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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

#461

Post by stjohnswarts »

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 still don't even see how it works. I can understand with something that is fairly liquid like stocks, but if you own a farm it's not like you could always easily sell off 3% of your farm every year to keep the government happy. Aren't property taxes enough? They're relatively low compared to 3% a year that various democrats call for. Land really doesn't "make" money for you like say a physical factory unless you're using it. I imagine these types of issues happen with other sorts of businesses. I mean I don't have a problem with higher taxes on "annual wealth increase" or profit, but to continuously tax the same thing over and over and over is ludicrous in my opinion at least not at these levels. Property taxes are already high in most states.

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

#462

Post by stjohnswarts »

astrea wrote: post #417
Jtsummers wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multi-family buildings != squalor It sounds like you've never been in an apartment building. Some are crappy, sure, but plenty are pretty nice or at least decent (the building, the apartments will be what the residents make of them).

I have lived in many apartment buildings; mostly why I hold this opinion. If my only aspiration for a future home for my family and myself is one where I have to deal with upstairs neighbors stopping and nextdoor neighbors with no respect for quiet hours, I would have very little to look forward to.

Yeah it was never about squalor for me, but unless you are in a million dollar condo with top notch sound proofing in every wall you will hear your neighbors at all hours and everything they do. Some people may love this, but I hate it. How do I know? I lived it the first 30 years of my life until I bought a house in the burbs. My quality of life is so much better now. No I didn't buy a McMansion. I have lived in bigger apartments, however I have space and nice solid walls between myself and neighbors and it's a huge % increase in quality of life not to hear other people's sex, family quarrels, or bad taco bell incidents at all hours.

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

#463

Post by LambdaComplex »

kofejnik wrote: post #246
LambdaComplex wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we have to stop making it illegal to build enough homes for people that need them There's already enough homes (in the USA, at least) to house all the homeless people in the country. Unfortunately, giving homes away wouldn't be profitable, and profit is all that seems to matter.

without profit as incentive, no homes would've been build. Or maybe they would've been, North Korea style.

Sounds like you agree that there's a problem with a system the prioritizes profit over everything else :)

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

#464

Post by missedthecue »

Spooky23 wrote: post #458
missedthecue wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

“BigCorp Ireland, Ltd” buys a bunch of treasuries.

So they're lending money to the government, who spends it.

All BigCorp Ireland LTD has is a brokerage account full of ISIN codes.

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

#465

Post by opo »

gamblor956 wrote: post #453
opo wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...Actually, history bears out that higher tax rates result in corporations re-investing more of their profits in the company and less in tax-avoidance accounting. Can't speak for all companies, but higher tax rates generally means more money invested in tax avoidance. If for example, your tax rate was 95% of your income it would be rational for you to put a lot more effort into finding ways to avoid those taxes tha…

Can't speak for all companies, but higher tax rates generally means more money invested in tax avoidance. If for example, your tax rate was 95% of your income it would be rational for you to put a lot more effort into finding ways to avoid those taxes than if the taxes were 1%. It's funny because I'm a tax consultant for a living, and that's simply not been my experience. Businesses want to avoid paying taxes when po…

>...Businesses want to avoid paying taxes when possible, but it's generally not worth their effort to play tax games. A business doesn't pay taxes unless it's making profits, and it would have to be making sufficient profits that the millions they'd spend on consultants and maintaining tax avoidance strategies every year exceeds the actual tax liability by a material amount. For most businesses, that's not worth it.

Your original claim was "Actually, history bears out that higher tax rates result in corporations re-investing more of their profits in the company and less in tax-avoidance accounting."

To claim that as tax rates go up, companies are less concerned about the amount of tax they pay is an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence.

>...Tax rates don't drive business decisions.

I agree. If there are investment opportunities companies will make them.

>...I was comparing corporate tax evasion now to corporate tax evasion in other times. Measured against itself it's at historically high rates.

Where are the numbers for recent years? Your source says the tax gap and compliance has stayed pretty much the same since they started trying to estimate it:

>...The latest estimates for tax years 2011, 2012 and 2013 show the nation's tax compliance rate is substantially unchanged from prior years.

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

#466

Post by PrinceKropotkin »

zdragnar wrote: post #230
PrinceKropotkin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal taxes have been going down my whole life (born 1990 in the US). What era/region are you referring to where taxes go up?

Think state and local taxes. Depending on where you live and the type of business you run, they can add up quickly. Also, the people I am speaking about were most definitely born before the 90's. More like 50's or 60's.

Where are you living where state taxes are remotely comparable to federal taxes? State taxes are chump change compared to federal, and federal is what generally pays the bills you actually rely on.

Capitalists need to stop crying and find decent businesses to build. The benefit of being in a capitalist society is that nobody deserves any fucking tears when things fall apart.

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

#467

Post by zlynx »

iaw wrote: post #152
zlynx wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"contributing fairly" sounds good but is meaningless. There are too many competing definitions of "fair."

"Contributing fairly" has meaning when compared to "no contribution" or "negative contributions". We can argue about what fair is all day but it hard to say that someone who accrued $1B has contributed fairly. Warren Buffet acknowledges as much in his famous quote about his secretary paying more in taxes than he does. Let's not let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to equitable contribution.

Of course that was fair.

All of the tricks Buffet jumped through to get his taxes that low were intended to encourage that behavior, whatever it was. So his reinvestment of profits in the company, investments in clean energy, contributions to charity, profit losses due to forgiving debts owed by people in disaster zones...whatever it all was.

Someone making laws figured all of that was "fair."

If someone followed the given rules, dealt fairly and openly with others and made 1 billion dollars they did it fairly. The huge amount of money does not make it unfair in any way.

See, my definition of "fair" is followed the law and didn't deceive others. Obviously yours doesn't agree which kind of proves my point, doesn't it.

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

#468

Post by nickpp »

Spooky23 wrote: post #457
nickpp wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that nobody keeps that cash on hand, right? It’s in banks where it gets lent out, thus participating and contributing to the economy. "Hoarding" is nonsense.

How are the nearly $2 trillion of bank reserves at the Fed contributing? That’s a significant portion of the total money supply. Most of the corporate cash isn’t in equity funds, it in US Treasury debt. Apple holds >$50B of treasury securities, for example. The low inflation monetary policy has some benefits, but combined with our ass-backwards tax system also makes for strong disincentive to do anything with excess…

Money in the government coffers is spent and used by the government. Again, a good thing (as far as government spending can be called a good thing, of course).

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

#469

Post by PrinceKropotkin »

brewdad wrote: post #264
PrinceKropotkin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal taxes have been going down my whole life (born 1990 in the US). What era/region are you referring to where taxes go up?

State and local taxes have been going up in many places. Often in response to decreased federal support.

Where are state/local taxes remotely comparable to federal taxes? This reeks of crocodile tears. If this is your attitude.... cry more, bitch, we're coming for your cash that you stole from us.

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

#470

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

robocat wrote: post #460
CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way to mitigate that is to not tax “wealth” arbitrarily. Instead imagine something more targeted like a land value tax. Property rights could be changed so that some assets that are in limited supply and posses capital value such as land, simply can’t just be owned, but are instead leased. I mean wealth per se isn’t an issue. In the grand scheme of things what material goods you have matter little. It’s the unrea…

If property (land + building) taxes are significant, then property is already leased. E.g. in NZ you buy property, but the local government taxes it, so you are essentially paying a small lease. Enough so that some retirees with no income have to downsize because the rates are a significant burden.

That would be the general idea. I think calling it a lease instead of tax has some benefits from an ideological perspective. But for this discussion suffice it to say that it should not just be an arbitrary tax.

I also think a substantial amount of the revenue from such lease should be tunneled back into the economy as a public dividend. Also for ideological reasons. But in practice to allow for higher prices (100% of market value would be ideal) while not impacting the retirees you mention quite as much.

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