• ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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    17 hours ago

    Corporations should pay more taxes, but since people are talking about how it all works in reality:

    Not all corporate expenses are tax deductible, and people are able to deduct a fair amount from their income when calculating their taxes.
    Additionally, individuals are taxed on a progressive scale where anything up to ~$15,000 isn’t taxed. That number should be much higher to actually reflect cost of living, but you’re still paying less to account for cost of living.

    With $60,000 in income your taxable income is $44,000 after the standard deduction , and then you only pay taxes on about $30,000 of that because of the bracketing.

    • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Poverty should be tied to livable wage and that bottom tax bracket should be too. So really, for single filer the first ~40k should be tax exempt.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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        60 minutes ago

        100%. And a livable wage based on where you live. The cost of living in some regions is way higher than in others and you can’t just say that low income people should have the longest commutes, or spend the most to move to someplace with lower cost of living.

        I’d also be in favor of a negative tax bracket. Something that adjusts below poverty income to above poverty. If done right everyone would see some benefit as the system adjusts everyone’s income <= $40,000 up to $45,000 or something via refundable tax credit or some such. Make over $40k and you taxes go down $5k. Make $40k or below and you pay no taxes and get a refund of however much less than $40k you made + $5k.

      • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
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        10 hours ago

        It really sucks when you’re self employed. I can almost eliminate my taxes with expenses, except I still pay both the employee and employee tax for social security/payroll taxes which bare almost 15% I can’t avoid. Billionaires don’t pay that much tax ever. I can’t afford to go to the dentist.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      The difference is that corporations have an army of tax lawyers that tell them what the tax loopholes are to exploit. Meanwhile, for most ordinary persons, it’s just them following orders from the government to pay up. One could read up on the tax rules yourself, but are people willing to spend hours reading boring documents they have no expertise of? I myself wasn’t aware of some of the tax benefits I could claim until much later.