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

wsj.com

611–620 of 734 posts

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

#611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valuation based assessment is a core principle of property taxes. The prop 13 stuff is gross and I’m always surprised that it was never shot down in the Supreme Court. California can be California, but the problem is more than some junk ranch house is selling for $3M. It’s bullshit that the whole country is essentially held hostage by “too big to fail” California mortgages that homeowners cab just walk away from.

Actually property taxes are ad valorem. [..] An ad valorem tax is a tax whose amount is based on the value of a transaction or of property. It is typically imposed at the time of a transaction, as in the case of a sales tax or value-added tax. - Wikipedia[..] Property taxes are paid EVERY year. What asset do you own that you keep on paying sales tax on? The real estate market should be stable and for free market forc…

Every other jurisdiction that I’ve owned property uses comparable sales to establish fail valuation. In New York, where I live now, jurisdictions do a comprehensive reassessment when market changes start creating structural inequities. Exemptions are for elderly, disabled vets, etc are expressed as a capped percentage of valuation, backed by an alternative revenue source.

An owner with an identical property should be paying identical tax.

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

#612
post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The amount your government retains is not a total loss for you either. I assume here you are implying I get something of value from my tax dollars, but this does not make it any less of a theft. If I come to your home, mow your grass then "tax" your car from you as payment for my services you would still call that theft. and rightly so. Simply because the government "gave" me services I neither asked for nor consen…

> Simply because the government "gave" me services I neither asked for nor consented to does not mean their taking of my labor / money is ceases to be theft Well, such is the price of citizenship. You certainly are free to exercise your freedom of exit to move to a country where the government behaves otherwise.

This is also a false Argument, as even moving from the US does not absolve you of US Taxation, even if you renounce your citizenship in some cases they take your past, current and future wealth in taxes

This is aside from the fact that is a clear logical fallacy [1]

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fasTSY-dB-s

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

#613
post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Simply because the government "gave" me services I neither asked for nor consented to does not mean their taking of my labor / money is ceases to be theft Well, such is the price of citizenship. You certainly are free to exercise your freedom of exit to move to a country where the government behaves otherwise.

This is also a false Argument, as even moving from the US does not absolve you of US Taxation, even if you renounce your citizenship in some cases they take your past, current and future wealth in taxes This is aside from the fact that is a clear logical fallacy [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fasTSY-dB-s

It’s actually a clear point- there is no nation on earth without a government that will provide you with services that you will disagree with. There are degrees of disagreement, so people do choose to move to one that fits their comfort level. But you seem to be making the case that this principle is completely disagreeable, and so you disagree with the social contract completely. Which is ludicrous.

So indeed, you can’t leave- because unless you move to no man’s land and set up your own government, you will always be betrayed by your own principle, no matter what country you live under.

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

#614

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.

> A California Plan to Chase Away the Rich, Then Keep Stalking Them

The title practically screams opinion piece. No serious outlet would write that at the top of a news piece.

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

#615
post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason ever given Not true. I just gave another reason - to offset the built-in drivers of disparity. Transfers between wealth and income (i.e. labor) always favor the wealth holder. It's the very nature of capital, part of what makes it so great but also with not-so-great consequences that must be compensated for. The problem is not the progressivity of taxation, but the fact that it's primarily on the wr…

I think economists universally agree income tax is suboptimal. I'm not sure if a wealth tax is the answer. Personally I'd like to see taxes on negative things. Taxes invariably have the effect of discouraging the thing taxed. Which is why taxing income sucks. Let's tax pollution, traffic congestion, advertisements, and social media. Ok, well the last two are half joking.

I agree, actually. "Tax bads, not goods" as saying goes. However, as a practical matter I don't think a pure Pigovian approach could ever fly. Overhead and enforcement issues would sink it. A hybrid approach with most revenue from land-value and value-added taxes gets pretty close and is fairly straightforward to administer. Not saying we shouldn't tax those other things, but that wouldn't be a huge percentage of revenue.

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

#616

Personally I disagree with the whole idea of wealth taxes, you should be taxed when you do things, not taxed just because you own something worth money. I should be able to go live in the woods alone and not have the government take some percent of my net worth just because I exist. I mean I don't have a tonne of sympathy for people with tens of millions of net worth, but it just seems wrong in principle. If I start…

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

#617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

capitalism means creation of capital. [..]In economics, capital consists of human-created assets that can enhance one's power to perform economically useful work. For example, a stone arrowhead is capital for a hunter-gatherer who can use it as a hunting instrument; similarly, roads are capital for inhabitants of a city. Capital is distinct from land and other non-renewable resources in that it can be increased by hu…

>Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Mostly it's about creating imbalances particularly great ones so that power can be projected through coercion. The world runs on on the wealthy getting poor people to do the work they don't want to. With the rise of the finacialised economy we are far away from your definition.

Disagree. Capitalism is based on goods and services. We are not living in a feudal society where wealth is accumulated by labour. Nobody is picking cotton or growing rice on lands to become wealthy. Those days are gone. Wealth comes from services provided by companies like Facebook and Netflix and Amazon etc.

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

#618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/Personally I disagree with the whole idea of wealth taxes, you should be taxed when you do things, not taxed just because you own something worth money./ I figure if we allow passive income, we should allow passive taxes...

There is no such thing as truly passive - the assets in this case are being used by providing capital to the markets and holding shares of companies that may or may not succeed. That’s “doing something” with these assets. The family heirloom that could bring you over the threshold? It’s collecting dust. The stock investments incidentally ARE already taxed, whether you are actively managing them or if someone else is…

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

#619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually property taxes are ad valorem. [..] An ad valorem tax is a tax whose amount is based on the value of a transaction or of property. It is typically imposed at the time of a transaction, as in the case of a sales tax or value-added tax. - Wikipedia[..] Property taxes are paid EVERY year. What asset do you own that you keep on paying sales tax on? The real estate market should be stable and for free market forc…

Every other jurisdiction that I’ve owned property uses comparable sales to establish fail valuation. In New York, where I live now, jurisdictions do a comprehensive reassessment when market changes start creating structural inequities. Exemptions are for elderly, disabled vets, etc are expressed as a capped percentage of valuation, backed by an alternative revenue source. An owner with an identical property should be…

You clearly don’t know the history of prop 13. It is untouchable because the last time they increase it, thousands of retirees and seniors on fixed income had to sell their homes to pay the tax. Not everyone is a millionaire in CA. Most of the population is working class and can’t afford raising taxes.

California property values rose dramatically. NY and NJ are the worst places to own property. The whole housing depends on landlords and rent controlled apartments. Where they make money from insanely expensive utilities by strangling the poorest people. It’s a different kind of scam. Upstate NY is a whole different kind of hell with seven months of gray and knee high snow.

This is why there was no Silicon Valley in NY. This is why NY didn't create as many millionaires out of middle class and provide upward mobility to citizens as well as opportunities to immigrants. What’s NY’s GDP? What’s NY’s population? What’s NY’s total state tax revenue?

I’ll tell you. NY’s GDP is comparable to South Korea and is at 1.7 trillion. CA’s GDP is comparable to Great Britain and is at 2.97 trillion(highest in USA) NY population is 8.5 million vs CA’s 39.5 million. As an aside: our Ag income alone is in excess of 50 billion and that’s just 2% of our economy. We also have non millionaires and retired people on fixed income. NY’s taxes were around 73 billion vs CA’s total taxes were close to 450 billion.

NY is swimming in red ink due to deficits shortfalls ..2.8 billion in 3 months due to covid. Our tax income increased. I don’t think NY’s budget modeling is something for CA to emulate ..with all due respect. NY should do what it does and leave CA to Californians to vote and decide. CA is not NY. We are a country on our own. Our problems can’t be solved by anything that works for other states. The struggle is real.

Blind comparison is not useful or helpful.

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

#620

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 are the problem. please set up a charity. feel free to part from your money. there are many of us who cant...unlike some americans, some of us have responsibilities..aged parents living overseas, children, relatives..i would rather use my wealth to make sure that my parents and in laws and aunts and uncles live well before they die. what i am is because of the people who raised me and i owe them a debt before i o…

Someone who earns 500K a year and who wants to be taxed more isn’t the problem. They are a principled social democrat. A thing that a country like the US could use more of.

People who look out for themselves and their family only and who wants to make public goods into a voluntarist thing through charities are the problem. They are of no use to anyone except their immediates and are only holding progress back.

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