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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)

#211

Post by derwiki »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #209
danny_codes wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 everyt…

> us little people

> with expensive houses

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

#212

Post by danny_codes »

aristofun wrote: post #206
danny_codes wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean that's the entire point of structuring your taxes so they are unavoidable. Piketty's proposal of a 2% wealth tax floor on wealth over $100M is a great way to solve that problem.

I'm not sure why thousands of middle class people would "bear the burden", since by definition they are far too poor to be effected by a wealth tax.

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

#213

Post by danny_codes »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #209
danny_codes wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 everyt…

Piketty's tax goes into effect only for wealth greater than a certain amount. The goal is to target people who are paying insufficient income tax, because they are so wealthy they can avoid having taxable income. So we'd start the tax at assets over $20-100M.

Normal people are completely unaffected by such a tax, since they already pay a high effective tax rate on their income (normal people generally cannot avoid income tax like the wealthy can).

I didn't follow your argument about offshoring, since a wealth tax taxes all wealth regardless of it's location.

So unless your parents left you a $20M mansion this is irrelevant

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

#214

Post by danny_codes »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #203
danny_codes wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

Right. But rich people don't have income, so they don't pay any taxes. Our tax code is not progressive at the top. It is progressive for income at the top, but income != accumulation of wealth in a year. Bezos can make $10B in a year and pay $0 tax. In fact he has done literally that for many years. Under the current tax code, he can effectively actually never pay taxes ever.

So at the very least we should have a progressive tax code for everyone. I think that's not controversial?

As for trying to rebalance wealth, that's a broader discussion. It's pretty clear though that the current system will continue to concentrate wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people, until the general population either rebels or becomes effectively peasants. I mean if the growth rate is 2% and capital returns 5% a year.. eventually you're going to get all the assets concentrated in the 0.0001%.

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

#215

Post by aristofun »

danny_codes wrote: post #212
aristofun wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean that's the entire point of structuring your taxes so they are unavoidable. Piketty's proposal of a 2% wealth tax floor on wealth over $100M is a great way to solve that problem. I'm not sure why thousands of middle class people would "bear the burden", since by definition they are far too poor to be effected by a wealth tax.

> I'm not sure why thousands of middle class people would "bear the burden"

Because there are many ways it can play out.

One of the obvious - if rich are too uncomfortable they flee the assets out of the country and the amount of taxes collected drops -> all middle and low class is left to compensate for it.

As far as i know similar dynamics already happened in various places throughout history.

But dumb marxists are incapable of thinking about anything productive or creative to solve the problem, they only think about how to take someone else’s.

Partially because of low intellect (i.e. inability to calculate multiple steps forward), but mostly because of the scarcity mindset, thinking about life as a zero sum game.

We need to be better than that.

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

#216

Post by CrzyLngPwd »

derwiki wrote: post #211
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 everyt…

> us little people > with expensive houses

Selective quoting is rude.

In some parts of the world $100k is an expensive house to inherit from a parent.

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

#217

Post by danny_codes »

aristofun wrote: post #215
danny_codes wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that's the entire point of structuring your taxes so they are unavoidable. Piketty's proposal of a 2% wealth tax floor on wealth over $100M is a great way to solve that problem. I'm not sure why thousands of middle class people would "bear the burden", since by definition they are far too poor to be effected by a wealth tax.

> I'm not sure why thousands of middle class people would "bear the burden" Because there are many ways it can play out. One of the obvious - if rich are too uncomfortable they flee the assets out of the country and the amount of taxes collected drops -> all middle and low class is left to compensate for it. As far as i know similar dynamics already happened in various places throughout history. But dumb marxists are…

I mean I'm talking about a specific policy proposal, for which people have done the analysis. Piketty has several books on the subject you can read. The tax structure is simply designed to make taxes progressive for all income groups, instead of progressive up until upper middle class and then highly regressive.

I can't imagine anyone is supportive of an upper-middle income earner having a 50% tax rate and a super wealthy billionaire paying 5%.

Or are you in favor of a regressive tax code, where richer people pay less tax? If so, I'm curious why you believe we should structure society that way.

Not sure what to make of your Marx rant. I never mentioned Marxism so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

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

#218

Post by alex43578 »

wang_li wrote: post #122
alex43578 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slowing the growth of the country’s debt. Some would argue this gives flexibility to expand that debt during crises like wars, economic events, or pandemics; by “keeping powder dry” in terms of debt to GDP.

Are you thinking specifically of the US or you thinking of all the countries that were part of the data they reviewed? Also, how does leaving the wealth in the hands of citizens prevent it from being taxed in the future if needs be?

I’m thinking specifically of the US, but I don’t see why the same argument wouldn’t apply to most countries. There’s going to be differences when you get to weird economies like North Korea, but still.

Not taxing the citizens now gives you more room to tax them in the future. Or looking at it another way, cutting those currently implemented taxes can act as a stimulus for the economy, although one with poor measurability compared to other types of stimulus.

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