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> Pay for it by taxing the wealthy btw. What a fresh and novel idea. Top 1% of earners in UK account for more than a third of income tax btw.
by MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
> Pay for it by taxing the wealthy btw.
What a fresh and novel idea. Top 1% of earners in UK account for more than a third of income tax btw.
- triceratops 3y agoWealthy = net worth Top 1% of earners = income Additionally, what proportion of total income does the top 1% account for? For instance, if they make 1/3rd of all income then paying 1/3rd of all tax is an amazing deal for them. if they only make 1/20th of all income, maybe less so.
- mywittyname 3y agoThis is correlated though. If someone has $100MM in investments, then it's probably producing eight figures a year in interest and dividends, which are "income". Nevermind, a person at this wealth level likely has a high-income job. I personally treat all capital appreciation as income for the purposes of net worth tracking.
- triceratops 3y agoSo what's the problem with taxing a deci-millionaire?
- lazide 3y agoWhy do you think they aren’t currently taxed?
- triceratops 3y agoWhy do you think they're taxed enough?
- lotsofpulp 3y agoPassive income (rent from assets) is taxed less than active income. That makes no sense. Society benefits by rewarding people who work. And society benefits by dissuading people from not working and collecting rent.
- lazide 3y agoCite? Not true anywhere I know. They can write off expenses in some cases, and capital gains are rightfully treated differently, but those are not the same situation.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoWhy are capital gains not passive income? In the US, we even have a lower tax rate (the capital gains tax rate) for dividends if you have held the asset for more than a year. Even step up basis when assets get inherited is a bad incentive, not to mention the $13M federal gift tax exemption. If you want people to swing hammers and perform surgeries, then don’t tax swinging hammers or performing surgeries (or tax it less). And if you don’t want people living off their or their ancestor’s hoarded wealth, tax it so they either do something with it or dump it so someone else can. This segways into significantly higher land value taxes. In the US, we even reward people who just sit on unproductive real estate by deferring all taxes via 1031 exchanges (you sell one property and buy another, and there’s no tax). And on top of that, you pay excessively low land value taxes for this store of wealth that the rest of society maintains and protects for you.
- lazide 3y agoBecause capital gains can only occur when you sell something you bought. It’s a one time event, specific to a given asset. income occurs without a change in control of some asset, due to dividends, pass through profits, wages, etc. They’re fundamentally different types of things happening. For example: rent == income. Selling the house? Capital gains. As to if they are or should be taxed at different rates is orthogonal to if they are different types of events. I can assure you, anyone that owns a home or stocks really would like to avoid treating them the same way. Which is a huge portion of the population, not just some random 1%’er somewhere. And ‘unproductive’ real estate still pays property taxes. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but there definitely are places that will make you broke if you eat there every day.
- Symbiote 3y agoThe prefix for hundred is hecto, deci means tenth.
- triceratops 3y agoI know that. I said what I meant. Every hecto millionaire is a deci millionaire too.
- joshuaissac 3y agoDividend taxes are lower than income taxes in the UK. So a person getting paid £100k in wages will end up with £68k after taxes, whereas someone getting paid the same in dividends will end up with around £80k, which is around 17% more than the wage earner.