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Perhaps we should tax something very human that nobody can escape? Economy can be displayed as flows of money, labor and goods. We should look hard at these fl

Perhaps we should tax something very human that nobody can escape? Economy can be displayed as flows of money, labor and goods. We should look hard at these flows and think where even the rich can't evade by restructuring. I don't have a pre-made solution, only ideas. The crucial idea is that one rich person is a person after all. What do people do? They consume, give money to others and export funds. Catch them when they do that. They can't avoid eating and sleeping. Therefore switching the focus of taxation onto things nobody can avoid would be something society needs to contemplate and perhaps tackle. A completely novel way would be something I call affluence source tax. It is similar to a value added tax, however it is levied on everything a rich person does: buying stuff, paying for labor and rent, bartering, and especially for exporting funds! Forget taxing legal entities because they are always being restructured to minimise taxing. Just look at the people themselves, not the legal entities. Probably this wouldn't be the granddaddy of all taxing solutions, and most surely the rich will be successful in stopping this, but at least nobody can stop me thinking about this problem.

jfnixon 8y ago
So you are going to tax the necessities? Right, only the 'rich.' How do you define 'rich'? High income? What about the small business owner who retires, sells, and gets that one large payday? You gonna tax her like she earns that much every year? High net worth? What if that net worth is structured so it looks like some other entity controls it? The very wealthy will employ clever people to beat your plan every single day and twice on Sunday, just like they do today. Buffett pays a lower rate than his secretary for a reason.
- _nalply 8y ago
  No, flat tax everything. The trick is: catch the people not the companies. Because the rich consume and send funds a lot they will be taxed a lot. Now to your example that some other entity controlling the net worth, this won't help because if the rich person wants to buy a private jet with the help of that other entity, the other entity will just pay taxes instead. Because people are taxed, not companies, rich people can't avoid taxation. It is just an idea.
  - WalterSear 8y ago
    Fwiw, they don't. They can't. They have vastly more money than they could ever spend on themselves. The majority of their income is just directed back to towards protecting and growing their capital. The flaw in the entire capitalist premise is that this investment is assumed to be an implacable driver of productivity, but as the market is purchased (a free market is either for sale, or it's not actually a free market - it's a manipulated market), investments flow into non-productive asset classes, freezing consumptive momentum (ala Thomas Picketty's book). Moreover, the sale of the market makes zero-sum games more attractive, since, without the protection provided by competition, squeezing resources from others becomes more attractive than creating new opportunity.

jfnixon 8y ago

So you are going to tax the necessities? Right, only the 'rich.' How do you define 'rich'? High income? What about the small business owner who retires, sells, and gets that one large payday? You gonna tax her like she earns that much every year? High net worth? What if that net worth is structured so it looks like some other entity controls it? The very wealthy will employ clever people to beat your plan every single day and twice on Sunday, just like they do today. Buffett pays a lower rate than his secretary for a reason.

_nalply 8y ago
No, flat tax everything. The trick is: catch the people not the companies. Because the rich consume and send funds a lot they will be taxed a lot. Now to your example that some other entity controlling the net worth, this won't help because if the rich person wants to buy a private jet with the help of that other entity, the other entity will just pay taxes instead. Because people are taxed, not companies, rich people can't avoid taxation. It is just an idea.
- WalterSear 8y ago
  Fwiw, they don't. They can't. They have vastly more money than they could ever spend on themselves. The majority of their income is just directed back to towards protecting and growing their capital. The flaw in the entire capitalist premise is that this investment is assumed to be an implacable driver of productivity, but as the market is purchased (a free market is either for sale, or it's not actually a free market - it's a manipulated market), investments flow into non-productive asset classes, freezing consumptive momentum (ala Thomas Picketty's book). Moreover, the sale of the market makes zero-sum games more attractive, since, without the protection provided by competition, squeezing resources from others becomes more attractive than creating new opportunity.