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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

#571

Post by Fnoord »

annexrichmond wrote: post #378
secabeen wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There is a logo at the top that says WSJ OPINION and it says "OPINION COMMENTARY" above the headline. Maybe it's easy to miss for someone's first time on the site, but I've personally never had any issue. Also when WSJ posts to social media they prefix the headline with "Opinion"

The URL does however not reflect this, while it could. URLs are supposed to be informative.

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

#572

Post by asdff »

runarberg wrote: post #463
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Austin adopted it, people would just move two miles outside the city limits. And the state of Texas as a whole is not going to do that.

> The state of Texas as a whole is not going to do that. What makes you so sure of that? Texas has a huge middle and working class. If asked I bet majority of Texans wouldn’t mind taxing their upper class. I think it is only a matter of time before politician is able to win over this vote share by targeting the state’s richest for taxation.

It doesn't matter the changing makeup of the state when the republicans have gerrymandered it to be unwinnable. Sure, it might go blue a few presidential elections, but for policies that actually come from the statehouse it will be blood red for the foreseeable future.

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

#573

Post by Pfhreak »

syshum wrote: post #544
Pfhreak wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> History does not show this to be the case at all, The World is becoming a better place for everyone [1] Driven predominantly by growth, which will taper off. We are an unusually explosive period of growth at the moment, and it's already starting to recede. Growth is fueled in many cases by population expansion which has almost completely stalled in many places. For an introductory read on the topic, I recommend Tho…

WOW, where to even begin. Money is not a resource like water, money is a medium of value exchange. In the case of income money is the medium where I exchange my Time, Knowledge, and labor for a given quantity of money which I then use for trade to obtain things others have used their time, money and knowledge to create It is a simpler and more abstract instead of me having to grow wheat to exchange with a baker for b…

Sure, and you are given the amount you negotiate with your employer, less any taxes. Which is the amount you are compensated for the value of your labor. The amount your government retains is not a total loss for you either.

> Given this, I do 100% believe I am entitled to 100% of my Labor, time and knowledge.

If you produce a profit for your employer, you are not earning 100% of your labor, time, and knowledge.

Realistically, your labor produces some value X. The government AND your employer expect a certain percentage of X.

We both want the same ideal -- maximize worker wealth -- it's just that I see us getting there by decreasing employer percentages and accepting some taxes. You want to get there by decreasing taxes and accepting some loss of value to your employer.

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

#574

Post by asdff »

justinzollars wrote: post #309

The tax rate will never be high enough for the California Government. It is so mismanaged the only plausible solution is a default on its endless obligations. California should eliminate its income tax through ballot initiative. Moving it, from the highest in the nation to zero. Thats right. Zero. Can you imagine how awesome California would become with no income tax? Everyone would instantly get a 10% raise. The qua…

CA needs income tax because the property tax situation has hobbled the government for the past five decades. AS mismanaged it may be, Newsom did inherit a budget surplus and if it weren't for the pandemic things would be relatively stable.

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

#575

Post by sdfin »

jamiltron wrote: post #407
sdfin wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define "privilege"? Isn't it another way of saying "wealth"?

privilege, noun a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.

Using that definition, why would you say that emteycz has special rights or advantages or immunity?

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

#576

Post by Pfhreak »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #561
Pfhreak wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>> I can. I do give to charities. I don't think that's what syshum is talking about. You said, "Send the tax man to my house and all my peers. We can afford it just fine". There is no need for the tax man to come to your house. Go to https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html . There's a link there, you can even use PayPal if you want. Figure out what the additional amount is that you think you shoul…

This is a strawman that gets leveled at people that want to increase taxes. It's an attempt to paint me as a hypocrite and therefore not acting rationally. It's flawed reasoning.

I invite you to consider:

If my stated goal is to increase the tax on wealthiest folks with the intent of distributing more to the lower class and reducing wealth inequality.

Should I:

a) Spend 100% of my surplus income on gifts to the tax authority

or

b) Spend 100% of my surplus income on organizations that will organize community efforts to achieve my goal.

It's a concept called the 'opportunity cost' -- option A is acting in the spirit of my goal, but does nothing to achieve my goal. If I am a rational player (and I'd like to believe I am), to achieve my goals it's considerably more effective for me to spend my money giving to charities that align with my objective.

Therefore, I spend my surplus income on community organizing, land trusts, and other efforts that will build support for my goals.

Edit:

This is the same reason why I don't ask people who care about the national debt to just open their pocketbooks. If that's a cause you care about, I'd expect you to advocate for it and give your time/money towards groups that make it happen. I happen to think it's a ludicrous thing to care about.

We can aggressively disagree about policies and still agree that we are acting in a rational way respective to our worldviews. There is room for both of our opinions here, but we should be able to discuss them without relying on these sorts of goofy strawmen.

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

#577

Post by em500 »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #545
em500 wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) They are difficult to enforce. How to measure the value of a famous painting? What if the value does down? Is there a refund of wealth taxes? The Netherlands has had a general wealth tax since 2001 and there have not been many practical issues AFAIK. There are separate regimes for (1) primary residence (which get yearly assessments based on comparable sales/house price indices), (2) significant (>5%) business ow…

>> The value is assessed on 1 Jan every year. Whatever happens during the year is ignored. Oh, the games they will play!

Care to elaborate? I hope it's something more sophisticated than swap your normal financial portfolio in Dec for paper money / gold bars / bitcoins / Picassos, report nothing, and repurchase the portfolio in Jan.

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

#578

Post by sdfin »

xtian wrote: post #406
sdfin wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profit is the wage of the investor that assumes risk in his enterprise. No profit, no investment.

Profit comes from ownership, a wage comes from selling one's labor-power on the labor market. The only risk an investor assumes is of having to transition from the ownership class to selling his labor-power on the market if all his investments fail catastrophically. A worker assumes many more risks on a daily basis.

Why? If a worker loses his job, he also has to sell his labor-power on the market.

But if the investor diversified well his investments, he's likely to have lower risk than an average worker.

Ownership requires management and the steps which were required to achieve that ownership. Somebody maybe had to work hard to own, while others inherited.

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

#579

Post by Pfhreak »

sdfin wrote: post #575
jamiltron wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

privilege, noun a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.

Using that definition, why would you say that emteycz has special rights or advantages or immunity?

Some advantages, I'm making assumptions here:

A car? Access to the internet? Their mental and physical health? No dependents? It's unclear how emteycz fed, cleaned, and clothed themselves while they had debt and no home, but plausibly there's some assistance there.

And the parent poster was talking about their privilege today in any case.

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

#580

Post by Gibbon1 »

asdff wrote: post #574
justinzollars wrote: post #309

The tax rate will never be high enough for the California Government. It is so mismanaged the only plausible solution is a default on its endless obligations. California should eliminate its income tax through ballot initiative. Moving it, from the highest in the nation to zero. Thats right. Zero. Can you imagine how awesome California would become with no income tax? Everyone would instantly get a 10% raise. The qua…

CA needs income tax because the property tax situation has hobbled the government for the past five decades. AS mismanaged it may be, Newsom did inherit a budget surplus and if it weren't for the pandemic things would be relatively stable.

I was 16 when Prop 13 passed. I thought adults who thought Prop 13 would force the government to stop wasteful spending were idiots. I predicted that the result would be governments and agencies nickel and diming to make up for shortfalls in property taxes. Worse thing was low property taxes would drive up real estate prices and make housing more unaffordable not less.

40 years on I was right.

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