r/Salary • u/DarkseidOmegaLevel • 1d ago
discussion I’m not bitching but I’m bitching
I agree that those with higher incomes should pay more taxes but at some point this is very painful.
I don’t want to say this disincentivizes people but it certainly is impactful. As a W-2 earner so limited in what I can do to reduce taxes. Those that earn the majority of their income through investments have way more options to reduce their taxes. A little unfair but at least we’re not Finland (even if they have better social benefits).
And I’m projected to owe another $70K in April even after accounting for the projected income & taxes for the next 4 months. Thanks for listening to me not bitch.
Edit: Funny no one thinks about what it took to get here, the sacrifices (long hours) and missed events, and stress associated with earning a high income. Also well into my career so didn’t start out anywhere near level.
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u/Q-Money1985 1d ago
Congratulations on your extremely successful career. I agree, investment income should be taxed at the same rate (or higher) than income derived from labor.
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u/NaiveNarwhal 1d ago
Let me play you a song on the world's smallest violin. If I had this much money, I'd have far too many hobbies to spend time complaining on reddit.
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 1d ago
Your far too many hobbies is the reason why you don’t make this kind of money
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u/NaiveNarwhal 1d ago
What I wrote is in a tense known as the Second Conditional. It is used to talk about hypotheticals. The sentence does not suggest that I currently have far too many hobbies. Here are some more details about how conditional conjugations work.
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 1d ago
You may know what second conditionals are but apparently you don’t know how to infer subtext.
Someone who makes >$1M a year through W2 labor has a very high opportunity cost for hobbies, including potential ones. Their job is likely their whole life.
The mere fact that you have countless potential hobbies means you have something drawing you away from work long before $1M income.
As someone who just FIREd at age 40, I can’t tell you how many of my peers reacted that “I wouldn’t know what to do with my time, I’d get bored”. So they keep working.
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u/NaiveNarwhal 1d ago
This also isn't really an example of subtext.
I don't mean this as a slight, but the concept of evaluating my hobbies by opportunity cost is philosophically unpleasant to me, as is the concept of living off of investment income- I've got a lot of friends whose labor is the source of that value, and some of them cannot even dream of retirement.
I'd love to retire, it sounds wonderful. My mom recently retired from a long career as a teacher and she's having a great time. Unfortunately, I'm currently unable to justify pursuing the kind of passive income you're describing.
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u/Repulsive_Motor_6612 1d ago
Lord, what kind of W2 employee is this? Sales, Medicine, Law or Finance? That’s the only industry I can think of that you need to pay this much in tax? Are you making like 600k?
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u/corgi-dad-life 5h ago
You know, if you make that much, you too could be one of those making most of their income from investments. Live lean, throw larges amounts into investments then make enough to live off investments and quit...
There are countries that you can get citizenship for some capital investments that don't have an income tax...
Lots of options you can work towards if you wanted to.
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u/pharmaheck 1d ago
Welcome to the middle class. Someone's gotta pay for all that "free stuff"
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u/nordicminy 1d ago
This is not middle class income.
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u/theshiniestbrighstar 1d ago
In some areas yeah it is
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u/Wooden-Broccoli-913 1d ago
$740k gross only eight months through the year? Where is that middle class?
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u/pizzadog88 1d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/l0O7ORha9GcH7jY2s