It's an ass-backwards system. People making small amounts need the money now more!
It should be progressive. The first $x aren't taxed, then the next chunk are taxed a little, then the next chunk more, and so on.
In a fully functioning government, most people should be "profitting from" or "exploiting" the system while the top 10% pay the majority of that. The top producers, by definition, should be simultaneously the most rewarded and the most exploited in society while the bottom 50% are almost entirely "freeloading"
Its simply unsustainable any other way. A high performer born to a bottom 50% family will never make it to top 10% if the system does not function in this way, so we lose out on those "gifted" individuals to starvation or other archaic diseases
My grandparents were considerably wealthy. One year, the tax portfolio showed up in the mail and my grandmother said, "Ugh, taxes. That's terrible!" So my sister asked the obvious question: "Because taxes mean that you're losing money?" We were pretty young at the time, so we didn't fully understand what taxes were or how wealth accumulation worked.
My grandmother responded, "no, we LOVE paying taxes! If our taxes are higher, then that means we made more money last year! It's just annoying filling out the paperwork." My sister asked what it would mean if their taxes were lower. My grandmother said, "That means that we didn't make as much money, and the government takes less money from us to help people who need it. So, we donate more money in the years that we make less to make sure that people are still getting what they need."
Bonus story 1: My grandfather was in commercial real estate and was once debating with a family member about how important it is to prevent companies from converting residential zoning to commercial. The family member accused my grandfather of being a bleeding heart softie, and threw out an accusation along the lines of, "you're probably one of those people who believes that homeless people can magically succeed if you give them more handouts. You can't lift someone out of their situation by giving them things, they have to want to do it themselves."
This pissed off my grandfather who stood up to tower over this family member and said, "the last time that I bought houses for homeless people, they weren't homeless anymore. I don't know what success looks like to you, but I'd say not being homeless anymore is a pretty good start!" The family member laughed and started to retort. My grandfather interrupted him with, "it's such a shame. I was really proud of being your company's biggest donor, but now I'm concerned about who my donations are helping. I'm sure you can figure it out for yourself if you just want it enough, though."
Bonus story 2: Someone once asked my grandfather why he never got into residential real estate since it's so much easier to be a landlord for people than companies. My grandfather replied, "Charging companies to exist is cool and it forces business owners to consider their true value. Charging families to live makes you a bad neighbor."
RIP to half of the greatest grandparents ever.
I genuinely believe if they made taxes an automated function requiring zero effort on the part of the taxed then almost no one would complain about them.
And the proof is that this is already how it is with every tax in America except income and property taxes. You're taxed nickel and dime all the time and nobody notices. Sales tax is the most visible and it just is for most people, to the point they get confused when they go to one of the three (?) states that don't have sales tax.
But you're automatically taxed on gasoline, your phone and/or internet bill, glass and plastic bottles, sugary drinks, hotel rooms, cigarettes, and who knows what else because the process and indeed even the amount at which those goods and services are taxed are completely opaque to most people.
And tax the ultra rich. If your net worth is over ten million, regardless of your income, you should be contributing big bucks to social security and federal taxes.
no cap fr
As someone that's maxed out SS most of their carrier while simultaneously assuming I'll never get SS I'm looking at this a little side eye. Just seems like one last party for the boomers here.
Nah you need to raise the payouts from social security too
Yeah the cap is based on maximum payout.
If the poor pay relatively more than the rich that sounds like anti-social security to me
Slight modification.
For SS the employer and employee pay 50/50. So the actual number is double that.
If they lifted the cap the person making $5,176,000 would pay $731,369
I'm not seeing any issues or downsides to that, they can afford it.
Remove the cap on disability income and assets while you're at it.
Let’s stick with that: “scrap”. You know they’ll eventually “compromise” by raising the cap a little, putting the onus on people who earn just a little more without actually affecting the wealthy. Thats not ok. At some point wealthy people need to pay their share
If you make $176K your SS payout is $5,251/mo.
If you make $5M your SS payout is $5,251/mo.
If we remove the cap on contributions, is it fair to remove the cap on payouts?
(My personal answer is no, but it is hard to argue about the lack of equity in that case. The original cap on both ends was built with that in mind)
If you're making $5M a year, you likely will never need any payout. Its the whole point of a progressive tax system. The wealthy can afford to pay more, and require less support from the state.
Counterpoint: anyone paying any amount of social security tax is part of the working class, even if they're making $5M/yr. Increasing taxes on the working class isn't going to solve wealth unequally. We need to tax wealth.
I agree we need to tax wealth, but I'm fine with removing the cap on paying into social security. The system is going to break as it is, and needs more money flowing in. And the government needs to be barred from diverting that money to other things. If it had been treated as a hands of retirement fund, we wouldn't even have this issue.
You can even esssentially take the same rule - the payout is a curve, not a flat line. People near the cap get proportionally less payout. All we need to do is continue that thought so the xurve flattens out
Nope! If you make $5M in one single year, that's enough to retire immediately with a monthly income greater than $5251 already. They don't need the bonus.
Social Security doesn't need saving.
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