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

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

#351

Post by cossatot »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #121
didibus wrote: post #45

Earlier 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.

Because the stock may still appreciate at 6% annually.

And, depending on what is actually done with the money that Congress has decided to appropriate, it may be redistributed to consumers who will buy more of whatever that publicly traded company produces, or pay off the national debt, or do other things that can increase the health and growth of the economy. (Or not.)

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

#352

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #66
zdragnar wrote: post #34

Earlier 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…

If it's easy to sell the business off then there must be plenty of buyers. Which sounds to me like a good indicator that their response isn't a strong majority.

There is always going to be someone who will buy your business so they can sell your trucks and equipment and real estate.

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

#353

Post by dmje »

ultrarunner wrote: post #323
dmje wrote: post #210

I just see tax dodgers as morally redundant people. I try hard to think about it another way, but I just can't. It seems obvious to me from reading extensively around this that we have very little basis for arguing the case for free will. Our entire existence: our personal lives, our business lives, our investments, our health, our wealth - are driven by luck. I run a successful small business in the UK. I can squint…

If all choices are reduced down to luck that would include moral choices. If morality is a matter of deterministic luck, there is hardly any meaning between right and wrong. If there's no way to be morally right or wrong, what's motivating you to be so upset with others' pseudo-random choices and opinions?

That’s a terrible reductionist argument, and you know it. It’s also avoiding the point.

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

#354

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

oehtXRwMkIs wrote: post #113

No one has mentioned that wealth taxes that have been tried before in other developed countries have not gone well, so based on that alone I'm skeptical. And I heard about this from Planet Money (NPR) so I don't think this is some idea planted in my head by "media owned by wealthy".

I think the main argument is that the French billionaires are much more mobile - they were able to simply relocate a few hours away to a nearby French-speaking country.

Any sensible wealth tax proposal in the U.S. would probably have to pair it with a similar tax on the transfer of assets abroad.

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

#355

Post by missedthecue »

munk-a wrote: post #137
jquery wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is good for the economy. Not at all clear to me this is the case.

I think it's pretty clear that corporate re-investment going up is good for the economy, perhaps looking at the equivalent lengths countries go to draw excess investment money from the international market in is a decent example - or maybe the WPA in the US where the government artificially injected money into employment to restart the economy.

Consider the following:

If a firm eyeballs a project that is likely to have a good return, they will pursue it regardless of the corporation tax rate at present. Meaning that whether the corporate tax is high, low, or nonexistent, it's better to make money than not make money.

Given this, if a firm cannot see any good opportunities to pursue, incentivizing mass investment in zero or negative return projects, while coincidentally incentivizing lower government revenue is unlikely be a net good for society. That seems to me to be a encouraging massive destruction of wealth and also encourage enormous mis-allocation of capital.

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

#356

Post by ls612 »

panopticon wrote: post #347
ls612 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Hasn't this been thoroughly debunked by economic mobility studies? The US regularly ranks below many Europ…

If you look at quintile based measurements sure. But there’s far less difference between the European quintiles than the American ones. So it’s a misleading measure

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

#357

Post by AnthonyMouse »

question000 wrote: post #279
zdragnar wrote: post #34

Earlier 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…

Yeah citation needed, other then tariffs taxes have only gone down in the past 30 years...

Federal receipts as a percentage of GDP haven't meaningfully changed since WWII. (Which means that they've only gone up in real dollars per capita, because GDP per capita has increased.)

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

#358

Post by foofoo4u »

oehtXRwMkIs wrote: post #113

No one has mentioned that wealth taxes that have been tried before in other developed countries have not gone well, so based on that alone I'm skeptical. And I heard about this from Planet Money (NPR) so I don't think this is some idea planted in my head by "media owned by wealthy".

I think you raise a good point. Why have so many developed countries abandoned wealth taxes? According to wikipedia

> Some other European countries have discontinued this kind of tax in recent years: Austria, Denmark (1995), Germany (1997), Finland (2006), Luxembourg (2006) and Sweden (2007).

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Historical_examples

The WSJ has their take https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-wealth-taxes-failed-11572.... Criticisms within the same wiki article can probably shed extra light into why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Criticisms

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

#359

Post by missedthecue »

Spooky23 wrote: post #244
jquery wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is good for the economy. Not at all clear to me this is the case.

Hoarding wealth is bad for the economy, as it lowers the velocity of money. See: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V Our current policy is to paper over bank liquidity or other problems by printing money. Big institutions and the mega-rich are hoarding massive quantities of cash. The economy as a whole would be better off if billionaires were doing stuff with their money rather than hoarding shares.

Do you think big corps convert their retained earnings to cash and stuff it under their mattress?

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

#360

Post by throwaway2245 »

mrmuagi wrote: post #321
throwaway2245 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think that matches reality. Wealth tax is supposedly for the rich, people with high assets already -- not the everyday taxpayer. Getting Joe or Susan to itemize their assets and report it yearly (including depreciation) seems like a lot of extra work -- albeit perhaps you already have to do this for insurance purposes for some house items, not sure, I am Canadian. I just did some quick research and it looks l…

France's wealth tax has gone back and forth with the government changes over a period of 40 years.

As such, I wouldn't call it a failure. France remains one of the richest countries in the world.

It seems to be presented here in such a way solely to critique Elizabeth Warren's politics.

Multi-millionaires who are motivated to leave over such a small percentage of their wealth don't strike me as people who are [good for/investing in] the local economy, anyway.

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