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Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#171

Post by derleth »

abrenzel wrote: post #89

Scott Adams, like the politicians in Washington DC, is living in a dream world. Cut all discretionary and defense spending to 0, and we would still be running a deficit due to entitlements. Tax "the rich" at 100%, and we would still be running a deficit. Tax corporations at 100%, and we would still be running a deficit. On the left, politicians make it sound as though we're just a few tax hikes and some defense cuts…

> Cut all discretionary and defense spending to 0, and we would still be running a deficit due to entitlements.

Defense spending is an entitlement program for weapons makers.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#172

Post by rgraham »

neilk wrote: post #98
megaman821 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The consumption tax doesn't have to be a flat tax. You pay more tax for a pack a cigarettes than a pack of paper. 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…

You're taxing the wrong thing. Your idea would be great if we wanted billionaires to act like regular joes. But generally, in North America, we don't care about that. The problem was about fixing the deficit. yummyfajitas was right: consumption taxes are generally considered regressive. Also, the rich, or even the professional class, have many more options to disguise their consumption as business expenses.

Consumption taxes can be regressive. Ideas like the Fair Tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax) generally include provisions to reduce the disproportionate effects on people making less money (and proportionally spending more to survive).

Taxing consumption also encourages people to save and invest. In my opinion, this is a much better base for a society than encouraging spending and not saving. Most western countries tax income less and consumption more than the US.

Disguise? There are no exemptions. A significant focus of the idea is to remove the politics, special cases, and loopholes around the tax system.

The 10th largest economy in the world functions on property and sales taxes alone. We call it Texas.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#173

Post by LiveTheDream »

alsomike wrote: post #137
yummyfajitas wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it's hard to create a high status item. Say you invent the "US Govt. Certified Top 0.1% Badge" - do you really think Peter Thiel, John Paulson or Alex Rodriguez will really give a crap? Taxing existing luxury status symbols could work, and is very likely a good idea. Creating new status symbols is likely to fail horribly. Also, the tax on certain neighborhoods neglects the very large non-status re…

My tax plan is to eliminate income tax up to $90,000. After that, income is taxed at 100%. The government awards tax credits for everyone making less than that, so that everyone's salary + tax credits = $90,000. "But wait," you say "How will we incentivize entrepreneurs if they can't earn more money?" For everyone making over $90,000 (approx. 11% of the population), their pretax salary is used to assign them national…

If the plan provides for everyone to earn 90k regardless of what they actually do, there is no incentive to be productive at all, (much less to be productive enough to account for those who produce very little). Having my name on a list as the X most productive person is not incentive. Being able to spend the money I earn, is.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#174

Post by martinkallstrom »

martinkallstrom wrote: post #152

The best way of taxing the rich is producing luxury goods. The fact that you can buy food, transport, housing, clothing at a magnitude or two (or more) higher cost is a sort of volontary tax. When you buy a $1000 bottle of champagne instead of drinking water, a large part of that money takes a pretty short path to pay the wages of people that never would buy the same bottle themselves. And would maybe be out of a job…

It follows that whenever you see someone in driving a car you couldn't afford or eating in a restaurant that you would consider too expensive, don't think "ahole", think "thanks for distributing your wealth".

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#175

Post by jarek »

seabee wrote: post #154
gabrielroth wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HOV-lane idea starts out in the wrong place. If you want to raise money from apportioning a scarce resource (in this case space on the road), you use prices, not taxes. Congestion charges have become very popular and successful in London—it's too bad Bloomberg's attempt to install them in New York failed.

> Congestion charges have become very popular and successful in London Popular and successful with who, exactly? I don't know a single person that likes it. Traffic was reduced for a few years but now it's just as bad as ever. And the cost of public transport continually rises above inflation. At least they recently shrank the chargable area. So what has it done, exactly, except raise income for the city and raise pr…

> Traffic was reduced for a few years but now it's just as bad as ever.

Has the population changed?

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#176

Post by ams6110 »

gabrielroth wrote: post #115
jakevoytko wrote: post #59

The best ideas in this framework would use sliding rewards. But they will never happen. Take the HOV lane idea. Giving the top 1% access to HOV lanes is political suicide. But awarding hours for a special fast lane, linked to the infrastructure-based taxes you pay, sounds fairer. The family of 4 making $60K a year gets a few hours they can use when they need them, tax-exempt employees get nothing, and a CEO gets more…

The HOV-lane idea starts out in the wrong place. If you want to raise money from apportioning a scarce resource (in this case space on the road), you use prices, not taxes. Congestion charges have become very popular and successful in London—it's too bad Bloomberg's attempt to install them in New York failed.

How is the London "congestion charge" not a tax?

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#177

Post by jmulho »

tptacek wrote: post #157
jmulho wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person making $20,000 pays the same US federal payroll tax rate as a person making $100,000 (7.65% in 2010, 5.65% in 2011). This tax pays for Social Security and Medicare (retirement income and retirment healthcare). Federal income tax pays for most of everything else: national defense, public safety, infrastructure, education. In 2009, 47% of US households paid zero federal income tax. We are close to the point wh…

First, payroll taxes cost twice as much as that. Second, payroll taxes are capped; you stop paying them after ~100k. Third, your overall point is bankrupt. Regardless of what particular bucket of money their taxes are paid into, working people at all income levels are stung by our tax rates, which are in turn lower than virtually every other western industrialized nation. It is simply not the case that the working cl…

One: right. The employee pays 7.65%. The employer pays the other half.

Two: right (the rate is actually 1.45% on wages over $106,800 in 2010) - the idea being that you shouldn't have to pay in infinitely given that the benefits are capped.

Three: it is ironic that you mention bankruptcy... that is what tends to happen when the people making spending decisions face no direct consequences.

Let me give you a scenario for the sake of discussion. Suppose everyone paid a 10% federal income tax rate. Now suppose the government said, "We are considering a trillion dollar war, a trillion dollar bailout, and a trillion dollar stimulus package. You, taxpayer, can have all of the wonderful benefits of these things for the low cost of changing your federal income tax rate to 30% for the next 10 years. How about it?" You might have more people questioning these decisions.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#178

Post by ams6110 »

megaman821 wrote: post #53

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,…

The people who build yachts, $2MM homes, luxury cars, etc. might see that as "unfair"

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#179

Post by nostrademons »

justin wrote: post #99
yummyfajitas wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it's hard to create a high status item. Say you invent the "US Govt. Certified Top 0.1% Badge" - do you really think Peter Thiel, John Paulson or Alex Rodriguez will really give a crap? Taxing existing luxury status symbols could work, and is very likely a good idea. Creating new status symbols is likely to fail horribly. Also, the tax on certain neighborhoods neglects the very large non-status re…

A special ID that gives you status isn't so hard to imagine: it is basically like the Black Card, which is actually pretty shitty in terms of benefits but rich people (and people who want to appear rich) want anyways because it is a status symbol you can whip out when ever you want.

One could imagine an ID card that gives you the right not to be violated & degraded in TSA screening lines...

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#180

Post by raquo »

alsomike wrote: post #137
yummyfajitas wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that it's hard to create a high status item. Say you invent the "US Govt. Certified Top 0.1% Badge" - do you really think Peter Thiel, John Paulson or Alex Rodriguez will really give a crap? Taxing existing luxury status symbols could work, and is very likely a good idea. Creating new status symbols is likely to fail horribly. Also, the tax on certain neighborhoods neglects the very large non-status re…

My tax plan is to eliminate income tax up to $90,000. After that, income is taxed at 100%. The government awards tax credits for everyone making less than that, so that everyone's salary + tax credits = $90,000. "But wait," you say "How will we incentivize entrepreneurs if they can't earn more money?" For everyone making over $90,000 (approx. 11% of the population), their pretax salary is used to assign them national…

And what would you do with existing billionaires? Rip them of their money, like when USSR was formed? Or leave them their money to freeze the status quo forever?
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