4 ms·

Or as Piketty proposed tax wealth as well as income. Right now some country implement some inheritance tax, but that's the only time when wealth is actually me

by carlob 9y ago

Or as Piketty proposed tax wealth as well as income. Right now some country implement some inheritance tax, but that's the only time when wealth is actually measured and taxed and there are so many loopholes (trust funds, donations, …) to make this incredibly ineffective especially on the richest.

rorykoehler 9y ago
All these proposals about taxing more make me feel uneasy. The real issue i have with tax isn't how much i pay but how it is used. Before i need to pay even more tax i would like to see a concerted effort to automate civil service jobs out of existence (needing to queue at 5am in the morning to get anything done in Berlin is an inexcusable joke in 21st century) and two we need to destroy the unemployment welfare system and implement a basic income. If those two things don't happen as a minimum then i don't think anyone should pay another cent because Europeans are already getting shit value for money as it is.
- carlob 9y ago
  The main problem is that right now we have absolutely no idea of where the wealth is. One of the most important consequences of the universal income tax was the production of a huge amount of data. There is no equivalent for wealth, even things like Forbes lists are mostly guesswork and handwaving.
  - fuzzfactor 9y ago
    >More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe The only time that wasn't true in the USA was before income started being taxed. If you do the math, the only tax which is not destructive to working people is taxing commerce. That's the way the US federal government was funded when free enterprise was more available to a greaater percentage of citizens. Switching over to income taxes shifted the burden dramatically from the powerful to the relatively powerless. What more effectie way was there at the time to keep down the first freeborn decendandts of slaves after bondage ended? The most prominent feature of taxing income is its huge damping effect on upward mobility. That's OK, the ones who instituted income tax to begin with did so because as far as they were concerned enough citizens had moved up already, especially from the very bottom. That's the most important consequence. This is by design. It's probably best to try and look beyond conventional wisdom when invoking caca del toro.
- adamlett 9y ago
  The real issue i have with tax isn't how much i pay but how it is used. Pardon my french, but that's such bullshit. Everyone who doesn't like to pay taxes has a noble excuse like yours. Sometimes they oppose to taxes being used to fund the arts, even though it's such a minuscule slice of the total pie as to be barely visible. Other times it's something else that they feel is frivolous or opposed to by some principle or other. The thing is however, that the nature of public spending is such that there is always something which we as private citizens would prefer not to pay for, if given the choice. People with a libertarian bend tend to think of tax money being spent inefficiently as simply being wasted. But money spent by the government doesn't just disappear after it has been spent. It ends back in the pockets of the citizens! In the worst case scenario, it is thus simply being redistributed. In the best case scenario, it buys society something valuable (universal healthcare, say, or public education) along the way.
  - rorykoehler 9y ago
    Sorry it's not bullshit. Governments in Europe are especially renowned for the any work is better than none approach and therefore even make up fake jobs to keep their unemployed subjects busy. Protestant work ethic withdrawal is evident and drawn out. Having experienced living in numerous countries i can safely say that taxes are often (not always) poorly spent in Europe. The bureaucracy is over bearing and many jobs exist purely for the sake of existing when they could and are done much better by computers in other countries. Im actually quite left leaning which is why when i care when i see public sector inefficiencies on the scale that they exist in Europe. My ideals start to become threatened when the execution is so purposefully ham fisted. We could be using that money and more importantly time to do amazing things that brings all of humanity forward rather than forcing people to do pointless jobs that they hate in any case.
    - adwn 9y ago
      Not that I necessarily disagree, but what countries outside of Europe are doing a better job with regards to spending money?
      - 9y ago
- victormours 9y ago
  This might be a chicken and egg problem: we need takes to fund the work of automating away these things. Just saying "public service is not good enough, so i don't want to pay more money to make it better" seems like a dead end.
  - rorykoehler 9y ago
    I disagree. There should always be an effort to do more with less. This should be ingrained into our dna in business and in government.
- 6t6t6t6 9y ago
  What about taxing more the inheritances and capital income and taxing less the work income?

by carlob 9y ago

rorykoehler 9y ago

All these proposals about taxing more make me feel uneasy. The real issue i have with tax isn't how much i pay but how it is used. Before i need to pay even more tax i would like to see a concerted effort to automate civil service jobs out of existence (needing to queue at 5am in the morning to get anything done in Berlin is an inexcusable joke in 21st century) and two we need to destroy the unemployment welfare system and implement a basic income. If those two things don't happen as a minimum then i don't think anyone should pay another cent because Europeans are already getting shit value for money as it is.

carlob 9y ago
The main problem is that right now we have absolutely no idea of where the wealth is. One of the most important consequences of the universal income tax was the production of a huge amount of data. There is no equivalent for wealth, even things like Forbes lists are mostly guesswork and handwaving.
- fuzzfactor 9y ago
  >More than half of all private wealth has been inherited in most of Europe The only time that wasn't true in the USA was before income started being taxed. If you do the math, the only tax which is not destructive to working people is taxing commerce. That's the way the US federal government was funded when free enterprise was more available to a greaater percentage of citizens. Switching over to income taxes shifted the burden dramatically from the powerful to the relatively powerless. What more effectie way was there at the time to keep down the first freeborn decendandts of slaves after bondage ended? The most prominent feature of taxing income is its huge damping effect on upward mobility. That's OK, the ones who instituted income tax to begin with did so because as far as they were concerned enough citizens had moved up already, especially from the very bottom. That's the most important consequence. This is by design. It's probably best to try and look beyond conventional wisdom when invoking caca del toro.
adamlett 9y ago
The real issue i have with tax isn't how much i pay but how it is used. Pardon my french, but that's such bullshit. Everyone who doesn't like to pay taxes has a noble excuse like yours. Sometimes they oppose to taxes being used to fund the arts, even though it's such a minuscule slice of the total pie as to be barely visible. Other times it's something else that they feel is frivolous or opposed to by some principle or other. The thing is however, that the nature of public spending is such that there is always something which we as private citizens would prefer not to pay for, if given the choice. People with a libertarian bend tend to think of tax money being spent inefficiently as simply being wasted. But money spent by the government doesn't just disappear after it has been spent. It ends back in the pockets of the citizens! In the worst case scenario, it is thus simply being redistributed. In the best case scenario, it buys society something valuable (universal healthcare, say, or public education) along the way.
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  Sorry it's not bullshit. Governments in Europe are especially renowned for the any work is better than none approach and therefore even make up fake jobs to keep their unemployed subjects busy. Protestant work ethic withdrawal is evident and drawn out. Having experienced living in numerous countries i can safely say that taxes are often (not always) poorly spent in Europe. The bureaucracy is over bearing and many jobs exist purely for the sake of existing when they could and are done much better by computers in other countries. Im actually quite left leaning which is why when i care when i see public sector inefficiencies on the scale that they exist in Europe. My ideals start to become threatened when the execution is so purposefully ham fisted. We could be using that money and more importantly time to do amazing things that brings all of humanity forward rather than forcing people to do pointless jobs that they hate in any case.
  - adwn 9y ago
    Not that I necessarily disagree, but what countries outside of Europe are doing a better job with regards to spending money?
    - 9y ago
victormours 9y ago
This might be a chicken and egg problem: we need takes to fund the work of automating away these things. Just saying "public service is not good enough, so i don't want to pay more money to make it better" seems like a dead end.
- rorykoehler 9y ago
  I disagree. There should always be an effort to do more with less. This should be ingrained into our dna in business and in government.
6t6t6t6 9y ago
What about taxing more the inheritances and capital income and taxing less the work income?