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

wsj.com

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

#291

Post by sacred_numbers »

granzymes wrote: post #171
rorykoehler wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it the opposite way around. We should only have a wealth tax and no income taxes. Capitalism means capital that earns for you while you sleep. Those who benefit the most from the system should pay for it. With only a wealth tax more people would have the means to amass wealth and there would be a greater incentive to spend rather than sit on money which would be good for the health and dynamism of the economy.

> Capitalism means capital that earns for you while you sleep. If it earns for you while you sleep then it is also taxed while you sleep. Income is income: the tax man doesn’t care where it comes from.

That's kind of true, but also not quite true either. If you earn income from capital you are only taxed when you sell that capital. Theoretically this means that if you want to spend money on living expenses or luxuries you have to sell capital to fund your lifestyle. However the super rich can borrow money at extremely low rates with their assets as collateral, bypassing taxes and allowing their capital to keep earning for them. Also, capital gains are taxed, but at a much lower rate than ordinary income. Capital losses can also be used to offset gains, even carrying forward over many years. Imagine being able to be taxed on your average income over a period of years. I would have paid practically nothing for several years after college because I made practically nothing during college. There are all kinds of little advantages that accrue for capital but not for workers. I don't think this is necessarily bad, but it may be out of balance.

Honestly, my major problem with wealth inequality is not that rich people get to have money; it's that wealth concentration leads to power concentration. That's not healthy for democracy. This is probably extremely controversial, but I say go ahead and collect a wealth tax and then burn everything you collect. It's not about the budget, it's about limiting the power of billionaires and the corporations they control. There are probably better ways to accomplish that goal, but a wealth tax is at least a start in the right direction.

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

#292

Post by trisiak »

eatbitseveryday wrote: post #70
jhfdbkofdcho wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a rough approximation, if you’re a US citizen, then You must file a US income tax return. The US taxes your worldwide income regardless of where it’s earned. BUT under most circumstances you would get a credit against what you owe the US for what you pay the country in which you earned the money and also wanted to tax you (no double taxation in theory) It’s kind of a pain for someone living in say Kenya which does…

How do I benefit from a country while not being in it?

Country's passport has a value in itself. The one from the US enables you to leverage international travel treaties and visa arrangements. Just answering your question, not making a point on whether taxation is the correct way for US to "cover" for those benefits.

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

#293

Post by nondeveloper »

doggydogs94 wrote: post #285

The biggest attraction to California is the fantastic climate. At some point (higher tax levels) though, even the climate cannot hold you.

The climate is great. The parks and wilderness areas are great.

But you know what? This a beautiful country and it would be shame to limit yourself to one place.

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

#294

Post by purple_ferret »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #260
purple_ferret wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Bezos's net worth is almost entirely in Amazon's stock value. He isn't being compensated by some objective analysis of his worth. Amazon, the company, might be, at which point, he's benefiting as the largest shareholder.

His current yearly comp is a function of what the board believes his value to the company is. If we want to talk about the legitimacy of his stock holdings being worth as much as they are, then we need to have a different, but similar conversation which is how much value has Amazon added to the world and how much should early stage entities involved with Amazon be rewarded for adding that value. If we assume that Ama…

Jeff Bezos's salary is apparently around 80k. It's basically irrelevant as it is not really a reflection of his contribution at all, but merely a formality or symbolic.

My only point is when you're talking about his growth in wealth, you're always de facto talking about his stock holdings and their growth and the idea of objective compensation goes out the window. In fact, even if you're talking about straight compensation, it still is part of the discussion because clearly in this case, he is willing to take a paltry salary because he is benefiting from massive stock value growth.

As for this point:

>If we assume that Amazon is fairly valued and that Jeff Bezos's holdings of Amazon are in line with his contributions

He is not being 'compensated' via stock nor is the total amount of stock he holds fluctuating based some sort of objective analysis of his contribution. He could contribute nothing and retire and still hold the same amount. So I don't know how you can assume that.

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

#295

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

woah wrote: post #271
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.

It’s not possible to build any new housing in California. The vast majority of projects are blocked by the powerful landowner lobby. Throwing money at the homeless problem doesn’t help the homeless much and just pushes property values higher. The government and tax system of California is a perfectly designed instrument to transfer wealth from newcomers to homeowners.

Change the law.

Can anyone remind me what the rich when ending this racket is on the ballot?

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

#296

Post by secabeen »

frogblast wrote: post #190

This is fearmongering. The bill was introduced a year ago, went nowhere, and is now dead. This WSJ article was published a month after the bill was officially killed… The broader legislature has no interest in such a tax. This is the bill in question: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billStatusClient.xht... Edit: also note that this article is on the WSJ opinion page, and didn’t come from the news desk.

> Edit: also note that this article is on the WSJ opinion page, and didn’t come from the news desk.

Thank you. We really need news websites to some how more clearly delineate opinion pieces from news desk pieces. In the old days, you knew which was which based on what page of the paper it was on. A standard that has all online opinion pieces published with a colored background or something would really help.

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

#297

Post by jamiltron »

emteycz wrote: post #281
jamiltron wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Every single worker with a wage is more privileged than me - I had zero, no job, no house, and debt. Them not being able to take risks is just bullshit, they're simply afraid or don't even want to - and that is alright, people like me will happily employ them - unless employing or being in the state becomes too risky.

And I'm glad you're privileged enough to be here posting today, boasting of the wealth your workers generate for you :-)

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

#298

Post by daenz »

iaHN wrote: post #270
cltby wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And we should leave the allocation of who is allowed to own how much stuff to who exactly? Politicians? Your average person on the street? Who are those economic geniuses who will distribute everything with objective correctness? That is the alternative that it sounds like you are promoting.

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

#299

Post by wingspar »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #182
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 taxes from the "1930's-1970's" were not particularly high, that is a misunderstanding of how the structure of the tax code has changed. Net of deductions, taxation hasn't changed that much. You can't look at the nominal tax rates in isolation while ignoring the scope of deduction against those rates. Eliminating deductions for high-income earners while reducing tax rates on that income is revenue neutral, and gen…

Yes, pre 1986 tax reform, personal credit card interest was deductible for any purchase. Crazy times...

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/small-business-taxes/is...

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

#300

Post by tafda »

admiralspoo wrote: post #210
adjkant wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Plenty already have. Eric Schmidt, for example, is now a citizen of Cyprus https://www.seattletimes.com/business/rich-americans-increas...

An EU passport is nice to have, doesn't look like he's moving out of California though:

https://variety.com/2020/dirt/moguls/ex-google-ceo-eric-schm...

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