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I'm not sure what the problem is. When Democrat supporters demand more more more via the politicians who promise more more more, where did they think the money
by caseysoftware 6y ago
I'm not sure what the problem is. When Democrat supporters demand more more more via the politicians who promise more more more, where did they think the money would come from?
Believe it or not, the bottom ~50% don't have enough money to tax. The next 30-40% have some but not enough to raise enough money to help. The taxes have to be focused on the top 10% and more likely the top 1-3% to raise enough to meet these demands.
I think the biggest problem will be trying to enact this on people who aren't California (or even US) residents who are now out of state. You can tax visitors for actions they take while they're in your state (sales tax, hotel taxes, even income) but when they're not there and haven't been there for years?
The State of California may get a rude awakening on this one.
- herbst 6y agoIsnt the us taxing basically everyone even if they moved somewhere else years ago?
- jhfdbkofdcho 6y agoAs a rough approximation, if you’re a US citizen, then You must file a US income tax return. The US taxes your worldwide income regardless of where it’s earned. BUT under most circumstances you would get a credit against what you owe the US for what you pay the country in which you earned the money and also wanted to tax you (no double taxation in theory) It’s kind of a pain for someone living in say Kenya which doesn’t have a tax treaty with the US, but it’s not totally absurd to think you owe something to a country whose citizenship you continue to benefit from.
- eatbitseveryday 6y agoHow do I benefit from a country while not being in it?
- ceejayoz 6y agoThe right to return and still be eligible for things like Social Security and Medicare.
- ryan_j_naughton 6y agoYour social security benefits are derived, in part, from how much you paid in on your top earning years. Thus, if you didn't pay in you would have very very very little social security (which is already too small of a benefit to live off of). Thus, I don't think there is a moral hazard of social security that would cause people to return to the US for those benefits. They could amend the law (not sure if it's specifics) that you have to pay in a minimum amount if you want to be paid out while living in another country. Simple fix to remove any poorly aligned incentive. Medicare is much trickier as every American over 65 is entitled to it, but I'm not sure how that coverage works if you live outside the US.
- NonEUCitizen 6y agoSocial Security is not tied to US citizenship. A foreigner who has worked in the US enough years (and paid into Social Security during those years) can move back home and receive Social Security benefits upon retirement.
- herbst 6y agoI have that too with an EU country i was born in. Yet i never paid taxes or anything to there
- throwaway98797 6y agoUS embassies are in many countries.
- herbst 6y agoAny embassy is in pretty much any country? Assuming a semi rich western country
- scrose 6y agoWell, in the US, one benefit is being able to freely travel to many other countries without needing to go through a months long visa application process.
- herbst 6y agoMy european passport opens a lot more doors, yet i dont pay taxes to the EU as i dont live there.
- JacobDotVI 6y agoThe US Marines have been known to evacuate US citizens from foreign countries if war breaks out. Think of your taxes as an insurance premium for global personal safety.
- nradov 6y agoIn theory if you get kidnapped by terrorists or something then the US government might try to rescue you.
- throwaway13337 6y agoKidnapped Americans have much worse outcomes on average than other country citizens. This is because the US makes it illegal for families to pay ransoms. As with most things international, not being American is an asset in such a situation. https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/policy-papers/pay-ransom-or-not/ https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/policy-pap...
- herbst 6y agoIf i moved away from the us because i misstrust them or whatever reason why would i care about their rescue? I never thought about my born Country is going to help with anything as i moved away and pay taxes somewhere else. I rather be rescued to “home“
- nradov 6y agoIn that case you should probably renounce your US citizenship. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-legal-considerations/us-citizenship/Renunciation-US-Nationality-Abroad.html https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/travel-lega...
- trisiak 6y agoCountry's passport has a value in itself. The one from the US enables you to leverage international travel treaties and visa arrangements. Just answering your question, not making a point on whether taxation is the correct way for US to "cover" for those benefits.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoIIRC that's true up to a certain $ limit. (Maybe around $120k of income?) After that it's double taxed (I think)
- spicyramen 6y agoWell, this statement may be valid in Cold War era, but anyone leaving US will probably go to a cheaper safer country where the possibility of this is close to 0
- jhfdbkofdcho 6y agoRight this is where it gets complicated, especially by the fact that the US has country specific tax treaty agreements lots of places. https://www.taxesforexpats.com/expat-tax-advice/us-tax-treaties.html https://www.taxesforexpats.com/expat-tax-advice/us-tax-treat...
- ryan_j_naughton 6y ago> but it’s not totally absurd to think you owe something to a country whose citizenship you continue to benefit from Yes it is honestly. The US is the only G7 county (and one of the only countries worldwide) to engage in extraterritorial taxation. It is absurd. If you are gaining from services in that country, you should pay taxes to that country. If you have moved abroad and aren't gaining from any services if that country, you should not. Because you are effectively not a member of that community anymore and should be contributing your taxes to another society. To even have to handle the double taxation accounting is ridiculous. It's that simple. Does someone gain benefits of being an American even when not living in America? Potentially, but many of those benefits could be connected to more targeted taxes than simply worldwide income tax. This is clearly not about justice and is instead about the long arm of the IRS seeking their pound of flesh anywhere they can get it. I know Americans who left the US 40 years ago and have lived and become fully integrated citizens of other countries. Yet simply to retain the right to return the US at some point, they must pay taxes every year in the middle? And trying to give up their citizenship isn't that easy either. If we want to prevent tax havens, I'm totally fine with that. Force sensible global tax regimes and prevent countries from being havens. But the solution isn't extraterritorial taxation.
- GavinMcG 6y ago> Because you are effectively not a member of that community anymore People have the choice of giving up their U.S. citizenship. > Yet simply to retain the right to return the US at some point, they must pay taxes every year in the middle? Yes? Or do we allow everyone who isn't participating in our society as a citizen would to come and go as they please?
- lifeformed 6y agoBut why not have that expectation of literally any other country in the world? Except for the US and Eretria.
- pashamur 6y agoOther countries can have that expectation, but they can't enforce it - that's the main difference. The US can.
- oblio 6y ago> but it’s not totally absurd to think you owe something to a country whose citizenship you continue to benefit from. https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_Rights#Article_15 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Hu... > Article 15 > 1. Everyone has the right to a nationality. > 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. The US is one of the few countries in the world taxjng non resident citizens.
- herbst 6y agoIt is absolutely absurd for me. I do not live in the country i was born at, it never contributed to me earning anything. I dont see why i would owe any tax to them
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ulfw 6y agoIt's even more absurd. They force Green Card holders to pay taxes too. I lived and worked in country A, have citizenship with country B and the most amount of money when I worked in A was sent to the US, where I have no rights, no one would come for me to 'save me' when I'm held hostage or whatnot. Nothing. But I paid more taxes to the US than to country A (and nothing to my home country). I relinquished my Green Card two years later.
- herbst 6y agoThe very reason i do not even consider working for a us company. I could not even open a normal private bank account when my money comes from the US (Switzerland)
- syshum 6y agoI always find it ironic when Silicon Valley Software devs talk about how the "evil rich" should "pay more" in taxes to support the poor, never having the understanding that they likely are the "evil rich" the tax man will be coming for.... if you are a Software Dev for a FANG or FANG like company guess what you are in the top 10%.....
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Pfhreak 6y agoI make roughly half a million a year. I'm very aware that my tax rate would increase if we started taxing the wealthy more. Please tax the wealthy more. Send the tax man to my house and all my peers. We can afford it just fine.
- syshum 6y agoYou do know you can voluntarily pay more in taxes today, right now... Giving money to government is not compasssion, Helping people get food, shelter, healthcare,etc yourself is compassion. Voting for government to use guns to force people to pay what you have perceived as "their fair share" in order to provide those things to people is not compassion, it is self-righteous bullying.
- Pfhreak 6y agoI can. I do give to charities. But me giving had a much, much smaller impact than me pushing for everyone to give. It's not just about their fair share. Income inequality is a feedback loop that has a predictable and quite unpleasant outcome. I'd much rather introduce mechanisms to slow that feedback loop down. The parent poster argued that "don't the wealthy know they'll get taxed more?" I'd propose that "don't the bottom 95% know they'll experience a steady decline of income and purchasing power if we don't tax the wealthy more?"
- syshum 6y ago
- josho 6y agoNot a Californian, but what is the more that is being asked of? Are you aware that top tax rates are a fraction of what they were decades ago? Perhaps, the more accurate lens to view things is that the wealthy/business has lobbied for less and less.
- nradov 6y agoTop federal tax rates have been reduced, but there hasn't been any major reduction of top California state tax rates.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago> where did they think the money would come from? There’s a growing misconception that everything can be paid for by simply taxing the wealthy a tiny bit more. Several prominent activist politicians have built their platforms on the idea that billionaires are an infinite source of consequence-free tax revenue. These ideas are especially popular among the college students and new college grads I mentor. It usually falls apart when they pull out their calculators and realize that Jeff Bezos entire net worth wouldn’t come close to paying off everyone’s student loan debt or solving climate change. Meanwhile, completely false Tweets about how Jeff Bezos is about to become a trillionaire or how he could simply solve the entire student loan crisis himself gain 100,000s of likes, some of them from prominent politicians or their campaign managers. People don’t care about the facts right now. Frankly, many people don’t really care if this solves anything or if second-order consequences result in a net decrease in tax revenue due to people simply moving (as is the case with some wealth taxes in other countries). For many, this is more about punishing their bad guys than generating tax revenue to accomplish something.
- tsimionescu 6y agoThe most important point of taxing the top ~1% is to simply bring their wealth more in line with their contributions, and to reduce their outsized power on the political system. Jeff Bezos isn't "worth" a million times more than his warehouse workers, and he shouldn't have that kind of money either as a matter of principle, or as a matter of democratic power. It's not a matter of punishment, but a matter of ensuring a more just/meritocratic and free society. The fact that the state can also use some of this money to help with the funding of social programs is a secondary benefit.
- emteycz 6y agoHe as a human is worth exactly the same as the workers, of course. But that changes nothing about his right to the wealth he created. The others could create their own wealth, Bezos wasn't in a privileged position when he started. If his money gives him political power, the solution is to fix the political system, not steal his money.
- bradleyjg 6y agoThe adjective is Democratic.
- chance_state 6y agoBut "Democrat supporters" sounds worse, which is why they use that word instead.
- Privacy846 6y ago> I'm not sure what the problem is. When Democrat supporters demand more more more via the politicians who promise more more more, where did they think the money would come from? Who are you addressing? The Democrats who “demand more more more” are likely to be the same people who are fine with taxing the rich more.
- runT1ME 6y agoThe problem is this incentivizes all the wrong things. This encourages the ultra rich to invest in land or large properties, driving up that particular asset class. Instead of venture capital, we’ll just get a bunch or people hoarding land