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So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

washingtonpost.com

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Re: So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

#21

Post by austincheney »

danpalmer wrote: post #5
austincheney wrote: post #2

If people really wanted to tax the rich the majority of taxes would come from sales taxes and minority from property taxes. Eliminate income taxes including capital gains taxes. Capital gains taxes are at a laughable rate anyways. Income taxes primarily tax the upper middle class not the rich or poor who either make no employment income or an insufficient amount. Everybody buys things though. To be fair to the poor e…

Sales taxes aren't a particularly balanced way of taxation. Someone living paycheck to paycheck essentially spends all of their income, which means that they pay the full amount of sales tax possible for someone with that income. Compared to someone saving or investing who doesn't pay as much tax as they could. A little simplified because sales taxes typically don't apply to things like rent, but the point still stan…

Everybody makes purchases. Including the wealthy charities and endowments specified in the article. Get them all in a way they cannot hide. This is the most fair approach. The moment you invent a bunch of nonsense special cases to target the rich is where they can use special cases to hide.

If you want to talk about how sales taxes disadvantage the poor what are some examples? School supplies, clothes, and backpacks? These are all generally low cost items. I am aware of how that works financially having once been poor myself.

Re: So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

#22

Post by jacknews »

bradleyjg wrote: post #10
jacknews wrote: post #9

"... crimp spending on student aid or faculty research, but wealthy individuals can make the same argument: Higher taxes would reduce the amount of money they can invest in tech start-ups or other economically productive ventures." Clearly this is not the same argument at all. Student aid, and academic research are not the same as funding a startup. The difference is that colleges, or large grant-making foundations p…

We already have a method for determining what to spend money on for the public good. Why have a parallel method that gives only rough guidelines to private, unelected parties? If people want to donate money to charity, they ought to donate their own money not foregone taxes.

You make a better argument than the article, but the implications are that you'd shift charitable activity from the private sector to government.

That's not necessarily bad, but having a diversity of aid organizations is better, imho.

Re: So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

#25

Post by djbebs »

ivalm wrote: post #6
austincheney wrote: post #2

If people really wanted to tax the rich the majority of taxes would come from sales taxes and minority from property taxes. Eliminate income taxes including capital gains taxes. Capital gains taxes are at a laughable rate anyways. Income taxes primarily tax the upper middle class not the rich or poor who either make no employment income or an insufficient amount. Everybody buys things though. To be fair to the poor e…

This is very backwards. As percentage of income poor people pay more than rich. If you want to tax über wealthy just tax wealth directly (let’s say 3% on all US citizens and residents on all things values above $10mil).

That's not true. The poorest 50% pay 3% of all taxes and make 13% of all income

Re: So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

#26

Post by sam_lowry_ »

danpalmer wrote: post #15
cameronh90 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales taxes aren't the most balanced, but they are very easy to enforce and don't distort the economy very much. Standard wealth taxes are easy to avoid and have weird effects - but land value tax would probably be great. Unfortunately, people tend to vote against it.

Agreed that land value tax is likely a good option. I think sales taxes are also easy to get around. At least in the UK, businesses don't pay VAT, and many large purchases are made by companies. Happens in all sorts of ways, but even things like people who do a little bit of contracting work buying expensive laptops with their "business" and bypassing 20% tax. Technically ok, but often not in the spirit of the law wh…

This VAT avoidance on laptop purchases is a drop in the sea, that's why none cares. VAT on a new construction or even a car purchase is much harder to avoid.

Re: So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

#27

Post by donw »

lhoff wrote: post #17
cameronh90 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales taxes aren't the most balanced, but they are very easy to enforce and don't distort the economy very much. Standard wealth taxes are easy to avoid and have weird effects - but land value tax would probably be great. Unfortunately, people tend to vote against it.

They are only easy to enforce because we have a huge bureaucratic apparatus in place. Imagine all the work that goes into correctly registering all the sales and spending in companies as well as the other side that checks these reports. Sales taxes are among the most inefficient taxes in existence. I am in favor of higher taxes but taxes should be evaluated based on there influence on the market and there efficiency.…

Taiwan does an excellent job of enforcing sales taxes with almost no enforcement cost: https://abovethelaw.com/2019/10/in-some-countries-your-recei...

Re: So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

#28

Post by kgwgk »

ainiriand wrote: post #4
austincheney wrote: post #2

If people really wanted to tax the rich the majority of taxes would come from sales taxes and minority from property taxes. Eliminate income taxes including capital gains taxes. Capital gains taxes are at a laughable rate anyways. Income taxes primarily tax the upper middle class not the rich or poor who either make no employment income or an insufficient amount. Everybody buys things though. To be fair to the poor e…

Are you sure that you are thinking on a system that is fair to everyone and not just what is best for you? The core idea of taxes is that, to try and devise a system fair to everyone. The current system is not.

Depends a lot on the definition of fair.

Re: So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

#29

Post by sam_lowry_ »

kgwgk wrote: post #19
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VAT is much easier to enforce than sales taxes, and as much as I dislike VAT, one can use it to enforce sustainable living and environmental policies. Think of 66% VAT applied to all products. Suddenly, repairing and extending lifetime of existing stuff becomes economically viable.

You would pay 66% VAT on repairs as well.

Only on the added value, e.g. a new smartphone glass. Work will be relatively cheaper.

One of the most reasonable proposals for UBI is to finance it through VAT. Some 15 years ago there was a party in Belgium that lobbied for UBI and they calculated that VAT should increase from 21% to 33% to finance UBI.

Re: So you want to tax the rich? OK, let's start with Harvard

#30

Post by austincheney »

Marazan wrote: post #20
austincheney wrote: post #2

If people really wanted to tax the rich the majority of taxes would come from sales taxes and minority from property taxes. Eliminate income taxes including capital gains taxes. Capital gains taxes are at a laughable rate anyways. Income taxes primarily tax the upper middle class not the rich or poor who either make no employment income or an insufficient amount. Everybody buys things though. To be fair to the poor e…

Sales tax are a terrible, regressive, way of raising money.

Kind of like democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others. The issue here is fairness and ensuring the wealthy pay their share.
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