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No, the argument is about revenue generating asset class, and the thing is is that such a deferred taxation enables, and motivates (perhaps even forces) one to
by PeterisP 6y ago
No, the argument is about revenue generating asset class, and the thing is is that such a deferred taxation enables, and motivates (perhaps even forces) one to effectively convert any revenue generating asset class to an appreciating asset through a corporate wrapper. And the deferral of taxes breaks the process of governance, as there's no income now to pay for the common expenses now.
Real estate is a good example - assume non-appreciating real estate, which is the historically main example of a revenue generating asset (i.e. the rentier landlord class historically). If you defer taxation of profits until they're removed from the company, then any rent-earning landlord can instead of earning rent, getting taxed, and investing that after-tax money in more real estate would establish a corp for that, and use the rental profits (untaxed) to buy more real estate within that corporation. It gives a tax advantage (ability to arbitrarily defer) to everyone who can put their earnings under a corporation, and punishes those who can't.
The key problem with such taxation is essentially the same as moving to a consumption-only tax - it means that you disproportionally tax the people who (have to) spend all their income to buying things for consumption (i.e. the poor), and don't tax the people who use their income to buy revenue-generating assets and control (i.e. capitalists); it's a rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer form of taxation.
- kingsuper20 6y ago"rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer form of taxation." Is poor-get-richer, rich-get-poorer the purpose of taxation? Why?