoever on what is done or should be done in any other country. Tax codes evolve almost like natural selection, they respond to evolutionary pressure and each makes sense (to the extent possible) within the nation it evolved from.