Do rich people really pay fewer taxes?

[Kane]

You might frequently hear that rich people do not pay a lot of taxes, it is the middle class that actually pay a lot of taxes. Is that true? Your taxable income is the income you make from your profession (salary), investments (passive income), and sales (capital gains). Rich people often focus on making passive income because it's taxed less. That's why they don't pay as much tax as the people whose main income source is a job.

 

[Riberet19]

Wealthy people are usually more financially literate, so it may be easier for them to pay less taxes since they know the tax laws and how to avoid taxes, that's what I believe.

 

[Jason]

I do know that some rock stars had left the UK to avoid taxes. In that case, I figure the rich are taxed heavily there. Anyway, the taxes are to be expected as the UK is a welfare state like Sweden or Norway.

 

[Kane]

Wealthy people are usually more financially literate, so it may be easier for them to pay less taxes since they know the tax laws and how to avoid taxes, that's what I believe.

Perhaps you are right. They know the taxation laws well or can hire people who knows well. Or possibly, they know how to game the system.

 

[deucher]

And this is not only because they receive mostly passive income. Many rich people simply avoid paying taxes, and the state does not want to have any problems because they can very easily transfer their business to another country and not pay taxes at all

 

[Riberet19]

But many times there are big businesses in a country that don't want to move from that country and would rather pay big taxes than leave, since the largest customer base is in the same country where they pay taxes, the rich usually have a lot of their fortunes in financial assets, and there are many ways to pay less if you invest your money wisely.

 

[Jason]

Yeah, definitely a big problem with left-wing politics is that taxes on the rich don't hurt the rich and I don't know how they could devise ways to really hurt the rich, unless the society became Communist, and that's not a good thing.

Note: Hurting the rich really means "them paying their fair share". Do you all feel what they should pay more than others?