On: Support Grows for a Seattle to Vancouver Bullet Train

[jhall1468]

How is your effective tax rate 50%? Even if you are in the highest tax bracket, only the income in that bracket is taxed at the highest rate. Even people earning $475000 in California still only have an effective tax rate of ~40%, which is what you'd need to be making to be in the top US+California tax bracket. And if that's the case you are still taking home nearly $300,000 per year.

I'm all for effective use of taxes, but your effective tax rate calculation seems way off.

[the_economist → jhall1468]

Don't forget about property taxes. It's extraordinarily expensive to buy a home in most parts of California.

If the average person buys a home that costs 3x their income, and property taxes are around 1%, that's an extra 3% added to your tax bill.

[withdavidli → jhall1468]

Unless they make ~$5M a year or greater. This calculator shows effective tax rate >50% at that point.

https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#7N9mE...

Edit: it was 5M not 4M. Calculator shows FICA not maxing out. It'll get closer to 50% the more they make.

[rsync → jhall1468]

"I'm all for effective use of taxes, but your effective tax rate calculation seems way off."

I apologize for already going beyond the bounds of politeness, as far as discussing finances go - so forgive me for not going into further details ... but my calculation is about right on.

"And if that's the case you are still taking home nearly $300,000 per year."

That, on the other hand, bothers me greatly - this idea that at some level of income, the proportions stop mattering. The idea that, if one makes X income, it doesn't matter if that was 30 or 50 or 70% of what we made ...

"It ought to be enough for you".