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I think this is unsurpring given that the crypto userbase seems to consist mostly of speculators and criminals.

bdcravens 2y ago
There's also a group that's against the Federal Reserve, but that belief system tends to be congruent with the "taxation is theft" group
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  > the "taxation is theft" group Let's be real here. With compounding, total taxation takes away 90% of income. If that's not theft, I don't know what is. There would be an appropriate level of taxation that would be fair, perhaps 10%.
  - worik 2y ago
    > With compounding, total taxation takes away >99% of income That does not compute. Perhaps you could explain that.
    - sandworm101 2y ago
      I think he was aiming for disposable income, rather than all income.
      - worik 2y ago
        I think it is lies.
    - OutOfHere 2y ago
      I haven't yet checked this yet for correctness, but the approach to go about doing such a calculation is at https://chatgpt.com/share/8145329b-b009-46f6-a9cf-7703f4958875 https://chatgpt.com/share/8145329b-b009-46f6-a9cf-7703f49588... It says the answer is a 90% loss (not 99% or higher), which still is quite bad. Again, this is pending me doing the calculations myself. Regarding taxes, a total tax burden of 50% was used to account for all taxes (income, sales, property, etc.) Even this calculation by GPT doesn't take into account the "investment gain" taxes one would have to pay at the end, which would bring the loss percentage above 90.
  - bdcravens 2y ago
    Currently less than 4% of Americans save any money. To assume that any would save enough to compound instead of spend in the absence of taxes is naive.
    - OutOfHere 2y ago
      So you think the hardworking 4% should suffer like the rest of them? Even though they pay more taxes? Taxation is supposed to be fair, but your approach isn't.
      - verall 2y ago
        Do you think that the minority of the population which saves money works harder than the majority that does not save money? * I think that the 4% number is dubious but it's not material to the question.
        bdcravens 2y ago
        I'm just going off of the documented personal savings rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
      - bdcravens 2y ago
        It seems like you're assuming motivation where it doesn't exist. I'm simply stating that your belief that paid taxes would be compounded to 99% of income is quite a fantastic claim. Besides, there's no proof that the "hardworking" are necessarily more saving than those who aren't. Sometimes the highest earning have the highest rates of debt, ie, they don't save.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      That logic seems a bit circular. I don't endorse the 90% figure because I haven't thought about it, but for the sake of argument if you were faced with a choice where 90% of your income would be redirected away from you vs not saving it'd be expected that nobody would save. So you can't argue that lack of savings under the current system implies no savings under a low-tax system. It is pretty reasonable to suggest that a big contributing factor to the lack of savings is precisely what the tax system does to savers.
  - yuliyp 2y ago
    Yes that's entirely the point. Ideally peoples' share of wealth should go down with time. Return on capital after taxes shouldn't enable people to continue growing their wealth relative to society forever. They should have to actually do work to earn more.
    - OutOfHere 2y ago
      That's an opinion held by slavers. It most assuredly is antithetical to the opinion held by the people.
  - observationist 2y ago
    With compounding, the potential earnings of someone who is taxed but invests over 50 years of work compared to someone else that isn't taxed but does the same investments comes out to about 50% gains of the second over the first. If someone is taxed and doesn't or can't save, or their retirement gets screwed up, or they make enough to get taxed but not enough to invest significantly, or finds themselves in any of a myriad of screwy situations, then they only make 5-7% by diligently saving up the same amount that the first two would have been investing year over year. 95% of their potential income is lost by not investing reasonably. If someone were magically able to not pay taxes, they gain 150% of the good-retirement investment and taxes scenario. Given the constant nickel and diming, the gotchas, the shuffling of money back and forth, and the outsized impact on investment, I completely agree that a flat 10% absolute level of taxation, not a red cent over, would be reasonable. It's also super important to invest, and to keep dropping money into your investments over time that you never touch, just use a diverse and sensible fund, and don't pull it out until you retire. Not only is it theft of the future, it's wasted and misspent in awful ways. Sure am glad all our representatives are getting so wealthy, though. Wonderful people, that lot.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      > With compounding, the potential earnings of someone who is taxed but invests over 50 years of work compared to someone else that isn't taxed but does the same investments comes out to about 50% gains of the second over the first. It might be too complicated to say. Someone who doesn't pay income tax, maybe. Depending on assumptions. But I worked out at some point that >50% of my time spent working was being redirected towards the tax office - my income because it was taxed when I earned it (+ any stealthy payroll taxes), taxed again when it was spent and if it was invested in the middle it got taxed a third time for fake "capital gains" from money creation. When you look at government spending (typically 40-50% of GDP in the West) and consider that most of that is probably malinvestment (by lack-of-alternatives-to-tax they're taking from the most economically productive members of society) you've probably lost more than half your wealth vs a no tax society. There is friction everywhere.
throwing_away 2y ago
Believe it or not, there are people that think real innovation is happening in crypto, and they also make investments and pay taxes. If you search around for crypto tax software, you'll find there's actual demand from people that want to pay taxes on their crypto.
- xienze 2y ago
  > you'll find there's actual demand from people that want to pay taxes on their crypto. I think that’s more of a “need to” thing rather than “want to”, yes even for the people that aren’t using crypto for criminal activity.
  - kreetx 2y ago
    Paying taxes overall is a "need to" thing to most, so nothing new with regarding to crypto.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

There's also a group that's against the Federal Reserve, but that belief system tends to be congruent with the "taxation is theft" group

OutOfHere 2y ago
> the "taxation is theft" group Let's be real here. With compounding, total taxation takes away 90% of income. If that's not theft, I don't know what is. There would be an appropriate level of taxation that would be fair, perhaps 10%.
- worik 2y ago
  > With compounding, total taxation takes away >99% of income That does not compute. Perhaps you could explain that.
  - sandworm101 2y ago
    I think he was aiming for disposable income, rather than all income.
    - worik 2y ago
      I think it is lies.
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    I haven't yet checked this yet for correctness, but the approach to go about doing such a calculation is at https://chatgpt.com/share/8145329b-b009-46f6-a9cf-7703f4958875 https://chatgpt.com/share/8145329b-b009-46f6-a9cf-7703f49588... It says the answer is a 90% loss (not 99% or higher), which still is quite bad. Again, this is pending me doing the calculations myself. Regarding taxes, a total tax burden of 50% was used to account for all taxes (income, sales, property, etc.) Even this calculation by GPT doesn't take into account the "investment gain" taxes one would have to pay at the end, which would bring the loss percentage above 90.
- bdcravens 2y ago
  Currently less than 4% of Americans save any money. To assume that any would save enough to compound instead of spend in the absence of taxes is naive.
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    So you think the hardworking 4% should suffer like the rest of them? Even though they pay more taxes? Taxation is supposed to be fair, but your approach isn't.
    - verall 2y ago
      Do you think that the minority of the population which saves money works harder than the majority that does not save money? * I think that the 4% number is dubious but it's not material to the question.
      - bdcravens 2y ago
        I'm just going off of the documented personal savings rate. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
    - bdcravens 2y ago
      It seems like you're assuming motivation where it doesn't exist. I'm simply stating that your belief that paid taxes would be compounded to 99% of income is quite a fantastic claim. Besides, there's no proof that the "hardworking" are necessarily more saving than those who aren't. Sometimes the highest earning have the highest rates of debt, ie, they don't save.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    That logic seems a bit circular. I don't endorse the 90% figure because I haven't thought about it, but for the sake of argument if you were faced with a choice where 90% of your income would be redirected away from you vs not saving it'd be expected that nobody would save. So you can't argue that lack of savings under the current system implies no savings under a low-tax system. It is pretty reasonable to suggest that a big contributing factor to the lack of savings is precisely what the tax system does to savers.
- yuliyp 2y ago
  Yes that's entirely the point. Ideally peoples' share of wealth should go down with time. Return on capital after taxes shouldn't enable people to continue growing their wealth relative to society forever. They should have to actually do work to earn more.
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    That's an opinion held by slavers. It most assuredly is antithetical to the opinion held by the people.
- observationist 2y ago
  With compounding, the potential earnings of someone who is taxed but invests over 50 years of work compared to someone else that isn't taxed but does the same investments comes out to about 50% gains of the second over the first. If someone is taxed and doesn't or can't save, or their retirement gets screwed up, or they make enough to get taxed but not enough to invest significantly, or finds themselves in any of a myriad of screwy situations, then they only make 5-7% by diligently saving up the same amount that the first two would have been investing year over year. 95% of their potential income is lost by not investing reasonably. If someone were magically able to not pay taxes, they gain 150% of the good-retirement investment and taxes scenario. Given the constant nickel and diming, the gotchas, the shuffling of money back and forth, and the outsized impact on investment, I completely agree that a flat 10% absolute level of taxation, not a red cent over, would be reasonable. It's also super important to invest, and to keep dropping money into your investments over time that you never touch, just use a diverse and sensible fund, and don't pull it out until you retire. Not only is it theft of the future, it's wasted and misspent in awful ways. Sure am glad all our representatives are getting so wealthy, though. Wonderful people, that lot.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    > With compounding, the potential earnings of someone who is taxed but invests over 50 years of work compared to someone else that isn't taxed but does the same investments comes out to about 50% gains of the second over the first. It might be too complicated to say. Someone who doesn't pay income tax, maybe. Depending on assumptions. But I worked out at some point that >50% of my time spent working was being redirected towards the tax office - my income because it was taxed when I earned it (+ any stealthy payroll taxes), taxed again when it was spent and if it was invested in the middle it got taxed a third time for fake "capital gains" from money creation. When you look at government spending (typically 40-50% of GDP in the West) and consider that most of that is probably malinvestment (by lack-of-alternatives-to-tax they're taking from the most economically productive members of society) you've probably lost more than half your wealth vs a no tax society. There is friction everywhere.

throwing_away 2y ago

Believe it or not, there are people that think real innovation is happening in crypto, and they also make investments and pay taxes. If you search around for crypto tax software, you'll find there's actual demand from people that want to pay taxes on their crypto.

xienze 2y ago
> you'll find there's actual demand from people that want to pay taxes on their crypto. I think that’s more of a “need to” thing rather than “want to”, yes even for the people that aren’t using crypto for criminal activity.
- kreetx 2y ago
  Paying taxes overall is a "need to" thing to most, so nothing new with regarding to crypto.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]