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Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

theguardian.com

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Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#31

Post by DanTheManPR »

skrowl wrote: post #4

It's probably different in the UK where The Guardian is, but in the USA the bottom 45% of wage earners pay $0 federal income tax while the top 20% pay 87% of it. I'm not sure how much more you should slap on the "evil" job-creating rich before it's "proper", but 87% already seems pretty high to me. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/45-of-americans-pay-no-fed...

What would you propose, squeeze more water from the stone? The bottom 45% of wage earnes are broke as hell, they hardly have any income to tax. Meanwhile, the top 20% have so much more money that you can raise 87% of income tax revenue even with today's more flattened tax brackets.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#32

Post by ben509 »

hiccuphippo wrote: post #9
bonoboTP wrote: post #2

Scott Alexander had a compelling argument against this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/29/against-against-billio...

If they are deterred from donating to charity by the negative press, was it philanthropy in the first place?

Why does it matter if their motives are pure? You don't need a moral justification to do a thing that helps other people and is entirely at your personal expense.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#33

Post by alphabettsy »

ctdonath wrote: post #7

Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? Job creation, charity, arts funding, lowering costs of necessities, etc - and at levels & locations which gov't would never achieve. The "tax/soak the rich" notion seems almost entirely puni…

Why should the average American pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes?

Allowing the rich to choose what organizations and causes are worth supporting is certainly not Democratic. For example, you have private schools getting massive amounts of donations from Alumni, while the local elementary is shutting off water fountains because of lead exposure and they can’t afford to update the plumbing. I also don’t think the kids in the school with books so old they don’t mention 9/11 care about the millions donated to the art museum.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#34

Post by wycy »

ColanR wrote: post #18
noahth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. The way we accomplish that is through government. Elon Musk is not improving the environment, he's launching cars into space for giggles while mistreating his workers.

> Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. How about we amend that to, 'Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources, in proportion to their demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources'. Elon Musk figured out how to make a ton of money; he has more right to determine its use than some bureaucrat in an office. You say that government is our method of collective allocation, but it's real…

That's what we have now. The more resources (money) you have, the more say (speech) you get. Citizens United.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#35

Post by antidaily »

ctdonath wrote: post #8
grecy wrote: post #5

I just read that Jeff Bezoz will pay a lower tax rate than someone earning $7.25/hr. Incredible.

He's also giving thousands of people jobs, making necessities available to millions at low prices, and paying enormous amounts in total taxes. Can gov't really do more with his money than he can? Do you really want to disincentivize what he does for humanity?

What’s he doing with his money? He’s not paying workers out of his checking account.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#36

Post by AlexandrB »

ColanR wrote: post #18
noahth wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. The way we accomplish that is through government. Elon Musk is not improving the environment, he's launching cars into space for giggles while mistreating his workers.

> Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. How about we amend that to, 'Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources, in proportion to their demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources'. Elon Musk figured out how to make a ton of money; he has more right to determine its use than some bureaucrat in an office. You say that government is our method of collective allocation, but it's real…

> in proportion to their demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources'.

This makes the huge assumption that "the market" is already equitably rewarding talent with money. It is not. Luck, heritage (inherited wealth and power), and race/gender all skew how much you can amass and the effects are exponential, not linear.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#38

Post by falcolas »

dwrowe wrote: post #14
falcolas wrote: post #3

Too many temporarily embarrassed billionaires in our population to push for this from the bottom, and too many billionaires using their version of lunch money on our politicians to get traction from the top. Great concept, won’t ever actually happen.

This is such a tired take. Is it not possible to just believe that a person shouldn’t HAVE to pay more (percentage-wise) in taxes because they’re successful - while at the same time, be fine with the credits / deductions available to the less fortunate? I can’t be the unicorn here.

Um, they aren’t paying more, percentage wise. That’s why everyone is upset. They’re paying more in gross volumes of money, but significantly less when compared to their actual income.

You should ask, whose life would be enriched more by having more of the money they’re paying in tax - the average income household paying 30% on their $40,000, or the millionaire paying 7% on their hundreds of millions of income?

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#39

Post by geggam »

rayiner wrote: post #16

There are two major problems with this line of reasoning: 1) The bit about the 70% tax rate is wrong. The 70% was on wage income, but other sorts of income was taxed lower, and a lot of income wasn’t taxed at all. https://taxfoundation.org/70-tax-rate-entrepreneurial-income . Actual tax rates on the rich have been highly stable since the 1950s: https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ 2) The amount…

This graph doesnt agree

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Historical_Marginal_Tax_R...

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#40

Post by wycy »

ctdonath wrote: post #7

Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? Job creation, charity, arts funding, lowering costs of necessities, etc - and at levels & locations which gov't would never achieve. The "tax/soak the rich" notion seems almost entirely puni…

Multimillionaires and billionaires constantly donating to the Harvard endowment while public education--and even other private schools--is certainly overhead free, but far from an efficient use of resources.

Podcast about this specific phenomenon: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-...

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