10 ms·

I think “I should pay more taxes” is generally understood as shorthand for “all people in my financial situation should pay more taxes.” It’s a bit like saying

by md_ 5y ago

I think “I should pay more taxes” is generally understood as shorthand for “all people in my financial situation should pay more taxes.” It’s a bit like saying “I should be required to have fire protection”, “I should be required to carry health insurance,” or “I should be required to use standard turn signals on the road.”

refurb 5y ago
Are you saying that people who say “i should be required to have fire protection, carry health insurance or use turn signals” should be able to not do those things and not look like a hypocrit?
- solveit 5y ago
  You're being obtuse. The point is that it's perfectly reasonable to be willing to pay more, but only if all the other rich people do too.
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Why would you need others to do something you think you should do? Actually, how would anybody ever start doing that thing if everybody is waiting for someone else to do it first and that person too is waiting for others to do it first? “Tax me more” is just a publicity stunt and unfortunately it confuses people.
    - md_ 5y ago
      As I noted elsewhere in this thread, this is the nature of what are called "collective action problems." In effect, these are situations where coordinated collective action may be beneficial, but there is a disincentive to being the initiator of such an action. The examples I gave above were fireproofing your building, buying health insurance before you are sick, and mandatory turn signals on cars, but these abound in public policy: think, mandatory face mask wearing during a global pandemic in which masks which block the transmission of a disease from an infected person are cheaper than masks which block the infection of someone else. Regardless of where you come down on the ideological question—perhaps you think it's fundamentally immoral for governments to exist at all, which I can respect!—it's very simple economics that such problems (where the global optimal is only achieved if we ignore individual optimization) exist.
      - ericmay 5y ago
        And how are those collective action problems solved?
        md_ 5y ago
        Typically, by government action, ideally as a result of a democratic process.
        ericmay 5y ago
        So Warren Buffet and others should wait for the government to increase their tax rate and then they can pay more taxes? And this has to happen because if any one of them pays more taxes before the others they are at a disadvantage?
        md_ 5y ago
        I think "at a disadvantage" may be the wrong framing. As a member of (say) the 1%, but not the 0.01%, my personal take is this: - My money does more good, dollar-for-dollar, by my own personal definition of "good", when I donate it to specific charities than when it's collected as tax and then spent. - We would nonetheless have a net benefit from more aggressive taxation of people like me because a) the reduced effectiveness, per dollar, is counterbalanced by increased overall spending, and b) more progressive taxation would help address inequality of wealth and income, which has other, independent, pernicious impacts. Because I believe those two things, I both a) advocate for higher taxes on "people like me" and b) to the extent legally possible, minimize my tax burden and prefer to make voluntary charitable contributions. I believe this last part is fully consistent with the first two bullet points if we take them axiomatically, though they each may of course be themselves wrong. Edit: I also want to add: I think when we talk policy, we often talk in a "if I were King of the World" sort of way. So, if I were King of the World, we'd raise tax rates but not spend the money on stuff I disagree with. ;) If you told me, "Yeah, we can raise the top income tax rate, but all the extra money will go to drone strikes against civilians," of course I'd oppose it. I think a lot of our "should dos" assume we get other policy outcomes we desire as well.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    Another way to frame this: if I'm a millionaire and want all millionaires to pay more tax (including me), paying more tax without trying to get others to do so could allow other millionaires to spend their tax savings to lobby against higher taxes. I may not want to sacrifice myself nor do I want to pay more tax for myself, but simply want a fairer system. A society is more than the sum of individuals, obviously.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    It's only reasonable in a competitive environment, outside of that, you have to actually show your reasoning. If we're participants in a market that is designed to be fair, to say the rules should be changed for everyone in order for you not to take advantage of a loophole with negative effects but competitive advantage makes sense. It's saying that you're participating in a market that was designed incorrectly, and asking for the design to be corrected. To say you're going to keep dodging personal taxes until no one can dodge personal taxes is just dodging taxes. There's no market and no competition. Paying the taxes you think are ideal will just put you in the place you would be if taxes were how you think they should be.
  - agent008t 5y ago
    They could make a public pact?
- md_ 5y ago
  Yes, exactly. As a trivial example, it's perfectly rational to say, "I should be required to carry health insurance, because universal insuring would lower the premiums for everyone, but I will not do so until then because the premiums are too high." As a less trivial example that perhaps engages more with what I think your argument is, one can also argue, "Collisions between two SUVs have a higher rate of serious injuries than collisions between two sedans, but in a collision between an SUV and a sedan the sedan has an even higher serious injury rate. Ergo, because all of my fellow commuters drive SUVs, I am also driving an SUV, but I believe SUVs should be outlawed." (I've borrowed this example from an old James Surowiecki column: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/23/fuel-for-thought https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/23/fuel-for-thoug....) Irrespective of whether these are good policies for other reasons—perhaps we believe it's too much of an infringement upon individual liberty to ban driving SUVs!—it is not inherently hypocritical to not voluntarily take part in an activity which one believes has positive external value only if universally partaken. Quite frankly, this is a trivial point, yet it's often lost in somewhat silly accusations of hypocrisy, which I think is really disappointing.
gadders 5y ago
Isn't that an easy statement to make? Especially as they know the chances of it happening are low.
- tyre 5y ago
  I advocate for higher taxes on myself and others in my position. I vote that way. I worked on a presidential campaign that focused heavily on economic policy and social programs, all of which involved raising taxes. It's not a secret that one party in the United States wants to raise taxes on higher earners, which includes many in Silicon Valley.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Why do you believe that maximizing USG revenue is a net societal benefit?

by md_ 5y ago

refurb 5y ago

Are you saying that people who say “i should be required to have fire protection, carry health insurance or use turn signals” should be able to not do those things and not look like a hypocrit?

solveit 5y ago
You're being obtuse. The point is that it's perfectly reasonable to be willing to pay more, but only if all the other rich people do too.
- ericmay 5y ago
  Why would you need others to do something you think you should do? Actually, how would anybody ever start doing that thing if everybody is waiting for someone else to do it first and that person too is waiting for others to do it first? “Tax me more” is just a publicity stunt and unfortunately it confuses people.
  - md_ 5y ago
    As I noted elsewhere in this thread, this is the nature of what are called "collective action problems." In effect, these are situations where coordinated collective action may be beneficial, but there is a disincentive to being the initiator of such an action. The examples I gave above were fireproofing your building, buying health insurance before you are sick, and mandatory turn signals on cars, but these abound in public policy: think, mandatory face mask wearing during a global pandemic in which masks which block the transmission of a disease from an infected person are cheaper than masks which block the infection of someone else. Regardless of where you come down on the ideological question—perhaps you think it's fundamentally immoral for governments to exist at all, which I can respect!—it's very simple economics that such problems (where the global optimal is only achieved if we ignore individual optimization) exist.
    - ericmay 5y ago
      And how are those collective action problems solved?
      - md_ 5y ago
        Typically, by government action, ideally as a result of a democratic process.
        ericmay 5y ago
        So Warren Buffet and others should wait for the government to increase their tax rate and then they can pay more taxes? And this has to happen because if any one of them pays more taxes before the others they are at a disadvantage?
        md_ 5y ago
        I think "at a disadvantage" may be the wrong framing. As a member of (say) the 1%, but not the 0.01%, my personal take is this: - My money does more good, dollar-for-dollar, by my own personal definition of "good", when I donate it to specific charities than when it's collected as tax and then spent. - We would nonetheless have a net benefit from more aggressive taxation of people like me because a) the reduced effectiveness, per dollar, is counterbalanced by increased overall spending, and b) more progressive taxation would help address inequality of wealth and income, which has other, independent, pernicious impacts. Because I believe those two things, I both a) advocate for higher taxes on "people like me" and b) to the extent legally possible, minimize my tax burden and prefer to make voluntary charitable contributions. I believe this last part is fully consistent with the first two bullet points if we take them axiomatically, though they each may of course be themselves wrong. Edit: I also want to add: I think when we talk policy, we often talk in a "if I were King of the World" sort of way. So, if I were King of the World, we'd raise tax rates but not spend the money on stuff I disagree with. ;) If you told me, "Yeah, we can raise the top income tax rate, but all the extra money will go to drone strikes against civilians," of course I'd oppose it. I think a lot of our "should dos" assume we get other policy outcomes we desire as well.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  Another way to frame this: if I'm a millionaire and want all millionaires to pay more tax (including me), paying more tax without trying to get others to do so could allow other millionaires to spend their tax savings to lobby against higher taxes. I may not want to sacrifice myself nor do I want to pay more tax for myself, but simply want a fairer system. A society is more than the sum of individuals, obviously.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  It's only reasonable in a competitive environment, outside of that, you have to actually show your reasoning. If we're participants in a market that is designed to be fair, to say the rules should be changed for everyone in order for you not to take advantage of a loophole with negative effects but competitive advantage makes sense. It's saying that you're participating in a market that was designed incorrectly, and asking for the design to be corrected. To say you're going to keep dodging personal taxes until no one can dodge personal taxes is just dodging taxes. There's no market and no competition. Paying the taxes you think are ideal will just put you in the place you would be if taxes were how you think they should be.
- agent008t 5y ago
  They could make a public pact?
md_ 5y ago
Yes, exactly. As a trivial example, it's perfectly rational to say, "I should be required to carry health insurance, because universal insuring would lower the premiums for everyone, but I will not do so until then because the premiums are too high." As a less trivial example that perhaps engages more with what I think your argument is, one can also argue, "Collisions between two SUVs have a higher rate of serious injuries than collisions between two sedans, but in a collision between an SUV and a sedan the sedan has an even higher serious injury rate. Ergo, because all of my fellow commuters drive SUVs, I am also driving an SUV, but I believe SUVs should be outlawed." (I've borrowed this example from an old James Surowiecki column: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/23/fuel-for-thought https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/23/fuel-for-thoug....) Irrespective of whether these are good policies for other reasons—perhaps we believe it's too much of an infringement upon individual liberty to ban driving SUVs!—it is not inherently hypocritical to not voluntarily take part in an activity which one believes has positive external value only if universally partaken. Quite frankly, this is a trivial point, yet it's often lost in somewhat silly accusations of hypocrisy, which I think is really disappointing.

gadders 5y ago

Isn't that an easy statement to make? Especially as they know the chances of it happening are low.

tyre 5y ago
I advocate for higher taxes on myself and others in my position. I vote that way. I worked on a presidential campaign that focused heavily on economic policy and social programs, all of which involved raising taxes. It's not a secret that one party in the United States wants to raise taxes on higher earners, which includes many in Silicon Valley.
- sneak 5y ago
  Why do you believe that maximizing USG revenue is a net societal benefit?