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> My problem with anti-trust is my problem with taxing the rich. How do you define rich? How can you logically explain why, say, $999,999 per year is not rich b

> My problem with anti-trust is my problem with taxing the rich. How do you define rich? How can you logically explain why, say, $999,999 per year is not rich but $1,000,000 per year is? Wouldn’t a homeless person say everyone with a roof is rich? It’s simply illogical. We all put our heads together and say "how much money should you be able to make before you start needing to give a lot of it back?" (or alternately, "how much market share should you be able to get before you're broken up?") and then that's the number. Some people will want that number to be higher, some people will want it to be lower, but ultimately we (mostly) agree that it's better for all of us if we follow these rules around that number.

monero-xmr 4y ago
I think you are advocating for a flat tax, meaning everyone pays the same percent. This is fair and logical to me. What I don’t understand is progressive taxes, which make you pay more once you hit some arbitrary threshold. Very illogical.
- Chinjut 4y ago
  From your original post, you seem to feel progressive taxes requires some sort of absurdly different treatment for people who make $999,999/yr vs $1,000,000/yr, or at whatever threshold, but that is not at all how they function. Even with discrete jumps in marginal tax rates (as in the current system of progressive income tax in the U.S.), post-tax income is a continuous monotonic function of pre-tax income. Making a little more pre-tax income always results in making a little more post-tax income.
  - monero-xmr 4y ago
    My problem is that no one can logically explain why they chose what thresholds. It doesn’t mean anything, they just decided some number. I can play games and avoid that number. It’s absurd
    - Chinjut 4y ago
      Why are you playing games to avoid that number? There's no big difference in being slightly above vs slightly below that number. Indeed, it's slightly better to be slightly above.
    - Buttons840 4y ago
      There is a common fallacy that going up a tax bracket can result in taking home less money. For example, sometimes you'll hear apocryphal stories about someone turning down a small raise because they did the math and realized it would move them into the next tax bracket and result in them taking home less money. That's not how progressive taxes work, and such stories are incorrect. I just wanted to double check that you understand this, right?
      - monero-xmr 4y ago
        You are speaking as a non-wealthy person. If I have significant sums of equities, I can sell half on Dec 31 and half on Jan 1 to avoid a new bracket. I try to avoid speaking much about my situation, but my tax advisors and I use every trick in the book to play all the games available, of which this is but one. My issue is not that I have dedicated a lot of time and money to avoid taxes, but really that the tax rules are so arbitrary and stupid to begin with.
        Chinjut 4y ago
        Your advocacy for a wealth tax on unrealized capital gains is compelling. Let us adopt that.
        monero-xmr 4y ago
        A wealth tax! Even France tried and abandoned that! Do you have any idea the side effects that would cause? Suddenly I would be a pauper, how simple this would be.
        deleted 4y ago
- jakelazaroff 4y ago
  I’m not really advocating for anything. I’m saying that some people say “these people making a lot of money are benefitting more from society, they should pay more” and other people say “actually they deserve to keep what they get” and we all argue and vote and come up with a system that everyone can mostly live with. Sure, it’s arbitrary, but so is the flat tax percentage you’re talking about. Tons of laws are arbitrary. Speed limits aren’t some emergent property of the universe, or etched onto stone tablets by Adonai himself, but that doesn’t mean we should let people do 90 in a school zone.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- thedougd 4y ago
  Do you understand that crossing into a higher tax bracket does not mean you pay higher taxes on the whole income? You pay the higher tax rate only on the money earned in the higher bracket. I frequently encounter people who do not correctly understand marginal tax brackets.

monero-xmr 4y ago

I think you are advocating for a flat tax, meaning everyone pays the same percent. This is fair and logical to me. What I don’t understand is progressive taxes, which make you pay more once you hit some arbitrary threshold. Very illogical.

Chinjut 4y ago
From your original post, you seem to feel progressive taxes requires some sort of absurdly different treatment for people who make $999,999/yr vs $1,000,000/yr, or at whatever threshold, but that is not at all how they function. Even with discrete jumps in marginal tax rates (as in the current system of progressive income tax in the U.S.), post-tax income is a continuous monotonic function of pre-tax income. Making a little more pre-tax income always results in making a little more post-tax income.
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  My problem is that no one can logically explain why they chose what thresholds. It doesn’t mean anything, they just decided some number. I can play games and avoid that number. It’s absurd
  - Chinjut 4y ago
    Why are you playing games to avoid that number? There's no big difference in being slightly above vs slightly below that number. Indeed, it's slightly better to be slightly above.
  - Buttons840 4y ago
    There is a common fallacy that going up a tax bracket can result in taking home less money. For example, sometimes you'll hear apocryphal stories about someone turning down a small raise because they did the math and realized it would move them into the next tax bracket and result in them taking home less money. That's not how progressive taxes work, and such stories are incorrect. I just wanted to double check that you understand this, right?
    - monero-xmr 4y ago
      You are speaking as a non-wealthy person. If I have significant sums of equities, I can sell half on Dec 31 and half on Jan 1 to avoid a new bracket. I try to avoid speaking much about my situation, but my tax advisors and I use every trick in the book to play all the games available, of which this is but one. My issue is not that I have dedicated a lot of time and money to avoid taxes, but really that the tax rules are so arbitrary and stupid to begin with.
      - Chinjut 4y ago
        Your advocacy for a wealth tax on unrealized capital gains is compelling. Let us adopt that.
        monero-xmr 4y ago
        A wealth tax! Even France tried and abandoned that! Do you have any idea the side effects that would cause? Suddenly I would be a pauper, how simple this would be.
        deleted 4y ago
jakelazaroff 4y ago
I’m not really advocating for anything. I’m saying that some people say “these people making a lot of money are benefitting more from society, they should pay more” and other people say “actually they deserve to keep what they get” and we all argue and vote and come up with a system that everyone can mostly live with. Sure, it’s arbitrary, but so is the flat tax percentage you’re talking about. Tons of laws are arbitrary. Speed limits aren’t some emergent property of the universe, or etched onto stone tablets by Adonai himself, but that doesn’t mean we should let people do 90 in a school zone.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thedougd 4y ago
Do you understand that crossing into a higher tax bracket does not mean you pay higher taxes on the whole income? You pay the higher tax rate only on the money earned in the higher bracket. I frequently encounter people who do not correctly understand marginal tax brackets.