3 ms·

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 increasing

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?

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?