The Blue Board

The federal taxes were over 90% on them at one point and over 70% not too long ago. I'd say they're doing fine at 39.6%. Hell, the super wealthy pay less than 15% right now. That's insanity.

I don't know when they "were over 90% or over 70% at one point" but that is insanity. Get real, dude. Nobody should be asked to pay more than the average person. Since when did being rich and successful become a bad thing?

Phil is now worried about taxes? He should have thought about that when he couldn't drag himself out of Las Vegas a few years back. Word is he lost about $60 mil in about 18 months at the card table. That kinda change will pay a lot of taxes.

It's amazing that so few people understand how marginal tax rates work.

Also, if Phil is paying a rate remotely close to what he said he does, he has the worst accountant / business manager ever born. This is just another example of an athlete spouting off about something they obviously know nothing about.

percentage isn't exactly equal. a guy making 1 million a year pays more in taxes a year than someone making 50k does their entire lifetime. and they both are given equal rights and benefits of being an american. then the person making less gets mad at the person making more for "not paying his fair share". its complete bs.

Good to see at least one person here knows more about Phil's money than Phil does.

When you factor in the non-progressive taxes such as sales tax, property tax, employment taxes, etc., the overall effective tax rates become pretty close. People think only about income taxes too much, but there are many others. Just take employment taxes as an example. Someone making $110,000/year will pay approximately $8,400 per year in employment taxes, approximately 7.65% of their income (ignoring the employer paid portion). A person whose salary is $500,000 pays approximately $14,000 per year, approximately 2.8% of their income. The more you make, the less of a percentage you pay. It applies the same way on sales tax and other regressive tax structures. These help even out progressive structure of the income tax code.

In all honesty though, even those rules only apply to poor suckers who the system is designed to work against. A hedge fund manager making $2,000,000 per year from managing investments will just take a carried interest, pay $0 in employment taxes, approximately 0% of his or her income, then take the position those earnings are subject to capital gain rates rather than ordinary income rates, thus cutting his or her tax bill in half, the percentage also.

True, but 2 points to make there. First, the self-employed get an income tax deduction for what would otherwise be the employer paid portion of employment taxes. Second, any person who is the owner of an incorporated business (even an S corporation) rarely will pay themselves a normal or reasonable salary for the work being performed or the income otherwise attributable to services. The owner will pay themselves a smaller salary, thus resulting in lower employment tax payments, and simply pay themselves a dividend at the end of the year. As a dividend, the payment is not "wages" as defined in the employment tax code and not subject to employment taxes at all.

I believe John Edwards did this at his law firm. The partner at his law firm was a wholly-owned S corporation of which he was the sole employee. He would generate millions of dollars a year in legal fees, pay himself a $300,000 salary out of the S corp and take the rest as a dividend, bypassing the uncapped medicare portion of employment taxes.

^^^^This is how I interpreted your reply.

The 1940's 90% tax rate is a myth. The difference in tax deductions then and now is staggering. An effective 90% rate back then correlates to the same 35% most pay now.

Yeah probay so but that whole 90% rate is a complete myth. Income was easily hidden back then. You could deduct almost anything. I think I've read that the "real" rate back then was around 28%.