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When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

nytimes.com

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Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#41

Post by sharemywin »

moretai wrote: post #20
sharemywin wrote: post #3

I'm not sure why so many people look up to the rich. They fail at kinder-garden. I have to work very hard to help my 4 year old to understand how to share. If your using money to keep score your probably using the wrong system to keep score. I've been using weight watchers lately and keep score with the right system helps a lot.

It represents freedom, that's why people look up to it.

I'm not talking about financial freedom. At around 10M you have financial freedom. I think competition is a great tool for personal growth, but would you run the score up on your child in a game of basketball or would you try an teach him a few tricks to up his game so the next time you both enjoy the game more.

At the end of the day I think we need to spend more time sharing a little more. ME included.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#42

Post by quickConclusion »

"The theory behind all those high-end tax cuts [...] was that it would unleash entrepreneurial energy [...] The first half of that theory may well have come true. Many of the world’s most successful companies are American — not only Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, but also Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson and JPMorgan Chase."

The article fails to mention that even when the tax code was 90% on the highest earners, most of the successful companies were American, including Exxon Mobil, GM, Ford, DuPont, AT&T...

Anecdotally, I don't think I have ever met anyone starting a business thinking "If I don't make more than 2 million a year for myself, I won't have a successful business." So increasing tax rate beyond a couple of millions a year, or even before, seems a no-brainer to me, at least until everybody gets healthcare and free education.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#43

Post by 0xcoffee »

4c2383f5c88e911 wrote: post #36
tici_88 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem is that no tax code can close all loop holes because you just can't foresee the creative ways people will out maneuver the tax code." I disagree. I simple flat tax rate where everything is taxed at a single rate would close every single one of the loopholes above, if only by making it moot. The fact that the rich can maneuver themselves into a much lower tax rate than the average person presents a signif…

A flat tax rate is not a good idea whatsoever; if you tax e.g. 20% of earnings ,do you believe people who earn $30k a year are impacted the same way as people earning $200k or more? Sure, those who earn more pay more, but it hits them in "extra" earnings, while the poor are taxed on money they need to survive. A (very) progressive tax rate with a few ways of reducing the tax based on social (e.g. number of children,…

How about a flat tax rate, but have essential goods be tax free?

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#44

Post by Iv »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I wrote this a few years ago in response to a similar piece: The problem is that the rich have the ability to take their income in alot of different ways. Tax income more, they'll take it as dividends. Tax dividends more, they'll take it as capital gains. Tax capital gains, they won't realize their capital gains until they can offset them with realized losses or they'll just get bank loans again't their stock holding…

That's like saying it will always be possible to murder someone so there is no point in trying to curb chemical weapons sales to children.

Every loop closed makes tax evasion harder and riskier. There will always be people who do it, like there will always be people killing other people, but it is worth making it hard and risky enough that most people will consider other solutions before resorting to murder/tax evasion.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#45

Post by imglorp »

4c2383f5c88e911 wrote: post #36
tici_88 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem is that no tax code can close all loop holes because you just can't foresee the creative ways people will out maneuver the tax code." I disagree. I simple flat tax rate where everything is taxed at a single rate would close every single one of the loopholes above, if only by making it moot. The fact that the rich can maneuver themselves into a much lower tax rate than the average person presents a signif…

A flat tax rate is not a good idea whatsoever; if you tax e.g. 20% of earnings ,do you believe people who earn $30k a year are impacted the same way as people earning $200k or more? Sure, those who earn more pay more, but it hits them in "extra" earnings, while the poor are taxed on money they need to survive. A (very) progressive tax rate with a few ways of reducing the tax based on social (e.g. number of children,…

That might be oversimplifying what flat means. Suppose it's not a linear function? Pick your function to begin kicking in above the poverty line and maybe get linear above 200k.

But "no loophole tax" might be a better characterization of the flat idea, yes?

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#46

Post by piokoch »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I wrote this a few years ago in response to a similar piece: The problem is that the rich have the ability to take their income in alot of different ways. Tax income more, they'll take it as dividends. Tax dividends more, they'll take it as capital gains. Tax capital gains, they won't realize their capital gains until they can offset them with realized losses or they'll just get bank loans again't their stock holding…

Yes, and that explains why rich people are often leftists and support complicated tax system - for them it does not matter, they will not pay a penny, but if someone tries to build competing business from scratch and cannot afford "tax optimalization" then taxation is one more obstacle on the road.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#48

Post by MichaelBurge »

gambiting wrote: post #34
shortstuffsushi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would the flat tax actually tax though, income? Wouldn't they just dodge that then by not having income? Sure, for you and me it would make it easier -- my W2 says I made exactly 100k, here's exactly 50k of it, period. For people who have a flexible income, why report any amount that would make you pay in?

Don't have income tax at all, tax every transaction 20%, like a flat rate VAT except that you can't claim it back on your business expenses. Simplify the entire tax system without having loads of brackets, exemptions and special cases - if you sell goods or services, 20% of that is paid as tax, end of story. I mean, I am not an economist, I have no idea if that would work or not(probably not)

The big problem there is that it encourages companies to grow as big as they possibly can, because "internal" transactions aren't taxed.

So Amazon would own the entire supply chain: Manufacturing widgets, selling widgets, storing widgets, shipping widgets, handling returns, etc. They already sort of do this, but if you add a 20% tax at each hop they would eliminate the remaining hops as fast as they possibly can or buy the hops.

And you could never start a small business, because everyone who'd want to buy from you would save a ton of money doing it themselves. By not taxing business transactions, it's zero additional cost to have someone else do something for you, so it makes it possible to grow a small business.

In particular, grocery stores with a 2% margin would be hit hard.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#49

Post by technofiend »

neonhomer wrote: post #6
sharemywin wrote: post #3

I'm not sure why so many people look up to the rich. They fail at kinder-garden. I have to work very hard to help my 4 year old to understand how to share. If your using money to keep score your probably using the wrong system to keep score. I've been using weight watchers lately and keep score with the right system helps a lot.

> If your using money to keep score your probably using the wrong system to keep score. I think another side of the problem is 99% of people who are not rich are using the same score and since they are "losing" they hate the rich. If we all stop using money as the score we'd all be better off.

How do you define having "enough" money? There was a Wall Street Journal survey many years ago and the majority who responded said something like "If I made twice as much money as I do now I'd be happy." Never mind the fact that the survey covered enough income levels that people who made $30k were wishing for $60k and those who made $60k were wishing for $120k.

I think unfortunately for most people their expenditures rise with their income and they struggle to get ahead. I'm not saying striving to get ahead is wrong, I'm just saying some people end up treading water no matter where they are.

WSJ has definitely tried to answer "how much is enough" and googling for that returns things like

https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-money-buy-happiness-heres-w... >What matters a lot more than a big income is how people spend it.

And

https://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09/07/the-perfect-salary-f... >The Perfect Salary for Happiness: $75,000

I'm not sure there's really one answer.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#50

Post by wyager »

jrimbault wrote: post #12
tici_88 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem is that no tax code can close all loop holes because you just can't foresee the creative ways people will out maneuver the tax code." I disagree. I simple flat tax rate where everything is taxed at a single rate would close every single one of the loopholes above, if only by making it moot. The fact that the rich can maneuver themselves into a much lower tax rate than the average person presents a signif…

And then we'd have to redo/relearn the last millenium of why we do the things the way we do them.

The modern progressive income tax system is not even remotely a millennium old. We didn't even have income taxes in the US until 1861, and they weren't generally applied until 1913.
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