Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea • Hacker News Board

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#291

Post by tryptophan » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #284

tonystubblebine wrote: post #6

As a business owner, when taxes are low, I see that as an incentive to pocket profits. But when taxes are high, I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. I know this isn't always the case with everyone. And especially investors have a case that higher corporate taxes reduce the value of their investments, possibly to the point of not making them. But this incentive is so blatantly obv…

> But when taxes are high, I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. That isn't really the societal win you're making it out to be though. If you "pocket" profits, i.e. pay them to investors, the investors just go out and invest them again in something else. Which is actually better, because it reduces concentration of wealth inside of corporations. Instead of one corporation growing…

Yes. The op assumes that malinvestment / inefficient use of capital is not a thing.

You can only invest so much into a grocery store. The entire point of us having free markets is so that capital can move around. Locking it down into once place is the exact opposite of what you want to do.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#292

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

tonystubblebine wrote: post #6

As a business owner, when taxes are low, I see that as an incentive to pocket profits. But when taxes are high, I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. I know this isn't always the case with everyone. And especially investors have a case that higher corporate taxes reduce the value of their investments, possibly to the point of not making them. But this incentive is so blatantly obv…

[deleted]

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#293

Post by theandrewbailey » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #143

exabrial wrote: post #107

If the US Government were a charity, the rating would be 0-stars. Nearly all tax money is pocketed by special interests. The usual arguments "yeah what about fire and police" account for a rounding error in tax collection while the vast majority is simply pocketed by friends of your elected officials. You know what'd be nice? Consent. I'd like to be consented before my value is forceful removed from me. I'd like to p…

As an immigrant I concur. I have taxation without representation.

Filling your census form allocates Congressional and Electoral College representation to your state, regardless if you're a citizen.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#294

Post by BitwiseFool » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

pingpongchef wrote: post #278

tstrimple wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one "forms their own opinion" in a vacuum. Your beliefs and opinions are influenced in a multitude of ways by your environment including the media you consume. Asking how the biases you have were formed is something everyone should be asking of themselves, and certainly doesn't seem like an inappropriate question.

Problem is that it's a subtle accusation of speaking in bad faith or an accusation of lacking agency. In order to have respect for the other person, you can't start from either of those positions.

This perfectly describes how I feel and what I was trying to get across. You're much better at English than I.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#295

Post by matthew-hale » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

adverbly wrote: post #249

sempron64 wrote: post #125

I'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 stopped reading when I hit: > wealth tax is a colossal privacy and administrative burden on _every single taxpayer_ I have not seen a single wealth tax proposal that doesn't have a gigantic cutoff where it would do nothing for 99%+ of the taxpayer base. Most proposals have a floor in the tens of millions.

You could've read the very next sentence, which makes the point the first sentence set up:

> 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 wealthy could sock money away in expensive cars, artworks, jewelry and other material non-real-estate assets as they already do for investment.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#296

Post by roughly » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #189

coliveira wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so hidden in the debate that it is almost like a "secret". The more taxes you have on corporate income, the higher the incentive for corporations to invest in the company, so they can avoid paying taxes. This is good for the economy. On the other hand, lowering corporate taxes also generates a cascade of tax avoidance, since you have higher profits that generate the need for more complex tax avoidance schemes…

This is obviously fallacious, just consider the extreme case of 100% taxation. At the macro level the only source of investment funds is income that does not go to consumption. Lower the expected rate of return through taxation, and the result is inevitably a shift from investment to consumption. At the individual firm level it's obvious that taxation lowers the NPV of the firm's available projects - they are obvious…

The extreme case of drinking water is drowning, which gives us about as much guidance for health policy as "what if we went full Marx" does for tax policy.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#297

Post by unethical_ban » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

sempron64 wrote: post #125

I'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…

Like another person said, you look at potential enforcement and assume perfect adherence to a philosophy, or that everyone will be audited the same. They will not.

Just like a small business is less regulated than a large one (often), or how smaller incomes are taxed simply while those with more money/more complex assets get audited more - the ultra-wealthy will certainly have more of their assets audited, and yes, they will have side channels to evade taxes. That doesn't mean we don't try to tax them.

When someone out in the open owns 75 cars, a private jet, and a $250,000,000 townhouse in Manhattan and another $5 billion in stock, it's pretty damned simple and not wholly intrusive to look at that and say "alright..."

I'm not defending the entire concept of a wealth tax, but I am saying it isn't as dire for _everybody_ that you say it is.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#298

Post by necrotic_comp » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

czbond wrote: post #127

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. 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…

? What does this even mean ? The poor, by necessity, have to use government services more because they don't have resources ; are you suggesting that the poor pay more taxes to "scale things out" ?

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#299

Post by timerol » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

adverbly wrote: post #249

sempron64 wrote: post #125

I'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 stopped reading when I hit: > wealth tax is a colossal privacy and administrative burden on _every single taxpayer_ I have not seen a single wealth tax proposal that doesn't have a gigantic cutoff where it would do nothing for 99%+ of the taxpayer base. Most proposals have a floor in the tens of millions.

The burden is showing that you have under $XM in assets. You'll need to show your net worth somehow, so that the IRS (or equivalent) knows not to tax you. Otherwise I could assure you that I totally only have $1M in assets, with definitely no Swiss bank account or yachts.

I will admit to not knowing much about a wealth tax, so maybe there is an established solution here. But it seems like the default would be a privacy and administrative burden even on those people not paying the tax.

Re: Media Owned by Wealthy Are Quick to Tell You Wealth Taxes Are a Bad Idea

#300

Post by ls612 » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #242

czbond wrote: post #127

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. 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. I was looking for the lucky duckies argument to rear its head. The Intercept has an article which does a great job of eviscerating it[1] > ...when you take all U.S. taxes into account — federal income taxes, federal payroll taxes, federal corporate taxes, the federal estate tax, federal excise taxes, and the plethora of state and local taxes — the U.S. tax system is just m…

Problem there is that it ignores transfer payments. So the people making 2.8% of the national income are really taking home more than that since they (collectively, not every individual receives all of these) are receiving snap, section 8, tanf, social security/SSI, Medicaid, etc.

From a post transfer perspective, America’s tax system is firmly progressive, but less so than European countries. The other side of that is that in America you have the opportunity to do quite well for yourself if you aren’t in one of the aristocratic elite families. That isn’t really the case in many of these European social democracies. Not only is there a safety net below you, but there is also a net above you as well.