6 ms·

In Tax We Trust

28 points by matsemann 5y ago

commandlinefan 5y ago
All of these people could avoid being "untaxed" by just not hiring armies of accountants to find and exploit loopholes that allow them to reduce their tax burden.
glennvtx 5y ago
Giving the government more money to piss away on foreign wars and wars against their own citizens will accomplish nothing.
tengbretson 5y ago
Historically, taxes have overwhelmingly been a tool for those in power to extract wealth from those with less power. I would approach any plan that claims it can decrease inequality via taxes with a highly critical eye.
- Hokusai 5y ago
  > I would approach any plan that claims it can decrease inequality via taxes with a highly critical eye. Progressive taxation is very effective at decreasing inequality. What is your alternative?
  - varispeed 5y ago
    Progressive tax is like a fence - it keeps people in perpetual poverty. The harder they try to escape, the increasingly more tax they have to pay and increasingly harder it is to save capital. People mistakenly think that higher tax brackets are paid by the rich - they can afford creative accountants and are being remunerated largely outside of ways regular folk are being paid and thus often avoiding tax altogether. Progressive tax is designed so that people can't amass capital to start their own business with their own hands. They have to be at the mercy of bankers or the rich acting as gatekeepers, so that if you have a business idea you have to effectively ask for their permission and maybe they'll lend you money. If you don't have these ambitions, it ensures that your children will have the same or worse start than yourself. I am against a tax system that punishes hard working individuals and gives a free pass for those already wealthy and big corporations. Engineers likely pay 50% tax rate in Western countries and for wealthy people it's way below 10%.
    - alecst 5y ago
      You're saying progressive taxation keeps people in poverty. The definition of progressive taxation is taxing the poor less and the rich more. Do you therefore see taxing the poor more as a means of elevating them out of poverty? That's the first thing. The second thing is: > I am against a tax system that punishes hard working individuals and gives a free pass for those already wealthy and big corporations. This is exactly the problem a progressive tax system is supposed to solve.
      - nmhancoc 5y ago
        Progressive _income_ taxes tax higher income people more and higher income people less. This has a <1 correlation with wealth (richness) and poverty. You can control a lot of assets with relatively low income via debt (the interest of which doesn’t isn’t taxed, frequently), and can have relatively few assets with high income (a sports player, for example, in part because their careers have intrinsically low shelf lives due to physical requirements). Related to that last point, progressive income taxes also charge people differential tax burdens based on the “density” of their earnings, even if they have the same lifetime earnings. (Compare a football player who makes all his money from 20-25 to a surgeon who makes the same amount of money from 30-65. Because the football player makes more money per year, he’ll pay higher taxes than the surgeon even if they make the same overall income. This is despite the fact there is 0 ability of the football player to maintain his income at 65.) The above poster would probably view capital gains tax increases as also doing the same thing. Additionally, these policies are often paired with other social spending (like Cal’s phase-out of asset tests for Medicaid, that privilege the older, asset owning strata at the cost of younger, income rich but asset poor strata). LVT, wealth taxes, or even sales taxes do not have these features and, perhaps coincidentally perhaps not, have been beyond the pale politically for a century.
    - Hokusai 5y ago
      And what is your alternative?
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Before politicians get silly ideas like progressive taxation we must tell them about extremely ineffective tax systems that burden the poor even more and occupy politicians with bad ideas. It sort of reminds me of what "Die Linke"("the left") party in Germany did in Berlin. A long long time ago they sold publicly owned apartments for pennies. A year ago they introduced rent control, which is primarily hurting small private landlords and makes the big landlords just wait it out instead of renting at an absurd price point. So small landlords sell to big landlords because renting out apartments was banned, landlords sell their apartments because that is the only thing allowed by law. Once enough small landlords exited the market, rent control was pulled out raising the value of properties back to its original level. Finally, the government bought huge amounts of apartments from the big real estate companies. Effectively paying them to decimate the small landlords. I don't know if this was planned but if I was an investor in those companies it would be awfully convenient. How can anyone call this chain of events successful? The fact that "Die Linke" party is against a land value tax which could have avoided all of these bad policy ideas does not inspire confidence. Either they are incompetent, were manipulated or they are hypocrites. I can imagine all three to be the case but I would personally bet on manipulation by special interests because applying reverse psychology to lobbyism does not sound very difficult.
BitwiseFool 5y ago
>"IN TAX WE TRUST is a campaign powered by The Patriotic Millionaires, Millionaires For Humanity, and TAX ME NOW." Everything about this screams inauthentic and produced by some think-tank or policy group. Not just the names of these "organizations", but the quality of the website and the tone of the messaging. I highly doubt a bunch of actual disparate millionaires got together and organically produced this. I would love to know who is actually responsible for this. I sense it is probably a small handful of people who make these kinds of groups for a living.
- cassianoleal 5y ago
  It's the same people as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30000404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30000404 . I agree with your scepticism.
- 74B5 5y ago
  It may appear inauthentic but is it really that unlikely that rich people can take on the global wealth mechanics from the position of the poor? I once saw an interview with a switzer "Tax Me Now" supporter who inherited her wealth without ever having to do anything for it. I guess it's that disconnect to the own wealth, the missing feeling of having deserved it, that enables this stance. Unfortunately, on the other side it means that "geniuses" like Bezos, Musk, etc. may even have a stronger conviction for their good will in human history and project it onto the world.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    While that person may genuinely feel guilty about her wealth, I have a feeling the majority of millionaires and heiresses aren't guilt-ridden about it. I suspect that person is probably a progressive first and a guilty one-percenter second. I just immediately distrust anyone who is that wealthy acting like their money is such a burden.
goatcode 5y ago
"How do you do, fellow millionaires!"
motohagiography 5y ago
These people grind my gears. I'm thinking the WEF is probably the worst forum for governance discussions as the skills for becoming a corporate executive or a professor are not ones that confer sovereign legitimacy. I'm all for founders building things and making money, even getting into politics to serve their respective countries, but leveraging it to tell billions of other people how to live? No thanks. These tax advocates are really just advocating for a single world regime without competition because they know the real threat to their power is that nobody likes them or wants to live under them, so we take our capital and leave. Their response is to instiute "global" rules so that there is no escape from their unctuous posturing and inevitable oppression. After covid, fighting a war against these assholes and every name on the Davos invitation list is likely the next item on civilization's agenda. They aren't trying to help, they're leveraging crisis' of their own inventions for control. There is no reason to be meek about what a threat WEF has historically and continues to be to peoples rights to self determination. I remember the anti-globalization movement of the 90s, and it was against these specific WEF people and their phony institutes. It took 9/11 to derail that movement, and thanks to lockdowns co-ordinated through this exact policy shop, those movements are gaining momentum in earnest again, just this time they aren't liberal. Nations were not the reason for the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, every single one of those wars was started by men who did not respect nations and borders and thought they could get away with it. That's what WEF is. There are a lot of internet personalities we accept aren't appropriate for mixed company on civil forums like this, and I'd posit that Schwab and his WEF and IMF cronies are as provovactive and polarizing figures as any problematic youtuber. Read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," and you can see the level of co-ordination they use for taking over entire countries. This isn't about trolls and mean tweets, these people are a network in the business of subjugating nations. If you're hearing about it, it's one of their meticulously constructed lies. Take nothing at face value from WEF. They're bad news.
- alecst 5y ago
  Do you ever wonder if it’s possible that some millionaires actually do want to be taxed more, for the greater good of society? Or are you only able to imagine the shadowy claw-handed cabal of millionaires deceptively arguing for higher taxes so that they can take over the world. I’m serious. How are you so cynical.
dismalpedigree 5y ago
Fair is a relative term.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Why don’t these alleged millionaires and billionaires just donate their money to the government? Nothing stops them from doing so today. Here’s info on how to donate to the government: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm
neilwilson 5y ago
It's really amusing to watch rich, well-heeled people who know how the money system works believe they can be given a pass just by handing over a few more electronic blips back to a system that can never run short of electronic blips. No nation needs the tax money of the rich, because the rich are not hiring the people the public sector wants to hire. It's the people that are doing the hiring, and competition for resources with the public sector that need to be taxed. The only operational purpose of taxation is to free up real resources so the public sector can hire them. Count your money billionaires. We don't need your electronic blips, and we certainly are not going to assuage your guilt for failing to invest in the future. We also know how the government's credit card works. https://new-wayland.com/blog/how-the-governments-super-platinum-credit-card-works/ https://new-wayland.com/blog/how-the-governments-super-plati...
joelbondurant1 5y ago
imtringued 5y ago
They will bail the moment they hear negative interest rates on cash or a land value tax. Negative interest rates on cash would eliminate cash hoarding and prevent the rich from withholding money from the economy which is currently forcing the central bank to loosen monetary policy to keep the money in circulation stable. A land value tax would absolutely destroy the housing market and stock market because lots of companies (think of franchises like McDonalds) are real estate companies in disguise that let someone else do the work while they own the land and lease it out to subcontractors. In both cases, the value that was "destroyed" wasn't really there, it was a collectively shared hallucination.
tomatotomato37 5y ago
Fun fact: the total wealth of all US billionaires, at 3.4 trillion, would be enough to fund over one and a half Afghanistan wars
bawana 5y ago
Our current financial system cannot be fixed. Governments need to switch to a new currency based on human effort not perceived value. Further the exchange rate between old currencies and the new should be set by two variables. The govt and a national vote annually
jl2718 5y ago
What is their exact tax proposal?

28 points by matsemann 5y ago

All of these people could avoid being "untaxed" by just not hiring armies of accountants to find and exploit loopholes that allow them to reduce their tax burden.

glennvtx 5y ago

Giving the government more money to piss away on foreign wars and wars against their own citizens will accomplish nothing.

tengbretson 5y ago

Historically, taxes have overwhelmingly been a tool for those in power to extract wealth from those with less power. I would approach any plan that claims it can decrease inequality via taxes with a highly critical eye.

Hokusai 5y ago
> I would approach any plan that claims it can decrease inequality via taxes with a highly critical eye. Progressive taxation is very effective at decreasing inequality. What is your alternative?
- varispeed 5y ago
  Progressive tax is like a fence - it keeps people in perpetual poverty. The harder they try to escape, the increasingly more tax they have to pay and increasingly harder it is to save capital. People mistakenly think that higher tax brackets are paid by the rich - they can afford creative accountants and are being remunerated largely outside of ways regular folk are being paid and thus often avoiding tax altogether. Progressive tax is designed so that people can't amass capital to start their own business with their own hands. They have to be at the mercy of bankers or the rich acting as gatekeepers, so that if you have a business idea you have to effectively ask for their permission and maybe they'll lend you money. If you don't have these ambitions, it ensures that your children will have the same or worse start than yourself. I am against a tax system that punishes hard working individuals and gives a free pass for those already wealthy and big corporations. Engineers likely pay 50% tax rate in Western countries and for wealthy people it's way below 10%.
  - alecst 5y ago
    You're saying progressive taxation keeps people in poverty. The definition of progressive taxation is taxing the poor less and the rich more. Do you therefore see taxing the poor more as a means of elevating them out of poverty? That's the first thing. The second thing is: > I am against a tax system that punishes hard working individuals and gives a free pass for those already wealthy and big corporations. This is exactly the problem a progressive tax system is supposed to solve.
    - nmhancoc 5y ago
      Progressive _income_ taxes tax higher income people more and higher income people less. This has a <1 correlation with wealth (richness) and poverty. You can control a lot of assets with relatively low income via debt (the interest of which doesn’t isn’t taxed, frequently), and can have relatively few assets with high income (a sports player, for example, in part because their careers have intrinsically low shelf lives due to physical requirements). Related to that last point, progressive income taxes also charge people differential tax burdens based on the “density” of their earnings, even if they have the same lifetime earnings. (Compare a football player who makes all his money from 20-25 to a surgeon who makes the same amount of money from 30-65. Because the football player makes more money per year, he’ll pay higher taxes than the surgeon even if they make the same overall income. This is despite the fact there is 0 ability of the football player to maintain his income at 65.) The above poster would probably view capital gains tax increases as also doing the same thing. Additionally, these policies are often paired with other social spending (like Cal’s phase-out of asset tests for Medicaid, that privilege the older, asset owning strata at the cost of younger, income rich but asset poor strata). LVT, wealth taxes, or even sales taxes do not have these features and, perhaps coincidentally perhaps not, have been beyond the pale politically for a century.
  - Hokusai 5y ago
    And what is your alternative?
- imtringued 5y ago
  Before politicians get silly ideas like progressive taxation we must tell them about extremely ineffective tax systems that burden the poor even more and occupy politicians with bad ideas. It sort of reminds me of what "Die Linke"("the left") party in Germany did in Berlin. A long long time ago they sold publicly owned apartments for pennies. A year ago they introduced rent control, which is primarily hurting small private landlords and makes the big landlords just wait it out instead of renting at an absurd price point. So small landlords sell to big landlords because renting out apartments was banned, landlords sell their apartments because that is the only thing allowed by law. Once enough small landlords exited the market, rent control was pulled out raising the value of properties back to its original level. Finally, the government bought huge amounts of apartments from the big real estate companies. Effectively paying them to decimate the small landlords. I don't know if this was planned but if I was an investor in those companies it would be awfully convenient. How can anyone call this chain of events successful? The fact that "Die Linke" party is against a land value tax which could have avoided all of these bad policy ideas does not inspire confidence. Either they are incompetent, were manipulated or they are hypocrites. I can imagine all three to be the case but I would personally bet on manipulation by special interests because applying reverse psychology to lobbyism does not sound very difficult.

BitwiseFool 5y ago

>"IN TAX WE TRUST is a campaign powered by The Patriotic Millionaires, Millionaires For Humanity, and TAX ME NOW." Everything about this screams inauthentic and produced by some think-tank or policy group. Not just the names of these "organizations", but the quality of the website and the tone of the messaging. I highly doubt a bunch of actual disparate millionaires got together and organically produced this. I would love to know who is actually responsible for this. I sense it is probably a small handful of people who make these kinds of groups for a living.

cassianoleal 5y ago
It's the same people as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30000404 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30000404 . I agree with your scepticism.
74B5 5y ago
It may appear inauthentic but is it really that unlikely that rich people can take on the global wealth mechanics from the position of the poor? I once saw an interview with a switzer "Tax Me Now" supporter who inherited her wealth without ever having to do anything for it. I guess it's that disconnect to the own wealth, the missing feeling of having deserved it, that enables this stance. Unfortunately, on the other side it means that "geniuses" like Bezos, Musk, etc. may even have a stronger conviction for their good will in human history and project it onto the world.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  While that person may genuinely feel guilty about her wealth, I have a feeling the majority of millionaires and heiresses aren't guilt-ridden about it. I suspect that person is probably a progressive first and a guilty one-percenter second. I just immediately distrust anyone who is that wealthy acting like their money is such a burden.

goatcode 5y ago

"How do you do, fellow millionaires!"

motohagiography 5y ago

These people grind my gears. I'm thinking the WEF is probably the worst forum for governance discussions as the skills for becoming a corporate executive or a professor are not ones that confer sovereign legitimacy. I'm all for founders building things and making money, even getting into politics to serve their respective countries, but leveraging it to tell billions of other people how to live? No thanks. These tax advocates are really just advocating for a single world regime without competition because they know the real threat to their power is that nobody likes them or wants to live under them, so we take our capital and leave. Their response is to instiute "global" rules so that there is no escape from their unctuous posturing and inevitable oppression. After covid, fighting a war against these assholes and every name on the Davos invitation list is likely the next item on civilization's agenda. They aren't trying to help, they're leveraging crisis' of their own inventions for control. There is no reason to be meek about what a threat WEF has historically and continues to be to peoples rights to self determination. I remember the anti-globalization movement of the 90s, and it was against these specific WEF people and their phony institutes. It took 9/11 to derail that movement, and thanks to lockdowns co-ordinated through this exact policy shop, those movements are gaining momentum in earnest again, just this time they aren't liberal. Nations were not the reason for the wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, every single one of those wars was started by men who did not respect nations and borders and thought they could get away with it. That's what WEF is. There are a lot of internet personalities we accept aren't appropriate for mixed company on civil forums like this, and I'd posit that Schwab and his WEF and IMF cronies are as provovactive and polarizing figures as any problematic youtuber. Read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," and you can see the level of co-ordination they use for taking over entire countries. This isn't about trolls and mean tweets, these people are a network in the business of subjugating nations. If you're hearing about it, it's one of their meticulously constructed lies. Take nothing at face value from WEF. They're bad news.

alecst 5y ago
Do you ever wonder if it’s possible that some millionaires actually do want to be taxed more, for the greater good of society? Or are you only able to imagine the shadowy claw-handed cabal of millionaires deceptively arguing for higher taxes so that they can take over the world. I’m serious. How are you so cynical.

dismalpedigree 5y ago

Fair is a relative term.

throwawaysea 5y ago

Why don’t these alleged millionaires and billionaires just donate their money to the government? Nothing stops them from doing so today. Here’s info on how to donate to the government: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm

neilwilson 5y ago

It's really amusing to watch rich, well-heeled people who know how the money system works believe they can be given a pass just by handing over a few more electronic blips back to a system that can never run short of electronic blips. No nation needs the tax money of the rich, because the rich are not hiring the people the public sector wants to hire. It's the people that are doing the hiring, and competition for resources with the public sector that need to be taxed. The only operational purpose of taxation is to free up real resources so the public sector can hire them. Count your money billionaires. We don't need your electronic blips, and we certainly are not going to assuage your guilt for failing to invest in the future. We also know how the government's credit card works. https://new-wayland.com/blog/how-the-governments-super-platinum-credit-card-works/ https://new-wayland.com/blog/how-the-governments-super-plati...

joelbondurant1 5y ago

imtringued 5y ago

They will bail the moment they hear negative interest rates on cash or a land value tax. Negative interest rates on cash would eliminate cash hoarding and prevent the rich from withholding money from the economy which is currently forcing the central bank to loosen monetary policy to keep the money in circulation stable. A land value tax would absolutely destroy the housing market and stock market because lots of companies (think of franchises like McDonalds) are real estate companies in disguise that let someone else do the work while they own the land and lease it out to subcontractors. In both cases, the value that was "destroyed" wasn't really there, it was a collectively shared hallucination.

tomatotomato37 5y ago

Fun fact: the total wealth of all US billionaires, at 3.4 trillion, would be enough to fund over one and a half Afghanistan wars

bawana 5y ago

Our current financial system cannot be fixed. Governments need to switch to a new currency based on human effort not perceived value. Further the exchange rate between old currencies and the new should be set by two variables. The govt and a national vote annually

jl2718 5y ago

What is their exact tax proposal?