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Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

reuters.com

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Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#111

Post by munk-a »

esoterica wrote: post #88

Just tax capital gains as income if you want to hit the rich. Wealth taxes are both harder to implement and enforce than income taxes (e.g. how do you appraise an illiquid asset) while conferring no meaningful advantages.

I was disappointed to recently learn that Canada also has capital gain tax loophole weirdness - up here income from capital gains is counted half, so if you make 75k in salary and get a 50k payout from options when your company is acquired then you're taxed as if you made 100k... there is no distinction for capital gains from primary property ownership or any other limitations, all capital gains at 50%.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#112

Post by JoshTriplett »

CPLX wrote: post #52
ohazi wrote: post #33

I'm skeptical that most respondents understood the questions correctly. Most people are familiar with income tax, because they know that money is removed from their paycheck every month. Many also file tax returns. A wealth tax, where a fraction of your bank balance is removed every month, is a totally alien concept to most people. If you haven't thought about it before, it can take a minute or two to wrap your head…

It's not totally alien at all. It's the way we finance nearly all our local governments and school systems. Tallying up property and paying a tax on it annually is something literally everyone does.

I would venture a guess that "property tax" doesn't quite feel the same as a wealth tax to most people, because most people don't have a paid-off house, so it's just one more component of their mortgage (and paid through an escrow account rather than directly). If you're paying a large aggregated bill anyway, it feels like just one more tax associated with money changing hands.

If your house is fully paid off, such that your only remaining costs on it are property taxes and insurance, then you're already far more well-off than the majority of people.

Also, financing schools and other local services via property taxes is a bad idea; doing so perpetuates inequality by giving more funding to services in more expensive neighborhoods.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#113

Post by kevingadd »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #91
nightski wrote: post #3

I feel the wealth inequality issue needs to be addressed. My only problem with the wealth tax is that it takes money from the wealthy and feeds it to the government. I am having a hard time connecting how that improves the situation of the lower and middle classes.

Every time the government is involved they fuck it up. They are incompetent and make a career out of being maliciously incompetent. They will spend the money on stupid programs and unnecessary foreign wars. We already cannot trust the government with our tax revenue. These sickos are salivating over additional income to do extremely immoral things with.

We've cut taxes repeatedly in the US and repeatedly cut benefits spending but we're still starting new wars. Starving the beast isn't going to fix anything, there's always money for war.

If they're really salivating over additional income why aren't taxes increasing? (Other than on the poor, of course)

Want to stop wars? Stop wars, directly. Then once the war expenses are gone, you have way less government spending (we drop an OBSCENE amount of money on the military every year) and you can easily argue that the brand new surplus should be returned to the taxpayer via tax cuts (or via benefits program expansion).

Instead, we have everyone arguing over whether we can "afford" to make university cheaper or get uninsured people onto health plans even though those things are a massive benefit to the people and potentially even cost-neutral. Meanwhile, we cut taxes, to make absolutely sure the only thing we can afford is more wars.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#115

Post by jawns »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #4

Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are I do think the inequality gap is becoming more of a problem, but simply asking the population if they want someone else to pay more is going to have the obvious result.

We might take a page from John Rawls here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

If everyone were behind a veil of ignorance and had to craft a just tax system without knowing whether they, themselves, would end up as poor or rich in such a system, would they nevertheless agree that those who are extreme outliers in terms of their wealth should contribute more?

My guess is that this proposal probably passes the veil of ignorance test.

Which is not to say that it couldn't have its downsides, or that reasonable people couldn't offer very good objections to it.

But by definition, a question of higher taxes on a tiny portion of extremely wealthy individuals is going to involve putting the question to people who, with rare exception, aren't going to be subject to the tax.

But that doesn't necessarily mean their decision is unfair.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#116

Post by jandrese »

nightski wrote: post #102
jandrese wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is a total mystery how adequately funding social welfare programs could somehow help the poor.

It's not a mystery at all. But that does not address the wealth inequality. It just provides bare necessities to the poor (which is a great thing, it's just not what I was talking about).

Taking money from the top of the wealth gap and putting at the bottom seems like it should reduce the gap by simple mathematics.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#117

Post by droopyEyelids »

onepointsixC wrote: post #50
jandrese wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is a total mystery how adequately funding social welfare programs could somehow help the poor.

Benefits and welfare programs have been increasing dramatically as a percentage of GDP.

Have people been getting poorer to qualify for welfare?

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#118

Post by asdfasdfasdfa »

fatnoah wrote: post #41
aazaa wrote: post #11

> A wealth tax is levied on an individual’s net worth, such as stocks, bonds and real estate, as well as cash holdings, similar in concept to property taxes. It is separate from an income tax, which applies to wages, interest and dividends, among other sources. One often overlooked issue with a wealth tax is the damaging effect on financial privacy. The income tax already has the IRS probing into nooks and crannies i…

> similar in concept to property taxes All other merits aside, is it really similar to a property tax? I pay property taxes every quarter and I have just as much property as I started with. The value of the property also doesn't go down every tax cycle as a result. With a wealth tax, the person's wealth would decrease to a minimum at some point.

In the same way you'll at some point have to sell property to get the money to pay your taxes.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#119

Post by apta »

throwawaysea wrote: post #37

Almost every country that has enacted a wealth tax has repealed it. And the version that Elizabeth Warren is proposing is fairly extreme - her 3% wealth tax rate would be double the 1.5% rate that France ended up repealing ( https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-14/france... ). Personally I can’t get behind this idea because it just feels like it is taking away something you’ve already earned and own out…

> it is taking away something you’ve already earned and own outright for whatever purpose you want

The same applies to income tax.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#120

Post by jandrese »

onepointsixC wrote: post #50
jandrese wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it is a total mystery how adequately funding social welfare programs could somehow help the poor.

Benefits and welfare programs have been increasing dramatically as a percentage of GDP.

Yes, the increasing wealth gap has been killing America. That's what this program is trying to address.
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