[peter12]

Originally Posted by MattyC

I worded that poorly I think. Obviously the wealthy have higher percentage tax rates than other people do. What I mean is that, just because they pay a more percentage tax (and those that are in low income brackets pay little to no) does not mean that the society overall wouldn't benefit greatly from them being taxed more heavily. I don't consider it punitive to anyone that is still left with millions if not billions of dollars in yearly income.

A problem for me is taxing people bringing in billions the same as people making $300K/year. Even though those people in the $300K+ bracket are still incredibly well off, those are not the people I'm talking about really. Taxing people making millions, hundreds of millions, and up to billions PER YEAR, the same as you do for people making 1/2 mil/year is huge lost tax revenue.

This is putting aside the things you mentioned, like opportunities to pay for people to expose tax loopholes and what not. Warren Buffett, who increased his total wealth by a factor of $9 f***ing billion dollars last year, is well cited as paying less individual income tax than his secretary. That is rigoddamndiculous. And he's the first one to tell you that. 9 billion dollars. I don't care who you are, what you own, or what you do on a daily basis, NO ONE, absolutely no one "earns" that much. No one works that proportionally harder than anyone else.

[I also enjoy these discussions. I may get a bit overzealous at times, but it is directed at the people who seem fine with this level of greed. Thanks for engaging it. I usually find out some interesting info when digging into these numbers, whether it helps my point or not.]

As a percentage, maybe, but not as an absolute number.