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> Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Wouldn’t a tax system

> Adding this to my reading list. I've thought for years that we should place at hard cap on wealth somewhere around $10 or $15 million. Wouldn’t a tax system that steeply ramps up, includes property and tends to it’s loopholes (family trusts, property etc) achieve most of this?

yellowapple 3y ago
A land value tax alone would address the vast majority of this, considering that virtually all wealth derives from land access/ownership.
- AgentOrange1234 3y ago
  Is that still true? I’m probably in a software bubble, but like: none of FAANG have any real land holdings, for instance?
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    Their servers exist somewhere, and while it's called The Cloud™, that ain't literal ;) Datacenters, offices, warehouses, factories... these all sit on top of land. Even a fully-remote company running off Raspberry Pis in someone's closet still requires some quantity of land on which the employees' homes and that closet full of Raspberry Pis sit. Even if the companies themselves don't own that land directly, somebody does.
  - CrazyStat 3y ago
    I think it’s not a coincidence that land value tax is popular on Hacker News. Replacing all the taxes that tech companies currently pay with a land value tax that hardly affects them would be an incredible boon.
    - yellowapple 3y ago
      It's an incredible boon to the vast majority of society. The only ones who suffer under LVT are land speculators and landlords.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  Almost anyone that's making substantial money off of land is already paying property tax on it, as well as any income tax that applies. Now, the income and the property taxes they're paying are in many cases woefully inadequate, but I'm pretty sure the solution to that is to improve the tax system and patch the loopholes, not to add a separate additional tax for everyone to keep track of.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    This wouldn't be a separate additional tax; the vast majority of LVT proponents (myself included) propose it to replace property/sales/income taxes (all of which are just economically-inefficient taxes on land anyway: http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/ATCOR.html http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/ATCOR.html). As for loopholes, LVT is the most effective way to patch them; you can't exactly move land to offshore bank accounts, after all.
poncho_romero 3y ago
Yes I think so. I’m not the original commenter, but I’ve also landed on the idea of limiting wealth to the ballpark of $10-15 million, primarily using progressive taxation. The point is to prevent any one person or small group of people from accruing too much power within our democratic society or reaching levels where they stop using their wealth to contribute to the economy (by e.g. offshoring money).
- gottorf 3y ago
  > primarily using progressive taxation It's all well and good to take away from the rich, but where does that tax money, once taken away, end up? You're saying it should be redistributed to those making less money, but what's stopping politicians from enriching themselves with that money? > reaching levels where they stop using their wealth to contribute to the economy (by e.g. offshoring money) Money in Cayman Islands numbered accounts generally only happens with illegally gained money (maybe by the likes of politicians I've described above), or by people in jurisdictions with harsh capital controls (like the sort you're describing). People like Bezos or Gates aren't stashing their money away like that. Most of the ultra-rich of America derive their net worth figures from ownership of publicly-traded companies.

yellowapple 3y ago

A land value tax alone would address the vast majority of this, considering that virtually all wealth derives from land access/ownership.

AgentOrange1234 3y ago
Is that still true? I’m probably in a software bubble, but like: none of FAANG have any real land holdings, for instance?
- yellowapple 3y ago
  Their servers exist somewhere, and while it's called The Cloud™, that ain't literal ;) Datacenters, offices, warehouses, factories... these all sit on top of land. Even a fully-remote company running off Raspberry Pis in someone's closet still requires some quantity of land on which the employees' homes and that closet full of Raspberry Pis sit. Even if the companies themselves don't own that land directly, somebody does.
- CrazyStat 3y ago
  I think it’s not a coincidence that land value tax is popular on Hacker News. Replacing all the taxes that tech companies currently pay with a land value tax that hardly affects them would be an incredible boon.
  - yellowapple 3y ago
    It's an incredible boon to the vast majority of society. The only ones who suffer under LVT are land speculators and landlords.
BobaFloutist 3y ago
Almost anyone that's making substantial money off of land is already paying property tax on it, as well as any income tax that applies. Now, the income and the property taxes they're paying are in many cases woefully inadequate, but I'm pretty sure the solution to that is to improve the tax system and patch the loopholes, not to add a separate additional tax for everyone to keep track of.
- yellowapple 3y ago
  This wouldn't be a separate additional tax; the vast majority of LVT proponents (myself included) propose it to replace property/sales/income taxes (all of which are just economically-inefficient taxes on land anyway: http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/ATCOR.html http://www.wealthandwant.com/themes/ATCOR.html). As for loopholes, LVT is the most effective way to patch them; you can't exactly move land to offshore bank accounts, after all.

poncho_romero 3y ago

Yes I think so. I’m not the original commenter, but I’ve also landed on the idea of limiting wealth to the ballpark of $10-15 million, primarily using progressive taxation. The point is to prevent any one person or small group of people from accruing too much power within our democratic society or reaching levels where they stop using their wealth to contribute to the economy (by e.g. offshoring money).

gottorf 3y ago
> primarily using progressive taxation It's all well and good to take away from the rich, but where does that tax money, once taken away, end up? You're saying it should be redistributed to those making less money, but what's stopping politicians from enriching themselves with that money? > reaching levels where they stop using their wealth to contribute to the economy (by e.g. offshoring money) Money in Cayman Islands numbered accounts generally only happens with illegally gained money (maybe by the likes of politicians I've described above), or by people in jurisdictions with harsh capital controls (like the sort you're describing). People like Bezos or Gates aren't stashing their money away like that. Most of the ultra-rich of America derive their net worth figures from ownership of publicly-traded companies.