Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

351–360 of 734 posts

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

#351
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make roughly half a million a year. I'm very aware that my tax rate would increase if we started taxing the wealthy more. Please tax the wealthy more. Send the tax man to my house and all my peers. We can afford it just fine.

You do know you can voluntarily pay more in taxes today, right now... Giving money to government is not compasssion, Helping people get food, shelter, healthcare,etc yourself is compassion. Voting for government to use guns to force people to pay what you have perceived as "their fair share" in order to provide those things to people is not compassion, it is self-righteous bullying.

I can. I do give to charities.

But me giving had a much, much smaller impact than me pushing for everyone to give.

It's not just about their fair share. Income inequality is a feedback loop that has a predictable and quite unpleasant outcome. I'd much rather introduce mechanisms to slow that feedback loop down.

The parent poster argued that "don't the wealthy know they'll get taxed more?" I'd propose that "don't the bottom 95% know they'll experience a steady decline of income and purchasing power if we don't tax the wealthy more?"

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's why they put in the provision that you have to keep paying the tax for 10 years after you move.

That's probably the stupidest part of it, because then you convince all the people who imagine they're going to be Elon Musk in ten years that they should leave California immediately.

How many people actually believe they will become the next Musk, to an extent that they are willing to move out of state in preparation to maximize their greed in the off chance they will succeed in this impossible task?

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

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be curious to know what's interesting in Singapore?

Well run, pro-capital and stable come to mind. I’d go the other way and ask what’s interesting in Miami... (I spent my share of time in Miami, thank you)

Yes, if you like the plebs getting arrested for spitting on the sidewalk or executed for shooting up, Singapore is the place for you!

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

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where did they think the money would come from? There’s a growing misconception that everything can be paid for by simply taxing the wealthy a tiny bit more. Several prominent activist politicians have built their platforms on the idea that billionaires are an infinite source of consequence-free tax revenue. These ideas are especially popular among the college students and new college grads I mentor. It usually fal…

Exactly. The US has one of the most progressive tax systems in the world. It hasn’t magically solved the wealth gap. Many people just want to punish the ultra wealthy, but it also won’t help. If it’s actually about raising revenue, you will need to actually look lower, to the top 10% and broader middle class. But this isn’t nearly as compelling as a populist message to fund the various proposed unicorns...

Really? The average income of someone in the top 1 percent is around 1 million, and the average income of the average person in the US is around 50k. So the top 1 percent have 20 percent of the income, so a 10 percent tax increase on the top 1 percent corresponds to a total increase of 2 percent, which isn't a small amount.

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

#355
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual cities can’t solve national problems. Due to migration there are no great solutions at the individual city level, other than being “blessed” with an inhospitable area.

There is pretty powerful statistical evidence that when Regan moved homeless services from the federal level to a state responsibility it cratered the numbers of beds (especially in small towns) and created an unsolvable situation in that when you're struggling in your small town who has zero homeless support, you make a move to some place else, somewhere where being homeless is not has bad weather wise and has a bit…

So some dude in Montana should pay for cleaning the streets in San Francisco?

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

#356
post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is we’ve done the experiment and it doesn’t work. France had a wealth tax (called the ISF, impôt sur la fortune) and it never actually garnered the expected revenues. This is because wealthy French people moved to Brussels, where you still have a pretty nice city and you can still speak French. Macron got rid of it and there was a mini-crash in Brussels real estate as people move back. There’s nothing stopping…

I think that's why they put in the provision that you have to keep paying the tax for 10 years after you move.

That sounds a bit like taxation without representation.

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

#357
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's why they put in the provision that you have to keep paying the tax for 10 years after you move.

There's zero chance that gets enforced.

Maybe. But the point is someone thought of it. And we elected that genius.

That’s scary.

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

#358
post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profits are just unpaid wages. He bought labor for less than it was worth and pocketed the excess.

Not quite - he paid a wage to labor based on the current competition in the labor market and the cost of a worker to provide for his/her necessities. Then he sold the end product of the workers' collective labor for its value, determined by the sum of the value of all the labor that went into producing it. He pocketed the difference between the former and the latter. That's where profit comes from.

In either case, the workers produced more value than they were compensated for.

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

#359

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…

The potential value the CEO can generate is outsized compared to a factory worker, yes. But if comp is just a reflection of the value added to the organization, and the total comp is a reflection of the entire value added by the staff, then why does it make sense for the poor & the wealthy staff to both pay low effective tax rates, but the middle to pay high effective tax rates?

In any case, high comp for executives would not be such an issue if money didn't translate so fluidly to political power. If wild success just meant cushy living, you might not see so much blowback, but when profits translate to power which translates to using that power to shield your profits, then claims about a rigged game are not so crazy.

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

#360
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich people problems.

Problems of rich people and all other people who are employed by rich people. Elon is not the only person moving to Texas: all the new jobs created by him move as well. Also I'm a digital nomad, right now living in Brazil, and thinking of going on a trip to the US, but I have to make sure to be updated of these laws that don't exist in any other country in the world.

Good thing most programmers don't fall for the silicon valley.
Post reply on HN