> As a practical matter, it is very difficult to tax wealth (and even harder to do it fairly.) Switzerland does it and it seems to work pretty well.
Can you give some details for the non initiated?
You declare all the assets you own* in your tax declaration (bank accounts, properties, art, cars, equity, ...), even if abroad. You also declare your debts.
I don't know how they enforce/check that, especially for foreign-based assets though.
* except for household and personal common usage goods
This is a dishonest piece. It ignores that it's based on a zero-sum game and the world isn't zero sum. The quoted economists know that very well. I like that the coin flip game illustrates the concept of compounding interest, but it doesn't model wealth creation at all. Most new ventures aren't I-win-you-lose, they're we-win-or-I-lose. Wealthy people really can take bigger bets more frequently like the article sugges…
That sounds interesting. Did you run the simulation?
> This all presupposes that the government is an efficient user of capital, when its pretty clear its not. It's not a presupposition. That's a separate discussion and should also be improved. We shouldn't say, "oh, we're bad at redistribution, so let's not".
You’re assuming an infinite perfectibility of human nature. The problem with government planning is that it’s removed from the best, local information and inherently has broken incentives. By the best, local information I mean that in the market, the people with the need for the good or service, and the people who bear the cost of providing it, are the people with the best information and also the ones making the dec…
Broken incentives? What about Boeing with their 737 MAX? That is a prime example of broken incentives costing human lives. What about stock trading causing famines? Our current way of doing "economy" is massively broken and affects everything.
One thing I've noticed consistently, is when politicians talk about "taxing the wealthy", they almost always follow that with "earning more than $xxxk a year". This is conflating wealth with income. Being within this tax bracket myself, I do not deny that I am biased, but I do hope this bullshit gets called out hard whenever someone brings up yet another underhanded measure to milk us (typical SFBay SWE) above and be…
As a practical matter, it is very difficult to tax wealth (and even harder to do it fairly.) I don't think the issue is lack of will but lack of plan that actually works in the face of assets with unclear value and/or difficult to liquidate. And this doesn't just affect the ultra rich but people like SWE too. How much is the stock you have in the non-public company you work at really worth? SWE are probably one of th…
Why is it hard? Tax capital gains, tax inheritance, tax corporate super profits, tax consumption (vat), tax FX / currency / speculative securities trading (Tobin tax), etc. It’s not hard, our politicians just lack the will and would rather drive a race to the bottom (“tax reforms”).
Unless you come from a wealthy situation, the only way to get rich is luck. That's it. Hard work is worthless, just ask people in the third-world work 18 hours for a pittance to survive. Of course luck may require certain knowledge, wherewithal and timing. You don't win a lotto without waking up at the right time, driving to the right shop and buying the right ticket.
You're claiming all the super rich lay in their sofa's all day and waited until they got lucky?
I'm laying in my sofa all day waiting to get lucky. Still, after all this time, still no luck. Maybe next year.
This is a dishonest piece. It ignores that it's based on a zero-sum game and the world isn't zero sum. The quoted economists know that very well. I like that the coin flip game illustrates the concept of compounding interest, but it doesn't model wealth creation at all. Most new ventures aren't I-win-you-lose, they're we-win-or-I-lose. Wealthy people really can take bigger bets more frequently like the article sugges…
The only reason why it isn't zero sum is because we get access to more resources, and this leads de facto to more money in the pool (money resources) right? If we assume the best case that these new resources are distributed equally and not depending on wealth, then the Yard Model still holds in place as we talk about relative percentages.
One thing I've noticed consistently, is when politicians talk about "taxing the wealthy", they almost always follow that with "earning more than $xxxk a year". This is conflating wealth with income. Being within this tax bracket myself, I do not deny that I am biased, but I do hope this bullshit gets called out hard whenever someone brings up yet another underhanded measure to milk us (typical SFBay SWE) above and be…
As a practical matter, it is very difficult to tax wealth (and even harder to do it fairly.) I don't think the issue is lack of will but lack of plan that actually works in the face of assets with unclear value and/or difficult to liquidate. And this doesn't just affect the ultra rich but people like SWE too. How much is the stock you have in the non-public company you work at really worth? SWE are probably one of th…
And I forgot: outlaw BEPS (base erosion profit shifting), so all corporations pay tax where they originate revenue. There’s way too much tax leakage via double Dutch sandwiches.
>But how are those debts paid back? They do not have to be. For instance, it is common to never completely pay off the mortgage in Switzerland to avoid one-off taxation. Instead, the eventual taxes are included in the cost of the debt.
There's a difference between never paying it back fully, and never paying it back _at all_.
Interest only mortgage exists in the US. You never pay principle.
To solve all this, it's pretty simple, and the U.S. actually used to do it: heavily tax the super rich. Heavy taxation and then appropriate use of those funds for education, R&D funding, infrastructure, etc. is actual trickle-down economics. And mega corporations should be heavily taxed instead of holding the country economically hostage. They jumpstart their companies off of government funding and R&D and then act a…
The top 1% pay 40% of the federal tax revenue. The top 5% pay 60%. California has the highest income tax at 13.3%, the highest federal tax rate is 37%. That makes the top income tax rate 50%.