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Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

brookings.edu

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Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#151

That's why i'm against high taxes. We get a bunch of random political parties, promising to "tax the rich" and stuff, we get new laws... and what happens? - The poor already pay very little tax - no change there - The rich avoid the tax by doing shady stuff (who remembers the panama papers.. or this.. or many other stories like these) - I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and…

[deleted]

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#152
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll throw a range out there for the sake of argument, and I'm really low-balling it: 25-30%

So what would be a single reason for person with $100MM of wealth to give $25MM away to wasteful, corruptive government? What kind of benefits the person is gaining by buying $25MM worth of taxes? I thought so too. Give that person a chance to reinvest these money into local economy, growing productive businesses instead of slapping the "filthy rich" label and suddenly there is a lots of capital are used for everyone…

If they're reinvesting money, that money is not getting taxed. If they still have obscene amounts afterward, c'est la vie.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#153

That's why i'm against high taxes. We get a bunch of random political parties, promising to "tax the rich" and stuff, we get new laws... and what happens? - The poor already pay very little tax - no change there - The rich avoid the tax by doing shady stuff (who remembers the panama papers.. or this.. or many other stories like these) - I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and…

This is a really bad argument. There’s probably a very large segment of the population that would avoid paying any taxes no matter how low you set them. What you’re arguing for is basically a pay what you want model for the rich, where if they feel like they’re getting taxed too much they can just utilize these loopholes.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but the removal of the SALT deduction hurt.

Can you expand on that please?

The 2017 “tax cuts” partially eliminated deductions for state and local taxes, capping them at 10k. This means people in high cost of living, high tax states effectively get taxed on income multiple times instead of being able to discount the money they already paid to state and local taxes above 10k.

https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/salt-deduction/

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The top 1% pay 6x more tax than the bottom 50%! And yet their share of wealth keeps on growing and growing for decades. Curious.

Redistributing wealth is not the primary purpose of taxes.

> Redistributing wealth is not the primary purpose of taxes

Yes it is. Also of government, more generally (well, power, of which wealth is a subset.) Before the modern era, this was pretty consistently upward redistribution, aka concentration.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#156

That's why i'm against high taxes. We get a bunch of random political parties, promising to "tax the rich" and stuff, we get new laws... and what happens? - The poor already pay very little tax - no change there - The rich avoid the tax by doing shady stuff (who remembers the panama papers.. or this.. or many other stories like these) - I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes, and I get fucked hard, and…

You're right. Considering we just budgeted about 750 billion for the military, more than the next 7 or 10 countries combined depending on who you ask, me thinks even if they do get their hands on this money its not going to end up in the right place.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#157
post #62
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes Fwiw we feel like middle class but we’re really in the top 5% or higher. We’re the rich people these taxes and politicians talk about. The ultra rich/wealthy are a red herring, there’s only a few 10k of them of them. Only 614 people are billionaires. 7 figure income (salary) puts you in top 0.35% ... that’s 1,120,000 Americans. Not a whole lot. edit: top 10% star…

Middle class engineers make 7 figure salaries?

No, that’s the top 0.35%

Where does the middle class top off? $125,000/year individual income puts you in top 10%. Pretty normal for a software engineer. Is that middle class?

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citations for any of this? I have noticed nothing "pejorative" in the language used in the document. I'd be more pejorative myself. The individuals with accounts are described clinically - "high net worth individuals". The ethics of using the leaked data is examined. The situation that individuals with these accounts may be committing crimes is also described dispassionately. It is a fact that these accounts are ofte…

> I have noticed nothing "pejorative" in the language used in the document. First page after the abstract "It is this information asymmetry that gives rise to a host of problems" as opposed to benefits? This study is fairly balanced but chooses to only focus on illegal tax evasion by the wealthy and corrupt behavior of public officials. Instead of legal tax deferment or avoidance.

Because legal tax avoidance isn't an issue and is a topic for another paper.

Why is every second reply in this comment thread trying to deflect away from the documented widespread, commonplace fraud that constitutes a wealth transfer away from common taxpayers?

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#159
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll throw a range out there for the sake of argument, and I'm really low-balling it: 25-30%

So what would be a single reason for person with $100MM of wealth to give $25MM away to wasteful, corruptive government? What kind of benefits the person is gaining by buying $25MM worth of taxes? I thought so too. Give that person a chance to reinvest these money into local economy, growing productive businesses instead of slapping the "filthy rich" label and suddenly there is a lots of capital are used for everyone…

The $100MM is the benefit. So they are giving back some of the benefit they already received. Yeah they call it waste when they have to give back but the true waste is the policies that allowed the $100MM in light of the overall inequality.

People who make $100MM are no smarter than those that don’t, I mean Einstein didn’t make that type of money right? It’s not merit either, it’s simply money...under our system money makes money, concentration of capital doesn’t benefit everyone it benefits the person with the capital.

Consider wealth management itself, you want to diversify your investments, you would never put 90% of your wealth into .1% of the assets you own. The rich know and live by this rule, well that same rule applies to society, you don’t want .1% controlling 90% of the wealth so investment is determined by .1% of the population. You want the wealth diversified and in the hands of many so no single person controls investment.

Re: Evidence from leaked account data on how elites use offshore banking [pdf]

#160
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I, the middle class engineer get fucked by the taxes Fwiw we feel like middle class but we’re really in the top 5% or higher. We’re the rich people these taxes and politicians talk about. The ultra rich/wealthy are a red herring, there’s only a few 10k of them of them. Only 614 people are billionaires. 7 figure income (salary) puts you in top 0.35% ... that’s 1,120,000 Americans. Not a whole lot. edit: top 10% star…

More than 1% of US households (something like 1.5M households with a total of ~3M people) have >$10M in household net worth. The primary target is that class, irrespective of its members’ earned income, in part because they can reliably earn mid-six-figures per year in returns to capital alone. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/10/22/the-number...

I don't think so. It seems to me that are policies are very clearly targeted to tax income earners, not capital owners.
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