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Washington state approves capital gains tax

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Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#281

Post by licyeus »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #251
danans wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oregon also has a state income tax, unlike Washington.

Washington currently has 0.4% income tax for W2 employees, and another 0.6% coming on Jan 1, 2022 unless you have sufficient long term disability insurance by Jul 2021 to be able to opt out of it. So WA will effectively have a 1% income tax beginning Jan 1, 2022 for W2 earners (aka employees).

Searched for and couldn't find the 0.4% tax, which tax are you referring to? And for others, the incoming 2022 tax is a 0.58% payroll tax.

From WA directly: "Washington state does not have a personal or corporate income tax." [1]

1 - https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/income-tax

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#282

Post by seattle_spring »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #238
seattle_spring wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part-time Portlander here! You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Please stop basing your worldview on Infowars talking points.

I am basing my opinion on my eyeballs walking around with my own feet. Please stop basing your worldview on denial and delusion.

Yeah ok. Your opinion is akin to saying that all of DC is continuously under siege because you saw a single video of the inauguration riots.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#283

Post by mattmcknight »

harshalizee wrote: post #200
mattmcknight wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like the 7000 highest filers in any given year. The richest people may not be realizing capital gains. It's likely to affect people who happen to be selling their businesses that year, probably the only year they would ever fall into that group. It makes creating such a business and selling it while living in the state less attractive. Have to move to Texas before you sell?

That's completely nonsensical. I'm in Washington. I sold my options from my startup that was basically all profit last year and it was greater than 250k. Under this law, I would have coughed up 7% more in taxes. I'm not even remotely a highly paid dev. I just got lucky after years of being underpaid. This will affect way more people than just 7000 individuals.

Agree, it would be more than 7000. I was just reacting to the the claim that it would affect the "most wealthy" which is not what an income tax targets.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#284

Post by lotsofpulp »

licyeus wrote: post #281
lotsofpulp wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington currently has 0.4% income tax for W2 employees, and another 0.6% coming on Jan 1, 2022 unless you have sufficient long term disability insurance by Jul 2021 to be able to opt out of it. So WA will effectively have a 1% income tax beginning Jan 1, 2022 for W2 earners (aka employees).

Searched for and couldn't find the 0.4% tax, which tax are you referring to? And for others, the incoming 2022 tax is a 0.58% payroll tax. From WA directly: "Washington state does not have a personal or corporate income tax." [1] 1 - https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/income-tax

https://paidleave.wa.gov/estimate-your-paid-leave-payments/

Washington can claim it does not have an income tax (for the purposes of subverting the state’s constitution forbidding it), but I do not see how money deducted from your income by government mandate is not a tax.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#285

Post by quotemstr »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #252
bpodgursky wrote: post #26

FWIW, it's going to be immediately challenged in court. WA supreme court has struck down all income taxes in the past, and it's pretty unclear whether this one will pass muster.

Yet all WA W2 employees pay 0.4% of their income towards family leave insurance, aka an income tax. And an additional 0.6% is being added Jan 1, 2022 for long term disability insurance, also an income tax. Especially considering the long term disability benefit is pathetic for 0.6% of pay. If you earn more than ~$60k, you’ll be paying more for the LTDI tax than simply buying the same policy from an insurance company.…

The WA constitution prohibits non-uniform income taxes, not all income taxes.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#286

Post by gnopgnip »

giantg2 wrote: post #177
gnopgnip wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax applying to real estate would drive down real estate prices, making investing in stocks and other alternatives more profitable.

That might work if this were a property tax. That would only for prices though, and that annual tax would still be passed in to renters. The real estate tax they are talking about here applies to the net gain when you sell a property. People price things for what value they want to get out of them (and what the buyer is willing to pay). If you have a 7% tax on profit from a home sale (or appartment building) theybwil…

Whether or not a tax or other cost is passed on to others depends on multiple factors that contribute to price elasticity. For the rental market, for a cost that is incurred on sale and only applies to the most wealthy/active participants this is mostly going to be paid by the seller/owner

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#287

Post by syshum »

fighterpilot wrote: post #262
syshum wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way it would be remotely libertarian would be if you upended the entire tax system and replaced it with Single Tax system aka Geo-Libertarianism... But that is not in the cards, and no one is proposing that, they want to ADD these externality based taxation ON TOP of the tax on productivity

I agree that in practice it's largely a ploy to get more revenue to the state. But at the same time, the tax itself seems to follow from a first principles examination of Libertarian axioms. Negative externalities can be seen as a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle. The role of the state in a Libertarian framework is to protect individuals from such unwanted force by enacting force onto the aggressor. An exter…

>> first principles examination of Libertarian axioms.

First principles of libertarian axiom is not the Non-Aggression Principle as many believe, in fact there are some serious flaws with that [1], libertarianism is more accurately stated as having a foundational principle of Self Ownership [2], from this the non-aggression principle can be derived however like with many other things non-aggression can not be viewed as an absolute, if it is then every breath you exhale is an act of aggression....

[1] https://www.libertarianism.org/blog/six-reasons-libertarians...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9srplWe_QQ

>> The role of the state in a Libertarian framework is to protect individuals from such unwanted force by enacting force onto the aggressor.

That is an extreme over simplification of what a libertarian framework is, and stated in the way you have could betray the libertarian principles as it seems to have with in it a justification for the initiation of violence, something that would counter the libertarian ideology

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#288

Post by fighterpilot »

syshum wrote: post #287
fighterpilot wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that in practice it's largely a ploy to get more revenue to the state. But at the same time, the tax itself seems to follow from a first principles examination of Libertarian axioms. Negative externalities can be seen as a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle. The role of the state in a Libertarian framework is to protect individuals from such unwanted force by enacting force onto the aggressor. An exter…

>> first principles examination of Libertarian axioms. First principles of libertarian axiom is not the Non-Aggression Principle as many believe, in fact there are some serious flaws with that [1], libertarianism is more accurately stated as having a foundational principle of Self Ownership [2], from this the non-aggression principle can be derived however like with many other things non-aggression can not be viewed…

Suppose for argument's sake that climate change is both significantly driven by humans and that it poses a real and grave risk.

What would be the Libertarian solution to that, and what would be its justification?

I've heard Yaron Brooks, who I usually agree with, on this topic but he seems to downplay negative externalities, which I view as a non-starter, given that they clearly exist and in some cases are large in magnitude (e.g. dumping of chemicals in a river).

  >  serious flaws with that [1]
I've read this before and agree with it.

  >  That is an extreme over simplification
Is it an over simplification of minarchist-libertarians, though?

What state apparatus do they want? Police, courts, etc. These all have the purpose of protecting individual A from individual B by using force (arrest, prison, fines, etc) on individual B if they commit violence/fraud/etc against A.

I perhaps shouldn't have used the word "Libertarian" for that though since that's a broader category.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#289

Post by giantg2 »

gnopgnip wrote: post #286
giantg2 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might work if this were a property tax. That would only for prices though, and that annual tax would still be passed in to renters. The real estate tax they are talking about here applies to the net gain when you sell a property. People price things for what value they want to get out of them (and what the buyer is willing to pay). If you have a 7% tax on profit from a home sale (or appartment building) theybwil…

Whether or not a tax or other cost is passed on to others depends on multiple factors that contribute to price elasticity. For the rental market, for a cost that is incurred on sale and only applies to the most wealthy/active participants this is mostly going to be paid by the seller/owner

How so?

It's just going to get rolled into the mortgage and passed on in cost of rent. Even if it's not mortgage, the people (companies) rich enough to do that will increase the price to meet their target return.

I don't see the price elasticity being a limiting factor. Your looking at $70 a month more on a $1k rent or $140 on a $2k rent, maybe even less if they plan it keep the property for a long time. People are choosing more on location and quality. Not to mention all properties, given sufficient time, will be subject to the tax and there will be no competition with existing untaxed properties to keep prices low, assuming there's any pressure to keep the price low in the first place.

Re: Washington state approves capital gains tax

#290

Post by aatharuv »

ac29 wrote: post #162
aatharuv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Alternate Minimum Tax was only supposed to affect less than 100 millionaires in the 1960's who were paying no taxes. Now, it is impacting 20+% of California tax payers most of whom earn under a million dollars a year and many of whom are not millionaires.

"In 2019, the AMT impacted just 0.1 percent of households overall. This includes 0.2 percent of households with income between $200,000 and $500,000, 1.8 percent of those with incomes between $500,000 and $1 million, and 12.5 percent of households with incomes greater than $1 million" https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-pays-amt

That is a very recent change, post the Trump tax changes, which removed most of the impact of the AMT.

Interesting to see the current numbers. But even before then, the AMT disproportionately affected California taxpayers.

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