131–140 of 198 posts
I honestly think so much of what we take as "normal" in society today will change dramatically once Millennials become dominant holders of political offices.
Or much of what millennials believe will shift when they become middle aged and holders of reasonable positive net worth.
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.
The argument for a higher tax on income above a certain level is that it helps prevent tyranny. In the US, anyway, wealth equals power. Great wealth accumulated in few hands shifts a great deal of power over the nation from the populace to those hands. Without some constraint, this poses a real threat to overall freedom and liberty.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> it takes money from the wealthy and feeds it to the government. As opposed to...?
Letting people keep the money that they earned.
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.
Yeah, it is a total mystery how adequately funding social welfare programs could somehow help the poor.
If the government is going to steal my money, I'd like to think that it would go to something like that But in reality it goes to enriching the corrupt bureaucrats and politicians that make the rules and run the systems.
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 is ok some of it to pay taxes to make the lives of the less fortunate a bit less unbearable. After all I take 25-35% of their incomes in rent :)
(Note: well, I don’t really have such a bank account but if I did, I wouldn’t mind the tax)
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.
1. Held wealth past a certain threshold (500k? 1 million?) will be taxed at X% yearly. 2. US budgets get a huge new source of Y revenue, to balance current deficits, pay off debts, or fund progressive programs that help the needy. How is that not helpful? It wouldn't help most HN users, it would help children, the elderly, sick, disabled, etc. It depends on the legislation, you can funnel the funds or you can keep th…
By definition, the revenue stream will run out. You tax, say, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates until their net worth is exactly $500,000. Then, next year, they make $50,000, so you tax it again and their net worth is now exactly $500,000. Nobody else can ever pass that magic threshold once everybody’s been leveled down to it (unless they play games with offshore accounts in which case you still can’t get it). Now you have progressive social programs that rely on a steady stream of billions of dollars of confiscated wealth and nowhere to get it from.
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.
Why not both? I believe Bernie's plan, for example, is to do both.
A wealth tax is unconstitutional. From the Constitution: “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.“ How do…
They already have to do it to determine tax deductions. It's pretty subjective: https://www.irs.gov/appeals/art-appraisal-services
It's worth noting that the income tax also started out as a tax on the very rich. Once established, taxes have a way of finding their way from the rich, to the middle-class, and then even to the working poor.
This is why the wealth tax will fail to fix inequality. Eventually your parents shitty 250k house out in the sticks will qualify for wealth tax. Whatever stocks you have that aren't in a retirement account will be wealth taxed even though half their growth is just from inflation. It's going to suck.
You give the progressives in the U.S. government more credit than I do. I’m just waiting for them to collectivize retirement accounts to “help the needy”, promise to redistribute it fairly so that I won’t have anything to worry about in my old age, and then break their promises when I’m 90 years old and too old to earn a living any more.