6 ms·

Why should you be taxed on it at all?tax is policy. You tax things you want people to consume less of. Inflation makes nominal values to up. More inflation mo

Why should you be taxed on it at all?tax is policy. You tax things you want people to consume less of. Inflation makes nominal values to up. More inflation more capital gains. Gov is now incengltivized to inflate to pull tax out of realized assets that have not even gained real value

scotty79 2y ago
What you tax is not really relevant as long as it doesn't disrupt some activity you want to continue happening. If it was up to me I'd tax spending not income. Regardless of what you are spending on. Bread? Sure! Employee? Yes! 10% of Tesla? Same!
- vel0city 2y ago
  > If it was up to me I'd tax spending not income. Regardless of what you are spending on Under this system the poor who spend the majority of their income just to survive pay the highest effective tax rate while the wealthier who save most of their income have the smallest effective tax rate. That sounds like a fair and equitable system to you?
  - orionsbelt 2y ago
    Sure, you can have transfers back to the poor.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      You're just moving the point a little along the scale though. So now instead of the super poor paying a higher rate, now it's the slightly less poor. And the slightly less poor as you keep moving that transfer cutoff point. You're still going to have some point where the wealthier are paying a significantly lower rate than those who make a good bit less than them.
      - scotty79 2y ago
        At appropriate level of transfers the cutoff point is at millionaires you no longer can call poor in good conscience. And people below cutoff point thanks to transfer effectively pay negative tax.
        vel0city 2y ago
        I absolutely agree on this point, and that curve adjustment would just continue into people we'd definitely agree are wealthy. But in the end those millionaires are paying a higher tax rate than those wealthier than them. Is that fair?
        scotty79 2y ago
        It's fairer than what we have today. Nothing is absolutely fair.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    And yet the rich spend vastly more money than poor. You can see it trivially by noticing that the poor have all their money from the work that they do for the rich. Taxing spending would be way more equitable than whatever we are now doing. We are already doing some taxation of spending. VAT, sales tax, social security fees. All of those are paid by buyers of goods, services and labor. If we did the same for investments government would have so much more money to deal with the problems instead of borrowing it from commercial banks at interest.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      > And yet the rich spend vastly more money than poor You're just totally ignoring the effect of effective tax rates. Sure, the billionaire spent way more money than the poor person. But who spent a higher percentage of their income? And who had vastly more opportunity to spend that in a place outside of that sales tax jurisdiction? Are the poor people flying to other countries to buy their luxury goods? To you, is society fairer for poor person and the billionaire to pay the same nominal amount or the same tax rate? Is it even fair/good for the poor and the wealthy to pay the same for either of these values?
      - scotty79 2y ago
        > But who spent a higher percentage of their income? Everybody knows. That's because we tax income. And income, unlike spending is easier to muddle. You can always fabricate a loss or at least a temporary loss to avoid paying taxes on your income. It's harder to hide spending. > And who had vastly more opportunity to spend that in a place outside of that sales tax jurisdiction? It's just as easy today to move your profits to another country if you are rich. If you tax spending, you can just tax money transfers to other countries as spending. Rich can fly wherever they like but they still had to pay taxes on the plane they bought, fuel they put in and all the money they spent on their trip.They could buy crypto, but guess what, on crypto purchase, also a spending tax. They can even move to live in another country till they die, but still their money transfered outside of their home country into their new one, taxed on exit. You brought the money into the country because you are in the business of exports? Great, here's a tax credit. You may deduct it from the tax you pay on your excursions abroad. The problem is not what is the moral thing to tax. The problem is how to do it efficiently with no loopholes without affecting desirable behaviors negatively and promoting undesirable ones. Taxing spending would also help with vast empires that cosist of inherited money. Income was already done, century ago so there's nothing to tax. If you try to tax wealth, so many people would equate it to theft. But if you tax spending ...

scotty79 2y ago

What you tax is not really relevant as long as it doesn't disrupt some activity you want to continue happening. If it was up to me I'd tax spending not income. Regardless of what you are spending on. Bread? Sure! Employee? Yes! 10% of Tesla? Same!

vel0city 2y ago
> If it was up to me I'd tax spending not income. Regardless of what you are spending on Under this system the poor who spend the majority of their income just to survive pay the highest effective tax rate while the wealthier who save most of their income have the smallest effective tax rate. That sounds like a fair and equitable system to you?
- orionsbelt 2y ago
  Sure, you can have transfers back to the poor.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    You're just moving the point a little along the scale though. So now instead of the super poor paying a higher rate, now it's the slightly less poor. And the slightly less poor as you keep moving that transfer cutoff point. You're still going to have some point where the wealthier are paying a significantly lower rate than those who make a good bit less than them.
    - scotty79 2y ago
      At appropriate level of transfers the cutoff point is at millionaires you no longer can call poor in good conscience. And people below cutoff point thanks to transfer effectively pay negative tax.
      - vel0city 2y ago
        I absolutely agree on this point, and that curve adjustment would just continue into people we'd definitely agree are wealthy. But in the end those millionaires are paying a higher tax rate than those wealthier than them. Is that fair?
        scotty79 2y ago
        It's fairer than what we have today. Nothing is absolutely fair.
- scotty79 2y ago
  And yet the rich spend vastly more money than poor. You can see it trivially by noticing that the poor have all their money from the work that they do for the rich. Taxing spending would be way more equitable than whatever we are now doing. We are already doing some taxation of spending. VAT, sales tax, social security fees. All of those are paid by buyers of goods, services and labor. If we did the same for investments government would have so much more money to deal with the problems instead of borrowing it from commercial banks at interest.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > And yet the rich spend vastly more money than poor You're just totally ignoring the effect of effective tax rates. Sure, the billionaire spent way more money than the poor person. But who spent a higher percentage of their income? And who had vastly more opportunity to spend that in a place outside of that sales tax jurisdiction? Are the poor people flying to other countries to buy their luxury goods? To you, is society fairer for poor person and the billionaire to pay the same nominal amount or the same tax rate? Is it even fair/good for the poor and the wealthy to pay the same for either of these values?
    - scotty79 2y ago
      > But who spent a higher percentage of their income? Everybody knows. That's because we tax income. And income, unlike spending is easier to muddle. You can always fabricate a loss or at least a temporary loss to avoid paying taxes on your income. It's harder to hide spending. > And who had vastly more opportunity to spend that in a place outside of that sales tax jurisdiction? It's just as easy today to move your profits to another country if you are rich. If you tax spending, you can just tax money transfers to other countries as spending. Rich can fly wherever they like but they still had to pay taxes on the plane they bought, fuel they put in and all the money they spent on their trip.They could buy crypto, but guess what, on crypto purchase, also a spending tax. They can even move to live in another country till they die, but still their money transfered outside of their home country into their new one, taxed on exit. You brought the money into the country because you are in the business of exports? Great, here's a tax credit. You may deduct it from the tax you pay on your excursions abroad. The problem is not what is the moral thing to tax. The problem is how to do it efficiently with no loopholes without affecting desirable behaviors negatively and promoting undesirable ones. Taxing spending would also help with vast empires that cosist of inherited money. Income was already done, century ago so there's nothing to tax. If you try to tax wealth, so many people would equate it to theft. But if you tax spending ...