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Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

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Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#61

Post by Retric »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #45
Retric wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax-deductible and early withdrawals are both taxed and penalized. You don’t just pay taxes as normal income when you take an early withdrawal from a 401k they also tack on a 10% penalty making such investments unusually risky. Untaxed capital gains on the other hand is just a free zero interest loan. Anyway, having stocks is irrelevant here. What matters is for tax burden is what…

The capital gains you’re talking about are not “untaxed”, they simply don’t exist. An unrealized capital gain is one that hasn’t occurred. It’s very intellectually dishonest to pretend that unrealized gains are real, and extremely so to pretend that they are income.

Houses are taxed based on unrealized gains, so such gains are real enough.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#62

Post by anothernewdude »

monero-xmr wrote: post #35
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the idea that only the rich need to pay taxes is unmaintainable I'm not so sure. Taxes are for lots of things, but one of them is making sure a power hungry psycopath doesn't set themself up as king. We might end up spending less of it on weapons that cost thousands of dollars every time you pull the trigger if we taxed the problem away before it could gain momentum.

Interesting - a similar argument is that if you removed the ability for governments to arbitrarily print money, and they actually had to tax citizens and explain to them what it was being spent on, wars would be way less popular and occur less often. You seem to think the dangerous psychopath is the independently wealthy rich person. They may be a psychopath, but the true danger is the psychopath who also gains gover…

> if you removed the ability for governments to arbitrarily print money,

The money is the governments. You can't remove that power - they're the ones with the power over the money, by definition. If someone else does, they essentially become the government. That money has value because they print it, and enforce controls over it. You're just holding some of it for a while.

How you are expressing what you want is meaningless.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#63

Post by RhysU »

Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #24
ggm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A basis for argument by low tax fanatics that think a modern Athenian state is possible, drugs, TV shows, VLSI and togas, all in with jets and retsina. UK income tax was notoriously applied as a temporary expedient. The low tax fans want a return to the pre Victorian levels of poverty that went hand in hand with the non-welfare state.

I don't think so. Low tax advocates want a more streamlined government that looks after core functions (managing trash, police, etc) rather than what it has taken on today (entire multimillion dollar agencies tasked with getting more women into high status jobs, regulation of the size and shape of cabbages, etc) The idea that "people who want less tax than I do just crave widespread poverty" is a sign you have an ide…

Loving the "of cabbages and kings" ring to your comment.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#64

Post by Wolfenstein98k »

beedeebeedee wrote: post #37
Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Low tax advocates want a more streamlined government that looks after core functions (managing trash, police, etc) rather than what it has taken on today (entire multimillion dollar agencies tasked with getting more women into high status jobs, regulation of the size and shape of cabbages, etc) The idea that "people who want less tax than I do just crave widespread poverty" is a sign you have an ide…

> The idea that "people who want less tax than I do just crave widespread poverty" is a sign you have an ideological brainworm. No one thinks like that. Plenty of people think that. They might not admit it publicly (or even admit the full implications to themselves), but they still think it, and more importantly, try to act on it.

Name three.

This is just something people believe in your imagination.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#65

Post by Wolfenstein98k »

voisin wrote: post #28
Wolfenstein98k wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't matter. You don't get taxed on how much you have, you get taxed on every dollar as it comes in. What they have is post-tax. You can't just eye up what they have left over as if it has never been taxed.

> What they have is post-tax. What? No. Net worth amounts are quoted in approximate pre-tax amounts. The vast bulk of which, for the 1%, are deferred capital gains taxes. The rest of us don’t get the ability to defer taxes until we feel like it, and capital gains are taxed at a lower rate too because… just because.

Not "just because", there are l ok Ng and detailed reasons why, which is why various wealthy and well-run countries do it.

Also, just because you eye up their holdings before they sell and incur a tax liability, does not mean that they have tax-free wealth.

Paper wealth is empty. That's why Musk "lost $200,000,000,000" but you can't name who he lost it to - it didn't go anywhere because it effectively never existed.

It's only when he sells that it is realised - and taxed - and that's when he gains access to it.

You can eye it up all you like before he sells, but it's not real money.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#66

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

mjfl wrote: post #53
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the idea that only the rich need to pay taxes is unmaintainable I'm not so sure. Taxes are for lots of things, but one of them is making sure a power hungry psycopath doesn't set themself up as king. We might end up spending less of it on weapons that cost thousands of dollars every time you pull the trigger if we taxed the problem away before it could gain momentum.

uh, how do high taxes preclude a fascist takeover? I fail to see the connection.

I suppose it's possible that you could have a power hungry psycopath whose hunger only relates to institutional power. Somebody for whom limiting their economic power is not effective. So taxing the rich doesn't protect us from them. But I think we're talking about a pretty small group here.

The two people I think of when I hear "fascist takeover" were both embroiled in tax evasion scandal on their way to the top.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#67

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

anothernewdude wrote: post #62
monero-xmr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - a similar argument is that if you removed the ability for governments to arbitrarily print money, and they actually had to tax citizens and explain to them what it was being spent on, wars would be way less popular and occur less often. You seem to think the dangerous psychopath is the independently wealthy rich person. They may be a psychopath, but the true danger is the psychopath who also gains gover…

> if you removed the ability for governments to arbitrarily print money, The money is the governments. You can't remove that power - they're the ones with the power over the money, by definition. If someone else does, they essentially become the government. That money has value because they print it, and enforce controls over it. You're just holding some of it for a while. How you are expressing what you want is mean…

I agree that it's not phrased well. What are you going to do, revoke the ability to issue money... by fiat?

But the goal is a good one. Make the government afraid that if they abuse our trust, we'll turn our backs on their token and find ourselves a less problematic social contract to value.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#69

Post by cplusplusfellow »

ggm wrote: post #12
cplusplusfellow wrote: post #4

Little bit smaller government and so a lot less to pay for.

"Little" being ironically applied. Serfdom, short lifespan, and no Antibiotics research alongside massive amounts of routine child abuse and women as a subclass. Great!

I would venture the features you apply above would amount to less than 20% of the US budget. Particularly if you exclude social security and Medicare, which both have their own taxes and surtaxes even.

Re: Only the richest ancient Athenians paid taxes

#70

Post by AmericanChopper »

Retric wrote: post #61
AmericanChopper wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The capital gains you’re talking about are not “untaxed”, they simply don’t exist. An unrealized capital gain is one that hasn’t occurred. It’s very intellectually dishonest to pretend that unrealized gains are real, and extremely so to pretend that they are income.

Houses are taxed based on unrealized gains, so such gains are real enough.

Houses are not taxed based on any gains at all. Houses are taxed based on a government issued current valuation. People complain about the accuracy of these valuations all the time, but the taxation has nothing to do with capital gains. If it was a tax on capital gains, then you’d only be paying a tax on the difference in valuation from year to year. Which isn’t how it works at all. It’s more of a wealth tax.
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