Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by zpallin » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

ben509 wrote: post #32

hiccuphippo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're right, but unless a person is spending money for a social-cause that benefits us all, they absolutely do not deserve any special status, press coverage or a title such as "philanthropist." They're just spending money for themselves, and that's nothing special. Anyone can do that.

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

#92

Post by snagglegaggle » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #17

At least everyone can agree that government taxing should be higher than government spending^. This article is mainly baiting rich v poor division; on a close read it doesn't actually say much. The real issue is that everything in general has become so complicated that nobody has a hope of understanding how it works. Unless we have accountants on deck today nobody really has a feel for how much the rich pay in taxes…

I was reading economic drivel yesterday that indicated high debt-to-GDP could be making interest payments out of worker productivity increases, which would explain flat buying power (non)growth.

It's still unclear to me how running a huge deficit is not a problem. It doesn't matter, but... how? The natural inclination is that it does.

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

#93

Post by hedvig » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

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…

His dad somehow obtained rights to mines in Africa, you're going to tell me he "figured out how to make a ton of money" with that kind of start?

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

#94

Post by spoovy » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

The Guardian journos are not even trying to hide their jealousy any more. They don't care one jot about the living standards (the ever rising living standards) of the global poor. They just care that they can only afford one cruise a year while Bezos can buy his own cruise ship.

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

#95

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:01 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #78

AlexandrB wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Because the government is democratically elected. Billionaires are not. > 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? [citation needed] In fact, there's an easy counter-example. Healthcare. More expensive than any public system, wit…

> More expensive than any public system, with worse outcomes for the general population. That presupposes the US would have a cheaper system if it were public. (Also most European systems aren’t “public systems” but that’s a separate issue.) We spend more per student on our public education system than almost every other OECD country, to get far worse results. Our public transit systems spend several times as much mo…

>I don’t think it is at all clear that costs wouldn’t go up under a public healthcare system in the US.

I'm a simple mathematician, so I'll admit that I tend to look at issues where numbers are involved a bit too simply sometimes. Having mentioned that, shouldn't it be self-evident that costs will go up?

You'd essentially be playing an actuarial/insurance game and on-boarding an enormous number of new beneficiaries. Naturally costs will go up. Costs per capita will go up as well due to issues like logistics. Issues that are avoided currently by, for example, simply not providing services in certain areas. (I suppose issues like logistics are not so much "avoided", as they are "offloaded". For instance, people in rural america where senior citizens sometimes have to drive 60 miles to get emergency services.)

On the flip side of all that, I suppose the entire point of government healthcare is to provide necessary services for people who are not currently being served. So at least we can see the benefits of the extra money in the goveernmental case. ie - everyone is served. Which can't be said for the current system despite its enormous expense.

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

#96

Post by alphabettsy » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #75

alphabettsy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without thinking too much I’d agree, but I have a hard time saying someone making $25k/yr should pay 25% of their income compared to someone making $1mil/yr. If the very wealthiest weren’t paying lower effective tax rates than the people making $200k/yr. that would be a start.

If by "the wealthiest" you mean millionares and billionaires, then you must also know that they have ways to move their money around to avoid those taxes. Some programmer with 200k wage, living in an ultra expensive city, doesn't.

I absolutely know that. Imagine spending just a portion of what we spend on the drug war to combat tax evasion.

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

#97

Post by jazzyk » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

DanTheManPR wrote: post #31

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.

But in the supposedly socialist Europe, even lower income people pay SOME amount in taxes.

For example, in Spain, you pay 19% on the first 12,450E, and the rate quickly goes up to 45% for anything over 60,000E (average income is ~30K)

There are some personal allowances and deductions, but most people pay at least some tax.

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

#98

Post by wycy » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

hevi_jos wrote: post #58

Paying more than 70% of what you earn is not fair. It is slavery and confiscation. And it always happens the same way, those in charge, in power, who control this 70% will manage to spend it on themselves one way or another. In the soviet Union official markets will have stands selling just one potato, or one lemon or egg. Then in the black market the communist families could buy(or access, because with power and inf…

It's only 70% of what you earn on dollars after certain other nominal limits. For example, 70% of what you earn after you've earned your first $1,000,000.00. Please do spare everyone these absurd tears for the "enslaved" rich.

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

#99

Post by pintxo » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #53

AlexandrB wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Because the government is democratically elected. Billionaires are not. > 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? [citation needed] In fact, there's an easy counter-example. Healthcare. More expensive than any public system, wit…

I trust politicians as much as I trust billionaires: not at all. In fact as the OP points out at least the occasional billionaire will do something productive for society. The same can't be said for the government. > [citation needed] In fact, there's an easy counter-example. Healthcare. More expensive than any public system, with worse outcomes for the general population. The only reason health care is so expensive…

Assuming you live in the USA, the simple fact, that you can leave your house and have access to a (still) working transportation infrastructure and do not need (I hope) private security to protect your life and property is proof that the Government does something productive for society.

I am as off by a lot of recent Government actions and their seeming inability to fix obvious issues. But to argue they to nothing productive for society? That is just plain wrong.

Also, I'd like to highlight that millions of citizens are only healthy/alive because of regulations. Are they perfect? Far from it, but can we live without them? No.

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

#100

Post by logicchains » Thu, Oct 10, 2019, 2:04 PM UTC

geraltofrivia wrote: post #86

bonoboTP wrote: post #2

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

In my opinion, the problem isn't that people hate on Billionaires for philanthropic acts, but increasing wealth gap. In other words - very fact that billionaires exist.

Unless you believe everybody is equally skilled at managing money, investment and entrepreneurship, it's natural that some people will be more successful than others. China 70 years ago had no wealth gap, because everyone was dirt poor (except maybe the Party members).