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>there are no easy solutions What's so hard about shifting the burden of tax from income to wealth? Week after week having 30% of your income taken away is wha

>there are no easy solutions What's so hard about shifting the burden of tax from income to wealth? Week after week having 30% of your income taken away is what prevents a lot of people from ever getting ahead.

Terr_ 9y ago
> What's so hard about shifting the burden of tax from income to wealth? Well, there are a bunch of practical difficulties, beyond just political will. First, "wealth" is much harder to cheaply and objectively quantify than cash income. The value is often very subjective, and changes over time and circumstance. Even a lot of "what's it worth right now" statements are flimsy: A guy might have X stock in a company worth $Y, but it's only a "if things go right" $Y because if you try to sell it all at once you'll cause a panic among investors and get fairly little for it. Lastly, it's much easier for people to hide their current wealth, when they have an incentive to lie about it and have years to do it in. You'd need a financial panopticon to make sure nobody's burying gold in their garden while telling the tax man they spent it all on expensive food.
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  What do you think about Georgism? Land is difficult to move or hide, and is an inherently progressive form of taxation
enraged_camel 9y ago
Sure. But I want to correct you on one thing: the US median income is $52,000. While the marginal tax rate for that amount, when filing as a single, is 25%, the effective tax rate is only 19%. When filing jointly, it is 16%. You don't reach 30% effective rate (single) until you make $500,000, at which point you're pretty well off. :)
- ryanwaggoner 9y ago
  True, but that ignores FICA, state income tax, city income tax (rare), sales tax, property tax, etc, etc. Granted, these aren't all income taxes, they have their own curves, etc, but still, paying an overall effective rate of 30% isn't that difficult.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    The numbers I provided include FICA.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
zmb_ 9y ago
For starters the fact that wealth is mostly illiquid. What happens when you slap a big tax bill on wealth is that either it cannot be paid and the owner needs to liquidate, and/or the wealth will move outside the country.
valuearb 9y ago
Because taxing capital makes everyone poorer.

Terr_ 9y ago

> What's so hard about shifting the burden of tax from income to wealth? Well, there are a bunch of practical difficulties, beyond just political will. First, "wealth" is much harder to cheaply and objectively quantify than cash income. The value is often very subjective, and changes over time and circumstance. Even a lot of "what's it worth right now" statements are flimsy: A guy might have X stock in a company worth $Y, but it's only a "if things go right" $Y because if you try to sell it all at once you'll cause a panic among investors and get fairly little for it. Lastly, it's much easier for people to hide their current wealth, when they have an incentive to lie about it and have years to do it in. You'd need a financial panopticon to make sure nobody's burying gold in their garden while telling the tax man they spent it all on expensive food.

lr4444lr 9y ago
What do you think about Georgism? Land is difficult to move or hide, and is an inherently progressive form of taxation

enraged_camel 9y ago

Sure. But I want to correct you on one thing: the US median income is $52,000. While the marginal tax rate for that amount, when filing as a single, is 25%, the effective tax rate is only 19%. When filing jointly, it is 16%. You don't reach 30% effective rate (single) until you make $500,000, at which point you're pretty well off. :)

ryanwaggoner 9y ago
True, but that ignores FICA, state income tax, city income tax (rare), sales tax, property tax, etc, etc. Granted, these aren't all income taxes, they have their own curves, etc, but still, paying an overall effective rate of 30% isn't that difficult.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  The numbers I provided include FICA.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

zmb_ 9y ago

For starters the fact that wealth is mostly illiquid. What happens when you slap a big tax bill on wealth is that either it cannot be paid and the owner needs to liquidate, and/or the wealth will move outside the country.

valuearb 9y ago

Because taxing capital makes everyone poorer.