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The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

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Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#251

Post by runtime_terror »

mianos wrote: post #122
runtime_terror wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point about increased capital gains? Taxing income based on ownership should be higher than income via actual labor. It's insane that's not the case in most places.

If you start a business and grow it from hard work, you will now be taxed more. It's not just passive gains, it's all gain.

Capital gains is from selling an assets, if you still own the business you can take as many profits from it as you want. If you're talking about selling the business, then presumably you had years of realizing profits from the actual operation of the business. Now that you sell it, yes, you should be taxed at a higher rate. That said, there are tons of tax loopholes for that scenarios like in the US like a cash balance plan.

But let's be honest, we're talking mostly about the sale of assets like stock ownership. That's how the super wealthy accumulate even more wealth. Then combine that with "buy, borrow, die" and you're paying almost no taxes.

All most people is for the rich to pay a proportionally fair amount of tax.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#252

Post by runtime_terror »

mianos wrote: post #213
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the difference is in the Capital Gains Tax, which doesn't apply to the day-to-day running of the business or its profitability or the salaries it pays. Again, my understanding is that the (only) difference is when the business is sold, and the 50% discount to CGT is no longer applied and instead there is an inflation adjustment instead (what I don't understand here is how to get an initial va…

ps. Australia uses a progressive tax system. If you earn very little money, you pay a very low tax rate (or many zero). If you earn a massive corporate salary, you pay the top rate. The new 30% floor completely throws that out the window for capital gains. It means even if your total income for the year is low enough that your normal tax rate should be 16% or 0%, the government steps in and forces a flat 30% tax on t…

Sorry, what asset sales are poor people making while earning no income?

Is this a common thing in Australia cause it's not here in the US.

If you're saying instead that it applies to people living off their investments, then I have no sympathy for them as they're able to live off of ownership not labor. They should pay the same or more tax than anyone else.

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#253

Post by runtime_terror »

mianos wrote: post #222
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My non-heavily-researched understanding is that people who make their entire, or a majority of, their annual 'earnings' from capital gains may not be all that poor. There's a whole spectrum of examples that can be used to demonstrate fairness or lack of fairness. Can you elaborate on your example of taxing a poor person even more by forcing a flat 30% tax on capital gains? Is this person you? What does your life enta…

It's not me. I actually work for a living and I receive a salary. Many people I know with their own business plan to hopefully get out of it some day. They all make less than me but own a business of their own. Let's say this works and those people who already have assets get taxed a bit more, when they are gone, there would then now very little incentive to work hard and start a business. Such short term thinking wi…

So these people make very little money on their business yet think someday they'll be able to sell this business for a lot of money? Sounds like they might need a reality check; who's going to buy an unprofitable business anyways?

This isn't short term thinking. It's the opposite.

Allowing the super wealthy, whom are the actual ones that benefit from capital gains, accumulate untold wealth is clearly resulting it a multitude of societal ills (including the dismantling of democracy itself here in the US).

Looking at even a little bit of recent history will clearly show you what happens when we let the super wealthy just get more wealthy (have a look at the Gilded Age).

The propaganda around taxation causing economic slowdown is so tired...

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#254

Post by ycombinator_acc »

declan_roberts wrote: post #214
ycombinator_acc wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it’s a way for the less fortunate (geographically) to seek a better future. They more or less got rid of it last September, yet the job market has only worsened. Scapegoating minorities, whether it be trans people, brown people, Muslims or immigrants, doesn’t work. All it does is destroy lives. > You give away your bias when it is the other way around. How so?

No country is ever going to be able to create a functional local software economy if every good engineer get sucked out of the country. In many ways the current system is cruel to every international company which forces their local wages to compete with the United States.

Also, why shouldn't those companies be forced to compete with US wages? Do only Americans get to have nice things and a strong purchasing power?

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#255

Post by runtime_terror »

quantummagic wrote: post #151
runtime_terror wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would happen to costs if we had a 90%+ tax rate on the ultra wealthy... maybe if all these record profits were instead funneled back into society everyone would be better off AND prices would drop... a system like this would be good for society it seems... we should come up with a good name for that system, tho...

You would get some version of the Soviet Union. Where all the rich people would be connected to government rather than industry. And industry would become enfeebled and unable to produce efficiently, and the average person would be much poorer than people currently are in the USA.

Wait, you mean like how all the rich people work for the US government, own all its popular media and pay near 0% tax?

I didn't realize the US was the Soviet Union, how ironic!

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#256

Post by runtime_terror »

azan_ wrote: post #111
runtime_terror wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would happen to costs if we had a 90%+ tax rate on the ultra wealthy... maybe if all these record profits were instead funneled back into society everyone would be better off AND prices would drop... a system like this would be good for society it seems... we should come up with a good name for that system, tho...

I think its pretty naive to thing that it'd work this way. It's really bad idea. If someone has company that debuts on stock market, and stock price increases let's say 100x times, who is he funneling the funds from? I'd say it's not funneling but creation of wealth, economy is not zero-sum game.

What are you even talking about?

So if someone (you mean an entire, large company with many employees) offers public shares and people buy them, then what happens in your mind? I'm genuinely curious.

If I, this newly IPOed founder, 100x my company, now my paper wealth has 100x correct? Now, with that wealth I can follow "buy, borrow, die" so I pay near 0% taxation on these shares. Then, when I do need to liquidate some of my wealth I just pay capital gains. I pay myself $1y in salary so I pay no income tax. I now am 100x wealthier but pay little to no tax on that wealth while all my employees pay 30%+ on nearly every dollar they earn via their salaries.

This seems a bit... unfair... don't you think? The employees of this now very wealthy persons company are required for his wealth to continue but they pay at least 2-3x the taxes on a per dollar basis. Add to that the corporation also probably pays a 0% tax rate.

A reasonable bare minimum would be to make sure the wealthy and the companies they run pay their fair share in taxes as everyone including these companies benefit from the systems that taxation pays for.

It's amazing how many people are falling for billionaire taxation propaganda despite how blatantly obvious it is now...

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#257

Post by runtime_terror »

azan_ wrote: post #246
thfuran wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If IPO makes CEO much, much richer but generally also makes company and workers better off (but to smaller degree), does IPO make workers more undercompensated? Yes, obviously. The bulk of work of the company is done by the workers. That is to say, most of the value is generated by the labor of the workers. If a commensurate share of the profit is not returned to the employees, they’ve clearly been undercompensated.

How is it obvious? In that scenario, companies should avoid IPO even though it makes situation of workers better?

Where are you getting this idea to at IPOing makes workers situations better?! Citation needed!

Most of the time these public companies do regular mass layoffs just to make their investors happy to do short term stock price manipulation so they can get a bump in their executive salaries. This happens all the time

Sure doesn't seem like an IPO makes anyone but the tops lives easier in my book...

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#258

Post by runtime_terror »

quantummagic wrote: post #210
paulryanrogers wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US had tax brackets in the 90%s for decades. It was part of a golden era for workers, for that and a variety of other reasons like strong unions. Of course the rich tried to work around it. But culturally they also understood that paying a lot of taxes was considered their duty to society, especially in times of crisis.

This is a lazy idea that keeps getting trotted out. The 90% tax bracket only existed on paper, with an effective rate closer to 40%. Economists have shown that tax revenue remained remarkably unchanged, while having negative consequences for investment and productive use of capital. Instead, the relative prosperity of workers during that time came from a lack of global industrial competition and a massive post-war ma…

The top 0.01% payed an effective rate of 50-75% in the 40s. That is drastically higher than today. Just because the wealthy found ways out of the full 90% doesn't mean the taxation rates were a huge factor in the standard of living then.

Were there other factors? Absolutely but it's disingenuous to claim there was no difference in tax policy now vs then.

> widespread tax avoidance, capital flight, and a reduction in domestic investment

Do you not think the US has the capability to enforce their tax laws despite these efforts? It absolutely gets its tax dollars from foreign earned income, it can penalize such tax avoidance strategies (these companies operate in the unite states after all).

> The rich do not make the bulk of their wealth through a salary

Yeah, because it's a method to avoid taxation obviously. That's why we need to tax loans against assets ("buy, borrow, die") and increase capital gains to be at least above that of labor.

It's so incredibly obvious the wealthy do whatever they can to avoid taxation. Why are you so dead-set on furthering their agenda?

I'm curious, what's your solution to wealth inequality or do you think we should just let the super wealthy return to the robber barons/kings of yesteryear?

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#259

Post by runtime_terror »

azan_ wrote: post #250
paulryanrogers wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the higher tax rates were so ineffective then why was the divide between the richest and the workers so much smaller? Do tell, what is the effective tax rate that the rich pay today?

If lower tax rates are so bad, then why are workers nowadays much, much richer than back then?

We have more shit, that's true. And advancements in medicine have reduced child mortality and lifespans.

Worker wealth is absolutely not relative to the overall wealth in this country; that disproportionately goes to the top 1% (we're now at 1920s levels) and it's getting worse every year.

The average first home purchase age is 40 compared to the 20s then. Getting a college degree was free or cheap for many of our parents/grandparents, now it's mostly a luxury. Healthcare costs put people into permanent debt. Most people are struggling paycheck to paycheck.

Is your argument that life is all around better for the average person now because we don't tax the wealthy/let them accumulate most the wealth in this country?

Re: The four-day workweek in Australia: insights from early adopters of 100:80:100

#260

Post by quantummagic »

runtime_terror wrote: post #255
quantummagic wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would get some version of the Soviet Union. Where all the rich people would be connected to government rather than industry. And industry would become enfeebled and unable to produce efficiently, and the average person would be much poorer than people currently are in the USA.

Wait, you mean like how all the rich people work for the US government, own all its popular media and pay near 0% tax? I didn't realize the US was the Soviet Union, how ironic!

Thank you for making my point, even though you thought you were doing the opposite. The government is bad already, we shouldn't be making it worse with stupid irrational policies.
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