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Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

lse.ac.uk

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Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#201

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

slifin wrote: post #119

A lot of the poor and middle classes don't understand how a billionaire earning millions of pounds per week in passive income is any problem for them - or where it comes from 1, billion, 2 billion, 100 billion individuals makes no difference to the average person In fact there's a misguided sense that they earnt that money through work and not rent seeking But the sad truth of the matter is - the rich are on the othe…

> you pay them interest directly or indirectly through everything you pay for

I wonder how feasible that would be to track as an economic index. Even on individual level its popular to workout which day of the year you start earn money you get to keep after income taxes and vat.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#202

Post by weavejester »

slifin wrote: post #119

A lot of the poor and middle classes don't understand how a billionaire earning millions of pounds per week in passive income is any problem for them - or where it comes from 1, billion, 2 billion, 100 billion individuals makes no difference to the average person In fact there's a misguided sense that they earnt that money through work and not rent seeking But the sad truth of the matter is - the rich are on the othe…

There's a parallel between welfare and passive gains from diversified investments; yet as you point out, government welfare is tracked and very visible, while private investments are far more opaque.

Part of the wealth that workers create is paid in taxes to the government; another part is paid to the shareholders of the company they work for, to the bank they get their mortgage from, and so forth. The latter is equivalent to an hidden tax, part of which goes toward a form of private welfare that's proportional to an individual's wealth.

People get quite angry about government welfare, particularly if the recipient seems undeserving of it. Yet they have no problem with the passive income from billionaires, even if it ultimately amounts to the same thing.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#203

Post by rahimnathwani »

danny_codes wrote: post #193
rahimnathwani wrote: post #96

The paper talks about economic growth, income distribution and unemployment. I'm mostly interested in economic growth, so looked at what the paper claimed about that. It found that major, sudden reductions in taxes on the rich did not have any statistically significant effect on the trajectory of economic growth over the following five years. But: - Their sample is small. They only looked at relatively large, discret…

Just look at growth rates before Reagan/Thatcher in the US/UK and after. If you take the 30 years before and the 30 years after, you'll see growth actually decreased. Obviously this is correlation, but it's somewhat damning to the conservative gospel (dogma?) that lowering taxes somehow automatically produces more growth. Given that we have no clear indicator that raising taxes on wealthy people would reduce growth (…

In most rich countries, the % of income people pay already goes up with income.

When you say 'pursue greater equality' do you mean we should keep making the tax system more progressive until everyone's after tax income is equal? If not, what should the shape of the curve be?

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#204

Post by tsoukase »

If we started the society/economy from scratch today, the current situation would seem absurd, inhumane and unacceptable. Imagine an inequality in scale of 10000s while you are only 1.5 more capable than the average.

(Very) rich people with their legal (eg tax loopholes) and illegal (eg sold politicians) tactics cost middle class people almost 100% their optimal income. Not to mention qualities of life like social state and safety. Calculations need a blog post.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#205

Post by manlymuppet »

regularization wrote: post #73
manlymuppet wrote: post #6

The thing I don't like about this is that it treats trickle-down economics as if it's something that needs to be debunked. Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. The policies of supply-side economics, however, are much more defensible, but it seems peopl…

> Trickle-down economics has never been a real economic policy, and never been seriously advocated by federal policy-makers. It is an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3522907-gop-lawmaker-byro... Well here is one of those federal policy-makers you say doesn't exist, a Republican congressman, advocating four years ago for trickle down economics…

Late but here goes.

This is like when Trump said that foreign countries pay tariffs. Like Byron Donalds in the article you linked, he’s just wrong.

Foreign countries don’t pay tariffs. Domestic producers have always paid the statutory toll, and most of the time the economic incidence too. No textbook has argued argued otherwise, because this is just the standard.

It’s not that Trump is advocating a different policy when he says foreign countries pay tariffs, it’s just that he (like a lot of other MAGA Republicans) so grossly misunderstand economics and their own party positions, that they end up advocating for a different thing. In this case, Byron Donalds is even going as far to advocate the pejorative version of his own side.

Now if you’re saying that trickle-down has become so widespread that even supply-side supporters have become fooled into thinking that it’s their side, I’d happily grant you that. But what I mean when I say that trickle-down has never been “seriously” advocated is that it’s never been in textbooks. There are no policy appropriations made by legislators to support the goals of trickle-down economics.

Similar to how Republicans nowadays accuse Democrats of trying to bring in illegal immigrants to bolster their voter base (a pervasive lie), to try and “debunk” such a policy would be intellectually dishonest, since the Democrats have never advocated such a thing.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#206

Post by aristofun »

danny_codes wrote: post #195
aristofun wrote: post #132

All the brain dead marxists here - please remember, any artificially promoted slogans whether it’s “tax the rich” or “cut the taxes” are there only to get your votes. The real problem is never as simple as turning few knobs.

Nobody is suggesting that raising the effective tax rate for the richest people will magically fix all our problems. However, we are saying that making the tax code progressive is better than what we're doing now. I think we can all agree that Bezos paying an effective tax rate of 4% or whatever is not a fair way to organize society.

Whatever scheme you will think is “fair” - Besos, not you, will find a way around it. But thousands of middle class and small business owners will bear the burden while dumb marxists keep complaining about their free lunch.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#207

Post by dec0dedab0de »

lifestyleguru wrote: post #112
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh, I don't know if those examples really apply, even if they effectively have a similar outcome. Incentives for environmentally friendly tech are more about helping those industries get off the ground against entrenched incumbents that are harmful to everyone. The benefit of less exhaust in the air is immediately good for everyone. Although I'm sure government and corporate greed was able to exploit those policies…

Subsidies for electric car and solar panels on private house are a very specific loyalty rewards. No random person receives it, the requirements and bureaucracy are impenetrable.

but everyone else has cleaner air to breathe

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#208

Post by lifestyleguru »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #207
lifestyleguru wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subsidies for electric car and solar panels on private house are a very specific loyalty rewards. No random person receives it, the requirements and bureaucracy are impenetrable.

but everyone else has cleaner air to breathe

Yes exactly! The clean air trickles down. The poor and disloyal should be more thankful, and be less jealous.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#209

Post by CrzyLngPwd »

danny_codes wrote: post #194
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #148

The rich don't pay income tax like us little people do, they don't pay capital gains tax like us either. They can avoid both through schemes such as taking low salaries and borrowing against assets they will never sell for a profit. The tax system would need a complete overhaul to plug those holes, but it would always be a game of whack-a-mole.

Piketty's 2% tax floor on wealth (for those with over $10M/$100M in wealth) is an excellent way to fix this. Basically the idea is to just accept the fact that the super wealthy will find the loopholes, so instead remove the loopholes. Just flatly put a minimum tax all wealth over $XX million at 2%. One nice aspect of the policy is that it's a tax minimum: so people with high incomes who are already paying that much,…

I have land, and so I am appatently wealthy, but if someone wanted to put a 2% tax on it I would have to sell it to pay the tax since I have very limited cash.

This would result in a land grab only the super wealthy could afford.

I already pay high taxes on everything from fuel to food to tissue to wipe my ass. Taxing my land ownership might push people to the edge.

The super wealthy would avoid it by pyutting everything into an offshore trust. Us little people, with expensive houses their parents worked hard and paid taxes for would just see another tax.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#210

Post by slopinthebag »

archagon wrote: post #191
slopinthebag wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually created.

It’s not. It’s extracted.

How can it be extracted if it didn’t previously exist? Economies aren’t zero sum, they can grow and contract.
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