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It's interesting to me that these types of arguments always boil down taxing the wealthy. That is a way to redistribute wealth, but what about working to do a m
by hluska 11y ago
It's interesting to me that these types of arguments always boil down taxing the wealthy. That is a way to redistribute wealth, but what about working to do a more efficient job of redistributing wealth from government to the citizens?
Consider the author's idea of levying an 80% tax on people who earn $1 billion a year. Chances are that anyone who is smart enough to earn $1 billion a year is smart enough to hire a small army of accountants/tax attorneys to reduce her tax load. The relevant tax authority thus has to counter by hiring their own army of auditors/tax accountants to enforce these sorts of tax laws.
In the end, the tax authority may collect more money, but they also have to spend significantly more. In the end, will such a scheme really result in more money in the government's coffers??
And then, what happens to money once it reaches the G?? How much of the money is wasted on poorly planned/executed programs? How much is wasted by massive, overstaffed organizations? How much of the money designated for 'social services' ends up in the hands of lower income people versus how much ends up paying for bureaucracy?
Please tax the wealthy, but first, it's a better idea to run government in the most efficient way possible.
- rcurry 11y ago"Please tax the wealthy, but first, it's a better idea to run government in the most efficient way possible." Yeah, if someone tells me that they can spend Elon Musk's money more productively than he can, I'd kind of like them to be able to point to some track record of having done that in the past with all the other money they've had their hands on.
- gbhn 11y agoMany people think Musk is in the top percentiles of "using money well." While I think it is always appropriate to want the government to run better, it's probably not fair to set such a high bar for it. One might just as easily say "no VC should invest money in any company whose founder has a poorer track record than Elon Musk" which is of course a ridiculous posture.
- ryandrake 11y ago> Consider the author's idea of levying an 80% tax on people who earn $1 billion a year. Chances are that anyone who is smart enough to earn $1 billion a year is smart enough to hire a small army of accountants/tax attorneys to reduce her tax load. The relevant tax authority thus has to counter by hiring their own army of auditors/tax accountants to enforce these sorts of tax laws. If there was ever political will to tax the wealthy at such a rate, there would also be the political will to end the loopholes allowing people to avoid that rate, otherwise it would be pointless.
- hluska 11y agoI don't think that I agree with you. If the G got rid of all write offs for higher income people, people who earn extremely high incomes would move to locales with friendlier tax schemes. Taxing the highest incomes is very complex.