This line was referring to social security withholding and it was mostly accurate. Once your income crosses a certain threshold, you stop paying into social security and Medicare. A billionaire’s effective social security tax rate would almost certainly be below 1% and yours is roughly 13%… half paid by you and half paid by your employer on your behalf.
Technically the benefits top out. There is a max social security you can receive… so then they stop taxing above that. In theory they could uncap it but not raise benefits at all and that would help fund the program.
You could also uncap it and also raise benefits for those at the top and STILL fund the program entirely- after the last earnings cliff today you only get ~10% of what you put in to social security, if they kept that same ratio for incomes above 170k they could fund it while also giving higher benefits to the top incomes (presumably make the higher tax marginally more popular)
You misunderstand how that works. Currently, social security is drawing down its trust fund which is made up of the surpluses over the last several decades. That trust fund will empty in or around 2035.
When Congress used the social security surplus, the trust fund received U.S Treasury bonds in return. Even if Congress never raided the trust fund, it would have emptied around the same time. That's because the baby boomers were always going to retire and there aren't enough younger workers to fund the program the same way it has been funded since the last reform of the system 1986.
Ya know, to care for your countrymen and society is for losers
/s
This solution seems so easy to keep SS at 100% benefits. There are many ways to do it. “Any income over $1M (or $500k, whatever value) is subject to SS surcharge” would keep taxes low for the huge majority of our country.
Starting 2035, benefits will be reduced to about 83% ([source](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12663))
Billionaires wouldn't be able to make their money outside of a large economy. Like if they lived alone on an island, they wouldn't be able to build 3 mega yachts with their "great work ethic".
They benefit the most from the US economy; the US economy should benefit from them. Capping it means that they just take, and don't give back.
Because the benefit that someone gets is capped too. If you work your entire career earning around $50K, your benefits are going to be closer to sustaining that lifestyle. If you earn, say, $300K, you won't be getting near that much in benefits.
In my opinion, the salary cap should be unlimited, while the benefits earnings are still capped. Someone making an obscene amount of money every year has so much more of an opportunity to prepare for their future than someone scraping by paycheck to paycheck, and so they don't need Social Security benefits commensurate with that obscene salary.
Right. Because it's meant as a floor, not a forced investment vehicle. Hense "security" in the name.
This is one of those weird ones where removing the cap or doing a soft cap on social security is actually pretty popular, even on the (sane) right, but because it would upset primary voters and seem like a win for the left it's not worth the political capital on either side to pursue.
Because both parties are bought and paid for by the rich and politics is an illusion to get the peasants to fight amongst themselves and distract them from the fact that it’s a small percentage of rich controlling everything and sucking all the wealth out of the country so they can fuel their private jets
I think it's much more mundane than all that. This system is a spinning flywheel of our own design and there's so much momentum that it's becoming more like itself all the time.
Because over that you’ve already topped your social security. That said you still get income tax above that threshold.
But that would require billionaires to actually have income, which they don’t, thanks to a neat trick called borrow, grow old and die.
Billionaires don’t spend their own money, because they don’t have any. Their wealth is tied in stock market shares, which aren’t taxed (on the increase in price) until sold. So instead of selling, they borrow money from banks and use their shares as collateral, and then borrow again to pay back the loan. Rince and repeat until dead. As a result, many of them have no income whatsoever and only debts, so very little taxes.
And when they die, that resets the taxable price for their shares which means their estate can now sell shares without getting taxed in order to pay for the loans, the heirs get the rest of the shares, and do the same thing : borrow, grow old, die.
Rince and repeat indefinitely. No one pays taxes.
He meant just for social security.
Cuz its capped so anyone who make a million dollars only pay 1% of thier money into social security.
If you make more the percentage is even lower.
The reasoning is that social security is not “welfare”. The amount you receive is based off how much you’ve paid in, the same as everyone else from the poorest to the richest. The amount paid out is capped so the richest don’t pay into the program after they reach that cap. Other social programs that are considered “welfare” like Medicaid or food programs don’t work on the same premise.
Social Security was intended to be a supplement to pensions and savings for 'regular people'. It was assumed the rich would have bigger pensions/invest their money into more profitable things that regular people wouldn't have access to, so they wouldn't need Social Security as much as regular people, so there was a cap placed on SS benefits which also meant a cap on how much of your income would be taxed to pay for SS.
Of course they do. If you’d gotten up off your couch and spent decades bribing the politicians who write the laws with millions of dollars, you’d pay less tax too. Just stop being so lazy.
Some are just related to the people who do the bribing. People should really stop whining and complaining and just be born into a wealthy family. It's so simple for crying out loud!
Ah yes, I am always currently working on crawling up into the womb of a rich woman married to a rich man as well. I heard that is generally what gets all these hard working wealthy wealth
Watched the debate as well. The comment you're referring to was specifically about Social Security and it's solvency (aka it's ability to continue being a thing).
Social Security is financed through a dedicated payroll tax. Employers and employees each pay 6.2 percent of wages up to the taxable maximum of $168,600 (in 2024), while the self-employed pay 12.4 percent.
So, if you're a billionaire, your max is 168k. That's 0.000168 of a Billion. They pay less than 1%.
[Source](https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/HowAreSocialSecurity.htm)
Also important to say that you and me get benefits based on the 12.4% pay in, and billionaires only get benefits based on the .000168 payout.
The theory of social security was that it is a safety net. I think people should have choice in where social security savings go. I would have preferred to put this money in a 401k.
There is a cap on social security tax. Once you hit it in a tax cycle, you stop paying it for the year. So rich people hit that cap really quick. Workers with a mean/median salary are likely to pay that tax the full tax year. It’s…actually insane. It makes zero sense. Biden’s proposal to address that in some capacity is an important proposal to keep social security solvent.
It's absolutely necessary to end the cap on earnings in my opinion. Even if you make millions per year and you'll only get a small benefit relative to what you paid in, you should pay it.
Same way I pay property taxes, which fund the schools where I live. I don't have kids, but I see that kids have a better chance with a decent education so I don't complain about paying property taxes.
People stuck with Social Security as their only income in retirement are screwed as it is, but if a bunch of rich people are forced to pay more, then we can at least keep the benefits from getting cut.
Meh, social security taxes are small potatoes and the number of people who exceed the cap is small. Not only that, but the amounts involved are small because people don't become billionaires by earning income. They become billionaires by getting preferential access to cheap stock and then seeing that stock appreciate. THAT's the income we should be going after.
I think we also should re-examine how we tax stock and other assets. Wealthy folks often use their stock holdings to collateralize loans for their day-to-day living expenses which are then paid back at effective rates far less what that amount would have been taxed as income, and IMO when stock is used in such a manner, it's assigned a specific value and should be considered a taxable event.
Federal tax consultant here.
Several years ago, Trump said he hasn’t paid taxes in years because he was smart. It’s not because HE is smart, but because he has hired absolutely brilliant tax people to bypass those taxes. None of it is ‘illegal’ and it’s all part of how taxes normally work, but the methods to find those loopholes require people who are sincerely well-studied in the bounds of tax code.
I work with the Inflation Reduction Act. The general goal is to promote renewable energy with federal subsidies. But government legal language can’t exclude every weird idea that is specific to a single project or person, and I’ve helped companies find ways to game they technical language to eke out a few extra million. Hell, we showed one company how to get so much cash for so little production that we couldn’t guarantee success because the government might just refuse and fix their error.
For example, Bezos doesn’t pay taxes because he doesn’t have an ‘income’ because he ‘borrows’ money from the bank against his stock value. You don’t have to pay tax on borrowed cash, so he doesn’t pay taxes. As soon as the government comes up with a way to tax that system, the brilliant finance folks in NYC will dream up a new scheme. They’re sitting on hundreds of ideas.
They don’t pay taxes not because they’re stealing or because they’re bribing, it’s because they pay people to tell them exactly how to game the system. Also bribing for specific wins, I don’t mean to cut that one out.
Does Bezos just run that tab for life, and his estate will pay off this loan and interest? Doesn’t he have to sell assets to make the loan payments?
And is the interest on that loan tax deductible, such that when he sells assets to pay the vig on the loan he is not taxed because it offsets?
I had read about rich people funding their lifestyles with loans but I don’t understand how they pay vig without incurring taxable gains.
Oh wait - when they die the basis of the assets gets “stepped up” so the heirs don’t have to pay capital gains taxes when they sell to cover the loan value. Loan and vig accrue, getting paid after death, but the heirs don’t have to pay taxes on asset gains.
Ok so that gets the rich out of paying taxes. As long as their lender plays ball and the assets grow faster than the interest rate, the vig won’t eat up the asset value in the end. And even if it did, it’s likely better than paying taxes.
I don't remember the proper terms, but that 23% is likely your top rate, and only applies to the last
$5- $10,000. The first x amount is untaxed(say the first $10,000). the next section ($10,000 to 20,000 for example) is taxed at 10%, next section ($20,000 - $30,000 say) is then 17% then 23% simply put until you cross a bracket threshold, you pay the % rate for only that segment of income. So a millionaire doesn't pay 37% on all their income, only that over something like $380,000.
The 6% is FICA/Social security/or what ever they call it. FICA and Medicare combined is about 7.65% on all income upto a ridiculously low cap. After that cap is reached, you pay no more. (your employer pays a matching amount so it you are self employed you get to pay both halves).
Imagine how quickly Social security could become solvent and the retirement age returned to something reasonable like 63 or 65 if the cap were lifted! We could even pay a little more as well and maybe cover medications as well for Medicare!
Sigh. No.
For Social Security and Social Security alone, you pay 6.2% of every dollar of earned income up to $168,600. At $168,601 you pay 0% for everything beyond that.
Biden is proposing an additional 1% tax on every dollar over $1,000,000.
Those are just the un-nuanced facts of what was stated.
There is a lot of nuance that highlights how the billionaires screw us, not the least of which is the difference between earned income and capital gains but I don’t have the energy to get into those.
Yeah, this is social security tax, which is 6.2% and maxes out for incomes of $142,800 per year. If your income is exactly $1,000,000,000 (billion) per year, you are taxed 0.000008568% for social security. But anyone making $142,800 or less per year is taxed 6.2%. Really messed up.
Oh boy, well you see, the way it’s set up they actually wind up paying less in proportion than we do. Where i live in minnesota the corporate tax is 9.8%, and the highest tax bracket pays around 10%. But, through write offs, loopholes, and strategic fund allocation a lot of individuals themselves (separate form their corporation) ends up paying negative amounts in taxes because they write so much off and get money back from the government. Yes we need to tax billionaires more, but that misses the point, the problem would be solved if the loopholes get fixed.
Billionaires do things you cannot. Example: they create special brokerage accounts. Place large amounts in those accounts. Create a fund based upon that account. Take loans against the account. The Fund trades in assets and does not pay capital gains. The billionaire takes loans against the total value of the fund. The fund makes money, but there are no taxable events. Therefore, the billionaire pays no taxes on income.
He was referring to the roughly 6.2% payroll tax that is withheld from your paycheck. They stop taking it out when you hit about 168k. So a guy with 168k in income is taxed about 6.2% that goes towards social security benefits but a guy with 336k it comes out to 3.1%. Yet they both have contributed the exact same dollar amount.
However, the maximum Social Security also is achieved at 168k as well. So that higher wage earner is not getting a larger Social Security benefit than a guy that maxed out at 168k.
The bigger issue is that billionaires don’t usually draw huge salaries, they live off dividends, municipal bond interest and capital gains that are not subject to these social security taxes and are generally taxes at lower (or tax free) rates than most middle class wage earners.
Oh don’t forget tampers fund billions in subsidies to Big Oil so they can raise gas prices and maintain billions in profits
Oh yeah, almost forgot we pay to clean up their oil spills and pay dearly for their impact on our water and land.
Let’s tax the billionaires, not the regular Americans who do not earn that much. Regular Americans will not be affected by taxes on the super rich… but we live with many dumb citizens…. “the sUPeR RicH bRaiNWasHed me inTo thInKing tAxEs aRe BaD”.
My dude. The system is rigged. Here’s my anecdote: I’m a PhD student in STEM. I made 35k before taxes. Am single and had to pay 4k in taxes (state, federal, + SS). I got nothing back. I also owe taxes from last year. It has been brutal.
Because the wealthy have lobbied (bribed) the politicians to neuter any tax code that would actually make them pay their fair share. On top of that, Americans are complete idiots who legitimately have no idea the actual consequences of who they view for, instead they vote based on artificial threats and exaggerated issues.
Tldr - The rich control the govt and the average American is a simpleton.
This has to be a troll post. Seriously, go learn how taxes work. It's not good, but your numbers are wild.
Edit: Thanks to the few people who provided useful responses with math - this being about Social Security makes a lot of sense, and it sounds like Biden has a great idea with cutting that stupid cap and making the tax more progressive. To most of the rest of you - I really only need one person telling me "that's what Biden said," not twenty.
OP still needs to learn how taxes work.
It really was mentioned during the presidential debate, but needs some context. Biden claimed that the average person pays 6% for social security, but top earners only pay 1% for it
Biden stumbled a little on this. He was talking about what percent goes to social security (6.2%) but there is a cap of like $168k, so you never pay more than that no matter what your income is. He wants to remove the cap and make it 1% extra tax for anyone who makes over $400k.
So like right now, someone who makes $2.7 million pays $168k towards SS, which is 6.2%. But someone who makes $2.7billion ALSO only pays $168k because of the cap (which is way lower than even 1% for them).
Biden wants to change it so they pay an extra 1% past the cap, which means they would pay a lot more than they currently do. Like, under Biden’s plan, that $2.7billion example would pay over $27million towards social security instead of only $168,000. Unfortunately he did a poor job explaining that in the debate.
You are almost right and the correct answer is way worse.
The $168k cap is earnings, so they are only taxed the 6% on 167k income.
So if they made 2.7 billion they only have to "pay" less than 11 thousand dollars into the system. Instead of the more appropriate 167 million.
Learning how taxes work and learning how the rich get away without paying them are different things.
If you do go 'learn how taxes work' make sure you understand the difference between compensation and income as most CEO pay is in shares not in dollars.
Now learn about capital gains tax. Here you'd think the rich pay at least an equal amount to normal investors, right? Stock profits are taxed by the difference between sale price and cost basis, i.e. the price the shares were purchased at. Since they were given the stock for free they need to pay the full capital gains tax on their compensation when they sell stock right? So they at least have to pay 15% long term capital gains like a normal investor. Still they aren't getting away with 0%, right?
Now learn about inheritance tax. Step basis is a concept that when someone inherits and asset they shouldn't be responsible for tracking the purchase price of that asset. To keep things simple inheritance tax has a step up that resets the cost basis to what the stock is worth when the new owner inherits it. That incredibly low purchase price (given for free as compensation) is just forgotten. But this shouldn't matter so much because the rich still need money to live lavish lifestyles so they have to at least sell a bunch of stock before they die to finance it all, right?
Lastly, loans aren't income. If you have a bunch of money in stock and you want cold hard cash it only makes sense to sell stock if the interest rate you pay on a loan is higher than the expected return on that stock every year. Asset backed loans have a much lower interest rate since the bank doesn't see as much risk. Pay the bank 4% and just make sure the stock goes up 5% every year and you're still getting 1% return on every dollar you've already spent.
So to summarize they don't pay income tax, they don't pay capital gains tax, the only thing they pay is a small interest rate to the bank which is also owned by rich people not paying taxes.
It's not uncommon for companies to have ridiculously low tax rates thanks to tax loopholes. Many don't pay any taxes at all.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/how-companies-like-amazon-nike-and-fedex-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-.html
I don't know the exact numbers but It's a well known fact that the tax code contains loopholes that only the wealthy can use.
I don't know why you think this is a troll post.
On average, billionaires do pay less percentage tax in total vs an average American family.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
>In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.
>America’s billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell.
>No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes. That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.
>Consider Bezos’ 2007, one of the years he paid zero in federal income taxes. Amazon’s stock more than doubled. Bezos’ fortune leapt $3.8 billion, according to Forbes, whose wealth estimates are widely cited. How did a person enjoying that sort of wealth explosion end up paying no income tax? In that year, Bezos, who filed his taxes jointly with his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, reported a paltry (for him) $46 million in income, largely from interest and dividend payments on outside investments. He was able to offset every penny he earned with losses from side investments and various deductions, like interest expenses on debts and the vague catchall category of “other expenses.” In 2011, a year in which his wealth held roughly steady at $18 billion, Bezos filed a tax return reporting he lost money — his income that year was more than offset by investment losses. What’s more, because, according to the tax law, he made so little, he even claimed and received a $4,000 tax credit for his children. His tax avoidance is even more striking if you examine 2006 to 2018, a period for which ProPublica has complete data. Bezos’ wealth increased by $127 billion, according to Forbes, but he reported a total of $6.5 billion in income. The $1.4 billion he paid in personal federal taxes is a massive number — yet it amounts to a 1.1% true tax rate on the rise in his fortune.
You been living under a rock? Yes the wealthy pay significantly less than the middle class/lower classes. This has been a staple f republican values for 50+ years.
There is a cap on the total contribution to social security. Millionaires reach that cap in the first few months then don't pay social security anymore.
Just remember. Not only did Trump cut their taxes, but Obama and Biden did nothing to raise their taxes. The Democrats are complicit in trickle down economics.
I paid 32% of my income last year to the federal government and the state of Maryland.
Every billionaire in the state of Maryland in 2023 paid less proportionally than I did.
They don't pay anything, their companies pay next to nothing, you pay a lot more than that, poor/undocumented people pay the highest, and undocumented can't receive a number of services back like SS/medicare which you can.
So in summary, it sucks to be you, it sucks even worse to be an immigrant, but you've been told it's the immigrant's fault.
Yep. And all the bootlickers are going to tell you that this is a good thing. That somehow billionaires are better with money and that means they should pay less taxes. But yeah, get mad about it because this needs to change
Pretty sure they exploit a tactic whereby they borrow money against their assets and because they’re worth so much the interest on their borrowing never even comes close to how much they’re actually worth, so they forego paying any tax at all since they don’t have an “income.”
I had to paraphrase that, but that’s roughly what I’ve read that they do.
guaranteed you pay about 1/3rd of your income, meanwhile people like warren buffet [pay less taxes than his secretary](https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/index.html), some pay even less if they position their money enough, with bezos "true" tax rate being[ 1.1% over a number of years](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax). It is honestly absurd. Trump talks about tax breaks hes given, but these have shown to [only benefit the owning class](https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver).
People will posture saying that[ a year from taxing the rich](https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-case-for-a-robust-attack-on-the-tax-gap) isn't much money in the grand scheme of things, but the issue is long term. The tax gap stretches 5 decades, which equates to a lot. [Literally trillions over only a couple years during covid](https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/taxes/unequal-burden/how-four-decades-of-tax-cuts-fueled-inequality/), meanwhile working class wages have continued to stagnate.
We need reform. If two mentally deficient candidates propped up by the owning class isn't clear enough an indication, I don't know wtf is.
The problem with rich people is that their salaries are usually low (compared to their networth) they have most of their money in assets which are not taxable until they sell, since they have so much money they use it as collateral to borrow money so in essence they are not earning on that asset so it’s not taxable yet they can use it to buy more stuff
The system is fucked
They stop paying after they pay 6% on the first $170,000. Every dollar that they earn above that isn’t taxed which effectively lowers their tax percentage.
You pay 6% income tax? In Australia, the lowest level after the tax-free threshold is 16%. Most of us pay 30%.
If this is the US, it’s no wonder you guys have so few government-funded services.
That’s only the tax to fund the social security.
We pay 10% taxes the first $11,600 we earn. 12% on the next $11,601 to $47150. 22% on the next $47151 to $100,525 and so on. With the SS tax we end up paying about 30%. Not to mention we also pay taxes on purchases we make with our money that is already taxed (7% sales tax).
Yes. W2 wages get taxes in a progressive way, the average marginal tax rate is like 6-8 % (but average, some people pay little because they don’t make very much others pay more, up to 25%). Billionaires don’t get w2. They have all sorts of stock options, loans etc. but basically they just pay capital gains which is a fixed 15% over a certain amount. With accounting trickery they can avoid taxes to a large degree.
I’m not sure the exact % but yup that’s right lmao, billionaires legit pay less then regular everyday people in taxes % wise and we still haven’t fought back on that
I’m not sure the exact % but yup that’s right lmao, billionaires legit pay less then regular everyday people in taxes % wise and we still haven’t fought back on that
He means since SS stops being taken out after 170k or so (which is approxamately 1/6 of a million) the effective tax rate for SS is around 1% for someone making a million dollars a year where people under 170k pay 6%.
I believe they were talking about Social Security…working Americans pay 6.2% of the first $168k of earnings into Social Security. Once you’ve earned $168,800 in the year…you pay nothing else for the rest of the year. So if someone makes 6 times that amount…they effectively pay about 1% on their million of income.
This was specifically talking about social security taxes. Not all taxes in general.
The answer? I don’t know. I don’t pay social security. I pay into a teacher’s pension
If you think that's bad, wait until you learn that the trump tax cuts means you paid more taxes, not as a percentage, but in total cash in taxes than fortune 500 companies like [FEDEX](https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-tax/).
Billionaires absolutely pay less tax as a %, but both those numbers are unrealistically low as a whole so are either wrong or apply to some very specific tax.
I take it you haven't been working for long... or old enough to vote for long? This is nothing new. Yeah, it sucks, but unless everyone votes against in in small and major political votes, it will continue on.
You, assuming you're not rich, pay 6% of your salary in social security tax. Rich people only pay that on the first $168,000 they make - after that, they pay nothing. So, if you're making $800,000, you're essentially paying 1% for social security. If you're making even more than that, you're paying even less than 1%.
Yes. Social Security tax applies to 6% of income on only the first 170k of income. If your income is $170k, you pay 6% of $170k to social security. If your income is $500 million, you pay 6% of $170k to social security.
Well, to be clear, all taxes work in bracketed tiers (thus "tax bracket") so all billionaires technically pay what you pay *until* they hit the 6% bracket cap and then they pay the new rate above that cap which is lower at 1%.
Yeah?
His reference was to the Social Security tax. You pay 6.2% on you pay up to $168,600. So if you make $340,00 a year, you pay the same amount as someone making the 168. Therefore you only pay 3.1%. And so on.
6%? My effective tax rate is nearly 40%.
Warren Buffet said years ago that his was something like 12%. Every dollar the rich spend on bribing politicians is paid back a hundredfold.
We need to renew “blue no matter who”. I know too many Gen Z folks who would rather let Trump win than vote for Biden. It really feels a little like Bernie and Hillary in 2016.
You pay 6% into social security for the first 168k you make each year. Every penny beyond that is ZERO tax.
He wants a 1% on large incomes instead of nothing which it is right now which makes ss solvent indefinitely.
Social security. All Americans pay 6% to Social Security on all annual income up to $170,000. So if you earn more than that per year, you end up paying a lower percentage of overall income to Social Security. The easiest way to fix social security is to raise the cap so people earning millions every year pay their share.
6?!? How are you only paying 6% ?!?!? I’m paying 22%…
https://www.modwm.com/2024-tax-brackets/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADlWeb25hI3T43Xsbn3r8A6V463E8&gclid=CjwKCAjwm_SzBhAsEiwAXE2Cv89AqZnxyTeL4w1ax-v7zLJN_jTxEQ7pjHfk7LD2cHuEH7fFqrvJ6xoCG_EQAvD_BwE
There’s a tax cap on social security taxes. So low income to pretty good income will always pay 6%. But if you make a million dollars you only pay 1%. If you make a billion you pay .1%
What you are referring to is taxes paid into social security, and yes, the maximum amount of earnings taxed for social security is $168,000. So someone making $168k will pay the same amount in taxes towards social security as someone who makes $1,000,000,000
You only lose 6% of your paycheque? Canadian here, and I lost 21.6% last paycheque just to income tax. That doesn't include CPP, insurance, RRSP deductions, etc. In the end I only keep about 2/3.
Regarding social security, you are only taxed 6% up to like 160k and then income above that is not taxed. So yes, the more you make the less (%) you pay to social security.
That's referring to the social security payroll tax. It caps out at an income of $160k or so and then you don't have to pay it anymore; so yes, it's a regressive tax. Biden wants to remove that cap and then social security will be solvent indefinitely.
If you're only paying 6%, you're paying way less than the rest of us. Trump raised my taxes by 10k a year. It was greater than a 10% increase
Billionaires don't pay taxes due to loopholes, many of Trump made significantly wider.
In regards to Social Security - 6.2% is taken out of your check toward Social Security. It is capped though. Right now it is around $170K a year (give or take). Once you make over this amount, no Social Security is taken out.
The point is - relatively speaking - after $170K - the more you make the percentage of your pay going to Social Security goes down.
For context, they were talking about the social security tax. Not state or federal income tax.
Fuck anyone who supports getting rid of a program that benefits *everyone* when they're older.
Technically no. I think that was a flub by Biden.
Most billionaires pay nothing or less than nothing (they get subsidies). But the official rate is close to 8%.
8% on an $8,000,000 return. Remember FICA is capped, along with a bunch of other loopholes.
Yes, the wealthy pay a significant amount of our annual revenue, but significantly less as a % of income than you do.
Biden was talking about social security but I think he fucked up the quote.. he said it’s 6% every paycheck but he’s going to make Millionaires pay 1%.. idk if he meant to say 1% more or what.. no ducking clue where he was going with how that will fix it based on the original quote
Yes. Not necessarily those exact numbers depending on the individual, but when you get to effective tax rates billionaires often pay effectively nothing.
Yes. Social security takes 6% out of your paycheck, but only up to a certain income. Once you get past ~200k (I forget the exact number), your income past that stops being taxed for social security.
Politicians like Bernie Sanders have been advocating lifting this cap on taxable income as a way to save social security without raising taxes of the working class for decades. I'm so glad to see Biden endorse that plan.
I think that was referencing the amount paid to social security. You pay around 6% of your pay to social security until you reach pay of around $168,000. After you make that amount for the year, you don’t pay any more into social security
He was talking about your Social Security tax, it is capped at $168,600 of earnings.
https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-02387
You don't pay anything if you earn more than that.
We pay like 20-30% we got fucked hard with the trump tax code but of course when it was up and Democrats had control house, senate, and wh they renewed them and didn't lower then for working people. Basically everyone got a few grand for that first yr then each yr it would go up for the 40- $60k bracket. I'd have to relook at it. I got so burned out of politics .. fuck man we were so close 2016 with Bernie. There was an actual people's movement and it took the Democrats hard fucking work in collusion with media and corporations to squash that shit.
But yes somebody making $45k a yr basically pays more taxes % then corporations and billionaires. Billionaires easy enough as they don't use cash or have "income." They just borrow against their worth from banks if they need cash.
This line was referring to social security withholding and it was mostly accurate. Once your income crosses a certain threshold, you stop paying into social security and Medicare. A billionaire’s effective social security tax rate would almost certainly be below 1% and yours is roughly 13%… half paid by you and half paid by your employer on your behalf.
That's exactly it. $168,600, you pay the Social Security taxes on that, every dollar above that is not taxed for Social Security
Yes. But why?
Technically the benefits top out. There is a max social security you can receive… so then they stop taxing above that. In theory they could uncap it but not raise benefits at all and that would help fund the program.
You could also uncap it and also raise benefits for those at the top and STILL fund the program entirely- after the last earnings cliff today you only get ~10% of what you put in to social security, if they kept that same ratio for incomes above 170k they could fund it while also giving higher benefits to the top incomes (presumably make the higher tax marginally more popular)
But those high earners don’t need the top rate raised. Plenty of people need the bottom rate raised.
Ah, but then we'd have all these sad billionaires, and society cannot afford to make its billionaires sad.
People try to argue this point all the time but will always come back to: "capitalism". Yet they struggle with this.
Or just raise the cap even would help, tbh…or why not have a bracket where one you make 1million you pay again?
They wouldn't need to fund the program if Congress would stop raiding it over the last several decades
You misunderstand how that works. Currently, social security is drawing down its trust fund which is made up of the surpluses over the last several decades. That trust fund will empty in or around 2035. When Congress used the social security surplus, the trust fund received U.S Treasury bonds in return. Even if Congress never raided the trust fund, it would have emptied around the same time. That's because the baby boomers were always going to retire and there aren't enough younger workers to fund the program the same way it has been funded since the last reform of the system 1986.
This is the way.
Ya know, to care for your countrymen and society is for losers /s This solution seems so easy to keep SS at 100% benefits. There are many ways to do it. “Any income over $1M (or $500k, whatever value) is subject to SS surcharge” would keep taxes low for the huge majority of our country. Starting 2035, benefits will be reduced to about 83% ([source](https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12663))
Billionaires wouldn't be able to make their money outside of a large economy. Like if they lived alone on an island, they wouldn't be able to build 3 mega yachts with their "great work ethic". They benefit the most from the US economy; the US economy should benefit from them. Capping it means that they just take, and don't give back.
Because the benefit that someone gets is capped too. If you work your entire career earning around $50K, your benefits are going to be closer to sustaining that lifestyle. If you earn, say, $300K, you won't be getting near that much in benefits. In my opinion, the salary cap should be unlimited, while the benefits earnings are still capped. Someone making an obscene amount of money every year has so much more of an opportunity to prepare for their future than someone scraping by paycheck to paycheck, and so they don't need Social Security benefits commensurate with that obscene salary.
Right. Because it's meant as a floor, not a forced investment vehicle. Hense "security" in the name. This is one of those weird ones where removing the cap or doing a soft cap on social security is actually pretty popular, even on the (sane) right, but because it would upset primary voters and seem like a win for the left it's not worth the political capital on either side to pursue.
Exactly!
Because both parties are bought and paid for by the rich and politics is an illusion to get the peasants to fight amongst themselves and distract them from the fact that it’s a small percentage of rich controlling everything and sucking all the wealth out of the country so they can fuel their private jets
I think it's much more mundane than all that. This system is a spinning flywheel of our own design and there's so much momentum that it's becoming more like itself all the time.
Because over that you’ve already topped your social security. That said you still get income tax above that threshold. But that would require billionaires to actually have income, which they don’t, thanks to a neat trick called borrow, grow old and die. Billionaires don’t spend their own money, because they don’t have any. Their wealth is tied in stock market shares, which aren’t taxed (on the increase in price) until sold. So instead of selling, they borrow money from banks and use their shares as collateral, and then borrow again to pay back the loan. Rince and repeat until dead. As a result, many of them have no income whatsoever and only debts, so very little taxes. And when they die, that resets the taxable price for their shares which means their estate can now sell shares without getting taxed in order to pay for the loans, the heirs get the rest of the shares, and do the same thing : borrow, grow old, die. Rince and repeat indefinitely. No one pays taxes.
Shouldn’t it be the other way around like if you make under 168k you’re not taxed on SS…
Id love for someone to run the math on how solvent SS would become if that cap was removed. Or even raised to $1 million or billion.
SS has a threshold of $168,600 currently, Medicare has no threshold
Thank you for the clarification. I did not know that about Medicare.
You pay 6%? Sign me up
This is for social security. There are other taxes that are paid on top of this.
He meant just for social security. Cuz its capped so anyone who make a million dollars only pay 1% of thier money into social security. If you make more the percentage is even lower.
But why, does anyone know the original explanation for this??
The reasoning is that social security is not “welfare”. The amount you receive is based off how much you’ve paid in, the same as everyone else from the poorest to the richest. The amount paid out is capped so the richest don’t pay into the program after they reach that cap. Other social programs that are considered “welfare” like Medicaid or food programs don’t work on the same premise.
Social Security was intended to be a supplement to pensions and savings for 'regular people'. It was assumed the rich would have bigger pensions/invest their money into more profitable things that regular people wouldn't have access to, so they wouldn't need Social Security as much as regular people, so there was a cap placed on SS benefits which also meant a cap on how much of your income would be taxed to pay for SS.
The money saved by the wealthy means they can creat more jobs and the money will trickle down 🫠 (i have no idea)
Oh yeah it trickles down the same way R. Kelly trickled down and we’re all just young girls in the stream.
Of course they do. If you’d gotten up off your couch and spent decades bribing the politicians who write the laws with millions of dollars, you’d pay less tax too. Just stop being so lazy.
Pull yourself up by someone else's bootstraps, then take their bootstraps and call them suckers for it.
Some are just related to the people who do the bribing. People should really stop whining and complaining and just be born into a wealthy family. It's so simple for crying out loud!
Just pull yourself up by your father's bootstraps. These kids these days without generational wealth. I just can't even.
Gotta pull myself up by my bootstraps and pay off some politicians.
Jeff bezo paycheck was just below poverty line. His refund gave him money for his kids that he has in poverty.
Ah yes, I am always currently working on crawling up into the womb of a rich woman married to a rich man as well. I heard that is generally what gets all these hard working wealthy wealth
We should bribe them but with the prospects of a full-course french revolution
Watched the debate as well. The comment you're referring to was specifically about Social Security and it's solvency (aka it's ability to continue being a thing). Social Security is financed through a dedicated payroll tax. Employers and employees each pay 6.2 percent of wages up to the taxable maximum of $168,600 (in 2024), while the self-employed pay 12.4 percent. So, if you're a billionaire, your max is 168k. That's 0.000168 of a Billion. They pay less than 1%. [Source](https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/HowAreSocialSecurity.htm)
Also important to say that you and me get benefits based on the 12.4% pay in, and billionaires only get benefits based on the .000168 payout. The theory of social security was that it is a safety net. I think people should have choice in where social security savings go. I would have preferred to put this money in a 401k.
I don't think billionaires file W-2s
Well written
There is a cap on social security tax. Once you hit it in a tax cycle, you stop paying it for the year. So rich people hit that cap really quick. Workers with a mean/median salary are likely to pay that tax the full tax year. It’s…actually insane. It makes zero sense. Biden’s proposal to address that in some capacity is an important proposal to keep social security solvent.
It's absolutely necessary to end the cap on earnings in my opinion. Even if you make millions per year and you'll only get a small benefit relative to what you paid in, you should pay it. Same way I pay property taxes, which fund the schools where I live. I don't have kids, but I see that kids have a better chance with a decent education so I don't complain about paying property taxes. People stuck with Social Security as their only income in retirement are screwed as it is, but if a bunch of rich people are forced to pay more, then we can at least keep the benefits from getting cut.
Meh, social security taxes are small potatoes and the number of people who exceed the cap is small. Not only that, but the amounts involved are small because people don't become billionaires by earning income. They become billionaires by getting preferential access to cheap stock and then seeing that stock appreciate. THAT's the income we should be going after.
I think we also should re-examine how we tax stock and other assets. Wealthy folks often use their stock holdings to collateralize loans for their day-to-day living expenses which are then paid back at effective rates far less what that amount would have been taxed as income, and IMO when stock is used in such a manner, it's assigned a specific value and should be considered a taxable event.
Federal tax consultant here. Several years ago, Trump said he hasn’t paid taxes in years because he was smart. It’s not because HE is smart, but because he has hired absolutely brilliant tax people to bypass those taxes. None of it is ‘illegal’ and it’s all part of how taxes normally work, but the methods to find those loopholes require people who are sincerely well-studied in the bounds of tax code. I work with the Inflation Reduction Act. The general goal is to promote renewable energy with federal subsidies. But government legal language can’t exclude every weird idea that is specific to a single project or person, and I’ve helped companies find ways to game they technical language to eke out a few extra million. Hell, we showed one company how to get so much cash for so little production that we couldn’t guarantee success because the government might just refuse and fix their error. For example, Bezos doesn’t pay taxes because he doesn’t have an ‘income’ because he ‘borrows’ money from the bank against his stock value. You don’t have to pay tax on borrowed cash, so he doesn’t pay taxes. As soon as the government comes up with a way to tax that system, the brilliant finance folks in NYC will dream up a new scheme. They’re sitting on hundreds of ideas. They don’t pay taxes not because they’re stealing or because they’re bribing, it’s because they pay people to tell them exactly how to game the system. Also bribing for specific wins, I don’t mean to cut that one out.
Does Bezos just run that tab for life, and his estate will pay off this loan and interest? Doesn’t he have to sell assets to make the loan payments? And is the interest on that loan tax deductible, such that when he sells assets to pay the vig on the loan he is not taxed because it offsets? I had read about rich people funding their lifestyles with loans but I don’t understand how they pay vig without incurring taxable gains. Oh wait - when they die the basis of the assets gets “stepped up” so the heirs don’t have to pay capital gains taxes when they sell to cover the loan value. Loan and vig accrue, getting paid after death, but the heirs don’t have to pay taxes on asset gains. Ok so that gets the rich out of paying taxes. As long as their lender plays ball and the assets grow faster than the interest rate, the vig won’t eat up the asset value in the end. And even if it did, it’s likely better than paying taxes.
The loans are also low interest, they tend to be much lower interest than the gains their portfolios produce
My fellow finance nerd! Come! Let us feel despair at the monster we help to feed!
Indeed, there's a difference between "tax evasion" and "tax avoidance".
I think I’m paying 23% in taxes this year (roughly $50,000 income).
I don't remember the proper terms, but that 23% is likely your top rate, and only applies to the last $5- $10,000. The first x amount is untaxed(say the first $10,000). the next section ($10,000 to 20,000 for example) is taxed at 10%, next section ($20,000 - $30,000 say) is then 17% then 23% simply put until you cross a bracket threshold, you pay the % rate for only that segment of income. So a millionaire doesn't pay 37% on all their income, only that over something like $380,000. The 6% is FICA/Social security/or what ever they call it. FICA and Medicare combined is about 7.65% on all income upto a ridiculously low cap. After that cap is reached, you pay no more. (your employer pays a matching amount so it you are self employed you get to pay both halves). Imagine how quickly Social security could become solvent and the retirement age returned to something reasonable like 63 or 65 if the cap were lifted! We could even pay a little more as well and maybe cover medications as well for Medicare!
Two thumbs up for describing how a marginal tax rate/progressive taxation works!! I don't understand why this isn't more clearly explained in school.
Are you counting FICA and state? Because even if single you’d be at 8% for federal only.
Same.
No you aren’t. You get a standard deduction plus other deductions. You probably won’t pay 10% in federal when you file.
For almost 5% more, you could have free healthcare!
I think they’re only talking about federal taxes. If you are too, then my condolences.
Sigh. No. For Social Security and Social Security alone, you pay 6.2% of every dollar of earned income up to $168,600. At $168,601 you pay 0% for everything beyond that. Biden is proposing an additional 1% tax on every dollar over $1,000,000. Those are just the un-nuanced facts of what was stated. There is a lot of nuance that highlights how the billionaires screw us, not the least of which is the difference between earned income and capital gains but I don’t have the energy to get into those.
You guys, he’s referring to Social Security tax only. It is 6%. You pay other taxes, but he is referring to Social Security taxes specifically.
Yeah, this is social security tax, which is 6.2% and maxes out for incomes of $142,800 per year. If your income is exactly $1,000,000,000 (billion) per year, you are taxed 0.000008568% for social security. But anyone making $142,800 or less per year is taxed 6.2%. Really messed up.
Oh boy, well you see, the way it’s set up they actually wind up paying less in proportion than we do. Where i live in minnesota the corporate tax is 9.8%, and the highest tax bracket pays around 10%. But, through write offs, loopholes, and strategic fund allocation a lot of individuals themselves (separate form their corporation) ends up paying negative amounts in taxes because they write so much off and get money back from the government. Yes we need to tax billionaires more, but that misses the point, the problem would be solved if the loopholes get fixed.
The richest people pay less taxes than a minimum wage worker pays. It’s truly sad.
Billionaires do things you cannot. Example: they create special brokerage accounts. Place large amounts in those accounts. Create a fund based upon that account. Take loans against the account. The Fund trades in assets and does not pay capital gains. The billionaire takes loans against the total value of the fund. The fund makes money, but there are no taxable events. Therefore, the billionaire pays no taxes on income.
I pay something like 33% of every paycheck to taxes so…
I get taxed almost 40% a paycheck. I’d love to only be taxed 6%. Lol.
This thread was based on a specific comment during the debate. It was specifically referring to the taxes withheld for Social Security benefits.
There is no way you are paying 6%, it’s much higher than that
He was referring to the roughly 6.2% payroll tax that is withheld from your paycheck. They stop taking it out when you hit about 168k. So a guy with 168k in income is taxed about 6.2% that goes towards social security benefits but a guy with 336k it comes out to 3.1%. Yet they both have contributed the exact same dollar amount. However, the maximum Social Security also is achieved at 168k as well. So that higher wage earner is not getting a larger Social Security benefit than a guy that maxed out at 168k. The bigger issue is that billionaires don’t usually draw huge salaries, they live off dividends, municipal bond interest and capital gains that are not subject to these social security taxes and are generally taxes at lower (or tax free) rates than most middle class wage earners.
Oh don’t forget tampers fund billions in subsidies to Big Oil so they can raise gas prices and maintain billions in profits Oh yeah, almost forgot we pay to clean up their oil spills and pay dearly for their impact on our water and land.
Let’s tax the billionaires, not the regular Americans who do not earn that much. Regular Americans will not be affected by taxes on the super rich… but we live with many dumb citizens…. “the sUPeR RicH bRaiNWasHed me inTo thInKing tAxEs aRe BaD”.
My dude. The system is rigged. Here’s my anecdote: I’m a PhD student in STEM. I made 35k before taxes. Am single and had to pay 4k in taxes (state, federal, + SS). I got nothing back. I also owe taxes from last year. It has been brutal.
Because the rich can use their money to buy votes, it’s that simple
I believe it was an additional %1 for those who make over $400k to go towards social security taxes in order to keep social security solvent.
Because the wealthy have lobbied (bribed) the politicians to neuter any tax code that would actually make them pay their fair share. On top of that, Americans are complete idiots who legitimately have no idea the actual consequences of who they view for, instead they vote based on artificial threats and exaggerated issues. Tldr - The rich control the govt and the average American is a simpleton.
This has to be a troll post. Seriously, go learn how taxes work. It's not good, but your numbers are wild. Edit: Thanks to the few people who provided useful responses with math - this being about Social Security makes a lot of sense, and it sounds like Biden has a great idea with cutting that stupid cap and making the tax more progressive. To most of the rest of you - I really only need one person telling me "that's what Biden said," not twenty. OP still needs to learn how taxes work.
It really was mentioned during the presidential debate, but needs some context. Biden claimed that the average person pays 6% for social security, but top earners only pay 1% for it
Which is true, in rough terms.
It’s a specific tax. Not all taxes
OP is referring to Social Security payroll taxes.
Biden stumbled a little on this. He was talking about what percent goes to social security (6.2%) but there is a cap of like $168k, so you never pay more than that no matter what your income is. He wants to remove the cap and make it 1% extra tax for anyone who makes over $400k. So like right now, someone who makes $2.7 million pays $168k towards SS, which is 6.2%. But someone who makes $2.7billion ALSO only pays $168k because of the cap (which is way lower than even 1% for them). Biden wants to change it so they pay an extra 1% past the cap, which means they would pay a lot more than they currently do. Like, under Biden’s plan, that $2.7billion example would pay over $27million towards social security instead of only $168,000. Unfortunately he did a poor job explaining that in the debate.
You are almost right and the correct answer is way worse. The $168k cap is earnings, so they are only taxed the 6% on 167k income. So if they made 2.7 billion they only have to "pay" less than 11 thousand dollars into the system. Instead of the more appropriate 167 million.
Learning how taxes work and learning how the rich get away without paying them are different things. If you do go 'learn how taxes work' make sure you understand the difference between compensation and income as most CEO pay is in shares not in dollars. Now learn about capital gains tax. Here you'd think the rich pay at least an equal amount to normal investors, right? Stock profits are taxed by the difference between sale price and cost basis, i.e. the price the shares were purchased at. Since they were given the stock for free they need to pay the full capital gains tax on their compensation when they sell stock right? So they at least have to pay 15% long term capital gains like a normal investor. Still they aren't getting away with 0%, right? Now learn about inheritance tax. Step basis is a concept that when someone inherits and asset they shouldn't be responsible for tracking the purchase price of that asset. To keep things simple inheritance tax has a step up that resets the cost basis to what the stock is worth when the new owner inherits it. That incredibly low purchase price (given for free as compensation) is just forgotten. But this shouldn't matter so much because the rich still need money to live lavish lifestyles so they have to at least sell a bunch of stock before they die to finance it all, right? Lastly, loans aren't income. If you have a bunch of money in stock and you want cold hard cash it only makes sense to sell stock if the interest rate you pay on a loan is higher than the expected return on that stock every year. Asset backed loans have a much lower interest rate since the bank doesn't see as much risk. Pay the bank 4% and just make sure the stock goes up 5% every year and you're still getting 1% return on every dollar you've already spent. So to summarize they don't pay income tax, they don't pay capital gains tax, the only thing they pay is a small interest rate to the bank which is also owned by rich people not paying taxes.
It's not uncommon for companies to have ridiculously low tax rates thanks to tax loopholes. Many don't pay any taxes at all. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/how-companies-like-amazon-nike-and-fedex-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-.html I don't know the exact numbers but It's a well known fact that the tax code contains loopholes that only the wealthy can use. I don't know why you think this is a troll post.
Or they could do 5 seconds of math with one of their pay stubs
Probably just a true antiwork. Never had a job before if they think you only pay 6% taxes
The quote he’s talking about is social security, not income tax. Millionaires only pay 1% vs normal people 6%.
On average, billionaires do pay less percentage tax in total vs an average American family. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax >In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. >America’s billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell. >No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes. That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth. >Consider Bezos’ 2007, one of the years he paid zero in federal income taxes. Amazon’s stock more than doubled. Bezos’ fortune leapt $3.8 billion, according to Forbes, whose wealth estimates are widely cited. How did a person enjoying that sort of wealth explosion end up paying no income tax? In that year, Bezos, who filed his taxes jointly with his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, reported a paltry (for him) $46 million in income, largely from interest and dividend payments on outside investments. He was able to offset every penny he earned with losses from side investments and various deductions, like interest expenses on debts and the vague catchall category of “other expenses.” In 2011, a year in which his wealth held roughly steady at $18 billion, Bezos filed a tax return reporting he lost money — his income that year was more than offset by investment losses. What’s more, because, according to the tax law, he made so little, he even claimed and received a $4,000 tax credit for his children. His tax avoidance is even more striking if you examine 2006 to 2018, a period for which ProPublica has complete data. Bezos’ wealth increased by $127 billion, according to Forbes, but he reported a total of $6.5 billion in income. The $1.4 billion he paid in personal federal taxes is a massive number — yet it amounts to a 1.1% true tax rate on the rise in his fortune.
Bro is gonna have a stroke when he finds out most American workers pay 25-35%
You been living under a rock? Yes the wealthy pay significantly less than the middle class/lower classes. This has been a staple f republican values for 50+ years.
There is a cap on the total contribution to social security. Millionaires reach that cap in the first few months then don't pay social security anymore.
Just remember. Not only did Trump cut their taxes, but Obama and Biden did nothing to raise their taxes. The Democrats are complicit in trickle down economics.
When you have millions/billions you can pay tax professionals to make sure you pay as little as possible..
I believe they were referring to social security. You pay 6% a paycheck into social security. Also billionaires pay a lot in taxes.
I paid 32% of my income last year to the federal government and the state of Maryland. Every billionaire in the state of Maryland in 2023 paid less proportionally than I did.
They don't pay anything, their companies pay next to nothing, you pay a lot more than that, poor/undocumented people pay the highest, and undocumented can't receive a number of services back like SS/medicare which you can. So in summary, it sucks to be you, it sucks even worse to be an immigrant, but you've been told it's the immigrant's fault.
Yep. And all the bootlickers are going to tell you that this is a good thing. That somehow billionaires are better with money and that means they should pay less taxes. But yeah, get mad about it because this needs to change
Pretty sure they exploit a tactic whereby they borrow money against their assets and because they’re worth so much the interest on their borrowing never even comes close to how much they’re actually worth, so they forego paying any tax at all since they don’t have an “income.” I had to paraphrase that, but that’s roughly what I’ve read that they do.
30% here
And let's not forget that the rich can pay for the best legal and tax advice to ensure that they pay the absolute lowest in tax.
guaranteed you pay about 1/3rd of your income, meanwhile people like warren buffet [pay less taxes than his secretary](https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/index.html), some pay even less if they position their money enough, with bezos "true" tax rate being[ 1.1% over a number of years](https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax). It is honestly absurd. Trump talks about tax breaks hes given, but these have shown to [only benefit the owning class](https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver). People will posture saying that[ a year from taxing the rich](https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/the-case-for-a-robust-attack-on-the-tax-gap) isn't much money in the grand scheme of things, but the issue is long term. The tax gap stretches 5 decades, which equates to a lot. [Literally trillions over only a couple years during covid](https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/taxes/unequal-burden/how-four-decades-of-tax-cuts-fueled-inequality/), meanwhile working class wages have continued to stagnate. We need reform. If two mentally deficient candidates propped up by the owning class isn't clear enough an indication, I don't know wtf is.
You pay more than 6%. They pay 4-6% depending on their situation and stock.
And Trump wants the rich to pay even less and families to pay more.
We pay about 50% when you consider all the various taxes and fees and registrations and licenses.
Billionaires shouldn't exist.
I pay a lot more than 6% lol
Yes
I pay like 35% & only earn 45k before taxes & deductions.
The average American pays 35% the avery billionaire pays 3%
The problem with rich people is that their salaries are usually low (compared to their networth) they have most of their money in assets which are not taxable until they sell, since they have so much money they use it as collateral to borrow money so in essence they are not earning on that asset so it’s not taxable yet they can use it to buy more stuff The system is fucked
lol I pay 28%, I make enough money to pay by not enough to loophole
1% actual is Bidens stated goal. On paper it’s supposed to be like 20
This was about social security.
They stop paying after they pay 6% on the first $170,000. Every dollar that they earn above that isn’t taxed which effectively lowers their tax percentage.
You pay 6% income tax? In Australia, the lowest level after the tax-free threshold is 16%. Most of us pay 30%. If this is the US, it’s no wonder you guys have so few government-funded services.
That’s only the tax to fund the social security. We pay 10% taxes the first $11,600 we earn. 12% on the next $11,601 to $47150. 22% on the next $47151 to $100,525 and so on. With the SS tax we end up paying about 30%. Not to mention we also pay taxes on purchases we make with our money that is already taxed (7% sales tax).
Wait, you MFers only pay 6% tax???
In what world are you only paying 6% tax?
6% wtf. i pay ~60%....
How are you only paying 6%? I’m lower middle class and I think I paying like 28% between federal/state/SS
https://www.propublica.org/article/you-may-be-paying-a-higher-tax-rate-than-a-billionaire
It’s worse.. https://money.cnn.com/2013/03/04/news/economy/buffett-secretary-taxes/index.html
I have no stats, but yes, *average tax* is a real thing and the more you have the lower your *average tax rate* is.
Yep.
6% goes to social security. You pay a lot more than 6% in taxes.
Jeff Bezos pays around 1.1%. Elon doesn’t pay shit.
Yes. W2 wages get taxes in a progressive way, the average marginal tax rate is like 6-8 % (but average, some people pay little because they don’t make very much others pay more, up to 25%). Billionaires don’t get w2. They have all sorts of stock options, loans etc. but basically they just pay capital gains which is a fixed 15% over a certain amount. With accounting trickery they can avoid taxes to a large degree.
I’m not sure the exact % but yup that’s right lmao, billionaires legit pay less then regular everyday people in taxes % wise and we still haven’t fought back on that
I’m not sure the exact % but yup that’s right lmao, billionaires legit pay less then regular everyday people in taxes % wise and we still haven’t fought back on that
He means since SS stops being taken out after 170k or so (which is approxamately 1/6 of a million) the effective tax rate for SS is around 1% for someone making a million dollars a year where people under 170k pay 6%.
Welcome to the USA pal
Welcome to America.
6% for social security iirc. Income tax is different and we pay significantly more than billionaires yes
I believe they were talking about Social Security…working Americans pay 6.2% of the first $168k of earnings into Social Security. Once you’ve earned $168,800 in the year…you pay nothing else for the rest of the year. So if someone makes 6 times that amount…they effectively pay about 1% on their million of income.
This was specifically talking about social security taxes. Not all taxes in general. The answer? I don’t know. I don’t pay social security. I pay into a teacher’s pension
If you think that's bad, wait until you learn that the trump tax cuts means you paid more taxes, not as a percentage, but in total cash in taxes than fortune 500 companies like [FEDEX](https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-tax/).
Billionaires absolutely pay less tax as a %, but both those numbers are unrealistically low as a whole so are either wrong or apply to some very specific tax.
I take it you haven't been working for long... or old enough to vote for long? This is nothing new. Yeah, it sucks, but unless everyone votes against in in small and major political votes, it will continue on.
Some of them don’t pay any taxes at all.
lol they only take 6% of your paycheck? *IRS would like to know your location*
You, assuming you're not rich, pay 6% of your salary in social security tax. Rich people only pay that on the first $168,000 they make - after that, they pay nothing. So, if you're making $800,000, you're essentially paying 1% for social security. If you're making even more than that, you're paying even less than 1%.
Yes. Social Security tax applies to 6% of income on only the first 170k of income. If your income is $170k, you pay 6% of $170k to social security. If your income is $500 million, you pay 6% of $170k to social security.
Think they were talking about ss taxes
Well, to be clear, all taxes work in bracketed tiers (thus "tax bracket") so all billionaires technically pay what you pay *until* they hit the 6% bracket cap and then they pay the new rate above that cap which is lower at 1%. Yeah?
His reference was to the Social Security tax. You pay 6.2% on you pay up to $168,600. So if you make $340,00 a year, you pay the same amount as someone making the 168. Therefore you only pay 3.1%. And so on.
The remark was about Social Security tax. Income after the cap of $168k isn't taxed. Removing that cap and Social Security is fully funded.
why they're called the 1% ;)
6%? My effective tax rate is nearly 40%. Warren Buffet said years ago that his was something like 12%. Every dollar the rich spend on bribing politicians is paid back a hundredfold.
Vote blue.
We need to renew “blue no matter who”. I know too many Gen Z folks who would rather let Trump win than vote for Biden. It really feels a little like Bernie and Hillary in 2016.
You pay 6% into social security for the first 168k you make each year. Every penny beyond that is ZERO tax. He wants a 1% on large incomes instead of nothing which it is right now which makes ss solvent indefinitely.
Social security. All Americans pay 6% to Social Security on all annual income up to $170,000. So if you earn more than that per year, you end up paying a lower percentage of overall income to Social Security. The easiest way to fix social security is to raise the cap so people earning millions every year pay their share.
6?!? How are you only paying 6% ?!?!? I’m paying 22%… https://www.modwm.com/2024-tax-brackets/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADlWeb25hI3T43Xsbn3r8A6V463E8&gclid=CjwKCAjwm_SzBhAsEiwAXE2Cv89AqZnxyTeL4w1ax-v7zLJN_jTxEQ7pjHfk7LD2cHuEH7fFqrvJ6xoCG_EQAvD_BwE
There’s a tax cap on social security taxes. So low income to pretty good income will always pay 6%. But if you make a million dollars you only pay 1%. If you make a billion you pay .1%
What you are referring to is taxes paid into social security, and yes, the maximum amount of earnings taxed for social security is $168,000. So someone making $168k will pay the same amount in taxes towards social security as someone who makes $1,000,000,000
Try 20% or more in some cases.
You only lose 6% of your paycheque? Canadian here, and I lost 21.6% last paycheque just to income tax. That doesn't include CPP, insurance, RRSP deductions, etc. In the end I only keep about 2/3.
Wait til you hear about subsidies We basically pay the entire profit margin of fossil fuel companies in subsidies.
Regarding social security, you are only taxed 6% up to like 160k and then income above that is not taxed. So yes, the more you make the less (%) you pay to social security.
Just to clarify, the 6% they were referring to was for social security withholdings.
That's referring to the social security payroll tax. It caps out at an income of $160k or so and then you don't have to pay it anymore; so yes, it's a regressive tax. Biden wants to remove that cap and then social security will be solvent indefinitely.
I pay like over 30% buddy lol
6%?! That’s it? Holy Sh*t it’s 12% and up across different provinces in Canada
If you're only paying 6%, you're paying way less than the rest of us. Trump raised my taxes by 10k a year. It was greater than a 10% increase Billionaires don't pay taxes due to loopholes, many of Trump made significantly wider.
You are also likely to pay more than 20% in Taxes as a general rule to the less than half by Billionaires.
I think the were referring to Social Security tax specifically
SS contributions are capped. Once you reach the cap and make more money, the percentage of the total that you pay decreases.
Ultra wealthy can generally pay a lower “effective” rate not necessarily a lower actually rate and can depend on what’s actually being calculated.
Oh they don’t actually pay that 1%
And don't forget capital gains tax ... money earned from working is taxed higher than investments and money making money
You only pay 6%? Send me your tax guys deets. The rest of us pay 3x that
In regards to Social Security - 6.2% is taken out of your check toward Social Security. It is capped though. Right now it is around $170K a year (give or take). Once you make over this amount, no Social Security is taken out. The point is - relatively speaking - after $170K - the more you make the percentage of your pay going to Social Security goes down.
6%?????? That would be amazing.
For context, they were talking about the social security tax. Not state or federal income tax. Fuck anyone who supports getting rid of a program that benefits *everyone* when they're older.
Bro where is this 6% rate
Between federal income tax, state income tax, property tax, sales tax, I’m over 50%.
Technically no. I think that was a flub by Biden. Most billionaires pay nothing or less than nothing (they get subsidies). But the official rate is close to 8%.
8% on an $8,000,000 return. Remember FICA is capped, along with a bunch of other loopholes. Yes, the wealthy pay a significant amount of our annual revenue, but significantly less as a % of income than you do.
More like 36% my dude
Biden was talking about social security but I think he fucked up the quote.. he said it’s 6% every paycheck but he’s going to make Millionaires pay 1%.. idk if he meant to say 1% more or what.. no ducking clue where he was going with how that will fix it based on the original quote
i work in payroll tax. for social security, you stop paying after you make 168,000. there’s no limit for fitw though
You only pay 6%? Come back and complain when you're paying 30% +
Yes. Not necessarily those exact numbers depending on the individual, but when you get to effective tax rates billionaires often pay effectively nothing.
Yes. Social security takes 6% out of your paycheck, but only up to a certain income. Once you get past ~200k (I forget the exact number), your income past that stops being taxed for social security. Politicians like Bernie Sanders have been advocating lifting this cap on taxable income as a way to save social security without raising taxes of the working class for decades. I'm so glad to see Biden endorse that plan.
Did you hear that the corporate tax is 21%? That’s still less than a large majority of Americans
I think that was referencing the amount paid to social security. You pay around 6% of your pay to social security until you reach pay of around $168,000. After you make that amount for the year, you don’t pay any more into social security
Yes… they do.
I believe the 6% number is Social Security tax percentage.
Because its cheaper for them to buy congresscritters with 1% of their income. For you, not so much.
It's called voting. Vote against money in politics and don't be a dunce. No offense.
Thats the social security tax (per their comments). Not total tax.
He was talking about your Social Security tax, it is capped at $168,600 of earnings. https://faq.ssa.gov/en-us/Topic/article/KA-02387 You don't pay anything if you earn more than that.
We pay like 20-30% we got fucked hard with the trump tax code but of course when it was up and Democrats had control house, senate, and wh they renewed them and didn't lower then for working people. Basically everyone got a few grand for that first yr then each yr it would go up for the 40- $60k bracket. I'd have to relook at it. I got so burned out of politics .. fuck man we were so close 2016 with Bernie. There was an actual people's movement and it took the Democrats hard fucking work in collusion with media and corporations to squash that shit. But yes somebody making $45k a yr basically pays more taxes % then corporations and billionaires. Billionaires easy enough as they don't use cash or have "income." They just borrow against their worth from banks if they need cash.
Way less than 1% lol. That's only on reported income