Washington state approves capital gains tax • Hacker News Board

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#251

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, May 01, 2021, 3:50 AM UTC

danans wrote: post #15

grumpitron wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like Oregon has a 9.9% capital gains tax, so moving to Portland would add to the tax bill of founders relocating before selling their company instead of reducing it.

Oregon also has a state income tax, unlike Washington.

Washington currently has 0.4% income tax for W2 employees, and another 0.6% coming on Jan 1, 2022 unless you have sufficient long term disability insurance by Jul 2021 to be able to opt out of it. So WA will effectively have a 1% income tax beginning Jan 1, 2022 for W2 earners (aka employees).

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#252

Post by lotsofpulp » Sat, May 01, 2021, 3:57 AM UTC

bpodgursky wrote: post #26

FWIW, it's going to be immediately challenged in court. WA supreme court has struck down all income taxes in the past, and it's pretty unclear whether this one will pass muster.

Yet all WA W2 employees pay 0.4% of their income towards family leave insurance, aka an income tax. And an additional 0.6% is being added Jan 1, 2022 for long term disability insurance, also an income tax.

Especially considering the long term disability benefit is pathetic for 0.6% of pay. If you earn more than ~$60k, you’ll be paying more for the LTDI tax than simply buying the same policy from an insurance company.

The fact that the WA Supreme Court hasn’t struck these two down as income taxes when they clearly are makes me think they are going to let this slide too.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#253

Post by Consultant32452 » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:48 AM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #240

ghostwriter wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

privatise everything so that the owners are able to sue those who negatively impact their assets https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/if-you-want-to-save-the-e...

How would that work for air pollution?

How would suing them work?

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#254

Post by whydoibother » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #243

whydoibother wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow, I imagine you aren't in Portland or haven't spent a lot of time downtown. You are regurgitating right talking points.

A lot of progressives seem to share this delusion and I find it puzzling. I have no idea who started this meme that there are “right talking points” going around about Portland. If such a thing exists, I have no idea what it is or where it comes from. Rest assured, my talking points are completely original and synthesized by my own senses. I’m in Portland quite frequently and was there earlier this month. I have many…

Go ahead and post your video. Show us what horrible things you saw anteefa do.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#255

Post by fighterpilot » Sat, May 01, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #253

fighterpilot wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would that work for air pollution?

How would suing them work?

How does that get around the free rider problem? If someone is polluting the air, they're making everyone's life worse by epsilon. If I'm to sue them, all the cost of the lawsuit is privatized, and all the benefit is socialized

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#256

Post by kerng » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:07 AM UTC

It only kicks in after 250k in capital gains for the given year - doubt this will hurt anyone.

If you make that much passively via capital gains, you are already very well off.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#257

Post by Consultant32452 » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:51 AM UTC

fighterpilot wrote: post #255

Consultant32452 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would suing them work?

How does that get around the free rider problem? If someone is polluting the air, they're making everyone's life worse by epsilon. If I'm to sue them, all the cost of the lawsuit is privatized, and all the benefit is socialized

As opposed to the current system where they still pollute, they still kill you, but you're not even allowed to sue because the state owns the air/water and lets them pollute and you get no compensation.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#258

Post by Frondo » Sat, May 01, 2021, 8:14 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #243

whydoibother wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow, I imagine you aren't in Portland or haven't spent a lot of time downtown. You are regurgitating right talking points.

A lot of progressives seem to share this delusion and I find it puzzling. I have no idea who started this meme that there are “right talking points” going around about Portland. If such a thing exists, I have no idea what it is or where it comes from. Rest assured, my talking points are completely original and synthesized by my own senses. I’m in Portland quite frequently and was there earlier this month. I have many…

Frankly, unless you've been doing a somewhat systematic survey of "businesses that have been boarded up" and "businesses that continue to operate as normal" and are doing so across the city (and not the very small part of the city where the protests have been taking place), this seems like an ideal situation to point out that the plural of anecdote is not data.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#259

Post by fighterpilot » Sat, May 01, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #257

fighterpilot wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that get around the free rider problem? If someone is polluting the air, they're making everyone's life worse by epsilon. If I'm to sue them, all the cost of the lawsuit is privatized, and all the benefit is socialized

As opposed to the current system where they still pollute, they still kill you, but you're not even allowed to sue because the state owns the air/water and lets them pollute and you get no compensation.

It's a good point that the air being fully public leads to a tragedy of the commons situation.

Either way, we're asking a lot of the comperence of the system. If the air were privatized we'd still need a legal system that isn't corrupted by special interests. Since it'd still be (I'm assuming) a representative democratic process that creates that system, corporatism is still possible. Thoughts?

I've always seen a pollution tax as a Libertarian friendly solution to air pollution. A libertarian system needs to raise some tax money, so isn't it better that all tax money comes from a tax on externalities ? If we don't tax externalities then aren't we left to tax productive activity which is even worse?

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#260

Post by eschutte2 » Sat, May 01, 2021, 1:09 PM UTC

jdonaldson wrote: post #244

zacharycohn wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, progressive vs regressive taxes are a technical term.

Yes, but I think it's a relatively new or transient interpretation. I couldn't find much of an authoritative basis for it. It would be great if you could post any links that you know of. There's a wikipedia article on it, but none of the key references exist any more : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

"The technical term for such taxation is regressive taxation" - Seligman 1894 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2485696.pdf