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

Post by davrosthedalek » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #327

timerol wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 priva…

It wouldn't be a burden for most people; it would just be a yes/no checkbox alongside the many other checkboxes when you're filling out your taxes. "Do you have assets in excess of $X million?" If you claim you don't, and the IRS has reason to suspect you do, you're opening yourself to a brutal audit and potential jail time. Most people would not have to deal with this.

Post by adverbly » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

dannykwells wrote: post #289

adverbly wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stopped reading...and missed the whole point. The idea was, to say if a tax doesn't apply to someone you still need to do a deep valuation of their assets. Someone could hide 10M in a painting and live in a regular house, have regular "income".

Post by kilroy123 » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

MacsHeadroom wrote: post #220

kilroy123 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm convinced the best strategy is a tax system where net worth is capped and heavily taxed based on average net worth of all Americans. There is simply no other way to align interests of the wealthy. https://anacyclosis.org/2020/05/25/how-do-we-save-democracy

I'm in favor of astronomical marginal tax rates. But that post of comically bad at making the argument. The founding fathers, including a handful of those quoted in the linked post, were highly critical of democracy and even of men who didn't own multiple house like they did. We just narrowly missed out on having a constitution which only allowed land owners to vote. There were even years long debates on whether vote…

Post by adverbly » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

Negitivefrags wrote: post #302

adverbly wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Perhaps you should have continued reading because then you would have understood his point. It doesn’t matter what the floor is, you still have to report all your assets to the IRS to prove you don’t meet it.

Post by adverbly » Thu, Oct 22, 2020, 7:45 PM UTC

nickpp wrote: post #350

adverbly wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 need to track every single taxpayer continuously just to know if that cutoff was reached.