Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll • Hacker News Board

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#51

Post by tempsy » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #33

I'm skeptical that most respondents understood the questions correctly. Most people are familiar with income tax, because they know that money is removed from their paycheck every month. Many also file tax returns. A wealth tax, where a fraction of your bank balance is removed every month, is a totally alien concept to most people. If you haven't thought about it before, it can take a minute or two to wrap your head…

why have such low confidence in the intelligence of Americans?

people aren't dumb, and if it was just a higher income tax it would be called such.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#52

Post by CPLX » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #33

I'm skeptical that most respondents understood the questions correctly. Most people are familiar with income tax, because they know that money is removed from their paycheck every month. Many also file tax returns. A wealth tax, where a fraction of your bank balance is removed every month, is a totally alien concept to most people. If you haven't thought about it before, it can take a minute or two to wrap your head…

It's not totally alien at all. It's the way we finance nearly all our local governments and school systems.

Tallying up property and paying a tax on it annually is something literally everyone does.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#53

Post by kentm » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #4

Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are I do think the inequality gap is becoming more of a problem, but simply asking the population if they want someone else to pay more is going to have the obvious result.

> Alternative title: Majority of Americans are not rich, and therefore see no downside to taking from those who are

Thats unnecessarily reductive and dismissive of peoples' beliefs. Probably more along the lines of:

1) The rich have the system gamed in their favor and thus its only fair that they pay more into the system that secures their wealth.

2) There are direly needed services that need to be funded and the rich can afford the pain more than the poor. Wealth itself has a marginal utility.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#54

Post by jandrese » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #6

It's worth noting that the income tax also started out as a tax on the very rich. Once established, taxes have a way of finding their way from the rich, to the middle-class, and then even to the working poor.

Mostly when the very rich are elected to government positions and decide to shift the tax burden down.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#55

Post by supercanuck » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #33

I'm skeptical that most respondents understood the questions correctly. Most people are familiar with income tax, because they know that money is removed from their paycheck every month. Many also file tax returns. A wealth tax, where a fraction of your bank balance is removed every month, is a totally alien concept to most people. If you haven't thought about it before, it can take a minute or two to wrap your head…

From the Article:

>Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on ~~very rich~~

>A wealth tax, where a fraction of ~~your~~ bank balance is removed every month.

Most people's Bank accounts earn less than 1%. Maybe you didn't understand the question correctly.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#56

Post by glogla » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:28 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #33

I'm skeptical that most respondents understood the questions correctly. Most people are familiar with income tax, because they know that money is removed from their paycheck every month. Many also file tax returns. A wealth tax, where a fraction of your bank balance is removed every month, is a totally alien concept to most people. If you haven't thought about it before, it can take a minute or two to wrap your head…

This is not true at all.

People are already familiar with property taxes. They pay them for their houses every year. In some US states they even pay property taxes on their cars.

However, there is no property tax on stocks, bonds, etc, which is how the rich store most of their wealth. So people pay taxes on their houses, but Bezos doesn't pay pretty much anything on his enormous giga-wealth.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#57

Post by munk-a » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #3

I feel the wealth inequality issue needs to be addressed. My only problem with the wealth tax is that it takes money from the wealthy and feeds it to the government. I am having a hard time connecting how that improves the situation of the lower and middle classes.

This is a wholly American problem - in Europe the view of the government isn't as the most efficient actor but certainly one that is acting responsibly to provide needed services that benefit the nation - in America the government is viewed as a garbage can on fire that money is continuously thrown into because that fire is heating some water that funds the military and we all sort of accept that if the military collapsed things would be bad while concurrently thinking that this might be the absolutely worst way to do things... the weird thing is that in America that's absolutely correct, because everyone expects rampant government corruption it isn't scorned but lauded when people managed to defraud the government and get away with it (Oh, you managed to get a refund on your taxes after making 270B revenue - good on ya Amazon, you're really screwing us over and making it look good). The result is that acceptance of this being inevitable has led to apathy towards the problem and gradual acceptance as contractors massively defraud the government, with calls for accountability being coloured as wasteful by those contractors and all that being accepted by the populace at face value.

So, America's way is stupid and idiotic and it's not clear that we can actually fix it - but, we need to try.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#58

Post by fatnoah » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

ohazi wrote: post #33

I'm skeptical that most respondents understood the questions correctly. Most people are familiar with income tax, because they know that money is removed from their paycheck every month. Many also file tax returns. A wealth tax, where a fraction of your bank balance is removed every month, is a totally alien concept to most people. If you haven't thought about it before, it can take a minute or two to wrap your head…

>In a survey context, all of these questions can be answered on autopilot by mistaking "wealth tax for rich people" with "higher taxes for rich people," which are definitely not the same thing.

That was my impression as well. I'd bet money that a large number of the respondents didn't really understand the question. I would love to see the exact question stated somewhere.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#59

Post by jandrese » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #45

nostromo wrote: post #6

It's worth noting that the income tax also started out as a tax on the very rich. Once established, taxes have a way of finding their way from the rich, to the middle-class, and then even to the working poor.

Exactly. “Tax the rich” is all fun and games until enough voters decide the threshold for “rich” starts at approximately $120k per year and owning a house. Honestly I would not be surprised if by the time I’m ready to retire that all or part of my 401k is seized to help “solve” the (surprisingly still-present!) problem of wealth inequality.

$120k per year is a couple of orders of magnitude below any threshold thus far proposed.

Re: Majority of Americans favor wealth tax on very rich: poll

#60

Post by throwno » Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

sct202 wrote: post #34

akhilcacharya wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most places it already qualifies for a wealth tax in the form of a property tax...

Exactly! A huge portion of the middle class's wealth is tied up in property equity that is taxed every year. The ultra wealthy's wealth is primarily in business ownership or equity which is only taxed on gains when it's sold.

>The ultra wealthy's wealth is primarily in business ownership or equity which is only taxed on gains when it's sold.

So for the rich to unlock their wealth and make it usable they have to pay a tax? Well, let's tax it again, why not? And as for property already be taxed? Why not have two taxes? The more taxes the better. The war with Iran isn't going to pay for itself.