cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/12805870
They’re temporarily embarrassed millionaires! They won’t stand for that tax rate when they inevitably become exceptionally wealthy
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
770 points (99.4% liked)
Political Memes
11455 readers
2220 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
1) Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
2) No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
3) Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
4) No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
5) No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Entirely anecdotal of course, but in my experience people of all political stripes who make in the ballpark of $50k are fine with higher taxes on the 1%. It tends to be people I know who are in that comfortable upper-middle class bracket (let’s say earning over $100k - earning enough to feel superior to working class folks) who get worked up over higher taxes rates on those who still make a lot more than they do.
I would love to have $50,000 a year. About $15k is what I need for living and basic entertainment, so the rest of that lucre can go towards fixing up the house, getting dental, checking the car, and so on. I wouldn't have to live hand-to-mouth anymore.
Where do you live? If you have kids 50k is barely enough to survive on instant ramen in the US.
Fuck it. 120k for the household is barely enough for two working adults I have no idea how people with kids afford anything.
Would rather not say. If politics come to a head in the US, I want a basic level of anonymity. Depending how things go, we might see ICE doing a Pretti Good to many voting Democrats.
Anyhow, I don't have to pay for utilities and housing, just my food, fuel, phone, internet, and the things that make life decent. I am VERY lucky for what I have. Kids are definitely not something that I would ever consider having.
I can cut down on the food budget and go full ramen if I wanted to improve my savings, but I do like my vices of meat and such. About $500 for this month's Costco* shopping bill...but half of the meat is bought by other household members. I cook the food, and split the cost of supplies between us.
*$5 off per package for this stuff is a recurring deal. It is quite good, it comes pre-sliced and in two sealed packets.
The only time I ever made more than 50k (55k) was when I had a union warehouse job. But the job sucked so I went to college, got a 4 year degree, got a "career job" and after 10 years am making 45k. And that's with job hopping 4 times. And of course I had to pay off massive debt that took about 8 of those years. I hate it here
Not enough.
Make it 100% above 100 mill in addition.
No fucking person needs more than a hundred million goddamn dollars. Force them to put it into company's and force a number of employees per a sum contributed to ensure economic prosperity.
Just to be clear: with a marginal tax rate, if your income is $10,000,001, you pay $0.70 tax for the $1, and the rest of the $10,000,000 is taxed according to the lower tax brackets.
The first $50,000 of that $10 million is taxed just like the guy that only made $50,000.
The US tax system is slightly more complicated than this, but there's no situation where you can get stuck with a huge additional bill because you edged slightly into the next higher tax bracket.
Really makes you think what if the people in the meme actually understood these bits. Oh what am I saying, they would and still insist this is the big bad.
Some dude I met who was previously working in Germany told me he came to Australia because tax was too high in Germany. He told me confidently that it was 40-something percent, flat tax when you earn over a certain amount. I queried if that was the top tax bracket and he told me no. I was shocked at high the marginal tax rate was based on that.
Turns out, despite being a highly specialised metal machinist, he doesn't know shit, and Germany has tax brackets like everywhere else...
People are astoundingly uninformed.
I know some Estonians working in Finland refuse raises because that puts them in the next tax bracket.
But then those are mostly construction workers and the stereotypes for Estonians who go to Finland for construction work are... Eh, not flattering. Not saying there aren't smart people, but it's also a super common "career path" for people who drop out of school here in Estonia. Or used to be, anyway.
Can't he just, you know, look at his pre and post tax income and do some fucking math?
And we still hear people proudly saying they declined a raise that would put them in a higher tax bracket.
That's because there are a lot of fucking idiots out there
To me, they're lying to push a narrative. No one's turning down a payrise because of that. Only stupid people who have never been offered that kind of money would ever make that kind of claim. So, I agree They're idiots. Just in a slightly different way.
It does depend a bit. The tax brackets are nonsense of course, but there are countries with allowance systems that don't fully decrease to zero as your income rises and at some point end in a hard cap. In those cases a raise might end up costing you due to losing the last part of an allowance.
But that never withheld me from accepting a raise, you're going to have to push pass that threshold at some point anyway.
I understand those who do it because they will lose super benefits because even worth q kid i don't qualify for food stamps and if i was making enough to qualify i might decline.
That's another failure of our social programs. If you make x you get all the programs. If you make x+1 you get nothing. It definitely needs to be a sliding scale.
I just do it because I really don't want the additional responsibilities and scrutiny.
Yeah, getting screwed by income brackets only happens when you're poor and on assistance.
... Which is probably a big part of why they think it works that way for taxes, come to think of it.
50K people don't just say that, they parrot ruling class propaganda drilled into them since childbirth. This isn't an individual defect. It's a process helping the system to reproduce itself, of the ruling class keeping itself in its ruling position.
70% is an acceptable start.
For billionaires I want 100% and their heads (nonnegotiable)
Best I can do is feet...(Through a woodchipper, slowly)
And a tax on loans based on assets
In the UK, once you take a loan against an unrealised gain, you just realised the gain. Otherwise, it would quite easily be used as a disguised remuneration package, specifically used to avoid tax. This is standard practice is countries who haven't had their tax laws completely and utterly perverted by billionaires. Ours is "only" mostly.
That can’t be true, I’ve been assured by Republicans that it’s literally impossible to implement that.