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Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

Why are they two different things?

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.

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Everyone's needs to be raised at the same time or it's useless. It's like in a race imagine the fastest route tramples a bunch of flowers. If the individual agrees to go around them they'll lose. There's nothing wrong with proposing something that as a group one should do that as an individual makes no sense

But they do it individually once it's implemented. If they pay (just making this up) 10% in taxes why not advocate for higher taxes and then just go ahead and pay extra and do what you believe in while also advocating for higher taxes?

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?

>why would it matter if there was an official change to the tax code or not?

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!"?

> Are you suggesting no rich people should support higher taxes unless they volunteer more tax money now?

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?

I don't think the argument is that a rich individual should pay more in taxes to feel personally more altruistic. There is specific policy that can only be enacted if all wealthy people pay more in taxes, such as medicare for all, or even getting rid of the deficit. A single rich contributor does literally nothing to change policy when they volunteer extra in taxes

So then say “I support Medicare for all” not “I don’t pay enough taxes”. If you’re wealthy enough you can just pay for health insurance for a select number of people while protecting your wealth.

There are a lot of things you can do that are not “complain but do nothing”.

If the US wants denuclearization it should dismantle its own nuclear arms.

-Khrushchev, probably

>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?

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.

So you are against raising taxes on them?

Not sure how you came up with that. No, I'm for significant tax increases on extremely high income. What I was saying is that change to the tax code is needed because depending on the good will of the rich is just about the most naive idea ever.

Well, I got it from you saying that you think that a few extra bucks from a small group of people won't make a difference in response to someone suggesting the amount the rich spent on charity could be given to the government instead.

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?

Tens of billions? No, it wouldn't make a difference, and I think it's highly debatable that those tens of billions would be better off in the hands of the fed. I imagine the people actually giving away billions of dollars don't feel that it would be.

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.

This argument is downright silly. 20bln can do a lot of stuff. You’re conflating reckless spending and the amount of utility 20bln has.

Go look say the budget breakdown. 20B can't "do a lot of stuff" in a country this size.

Just want to point out, the annual budget for national parks is 2.7 billion and TANF is under 17, so you could pay for both every national park and 3.1 million needy families with that

You are basically saying paying taxes should be voluntary. Do you really, honestly think that is actually going to work?

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...

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