These small “surprise” taxes are so annoying

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two things can be true at once:

1) these small surprise taxes are annoying
2) they are fair/reasonable for the 12 percent of households with incomes above $200K, which is more than 2.5x the median income, given that we have a graduated tax system

Or 2) graduated taxes are reasonable but this amount on top of the others (both nominal rates and phaseouts of deductions and credits) is too much.

Graduated tax system hits the upper middle class but disappears for the upper class, at which point you have to fall back to the defense of "the absolute tax is greater, even though the rates in practice are regressive".

If OP is paying $2K in these additional taxes, that's because OP makes over $200K in wages and $50K in investments, or over $400K in wages and $0 in investments, or some mix of that.

OP is also over the Social Security income cap, though (which is partially adjusted for inflation), so if you look at SS as a flat social tax rate and not as a personal investment program, these new taxes essentially just remove the SS income cap for "average" high earners who earn a mix of wages and investments.


You can argue all day about what's a fair level of taxation. You have much ore trouble defending all the nitpicky nickel and diming for a thousand taxes and credits and deductions and HSA/FSA/benefits management is a rat race and a dead weight loss for the people of this country that only benefit the tax preparation and financial services industries.

It's like card fees and rebates writ large.

Right, so this tax is between 0.5-0.8% of his total income. I don’t know what his whining is about.

I agree with you that taxes should be simpler, but lots of people (especially in the $250k plus crowd) don’t want that. They benefit from it. So we end up with nickeling and diming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a way of increasing taxes on the wealthy without changing the basic tax rates. Smoke and mirrors!

Actually, no. They increase taxes on the middle class, the thresholds are between 200-300k and NOT indexed to inflation. You think a family making 250k in a major city is rich? And in 10 years it’ll be even worse and affect an even greater percentage of the population.

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Easy fix: Earn less. Then you can pop the grocery store champagne the rest of us do every April 15 to celebrate not having to pay rich people taxes.

[Anonymous]

Flat tax 15% no forms , no deductions no irs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Flat tax 15% no forms , no deductions no irs

you must not be a millennial or Gen Z

[Anonymous]

#richpeopleproblems

Not my problem you didn't plan well enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two things can be true at once:

1) these small surprise taxes are annoying
2) they are fair/reasonable for the 12 percent of households with incomes above $200K, which is more than 2.5x the median income, given that we have a graduated tax system

Look at you, using Dr. Becky on us, LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a way of increasing taxes on the wealthy without changing the basic tax rates. Smoke and mirrors!

Actually, no. They increase taxes on the middle class, the thresholds are between 200-300k and NOT indexed to inflation. You think a family making 250k in a major city is rich? And in 10 years it’ll be even worse and affect an even greater percentage of the population.

I am one of those people and yes, we are rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m new to having a high enough income to owe them. 0.9% “additional Medicare tax”, 3.8% “net investment income tax” ON TOP of the main Medicare and capital gains taxes.

Come ON!!! There goes my expected $1500 refund, now I’ll owe $500. I over withheld $1k every month on my w4 last year thinking I’d finally get something back instead of owing thousands.

Poor you, you earn so much money you triggered taxes that only kick in for high earners. Here is a tiny violin. Waaa waaa waaaa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are new to having them you haven’t truly experienced them yet. Try being taxed an extra 4.7% on the last $3M of income. It’s no longer $2k in extra tax, but $141K in extra taxes.

Omg that sounds dreadful.

/s

[Anonymous]

I woukd rather oay 50 percent and have it transparent than theis crazy system we have here. In civilized countries you don’t have to do your own taxes, they calculate it for the 80 percent of the population that don’t have complicated investments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are new to having them you haven’t truly experienced them yet. Try being taxed an extra 4.7% on the last $3M of income. It’s no longer $2k in extra tax, but $141K in extra taxes.

Omg that sounds dreadful.

/s

You’ll never get sympathy, but it is irksome that your money, that you’ve earned, is taken at such a high rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are new to having them you haven’t truly experienced them yet. Try being taxed an extra 4.7% on the last $3M of income. It’s no longer $2k in extra tax, but $141K in extra taxes.

Omg that sounds dreadful.

/s

You’ll never get sympathy, but it is irksome that your money, that you’ve earned, is taken at such a high rate.

If you don't like this, you would hate the phase out for eitc, savers credit, and non-tax programs like SNAP, SSI, housing vouchers, and TANF. A 4.7% marginal tax rate is nothing...many have rates that exceed 20%!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Flat tax 15% no forms , no deductions no irs

Hell no, that would be ridiculously unfair and would cause massive budget deficits. We have a progressive income tax for good reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are new to having them you haven’t truly experienced them yet. Try being taxed an extra 4.7% on the last $3M of income. It’s no longer $2k in extra tax, but $141K in extra taxes.

Omg that sounds dreadful.

/s

You’ll never get sympathy, but it is irksome that your money, that you’ve earned, is taken at such a high rate.

/s denotes sarcasm, dummy