tax billionaires at 90 % like DDE did

[Trueblue1968]

President Dwight David Eisenhower, perhaps the last real Republican, had a 90 percent tax rate for the super rich during his administration.

Eisenhower explained it this way: The super rich could avoid the high taxes by investing their money in things that make America stronger. If they wanted to avoid high taxes, he said they could invest in business expansions and higher employee wages. They could give a million or two to tax-exempt non-profits that feed, house and clothe poor people of America, among other things.

They did some of that, but the Eisenhower years generated enough taxes to launch and complete the labyrinth of interstate highways, the largest road project America had ever seen and is needed again.

https://apnews.com/article/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-archive-2184e9f18f6f4acca1ed007bdcdca818

[MichMan]

1. The lowest tax rate back then was 20%

Which is double what it is now.

[AndyS]

2. That rate sounds terrible but it was only on the $$ above,

as I recall, $2 mil. Back then that was a lot more like $2 bil. Every body was taxed at the same rate with a truly graduated tax rate. In the end everybody paid a real tax rate of about 30% except the very low income earners.

At the same time corporations contributed about 15% to the tax income. Now it's more like 2% and the really large corps don't pay any at all.

There were still millionaires (equivalent to today's billionaires), corporations still flourished and my dad who was a dirt farmer in S Texas and raised 7 kids and by God we never felt poor.

And we MADE THIINGS! Big things like the interstate highway system and the Hoover dam. We had the GI bill, the most expensive and productive 'welfare' program ever devised.

It wasn't all great, just ask anyone of color, but income inequity between the working class and the 'ruling class' just wasn't that big a deal.

I've live under high taxes and I've lived under low taxes but everybody prospered under high taxes.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. Almost Nobody Paid 90%

Sheltering options were so numerous, income averaging so generous, and trusts so easy to create that under 5% of those eligible for the 90% rate actually paid 90%.
This was one of my papers (Fiscal Policy History) in MBA school in the 90s.
The 90% rate sounds great but it essentially never really happened.

[Amishman]

5. This, that 90% was even greater lie than our current tax rates

I'd be more in favor of an ironclad minimum tax rate for billionaires and large corporations.

Don't raise the ceiling, strengthen the floor.

[GreenWave]

4. How about charging those who aid our enemies with war crimes

this time around?
All those Nazi worshipers had to do was boom the economy so money changes hands faster and presto! They get their money back but our boys are still dead.

[WarGamer]

6. No one ever paid 90%

There were TONS of write offs.

PLUS... most people forget this fact.

Let's say from $150k to $600k/year is 40% tax...

And at 600k it flips to 55% and again at 1 million it turns to 90%




What's the Plastic surgeon going to do?

He works January thru July and hits 600k... hits a million in October.

Is he going to work the last two months out of the year or just tell the front office to book appointments in January while he plays golf for 2 months?

No one will pay outrageously high tax rates.

They will work around it.

That's why I'm in favor of taxing WEALTH not income primarily.

[Zeitghost]

7. There are many problems with taxing wealth

The main one being most wealth is not cash and the assets it does reside in can very wildly in their stability. If my wealth is invested in a business venture that fails after three or four years, I've paid taxes on a loss for three to four years. It also creates double (and triple and quadruple etc.) taxation issues that most people don't find equitable and discourages saving.

[WarGamer]

8. Maybe just a 1% tax on your bottom line net worth as of the last day of the year.

That's how you get your claws into Musk/Bezos/Zuckerberg sized wealth.

[MichMan]

9. Appraise every single thing someone owns on December 31?