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Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

theguardian.com

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Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#141

Post by geggam »

zaroth wrote: post #140
geggam wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you are saying is until you hit the 4th decile you are working for a business who is subsidizing its payroll with tax dollars

I guess that’s one way of thinking about income redistribution, but I don’t think it’s a robust way to analyze it. In a competitive market with low switching costs, workers get paid roughly what their work is worth. It’s government’s function to ensure the market is competitive and the switching costs are low. But a competitive market with low switching costs does not guarantee that every worker is capable of perform…

>It’s not the employers responsibility to subsidize below-median earners, because they aren’t the ones collecting the surplus from the above-median earners.

This I disagree with emphatically. The empoyers benefit from the social structure supported by tax dollars.

Could you imagine a starting a business in the wilderness with no transportation, utilities or other community supported infrastructure ?

Those companies also put the most wear and tear on the infrastructure.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#142

Post by zaroth »

geggam wrote: post #141
zaroth wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that’s one way of thinking about income redistribution, but I don’t think it’s a robust way to analyze it. In a competitive market with low switching costs, workers get paid roughly what their work is worth. It’s government’s function to ensure the market is competitive and the switching costs are low. But a competitive market with low switching costs does not guarantee that every worker is capable of perform…

>It’s not the employers responsibility to subsidize below-median earners, because they aren’t the ones collecting the surplus from the above-median earners. This I disagree with emphatically. The empoyers benefit from the social structure supported by tax dollars. Could you imagine a starting a business in the wilderness with no transportation, utilities or other community supported infrastructure ? Those companies a…

I’m not following the logic. Obviously we build infrastructure so that we can have an economy. You don’t get a $20 trillion economy without it.

Now we have the infrastructure and the economy, from which the government collects ~$6.5 trillion each year.

Companies hire people and pay them for the jobs they perform. In general, more valuable jobs pay higher salaries. The whole thing is a virtuous cycle. Without companies paying salaries, no consumers are buying products from those companies, and so on.

In the end, all of the $6.5 trillion comes from people living here. Whether it’s payroll taxes, income taxes, excise taxes, business profit taxes, usage fees,... it’s people paying these taxes out of their personal bank account, or out of a corporate bank account which is in turn owned by the shareholders of that company.

Generally increasing the tax rate on a company just increases the price of that conpany’s goods on the market. The customers of the company pay, or the company goes out of business.

The infrastructure is there so that companies can use it to hire employees, sell goods & services provided by their employees, grow the economy, increase payroll, and generate more tax revenue.

The tax structure is designed around redistribution of wealth. It does not follow that therefore somehow employers are underpaying their employees.

There have been cases where employers have colluded to keep wages below market. The government should prosecute those cases and fine those companies.

And like I said, if we want a minimum wage, that’s fine, but what it’s setting is a floor on the marginal value of an employee that is hireable, and anyone below that threshold becomes un-hireable.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#144

Post by locopati »

ctdonath wrote: post #7

Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? Job creation, charity, arts funding, lowering costs of necessities, etc - and at levels & locations which gov't would never achieve. The "tax/soak the rich" notion seems almost entirely puni…

And they externalize the impacts of their work. The Waltons pay very little to their employees such that their employees must rely on public services. If the public services weren't there, the Waltons aren't suddenly going to pay people more out of the goodness of their hearts. You can substitute a lot of corporations here (Amazon outsourcing all of their fulfillment operations for example).

Resource extraction companies pollute even with the regulations in place. How much worse would it be without those regulations?

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#145

Post by RhysU »

falcolas wrote: post #61
dwrowe wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was - I can be okay with them not paying more, and it isn’t because I think I’ll be a billionaire someday.

By being on this site, it seems safe to assume that you’re in the top 10% of earners across the US. Perhaps it would be worth thinking of this from the point of view of the other 90% of the population? Folks for whom that tax money would greatly enrich their lives? Also, let’s not forget that it’s not just the visible 30% that’s taken from your paycheck, but a matching 30% that’s paid by your employer on your behalf.…

What inflation do you expect when everyone suddenly goes from $40k to $60k? Money is relative.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#146

Post by AnimalMuppet »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #136
roenxi wrote: post #17

At least everyone can agree that government taxing should be higher than government spending^. This article is mainly baiting rich v poor division; on a close read it doesn't actually say much. The real issue is that everything in general has become so complicated that nobody has a hope of understanding how it works. Unless we have accountants on deck today nobody really has a feel for how much the rich pay in taxes…

I don't agree that taxing should be higher than spending. Debt is a powerful tool that every country uses and the US would be lagging behind if not for using debt. The global economy and power struggle is competitive - we'd be tremendously disadvantaged if we didn't use debt.

Perhaps (though I'm not convinced). But debt to waste money on stupid stuff is not a competitive advantage.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#147

Post by AnimalMuppet »

AlexandrB wrote: post #26
ctdonath wrote: post #7

Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? Job creation, charity, arts funding, lowering costs of necessities, etc - and at levels & locations which gov't would never achieve. The "tax/soak the rich" notion seems almost entirely puni…

> Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Because the government is democratically elected. Billionaires are not. > Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? [citation needed] In fact, there's an easy counter-example. Healthcare. More expensive than any public system, wit…

> > Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all?

> Because the government is democratically elected.

We didn't democratically elect them to be the provider and arbiter of all. In fact, we deliberately designed a system where there are limits on what the government can do, because we didn't want the government to be the provider and arbiter of all.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#148

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ctdonath wrote: post #112
bilbo0s wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Billionaires have to at least be competent enough to make their money, and shelter it from the thieving governments and other leeches etc etc etc and > rather than being told at implied gunpoint to do what a bunch of ignorant strangers You are clearly emotionally driven on this issue so it's probably best that I step out of this discussion. You have a good day guy.

I'm fact driven. Democracy is, literally, a majority deciding what laws all must adhere to. They don't know/care about a minority's circumstances/needs/choices, yet impose their ill-informed will through the police power of the state (to wit, obey or we'll use force increasing up to and including death). Show me how that's not true.

> Show me how that's not true.

Stating an insane position, even one with internal logic, and then saying "show me how that's not true" does not make your position either correct or convincing.

What's more, your position is very much the one in the minority. It is incumbent upon you to convince us, or else you will simply be ignored. You haven't done anything like a credible attempt to do so.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#149

Post by DuskStar »

noahth wrote: post #28
ColanR wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. How about we amend that to, 'Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources, in proportion to their demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources'. Elon Musk figured out how to make a ton of money; he has more right to determine its use than some bureaucrat in an office. You say that government is our method of collective allocation, but it's real…

No thanks! The "demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources" is mostly a matter of luck, with a small dash of willingness to exploit others. Everyone deserves an equal say in the allocation of resources. It pains me to say that this must include even those who are willing to exploit other people to amass resources.

> The "demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources" is mostly a matter of luck, with a small dash of willingness to exploit others

Citation very much needed. I'd say "luck given the presence of opportunity and ability", perhaps - but luck alone is certainly not enough. (Or else why do lottery winners do so poorly?)

As for "the willingness to exploit others", is this universally true? Are performers exploiting their audiences? Companies their customers? Their workers? Their vendors?

I think that would be trivially true for some definitions of "exploit", but that is not the definition of exploit that most people would tend to think of.

Re: Forget philanthropy. The super-rich should be paying proper taxes

#150

Post by DuskStar »

AlexandrB wrote: post #36
ColanR wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. How about we amend that to, 'Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources, in proportion to their demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources'. Elon Musk figured out how to make a ton of money; he has more right to determine its use than some bureaucrat in an office. You say that government is our method of collective allocation, but it's real…

> in proportion to their demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources'. This makes the huge assumption that "the market" is already equitably rewarding talent with money. It is not. Luck, heritage (inherited wealth and power), and race/gender all skew how much you can amass and the effects are exponential, not linear.

That might still result in a better mapping of resources to ability than dividing resources equally among the population, though.
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