Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

laphamsquarterly.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 79 posts

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#11

Post by newacct583 »

ObserverNeutral wrote: post #2

taxes aren't just a way to raise money for federal and local governments, they are also an elegant way which society has to allocate social hatred. You need a corporate tax because people hate corporations, a wealth tax is being discussed and on the horizon because people hate the wealthy...and so forth In this case, of course there was a tax on wine in ancient Egypt in order to represent the social hatred which ensu…

This is an extraordinarily bad take.

In the US we tax the marginal middle class dollar of income about 3x higher than we do a marginal dollar of investment income. Do we hate the middle class more than wall street? We tax canadian steel more than chinese PCBs. Do we hate the Canadians more than the Chinese?

More broadly, this would seek to interpret the lowest-tax anarchies as the most tolerant and loving societies and the highest-tax liberal democracies as most hate-filled, which seems equally suspect.

Your point applies to sin taxes. And... basically nothing else. In general tax policy works by starting reasonably fair and then loosening the screws on whichever demographic lobbies the best. So in fact corporate taxes are lower than personal taxes and VATs almost everywhere, etc...

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#12

Post by tomdell »

ObserverNeutral wrote: post #2

taxes aren't just a way to raise money for federal and local governments, they are also an elegant way which society has to allocate social hatred. You need a corporate tax because people hate corporations, a wealth tax is being discussed and on the horizon because people hate the wealthy...and so forth In this case, of course there was a tax on wine in ancient Egypt in order to represent the social hatred which ensu…

Public benefit, not hatred, is the primary motivation behind higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy. These taxes were at their highest in America around WWII and following - the money was used to fund the war. These taxes are at historic lows in America thanks to waves of major tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy since the 80s. Social services have been defunded in parallel. Taxes are raised for corporations and the wealthy because people who push for those raises want to live in a fairer society where everybody's right to a decent life is more important than a handful of people and corporations' right to hoard far more private property and power than they have any use for. Extreme inequality destabilizes societies and progressive taxes are a lever for the government to use to try and prevent that. Europe was at its historically highest level of inequality just before the outbreak of WWI. Everyone who enjoys living in a relatively stable society should have an interest in preventing extreme inequality.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#13

Post by monkeycantype »

frankbreetz wrote: post #7
kaliali wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its like the mafia coming to your door wanting a protection fee but instead the government is much bigger and even pays to punish people for wrong-think like on this site. If you don't pay your taxes and fight back, the government will send its servants to kill you or beat you until money pops out.

If you don't like taxes why wouldn't you move to a country that doesn't have taxes like Somalia? Is it because taxes pay for security and things you use everyday like infrastructure?

Our governments are empires that have had democracy patched into them. Yes taxes pay for security and infrastructure, but this isn't why taxes are collected, taxes are collected because government is a self sustaining system largely populated by self serving individuals drawn to power. Unlike my anarchist and libertarian friends, I don't think there is a better strategy than iterating on what we have, so we really don't have a better alternative that continuing to fix what we have, but that doesn't require us to pretend that our current systems are the benevolent commonwealths we would like the to be. (let's see how mars works out)

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#14

Post by jxidjhdhdhdhfhf »

frankbreetz wrote: post #7
kaliali wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its like the mafia coming to your door wanting a protection fee but instead the government is much bigger and even pays to punish people for wrong-think like on this site. If you don't pay your taxes and fight back, the government will send its servants to kill you or beat you until money pops out.

If you don't like taxes why wouldn't you move to a country that doesn't have taxes like Somalia? Is it because taxes pay for security and things you use everyday like infrastructure?

Somolia has taxes. If you don't want to pay (income) tax there is Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, Bahamas, etc. Somehow they manage to have roads and firemen.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#15

Post by epgui »

Grim-444 wrote: post #10
frankbreetz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like taxes why wouldn't you move to a country that doesn't have taxes like Somalia? Is it because taxes pay for security and things you use everyday like infrastructure?

It's a common strawman argument to paint the argument as black and white, that either you want taxes or you want zero taxes. When in reality there's many shades of grey. The majority of people that complain about taxes don't want zero taxation, they just want to be taxed fairly, with proper representation, and for the government to make proper use of the money they do take, with accountability, before demanding more…

These are things that everyone want, they don't really distinguish those who complain about taxes from those who don't.

I'd propose, simplistically, that people who demand tax cuts have in common the following characteristics:

- they may be confused about the role(s) of taxation

- they may not have sat down with pen and paper to try and figure out how to work a government's finances

- they may not be aware that a lot of the information they're demanding is public, or may not know where to find it

- they may not have a clear idea of which services to cut, or might not fully appreciate the importance of the services they'd like to cut

Conversely, it is highly probable that the people who support tax hikes:

- have a clear understanding of at least some of the roles of taxation

- have a specific idea what budget item they would like to see it spent on

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#17

Post by sokoloff »

epgui wrote: post #15
Grim-444 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a common strawman argument to paint the argument as black and white, that either you want taxes or you want zero taxes. When in reality there's many shades of grey. The majority of people that complain about taxes don't want zero taxation, they just want to be taxed fairly, with proper representation, and for the government to make proper use of the money they do take, with accountability, before demanding more…

These are things that everyone want, they don't really distinguish those who complain about taxes from those who don't. I'd propose, simplistically, that people who demand tax cuts have in common the following characteristics: - they may be confused about the role(s) of taxation - they may not have sat down with pen and paper to try and figure out how to work a government's finances - they may not be aware that a lot…

I think there's a non-trivial (and certainly non-zero) portion of the population who would specifically enjoy tax hikes on other people who have become, in their judgment, too successful.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#18

Post by epgui »

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #14
frankbreetz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like taxes why wouldn't you move to a country that doesn't have taxes like Somalia? Is it because taxes pay for security and things you use everyday like infrastructure?

Somolia has taxes. If you don't want to pay (income) tax there is Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, Bahamas, etc. Somehow they manage to have roads and firemen.

Those countries all have various forms of (non-income) taxation.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#19

Post by ipaddr »

frankbreetz wrote: post #7
kaliali wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its like the mafia coming to your door wanting a protection fee but instead the government is much bigger and even pays to punish people for wrong-think like on this site. If you don't pay your taxes and fight back, the government will send its servants to kill you or beat you until money pops out.

If you don't like taxes why wouldn't you move to a country that doesn't have taxes like Somalia? Is it because taxes pay for security and things you use everyday like infrastructure?

You do realize as an American you have to pay US taxes whatever you live in the world so simple moving wouldn't help.

You could drop your citizenship but you will need another. No country with little or no taxes will give you a citizenship.

Your best bet is to stay in the US and complain to get policies changed. Or live in the woods/desert. The average person has no real path to a tax free life but the rich can use loops.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#20

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

epgui wrote: post #18
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somolia has taxes. If you don't want to pay (income) tax there is Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, Bahamas, etc. Somehow they manage to have roads and firemen.

Those countries all have various forms of (non-income) taxation.

Could you please elaborate a bit?

Because on the surface it looks like USA also has non-income taxation, such as sales tax (in lieu of VAT), property tax and so on.

Post reply on HN