6 ms·

Ask HN: Why are you not outraged at the capital gains tax proposal?

7 points by greenail 5y ago

Since unrealized capital gains would seem to impact founders disproportionately I wonder why there is not discussion of the proposal here?

zzutz 5y ago
Cause everyone on this site is a liberal fucktard.
alecst 5y ago
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/infrastructure-bill-in-flux-after-disagreements-over-billionaire-tax https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/infrastructure-bill-in... I just looked it up. Why would I get outraged over something that affects less than 1,000 people, all of which who are billionaires?
- greenail 5y ago
  Assuming it would stay limited to billionaires (that is unlikely) this would have a chilling effect on investment.
- Bostonian 5y ago
  The 1000 people argument is poor. The same logic could be used to justify mistreating a very small racial minority, and we know that is wrong. If new government spending is really justified, it should be popular enough to fund it in a broad-based way.
  - alecst 5y ago
    It's about taking slightly more money from the top 1,000 people who have the most money. This is completely different from targeting ethnic minorities. Progressive taxes are supposed to handle this in a broad-based way, but billionaires can afford to finagle the system so that they pay less in taxes than the rest of us.
    - Jugurtha 5y ago
      In my opinion, people seem very generous and creative in matters that concern other people's money. Whether it is someone stealing from people who "can afford it", or increase taxes for certain categories that don't include them, people are in no shortage of 'arguments' and seem to find things 'obvious'.
      - methusala8 5y ago
        +1.
  - EricDeb 5y ago
    And if raising taxes on billionaires is unjust there should be broad-based support for not taxing them
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I'm not sure that logic holds. Perhaps if "justice" is only point in time. There have been plenty of times in history when minority groups have been subjected to what we today would call an injustice. Simply having broad support would mean that they were just during the time in question and only considered unjust at a later time.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  If they weren't able to train 70 million people to get outraged about that sort of thing then there wouldn't be a Republican party. The trouble though with taxing unrealized capital gains is in the implementation. For instance, somebody might own a huge amount of shares in a private company that is valued at a certain price. That might be almost all of the wealth. If they are taxed on the capital gain they are going to have to (1) find some price the government believes is the real price of the asset, (2) sell some of the asset to get the money to pay the tax. Since it is a private company, (2) might be very hard to do, particularly if you want to get the price (1).
  - alecst 5y ago
    Yea makes sense, I thought about this a while ago when Liz Warren proposed a wealth tax in 2019. Good point.
  - wmf 5y ago
    People are begging to buy shares in private companies right now BTW.
  - Witeshadow 5y ago
    The tricky part is def the implementation. The question is how to tax billionaires and discourage hoarding of such wealth, and instead encourage spending and investment.
  - relaunched 5y ago
    There is a provision for private company equity (illiquid) that you pay an extra fee, on top of capital gains, upon disposition.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Because it won't stop at 1000 people. It won't raise enough money. So it will expand to cover more people, not all of whom are billionaires, and some of whom may be you.
  - alecst 5y ago
    I don't buy the slippery slope argument here, but I'll take it at face value. Good. Taxes have been declining for decades -- in the 1950s the highest marginal tax rate was like 95%. Now, even with a progressive tax system, in practice when all the dimes are counted it comes out to basically a flat tax[1][2] except for the billionaires who pay less than the rest of us -- now even lower than working class workers[2]. If increasing taxation reduces wealth inequality, so be it, even if it affects me. We all pay a price to reap the benefits of our society. [1] from the book Triumph of Injustice. If I recall correctly, all taxes added up comes out to about a 30% flat tax for everyone except billionaires. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45894166-the-triumph-of-injustice https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45894166-the-triumph-of-... [2] https://sven-giegold.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/europe-calling_zucman_slides.pdf https://sven-giegold.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/europe-ca...
    - greenail 5y ago
      The top 50% of earners already pay 97% of all the income taxes. The US has one of the most progressive tax systems in the world. How much more progressive of a system do you want? Unrealized capital gains are imaginary. It is just like reporting your sales pipeline as revenue.
      - alecst 5y ago
        The US is progressive when it comes to income tax, but if you consider all contributions to tax revenue the US is basically a flat tax system. At least that's what the book Triumph of Injustice led me to believe. Like Warren Buffett literally said: “The wealthy are definitely undertaxed relative to the general population." And if someone has a billion dollars or more in unrealized wealth, forcing them to realize some of that wealth in order to pay taxes on it does not bother me much.
ARandomerDude 5y ago
We shouldn't have laws that target N number of people. The law should be fair and unbiased. Suppose for example that N=1. Would it be ok to target one person with tax increases? What about 10, 100, or 1000 people? I'm not part of the 1% and never will be. But we should make just laws. Some people will think "yeah, but the rich people don't pay taxes" which is exactly my problem with it. Again, we've created a situation in which the law only applies to some. The solution isn't to reverse the situation, but to balance the law.
- alecst 5y ago
  This doesn't target N people. It targets wealth above a certain limit, and notably wealth that is typically in an asset class that makes it easy to avoid taxes. This is exactly what you describe -- a way of balancing the law so that the rich pay taxes. Maybe you don't agree with the implementation but you've expressed exactly the sentiment behind the law so...
- tacostakohashi 5y ago
  https://www.congress.gov/private-laws/111th-congress https://www.congress.gov/private-laws/111th-congress N=1 is not a hypothetical example.
- adamhp 5y ago
  > "Again, we've created a situation in which the law only applies to some." That is partly the problem. The law definitely needs to be changed to address the fact that the people who have generated massive amounts of wealth have done so by avoiding taxes, and then lobbying for favorable outcomes for themselves that are in direct contradiction to the welfare of society—e.g. increasing the price of insulin making it difficult for people to afford it, when the cost has not increased and it is purely for profit. The law only ever "applies to some". That is the point. Driver's license laws only "apply to" people over a certain age. Accredited investor regulations only apply to people of certain means. Citizenship laws apply under a specific set of conditions. The list goes on. That is literally the point of "law". Conditioned restriction on behavior to sustain order and welfare amongst mass amounts of human beings.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
giantg2 5y ago
There is a discussion here (assuming there's not another tax change proposed): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29013201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29013201 I think the implementation of the plan is stupid and inefficient. It won't affect me (nor most people) directly.
relaunched 5y ago
Realistically, the answer is probably to tax debt secured by unrealized capital gains.rffcdcxru dxxcxdcffdd

7 points by greenail 5y ago

Since unrealized capital gains would seem to impact founders disproportionately I wonder why there is not discussion of the proposal here?

zzutz 5y ago

Cause everyone on this site is a liberal fucktard.

alecst 5y ago

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/infrastructure-bill-in-flux-after-disagreements-over-billionaire-tax https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/infrastructure-bill-in... I just looked it up. Why would I get outraged over something that affects less than 1,000 people, all of which who are billionaires?

greenail 5y ago
Assuming it would stay limited to billionaires (that is unlikely) this would have a chilling effect on investment.
Bostonian 5y ago
The 1000 people argument is poor. The same logic could be used to justify mistreating a very small racial minority, and we know that is wrong. If new government spending is really justified, it should be popular enough to fund it in a broad-based way.
- alecst 5y ago
  It's about taking slightly more money from the top 1,000 people who have the most money. This is completely different from targeting ethnic minorities. Progressive taxes are supposed to handle this in a broad-based way, but billionaires can afford to finagle the system so that they pay less in taxes than the rest of us.
  - Jugurtha 5y ago
    In my opinion, people seem very generous and creative in matters that concern other people's money. Whether it is someone stealing from people who "can afford it", or increase taxes for certain categories that don't include them, people are in no shortage of 'arguments' and seem to find things 'obvious'.
    - methusala8 5y ago
      +1.
- EricDeb 5y ago
  And if raising taxes on billionaires is unjust there should be broad-based support for not taxing them
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I'm not sure that logic holds. Perhaps if "justice" is only point in time. There have been plenty of times in history when minority groups have been subjected to what we today would call an injustice. Simply having broad support would mean that they were just during the time in question and only considered unjust at a later time.
PaulHoule 5y ago
If they weren't able to train 70 million people to get outraged about that sort of thing then there wouldn't be a Republican party. The trouble though with taxing unrealized capital gains is in the implementation. For instance, somebody might own a huge amount of shares in a private company that is valued at a certain price. That might be almost all of the wealth. If they are taxed on the capital gain they are going to have to (1) find some price the government believes is the real price of the asset, (2) sell some of the asset to get the money to pay the tax. Since it is a private company, (2) might be very hard to do, particularly if you want to get the price (1).
- alecst 5y ago
  Yea makes sense, I thought about this a while ago when Liz Warren proposed a wealth tax in 2019. Good point.
- wmf 5y ago
  People are begging to buy shares in private companies right now BTW.
- Witeshadow 5y ago
  The tricky part is def the implementation. The question is how to tax billionaires and discourage hoarding of such wealth, and instead encourage spending and investment.
- relaunched 5y ago
  There is a provision for private company equity (illiquid) that you pay an extra fee, on top of capital gains, upon disposition.
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Because it won't stop at 1000 people. It won't raise enough money. So it will expand to cover more people, not all of whom are billionaires, and some of whom may be you.
- alecst 5y ago
  I don't buy the slippery slope argument here, but I'll take it at face value. Good. Taxes have been declining for decades -- in the 1950s the highest marginal tax rate was like 95%. Now, even with a progressive tax system, in practice when all the dimes are counted it comes out to basically a flat tax[1][2] except for the billionaires who pay less than the rest of us -- now even lower than working class workers[2]. If increasing taxation reduces wealth inequality, so be it, even if it affects me. We all pay a price to reap the benefits of our society. [1] from the book Triumph of Injustice. If I recall correctly, all taxes added up comes out to about a 30% flat tax for everyone except billionaires. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45894166-the-triumph-of-injustice https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45894166-the-triumph-of-... [2] https://sven-giegold.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/europe-calling_zucman_slides.pdf https://sven-giegold.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/europe-ca...
  - greenail 5y ago
    The top 50% of earners already pay 97% of all the income taxes. The US has one of the most progressive tax systems in the world. How much more progressive of a system do you want? Unrealized capital gains are imaginary. It is just like reporting your sales pipeline as revenue.
    - alecst 5y ago
      The US is progressive when it comes to income tax, but if you consider all contributions to tax revenue the US is basically a flat tax system. At least that's what the book Triumph of Injustice led me to believe. Like Warren Buffett literally said: “The wealthy are definitely undertaxed relative to the general population." And if someone has a billion dollars or more in unrealized wealth, forcing them to realize some of that wealth in order to pay taxes on it does not bother me much.

ARandomerDude 5y ago

We shouldn't have laws that target N number of people. The law should be fair and unbiased. Suppose for example that N=1. Would it be ok to target one person with tax increases? What about 10, 100, or 1000 people? I'm not part of the 1% and never will be. But we should make just laws. Some people will think "yeah, but the rich people don't pay taxes" which is exactly my problem with it. Again, we've created a situation in which the law only applies to some. The solution isn't to reverse the situation, but to balance the law.

alecst 5y ago
This doesn't target N people. It targets wealth above a certain limit, and notably wealth that is typically in an asset class that makes it easy to avoid taxes. This is exactly what you describe -- a way of balancing the law so that the rich pay taxes. Maybe you don't agree with the implementation but you've expressed exactly the sentiment behind the law so...
tacostakohashi 5y ago
https://www.congress.gov/private-laws/111th-congress https://www.congress.gov/private-laws/111th-congress N=1 is not a hypothetical example.
adamhp 5y ago
> "Again, we've created a situation in which the law only applies to some." That is partly the problem. The law definitely needs to be changed to address the fact that the people who have generated massive amounts of wealth have done so by avoiding taxes, and then lobbying for favorable outcomes for themselves that are in direct contradiction to the welfare of society—e.g. increasing the price of insulin making it difficult for people to afford it, when the cost has not increased and it is purely for profit. The law only ever "applies to some". That is the point. Driver's license laws only "apply to" people over a certain age. Accredited investor regulations only apply to people of certain means. Citizenship laws apply under a specific set of conditions. The list goes on. That is literally the point of "law". Conditioned restriction on behavior to sustain order and welfare amongst mass amounts of human beings.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

giantg2 5y ago

There is a discussion here (assuming there's not another tax change proposed): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29013201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29013201 I think the implementation of the plan is stupid and inefficient. It won't affect me (nor most people) directly.

relaunched 5y ago

Realistically, the answer is probably to tax debt secured by unrealized capital gains.rffcdcxru dxxcxdcffdd