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A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

nytimes.com

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Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#81

Post by ams6110 »

skibob1027 wrote: post #8
ballstothewalls wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government is the least efficient allocator of resources? Says who? How many wealthy individuals are sitting on piles of money right now because they are unsure of the economic climate and therefore are not going to invest? Who better than the government to take it away from them and then invest it into public infrastructure and consequently stimulate the economy?

Wealthy people don't "sit on piles of money". That money is either held in a bank or invested. If it's in a bank, it is able to be loaned out to others looking for access to capital now. If its invested, it's being used as capital in a business (assuming it's and equity investment).

None of these things happen if the government takes it instead.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#82

Post by gwright »

ianb wrote: post #70
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.

The whole point of my post is that progressive taxation is a question of which individuals pay what, not whether money stays with individuals or goes to the government. You appear to be caught up in the framing of political rhetoric.

As if 'framing' isn't an important part of communicating ideas? In this case you chose to frame the discussion in the form of the government 'giving' its money to the people. I'm rejecting that formulation. That doesn't mean I'm rejecting the idea of taxes or more specifically progressive taxes.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#83

Post by a5seo »

notJim wrote: post #76
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 re…

For more context:

"You hear a lot, in books, in the blogosphere, among pundits that the middle class is being hollowed out, the incomes for all but the top 1% or maybe the top 20% are stagnating; that the gap between rich and poor has grown inexorably; that the American dream is dead"

"[these claims] are basically wrong. And that's what 10 years of research by myself and James Sullivan at Notre Dame has shown. If you measure incomes better, accounting properly for inflation, median incomes have gone up by about 50% since 1980. And if you look at consumption, it's gone up by a similar amount over that whole period--though exactly when it went up is slightly different from the income pattern."

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/10/bruce_meyer_on.html

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#84

Post by jshen »

cynicalkane wrote: post #65
r00fus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the threshold at $250k, the tax hikes would still only bring in enough added revenue to cover 8 days of federal spending. Does that include the restoration of pre-Bush capital gains tax? Because I'm sure that would add up to a lot. In fact, I think that's the biggest thing that the ultra-rich have become addicted to in the past decade.

Talk about the "ultra-rich" becoming "addicted" to money is loaded nonsense, but never mind. The idea of taxing investment income leads to a lot of terrible, perverse outcomes. It steers wealth towards being locked up in big companies and funds, since this is how you compound investment fashion without that money being repeatedly taxed. It also makes sure the incentive to invest on one's own accord belongs primarily…

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/the-history-of-c...

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/the-dubious-case...

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#85

Post by hackinthebochs »

gwright wrote: post #59
hackinthebochs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "property" other than a state-enforced claim to ownership? If the state (read: society) decides to take some back it is well within its "right" to do so, as your only claim to property is based on decree of society.

I'm guessing your not a big John Locke fan.

I am a fan actually, and I don't think my views are incompatible with his. I do have reservations of the typical use of "natural law" arguments though. One can construct a natural law argument for just about any premise one wants.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#86

Post by dkarl »

gwright wrote: post #48
ianb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This response has become the standard (non sequitur) response to proposals for progressive taxation, but it doesn't engage at all with the argument being made. The degree to which taxes are progressive doesn't determine the total tax collected, or the amount the government expends, it determines how that burden is applied to people. What we should really be comparing is: does an individual allocate their first $100,0…

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.

The notion that taxation should be predicated on whether the government or the person can 'better use' the person's money is damn scary.

Why is it scary? Your tax dollars go to the government because other citizens wish their tax dollars to go to the government, because they believe the government is the most efficient way to provide certain goods. Basically, they believe the government can spend their money better than they can, at least a certain amount of their money spent for certain purposes. Taxes aren't completely consensual, of course. They're government policy, and like any government policy, they can't depend on unanimous approval. However, the will of the people, as expressed through every democratic system on Earth, does support some degree of taxation and government spending. The natural question for a voter to ask when their vote affects taxation is whether it is more efficient to accomplish certain things through the government rather than through private spending -- essentially, whether the government can "better use" money for certain purposes than taxpayers can themselves. What's wrong with that?

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#87

Post by w3pm »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #71
w3pm wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a fixed amount of labor capital in the US. Who decides how it should be allocated? Let's pretend you believe we need to hire more teachers. Are you right? If you were the government, you'd wave your hands and make it so. But are you wasting labor on teachers we don't fully utilize? Perhaps we could have really benefited from additional plumbers. How can we know?

The only known way to answer those questions is by asking the capital markets. We all share the goal of best utilizing every citizen to raise our collective standard of living. More broadly, it is in everyone's best interest to efficiently use every type of scare capital resource we are afforded. Waste helps no one.

Now, the fact that the capital markets are distorted and borderline useless today is another discussion. Higher taxes won't solve that problem either.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#88

Post by arn »

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?

For the same reason that if someone votes for or advocates for a war, we don't say... "well, if you want to fight the (Iranians, or whatever), then go buy a gun and fight them."

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader why that is an absurd argument.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#89

Post by neilkelty »

arn wrote: post #88
neilkelty wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite sure why it's an absurd response?

For the same reason that if someone votes for or advocates for a war, we don't say... "well, if you want to fight the (Iranians, or whatever), then go buy a gun and fight them." I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader why that is an absurd argument.

I don't think forking over extra cash is exactly on the same line as putting your life on the line in a war. I'm not sure that's a fair comparison.

Re: A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy

#90

Post by mhartl »

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?

A more apt analogy would be, if you're for a war, why don't you enlist? But lots of people in favor of wars do just that. What Buffett is saying is essentially, "Let's institute a draft." Lots of wars have had that, too, of course—which is not necessarily a good thing.
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