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In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

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Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#21

Post by sokoloff »

newacct583 wrote: post #11
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 a…

> In the US we tax the marginal middle class dollar of income about 3x higher than we do a marginal dollar of investment income.

Marginal income middle class tax rate [0]: 22%, some at 24%

Marginal capital gains rate for a fairly generous set of assumptions that benefit your argument: 15%.

24% is 60% higher, not 300% higher, than 15%. That's more or less taking the best-case for your argument. Add FICA contributions (which earn credits towards your own Social Security payouts, so it's unclear exactly how to allocate this in current costs) and it's still way less than 200% higher, let alone 300%.

Lots of investment income is taxed at 23.8% (20% + 3.8% surtax). 24% is 0.8% higher than 23.8%, not 300% higher.

[0] - I took the first hit I could find: Pew Research defines middle class as 2/3 to 2x the median income, $40K to $120K in 2018.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#22

Post by WalterBright »

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…

On the other hand, the converse is even more plausible.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#24

Post by HideousKojima »

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?

Somalia has taxes in the form of warlords taking whatever they want. And Somalia is always trotted out as an example of Anarchy (or more uncharitably as an example of Libertarianism) by people ignorant of its history, often willfully so. Somalia is just another failed Socialist state:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Revolutionary_Sociali...

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#25

Post by 1cvmask »

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?

Black Somalia would have to raise to taxes to defend itself against white countries that bomb it.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#26

Post by 4rtyui9xd »

ipaddr wrote: post #19
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?

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 l…

Do the wealthy need the government's services, financed through taxes, as much as "the average person".

What if a US citizen obtainins citizenship in a country that does not tax non-residents, relinquishes her US citizenship and then moves to a country that has little or no taxes.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#27

Post by adamjb »

kaliali wrote: post #5
choeger wrote: post #3

Also, taxes are money. Essentially, a government issues money to its (armed) servants. It also demands its citizens to pay a certain tax in form of that money. This forces the citizens to work for and sell to the government's servants to obtain that money. Servants are happy, government can continue to govern, citizens, well, who cares, right?

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.

Tired: the government is like the mafia

Wired: the mafia is like the government

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#28

Post by jrochkind1 »

choeger wrote: post #3

Also, taxes are money. Essentially, a government issues money to its (armed) servants. It also demands its citizens to pay a certain tax in form of that money. This forces the citizens to work for and sell to the government's servants to obtain that money. Servants are happy, government can continue to govern, citizens, well, who cares, right?

I learned this theory from David Graeber's Debt.

You are a ruler with an army. That army has to be fed. It can just violently take what it needs from the population. But that is disorderly and makes people mad at you.

So, instead, you issue money to the soldiers. By why would the population take this money in exchange for food? Even if it's made out of a precious metal, what does a peasant want with gold, when nobody else wants it either (unless maybe they want to make something out of gold, but who can afford that). Well, you say they need to pay you taxes in this money you have issued. Now they've got to get some of it, and the soldiers are the ones with the supply. So you give them food in exchange.

I haven't read that account of the origin of money anywhere else (and I'm not sure how much consensus there is around it among relevant ancient historians), but I have read that taxation originates generally from the need/want to maintain large/standing armies. Not just that you have an army for the purpose of exracting tribute by force; but that you had an army for some other reason (conquering "someone else's" land or defending "yours"), and now you need to extract resources from "your" population to maintain it. This idea is referenced a bit in OP in the context of Europe: "But from around the late fifteenth century, war became more expensive… "

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#29

Post by jrochkind1 »

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…

That doesn't even make sense. Why would you "need" taxes to "represent" social hatred?

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#30

Post by AlexandrB »

sokoloff wrote: post #17
epgui wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 .

Huge success is only possible in the context of systems and infrastructure that enable it. There are no billionaires in Mad Max because society has crumbled - you can't leverage an educated workforce to build your widgets or a working interstate highway system to move them around. Is it so much to ask that those that benefit the most from the legal, financial, law enforcement, and military infrastructure of a country contribute proportionally more of the fruits of their success back to the maintenance of those systems?

That's not even mentioning those that are successful and wealthy in part because of government subsidies and support (e.g. green credits for Tesla).

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