Being willing to raise taxes on yourself, and unilaterally volunteering extra taxes are very different things.
You probably know this, as do most people making this argument.
You probably know this, as do most people making this argument.
Yes, but this is not a valid criticism of the argument. If you believe in raising taxes on yourself and people like you, then you ought to lead by example, and voluntarily pay the extra taxes you would like to pay yourself, while proposing the law forces others to do the same. For example, it would be hypocritical of me to suggest that the law mandate parents care for their children while neglecting my own. Similarly, the 'ultra-wealthy' who are arguing for higher taxes while not voluntarily paying them are hypocrites.
You probably know this, as do most making this argument.
If you believe that instead of giving to charity or something that the best use of your money is taxes, why would it matter if there was an official change to the tax code or not?
Leadership would be paying extra taxes regardless of whether or not the taxes are raised across the board.
It feels kind of slimy to me to say "oh yes we should all pay extra taxes but I won't do so unless the government officially raises my tax rate" - uh so you mean you don't believe in paying more taxes unless the government forces you to? Like the rest of us?
It is definitely more along the lines of moral posturing to me. At least I know where someone stands when they don't want taxes to be raised.
They're talking about solving problems on a scale of a country the size of the US. A few extra bucks from some small number of wealthy people is meaningless.
That implies that the tens of billions of dollars spent by the rich on charitable donations wouldn't make an impact if given to the government, doesn't it? If that's the case, why tax them for that amount?
The 2019 federal budget was $4.407 trillion. let's say we're talking about $20B in voluntary tax overpayment (good luck with that!), which would represent .004914% of the budget. That would pay about 3% of the interest on US debt in the last year. It would change nothing.
However, increase the marginal tax rate and you're talking about real money. Maybe in the meantime we can spend a little less on the military, but that's a tough sell too.
To ensure everyone does it.
Are you suggesting no rich people should support higher taxes unless they volunteer more tax money now? Or what exactly is your point here other than a "ha ha, gotcha!"?
My ire is more directed at billionaires who do such things as publicity stunts as they lobby to lower taxes - especially for their corporations, but essentially, yes. Nobody forces people to use loopholes to lower their tax rates or take deductions, or use a variety of different methods to lower their tax burdens. If they think taxes should be higher on themselves, why do they need to wait until the government raises the tax rate?
* I pay $100,000 in taxes but I think I should be paying $200,000 because I'm altruistic (more likely you want to be well-liked and seem like a good person)
* Here is a link to pay an extra $100,000 in taxes
* ???
I'm not sure how that's a "gotcha". If you say you believe in it, what's stopping you?
There are a lot of things you can do that are not “complain but do nothing”.
It's like if I buy a big SUV and say that I think we should all drive EVs but I'm not going to do it until someone makes me, but I really believe it!
Uh. Ok. Sell the SUV and buy the EV?
-Khrushchev, probably
This is basically why the first iteration of the United States fell apart: the Articles of Confederation basically made taxes voluntary, and they only had to convince 13 states to pay them! Spoiler alert, they couldn't do it, and the first US government collapsed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation#Taxa...