At 1:17 PM 5/7/96, Clay Olbon II wrote:
At 5:34 PM 5/6/96, Timothy C. May wrote:
Also, the effect of inflation has been to inflate salaries and thus inflate people into higher tax brackets, even when their "real wages" have not gone up.
This used to be true. A bill passed during the Reagan administration indexed the brackets to inflation to remedy this situation. I don't know how succesful the bill was in eliminating "bracket creep", but that was the stated purpose.
No, it _still_ is true. One bill during one administration does not a major change make. Look at the actual rates, average salaries, increases, etc. (Sure, there have been all sorts of rate increases, decreases, changes, loopholes added, loopholes subtracted, etc. But the fact is that the average starting salary for an EE was about $12,000 a year in 1975 and more than 30,000 in 1995, with about the same buying power but with tax _rates_ dramatically higher.) --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."