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Who died and left the US $7B?

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Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#241

Post by cperciva »

consp wrote: post #237
asne11 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you're a young 20 something with maybe $300 to your name. Daddy gets struck by farming equipment and dies. Now you have two choices: 1. Continue operations of the family farm, assuming you can come up with the money to cover taxes. 2. Sell the farm to Big Farm, Inc., get a $5M check and forget about it, regardless of the consequences that means to your customers.

The taxes are less than buying the farm outright so it would just be a very cheap buyout. I do not see the problem, you can get finance for that in civilized nations. It's not easy but neither is buying a farm normally. Inheritance, even with normal tax, is a cheap way of keeping money in the family and keeping rich people rich. It is not based on merit, capabilities or need and serves no purpose in a society based o…

[inheritance] serves no purpose in a society based on improving the lives of the entire population

I would say that society is served well by the ability of widows to inherit and not be left destitute. Similarly for minor children.

If you're talking specifically about inheritance by adult children, I agree the arguments in favour are weaker.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#243

Post by FactKnower69 »

_bin_ wrote: post #213
geysersam wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a funny argument the one about the family farm. In this case it's not even about inheritance tax. It's a sob story about a guy who couldn't inherit the farm because his dad owed the state money because they had let him not pay tax on his capital gains for a long time. Sorry for not tearing up.

You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way, can't just sneak a premise that the state has default a right to collect a piece of arbitrary appreciation on an asset (as all assets are used for speculation) when the owner hasn't actually gotten cash from that, and that any government that doesn't tax that is just cutting someone a break on something rightfully owed. The state of nature is no tax, and as it's…

>You can't just arbitrarily set the status quo that way,

huh, what natural, physical laws are being broken? collecting taxes exceeds the speed of light or goes below 0K or something?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#244

Post by FactKnower69 »

_bin_ wrote: post #232
Log_out_ wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, we can. the whole premise of a democracy is that every law is a solid majority away from being turned over.one of the reasons big money is inherent anti-democratic.

Okay, I don't actually believe in that form of democracy. Not all things that are legal are good, therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do. I'd describe your system as closer to mob rule. And no, that is not the premise of every system that incorporates democracy as an element, it's the premise of an absolute democracy.

>I'd describe your system as closer to mob rule.

lmfao this is always, always, always the refrain

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#245

Post by mxkopy »

FredPret wrote: post #75
mxkopy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make just about anything a slippery slope if you wanted to - “they’re putting limits on guns, what’s next, kitchen knives?” Morally you should probably be spending more time figuring out how to get everyone their first car instead of worrying about your legal rights in owning your second.

Why yes, there are countries with limits on kitchen knives. And if your focus is on providing that first car, then the system currently doing that en masse for billions of previously-poor people is called “capitalism” and your moral imperative is to speed it up, not slow it down.

Capitalism only works when you have a middle class. Protecting billionaires’ abilities to hoard wealth is not in the interests of the middle class.

To be charitable I’ll point out that in general that’s not what you’re arguing for. There is a real sense in which personal freedom is essential to people making it out of poverty. Protecting one person’s and not another’s would defeat the point.

Here is the compromise. It should be easy for people to do things that billionaires would have no point doing (i.e. take out a business loan of $10K) and difficult for billionaires to do things that people would have difficulty doing (hoard the global supply of some good). That’s if your goal is to have an equitable society where everyone is on the same difficulty level, more or less.

Approached this way there would not be a slippery slope because the delineation is quite clear. Moreover there’s no squashing of personal freedom, a billionaire is always free to do things a regular person is able to do. In fact the system we have now basically squashes the freedom of the average person because they are not free to do things (buy a house, have a chance in court) by virtue of not having money while other people have a ton.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#246

Post by arcticbull »

lazide wrote: post #239
eastbound wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, really, it has been studied, taxes affects both supply and demand. It’s one of the first chapters of any microeconomics book.

you might want to actually read my comment. the details matter.

Well, I get charged sales tax when I buy something at a store, itemized on my receipt. But the store writes the check to the state, and I write the check to the store. Did I pay or did the store? And why does it differ from a renter? Are we splitting hairs over itemized vs unitemized receipts?

And what about a retail store in England where the VAT isn’t itemized? Did I pay or did the store?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#247

Post by lazide »

arcticbull wrote: post #246
lazide wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you might want to actually read my comment. the details matter.

Well, I get charged sales tax when I buy something at a store, itemized on my receipt. But the store writes the check to the state, and I write the check to the store. Did I pay or did the store? And why does it differ from a renter? Are we splitting hairs over itemized vs unitemized receipts? And what about a retail store in England where the VAT isn’t itemized? Did I pay or did the store?

No landlord in the US itemizes, or even lets you see the property tax they are paying anywhere they can control. You can dig it up if you know where to look though, usually, from public sources. Same with the landlords financing costs.

And it varies between much lower than you would expect, to much higher - and doesn’t generally change the amount they can charge in rent between the two scenarios. Though of course, landlords will go broke eventually if on average rent doesn’t exceed property taxes, finance costs, and other costs they pay on average.

Competitiveness/survival between landlords over time will often hinge on their ability to pick the best options and structure/time this well to minimize their costs while maximizing their returns. A much harder problem than I think anyone who isn’t in that game realizes.

Which is why successful property management and investment strategies vary quite a bit depending on these specific details, like who pays what, when, and under what circumstances.

So all I’m getting from what you’re saying is you don’t actually understand what you’re talking about concretely, and you’re going off a first year economics textbook instead of actual experience.

Am I correct, or not?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#248

Post by arcticbull »

lazide wrote: post #247
arcticbull wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I get charged sales tax when I buy something at a store, itemized on my receipt. But the store writes the check to the state, and I write the check to the store. Did I pay or did the store? And why does it differ from a renter? Are we splitting hairs over itemized vs unitemized receipts? And what about a retail store in England where the VAT isn’t itemized? Did I pay or did the store?

No landlord in the US itemizes, or even lets you see the property tax they are paying anywhere they can control. You can dig it up if you know where to look though, usually, from public sources. Same with the landlords financing costs. And it varies between much lower than you would expect, to much higher - and doesn’t generally change the amount they can charge in rent between the two scenarios. Though of course, la…

Could you answer my question about itemized vs unitemized sales taxes in the US vs UK and whether you think it relevant?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#249

Post by brnt »

consp wrote: post #237
asne11 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you're a young 20 something with maybe $300 to your name. Daddy gets struck by farming equipment and dies. Now you have two choices: 1. Continue operations of the family farm, assuming you can come up with the money to cover taxes. 2. Sell the farm to Big Farm, Inc., get a $5M check and forget about it, regardless of the consequences that means to your customers.

The taxes are less than buying the farm outright so it would just be a very cheap buyout. I do not see the problem, you can get finance for that in civilized nations. It's not easy but neither is buying a farm normally. Inheritance, even with normal tax, is a cheap way of keeping money in the family and keeping rich people rich. It is not based on merit, capabilities or need and serves no purpose in a society based o…

Here in the Netherlands the (once setup as) farmers coop bank is notorious for not doing that, they heavily favour bigco and business models that capture subsidies effectively (which usually means scaling one part to ridiculous proportions).

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#250

Post by somethoughts »

jrockway wrote: post #44
Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

Anyone can make a voluntary contribution to the United States Treasury: https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html

It'd be really interesting if you could allocate your donation to specific branches of the government (i.e. NSF, Pre-K, etc.).
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