6 ms·

It started out pretty reasonable, but quickly lost me at the wealth tax and how "the other 15 countries that tried it didn't do it right". Suuuurrrrree.

undersuit 7y ago
And right after your paraphrased quote, after describing one of the reasons those wealth taxes failed one: “Too many people just start from the assumption that it’s impossible,” May I inquire, are you starting from this position as well?
- arcanus 7y ago
  That is an unscientific statement. If 15 countries have tried and failed, the burden of proof is on providing evidence that another attempt would not similarly fail. Empirically speaking, the evidence speaks against the efficacy of wealth taxes.
  - mgolawala 7y ago
    There are plenty of things in existence that took more than 15 tries to get right. It is silly to dismiss something because it has failed the last 15 times. If wealth taxes are beneficial and a good goal to work towards for a society, then it might be worth it to try for a 16th or even a 17th time until someone figures it out. Human flight took plenty of tries too, but it was something we deemed beneficial, so we figured it out.. eventually. Anyway, Property taxes are a kind of wealth tax, as are capital gains taxes and inheritance taxes. All three of those are wide spread and well established.
    - aetherson 7y ago
      Capital gains taxes are income taxes, not wealth taxes.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      The person you’re responding to isn’t saying we should dismiss wealth taxes out of hand. They are saying that 100% of the evidence so far is that they do not work. So the burden of proof is on the person in favor of them.
      - jacobr1 7y ago
        Right, the proposal for try 16 needs to say: we are we succeed this time because tries 1-15 had flaw X and we have remedy Y that overcomes it.
      - timoth 7y ago
        15 countries failing doesn't actually seem to be 100% of the evidence so far. What about Argentina, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Italy (and BC in Canada) listed here as currently having wealth taxes?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Current_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Current_examples
        toasterlovin 7y ago
        Yeah, my comment was about the argument, not about the actual facts. I don't actually know anything about the facts.
        cc439 7y ago
        Those are asset taxes (with the exception of Italy's 0.15% foreign investment value tax) and it's not hard to hide wealth in liabilities/investments. The über wealthy would barely be affected by such laws should they be enacted in the US while those most affected would be the unlucky few who managed to buy a family sized home in a Californian metro suburb and farmers. I know the "inhereted wealth (estate) taxes kill family farms" is a Republican trope but a tax on assets would disproportionately affect those who own real property and outside of the wealthiest urban centers and their elite suburbs, that would be people who own hundreds or thousands of "cheap" acreage. I have a friend who recently took over his family's 1,200 acre, certified organic dairy farm and a 0.75% asset tax would almost assuredly have him call it quits and sell off to a regional Wal-Mart-tier agribusiness. He only nets ~$100k/yr off of property assessed at $2m and lopping ~$15k/yr off his take home income would be enough incentive, in my opinion, for him to go back to hos $80k/yr industrial equipment sales job.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - anoncake 7y ago
    You don't need to prove that an experiment will not fail.
    - zeveb 7y ago
      > You don't need to prove that an experiment will not fail. You do before experimenting with the lives, livelihoods and quality of life of 350 million people. Or, if not prove, at least provide some really compelling reasons why this time it's different. FWIW, I think that a Georgist land value tax would be better than a straight wealth tax.
      - anoncake 7y ago
        > Or, if not prove, at least provide some really compelling reasons why this time it's different. What qualifies as "really compelling" is subjective, but sure, I didn't mean to suggest that you should just try the same thing again and again. > You do before experimenting with the lives, livelihoods and quality of life of 350 million people. The way I see it, if an experiment fails, it does limited damage which you can recover from. Of course, the greater the possible damage the more careful you have to be and the higher the threshold to start the experiment should be. But if it succeeds, you permanently improve your society and learn what works. When the possible loss is limited and temporary while the possible gain may last until the end of civilization, I don't think you should be too conservative. Though running experiments on 350 million is kind of overkill when there are smaller countries. Maybe it's a better policy for large countries to ask smaller ones to experiment, promising to help them recover if they fail. > FWIW, I think that a Georgist land value tax would be better than a straight wealth tax. Sure, but what non-pigovian tax isn't worse than an LVT?
  - aczerepinski 7y ago
    I sure hope that those who are dismissive of a wealth tax are offering alternative proposals that would fix this problem. I don't want a world where a handful of random babies a born into more wealth than the bottom one billion humans will ever have.
    - petrocrat 7y ago
      The alternative is protecting and even strengthening estate taxes and perhaps something like Bernie Sanders' wall street high frequency transaction tax idea.
- rhizome 7y ago
  "wealth tax" is already a biased framing of specific design.
- petrocrat 7y ago
  Article 1, Section 9 prohibits direct taxes (which a wealth tax would definitely be) unless apportioned by state population. So it is unconstitutional unless every state agrees on an apportionment arrangement, which is nigh impossible as low population states will not receive much of the benefit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_tax#U.S._constitutional_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_tax#U.S._constitutional...
hokkos 7y ago
It failed because those countries didn't had Citizenship-based taxation, and guess what USA has it.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  Perhaps I’m not following you, but all income produced in the US is subject to federal taxes, regardless of the citizenship of the parties involved.
  - basementcat 7y ago
    All income earned by USA citizens is subject to taxation by USA authorities even if the money was earned while resident in another country. Most other countries do not tax their citizens for income earned abroad. *There may be tax treaties that may reduce total tax liability.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      It reduces your tax liability to the greater of the two. The only other countries that practices citizenship based taxation are Eritrea, Hungary and Myanmar. Even Hungary doesn't tax dual-nationals. Of them only the US is in a position to really collect.
  - 6502nerdface 7y ago
    And all income earned by a US citizen is subject to federal taxes, regardless of where in the world the income is earned. Hence there would be precedent for a US wealth tax to apply to a citizen’s “global wealth,” which, unlike in the case of those other countries, means people couldn’t dodge the tax just by changing the physical/notional location of their wealth.
    - toasterlovin 7y ago
      Ah, that makes sense. I did know about the U.S. taxing foreign income (less whatever taxes were already paid to foreign governments). I see the connection to a wealth tax now.
aidenn0 7y ago
I really don't see the point of wealth taxes; modest inflation combined with actually taxing investment income seem to accomplish the same goal with easier enforcement.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Inflation doesn't actually tax 'wealth' per se, it taxes cash on hand. The actual value of investments denominated in a given currency is inherent to the investment vehicle and not to what it is denominated in. For instance, if gold retains 100% of its value over time but there's 10% inflation per annum, $100 of gold today is still worth exactly the same as $110 of gold next year. Inflation taxes 'idle' wealth only.
  - CryptoPunk 7y ago
    Inflation incurs an additional capital gains tax on any asset that sees its value remain constant or grow. The asset doesn't have to be idle for this effect to manifest.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      True. Although, that does only apply on disposition and you can plan accordingly, borrow against the assets and pay off your debt through dividends.
- anoncake 7y ago
  You can't have an allowance with inflation.
- zeveb 7y ago
  > I really don't see the point of wealth taxes I think the article actually mentioned that when it wrote of 'soaking the rich.' That's the real point I think: envy. I'm very open to the idea of some form of asset tax; I think that they can make a lot of sense. But the reason shouldn't be to drag a few lucky folks down: it should be to try to make a better economy and world for everyone.

undersuit 7y ago

And right after your paraphrased quote, after describing one of the reasons those wealth taxes failed one: “Too many people just start from the assumption that it’s impossible,” May I inquire, are you starting from this position as well?

arcanus 7y ago
That is an unscientific statement. If 15 countries have tried and failed, the burden of proof is on providing evidence that another attempt would not similarly fail. Empirically speaking, the evidence speaks against the efficacy of wealth taxes.
- mgolawala 7y ago
  There are plenty of things in existence that took more than 15 tries to get right. It is silly to dismiss something because it has failed the last 15 times. If wealth taxes are beneficial and a good goal to work towards for a society, then it might be worth it to try for a 16th or even a 17th time until someone figures it out. Human flight took plenty of tries too, but it was something we deemed beneficial, so we figured it out.. eventually. Anyway, Property taxes are a kind of wealth tax, as are capital gains taxes and inheritance taxes. All three of those are wide spread and well established.
  - aetherson 7y ago
    Capital gains taxes are income taxes, not wealth taxes.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    The person you’re responding to isn’t saying we should dismiss wealth taxes out of hand. They are saying that 100% of the evidence so far is that they do not work. So the burden of proof is on the person in favor of them.
    - jacobr1 7y ago
      Right, the proposal for try 16 needs to say: we are we succeed this time because tries 1-15 had flaw X and we have remedy Y that overcomes it.
    - timoth 7y ago
      15 countries failing doesn't actually seem to be 100% of the evidence so far. What about Argentina, Spain, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Italy (and BC in Canada) listed here as currently having wealth taxes?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Current_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Current_examples
      - toasterlovin 7y ago
        Yeah, my comment was about the argument, not about the actual facts. I don't actually know anything about the facts.
      - cc439 7y ago
        Those are asset taxes (with the exception of Italy's 0.15% foreign investment value tax) and it's not hard to hide wealth in liabilities/investments. The über wealthy would barely be affected by such laws should they be enacted in the US while those most affected would be the unlucky few who managed to buy a family sized home in a Californian metro suburb and farmers. I know the "inhereted wealth (estate) taxes kill family farms" is a Republican trope but a tax on assets would disproportionately affect those who own real property and outside of the wealthiest urban centers and their elite suburbs, that would be people who own hundreds or thousands of "cheap" acreage. I have a friend who recently took over his family's 1,200 acre, certified organic dairy farm and a 0.75% asset tax would almost assuredly have him call it quits and sell off to a regional Wal-Mart-tier agribusiness. He only nets ~$100k/yr off of property assessed at $2m and lopping ~$15k/yr off his take home income would be enough incentive, in my opinion, for him to go back to hos $80k/yr industrial equipment sales job.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- anoncake 7y ago
  You don't need to prove that an experiment will not fail.
  - zeveb 7y ago
    > You don't need to prove that an experiment will not fail. You do before experimenting with the lives, livelihoods and quality of life of 350 million people. Or, if not prove, at least provide some really compelling reasons why this time it's different. FWIW, I think that a Georgist land value tax would be better than a straight wealth tax.
    - anoncake 7y ago
      > Or, if not prove, at least provide some really compelling reasons why this time it's different. What qualifies as "really compelling" is subjective, but sure, I didn't mean to suggest that you should just try the same thing again and again. > You do before experimenting with the lives, livelihoods and quality of life of 350 million people. The way I see it, if an experiment fails, it does limited damage which you can recover from. Of course, the greater the possible damage the more careful you have to be and the higher the threshold to start the experiment should be. But if it succeeds, you permanently improve your society and learn what works. When the possible loss is limited and temporary while the possible gain may last until the end of civilization, I don't think you should be too conservative. Though running experiments on 350 million is kind of overkill when there are smaller countries. Maybe it's a better policy for large countries to ask smaller ones to experiment, promising to help them recover if they fail. > FWIW, I think that a Georgist land value tax would be better than a straight wealth tax. Sure, but what non-pigovian tax isn't worse than an LVT?
- aczerepinski 7y ago
  I sure hope that those who are dismissive of a wealth tax are offering alternative proposals that would fix this problem. I don't want a world where a handful of random babies a born into more wealth than the bottom one billion humans will ever have.
  - petrocrat 7y ago
    The alternative is protecting and even strengthening estate taxes and perhaps something like Bernie Sanders' wall street high frequency transaction tax idea.
rhizome 7y ago
"wealth tax" is already a biased framing of specific design.
petrocrat 7y ago
Article 1, Section 9 prohibits direct taxes (which a wealth tax would definitely be) unless apportioned by state population. So it is unconstitutional unless every state agrees on an apportionment arrangement, which is nigh impossible as low population states will not receive much of the benefit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_tax#U.S._constitutional_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_tax#U.S._constitutional...

hokkos 7y ago

It failed because those countries didn't had Citizenship-based taxation, and guess what USA has it.

toasterlovin 7y ago
Perhaps I’m not following you, but all income produced in the US is subject to federal taxes, regardless of the citizenship of the parties involved.
- basementcat 7y ago
  All income earned by USA citizens is subject to taxation by USA authorities even if the money was earned while resident in another country. Most other countries do not tax their citizens for income earned abroad. *There may be tax treaties that may reduce total tax liability.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    It reduces your tax liability to the greater of the two. The only other countries that practices citizenship based taxation are Eritrea, Hungary and Myanmar. Even Hungary doesn't tax dual-nationals. Of them only the US is in a position to really collect.
- 6502nerdface 7y ago
  And all income earned by a US citizen is subject to federal taxes, regardless of where in the world the income is earned. Hence there would be precedent for a US wealth tax to apply to a citizen’s “global wealth,” which, unlike in the case of those other countries, means people couldn’t dodge the tax just by changing the physical/notional location of their wealth.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    Ah, that makes sense. I did know about the U.S. taxing foreign income (less whatever taxes were already paid to foreign governments). I see the connection to a wealth tax now.

aidenn0 7y ago

I really don't see the point of wealth taxes; modest inflation combined with actually taxing investment income seem to accomplish the same goal with easier enforcement.

arcticbull 7y ago
Inflation doesn't actually tax 'wealth' per se, it taxes cash on hand. The actual value of investments denominated in a given currency is inherent to the investment vehicle and not to what it is denominated in. For instance, if gold retains 100% of its value over time but there's 10% inflation per annum, $100 of gold today is still worth exactly the same as $110 of gold next year. Inflation taxes 'idle' wealth only.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  Inflation incurs an additional capital gains tax on any asset that sees its value remain constant or grow. The asset doesn't have to be idle for this effect to manifest.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    True. Although, that does only apply on disposition and you can plan accordingly, borrow against the assets and pay off your debt through dividends.
anoncake 7y ago
You can't have an allowance with inflation.
zeveb 7y ago
> I really don't see the point of wealth taxes I think the article actually mentioned that when it wrote of 'soaking the rich.' That's the real point I think: envy. I'm very open to the idea of some form of asset tax; I think that they can make a lot of sense. But the reason shouldn't be to drag a few lucky folks down: it should be to try to make a better economy and world for everyone.