Name: 減税がいかに富裕層を助けるか (How tax breaks help the rich)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T07:33:41.000Z
Duration: 8 min 47 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

The United States has a problem with income inequality.

People have different ideas about 
why this is happening.

CEO pay climbs every single year without exception.

The United States has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

big shifts that's happened in the economy

that is lead in part to a decline in union membership.

But one if the biggest drivers of inequality is hiding here, in these 2,000 pages.

President Trump and Republicans in Congress have a plan to alter that code.

and if they get their way it'll get even better for the richest Americans.

First let's look at a few things that Trump and the Republicans

the charitable deduction and 
the mortgage interest deduction.

Let's say Dan makes $100 donation to his church. 
He makes about $30,000 a year.

Roughly, the median income for individuals in the US.

It means he would save at most $15 on his taxes.

But let's say Dan's boss Steve makes the same donation to his church.

Steve makes $500,000 a year which puts him in the top tax bracket.

And the same $100 donation could save Steve $39.60 on his taxes.

Dan and Steve give the same amount to their church

People making $100,000 or more account for about 57% of all the charitable contributions in the US

The US spends $70,000,000,000 a year on it.

More than eight times what it spends on Head Start the federally funded preschool program

and more than twice what it spends on Pell grants for low-income students to go to college.

Plus there's all kinds of ways to bend the rules.

Billionaire Mitchell Rales gets tax break for donating his collection of modern art

to a museum that he built right next door to his house.

A museum that's only open for private tours.

But the worst thing about about the charitable deduction?

There's not great evidence that it works.

Turns out you don't need a tax break to
encourage people to be generous to others.

In the 1980's the top tax rate
for the richest people was 70%

and through a series of reforms it dropped to 28%

and the Council on Foundations, it's kind of a trade group for charities,

said, 'Oh my God, you do that we're going to lose all our contributions.'

Guess what? No difference. People gave just as much with a much lower tax rate.

Austria, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and New Zealand

have all gotten rid of their deductions for charitable contributions

and that hasn't had an impact on
donation rates.

Replace the tax deduction with a tax credit.

If Dan and Steve both give $100 to their church,

A tax credit reduces the amount you owe, so the same donation gets the same benefit

There's another tax deduction that's a boon for the wealthy.

The mortgage interest deduction costs about $100,000,000,000 a year to the Treasury.

We could use that money to treat wounded veterans, to build hospitals, to build highways

but instead we give it to rich homeowners.

Let's say Dan buys a house for $100,000.
He doesn't pay for that all at once.

Each month he writes a check to the bank for $1,000.

Let's say $800 goes to paying for the house,

and the bank keeps $200. That's interest!

Dan writes twelve of these checks a year, so he pays $2,400 a year in interest.

The mortgage interest deduction let's Dan subtract that interest from his taxable income

"Nice," thinks Dan, that is until he hears about Steve.

He also writes a $1,000 check each month paying $200 in interest.

So after a year, Steve can also deduct the $2,400 from his taxable income.

But that same deduction can save Steve more than $960.

Nearly three times as much as Dan for the exact same mortgage payments.

It doesn't stop there. Steve can buy a second home, deduct the interest, and save even more.

Or he can get a mortgage for his yacht, count it as a second home, and deduct the interest.

Sorry Dan, your fishing boat doesn't count.

The money you lose from gambling? Deduct it.

Money you put in a retirement account? That too.

You can even deduct the fees you pay an accountant to help you find more deductions.

And while theoretically Dan could take advantage of these same deductions

the fact is, people like Steve benefit a whole lot more.

People who make about $400,000 a year or more make up about 5% of taxpayers

but they get more than half the benefits from these tax deductions.

Now there's a third part of the tax code that Trump and the Republicans want to keep

and it's even better for the richest Americans than all of these deductions

The preferred rate for capital gains. Here's how it works:

According to the US tax code, there are two different kinds of income.

Earned income is when you go to work and somebody pays you a salary or wage a paycheck.

That's earned income and we have a whole set of income tax rates for that income that go up to 39.6%.

This is where Dan and Steve's tax rates come from.

Unearned income means guys who trade paper.

Guys who sell stock or buy commodities and then sell it.

Invest in real estate properties and then sell them.

That's capital income and we tax that at a lower rate.

Let's say Steve earns $500,000 a year as a surgeon

and Laurie earns the same amount as a hedge fund manager.

Even though their income is the same, Steve's tax rate is 39.6%

but Laurie's tax rate is nearly half that, 23.8%.

So Steve ends up with a much higher tax bill.

This is why billionaire investor Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

His money comes from capital gains while hers comes from a salary.