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A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

nytimes.com

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Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#71

Post by hackinthebochs »

w3pm wrote: post #58
hackinthebochs wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course "efficiently" depends completely on what property you're trying to optimize for. Individuals work for themselves, government (theoretically) works for the people. It is not a given that "the people" will be more efficient for all such properties.

You misunderstand the context of efficiency. We're talking about efficiently allocating limited capital resources. This is done by 'prices.' The government by definition cannot efficiently allocate capital because there exists no market signal from capital consumers as to how the scarce resources should be best utilized. The government can only guess and spend.

I don't think I misunderstand the context. The definition that people generally use when discussing this is making some fundamental assumptions that simply do not hold up. Efficiency for efficiency's sake is meaningless--its always in the pursuit of some greater goal. For the private citizen, that goal is different than for a government. It is a flawed argument to assume that the government does, or should, have the same goal as a private citizen.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#72

Post by neilkelty »

arn wrote: post #57
neilkelty wrote: post #53

If Mr. Buffet is so concerned about the amount of taxes paid by the wealthy he should use this simple form ( https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?agencyFor... ) to set an example.

This is an absurd (yet common) response. And if you are for a war, why don't you buy a gun and go fight?

Not quite sure why it's an absurd response?

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#73

Post by gwright »

cdash wrote: post #68
gwright wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you framing the argument as if incomes are something that are owned by the government instead of the person who earned the money? The notion that taxation should be predicated on whether the government or the person can 'better use' the person's money is damn scary.

Its not really scary at all because that is what governments have always done, unless you are an advocate for no government at all in which case you are damn scary.

That is a false dichotomy.

You want me to choose between anarchy or where you've asserted that it doesn't matter what form of government I choose because they are all the same.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#74

Post by charonn0 »

mitchty wrote: post #43
charonn0 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they have the worst possible state government of the union Must be all the rich people that live here; they ruin everything!

I was referring more to their referendum system.

Which diminishes my point not a bit.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#75

Post by notJim »

prostoalex wrote: post #56
nhebb wrote: post #21

> I support President Obama’s proposal to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for high-income taxpayers. However, I prefer a cutoff point somewhat above $250,000 — maybe $500,000 or so. Personally, I don't care if the wealthy pay higher taxes. In the recent election, 8/10 of the wealthiest counties in the US voted for President Obama, and his stance on tax rates was clear. If those voters are willing to pay higher taxes, I'm…

wealth == accumulated assets, but wealth != income High-income people are frequently wealthy (outside of incomes derived through lottery winnings), but the two are not equal in their political views - those sitting on their wealth will be in favor of income taxes (since they barely have any), those who work for income will lean in favor of asset and consumption taxation (property, estate and sales taxes).

This seems like a riskily reductionist point, as we know that people aren't always single-issue voters focused on achieving their financial best interests.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#76

Post by notJim »

nhebb wrote: post #21

> I support President Obama’s proposal to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for high-income taxpayers. However, I prefer a cutoff point somewhat above $250,000 — maybe $500,000 or so. Personally, I don't care if the wealthy pay higher taxes. In the recent election, 8/10 of the wealthiest counties in the US voted for President Obama, and his stance on tax rates was clear. If those voters are willing to pay higher taxes, I'm…

This seems like a willfully ignorant reading of the op-ed. There is context here which any reasonably well-informed person should be aware of, which is that the gains made by top earners far outstrip the gains made by middle and lower income people. As a result, those people are worse off than they were in the past (their income has failed to increase relative to cost of living increases in recent decades.) So the reason people focus on the wealthy is that middle and lower income people are already at their breaking point.

Also, it isn't clear to me if you're referring to the "Buffet Rule", or to a scheme like the one proposed by Buffet here. In any case, he admits that even if we did the first part of what he is proposing (the minimum tax for the wealthy), there would still be work to be done.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#77

Post by w3pm »

neilkelty wrote: post #72
arn wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an absurd (yet common) response. And if you are for a war, why don't you buy a gun and go fight?

Not quite sure why it's an absurd response?

Agreed. Mr. Buffet is free to donate as much of his 'tail wind' wealth as he chooses. But please, hands off of my wallet.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#78

Post by forensic »

gyardley wrote: post #66
forensic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Entrepreneurs only work for human beings with money. Who works for those without? It doesn't matter how inefficient government is. Government is the only entity that works for the disadvantaged. Government is also the only entity capable of addressing collective problems.

You can't possibly actually believe this. When I'm doing volunteer work, I'm working for the interest of the disadvantaged. My synagogue collectively works for the interest of the disadvantaged through their social action programs. My town's interfaith food bank is run very well and addresses a collective problem without taking a dime of government support. Government plays a role in helping the disadvantaged but it…

It's disingenuous to say you're working FOR the disadvantaged. They aren't directing your activity and they have no power in the matter.

Government actually responds to the desires of the disadvantaged so the difference is infinite.

Volunteer organizations only serve a very, very narrow sliver of the disadvantaged, and they usually don't work to eradicate the disadvantaged but rather to exploit them to perpetuate their institutions.

The customer of the volunteer organization is the donor or charitable person. They dictate the behaviour of the organization. The product is the disadvantaged person, who is used in sales pitches and so on to convince the customer to hand over their credit card information.

Just because the disadvantaged are used by private charities to extract donations from the wealthy doesn't mean that the volunteer organizations are working FOR the disadvantaged.

Simple fact of the matter is that working for the disadvantaged would include a lot more responsiveness, a lot more prevention, a lot more intelligence, a lot LESS volunteer work and a lot more professional work. (volunteer work is poverty tourism 99% of the time--the poor don't need people handing out soup at soup kitchens. They just need money to buy their own soup and a social system that gives them some opportunity to become self-sufficient.)

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#79

Post by rhino42 »

notJim wrote: post #75
prostoalex wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wealth == accumulated assets, but wealth != income High-income people are frequently wealthy (outside of incomes derived through lottery winnings), but the two are not equal in their political views - those sitting on their wealth will be in favor of income taxes (since they barely have any), those who work for income will lean in favor of asset and consumption taxation (property, estate and sales taxes).

This seems like a riskily reductionist point, as we know that people aren't always single-issue voters focused on achieving their financial best interests.

But categorically I would expect it to be a reasonable heuristic.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#80

Post by rpm4321 »

forensic wrote: post #52
rpm4321 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish that I had joined HN more than a month ago, just so that I could downvote you. This belongs on Reddit or Huffpo, not HN. Ironically, it's this sort of OWS mullarkey that's helping to prolong the environment of economic uncertainty that's hurting us so badly today.

I joined HN four years ago. How would YOU know what belongs on HN? Your comment is extremely shallow and false to boot. It belongs on Rush Limbaugh, not on HN.

def further_proof(age, wisdom):

    if (age != wisdom):

        print "forensic"
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