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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

#181

Post by maerF0x0 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #118
maerF0x0 wrote: post #88

I will say that this article points out a CNBC article on "$400k in a big city...". And FAIR seems to be missing that both earnings _and expenses growth_ have been growing very fast for those in cities. Progressive taxation of someone earning $100k per year in San Francisco or NYC is hardly fair. At least prior to covid19 causing a crash in the rental market one could expect to pay ~$2500 a month to share a 2bedroom…

> That's spending 42% of take home pay to have roommates! So, probably not affected much by a wealth tax. > $400k per year is about what it takes to run a middle class family w/ 2 kids in such a city. What? The median household income in NYC is about $63k.

The point is why should someone get progressively taxed when they are attempting to live a "median" American lifestyle. That is a home, a bedroom for each child (etc as the CNBC article pointed out)

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

#182

Post by jquery »

We aren’t printing enough money: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tAThqgpJwSueqhvKM/frequently...

We can look at France, which used to have a wealth tax, after they elected a socialist in 1981. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_tax_on_wealth

It not only failed to raise the expected revenue, it was estimated it actually led to a net negative revenue due to capital flight and a higher percent of French people renouncing citizenship. Because it was unpopular and didn’t raise much money, in 2017 it was abolished.

There are some types of wealth taxes that I believe can succeed, such real estate taxes and inflation (which operates effectively as a tax on unspent money). How about instead of proposing wealth taxes which have failed in the past and cause strange incentives, we try to hit our inflation targets first?

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

#184

Post by bpsh »

TheDong wrote: post #75
bpsh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well define not wealthy, if you have over $90,000 net worth you would be in the top 10% already.

This is not accurate. For the US, [0] shows the 90% percentile to be $1.2 million net worth. This data is sourced from the federal reserve's survey [1]. [0]: https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-net-worth-percentiles/ [1]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm

Well I never said it was for the US, instead it's globally. If you are in the US you would have even more advantages.

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

#185

Post by mikepurvis »

mewmewblobcat wrote: post #52
BitwiseFool wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very reductive. You should know that the Federal Income Tax that was first collected in 1913 had a top bracket of 7%. Today, the minimum bracket is 10% and the average middle class citizen pays around 12-18% of their income to the IRS. So sure, the wealth tax would only be on "the rich" when it first starts out but I guarantee you the middle class will be hit by it eventually.

Most people are already hit by "wealth taxes", except they are regressive - it's called "property tax".

Surely property tax is trivially easy to justify? It usually is collected by the municipality and pays for things that have ongoing operating costs— roads, fire department, schools, etc. How else should those things be paid for?

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

#186

Post by tick_tock_tick »

munk-a wrote: post #137
jquery wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it's pretty clear that corporate re-investment going up is good for the economy, perhaps looking at the equivalent lengths countries go to draw excess investment money from the international market in is a decent example - or maybe the WPA in the US where the government artificially injected money into employment to restart the economy.

It's not like the money leaving the corporation doesn't get invested in something else. I could very easily see the how higher rate lead to less innovation since the money is all tied up in mega corps.

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

#187

Post by OminousWeapons »

muststopmyths wrote: post #15
RivieraKid wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? (I mostly agree but it's not a strong opinion)

My guess: because they hope to be wealthy some day.

Equally as valid to say you are in support because you believe you will derive additional benefits financed by taxes you will never have to pay.

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

#188

Post by jquery »

munk-a wrote: post #137
jquery wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think it's pretty clear that corporate re-investment going up is good for the economy, perhaps looking at the equivalent lengths countries go to draw excess investment money from the international market in is a decent example - or maybe the WPA in the US where the government artificially injected money into employment to restart the economy.

You’re (edit: sorry, GP was) espousing the broken windows theory, though. Corporations already have a natural incentive to re-invest in themselves when it’s a profitable decision to do so.

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

#189

Post by bobcostas55 »

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…

This is obviously fallacious, just consider the extreme case of 100% taxation. At the macro level the only source of investment funds is income that does not go to consumption. Lower the expected rate of return through taxation, and the result is inevitably a shift from investment to consumption. At the individual firm level it's obvious that taxation lowers the NPV of the firm's available projects - they are obviously not going to respond by investing more.
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