bank secrets

[kandrathe]

How, then, is it possible that nearly half the world's billionaires are Americans? The world's wealthiest are, and for a century have been, American. You might not like how much the US government taxes income, but the notion that the government is "actively prevent[ing] people from becoming and remaining wealthy" is incorrect. The tax rates paid by wealthy Americans are lower than in nearly any comparable country.

But, they didn't earn it in wages. My point is that the money grab by the US federal government is against people who earn money through wages. If you earn a salary of $100,000, you would be lucky to be able to save/invest $1M over 20 years. With some incredible investments and luck, you might multiply that by 10. The fact remains that the government feeds itself on the backs of wage earners (78% of revenue).

Receipts for fiscal year 2007 were $2.4 trillion. FY2007 on-budget receipts were $1.7 trillion. FY2007 off-budget receipts were $608 billion. Off-budget receipts include Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, as well as the net profit or loss of the U.S. Postal Service.

* $1.1 trillion - Individual income tax (43.9%)
* $869.6 billion - Social Security and other payroll taxes (34.7%)
* $370.2 billion - Corporate income tax (14.8%)
* $65.1 billion - Excise taxes (2.6%)
* $26.0 billion - Customs duties (1%)
* $26.0 billion - Estate and gift taxes (1%)
* $47.2 billion - Other (1.9%)

Source: preliminary FY2007 year-end estimate from the U.S. Treasury Dept.

Indeed, this concept is contradicted by your own previous argument, which you "echo whenever you can": how is the government preventing people from becoming and remaining wealthy, if the whole method by which this happens in a capitalist society (investment) is not subject to income taxation until the time of sale?

The government raises the top rates for people who earn over $164,550 per year. Within that wage, you pay approximately 50% for Federal, State, Local, SSI, etc to government. Now you have $82,275to pay for a mortgage, food, clothing, transportation, and other expenses. Then, with perhaps 5% of the $82,275, you might consider investment. Investing $4000 per year is not the road to Billions. Look up the average US rate for savings and investment, and you will see that it has been in the negative numbers for years. Lately, this has been caused by the ridiculously high prices of homes (which are now upside down for many, many people).

Regional differences are also not applied, so a person living in NYC earning $200K COL is usually double the person living in another city, and quadruple a person living in a rural area. The US governments threshold on "rich" keeps descending as well. In 2003, any income over $57,500 was enough to qualify for the top tax rate.

Just the US federal tax for single people in 2008,
# 10% on income between $0 and $8,025
# 15% on the income between $8,025 and $32,550; plus $802.50
# 25% on the income between $32,550 and $78,850; plus $4,481.25
# 28% on the income between $78,850 and $164,550; plus $16,056.25
# 33% on the income between $164,550 and $357,700; plus $40,052.25
# 35% on the income over $357,700; plus $103,791.75

One might also point out that, whatever FDR's whims in private, the official rate never came close to 99.5% for over $100,000. I presume he was joking when he suggested it. The highest actual income tax ever passed was 79% for over $5 million, which applied to exactly one person: Rockefeller, who happens to be the inflation-adjusted richest man in history. Real income tax rates for almost everyone were very modest by modern standards.

"By the end of the war the nature of the income tax had been fundamentally altered. Reductions in exemption levels meant that taxpayers with taxable incomes of only $500 faced a bottom tax rate of 23 percent, while taxpayers with incomes over $1 million faced a top rate of 94 percent. These tax changes increased federal receipts from $8.7 billion in 1941 to $45.2 billion in 1945. Even with an economy stimulated by war-time production, federal taxes as a share of GDP grew from 7.6 percent in 1941 to 20.4 percent in 1945."

http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-shee...stax.shtml

In my opinion, 94 percent is pretty close to 99.5 percent.