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Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

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Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#121

Post by maerF0x0 »

didibus wrote: post #45
tonystubblebine wrote: post #6

As a business owner, when taxes are low, I see that as an incentive to pocket profits. But when taxes are high, I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. I know this isn't always the case with everyone. And especially investors have a case that higher corporate taxes reduce the value of their investments, possibly to the point of not making them. But this incentive is so blatantly obv…

That seems like the way the incentive is supposed to work no? Motivate the economy by furthering investment back into it.

If we tax wealth, people will be incentivized to generate non-wealth things.

Why buy a stock if Biden will take 1% of it annually? May as well just buy rapidly depreciating status symbols instead.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#122

Post by vmception »

yboris wrote: post #84
vmception wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to value creating expensive compliance and easy game-ability. Not easily convertible to cash. Doesn't fix the government's spending pattern or plug its budget hole unless it resorts to full on expropriation. Not competitive.

I heard an idea: "you must declare all your assets, if an asset is found that you're not claiming, it becomes government property". So if you try to game the system by not claiming a vacation home, it just becomes public property. Thoughts?

still very gameable.

The LLC with the innocuous name of 123 Main St LLC which is the owner of the property at 123 Main St definitely has an owner, and it might not be a tax resident because the LLC is owned by 123 Main St Limited in the Cayman Islands and the ultimate beneficial owner, who is still unknown at this point, may not be an American to begin with.

So just applying heuristics to "hey that house doesn't appear in our tax records get it boys" would create more problems than you think.

And this also circles back to "not competitive". If your country has problems with expropriation people will stop coming there, and others will leave.

But also note, the US constitution does protect against expropriation in the 5th amendment. When rich people start being the subject of civil asset forfeiture the 5th amendment will suddenly start applying again.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#123

Post by munk-a »

coliveira wrote: post #53
tonystubblebine wrote: post #6

As a business owner, when taxes are low, I see that as an incentive to pocket profits. But when taxes are high, I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. I know this isn't always the case with everyone. And especially investors have a case that higher corporate taxes reduce the value of their investments, possibly to the point of not making them. But this incentive is so blatantly obv…

This is so hidden in the debate that it is almost like a "secret". The more taxes you have on corporate income, the higher the incentive for corporations to invest in the company, so they can avoid paying taxes. This is good for the economy. On the other hand, lowering corporate taxes also generates a cascade of tax avoidance, since you have higher profits that generate the need for more complex tax avoidance schemes…

With an extra hidden secret beneath it. That's true for effective taxes on corporate income - if loopholes exist to allow corporations to offshore their money easily and dodge those taxes they're going to do that so they can pull the money out (or, alternatively, temporarily stash their money abroad since the US has a tax holiday every decade).

Honestly, the tax holidays royally piss me off especially coming from a party that "embraces law and order" - it's essentially like pardoning a bunch of robbers - except the actual robbers stole far less money.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#124

Post by Dylan16807 »

cpursley wrote: post #78
jostmey wrote: post #17

I’m more concerned about what happens if we don’t start taxing the rich more (in the US). I’m worried about the class divide turning violent

The top 1% of US taxpayers already cover 21% of the share of federal taxes collected with the top 10% covering 48% percent of taxes. The bottom 50% of income earners pay little to no taxes (11%). https://taxfoundation.org/summary-of-the-latest-federal-inco...

The top 1% also have 39 percent of the wealth and rising. The "and rising" means it's pretty clear that the taxes are not enough (and/or wages need to be wildly adjusted), if you believe that we currently have too much wealth inequality.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#125

Post by sempron64 »

I'm not wealthy enough for a wealth tax to apply, but a wealth tax is a colossal privacy and administrative burden on _every single taxpayer_. Assets must be accounted for when calculating wealth, so the tax service will be required to track and value assets including vehicles, homes, and material good etc. for every citizen to see if the wealth tax would apply to them -- if we didn't report material goods, the wealthy could sock money away in expensive cars, artworks, jewelry and other material non-real-estate assets as they already do for investment.

This creates a surveillance society on every possession and purchase, and facilitates confiscation and intimidation, an encroachment on our liberty. In fact, that the IRS and the government have a view on every single financial transaction due to the Patriot Act already has a chilling effect on freedom (consider donations). A wealth tax would absolutely be a massive and unnecessary further encroachment upon liberty as the majority of Americans would ultimately have to detail and report their assets to show they do not qualify, while the wealthy would very likely be able to largely anyway cheat on their wealth tax by manipulating valuations of their assets.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#126

Post by [deleted] »

jquery wrote: post #114
coliveira wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so hidden in the debate that it is almost like a "secret". The more taxes you have on corporate income, the higher the incentive for corporations to invest in the company, so they can avoid paying taxes. This is good for the economy. On the other hand, lowering corporate taxes also generates a cascade of tax avoidance, since you have higher profits that generate the need for more complex tax avoidance schemes…

> This is good for the economy. Not at all clear to me this is the case.

[deleted]

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#127

Post by czbond »

Near 50% of American pay zero federal tax. The top 10% of all Americans pay 69% of all federal taxes currently. This is a point 'left out' of current discussions.

Instead of increasing entitlements or adding yet more taxes - we lower the size of the government spending UNTIL it matches where most people pay for the services received in a more scaled manner.

Source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-...

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#128

Post by kilroy123 »

tonystubblebine wrote: post #6

As a business owner, when taxes are low, I see that as an incentive to pocket profits. But when taxes are high, I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. I know this isn't always the case with everyone. And especially investors have a case that higher corporate taxes reduce the value of their investments, possibly to the point of not making them. But this incentive is so blatantly obv…

I'm convinced the best strategy is a tax system where net worth is capped and heavily taxed based on average net worth of all Americans.

There is simply no other way to align interests of the wealthy.

https://anacyclosis.org/2020/05/25/how-do-we-save-democracy

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#130

Post by danvoell »

zdragnar wrote: post #34
tonystubblebine wrote: post #6

As a business owner, when taxes are low, I see that as an incentive to pocket profits. But when taxes are high, I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. I know this isn't always the case with everyone. And especially investors have a case that higher corporate taxes reduce the value of their investments, possibly to the point of not making them. But this incentive is so blatantly obv…

Strange. Business owner friends of mine have taken the opposite approach over the years. Taxes low? Start up something new, get it going. Taxes go up again? Sell it off (if they haven't already) and go back to early retirement doing whatever. Maybe it is largely the type of business that behavior changes. Their last venture was starting up an aquaponics farm in a borderline urban / suburban area, though I haven't kep…

Disagree. Agree with 100% with OP. Taxes are high, reinvest in your company. Taxes are low, transfer wealth to yourself. As an aside, just to make some peoples blood flow perk up. In 2020, if you have paid any taxes in the last 5 years, you can expense up the wazoo, and carryback taxes. See cares act. In theory this nets out 5 years of no actual company taxes being paid.
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