'Here's the thing; you guys constantly bring up the difference between marginal and effective tax rates when it is politically advantageous'
Because people keep bringing up marginal rates as if raising them won't have a negative effect with them citing the past higher marginal rates. It's beneficial to cite the effective rates because that's what they want to affect.
I'm just going to create some numbers to ilustrate the point. If in the top bracket was 72% and the effective was 35% back in the day, while today it is 36% and the effective is 25%. Saying we ought to double it because it used to be double and everything was okay back then is specious. If you were to double that effective rate you have a much higher tax burden than you did back then. So yea, it's important to bring up how effective rates were different back then.
For policy, effective is much more important than a marginal rate.
And Reagan wasn't a socialist because of his ideology.. not his tax rates.
'The fact of the matter is that the stimulus lowered the effective tax burden on a lot of people/business and you refuse to accept that. '
Tax credits are different than marginal tax rates in that they change every year and are so myriad that a business can't predict its tax burden effectively year to year. Tax rates are just easier to chart. So tax credits are a weak attempt at lowering taxes for positive effect.
Re: Remember: there were no tax cuts.
Because people keep bringing up marginal rates as if raising them won't have a negative effect with them citing the past higher marginal rates. It's beneficial to cite the effective rates because that's what they want to affect.
I'm just going to create some numbers to ilustrate the point. If in the top bracket was 72% and the effective was 35% back in the day, while today it is 36% and the effective is 25%. Saying we ought to double it because it used to be double and everything was okay back then is specious. If you were to double that effective rate you have a much higher tax burden than you did back then. So yea, it's important to bring up how effective rates were different back then.
For policy, effective is much more important than a marginal rate.
And Reagan wasn't a socialist because of his ideology.. not his tax rates.
'The fact of the matter is that the stimulus lowered the effective tax burden on a lot of people/business and you refuse to accept that. '
Tax credits are different than marginal tax rates in that they change every year and are so myriad that a business can't predict its tax burden effectively year to year. Tax rates are just easier to chart. So tax credits are a weak attempt at lowering taxes for positive effect.