I'm neither wealthy nor the media and I believe that wealth taxes are a bad idea, too.
Any chance your opinion was formed based on news/studies funded by wealthy individuals?
And yours was formed based on gospel truth handed down from heaven? C'mon.
Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
261–270 of 488 posts
Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#262Near 50% of American pay zero federal tax. The top 10% of all Americans pay 69% of all federal taxes currently. This is a point 'left out' of current discussions. Instead of increasing entitlements or adding yet more taxes - we lower the size of the government spending UNTIL it matches where most people pay for the services received in a more scaled manner. Source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-inc…
> Near 50% of American pay zero federal tax. The top 10% of all Americans pay 69% of all federal taxes currently. This is a point 'left out' of current discussions. Nearly 50% pay no federal income tax. It's worth making that statement precise in this case, because saying they pay no federal tax is just a lie.
[deleted]
Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess: because they hope to be wealthy some day.
There are other reasons to oppose them like they historically bring in very little money, they're a pain in the ass to administer, capital flight. Some evidence for this are parts of Europe is abandoning their wealth taxes. If you want to raise money or reduce inequality there are better ways to do it. Income tax, capital gains, inheritance, etc...
> Some evidence for this are parts of Europe is abandoning their wealth taxes.
That's not evidence. We have right-wing parties in Europe too. They introduce right-wing policies when they have power, such as the above.
Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
Strange. Business owner friends of mine have taken the opposite approach over the years. Taxes low? Start up something new, get it going. Taxes go up again? Sell it off (if they haven't already) and go back to early retirement doing whatever. Maybe it is largely the type of business that behavior changes. Their last venture was starting up an aquaponics farm in a borderline urban / suburban area, though I haven't kep…
Federal taxes have been going down my whole life (born 1990 in the US). What era/region are you referring to where taxes go up?
State and local taxes have been going up in many places. Often in response to decreased federal support.
Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#265I'm not wealthy enough for a wealth tax to apply, but a wealth tax is a colossal privacy and administrative burden on _every single taxpayer_. Assets must be accounted for when calculating wealth, so the tax service will be required to track and value assets including vehicles, homes, and material good etc. for every citizen to see if the wealth tax would apply to them -- if we didn't report material goods, the wealt…
I do pay a wealth tax in Europe. It's fine. Claims here that it is impractical are overstated.
Income tax is already an administrative burden on every single taxpayer, and it works fine.
Do you imagine that people don't already track and value their vehicles and homes and other high value material wealth? That strikes me as unusual.
Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like the way the incentive is supposed to work no? Motivate the economy by furthering investment back into it.
If we tax wealth, people will be incentivized to generate non-wealth things. Why buy a stock if Biden will take 1% of it annually? May as well just buy rapidly depreciating status symbols instead.
Why buy a house if the city will take 1% of its value annually?
We already have wealth taxes, only very narrowly targeted.
Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#267Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#268I 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.
Almost no one in the US identifies themselves as rich. Most rich people think they are upper-middle-class at best.
My step mother told me that she "can't possibly be in the 1% because she doesn't even have a gardener."
Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#269I'm not wealthy enough for a wealth tax to apply, but a wealth tax is a colossal privacy and administrative burden on _every single taxpayer_. Assets must be accounted for when calculating wealth, so the tax service will be required to track and value assets including vehicles, homes, and material good etc. for every citizen to see if the wealth tax would apply to them -- if we didn't report material goods, the wealt…
One time wealth taxes on things like expensive cars, art, and houses can be levied at the time of purchase. That's just sales tax and already is recorded. Annual wealth tax on land/property is easy, we already do it it's just not done in a progressive manner. Again that's already recorded. Annual wealth taxes on things like securities, stocks, bonds, can be accounted easily by any broker and reported. Again this is already recorded and goes to the IRS. So there's not really any new privacy concern.
Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea
#270Wealth taxes are fundamentally ex post facto, which changes the nature of voting. Voting should be about changing the rules for the future rather than changing the rules for the past.
And it has real consequences for the spirit of democracy. It opens up the idea that people can literally vote to take other people's stuff and give it to themselves. That process will not have any good results for anyone.