3 ms·
The fact that you can come up with ridiculous scenarios does not automatically mean that the idea is either ridiculous or inherently flawed.
by AnimalMuppet 3y ago
The fact that you can come up with ridiculous scenarios does not automatically mean that the idea is either ridiculous or inherently flawed.
- gipp 3y agoHow are those "ridiculous scenarios?" Any attempt to base laws around the net worth of an individual is going to run into a hundred thousand such scenarios instantly. A person's "wealth" is simply not well defined. Neither ownership nor valuation of any kind of asset, other than cash itself, is nearly straightforward enough.
- wtfwhateven 3y agothis is true, I asked the IRS agent to define wealth and they couldn't do it, therefore meaning I no longer have to pay taxes
- gipp 3y agoIncome -- being funneled through the unifying medium of US dollars usually, and having some other counterparty to the transaction available to verify things -- is a lot simpler to account for than wealth, and look how complex that still is, and how readily it is already circumvented. And that's with a hundred years of refining and reforming the tax code to stop it, which a wealth-based taxation scheme would not benefit from.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoIf we had to have a perfect system with no flaws on day one in order to implement this, you would have a solid argument. But while that would be ideal, we don't actually have to have that, so your argument is completely beside the point. Worse: Most of the circumventions of income tax are to increase in wealth without having income (as recognized by the tax system). A wealth tax is therefore a fix for your complaints about income tax. Look, I'm not convinced a wealth tax (or worse, cap) is the answer. I suspect it may be worse than the disease. But your arguments against it seem pretty weak.
- throwaway11460 3y agoNothing about this except the idea of a limit is ridiculous.