[mikemike]

Senate Democrats proposed a 5% surtax on people earning more than $1 million a year to pay for the $447 billion cost of President Barack Obama's job-creation bill, in a move designed to shore up their party's support for the measure.

Senate Democrats Propose 5% Surtax on Millionaires - WSJ.com

If they wanted to make it a real millionaire's tax, make it a tax on all income by people with assets valued at more than $1MM. You own your house outright, have a 401(k) or pension that is ready to get you through 30 years of retirement, have some money in the bank, you are a villainous millionaire even if you've never earned more than a million in a year of your life. You might have stolen your money from the poor people slower, but you are a millionaire and therefore you are a thief and you should be taken out behind the woodshed every April 15 and beaten for your crimes.

[shooz]

Complete fail.
We have too much to make up for.
TAX THE CRAP OUT OF THEM!!!!!!

Put the Koch Bros. in prison for treason and liquidate all assets for back taxes.
\That would be a prudent start.

[redrockcoulee]

So MIke if the government taxes the wealthy it is an attack on them and calling them theives. But do you not pay taxes? Do you pay property tax? In Canada anyway it is the municaplites that can tax property not the federal govt. Of course the cities waste it on sidewalks and streets and police and fire services. Would you really like to live in a society in which the poor or some of the disable suffer and even die so that some one making $100 000 000 per year gets to keep less than 5 million extra per year so they do not have to survive on only 50 or 60 million per year?

You seem to think that because the US has an economic meltdown that it can be fixed by cutting deeply to services to the poor and the working middle class but to ask the wealthy to do anymore would be an attack.

Perhaps the solution is to simply outlaw poverty; or all services to the poor. New Orleans would save money for example if they did not have to provide any police service or education to the poor who must not be worth while anyways. It would mean the rich could then afford a second or third yacht.

How many people would glady pay an extra 5% per year to make that kind of money? And more importantly how is it that the rich survived quite nicely when their income tax was much greater than it is now? A question you have yet to answer.

[GeneV]

Some serious confusion in the OP about the difference between a tax and a fine.

[kenafein]

The top tier income tax used to be just over 90% for people making over 1 million dollars, and now it's 33%. Adjust the levels for inflation, stop the capital gains loophole for people selling in large volumes or say goodbye to the middle class. As it stands now we're all just slaves to the 1% and our economy is in the crapper, with income disparity like that of a 3rd world country.

[shooz]

Fines?????
Sounds great!
How about, $500,000,000 per job exported?
They were supposed to make more here.They didn't.
You ask for more of the same.
Now, do the math. How much do they owe us?

I also noticed mikemike you had no comment on the antics of those wonders of libertarianism the "Fabulous Koch Bros."
You being ecology minded must surly know of their antics.
They support the teabaggers too, as well as many foundations and front groups opposed to all efforts to improve the ecology.

You mikemike, have very conflicted politics.
Perhaps you would be better served joining the League of Conservation Voters.

[patrick9]

The thieves are the ones that think they should take what they did not earn from the ones that did.One thing to remember is a large percentage of our nation pays NO Income tax and of those many get back even more than they paid in. I even did years ago I paid in 2500 in income tax then when taxes were done each year I got back 3000 dollars just because I had a child and was a low income.
I now pay more than I made back then. If my taxes go up even more then I have to think about doing away with some services. which very well( with enough of us having to do the same) means even more unemployment. I am far from a millionaire ,But I remember the same rhetoric from Clinton. Then when the dust settled on his tax the rich increase most middle class found out over night that we were rich because he had lowered it to anyone making over 50,000 dollars. His started the same way anyone making over 1 million a year would see an increase and no increase for anyone making less. Then found out that still would not pay the bills so lowered it to anyone making $50,000 or more got the increase.
I am willing to pay a small increase to get us out of our troubles if the spending is brought under control. I honestly do not see that happening. so no more increases. What incentive is there to earn more or enlarge business is there if the feds take $90 of ever $100 I make then I still have property, state, sales, social security ,medicare taxes to pay plus buy groceries , pay a mortgage, etc out of that $10 . It is definitely not an environment to foster growth. I can no longer afford to hire or even keep the employes I have and pay their salaries ,my matching amount of S.S. tax ,and offer Ins.
That top 1% pays close to 90 % of the taxes. Now maybe they should just pay all the taxes!!!

[Wheatfield]

That top 1% pays close to 90 % of the taxes. Now maybe they should just pay all the taxes!!!

Prove it.

[shooz]

The thieves are the ones that think they should take what they did not earn from the ones that did

Gosh darn! You finally figured that wallstreet did it!
God bless you, son. God bless you.
Now, can we get serious about fixing it?

[mikemike]

We have too much to make up for.
TAX THE CRAP OUT OF THEM!!!!!!

If you want to make a millionaires tax to penalize the accumulation of wealth, tax millionaires (people who have a networth of more than $1MM). Instead of basing the income tax rates solely on income, consider the net worth to so that someone who is retired and has no debts and lives off a $50,000/year annuity is taxed more than someone who is just out of school earning $50,000/year with a student loan, a car note, a house note, a 6.2% FICA liability, and needs to contribute to a 401k.

Redrock, We pay property taxes here in the US at the state and/or municipal level so it would be fairly easy to gather the assessment information from the relevant assessor.

[kenafein]

That top 1% pays close to 90 % of the taxes.

No, the top 1% pay 20.3 percent of the taxes. Since they own 47% of the wealth, they should pay atleast 47% of the taxes. Progressive tax programs are in place for a reason. Those that can't afford to live on the scraps the upper class lets 'trickle down' simply can't pay them, but rest assured your poor-persecuted-rich overlords pay the same tax rate on their first 20,000 dollars as the bottom 99%.

EDIT:

And furthermore, it's frustrating that someone could believe the statistic that the wealthiest pay 90% of all taxes and think "Oh we aren't paying our fair share, poor rich people, I need to champion and defend them on the internet." when they should be thinking about why they are able to pay that much. The income disparity in this country is laughable, but you know what? As we continue down this path there maybe a day when they actually do pay that much of the tax, because the money is continually shifting in their direction. The adage the rich get richer is very true. They will continue to amass a greater proportion of the wealth of this country until the middle class collapses and nobody can pay taxes but the elite. The only check to their takeover of all the wealth in this country is a progressive tax, and it's only fair. The wealthy sit on top of a pyramid, but they couldn't be there without all the work of the poor and the middle class.

[Nesster]

Steve Jobs. I'm certain he would have done what he did - and made the same piles of money, created the same piles of jobs (here and in China!), and changed the world just the same, no matter the tax situation.

History shows, however, that the average non-top 1% person would notice a difference.

[reeftool]

If you want to make a millionaires tax to penalize the accumulation of wealth, tax millionaires (people who have a networth of more than $1MM). Instead of basing the income tax rates solely on income, consider the net worth to so that someone who is retired and has no debts and lives off a $50,000/year annuity is taxed more than someone who is just out of school earning $50,000/year with a student loan, a car note, a house note, a 6.2% FICA liability, and needs to contribute to a 401k.

Redrock, We pay property taxes here in the US at the state and/or municipal level so it would be fairly easy to gather the assessment information from the relevant assessor.

In today's economy, a million isn't all that much. Someone with a run of the mill job, in his/her 20's, will easily be a millionaire upon retiring if he contributes to a 401k and pays a little attention to his investment choices. Currently, that money is only taxed on withdrawal. To tax that money at a higher rate simply because the balance is over a million would destroy the system. People would no longer contribute to those kinds of savings. Consider that health care costs can become huge in your later years and that money can be eaten up rather quickly. What the ultimate goal will be is to make everyone dependent on the govt. There would be no value in saving because the govt. will take it and give it those who didn't save.

[shooz]

If you want to make a millionaires tax to penalize the accumulation of wealth

I don't want to penalize the innocent. They've had this massive tax break for over 10 years and it was lessening almost since the end of WW II, for them.
The massive break was given so they would increase jobs. ( You always forget to factor in about them being the "job creators" ).
That was a complete FAIL.
That's what we need to make up for.
Can't say whether they zoomed Bush or Bush zoomed us. At this point we just need the jobs back.

If you missed the part where your beloved Koch Bros. committed treason by selling arms to Iran.
Then all I can do is feel sorry for you.
Don't worry, they have a marketing/PR team spinning it as we speak, and if it ever makes into the MSM, they will look like angels.
That's what owning enough shares of the press can do for you.

BTW Koch Industries are also one the most polluting in the US if not the world.
Lots of libertarian/teabagger supporting corporations are like that.
You are conflicted mikemike.
What side are you really on?

[Nesster]

Let's take the "net worth" swerve off the table... the question is, if your declared income for the year is >$1mm, should you in effect have a higher tax rate, whether marginal or in the form of surtax?

Question: does anyone here have declared income of >$1mm per year? Didn't think so. How do we know, with our puny points of reference, what >$1mm per year does to you and the way you look at money? Just because a 5% surtax would hurt you and me plenty doesn't mean it will hurt the target group equivalently. (I ask you: when a pro athlete is fined $60K for something, by the league, I'm sure he feels it... but not the way you and I would feel it!)

So what are the objections, apart from projecting our own world view onto people we really don't have much in common with? Job creation? I trot Steve Jobs, Buffet, Bloomberg, Gates out: to the extent they became unimaginably rich, created jobs and so on, did past higher tax rates stop them? Apparently not. What makes us believe this time is different?

Are we suffering from inadequate capital formation? In the past this has been used as a reason for poor economies. If anything we are suffering from too much capital formation: it has crowded out labor. Therefore, taxing high incomes should not be harmful from this perspective.

What we can be sure of however, is that whatever form such a surtax takes, there will be loopholes inserted, and pay packages will be restructured to minimize the impact. E.g. capital gains are excluded? Structure pay to have large cap gains component. Deferred income angle? Defer. Expenses and benefits? Put everyone on a gold plated expense account.

Once more, it's different if someone making $100K has 50% of their pay put into a deferred plan... vs someone making $1mm having to get by on $500K current income, knowing the other $500K is tucked away untaxed...