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It felt to me the parent comment was trying to discredit graduated tax or the idea of redistributing wealth to some level by giving an extreme hyperbolic exampl

It felt to me the parent comment was trying to discredit graduated tax or the idea of redistributing wealth to some level by giving an extreme hyperbolic example, which is a logical fallacy known as the appeal to extremes. I just wanted to point out the idea of taxing more for bigger sum isn't a bad one (or at least this silly extreme example isn't a good reason to justify it being bad). It makes sense for rich people to still be the richest even after the tax if we assume they're more proportionally responsible for the size of the pie itself, but everyone who contributed to the pie even if only as a delivery driver, or waitress, needs a slice of the pie as well, and so it similarly makes sense to want to make sure the distribution of it are proportionally fair to all and meets some minimum standards. And doing those two things aren't mutually exclusive, and it's pretty much what the US has been doing for centuries. I feel saying a 100% tax on the 1% would only pay for a few months of society is just misrepresenting things. First off because that's not anyone's actual proposal, every proposal to tax the 1% would still leave them as the 1% even after the tax, it would simply reduce the gap between max and min. And secondly it's not like the 1% income will just stop, they receive income year over year, which is how taxation sustain itself and how the whole system sustain itself, each year tax applies again and again to everyone, with proportions adjusted to sustain the system while keeping the richest person as the richest and the poorest as the poorest, but limiting the gap and raising up the min.

anm89 6y ago
Fair enough. I'm not against progressive taxation although I do personally believe that high corporate tax rates are somewhat of a losing game over the long term by the logic of Hauser's law : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law
- didibus 6y ago
  Ya, I don't know exactly what to think of corporate tax per say. On one hand it seems like taxing the machine that makes you the pie, which sounds counterproductive to making the biggest pie possible. But if you look in the details it could be a way to avoid tax evasion, easier to audit corporations then individuals, and it also somehow gets less pushback when it is increased if there's need for a bigger budget. Increasing the income tax people will see the effect directly on their wallet, but increasing the corporate tax passes through more undercover.
  - anm89 6y ago
    My personal take is that in our globalized world, the governments are in competition to some degree for corporate tax dollars and that pushes corporate tax rates down, but they are all independently doing that with the goal of maximizing their own income. I can respect anyone on any side of the aisle as long as they admit its a complicated problem. But I will hold that if the US went too high with its number, at some point it would have really negative effects for the country. I don't claim to know what that number is and I assume it is to some degree relative to the rates that other countries have and to some degree relative to whether companies are netting profits or not.

anm89 6y ago

Fair enough. I'm not against progressive taxation although I do personally believe that high corporate tax rates are somewhat of a losing game over the long term by the logic of Hauser's law : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law

didibus 6y ago
Ya, I don't know exactly what to think of corporate tax per say. On one hand it seems like taxing the machine that makes you the pie, which sounds counterproductive to making the biggest pie possible. But if you look in the details it could be a way to avoid tax evasion, easier to audit corporations then individuals, and it also somehow gets less pushback when it is increased if there's need for a bigger budget. Increasing the income tax people will see the effect directly on their wallet, but increasing the corporate tax passes through more undercover.
- anm89 6y ago
  My personal take is that in our globalized world, the governments are in competition to some degree for corporate tax dollars and that pushes corporate tax rates down, but they are all independently doing that with the goal of maximizing their own income. I can respect anyone on any side of the aisle as long as they admit its a complicated problem. But I will hold that if the US went too high with its number, at some point it would have really negative effects for the country. I don't claim to know what that number is and I assume it is to some degree relative to the rates that other countries have and to some degree relative to whether companies are netting profits or not.