5 ms·

Why do people always use the term punish when talking about taxes? Taxes are levied, you're only punished if you fail to pay.

jasode 12y ago
Please don't add noise to the discussion by nitpicking something that doesn't need to be nitpicked. Shinkei already put scare quotes around the word "punished" so any reasonable person should interpret that he does not mean "punish" in a formalized legal sense. His usage was a figure-of-speech and not citing any legal doctrine. People can use <scarequotes>punish</scarequotes> the same way people can use <scarequotes>reward</scarequotes> when then say they felt "rewarded" with a tax credit for buying a hybrid electric car or installing solar panels. This is possible even though the word "reward" is nowhere stated in official USA tax code regarding those credits.
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  I think you're being a bit too harsh on couchand. First of all, I didn't interpret his comment as attacking Shinkei. I think he posed it as a general question for the audience. Secondly, I don't see it as nitpicking. It's a reasonable discussion to have. Piketty himself spends a fair amount of pages discussing how a global wealth tax might be implemented, and people's attitudes towards taxation in general have to be part of that debate.
  - jasode 12y ago
    >, I didn't interpret his comment as attacking Shinkei. I'm not saying he attacked Shinkei. couchand criticized the message and not the messenger which is certainly acceptable. I'm pointing out that he's criticizing a figure-of-speech by stating to us the legal literal definition of "punish". Because couchand didn't parse Shinkei's "punish-as-in-sentiment", he made the mistake of equivocation[1] and talks about punishement-as-in-prison-sentence-from-illegal-tax-evasion. It's as if someone says "butterflies in my stomach" and a nitpicker adds a ST-MrSpock/ST:TNG-Data type of literal reply. Mr Spock asks, "Why do people use the term 'butterflies'? Caterpillars cannot incubate in the human stomach and metamorphose into a butterflies." Most observers would find that response annoying instead of being relevant to the conversation about nervousness. Sure, there can be other motives such as helping someone conquer stage fright but hopefully you agree that correcting someone with formal biology definitions of "butterflies" does not achieve that objective at all. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation
    - moggflunkies 12y ago
      You utilizing the word "annoying" triggers me. I don't respect the underlying and implied racist/sexist usage that you created in your comment. Simply calling someone "annoying" is just a thinly veiled attempt at getting away with saying a word like "fag" or any another racial epithet. Just because someone annoys you, doesn't mean that you can strike them from the conversation. Just because you are a well-off, privileged male, don't forget that not that long ago African-Americans and Homosexuals "annoyed" you too. Anyways, I just wanted to jump in and add noise to the discussion by nitpicking like jasode too!
    - manish_gill 12y ago
      @moggflunkies - You've been hellbanned, your comments are only visible to people who have turned dead comments on. I find this system despicable.
    - couchand 12y ago
      I'm not equivocating at all. People use the term punish when they feel like they've been punished. I'm trying to figure out why people immediately think they are being punished by taxation somehow completely forgetting the police and fire protection, nice roads, pretty parks, clean water, etc. that comes along with it. Taxes are not a punishment, they are an admission ticket to society.
      - jasode 12y ago
        >I'm not equivocating at all. Your sentences are textbook examples of equivocating. >People use the term punish when they feel like they've been punished. Yes, they often do! Notice the word you just used to describe Shinkei's post? You wrote "feel" to describe "punish-as-in-sentiment-figure-of-speech". It's feelings/sentiments/perceptions etc. Your attempted explanation after that was this: >you're only punished if you fail to pay. This is "you're only punished-as-in-assets-seized-or-go-to-jail if you evade taxes". It's a switch in semantics. Because punish-as-in-sentiment is not equal in meaning to punish-as-in-jail, your proposed clarification is a non sequitur. Since you're not aware of why one type of meaning (feelings) is not relevant to the other (jail), you are equivocating. >I'm trying to figure out why people immediately think they are being punished by taxation somehow completely forgetting the [government services] I know and it's understandable that you want to satisfy a curiosity. However, you'll just annoy people if you're equivocating 2 different meanings to justify your perspective while asking your question. If someone says they feel "raped" by high taxes, you don't ape MrSpock and say "I see no genitals forcefully entering any orifice so I don't understand why people call it rape." >they are an admission ticket to society. They are not an "admission ticket". Admission tickets are pieces of paper that you submit to an usher or gate agent to be admitted to an event or airplane. (If you find that dissecting-figures-of-speech with literal definitions to be annoying, you've experienced firsthand why equivocation derails the discussion and is not helpful.) Lastly, it seems like your answer to Shinkei was based on thinking he was against all taxes. If you read his post again, he was playing devil's-advocate for paying "punishment" taxes on a yacht. It's entirely reasonable for that type of person to raise taxes on himself for more police officers but feel punished for extra consumption taxes on luxury items since he's already paying sales tax on it.
davidw 12y ago
Taxes, among other things, can be used to discourage "bad" behavior - like smoking, or burning carbon, or other stuff that has costs for society at large ("externalities"). By and large, the more you tax something, the more you discourage it.
- couchand 12y ago
  It is true that by taxing something you usually discourage it, but that's a simplified view that's not always the case. It assumes normal goods and a particular relationship between taxation and interest rates that doesn't necessarily bear out. In particular, in a discussion of wealth tax vs. consumption tax, you can't rely on the naive assumption that elasticity of consumption has a significant bearing on the net effect of a consumption tax. See, e.g. http://ntj.tax.org/wwtax/ntjrec.nsf/4E562450B2F268D985256AFC007F19A8/$FILE/v52n1067.pdf http://ntj.tax.org/wwtax/ntjrec.nsf/4E562450B2F268D985256AFC...
  - davidw 12y ago
    I said 'by and large'. It's clearly a long, complicated discussion. But I wanted to provide a reason why taxes might be termed 'punishment' rather than delve into the economics of it all, which you could probably write entire books about.

jasode 12y ago

Please don't add noise to the discussion by nitpicking something that doesn't need to be nitpicked. Shinkei already put scare quotes around the word "punished" so any reasonable person should interpret that he does not mean "punish" in a formalized legal sense. His usage was a figure-of-speech and not citing any legal doctrine. People can use <scarequotes>punish</scarequotes> the same way people can use <scarequotes>reward</scarequotes> when then say they felt "rewarded" with a tax credit for buying a hybrid electric car or installing solar panels. This is possible even though the word "reward" is nowhere stated in official USA tax code regarding those credits.

enraged_camel 12y ago
I think you're being a bit too harsh on couchand. First of all, I didn't interpret his comment as attacking Shinkei. I think he posed it as a general question for the audience. Secondly, I don't see it as nitpicking. It's a reasonable discussion to have. Piketty himself spends a fair amount of pages discussing how a global wealth tax might be implemented, and people's attitudes towards taxation in general have to be part of that debate.
- jasode 12y ago
  >, I didn't interpret his comment as attacking Shinkei. I'm not saying he attacked Shinkei. couchand criticized the message and not the messenger which is certainly acceptable. I'm pointing out that he's criticizing a figure-of-speech by stating to us the legal literal definition of "punish". Because couchand didn't parse Shinkei's "punish-as-in-sentiment", he made the mistake of equivocation[1] and talks about punishement-as-in-prison-sentence-from-illegal-tax-evasion. It's as if someone says "butterflies in my stomach" and a nitpicker adds a ST-MrSpock/ST:TNG-Data type of literal reply. Mr Spock asks, "Why do people use the term 'butterflies'? Caterpillars cannot incubate in the human stomach and metamorphose into a butterflies." Most observers would find that response annoying instead of being relevant to the conversation about nervousness. Sure, there can be other motives such as helping someone conquer stage fright but hopefully you agree that correcting someone with formal biology definitions of "butterflies" does not achieve that objective at all. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation
  - moggflunkies 12y ago
    You utilizing the word "annoying" triggers me. I don't respect the underlying and implied racist/sexist usage that you created in your comment. Simply calling someone "annoying" is just a thinly veiled attempt at getting away with saying a word like "fag" or any another racial epithet. Just because someone annoys you, doesn't mean that you can strike them from the conversation. Just because you are a well-off, privileged male, don't forget that not that long ago African-Americans and Homosexuals "annoyed" you too. Anyways, I just wanted to jump in and add noise to the discussion by nitpicking like jasode too!
  - manish_gill 12y ago
    @moggflunkies - You've been hellbanned, your comments are only visible to people who have turned dead comments on. I find this system despicable.
  - couchand 12y ago
    I'm not equivocating at all. People use the term punish when they feel like they've been punished. I'm trying to figure out why people immediately think they are being punished by taxation somehow completely forgetting the police and fire protection, nice roads, pretty parks, clean water, etc. that comes along with it. Taxes are not a punishment, they are an admission ticket to society.
    - jasode 12y ago
      >I'm not equivocating at all. Your sentences are textbook examples of equivocating. >People use the term punish when they feel like they've been punished. Yes, they often do! Notice the word you just used to describe Shinkei's post? You wrote "feel" to describe "punish-as-in-sentiment-figure-of-speech". It's feelings/sentiments/perceptions etc. Your attempted explanation after that was this: >you're only punished if you fail to pay. This is "you're only punished-as-in-assets-seized-or-go-to-jail if you evade taxes". It's a switch in semantics. Because punish-as-in-sentiment is not equal in meaning to punish-as-in-jail, your proposed clarification is a non sequitur. Since you're not aware of why one type of meaning (feelings) is not relevant to the other (jail), you are equivocating. >I'm trying to figure out why people immediately think they are being punished by taxation somehow completely forgetting the [government services] I know and it's understandable that you want to satisfy a curiosity. However, you'll just annoy people if you're equivocating 2 different meanings to justify your perspective while asking your question. If someone says they feel "raped" by high taxes, you don't ape MrSpock and say "I see no genitals forcefully entering any orifice so I don't understand why people call it rape." >they are an admission ticket to society. They are not an "admission ticket". Admission tickets are pieces of paper that you submit to an usher or gate agent to be admitted to an event or airplane. (If you find that dissecting-figures-of-speech with literal definitions to be annoying, you've experienced firsthand why equivocation derails the discussion and is not helpful.) Lastly, it seems like your answer to Shinkei was based on thinking he was against all taxes. If you read his post again, he was playing devil's-advocate for paying "punishment" taxes on a yacht. It's entirely reasonable for that type of person to raise taxes on himself for more police officers but feel punished for extra consumption taxes on luxury items since he's already paying sales tax on it.

davidw 12y ago

Taxes, among other things, can be used to discourage "bad" behavior - like smoking, or burning carbon, or other stuff that has costs for society at large ("externalities"). By and large, the more you tax something, the more you discourage it.

couchand 12y ago
It is true that by taxing something you usually discourage it, but that's a simplified view that's not always the case. It assumes normal goods and a particular relationship between taxation and interest rates that doesn't necessarily bear out. In particular, in a discussion of wealth tax vs. consumption tax, you can't rely on the naive assumption that elasticity of consumption has a significant bearing on the net effect of a consumption tax. See, e.g. http://ntj.tax.org/wwtax/ntjrec.nsf/4E562450B2F268D985256AFC007F19A8/$FILE/v52n1067.pdf http://ntj.tax.org/wwtax/ntjrec.nsf/4E562450B2F268D985256AFC...
- davidw 12y ago
  I said 'by and large'. It's clearly a long, complicated discussion. But I wanted to provide a reason why taxes might be termed 'punishment' rather than delve into the economics of it all, which you could probably write entire books about.