71–80 of 358 posts
I appreciate his attempt at a nuanced view of the subject, but I can't see taking your possessions under threat of violence as anything other than reprehensible.
I think the best solution would be to get rid of income taxes and just have sales and property taxes. Taxing the rich a higher rate is always going to seem unfair to them because the only way those taxes can be lessened is by making less money. Taxing $2 million house at a special rate is a different story, it seems fair because if you don't want to pay the tax you live in a more modest house. Luxury cars, fur coats,…
This is considered by many to be unfair because consumption inequality is not as large as income inequality. Peter Thiel may be 10,000-100,000x richer than me, but I'd be very surprised if he consumes even 1000x more than I do.
Peter Theil makes about 200x more a year than the average person, but he doesn't have to consume 200 times more than the average person if all the items he wants to buy are at a much higher tax rate. They only way to avoid the tax is to not buy luxury items, and if a billionaire wants to live the life of a guy making 50k a year, let him have at it.
Eliminate all federal taxes and print the money needed for government operations. Effectively this becomes an inflation tax. Automatically it affects the wealthy in direct proportion to their wealth as opposed to their most recent earnings. No loopholes, no games, no misallocation of resources for tax breaks.
The US Government could give out badges for every $1m in taxes you pay... then the rich could level up every April 15th.
I don't think the rich really get anything out of it, but in the Nordic countries, fines increase in proportion to your wealth. I remember reading about a Nokia exec getting pulled over for speeding. His ticket was like $75,000! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1670583 I've often thought some fees should be adjusted for wealth. For example, a quarter a day isn't really enough to get me to take my…
I think many European countries adjust the fines to ones wealth: For example Switzerland: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10960230
When speeding, you're endangering people's lives. There has to be some measure that will make you think twice about speeding the next time around -- if you know that the ticket fine will be a paltry amount to you (relative to your total wealth), that is no deterrent.
There's a potentially dangerous line that the US is approaching where, factoring in all the exemptions, credits, and deductions, a majority of the population will not be paying income taxes at all. Thus, a majority of the population will be deciding (via their votes) how much and on what the taxes of the minority will be spent. The only saving grace, if you can call it that, is that the people who actually place the…
In the 1970s, the bottom 50% typically earned around 17-20% of total income, and paid around 6-9% of total taxes. Today, they earn around 11% of total income, and pay around 2% of total taxes. With no change in progressivity, sure, that should've been around 3 or 4% rather than 2%, but that's still not much. It's hard to tax income that doesn't exist!
His idea about a 10% cut across the board is so common-sense - I've heard it before - yet we never ever hear this from anyone in Washington (not that I've heard, anyway). Why not? 10% may seem extreme - fair enough - but why not 2%? Could we try one year where every federal department has 2% less to spend than they did the year before? 2% isn't a lot, and would go a long way toward each dept rooting out their own 'wa…
> Why not? You're asking the people who are receiving the money to make the rules that they get less of it. I think it's fairly obvious.
BUT... if everyone had their relative power reduced equally by truly 'across-the-board' cuts, there would't be any real change in the 'my budget is bigger than yours' contests that undoubtedly go on.
Taxing the rich (even more than they are already which IMHO is a lot ) is just punishing success and rewarding failure.