Is the Purpose of Taxes to Raise Revenue or Punish the Rich?

They didn't avoid the 92% bracket by not taking income. There were "loopholes" a plenty.

 

P

This thread needed some comic relief.

 

This must be the new excuse to give another $3 trillion in tax cut welfare for millionaires. The last $3 trillion was just added to the national debt. Trump hasn't provided any way to pay for his "massive" tax cut, except to take it from the poor, the elderly and healthcare. Bet it don't fly. He hasn't provided anything to pay for his Wall, except to promise that Mexico will "eventually" pay for it. Trump has provided where the $trillion dollar infrastructure money is going to come from either. And his military spending increase doesn't have a way to pay either.

You call liberals impractical, but Trump is living over the rainbow...and so are his minions.

 

Well you'd be wrong. If you tell them it might cripple the economy, they probably wouldn't believe you, because rich people have the option to sit on their money while poor people will have to spend it on basic needs.

 

Well democrats obviously don't give a **** about the debt or endlessly printing money sooooo.....duh, it's about hurting who they want to hurt. In this case, the rich white man.

 

In essence, tax policy encourages corporations to hold on to shareholders’ money forever. By taxing earnings at the corporate level and taxing them again upon distribution to the shareholder, state and federal government can claim 65 percent of the income. Since over half that tax is avoided if the corporation retains the earnings, shareholders have become more willing to let management perpetually reinvest their money — and management has been even more willing to comply. This policy encourages corporations to find increasingly imaginative uses for their shareholders’ money, including stock repurchase plans that often benefit shareholders much less than they benefit executives who hold stock options.
Punish the rich? Really! That is laughable.
Check out the tax codes.

 

I know that. But neither did you see the income and wealth disparity growing from 1945 to 1975 like you see today. And I gave the reason why.

 

Let's keep in mind that about 70% of all outstanding stock is held by the top corporate insiders (CEOs, Boards of Directors, and top officers = 1% of the population) and a huge part of the remainder is held by pensions and mutual funds. So when we speak of shareholder and their preferences, the preferences that count are those of the corporate elite. And that elite has "persuaded" congress to pass laws allowing them to enrich themselves in ways you and I never could, and stock options are a great example.

This isn't so much about government taxing someone to death as it is about government granting the corporate elite ways of becoming obscenely wealthy and keeping us from doing similarly. IOW, your wording "shareholders have become more willing to let management perpetually reinvest their money — and management has been even more willing to comply" really is saying "management is more willing to let management perpetually reinvest their money — and management has been even more willing to comply".