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

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

#631

Post by jelliclesfarm » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 12:45 AM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #581

Pfhreak wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

>> 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 That's not exactly "Send the tax man to my house" now is it? You want the government to take my money and use it for your ideological purposes that I do not believe in, to implement socialism in America, that's what I think you're saying. Am I wrong here? Sending the t…

Do we know how much our our country spends to bomb other countries? I would like to hear the ‘tax the rich’ crowd to tell me how many cents of my tax dollar goes to help people and how many go to wage war.

It’s around 3.2-3.5% of our budget. That we know of. That’s close to a trillion/year.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_S... : this is the United States federal budget. What is it that we couldn’t do with this much money can we do by increasing tax by a minuscule minuscule percentage that is nothing for the govt budget but makes such a massive dent for families, disposable income, consumer index, business development and investment.

Where is the accountability. The taxes are to run the govt. the job of the govt is not to manipulate taxes to impose laws to cancel inequalities. This is thuggery by taxation. Govt should be small and efficient. Big bloated govts with access to unlimited tax monies will only get bigger and bloatier. Until their expenses will explode like Mr.Creosote in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. It is that ‘wafer thin mint’ that was the last straw that broke the camels back resulting in the Silicon Valley exodus.

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

#632

Post by jelliclesfarm » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 12:54 AM UTC

Privacy846 wrote: post #620

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also: do you really expect people to live in penury or ignore their ‘immediates’ to deliver more taxes to a govt that has proven itself to be inept again and again and again showing no transparency, accountability or efficiency. That’s just daft. Who really dumps their money voluntarily to the taxman when your family..your friends..your neighbors needs and suffering can be alleviated with immediate results. I literally have no more words for you.

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

#633

Post by _qwfv » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

syshum wrote: post #595

Pfhreak wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Real…

>>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…

> 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.

IMO, this is a false equivalence -- governments are uniquely different from other entities.

> This is false thinking, given your clear bias to socialism I can understand why you think that but it never the less false

I don't see how you can say that this is objectively false. It's ok to say you disagree and you see it differently, but just telling someone their opinion is false isn't going to further a constructive dialog.

I suspect our end goals probably align in many ways. I also support a UBI (though I think some forms of welfare may still be required. For example, to assist people who may need help getting access to their UBI, and to provide some mechanisms for collectively bargaining for things like health care if we keep it private.)

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

#634

Post by Pfhreak » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #553

Pfhreak wrote: post #110

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…

Just because people have it worse off somewhere else does not mean that people don't also have it bad here. There are people in the states who have raw sewage dumped into their yards every time it rains. There are children who starve here. We could house everyone here, if we made it a priority. It's unconscionable to me.

By all means, continue to aid the organizations that bring you happiness. I will continue to try and make a positive impact on the sphere I am familiar with (generally the Pacific Northwest.)

I regularly do give up money and time, in multiple ways. From purchasing land and reforesting it then protecting it with conservation easements, to giving to social housing efforts, to giving aid to overseas organizations.

That said, I don't view raising taxes as philanthropy. To me it's about maintaining the minimum set of societal standards that anyone should be able to enjoy -- housing, healthcare, food, etc. should be accessible to anyone, no questions asked. If that means that those of us at the top need to operate with less income, then I see that as a good tradeoff.

That said, I'm only interested in folks who really are at the very top of the income brackets.

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

#635

Post by NeutronStar » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #571

annexrichmond wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nobody outside of tech reads urls, nobody.

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

#636

Post by Pfhreak » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #632

Privacy846 wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also: do you really expect people to live in penury or ignore their ‘immediates’ to deliver more taxes to a govt that has proven itself to be inept again and again and again showing no transparency, accountability or efficiency. That’s just daft. Who really dumps their money voluntarily to the taxman when your family..your friends..your neighbors needs and suffering can be alleviated with immediate results. I literal…

> Who really dumps their money voluntarily to the taxman when your family..your friends..your neighbors needs and suffering can be alleviated with immediate results.

The question I think you are asking is, "If you give your money to the government, you don't know where it goes. Perhaps it is wasted. If you give it to people you know need it locally, you can have immediate results. Why push for the former?"

If I've understood you correctly, that's a totally valid question, and it's one I think about quite a bit. I could, for instance, really focus on helping people in my immediate area. I could buy a lot of meals for a lot of people.

But ultimately, I think I can achieve more by organizing. If I can spend some money on mutual aid to help out some folks locally, and spend some on building coalitions and participating in collective action, I think I ultimately achieve more.

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

#637

Post by throwawaysea » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

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.

It doesn’t look dead. From your own link, it has been amended in late 2020 so it seems like the idea is alive and still being pushed. Am I missing something here?

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

#638

Post by eloff » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 1:33 AM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #615

eloff wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rev…

Yeah land tax and VAT are quite practical possibilities.

I'm still hopeful for a Carbon tax. I think I'd be more likely of seeing that in Saudi Arabia before the USA though with the political climate being what it is.

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

#639

Post by 1024core » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #566

1024core wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine being a slave to a state you don’t even live in for ten years. What a load of garbage You do know that the US taxes its citizens living abroad, right? I know someone who was born in the US, moved back to their home country at the ripe old age of 1, and chose to keep his citizenship when he turned 18, thinking that an additional passport won't hurt. Whoops! When he started making money, suddenly the taxman c…

>> You do know that the US taxes its citizens living abroad, right? Federal tax. US citizens living abroad can still vote in federal elections. People who haven't lived in California for ten years can not vote in California elections. This would be taxation without representation. If you're an American, you probably were educated on the proper procedure for dealing with that.

> People who haven't lived in California for ten years can not vote in California elections.

People who haven't lived in California for one year can't vote in elections. So why the additional taxes for the next 9 years??

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

#640

Post by jelliclesfarm » Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 1:51 AM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #634

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Just because people have it worse off somewhere else does not mean that people don't also have it bad here. There are people in the states who have raw sewage dumped into their yards every time it rains. There are children who starve here. We could house everyone here, if we made it a priority. It's unconscionable to me. By all means, continue to aid the organizations that bring you happiness. I will continue to try…

I don’t disagree with what you said in your first paragraph. But taxation is not the answer. We have billions of dollars already collected for the state and federal dollars.

The first order of business is to find accountability and trim the excess and make the current dollars work. Before instituting new taxes.