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Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

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Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#171

Post by skywhopper »

paulddraper wrote: post #31
skywhopper wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge of a "flat tax" is defining "income". It's not as easy as you think, and basic intuitive "fairness" will result in a lot of income being excluded. Given that today's graduated tax system results in top-earners paying lower percentages, a "flat" tax will surely be worse. As for getting rid of the IRS, who will collect, administer, and audit the flat tax?

That's why "fair tax" advocates flat sales tax. It still leads to questions, but sales taxes are usually simpler than income and capital taxes.

Who administers, audits, and collects the flat sales tax? And who decides what counts as "sales" on which to collect this super-simple tax? I assume we would tax the sale of pencils and computers. What about houses? Stock? Haircuts? Babysitting? Will companies be asked to pay taxes on their cost-of-goods-sold (currently deductible from corporate income taxes)? Or their employee's salaries?

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#172

Post by dang »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #168
gnaritas wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Socialism, the labour movement, and communism all come from the same place. That doesn't make them all equivalent. > It's funny, you're arguing for progressive taxation, but you don't understand the history Yes I do, put your phony superiority aside, there's no place for it here. Communism is not relevant just because we're talking about progressive taxation and that you think is simply shows you're too biased to h…

> A conversation about the fairness of progressive taxation does not have to devolve into a conversation about communism or socialism. Comparing different schools of economic thought absolutely relates to a discussion about rational choice and fairness. > Communism is not relevant just because we're talking about progressive taxation and that you think is simply shows you're too biased to have an intelligent conversa…

Please stop.

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#173

Post by dang »

gnaritas wrote: post #169
Mikeb85 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A conversation about the fairness of progressive taxation does not have to devolve into a conversation about communism or socialism. Comparing different schools of economic thought absolutely relates to a discussion about rational choice and fairness. > Communism is not relevant just because we're talking about progressive taxation and that you think is simply shows you're too biased to have an intelligent conversa…

You started off your replies by implying progressives are communists with this little nugget > Progressives think it's 'fair' that everyone pays what they can afford. Which is not what progressives believe, and then you went full on communist with this little nugget > Some people also thought "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" was fair. And then you started pretending only you knew h…

The personal attacks in your comments are completely out of line. If you don't stop doing this I'm going to have to ban you, which I would hate, because we've both been around here for years and I've enjoyed your HN comments (especially about Smalltalk) since long before I became a moderator.

But you've been breaking the HN guidelines over and over again, and I've asked you to stop many times. You need to stop categorically if you want to keep commenting here. These rules apply to everyone, and it wouldn't be fair to other users to let you get away with it.

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#174

Post by paulddraper »

skywhopper wrote: post #171
paulddraper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why "fair tax" advocates flat sales tax. It still leads to questions, but sales taxes are usually simpler than income and capital taxes.

Who administers, audits, and collects the flat sales tax? And who decides what counts as "sales" on which to collect this super-simple tax? I assume we would tax the sale of pencils and computers. What about houses? Stock? Haircuts? Babysitting? Will companies be asked to pay taxes on their cost-of-goods-sold (currently deductible from corporate income taxes)? Or their employee's salaries?

At the federal level, there's an organization called IRS.

Yes.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but sales tax is already ubiquitous in the US.

The taxable entities are far fewer than income tax, making for less administrative overhead. Tax evasion rates also lower.

Of course there are tricky questions, but they're already being answered, IMO better than the personal income quagmire.

Having both today is a complicated tax structure (corporate taxes and sales taxes). Between the two, sales tax is the simplest choice.

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#175

Post by paulddraper »

gnaritas wrote: post #69
themartorana wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my favorite proposal to date. Sales tax applies equally to a pencil and a yacht. It also encourages savings at lower income levels.

It's a terrible idea, a sales tax taxes spending instead of earning which automatically is a huge tax cut to the wealthy who by definition spend a far smaller percentage of their income than the middle classes who basically spend it all. Taxes belong on income, not on spending; sales taxes are incredibly regressive.

My bad. At the time of posting I thought that FairTax was fairly well known.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax#Monthly_tax_rebate

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#176

Post by gnaritas »

dang wrote: post #173
gnaritas wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You started off your replies by implying progressives are communists with this little nugget > Progressives think it's 'fair' that everyone pays what they can afford. Which is not what progressives believe, and then you went full on communist with this little nugget > Some people also thought "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" was fair. And then you started pretending only you knew h…

The personal attacks in your comments are completely out of line. If you don't stop doing this I'm going to have to ban you, which I would hate, because we've both been around here for years and I've enjoyed your HN comments (especially about Smalltalk) since long before I became a moderator. But you've been breaking the HN guidelines over and over again, and I've asked you to stop many times. You need to stop catego…

Well I'll stop this thread, though I don't agree I've attacked him at all; I've done no such thing and while I'll respect your wish to stop, you're wrong to claim I've attacked anyone as no such thing happened. If fact please point me at the guideline you're accusing me of breaking because I just reviewed them and I don't see anything that violates them; I am being civil and saying exactly what I would say to him in person. Pointing out bad behavior like arrogance and superiority is not a personal attack on the person, it's addressing the person's behavior.

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#177

Post by ori_b »

baddox wrote: post #129
morgante wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you eagerly sign contracts with people you suspect would cheat you if they thought they could get away with it? Yes, especially you include corporations as "people." Without the rule of law, I'm quite sure that corporations would find even more ways to generally break contracts and not honor their commitments.

Why would they do that, and why would any corporations deal with corporations with a history of cheating?

Because the likelyhood of cheating is low, largely because there is a legal recourse to recover the costs of cheating.

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#178

Post by fweespeech »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #84
fweespeech wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regressive taxes are inherently economically destructive. I'm sorry but its just a terrible idea. You can get a 0 deductions system with a progressive tax system too, it isn't some magical property of a flat tax.

> Regressive taxes are inherently economically destructive. The current system, in practice, is progressive up to the upper middle class, and regressive after that. Flat tax rates aren't about taxing the poor (you can still build in income exemptions and most flat tax schemes do), but reducing tax evasion by the rich...

1) That isn't how regressive taxes work. Stating its regressive on rich ppl is simply a failure to understand what the word means in context of taxation.

2) The proponents of flat tax schemes frequently set the exemptions low enough to raise the tax burden on the poor.

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#179

Post by dang »

gnaritas wrote: post #176
dang wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The personal attacks in your comments are completely out of line. If you don't stop doing this I'm going to have to ban you, which I would hate, because we've both been around here for years and I've enjoyed your HN comments (especially about Smalltalk) since long before I became a moderator. But you've been breaking the HN guidelines over and over again, and I've asked you to stop many times. You need to stop catego…

Well I'll stop this thread, though I don't agree I've attacked him at all; I've done no such thing and while I'll respect your wish to stop, you're wrong to claim I've attacked anyone as no such thing happened. If fact please point me at the guideline you're accusing me of breaking because I just reviewed them and I don't see anything that violates them; I am being civil and saying exactly what I would say to him in…

The problem is that you're using personally uncivil language to do it, and that's not allowed.

I'd be happy to try to clarify this if you want to discuss it further, but hn@ycombinator.com would be better than here.

Re: Really rich people are suddenly paying quite a bit more in taxes

#180

Post by beaner »

beeboop wrote: post #165
beaner wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I guess it depends on what you consider "super high". It'd take a few years to build up $1m from a $1m salary, and there's no guarantee the job is even kept that long.

A few years? More like 14 months if he's living reasonably.

You're leaving out taxes entirely.
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