4 ms·

Well, money has diminishing returns. $100 dollars has a lot less effect in Rowling's life than in mine, and it can be a life-changing amount of money to those t

by Fargren 11y ago

Well, money has diminishing returns. $100 dollars has a lot less effect in Rowling's life than in mine, and it can be a life-changing amount of money to those truly destitute. If you want to maximize the utility of those dolars, at least in the short term, it makes a lot of sense to take them from those who have the most.

gambiting 11y ago
" it makes a lot of sense to take them from those who have the most." - And we already do. If they pay the same percentage as you or me, they already pay an order of magnitude(or several) more than I do. My question is - why should they be taxed even more than the rest of us? The only argument I'm seeing currently is "because they have lots so it makes sense to take from them". That's from Robin Hood I guess?
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > My question is - why should they be taxed even more than the rest of us? Among other reasons: because it is government and the legal system which makes amassing and maintaining large fortunes possible; being poor without organized society is easy to achieve, being rich is a possible only with the order imposed on society through law. Therefore, it makes sense for the rich to be taxed not merely proportionately to their wealth, but disproportionately so.
  - douche 11y ago
    You can be rich in the absence of law and organized society, too. You just have to be rich enough to hire/inspire the goons to keep the peasants cowed.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      What you said is "you can be rich without law and organized society, if you can manage to establish yourself as the government". Which is true in a sense -- though then you've organized society around your interest, and established yourself as the arbiter of law -- but not really an argument against the rich bearing disproportionately the cost for government.
- Fargren 11y ago
  Whether or not a direct proportional tax would be optimal depends on whether or not the benefit one gets from having more money decreases in a directly proportional way. I have no answers to this question (which should be answered in a statistical manner), but I fail to see a reason for believing a priori that a fixed percentage for everyone is the fairest form of taxation.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  It makes sense to take a higher percentage because they need the money less. It's not just because they have a lot of money, it's because $1M in the pocket of a billionaire does almost nothing, while $1k each to 1k people in poverty can be a massive stress relief. If someone's at the poverty line, you shouldn't take any money. If someone's making 8+ figures, they'll be almost as well off even if you take half.
  - gambiting 11y ago
    I literally don't understand this argument. It's taking for the sake of taking. Can I go to my rich neighbour and take his car, because I need one more than he does(he has like 10)? That would be stealing, right? But if we do that with taxes, that's somehow ok, because "they will be still well off even if you take half". That makes no sense to me.
    - Dylan16807 11y ago
      >I literally don't understand this argument. It's taking for the sake of taking. You have to tax someone, so let's distribute the burden. Everyone feels a mild impact instead of a flat percent that crushes poor people. Unless you think we shouldn't tax anyone, then I can't help with understanding.
      - logfromblammo 11y ago
        I do not agree with the premise that taxation is necessary. Any given alternative to taxation might be worse, though. It also might be better. There are a lot of ideas that already failed, and a lot that haven't yet been tried. But none of the potentially better schemes can possibly work when you already accept taxation as axiomatic. Of course, this doesn't mean that there is no value in attempting to determine a method of taxation that is least unfair. But given the variance in individual tastes, you may have to combine multiple models of fairness to come up with a reasonable basis for comparison. If your tax scheme takes as much money from a person as it is possible to take without causing that person measurable harm, you're obviously going to be able to take a lot more from rich people than from poor people. But then, as everyone would end up with the same standard of living, you disincentivize excellence. So maybe you use a model drawn from psychological experiments with respect to reward-seeking behavior, and you give accomplishment above and beyond the lowest common denominator diminishing returns. Maybe someone who produces twice as much gets twice as much as their reward, but someone who produces ten times as much only gets five times as much reward. The studies on lever-pushing rats suggest that this would still work. Someone might even produce twenty times as much for only six times the reward.
- mrgoldenbrown 11y ago
  You say "if they pay the same percentage." But they don't pay the same percentage. Warren Buffet famously pointed out that he pays a lower percentage than his secretary. Rich people make most of their money via strategies (like capital gains) that avoid the normal income tax.
  - rayvd 11y ago
    Warren gave a self-serving answer that obscured the true tax he and others like him really pay -- including corporate tax, cap gains, etc. The % of the money the govt diverts from his true income is significantly higher than his secretary (or most of us). It's over-simplistic to just look at the income tax rate in our ridiculously complex system.
    - headstorm 11y ago
      The richest get vastly more benefit from government policies and structures than most of us, so why shouldn't they pay more?

by Fargren 11y ago

gambiting 11y ago

" it makes a lot of sense to take them from those who have the most." - And we already do. If they pay the same percentage as you or me, they already pay an order of magnitude(or several) more than I do. My question is - why should they be taxed even more than the rest of us? The only argument I'm seeing currently is "because they have lots so it makes sense to take from them". That's from Robin Hood I guess?

dragonwriter 11y ago
> My question is - why should they be taxed even more than the rest of us? Among other reasons: because it is government and the legal system which makes amassing and maintaining large fortunes possible; being poor without organized society is easy to achieve, being rich is a possible only with the order imposed on society through law. Therefore, it makes sense for the rich to be taxed not merely proportionately to their wealth, but disproportionately so.
- douche 11y ago
  You can be rich in the absence of law and organized society, too. You just have to be rich enough to hire/inspire the goons to keep the peasants cowed.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    What you said is "you can be rich without law and organized society, if you can manage to establish yourself as the government". Which is true in a sense -- though then you've organized society around your interest, and established yourself as the arbiter of law -- but not really an argument against the rich bearing disproportionately the cost for government.
Fargren 11y ago
Whether or not a direct proportional tax would be optimal depends on whether or not the benefit one gets from having more money decreases in a directly proportional way. I have no answers to this question (which should be answered in a statistical manner), but I fail to see a reason for believing a priori that a fixed percentage for everyone is the fairest form of taxation.
Dylan16807 11y ago
It makes sense to take a higher percentage because they need the money less. It's not just because they have a lot of money, it's because $1M in the pocket of a billionaire does almost nothing, while $1k each to 1k people in poverty can be a massive stress relief. If someone's at the poverty line, you shouldn't take any money. If someone's making 8+ figures, they'll be almost as well off even if you take half.
- gambiting 11y ago
  I literally don't understand this argument. It's taking for the sake of taking. Can I go to my rich neighbour and take his car, because I need one more than he does(he has like 10)? That would be stealing, right? But if we do that with taxes, that's somehow ok, because "they will be still well off even if you take half". That makes no sense to me.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    >I literally don't understand this argument. It's taking for the sake of taking. You have to tax someone, so let's distribute the burden. Everyone feels a mild impact instead of a flat percent that crushes poor people. Unless you think we shouldn't tax anyone, then I can't help with understanding.
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      I do not agree with the premise that taxation is necessary. Any given alternative to taxation might be worse, though. It also might be better. There are a lot of ideas that already failed, and a lot that haven't yet been tried. But none of the potentially better schemes can possibly work when you already accept taxation as axiomatic. Of course, this doesn't mean that there is no value in attempting to determine a method of taxation that is least unfair. But given the variance in individual tastes, you may have to combine multiple models of fairness to come up with a reasonable basis for comparison. If your tax scheme takes as much money from a person as it is possible to take without causing that person measurable harm, you're obviously going to be able to take a lot more from rich people than from poor people. But then, as everyone would end up with the same standard of living, you disincentivize excellence. So maybe you use a model drawn from psychological experiments with respect to reward-seeking behavior, and you give accomplishment above and beyond the lowest common denominator diminishing returns. Maybe someone who produces twice as much gets twice as much as their reward, but someone who produces ten times as much only gets five times as much reward. The studies on lever-pushing rats suggest that this would still work. Someone might even produce twenty times as much for only six times the reward.
mrgoldenbrown 11y ago
You say "if they pay the same percentage." But they don't pay the same percentage. Warren Buffet famously pointed out that he pays a lower percentage than his secretary. Rich people make most of their money via strategies (like capital gains) that avoid the normal income tax.
- rayvd 11y ago
  Warren gave a self-serving answer that obscured the true tax he and others like him really pay -- including corporate tax, cap gains, etc. The % of the money the govt diverts from his true income is significantly higher than his secretary (or most of us). It's over-simplistic to just look at the income tax rate in our ridiculously complex system.
  - headstorm 11y ago
    The richest get vastly more benefit from government policies and structures than most of us, so why shouldn't they pay more?