Individual income taxes are very progressive: If you make $50,000/year, you pay 16% in taxes If you make $100,000/year, you pay 22% in taxes If you make $500,000/year, you pay 32% in taxes In contrast, business taxes are completely flat. The federal corporate income tax rate is a flat 21%. Which means that: A small … Continue reading The Best Way to Break Up Mega-Corporations: Progressive Taxes
The idea behind Social Security is remarkably simple. People aren’t disciplined enough to save and invest their money responsibly. Hence, the Social Security program automatically deducts 12.4% of your income from every paycheck (half directly from you, and the other half from your employer). And once you retire, you receive a pension roughly proportional to … Continue reading Social Security could have been paying us twice as much
Disclaimer: This discussion centers around American tax law. If you aren’t American and don’t live in America, you may not get much value out of this. Real talk. I thought I knew a lot about personal finance. I thought I knew everything I practically needed to know to minimize my tax bill as an average … Continue reading Nonqualified Dividends – You’re Probably Paying Too Much in Taxes
Do you want to be a millionaire? The odds may certainly seem to be stacked against you. Less than 0.2% of the world's population can claim to be millionaires. The average American household before the financial crisis in 2008 had a financial net worth of roughly $100,000. Today, the situation is even more dire, with … Continue reading The ABCs of Personal Finance
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