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In the US, there is a very thorough system for measuring the movement of money, and the tracking of potential income sources. Why not use the system we have, wh

In the US, there is a very thorough system for measuring the movement of money, and the tracking of potential income sources. Why not use the system we have, when much of modern wealth inequality can be explained by income tax brackets, instead of creating an extremely intrusive new boondoggle to measure everything everyone owns? (How does the government really know you are eligible for the wealth tax if you are not under some additional surveillance?) It's a rhetorical question: a wealth tax signals that you are doing something big, as opposed to caring about solving the problem. Someone like Bernie Sanders probably doesn't know any better, but Elizabeth Warren certainly does, and supports it anyway. The wealthiest pay 20% on capital gains, while the middle class pays an effective 30%+ federally when including social security, and that's just federal. Stretch out capital gains tax brackets and normal income tax brackets, such that nobody in the previous tax year would have made more than 10x the highest tax bracket. For example, you might have a 65% tax on capital gains above $1billion (which is a 5% discount on normal income of the same amount). Not as sexy, but now you have truly progressive taxes and the problem is more or less under control. This is likely applicable to many other countries. To close some more loopholes, count collateralization of assets as a mark-to-market sale (prevent people from lending against assets without paying taxes) and stop the easy money injections into the economy that aim to prevent a short term stock market recession at all costs. Note that the only times in the last few decades that wealth inequality decreased were during recessions [0]. [0] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/chart/#range:1989.3,2021.3;quarter:128;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:1;units:levels https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...

wolverine876 5y ago
> much of modern wealth inequality can be explained by income tax brackets Is that true? Much of wealth is inherited, for example. And once people like Bezos have hundreds of billions, income isn't going to address the issue. Finally, who should pay more tax, a billionaire who makes zero this year, or someone who has nothing and makes their first $50K? > a wealth tax signals that you are doing something big, as opposed to caring about solving the problem Do you have some evidence supporting that accusation? It's easy to make accusations.
- lend000 5y ago
  > Is that true? Much of wealth is inherited, for example. And once people like Bezos have hundreds of billions, income isn't going to address the issue. Finally, who should pay more tax, a billionaire who makes zero this year, or someone who has nothing and makes their first $50K? I forgot to add in the inheritance tax. Should be normal income subject to the same brackets. I don't really feel bad for the edge case heir who has to sell or donate their family estate because it's worth hundreds of millions of dollars and they can't afford the tax bill on its value. And re: billions, Bezos has billions in unrealized gains, so actually it does. As far as anyone knows, no private individual actually has a stack of cash worth $100 billion sitting in a vault. These are gains waiting to be taxed, ideally by the system I proposed, but it will never happen because it would actually solve the problem. > Do you have some evidence supporting that accusation? It's easy to make accusations. Only the power of reasoning!
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    >> Do you have some evidence supporting that accusation? It's easy to make accusations. > Only the power of reasoning! Reasoning depends on facts. Where are they?
    - lend000 5y ago
      I think this is kind of the least important part of the original diatribe to be focusing on. But if this is the most important takeaway for you and you really want to preserve your adulation of certain pro-wealth-tax politicians, I'll say that it's impossible to truly measure how incompetent or well intentioned politicians are, so we can only reason that based on there being a simpler solution that hasn't been tried and is less glamorous, either the politicians have not thought of this simple solution or are aiming for something more beneficial for their political careers. Or maybe there is some brilliant reasoning as to why it wouldn't work which is just so obvious to them that they never thought it worth mentioning?
      - wolverine876 5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

> much of modern wealth inequality can be explained by income tax brackets Is that true? Much of wealth is inherited, for example. And once people like Bezos have hundreds of billions, income isn't going to address the issue. Finally, who should pay more tax, a billionaire who makes zero this year, or someone who has nothing and makes their first $50K? > a wealth tax signals that you are doing something big, as opposed to caring about solving the problem Do you have some evidence supporting that accusation? It's easy to make accusations.

lend000 5y ago
> Is that true? Much of wealth is inherited, for example. And once people like Bezos have hundreds of billions, income isn't going to address the issue. Finally, who should pay more tax, a billionaire who makes zero this year, or someone who has nothing and makes their first $50K? I forgot to add in the inheritance tax. Should be normal income subject to the same brackets. I don't really feel bad for the edge case heir who has to sell or donate their family estate because it's worth hundreds of millions of dollars and they can't afford the tax bill on its value. And re: billions, Bezos has billions in unrealized gains, so actually it does. As far as anyone knows, no private individual actually has a stack of cash worth $100 billion sitting in a vault. These are gains waiting to be taxed, ideally by the system I proposed, but it will never happen because it would actually solve the problem. > Do you have some evidence supporting that accusation? It's easy to make accusations. Only the power of reasoning!
- wolverine876 5y ago
  >> Do you have some evidence supporting that accusation? It's easy to make accusations. > Only the power of reasoning! Reasoning depends on facts. Where are they?
  - lend000 5y ago
    I think this is kind of the least important part of the original diatribe to be focusing on. But if this is the most important takeaway for you and you really want to preserve your adulation of certain pro-wealth-tax politicians, I'll say that it's impossible to truly measure how incompetent or well intentioned politicians are, so we can only reason that based on there being a simpler solution that hasn't been tried and is less glamorous, either the politicians have not thought of this simple solution or are aiming for something more beneficial for their political careers. Or maybe there is some brilliant reasoning as to why it wouldn't work which is just so obvious to them that they never thought it worth mentioning?
    - wolverine876 5y ago