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California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

wsj.com

371–380 of 734 posts

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#371
post #305
post #68

Well I guess I'll take the apparently bold stance here that this isn't the end of Silicon Valley or California and yes this is fair and further, good. When people are getting 5-6% returns on investments (minimum), 0.4% is still not even stopping the rich get richer effect. Not to mention that it's almost certain no one here will ever be touched by this tax. If you're going to move where you live or significantly alte…

> If you're going to move where you live or significantly alter where you spend you time because of 0.4% of things above 30M, that's a real sign of just how far American greed has gone. I would say this isn't any different than any other greed at any other place or time. It's simply a cost-benefit tradeoff decision. If people perceive that being in California makes more money than the wealth tax costs, they will stay…

Economists love to believe that humans are rational actors, even though it has been shown again and again in experimental settings that only a minority acts in an economical rational way. Economical self interest is a really poor predictor of behavior

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#372
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is pretty powerful statistical evidence that when Regan moved homeless services from the federal level to a state responsibility it cratered the numbers of beds (especially in small towns) and created an unsolvable situation in that when you're struggling in your small town who has zero homeless support, you make a move to some place else, somewhere where being homeless is not has bad weather wise and has a bit…

So some dude in Montana should pay for cleaning the streets in San Francisco?

States like Montana receive far more in federal tax dollars than states like California. If you think Montanans are going to be subsidized Californians and not the way around, I have a bridge in Montana I've got to sell you.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#373
post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting part is the next question you have to ask yourself- could Elon have built what he did somewhere else?

But that has a related cause and effect. The reason these things have happened in California isn't the geography. If you drive a large fraction of the same people out and into places like Austin through excessive housing costs and high taxes, then the next Elon Musk can build it there instead. Because it's the people, not the place.

You can see why that's obviously a chicken-and-egg circumstance though.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#374
Aside from the problem that Wealth Taxes have been tried multiple times in many countries and failed, or the fact that enforcement would be more expensive than the revenue collected-

I think most people object to the idea of taxiing people who pass through for 60 days then keep taxing them for a decade of their life to support a state doubling spending with no real improvement in infrastructure, health, education or our citizens well being.

The highest taxes in the country to support what? San Francisco for exampple, has doubled it’s budget in 10 years with the population growing only 12%. The California legislature keeps passing highly creative yet extreme anti wealth measures while massively increasing spending.

Can anyone say life in San Francisco has improved in the last decade? By any objective measure it's far worse. Not just for tech but for small business in particular- the regulation, taxes and cost of doing business in the state are oppressive.

Yet we want to enact more policies to drive out the tax base? Brilliant. The top 1% of taxpayers supports half the budget of the state. Instead of speeding this exodus up, why not enact real reform. The state needs a revolution- a massive reset in spending from ground zero- not a bunch of new taxes that force even more companies out.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#375

Personally I disagree with the whole idea of wealth taxes, you should be taxed when you do things, not taxed just because you own something worth money. I should be able to go live in the woods alone and not have the government take some percent of my net worth just because I exist. I mean I don't have a tonne of sympathy for people with tens of millions of net worth, but it just seems wrong in principle. If I start…

I've got several concerns with wealth taxes in general too: 1) They are difficult to enforce. How to measure the value of a famous painting? What if the value does down? Is there a refund of wealth taxes? 2) They are an entirely new class of taxes that will give politicians the ability to increase the overall tax burden over time. At first, they will only impact the very wealthy, but it is much easier to adjust the t…

2 is what happens in Argentina.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because of 0.4% If California was well run, clean, and had otherwise lower tax, then .4% might be easy to ignore. But if you’re already on the fence, and not happy with things, and have been talking to real estate agents in Seattle, Austin, Miami, or Singapore, then this just the kick in the butt you might need to go through with leaving.

I would be curious to know what's interesting in Singapore?

city-state. the future.

city states are like sleek yachts while nations are like ferry shuttles.

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#377
Does California citizens enjoy a far better lifestyle than other states that is cannot be attributed to natural gifts?Two things I can think of 1. No non-competes 2. State FMLA

What else?(real question, not rhetorical)

Does this warrant the taxes collected + the raise?

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#378

This is fearmongering. The bill was introduced a year ago, went nowhere, and is now dead. This WSJ article was published a month after the bill was officially killed… The broader legislature has no interest in such a tax. This is the bill in question: http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billStatusClient.xht... Edit: also note that this article is on the WSJ opinion page, and didn’t come from the news desk.

> Edit: also note that this article is on the WSJ opinion page, and didn’t come from the news desk. Thank you. We really need news websites to some how more clearly delineate opinion pieces from news desk pieces. In the old days, you knew which was which based on what page of the paper it was on. A standard that has all online opinion pieces published with a colored background or something would really help.

There is a logo at the top that says WSJ OPINION and it says "OPINION COMMENTARY" above the headline.

Maybe it's easy to miss for someone's first time on the site, but I've personally never had any issue.

Also when WSJ posts to social media they prefix the headline with "Opinion"

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#379
post #68

Well I guess I'll take the apparently bold stance here that this isn't the end of Silicon Valley or California and yes this is fair and further, good. When people are getting 5-6% returns on investments (minimum), 0.4% is still not even stopping the rich get richer effect. Not to mention that it's almost certain no one here will ever be touched by this tax. If you're going to move where you live or significantly alte…

> because of 0.4% ... American greed

San Francisco has a city budget larger than most other countries. This election, it voted to pass all nine measures for new taxes!

https://sfelections.sfgov.org/november-3-2020-election-resul...

Re: California plan for wealth tax on anyone who spends 60 days a year in the state

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's probably the stupidest part of it, because then you convince all the people who imagine they're going to be Elon Musk in ten years that they should leave California immediately.

How many people actually believe they will become the next Musk, to an extent that they are willing to move out of state in preparation to maximize their greed in the off chance they will succeed in this impossible task?

Probably a decent fraction of founders hope to reach the point where the tax would come into play. Maybe some other locale can use this to finally convince VCs and startups to cluster somewhere else.
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