4 ms·

It’s hard problem that can only be solved through attempts and iteration. The fact that a wealth tax is difficult is not a good enough reason to not try, becaus

It’s hard problem that can only be solved through attempts and iteration. The fact that a wealth tax is difficult is not a good enough reason to not try, because the problem of wealth inequality is so severe now.

dumpsterlid 4y ago
Bingo
aqme28 4y ago
There are also some things that do work decently well that we don't do anymore for political reasons, such as estate taxes.
- r00fus 4y ago
  political reasons being: wealthy have gamed the politics and made those options "political".
- bawolff 4y ago
  Yeah, but that isn't a wealth tax, its a tax on the heir's income. There is lots of ways to improve taxes on income and capital gains, but that is really different from a general wealth tax.
mindslight 4y ago
The problem with this hollowing out of the regulations government used to have, is that people react by jumping for extreme, impractical things like "wealth tax". Nobody is going to go for the idea that the government comes around and explicitly collects a significant percentage of everything you own every year. (And they already do much of what they can get away with through inflation and real estate taxes). Rather, to continue the spirit of the top level comment, what is also now missing is the estate tax, which is/was around 40% (it's graduated too, but it tops out quickly). IIUC, the federal threshold used to be around $1M a few decades ago, and is now $10M - this was the anti "death tax" political issue you might vaguely recall. Furthermore, due to wider use of trusts, it's been basically eliminated unless your family is extremely unlucky. Fundamentally, I'd rather just tamp down the amount of money given away to the rich - stop the government giving trillions of dollars to the financial industry to prop up the fictitious asset bubble pyramid scheme, and either let natural technological deflation happen or at least spend the money deliberately ala MMT. But either way, something is required - the system we have right now has the government continually giving away gobs of money to asset holders, while doing very little to collect it back. This is exactly why these personal wealth bubbles continue to grow.
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  > Nobody is going to go for the idea that the government comes around and explicitly collects a significant percentage of everything you own every year. I think you'd be surprised. When the majority of people own nothing, it won't take much for the ruling class to convince them that taking everybody else's wealth for the greater good is the right and moral thing to do.

dumpsterlid 4y ago

Bingo

aqme28 4y ago

There are also some things that do work decently well that we don't do anymore for political reasons, such as estate taxes.

r00fus 4y ago
political reasons being: wealthy have gamed the politics and made those options "political".
bawolff 4y ago
Yeah, but that isn't a wealth tax, its a tax on the heir's income. There is lots of ways to improve taxes on income and capital gains, but that is really different from a general wealth tax.

mindslight 4y ago

The problem with this hollowing out of the regulations government used to have, is that people react by jumping for extreme, impractical things like "wealth tax". Nobody is going to go for the idea that the government comes around and explicitly collects a significant percentage of everything you own every year. (And they already do much of what they can get away with through inflation and real estate taxes). Rather, to continue the spirit of the top level comment, what is also now missing is the estate tax, which is/was around 40% (it's graduated too, but it tops out quickly). IIUC, the federal threshold used to be around $1M a few decades ago, and is now $10M - this was the anti "death tax" political issue you might vaguely recall. Furthermore, due to wider use of trusts, it's been basically eliminated unless your family is extremely unlucky. Fundamentally, I'd rather just tamp down the amount of money given away to the rich - stop the government giving trillions of dollars to the financial industry to prop up the fictitious asset bubble pyramid scheme, and either let natural technological deflation happen or at least spend the money deliberately ala MMT. But either way, something is required - the system we have right now has the government continually giving away gobs of money to asset holders, while doing very little to collect it back. This is exactly why these personal wealth bubbles continue to grow.

throwawaylinux 4y ago
> Nobody is going to go for the idea that the government comes around and explicitly collects a significant percentage of everything you own every year. I think you'd be surprised. When the majority of people own nothing, it won't take much for the ruling class to convince them that taking everybody else's wealth for the greater good is the right and moral thing to do.