8 ms·

‘Raise my taxes – now ’: the millionaires who want to give it all away

24 points by edward 6y ago

nyokodo 6y ago
Abigail Disney is free to write a check to the US Treasury any time she wants to give it all away and they will gladly cash it. Why hasn't this happened already if she is so selfless? Because she doesn't want to be taxed more in so much as she wants others to be taxed more.
- 1996 6y ago
  Only partially right. Writing a check she can do very easily, so she gets little social credit for that. Simpler reason: virtue signaling reaches new heights when you can force OTHER people besides yourself in doing things that will give you social credit - a bit like the ritual burning of goods and savings in some pacific tribes: if you do it yourself, you need some witnesses, and you will get less social credit than if you can social engineer a large party where everybody is a witnesses and more people engage in the ritual burning of goods. It must not just be painful and wasteful, but also as hard as possible. It's a bit like a reverse proof of work!
- com2kid 6y ago
  The counter argument is simple: Budgets cannot be planned out based on hoping people donate more.
  - alacombe 6y ago
    Budgets can't be planned at all when there is no more "{m,b,t}illionaires" to steal from either.
    - africanboy 6y ago
      I honestly don't get the "stealing" part, can you explain what you mean?
      - alacombe 6y ago
        Taxation is theft, coerced by the threat of violence.
        AngryData 6y ago
        So if it is theft and we stop taxing people, wouldn't it require either your government to fall under its own weight giving rise to anarchy until someone strong arms or new government, or you go full socialist and the government owns nearly all business and can thus pay for itself out of business profits which is just taxes in another form?
        ALittleLight 6y ago
        It's not really a counterargument to say that bad things might happen if we call taxation theft. Taxation either is or is not theft on it's own merits, potential consequences of that determination don't change it. It's also not correct to say that our choices are either to call taxation not-theft or descend into anarchy or socialism. I think taxation is theft because it's people with guns forcing me to pay money or else they'll send me to prison. I wouldn't pay that money if they didn't threaten me, so, seems pretty theft-like to me. That said, I also realize there is a necessity for the government to be funded somehow. That means we need to balance the immorality of taking money that people don't want to give with the necessity of funding the government. Thinking about things this way inclines you to certain perspectives about what the government should and shouldn't be doing. Anything that the government does should be worth stealing money from citizens to fund doing.
        throwaway34241 6y ago
        > That means we need to balance the immorality of taking money that people don't want to give with the necessity of funding the government. > Thinking about things this way inclines you to certain perspectives about what the government should and shouldn't be doing. One of the more depressing books I've read recently was by an economist who made the case (fairly convincingly) that a society with a broad middle class is not the natural state of things, and while societies have inertia industrial ones trend towards the sort of rich/poor gap seen in the industrial revolution, absent large-scale government intervention in the market. The book didn't particularly explore this, but the political implications of that thesis if correct seemed bleak. Getting the government to do anything effectively is an unreliable process, but, aside from enjoying a lower standard of living, the pre-WWII countries weren't politically stable (and that was when peoples' expectations were much lower). Taxation being theft seems to mostly be a question of how you define theft (does it include legality, process, etc) but there are obvious parallels in any case. Although I suppose private property (beyond what one can defend themselves) also exists by state force. Didn't downvote you BTW.
  - throw123123123 6y ago
    Budgets are planned on existing resources not on future streams of revenue. Plus tax revenue is also variant, this is not a great argument in favor of taxes over donations.
    - dctoedt 6y ago
      > Budgets are planned on existing resources not on future streams of revenue. s/not/and
- alacombe 6y ago
  Or this is just virtue signalling.
- africanboy 6y ago
  maybe. But she is well known for being a philanthropist and for taking stance against "dirty money", so she probably deserves some credit. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/disney-heiress-abigail-disowns-her-share-family-profits-west-bank-company-7953513.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/disney-...
  - alacombe 6y ago
    Argument can be made she never had to work and never actually made any money, other than inheriting the work of her grandfather Roy O. Disney. She is as privileged and self-entitled as can be.
    - africanboy 6y ago
      How is she different from, say, Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, George Bush Jr. or the English Royal family?
- labawi 6y ago
  > Abigail Disney has parted with $72m – and thinks the rich need to pay far more tax. I think she is trying to raise the point, that both she and all the others should be properly taxed - and that would be fair and just. Achieving that would in fact notably help people. A single person giving away 72M$ will not make a difference.
  - al_chemist 6y ago
    Raising taxes for poorest* will make more difference than taxing wealthiest. What kind of difference are we trying to make? * - there are more poor people and there are few wealthy
    - setr 6y ago
      In terms of extracted cash? Given that the top 1% now-famously have more funds than the bottom 90%, taxing the wealthiest will definitely make more of a difference. The number of poor people doesn't matter -- only how much large their total pool of cash is to extract from.
      - beaconstudios 6y ago
        You really have to squint to get the idea that the 1% have more money than the bottom 90%. In reality, they own businesses that are valuable. You couldn't liquidate all their stocks and end up with their paper net worths in your bank.
        anaerobicover 6y ago
        One wonders then why they need so much of this imaginary value.
        beaconstudios 6y ago
        If you start a company and that company is successful, you will be worth a lot of money through your ownership of that company. Does that make you a scrooge mcduck wealth hoarder? No.
- throw123123123 6y ago
  My thesis is that people would like to achieve results without feeling they are losing relative to their peers: thus they need to think of taxes as a way to donate but feel that the rest must donate with them and keep their relative status.
- listless 6y ago
  She’s clearly given so much away. She’s not virtue signaling here. But I do find it laughable that educated people think that giving their money to the government is a good idea. It’s one thing to donate to charities. It’s quite another to flush your money down the drain that is the ridiculously dysfunctional US government.
  - dctoedt 6y ago
    > the ridiculously dysfunctional US government Granted, there's room for improvement, but that comment reflects pretty-extreme "the glass is half empty" thinking. It's actually freaking amazing that a continent-wide society of nearly 330 million people, of countless ethnicities, religions, and political views, can live as successfully as we collectively do. (Compare the standard of living of poor people in the U.S. with that of poor people in some developing countries.) Proxy evidence: It's not a coincidence that — by at least an order of magnitude — far more people move to the U.S. than from the U.S. "By a wide margin, the U.S. has more immigrants than any other country in the world." [0] [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/18/5-facts-about-the-u-s-rank-in-worldwide-migration/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/18/5-facts-abo...
    - listless 6y ago
      These are all great points, but I think this is largely in spite of the federal government. They aren’t coming here for the social safety net - they are coming for the opportunity afforded by free markets and low taxes.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- AngryData 6y ago
  Who do you send the check to? Because the IRS can't legally cash a check for money you don't owe.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    I remember a paragraph in the IRS form 1040 instructions on how to make a gift towards the national debt. Likely it's still there.
  - jrockway 6y ago
    You can make a donation to the US Treasury at pay.gov. https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.h...
- MikeUt 6y ago
  By that logic the tax rate should be zero, and people can just send the treasury whatever amount they like. Are we now done pretending we don't know about the tragedy of the commons?
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  There's no need to ignorantly speculate when you can read about what she wants. She wants people of similar wealth to be taxed equally. You can learn more about her ideas at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/03/raise-my-taxes-now-the-millionaires-who-want-to-give-it-all-away https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/03/raise-my-taxes-...
- scotty79 6y ago
  > [...] she wants others to be taxed more Yes. And she wants this so much that she is even willing to get taxed along with them. What is your point?
alacombe 6y ago
The beauty is that they can give their millions WILLINGLY and LEGALLY to the IRS. No need from coercion... unless this is all virtue signalling.
- shishy 6y ago
  That's completely missing the point. They could be doing it to raise awareness (when poor people complain about raising taxes, the rich won't really care, but if rich people start asking for it, then perhaps it'll have a better effect)? Besides, what's wrong with virtue signaling if it also has beneficial consequences?
  - MR4D 6y ago
    Then just write a check to the IRS voluntarily and go around on Oprah and Ellen and get them to help browbeat others to do the same thing. Why that is not an apparent option is beyond me. People who “give to charity” at this scale have enormous tax breaks that are beyond comprehension. Giving that money to the IRS gives you ZERO tax breaks. This one fact should tell you everything about the people we are talking about.
    - shishy 6y ago
      Is it well established that money is used more efficiently to benefit citizens when it goes to the IRS versus a charity? (What's wrong with someone getting tax breaks if it means they have to put money to a good cause to get it?)
      - BlueTemplar 6y ago
        Money is power. Tax money is (at least in theory) democratically used.
      - MR4D 6y ago
        I have no idea. But higher taxes send money to the IRS so the question is irrelevant.
    - 6y ago
rufus_foreman 6y ago
>> there is nobody on earth – Jesus Christ himself isn’t worth 500 times his median workers’ pay, Anyone got a rough estimate of what his workers made?

24 points by edward 6y ago

Abigail Disney is free to write a check to the US Treasury any time she wants to give it all away and they will gladly cash it. Why hasn't this happened already if she is so selfless? Because she doesn't want to be taxed more in so much as she wants others to be taxed more.

1996 6y ago
Only partially right. Writing a check she can do very easily, so she gets little social credit for that. Simpler reason: virtue signaling reaches new heights when you can force OTHER people besides yourself in doing things that will give you social credit - a bit like the ritual burning of goods and savings in some pacific tribes: if you do it yourself, you need some witnesses, and you will get less social credit than if you can social engineer a large party where everybody is a witnesses and more people engage in the ritual burning of goods. It must not just be painful and wasteful, but also as hard as possible. It's a bit like a reverse proof of work!
com2kid 6y ago
The counter argument is simple: Budgets cannot be planned out based on hoping people donate more.
- alacombe 6y ago
  Budgets can't be planned at all when there is no more "{m,b,t}illionaires" to steal from either.
  - africanboy 6y ago
    I honestly don't get the "stealing" part, can you explain what you mean?
    - alacombe 6y ago
      Taxation is theft, coerced by the threat of violence.
      - AngryData 6y ago
        So if it is theft and we stop taxing people, wouldn't it require either your government to fall under its own weight giving rise to anarchy until someone strong arms or new government, or you go full socialist and the government owns nearly all business and can thus pay for itself out of business profits which is just taxes in another form?
        ALittleLight 6y ago
        It's not really a counterargument to say that bad things might happen if we call taxation theft. Taxation either is or is not theft on it's own merits, potential consequences of that determination don't change it. It's also not correct to say that our choices are either to call taxation not-theft or descend into anarchy or socialism. I think taxation is theft because it's people with guns forcing me to pay money or else they'll send me to prison. I wouldn't pay that money if they didn't threaten me, so, seems pretty theft-like to me. That said, I also realize there is a necessity for the government to be funded somehow. That means we need to balance the immorality of taking money that people don't want to give with the necessity of funding the government. Thinking about things this way inclines you to certain perspectives about what the government should and shouldn't be doing. Anything that the government does should be worth stealing money from citizens to fund doing.
        throwaway34241 6y ago
        > That means we need to balance the immorality of taking money that people don't want to give with the necessity of funding the government. > Thinking about things this way inclines you to certain perspectives about what the government should and shouldn't be doing. One of the more depressing books I've read recently was by an economist who made the case (fairly convincingly) that a society with a broad middle class is not the natural state of things, and while societies have inertia industrial ones trend towards the sort of rich/poor gap seen in the industrial revolution, absent large-scale government intervention in the market. The book didn't particularly explore this, but the political implications of that thesis if correct seemed bleak. Getting the government to do anything effectively is an unreliable process, but, aside from enjoying a lower standard of living, the pre-WWII countries weren't politically stable (and that was when peoples' expectations were much lower). Taxation being theft seems to mostly be a question of how you define theft (does it include legality, process, etc) but there are obvious parallels in any case. Although I suppose private property (beyond what one can defend themselves) also exists by state force. Didn't downvote you BTW.
- throw123123123 6y ago
  Budgets are planned on existing resources not on future streams of revenue. Plus tax revenue is also variant, this is not a great argument in favor of taxes over donations.
  - dctoedt 6y ago
    > Budgets are planned on existing resources not on future streams of revenue. s/not/and
alacombe 6y ago
Or this is just virtue signalling.
africanboy 6y ago
maybe. But she is well known for being a philanthropist and for taking stance against "dirty money", so she probably deserves some credit. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/disney-heiress-abigail-disowns-her-share-family-profits-west-bank-company-7953513.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/disney-...
- alacombe 6y ago
  Argument can be made she never had to work and never actually made any money, other than inheriting the work of her grandfather Roy O. Disney. She is as privileged and self-entitled as can be.
  - africanboy 6y ago
    How is she different from, say, Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, George Bush Jr. or the English Royal family?
labawi 6y ago
> Abigail Disney has parted with $72m – and thinks the rich need to pay far more tax. I think she is trying to raise the point, that both she and all the others should be properly taxed - and that would be fair and just. Achieving that would in fact notably help people. A single person giving away 72M$ will not make a difference.
- al_chemist 6y ago
  Raising taxes for poorest* will make more difference than taxing wealthiest. What kind of difference are we trying to make? * - there are more poor people and there are few wealthy
  - setr 6y ago
    In terms of extracted cash? Given that the top 1% now-famously have more funds than the bottom 90%, taxing the wealthiest will definitely make more of a difference. The number of poor people doesn't matter -- only how much large their total pool of cash is to extract from.
    - beaconstudios 6y ago
      You really have to squint to get the idea that the 1% have more money than the bottom 90%. In reality, they own businesses that are valuable. You couldn't liquidate all their stocks and end up with their paper net worths in your bank.
      - anaerobicover 6y ago
        One wonders then why they need so much of this imaginary value.
        beaconstudios 6y ago
        If you start a company and that company is successful, you will be worth a lot of money through your ownership of that company. Does that make you a scrooge mcduck wealth hoarder? No.
throw123123123 6y ago
My thesis is that people would like to achieve results without feeling they are losing relative to their peers: thus they need to think of taxes as a way to donate but feel that the rest must donate with them and keep their relative status.
listless 6y ago
She’s clearly given so much away. She’s not virtue signaling here. But I do find it laughable that educated people think that giving their money to the government is a good idea. It’s one thing to donate to charities. It’s quite another to flush your money down the drain that is the ridiculously dysfunctional US government.
- dctoedt 6y ago
  > the ridiculously dysfunctional US government Granted, there's room for improvement, but that comment reflects pretty-extreme "the glass is half empty" thinking. It's actually freaking amazing that a continent-wide society of nearly 330 million people, of countless ethnicities, religions, and political views, can live as successfully as we collectively do. (Compare the standard of living of poor people in the U.S. with that of poor people in some developing countries.) Proxy evidence: It's not a coincidence that — by at least an order of magnitude — far more people move to the U.S. than from the U.S. "By a wide margin, the U.S. has more immigrants than any other country in the world." [0] [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/18/5-facts-about-the-u-s-rank-in-worldwide-migration/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/18/5-facts-abo...
  - listless 6y ago
    These are all great points, but I think this is largely in spite of the federal government. They aren’t coming here for the social safety net - they are coming for the opportunity afforded by free markets and low taxes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
AngryData 6y ago
Who do you send the check to? Because the IRS can't legally cash a check for money you don't owe.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  I remember a paragraph in the IRS form 1040 instructions on how to make a gift towards the national debt. Likely it's still there.
- jrockway 6y ago
  You can make a donation to the US Treasury at pay.gov. https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html https://www.fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.h...
MikeUt 6y ago
By that logic the tax rate should be zero, and people can just send the treasury whatever amount they like. Are we now done pretending we don't know about the tragedy of the commons?
alisonkisk 6y ago
There's no need to ignorantly speculate when you can read about what she wants. She wants people of similar wealth to be taxed equally. You can learn more about her ideas at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/03/raise-my-taxes-now-the-millionaires-who-want-to-give-it-all-away https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/03/raise-my-taxes-...
scotty79 6y ago
> [...] she wants others to be taxed more Yes. And she wants this so much that she is even willing to get taxed along with them. What is your point?

alacombe 6y ago

The beauty is that they can give their millions WILLINGLY and LEGALLY to the IRS. No need from coercion... unless this is all virtue signalling.

shishy 6y ago
That's completely missing the point. They could be doing it to raise awareness (when poor people complain about raising taxes, the rich won't really care, but if rich people start asking for it, then perhaps it'll have a better effect)? Besides, what's wrong with virtue signaling if it also has beneficial consequences?
- MR4D 6y ago
  Then just write a check to the IRS voluntarily and go around on Oprah and Ellen and get them to help browbeat others to do the same thing. Why that is not an apparent option is beyond me. People who “give to charity” at this scale have enormous tax breaks that are beyond comprehension. Giving that money to the IRS gives you ZERO tax breaks. This one fact should tell you everything about the people we are talking about.
  - shishy 6y ago
    Is it well established that money is used more efficiently to benefit citizens when it goes to the IRS versus a charity? (What's wrong with someone getting tax breaks if it means they have to put money to a good cause to get it?)
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      Money is power. Tax money is (at least in theory) democratically used.
    - MR4D 6y ago
      I have no idea. But higher taxes send money to the IRS so the question is irrelevant.
  - 6y ago

rufus_foreman 6y ago

>> there is nobody on earth – Jesus Christ himself isn’t worth 500 times his median workers’ pay, Anyone got a rough estimate of what his workers made?