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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

#481

Post by 0xB31B1B »

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.

I do not care if you choose to live in a single family home or a unit in a multi family building. The issue that we have is that "single family zoning" where the maximum density allowed on a plot of land is a single house is a land use pattern that it is a government restriction that subsidizes homes for the well off at the expense of everyone else. In a world in which central city land that is currently zoned SFHs is rezoned for multi family dwellings, the price of SFHs would rise to meet the true demand, while the price of a "living unit" in the area would fall due to the land required per dwelling unit decreasing.

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

#482

Post by sershe »

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…

The majority of wealth are financial instruments, land and real estate, maybe vehicles, maybe precious metals/stones, for all of which this problem is already solved or mostly solved.

Really the only area of significance I can think of where the problem is not solved is having to report your artworks, I guess? Something that doesn't affect most people.

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

#483

Post by sershe »

astrea wrote: post #89
0xB31B1B wrote: post #49

What frustrates me about this whole argument over wealth taxes is that the arguments aren't grounded in facts. The reality is that we "pay" for inequality with reduced productivity. A great example of this is "single family home neighborhoods" in urban areas. They have no societal benefit, they are essentially subsidized land use patterns for the well off, and it makes it harder for less well of folks to move to area…

> A great example of this is "single family home neighborhoods" in urban areas. They have no societal benefit, they are essentially subsidized land use patterns for the well off, and it makes it harder for less well of folks to move to areas where they can get a better job/improve their lot in life and grow the economy. I've seen this talking point twice now this week. What's the alternative? We all live in crowded m…

The alternative is that we remove most zoning and let the free market decide. We can even allow covenant-based zoning, but if your neighbors don't want to join and sell to a developer, tough luck.

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

#484

Post by Spooky23 »

missedthecue wrote: post #464
Spooky23 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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.

That doesn’t sound like a typical business argument. We could more efficiently get the money in the government treasury by skipping the corporate middleman and taxing it.

How are those tbills delivering value to the shareholders?

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

#485

Post by kortilla »

jjk166 wrote: post #442
kortilla wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why invest instead of just taking the tax hit unless you’re waiting for a lower tax rate in the future? It seems this scheme of incentives is dependent on some future expectation of taxes dropping.

Let's say that I own a 5 million dollar business that makes 1 million per year in profit, and the corporate tax rate is 40%. I could take my profit and pay my taxes, leaving me with a 5 million dollar company and $600k cash. Alternatively I could "spend" that $600k to get 1 million dollars in cash interest free to invest in my company, raising its valuation to 6 million. Assuming with the investment that that the com…

That presumes that $600k spent on something increases the value by that much and it also assumes that you can easily scale up revenue with the same profit margin based on the value of the company increasing.

The latter is absolutely not a given and the former is only really safe if you invest the money in something that isn’t really an investment in the business.

Phrased differently, if you had a magic cash printing business like this that can safely scale up with more money you would be absolutely stupid to not do it regardless of the tax rates.

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

#486

Post by missedthecue »

Spooky23 wrote: post #484
missedthecue wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they're lending money to the government, who spends it. All BigCorp Ireland LTD has is a brokerage account full of ISIN codes.

That doesn’t sound like a typical business argument. We could more efficiently get the money in the government treasury by skipping the corporate middleman and taxing it. How are those tbills delivering value to the shareholders?

Collecting and accounting for tax is far far more inefficient than buying electronic tbills.

And they pay interest to the holder...

The point is, the money isn't keeping out of the economy. It's loaned to the government who spends it.

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

#487

Post by kofejnik »

LambdaComplex wrote: post #463
kofejnik wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Sounds like you didn't understand my comment

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

#488

Post by mcphage »

throwaways885 wrote: post #447
mcphage wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> capital flight is a real thing Yep, that's why all of the rich people have left New York and California.

You think rich people are paying those kind of taxes? Why wouldn't they leave if this wealth tax were suddenly imposed upon them?

> You think rich people are paying those kind of taxes?

Judging by the amount of wealth in New York and California: obviously yes.

> Why wouldn't they leave if this wealth tax were suddenly imposed upon them?

Because they want what the taxes get them.

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