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Comment by taylorwc | Hacker News Reader

I completely agree with this. Short of taxing wealth or taxing consumption, like the FairTax proposal[0], there's no way around shelters and avoidance.

I find it hard to hold a grudge against wealthy individuals who minimize tax liability. It's perfectly legal and it's in their best interest.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

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> I find it hard to hold a grudge against wealthy individuals who minimize tax liability. It's perfectly legal ...

What if it was made legal because they bought politicians who made the laws in their favor?

Also, the law isn't moral. Lots of things are legal but completely immoral. Slavery comes to mind as an historical example.

I agree that the law isn't moral, and I don't think that 'buying politicians' is acceptable or moral. I'm not asserting that wealthy people have no moral obligations--they do--but how much tax they should pay as a percentage of wealth and how that number was derived isn't one of them.

Hmmm ... I think everyone has a obligation to pull their weight. If you don't pay your fair share of taxes, other people have to cover it for you.

Sure. What is the fair share? Is it defined in absolute dollars? Is it a percentage of income? A percentage of wealth? Who determines what is the fair share? Are they elected? Is it a direct ballot measure? It's easy to agree to broad concepts when it comes to this sort of thing and horrifyingly difficult to enact practical measures.

> horrifyingly difficult to enact practical measures.

I don't agree. Almost every nation, state, and locality in the developed world and a great many elsewhere have done it.

> Who determines what is the fair share?

We decide democratically. Most of those nations, states, ad localities have been doing that for a long time too.

My own knowledge is limited to a few US states and federal government, but in all of those cases, the same problems described in the NYT article and above exist. Some other commenters here have definitely posted a few good examples of where they feel it works (like Canada.) What are others?

Taxing consumption doesn't work unless it is somehow international.

Agreed. There are lots of other sticky issues related to the idea of switching to a consumption-based tax. Not arguing that it should be adopted; every system will have pitfalls.

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