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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

#71

Post by HarryHirsch »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #47
throwaway2048 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not making the argument that wealth taxes are good because wealthy people oppose them, only that their point of view on the topic is deeply self serving and masquerading as an objective analysis.

> is deeply self serving To the extent that they do it for themselves alone, which is making an assumption about intent. Many wealthy people honestly believe that low taxes drive economic growth that is good for all.

Alabama with its 1901 constitution is proof that the belief is false, no matter how dearly held.

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

#72

Post by _jal »

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…

Inequality is mortgaging the future for the comfort of the few.

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

#73

Post by [deleted] »

mewmewblobcat wrote: post #52
BitwiseFool wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very reductive. You should know that the Federal Income Tax that was first collected in 1913 had a top bracket of 7%. Today, the minimum bracket is 10% and the average middle class citizen pays around 12-18% of their income to the IRS. So sure, the wealth tax would only be on "the rich" when it first starts out but I guarantee you the middle class will be hit by it eventually.

Most people are already hit by "wealth taxes", except they are regressive - it's called "property tax".

[deleted]

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

#75

Post by TheDong »

bpsh wrote: post #28
commandlinefan wrote: post #2

I'm neither wealthy nor the media and I believe that wealth taxes are a bad idea, too.

Well define not wealthy, if you have over $90,000 net worth you would be in the top 10% already.

This is not accurate. For the US, [0] shows the 90% percentile to be $1.2 million net worth.

This data is sourced from the federal reserve's survey [1].

[0]: https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-net-worth-percentiles/

[1]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm

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

#77

Post by coliveira »

riku_iki wrote: post #33
tonystubblebine wrote: post #6

As a business owner, when taxes are low, I see that as an incentive to pocket profits. But when taxes are high, I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. I know this isn't always the case with everyone. And especially investors have a case that higher corporate taxes reduce the value of their investments, possibly to the point of not making them. But this incentive is so blatantly obv…

> I see that as an incentive to hide the profits by investing in the future. Can it be also an incentive to work less, since most of the results of your hard work will be taken from you in form of taxes, or you would need to 'hide the profits' potentially forever?

That would be true if the owner of the business was doing most of the work. But in a large corporation the workers are doing the brunt of the work, so it makes no difference for the shareholders.

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

#78

Post by cpursley »

jostmey wrote: post #17

I’m more concerned about what happens if we don’t start taxing the rich more (in the US). I’m worried about the class divide turning violent

The top 1% of US taxpayers already cover 21% of the share of federal taxes collected with the top 10% covering 48% percent of taxes. The bottom 50% of income earners pay little to no taxes (11%).

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-of-the-latest-federal-inco...

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

#79

Post by throwaway2048 »

pfortuny wrote: post #26
RivieraKid wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? (I mostly agree but it's not a strong opinion)

Among other things I guess “wealthy” is an easily movable goal post...

This seems to be a classic problem in American political discourse, people immediately discount solutions for very serious problems that exist right now, due to (often extremely shaky) hypotheticals that might some day come to pass (usually with a massive heaping helping of slippery slope fallacy).
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