4 ms·

I don't follow your reasoning, either. Do you really think that a new tax on several hundred billionaires will discourage the hundreds of thousands of entrepren

I don't follow your reasoning, either. Do you really think that a new tax on several hundred billionaires will discourage the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs that are out there, that a significant amount of them will not bother since they can only make a few hundred million before they have an extra 15% of their money collected in taxes? Most entrepreneurs would be overjoyed to be a billionaire and have to pay that extra 15%. Seems like they'd be the lucky ones. Seems like a billionaire or an aspiring billionaire complaining about such a thing would be pretty weird. The parent you replied to mentioned wealth being locked up to avoid capital gains taxes. There are other pros and cons, I'm sure. Do you think this new tax on billionaires means that less people will be trying to become multi-millionaires? Note that I'm not happy with the current tax system, and this seems like another kludge. I also don't know that we need to coddle or incentivize wealth maintenance, it's not an end in and of itself.

WalterBright 5y ago
Extracting the money from them will mean less investment. It's simple mathematics. You take away a billion from an investor, then a billion is not invested. Even worse, you're taking the money away from the most effective investors.
- xbar 5y ago
  Exactly this. And even worse, you are disincentivizing the most effective leaders from driving their companies to huge success. It eliminates the risk to established entities to be disrupted.
- mikem170 5y ago
  Maybe that's the part I'm confused about. Aren't they talking about taxing unrealized capital gains, i.e. money that is being left locked up in a single stock, in order to avoid being taxed when it is moved? Wouldn't one of the effects of this tax be to incentive these effective/successful billionaires into moving their money into new investments, instead of being left parked in their already successful investment? And most entrepreneurs are not, nor will never be, billionaires who are subject to this extra tax. That being the case I wouldn't think that this will put a dent in overall entrepreneurship. It might have the opposite effect, where there are numerically more entrepreneurs making capital allocation decisions, which might be better for society than having fewer people (billionaires) controlling an ever increasing amount of capital. I grant that tax changes like this have numerous conflicting effects, sometimes unpredictable. Perhaps their will be another art bubble... I don't think that it's a good thing that we structure our society for the convenience of those who can amass money. I'm definitely not fond of kludgy taxes like this one, but I also don't understand why so many jump to the defense of so few billionaires.

WalterBright 5y ago

Extracting the money from them will mean less investment. It's simple mathematics. You take away a billion from an investor, then a billion is not invested. Even worse, you're taking the money away from the most effective investors.

xbar 5y ago
Exactly this. And even worse, you are disincentivizing the most effective leaders from driving their companies to huge success. It eliminates the risk to established entities to be disrupted.
mikem170 5y ago
Maybe that's the part I'm confused about. Aren't they talking about taxing unrealized capital gains, i.e. money that is being left locked up in a single stock, in order to avoid being taxed when it is moved? Wouldn't one of the effects of this tax be to incentive these effective/successful billionaires into moving their money into new investments, instead of being left parked in their already successful investment? And most entrepreneurs are not, nor will never be, billionaires who are subject to this extra tax. That being the case I wouldn't think that this will put a dent in overall entrepreneurship. It might have the opposite effect, where there are numerically more entrepreneurs making capital allocation decisions, which might be better for society than having fewer people (billionaires) controlling an ever increasing amount of capital. I grant that tax changes like this have numerous conflicting effects, sometimes unpredictable. Perhaps their will be another art bubble... I don't think that it's a good thing that we structure our society for the convenience of those who can amass money. I'm definitely not fond of kludgy taxes like this one, but I also don't understand why so many jump to the defense of so few billionaires.