Branson is not the first tool to come up with this idea, and he likely won't be the last either. Unfortunately, one thing that united all these dumbasses is the ability to properly use a calculator.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/0...come-inequality.html

This brainiac (who has a masters from Harvard) says we can increase the highest tax rate (from 32% to 50%), and give every person over 18 years old a $500/ month in free cash. Only problem is that it is economically infeasible.

There are of course a few issues that need to be discussed.

First of all - what is rich? Turns out is those who as a family make $250,000 or more a year, another words the top 2.7% of all tax filers in the the US (which there are roughly 139 million in 2016). The top 1% of tax filers earns in excess of $389,000/ year, in case you were wondering, and the average salary of the top 1% is $1.26 million/ year. Again, this is for a filer, not personal.

Secondly, to fall into the top 5%, your annual income (NOT AGI) needs to be $214,500 for a filer (again this is can be a single, or married couple).

So, how much do you need to say have this $500/ month "stipend" for all people over 18? Well, first you need to consider the number of people who would qualify. As of 2016, an estimated 23.2% of the population (325.7 Million) is under 18, meaning 76.8% or 250.137 million are over 18. $6,000 a year time 250 million is a cool $1.5 trillion/ year. For what it is worth, the expected 2018 federal budget revenue is expected to be $3.65 trillion.

Ok, so we need $1.5 trillion to give everybody over 18 $6,000 a year, or $3 trillion to give everybody $12,000 a year.

So how do you get there? That is not so easy.

If the average 1% makes $1.26 million a year, and is already taxed at 32% (for argument sake, based on this year), it would take an additional 18% federal tax to get it up to 50%. That should certainly be enough, right? Wrong.

sharpen pencil
If there are 139 million tax filers, the top 1% would be 1.39 million. Not so fast - only 97 million filers end up with positive AGI, so in reality there are only 970,000 filers that fall into this category. But, just for fun, and to be as conservative as possible. let's continue to some 1.39 million (it will make my point even more evident).
Top 1% of taxpayers (#) * average salary of top 1%
1,390,000* 1,260,000 = 1.751 trillion.

So the top 1% make a $1.751 trillion a year, and they are currently paying 32%, and at $1.26 million, all of them cap out at the highest tax brackets in every state (and local taxing district). So that additional 18% federal tax would yield $352 billion a year in revenues (only 55% of the current deficit). And we needed $1.5 billion, so we only got 23% of the way to our goal of $1.5 trillion.

Ok, let's back it up to the top 5% of all earners - they clearly make way too much, fuck em'. This is everybody earning in excess of $214,500 as a filer. All these do gooders pay the average tax rate of 24%, and their average pay is $356,500 in 2016. Using the same conservative math I used above to calculate # of filers, you get 6.95 million. Using this math (6,950,000*356,500) you get $2.478 trillion in total income, and you know that the top 1% make $1.751 trillion, and pay taxes at 32% already, so the difference is roughly $700 billion that pay at the 24% level. So if you up these guys to the 50% bracket and take another 26% of taxes it yields only another $188 billion. So between the top 5% of earners (conservatively) by raising their rate to 50%, it only brings in another $504 billion, se we are still only 33% to our goal.

But you say, what about corporations - those evil greedy bastards don't pay their fair share. Yeah, about that. When their top tax rate was 35%, they contributed a mere 9.3% to the annual revenues. In 2016, they paid a mere $314.7 billion in taxes.

So, how much would you have to raise taxes on the RICH, in order to redistribute a mere $6,000 to each person in the US over 18? That is easy, the Answer is 90.2%. At 90.2% for federal, and a nationwide average of 7.8% for "other" pay based taxes, they would be working to earn just 2% of what they made. BRILLIANT

quote:

Originally posted by KevinCW:
I notice he didnt leave an address where I can write him so he can send me some of his money..... hmmmm... an oversight perhaps?

You didn't get you check? I did. 200,000.00. I spent it on legos and a vicious pedicure.