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Money is already taxed multiple times though (in my part of the world NE US). If I buy a car with income received via dividends from Apple stock: * state sales

Money is already taxed multiple times though (in my part of the world NE US). If I buy a car with income received via dividends from Apple stock: * state sales sax on car * future city property tax on car * fed dividend tax on money used to pay for car * apple already paid state and fed corp income tax on money used to pay dividend * some person already paid income tax on money used to buy iphones/macs/chargers etc. Is your position that the estate tax in particular is egregious or that all taxes are egregious? If you only want money to be taxed once then you'd have to redo all the taxes no?

aww_dang 5y ago
Observing the status quo isn't the same as rationalizing it. Many things exist in the world today which are unjust. Some are even common. If it is possible for taxation to be egregious, then at some point there must be a boundary which is crossed. How can we define what is a just amount of property to confiscate with our subjective judgment? It is a moral issue in principle. In practice it amounts to whatever politicians can get away with. Ideologues present wealth as evidence of greed. Envy is celebrated. The person with a bigger slice of pie is blamed for other's perceptions of insufficient portions, as if markets represent a zero-sum game. Cries of, "You didn't build that" are overly simplistic and misleading. If they were valid, collectives and central planners could produce surpluses without need for individualized incentives. Yet history tells us a different story. That slice of pie which so many here seem unhappy with is much bigger than what was eaten in years before. This is the result of individual profit incentives, competition and innovation, not taxation or central planning. If it is to be a moral issue, perhaps we should start from the point of not coercing others or violating their property rights?
- dennis_jeeves 5y ago
  democracy=2 wolves + a sheep voting on what's for dinner
- wpietri 5y ago
  You made a good job presenting that particular dogma, but you gave the game away here: > not coercing others or violating their property rights Property rights always involve coercion, at least when you get beyond the basics of personal property. How does, say, Jeff Bezos own a variety of lavish properties across the country [1] when a half-million people in the US are homeless? The short answer is that he depends on coercion. He expects that both private and state actors will coerce people into staying away from stuff he has claimed. Violently if necessary. And we're not even getting into the many flavors of coercion that underlie his enormous wealth. The fundamentalist libertarian position always ends up in these sorts of incoherencies, because it makes ardent demands of a society it wants no part of otherwise. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-owns-five-massive-homes-across-the-united-states-2017-10#bezos-home-base-is-a-nearly-29000-square-foot-estate-in-medina-washington-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-owns-five-massive...
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    Property rights are a fundamental cornerstone of society. Rejecting them is incoherent. Infringing on another person's property is synonymous with coercion. Perhaps next you'll venture that self-defense is a bourgeois construct? As for Amazon, maybe look more closely at the government interventions in the financial markets. Yes, Bezos is an entrepreneurial figure. He is also symptomatic of an artificially supported economic system. The central bank injects liquidity. Financial markets acquire it first, and consumers are left with the inflation. I would argue that large concerns like Amazon are enabled by the current paradigm. We could describe it as a tax by other means and price fixing of interest rates. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/amazon-borrows-%2410-billion-at-record-low-interest-rates-2020-07-02 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/amazon-borrows-%2410-billion...
    - wpietri 5y ago
      You've constructed a straw man (I never rejected property rights) while ignoring my actual point. This tendentious behavior is typical of fundamentalists, fundamentalist libertarians included. Unless you can do better, I think we're done here.
- foo_barrio 5y ago
  "You didn't build that" is as naive as "all taxes are theft" no? As important property rights are so is working together. No one human kills a lion or works a farm no?

aww_dang 5y ago

Observing the status quo isn't the same as rationalizing it. Many things exist in the world today which are unjust. Some are even common. If it is possible for taxation to be egregious, then at some point there must be a boundary which is crossed. How can we define what is a just amount of property to confiscate with our subjective judgment? It is a moral issue in principle. In practice it amounts to whatever politicians can get away with. Ideologues present wealth as evidence of greed. Envy is celebrated. The person with a bigger slice of pie is blamed for other's perceptions of insufficient portions, as if markets represent a zero-sum game. Cries of, "You didn't build that" are overly simplistic and misleading. If they were valid, collectives and central planners could produce surpluses without need for individualized incentives. Yet history tells us a different story. That slice of pie which so many here seem unhappy with is much bigger than what was eaten in years before. This is the result of individual profit incentives, competition and innovation, not taxation or central planning. If it is to be a moral issue, perhaps we should start from the point of not coercing others or violating their property rights?

dennis_jeeves 5y ago
democracy=2 wolves + a sheep voting on what's for dinner
wpietri 5y ago
You made a good job presenting that particular dogma, but you gave the game away here: > not coercing others or violating their property rights Property rights always involve coercion, at least when you get beyond the basics of personal property. How does, say, Jeff Bezos own a variety of lavish properties across the country [1] when a half-million people in the US are homeless? The short answer is that he depends on coercion. He expects that both private and state actors will coerce people into staying away from stuff he has claimed. Violently if necessary. And we're not even getting into the many flavors of coercion that underlie his enormous wealth. The fundamentalist libertarian position always ends up in these sorts of incoherencies, because it makes ardent demands of a society it wants no part of otherwise. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-owns-five-massive-homes-across-the-united-states-2017-10#bezos-home-base-is-a-nearly-29000-square-foot-estate-in-medina-washington-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-owns-five-massive...
- aww_dang 5y ago
  Property rights are a fundamental cornerstone of society. Rejecting them is incoherent. Infringing on another person's property is synonymous with coercion. Perhaps next you'll venture that self-defense is a bourgeois construct? As for Amazon, maybe look more closely at the government interventions in the financial markets. Yes, Bezos is an entrepreneurial figure. He is also symptomatic of an artificially supported economic system. The central bank injects liquidity. Financial markets acquire it first, and consumers are left with the inflation. I would argue that large concerns like Amazon are enabled by the current paradigm. We could describe it as a tax by other means and price fixing of interest rates. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/amazon-borrows-%2410-billion-at-record-low-interest-rates-2020-07-02 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/amazon-borrows-%2410-billion...
  - wpietri 5y ago
    You've constructed a straw man (I never rejected property rights) while ignoring my actual point. This tendentious behavior is typical of fundamentalists, fundamentalist libertarians included. Unless you can do better, I think we're done here.
foo_barrio 5y ago
"You didn't build that" is as naive as "all taxes are theft" no? As important property rights are so is working together. No one human kills a lion or works a farm no?