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You see, the reason you pay so much money on your tax income, is _because_ we are not or only barely taxing wealth income. Cfr. Piketty, governments balance she
by 317070 3y ago
You see, the reason you pay so much money on your tax income, is _because_ we are not or only barely taxing wealth income. Cfr. Piketty, governments balance sheets would stay the same (on a global scale) if you would drop the income tax on labour by 10-20% and simultaneously tax income from wealth as income from labour. (Ignoring secondary effects on that balance sheet)
One tenth of the taxes you pay on your labour, is covering for someone not paying the tax on their wealth income. While it is not world-changing, that's not an insubstantial either. Unless you are currently making more by wealth income than labour income, you would see your total taxes decrease in this operation.
And all of what I write above is ignoring the idea that it might be more moral to tax wealth income higher than labour income! The above is purely asking for both to be taxed equally.
- readthenotes1 3y agoIs that like saying we can raise the tax on cigarettes as much as we want and no one will smuggle them? Rich will just hire really smart people to figure out how to dodge the taxes, as they have always done
- 317070 3y agoIt is indeed saying that, you can't model secondary effects and they are ignored in this analysis. If you believe trying to have the rich pay more of the government budget is only going to lead to them paying less, no other assumptions needed, there is no discussion. I think assuming this contradiction is way too fatalistic.
- jerry80 3y ago>You see, the reason you pay so much money on your tax income... Or is it because government spending has gotten so wasteful? It's interesting to think about how much government used to accomplish with less, or even no, income tax in the past.
- 317070 3y agoFrankly, I don't see how discussing the expense side is useful in a discussion on how we distribute the income side of the government over the population.