Talk:Tax rate

Merge
I suggest a merge of Effective tax rate and Marginal tax rate. The new "Tax rates" article should cover "statutory tax rate", "average tax rate", "marginal tax rate", "effective tax rate", "effective average tax rate", & "effective marginal tax rate". I would suggest a move of one of the articles and then a merge of the other (to try and preserve some history). Morphh  (talk) 2:36, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd generally like to see this kind of smaller stubby article merged into more general ones, so that's a support. Winklethorpe (talk) 21:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Being bold and made the change. Morphh   (talk) 2:20, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * After working on this article, I think the title would have been better unpluralized as Tax rate. I've put in a request to move the article, since Tax rate is an existing page that redirects to this article.  Morphh   (talk) 2:12, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Validate math
Could someone please validate the math? I updated the marginal equation that existed to use math formating but I'm not that familiar with the use of Delta. Morphh  (talk) 13:21, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks right to me. It's the same equations as before, and they seem to be the right ones. I've been meaning to learn the math function. Winklethorpe (talk) 18:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what was meant by validate in this context, but could someone please show the intermediate steps in the final equation line? It's unclear to me how it results in t/(1-t), though I don't doubt that it's correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlueSingularity (talk • contribs) 05:37, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Historical tax rates
Does anyone have good pointers to compilations of well-cited sources for historical marginal tax rates (or any tax rates, really) in the US and other countries. It seems Wikipedia should document this information, if possible. I cannot find any good articles at present. N2e (talk) 15:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Income tax in the United States has some historical rates that seem well sourced. Morphh   (talk) 1:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Article is confusing and likely mostly POV
I've been professionally advising clients on tax matters for nearly 4 decades, and find this article very confusing. Is it supposed to be about taxes or economics?

For example, the section "Effective tax rate" seems to have trouble deciding what it's talking about. The sub-topics don't seem to relate to the way the phrase "effective tax rate" is used in the business world. Companies preparing financial statements under U.S. GAAP or under IFRS are required to disclose their effective tax rate. Under U.S. GAAP (and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules), that disclosure must reconcile the statutory rate to the effective rate. Is one of these "the rate existing in fact" as the article states? And what's a "negatively infinite marginal rate"? I'm confused.

Also, the article may be highly point of view, and likely should be flagged as such. It cites as its primary source a pamphlet by a lobbying group, which describes itself as an "Organization dedicated to fully replacing the US federal income tax system with a national sales tax." The views in that pamphlet are highly controversial, at best. I would even argue that the pamphlet and organization would be classified as fringe under Wikipedia's POV guidelines. No qualifiers are given in the citation and article, misleading the reader to think the source is reliable.

Another source cited by the article is an economic analysis authored at the Beacon Hill Institute, which describes itself as "a free-market think tank based in Suffolk University Boston" and is mostly funded by conservative organizations and individuals. BHI has publicly advocated major changes to get tax systems away from income taxes. This is hardly an unbiased source, and again no qualifiers are given.

The article needs a major overhaul. Perhaps there should be an economics section (one not biased toward a particular theory) and a business section. Also, tax rate does not just refer to income taxes, so any discussion should not be income tax centric. There certainly needs to be more than a highly POV economics discussion.Oldtaxguy (talk) 23:15, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

What's a tax base?
"A marginal tax rate is the tax rate that applies to the last dollar of the tax base (taxable income or spending)" Don't understand what is meant by a tax base. Could someone knowledgeable re-word this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheForthright (talk • contribs) 11:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should have a section on tax bases. Essentially the tax base is the item and amount subject to taxation.  It's what is being taxed, be it personal income, consumption, property, capital gains, etc minus exemptions.  So if it's your personal income, and all income was taxed, then the marginal tax rate would be on the last dollar earned.  (i.e. If income up to 10,000 is taxed at 10% and 20,000 - 30,000 is taxed at 20%, the marginal tax rate is 20% on 30,000, where the average tax rate is 15%.)  If it's consumption, and all consumption is taxed, the the marginal tax rate would be on the last dollar spent.  Exemptions reduce a tax base.  So if food was exempt from a sales tax, then your tax based would be on consumption minus food - that is the base of taxation to collect revenue for the government.   Morphh   (talk) 13:25, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

On effective rates
Effective tax rate is often used to justify one tax policy or another. However, the term is, IMHO, a garbage term, as it is rarely defined by the user and often includes undisclosed items. I have modified the definition to reflect several usages. There are many others, and many are inconsistent to the point of contradiction.Oldtaxguy (talk) 04:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Rate of taxation
Rate of taxation. That's what am asking about 102.88.68.154 (talk) 23:14, 7 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Reply 102.88.68.154 (talk) 23:16, 7 May 2024 (UTC)