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In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

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Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#61

Post by AstralStorm »

kortilla wrote: post #43
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…

> Conversely, it is highly probable that the people who support tax hikes: There is no evidence supporting this assertion. A massive swath of people currently support raising taxes on the wealthy solely to take their money away (“reducing income equality”) without having a particularly sound way to spend it or one that even makes mathematical sense. https://twitter.com/iamscottenglish/status/12358062448179159...

We have plenty of ways to spend money: housing, food, healthcare, infrastructure, public transportation, even jobs. Providing the above for free could be a thing.

Every penny is useful.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#62

Post by AstralStorm »

HideousKojima wrote: post #24
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?

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...

By failed you mean the government was couped, right? And it being called socialist is a bit of a funny thing, with encouraging private investment and high degree of authoritarianism, even totalitarianism.

This is not the same thing at all.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#63

Post by newacct583 »

sokoloff wrote: post #52
newacct583 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...you're right. I was figuring a marginal tax rate of about 40% and dividing by 15%, then rounding up. In practice the number is closer to 2x, as you said. Why does that change the analysis?

If the magnitude of the difference doesn't change the analysis, why mention it in the first place?

"Income tax is significantly higher than capital gains, and that clearly contradicts the contention that we preferentially tax things we hate."

Do you actually disagree with that statement? If the essence of the argument doesn't change, why argue with numbers in the first place?

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#64

Post by frankbreetz »

kortilla wrote: post #37
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?

If you like taxes why don’t you move to the country with the highest tax rate? What a stupid argument.

If I was as passionate about it as the parent, I would. For me, there are other factors to where I live besides taxes. Also, it's hard migrate to countries with high taxes, because they are deseriable places to live. It's not hard to migrate to Somalia. It's also not deseriable to live there. That's the point.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#65

Post by ipaddr »

4rtyui9xd wrote: post #26
ipaddr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I like using the non-resident loophole angle. It could be possible.

The rich use more of the system than the average person. The area of law, finace, education and property. They receive money/credit for investment in local communities.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#66

Post by sokoloff »

newacct583 wrote: post #63
sokoloff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the magnitude of the difference doesn't change the analysis, why mention it in the first place?

"Income tax is significantly higher than capital gains, and that clearly contradicts the contention that we preferentially tax things we hate." Do you actually disagree with that statement? If the essence of the argument doesn't change, why argue with numbers in the first place?

The second half of that statement is purely argumentative and as stated can neither be falsified nor proven true.

The first half of the statement is also not obviously true to me, given the large amount of wage income that is federally marginally taxed at 22 or 24% and the large amount of long-term capital gains that are taxed at 23.8%.

Is some wage income taxed higher than some investment income? Obviously, yes. Is that done specifically to disincentivize work? I don’t think so. Are long-term capital gains and qualified dividends taxed lower in order to incentivize long-term investing? I think so. Do we conclude from that that politicians hate workers more than investors? Exploring that requires looking at facts not yet in evidence here.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#67

Post by kortilla »

frankbreetz wrote: post #64
kortilla wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like taxes why don’t you move to the country with the highest tax rate? What a stupid argument.

If I was as passionate about it as the parent, I would. For me, there are other factors to where I live besides taxes. Also, it's hard migrate to countries with high taxes, because they are deseriable places to live. It's not hard to migrate to Somalia. It's also not deseriable to live there. That's the point.

They are trivial to relocate to if you have money and would be the one actually paying the high taxes (top half of middle-class income and above).

There is a reason people making 6 figure+ salaries aren’t clamoring to move to France/Portugal/Brazil/Sweden. They aren’t actually all that desirable if you are the one paying the brunt of the taxes.

If you’re actually “passionate about taxes” and you don’t make good money, you would be happy to relocate to the country with the highest taxes for low income... Swaziland. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-t...

Both you and the parent aren’t actually fans of high taxes it sounds like. Instead you just like social programs paid for by someone else.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#68

Post by kortilla »

AstralStorm wrote: post #61
kortilla wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Conversely, it is highly probable that the people who support tax hikes: There is no evidence supporting this assertion. A massive swath of people currently support raising taxes on the wealthy solely to take their money away (“reducing income equality”) without having a particularly sound way to spend it or one that even makes mathematical sense. https://twitter.com/iamscottenglish/status/12358062448179159...

We have plenty of ways to spend money: housing, food, healthcare, infrastructure, public transportation, even jobs. Providing the above for free could be a thing. Every penny is useful.

Having a list of shit you want the government to spend every spare penny on does not make you informed or particularly intelligent. That’s just a grown-up version of a Christmas wish-list.

The government randomly spending money in bits here in there is not productive.

>even jobs

The last thing you want is the government to add 10 million jobs for only 12 weeks during normal employment.

> infrastructure

Expanding infrastructure that isn’t needed is just more maintenance cost and a waste of money. You need concrete plans for infrastructure that isn’t just a maintenance burden.

> public transportation

Again, this needs actual plans and should provide value. You want HSR from Ely, NV to Portland, OR?

Vague hand-waving of “the government should just spend X billion on Y” is just a perfect way to promote boondoggles.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#69

Post by jrochkind1 »

mulmen wrote: post #48
jrochkind1 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 nobod…

This is an interesting idea but seems simplistic. Certainly the peasants also need to trade with each other, regardless of the presence of an army? Money facilitates that trade. You can barter chickens or goats or whatever but at some point nobody needs more of those either. Especially because chickens have to be fed. When the thing being traded has only abstract value it becomes money, even if the tokens are chicken…

What you describe is the "common sense" explanation of the origin of money that we hear a lot, "even peasants need to trade with each other, and maybe they don't always have what each other needs directly, they need an abstract unit of value." But it's unclear if it's actually based in any historical evidence or was just invented as something that "made sense". Graeber suggested it is not based in much historical evidence, and that there is evidence for other explanations.

I think Graeber's theory of the origin of money may not be universally accepted (not sure how accepted it is); but I think it's true that the 'common sense' theory isn't actually based on much historical evidence, but is just "an argument that can be made", as they say, which somehow became the "common sense". That's not a very reliable way to accurately describe history. All sorts of things that people in different times assumed "must be true because it just makes the most sense" turn out not to be. "seems simplistic" or "seems more plausible to me" is not a reliable guide for distinguishing truth from fiction, and what seems more plausible to me may not to you.

Re: In the Beginning, There Were Taxes

#70

Post by mulmen »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #69
mulmen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting idea but seems simplistic. Certainly the peasants also need to trade with each other, regardless of the presence of an army? Money facilitates that trade. You can barter chickens or goats or whatever but at some point nobody needs more of those either. Especially because chickens have to be fed. When the thing being traded has only abstract value it becomes money, even if the tokens are chicken…

What you describe is the "common sense" explanation of the origin of money that we hear a lot, "even peasants need to trade with each other, and maybe they don't always have what each other needs directly, they need an abstract unit of value." But it's unclear if it's actually based in any historical evidence or was just invented as something that "made sense". Graeber suggested it is not based in much historical evi…

I’m not presenting an alternative origin of money. I’m arguing the issue is more complex than a single explanation.

Money is a natural consequence of trade in general.

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