Comment on Bill to raise minimum wage to $25 an hour will be introduced in Senate

• AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  For 401k there’s some sort of requirement preventing them from being too biased toward the most well off. I don’t know the details but it seems like a great place to start: apply similar to all forms of compensation and benefits

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  • Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    Would that be the $ cap of what you can contribute each year? I think it is like $5k per year now maybe? Something like that. I think it went up recently. 7k?

    I’m curious as to how or why that would actually help though, because I think you can open multiple 401ks, right? So you could just open 10 of them.

    But yes, any MATH that makes it so you can’t just exploit the hell out of the system by virtue of just having lots of money already.

    The big issue is that there are tons of loopholes and exploitable things in all our systems (many are intentionally put in for the rich to use). Whatever laws or regulations or systems you don’t has to be fair and all that.

    One glaring issue is that the billionaire class is so wealthy they aren’t even playing the same game as us anymore. They don’t pay taxes because they can stop “earning income” in the traditional sense and it’s all sorts of leveraged forecast market value stock and asset bullshit. I mean, “money” is made up too, but they are outside “money” and deal with “theoretical money” and thus escape all forms of taxes and fair share stuff.

    I’ve always wondered if the answer is doing away with “income tax” entirely (it’s a racket anyway) and having a much higher “sales tax” on everything.

    Let them have billions, but they pay the tax when they buy something like the rest of us do.

    I dunno. I’m tired of overthinking it. Maybe the better option is to eat them.

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    • AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      I’ve always wondered if the answer is doing away with “income tax” entirely (it’s a racket anyway) and having a much higher “sales tax” on everything.

      Counterexample is Elon musk. He’s the biggest example of wealth inequity, yet he’s not ostentatious. His sales tax would be small

      The real answer is treating other forms of wealth and income the same as we do salary income. Why do they get to call some of their income as “not income” and pay less. If we have to pay a property tax on the assessed value of our house even when we haven’t”realized” any gains, why are they not paying any tax on stock or company’s, their “property”

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      • Colonel_Panic_@eviltoast.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        That part. Exactly. We pay for estimated value, they should.

        1 trillion net worth (even if all made up) should pay the taxes on that full amount just like we do.

        If I earn 100k dollars, half that goes to taxes. How come Peelon can earn 100billion and gets all the benefits thereof and doesn’t pay half in taxes?

        In theory 50k from my taxes should be in the tax bank and 50 billion from his. Instead I payed 50k and he paid maybe 5k.

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    • AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      The limit on 401k contributions is quite a bit higher than that, and it’s an overall limit enforced by the IRs. Each employer can provide plans, but can balance rules on vesting and matching contributions. There are tests and audits to ensure it doesn’t primarily benefit higher paid individuals, and fines on them if it does.

      For example, matching contributions are a good tool to encourage more lower paid employees,

      But yeah, this is irrelevant to the actual wealthy

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