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The theory is that broadening the tax base will create a large constituency with a vested interest in responsible government spending. Or perhaps, more cynical

• rnk 4y ago
  The really rich often have too much political influence on elections, they push to get their taxes reduced effectively. This happens in the us where the terrible supreme court ruling said money was speech, basically making it so rich people could give all they want towards political causes. This is very destructive. The rich then get tax cuts for themselves that aren't applicable to regular people (like most all of us). Example of something we should address - bezos and musk get loans on their vast stock holdings. The loans aren't taxable. If their holdings slowly get higher in value, they never have to sell their stock to get that value (or they have so much they never get a margin call). They can pass on those stocks to their heirs which can reset the price. I wish we all had a billion in stock and we could get a few tens of millions in loans to live off of, never triggering a capital gains tax. Another example is wealth taxes, which would be something along the line of Steve Ballmer has to pay 1/2 % of his wealth over 100 million or something every year. But what if he doesn't have ready available cash for that, people say, it's hard to value things. Somehow we could do it. And we never think about it, but everyone who owns a house has to pay a wealth tax every year! We normal people pay wealth taxes, the really rich should probably have to do it too. All the same arguments about changing values and not have ready money from an expensive asset applies to every home own in america who pays property tax.