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California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

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Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#261

Post by zepto »

elhudy wrote: post #109
adjkant wrote: post #68

Well I guess I'll take the apparently bold stance here that this isn't the end of Silicon Valley or California and yes this is fair and further, good. When people are getting 5-6% returns on investments (minimum), 0.4% is still not even stopping the rich get richer effect. Not to mention that it's almost certain no one here will ever be touched by this tax. If you're going to move where you live or significantly alte…

The reason people resist such a tax is because there is no transparency into where the money is going. If there was traceability into putting that money towards positive social programs, for example, there might be less opposition. I couldn't find what the tax was supposed to go towards but I also didn't make it beyond the paywall.

This! California had had a lot of tax revenue over the last couple of decades but doesn’t seem to have much to show for it.

Where is the explanation for how the money was spent, why it hasn’t paid off, and what would be different?

As far as I can tell it’s not ‘earmarked’ it’s just more tax for the general fund.

Also, Earmarks have never been trustworthy so it wouldn’t matter even if it were earmarked.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#262

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

gfxgirl wrote: post #206
carlio wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local governance running well, public services like cleaning, helping homeless etc, all require tax dollars. Saying "I'd pay tax if they had enough money they get from tax to fix the problems that cause me not to want to pay tax" seems like it's a bit of a chicken-egg problem.

San Francisco spends $50k per homeless person. The problem doesn't seem like it's money

This is what happens when people are told to move where the work is.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#263

Post by thebean11 »

gfxgirl wrote: post #206
carlio wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local governance running well, public services like cleaning, helping homeless etc, all require tax dollars. Saying "I'd pay tax if they had enough money they get from tax to fix the problems that cause me not to want to pay tax" seems like it's a bit of a chicken-egg problem.

San Francisco spends $50k per homeless person. The problem doesn't seem like it's money

They just aren't using it correctly. If there was a way to just give homeless people the 50k in a UBI esque way things would drastically improve.

Unfortunately I don't believe something like that is practical unless it's done on a national level.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#264

Post by silentsea90 »

gfxgirl wrote: post #206
carlio wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Local governance running well, public services like cleaning, helping homeless etc, all require tax dollars. Saying "I'd pay tax if they had enough money they get from tax to fix the problems that cause me not to want to pay tax" seems like it's a bit of a chicken-egg problem.

San Francisco spends $50k per homeless person. The problem doesn't seem like it's money

Is this true? This makes me want to cry for how bad SF governance is.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#265

Post by true_religion »

adjkant wrote: post #111
Trisell wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your premise that they will experience French Revolution like consequences is overlooking the fact that unlike the 1700s. Up and taking your money to another country that still likes you is the click of a mouse and a private jet flight out. So no they won’t capitulate to higher taxes of earlier times. They will just leave. Like they already are at the threat of it.

Maybe a percentage will, but I think when people are trying to guess and assume what these people will do as "rational economic agents", they miss the human factors. No one is going to pick where they go to college based on the taxes on the ultra-rich unless they are obsessed with money. Once rich, are you going to uproot yourself entirely from any family, friends, and connections in the US? You have to consider that…

You don't have to leave the US, just move back to the sanity that is called the "eastern seaboard".

If we're comparing high-tax states, I think NY is better run, and more interesting overall than California. The only think Cali has going for it is tech (relatively unimportant to the super rich), and warm weather.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#266

Post by tsimionescu »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #124
tsimionescu wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most important point of taxing the top ~1% is to simply bring their wealth more in line with their contributions, and to reduce their outsized power on the political system. Jeff Bezos isn't "worth" a million times more than his warehouse workers, and he shouldn't have that kind of money either as a matter of principle, or as a matter of democratic power. It's not a matter of punishment, but a matter of ensuring…

I think it's worth asking why compensation is the way it is. If we assume that people's compensation is based on the value they generate for an organization, then what you are asking is basically "can a million warehouse workers together in a collective be as effective as Jeff Bezos at producing value for Amazon?" Alternatively, you could ask "can a given warehouse worker given one million times his current compensat…

Yes, I do believe that the amount of wealth people get from a company should be proportional to their contributions to that company. Of course, this is very hard to give a clear number to.

Still, one way to go about this is to assume that workers and employers are rational economic agents and look at their incentives and bargaining power. Obviously, an employer will never employ anyone for more money than they believe that employee will contribute to the company (assuming no nepotism, fraud, corruption etc). However, an employee may well accept to work for less money than they are actually contributing, since they have ~0 visibility into this number, and much less bargaining power than the company, especially at the lower end.

So, in for a large company without powerful unions, we can virtually guarantee that employees are each receiving less money than they are actually contributing - with shareholders correspondingly receiving more money from the profits accrued. Additionally, shareholders also have more money based on how over-valued a company's stock is, which employees gain nothing from.

Now, the real question is of course "how much more wealth are they getting from the company"? I don't have an exact answer to this question. However, one way to look at it is that Amazon has ~800k employees who at MOST could collectively own the ~20% of amazon stock on the open market, while Jeff Bezos owns ~10% of the company directly. This would mean that Jeff Bezos personally would have to contribute as much as ~400k people to the company for his contributions to be in line with the value he extracts. I just don't believe that Amazon could be where it is if it replaced ~400,000 employees with a second Jeff Bezos. Honestly, I don't believe that Amazon could be where it is if it replaced 1,000 employees with a second Jeff Bezos.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#267

Post by pb7 »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #200
api wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If California were well run, sure. Do something about the housing and homeless crisis and we’ll talk. California doesn’t have a money problem. They have a lack of political will problem and an incompetence (or corruption) problem. The state is held hostage by NIMBYs and is chronically unable to build infrastructure. Look at the high speed train disaster for an example of the latter. NIMBYs ensure that any money or ef…

> Do something about the housing and homeless crisis and we’ll talk You do realize a wealth tax is one way to bring in income to try to fix these problems right? You guys don't even have universal healthcare in the middle of a global pandemic. Laughably sad.

California already has one of the highest total tax rates in the world skimming from the top of the #5 GDP in the world. Lack of money is not the problem.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#268

Post by api »

cltby wrote: post #223
AsyncAwait wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do something about the housing and homeless crisis and we’ll talk You do realize a wealth tax is one way to bring in income to try to fix these problems right? You guys don't even have universal healthcare in the middle of a global pandemic. Laughably sad.

There’s plenty of tax revenue to fund nearly all such priorities. It’s sadly squandered, in large part because voters have ideological commitments to confiscation, and no such commitments to effective government.

The problem isn’t even an ideological commitment to confiscation. The problem is one of simple corruption and incompetence. Nobody is willing to confront bad urban planning, out of control NIMBYism, corruption in government contracting, etc.

More money won’t fix a broken government any more than more revenue fixes dying companies.

IMHO one of the roots of all evil was proposition 13, which created a kind of property owners caste with a vested interest in actually making the housing problem worse. From that flows the homeless crisis, as housing costs start at upper middle class income levels anywhere in the state that also has jobs.

The problem is that proposition 13 is a hole from which it would be really hard to dig the state out from. Any politician who challenges it is voted out instantly by the landed caste as well as by the financially vulnerable younger folks who over-leveraged themselves into unaffordable homes and would be ruined if housing fell.

The infrastructure problem is also partly related to the housing problem. Nobody dares change anything because it might pop the housing bubble.

Prop 13 was a Republican thing, which shows that this isn’t just a Democrat or “too much liberalism” problem. It’s deeper than that.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#269

Post by jamiltron »

emteycz wrote: post #216
jamiltron wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what that means at all. Founding a business requires a significant investment of capital.

It doesn't necessarily require the founder investing large amounts, Bezos began with a small investment - and a lot of ingenuity. My own business began this year with $0 and I'm way past $100k. I had to live in my car for two months, absolutely worth it though, it helped me focus like never before. I created excellent product and then spent a lot of time both online and offline finding customers. And now imagine you…

"A small investment" and the ability to take on risk sounds like a significantly privileged position the average worker is not afforded.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#270

Post by iaHN »

cltby wrote: post #246
iaHN wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The underlying counterargument is that tax dodging is a form of violence against the poor.

Rich guy: “Mind keeping your hands off my stuff?” Confiscationist: “he’s attacking me!”

The underlying counterargument was that it was never completely "your stuff" to begin with.
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