Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution | Hacker News Reader

Tax the Super Rich now or face a revolution

marketwatch.com

7 pointsresdirector12 comments

The author, like others who push this philosophy, ignores the gaping hole in his plan. Which is that countries are separate and competing in entities. So if a country like Great Britain has fewer super rich people than the United States it's in their best interest to use a lower tax rate to draw those super rich people across the sea.

Since there's so many countries in the world there will always be at least one that's willing to have a super low tax rate to draw the rich to them. Because getting less of rich people's money is better than getting none at all.

If this was true, you would have seen all of them migrating en-mass to some Caribbean or European micro-state.

Despite possessing the means to move freely between nation-states, the rich are also equally addicted to the comforts that they can purchase with their wealth.

No, its far more easier to lobby politicians to create loopholes in tax policy so that somehow they pay less tax in proportion to everyone else.

Nevertheless, the author does have a point. Historians, economists and sociologists have studied this to death and even some more. As inequality becomes more pervasive and the paths to upward social classes becomes blocked off to the lower ones, the disenfranchised will naturally rise to challenge the status quo.

Being rich or powerful doesn't mean wisdom or you can avoid the inevitable tide of change. If it did, France would still be a monarchy and the Chinese would still have an Emperor.

If this was true, you would have seen all of them migrating en-mass to some Caribbean or European micro-state.

And that raises a good point, I live very close to the Caribbean and own property in the Caribbean (well the Keys, but I boat to many of the others islands a good deal), these nations should serve as an example of a super rich based economy. There are only two classes on most of these islands, the supper rich and those who provide service based, low wage labor to the super rich class or vacationers. These nations serve to exemplify what happens in an economy where wealth is consolidated unchecked.

Being rich or powerful doesn't mean wisdom

Never have truer words been spoken, there is a lot of luck in wealth as well, but once you become wealthy it takes a lot less luck to maintain and grow it.

Then why does Bill Gates live in a relatively high-tax nation like the US, instead of Qatar? I think that the super-rich are willing to ignore a few percentage points in their income, for the sake of other concerns. They're so rich, that they can afford to pay the tax required to stay with their family and friends.

Well first if you are going to use Bill Gates as an example you should know a little bit more about Bill Gates. Bill Gates is a very liberal guy. He's on record as saying he doesn't plan to leave any of his money to his children and plans to devote it all to charity just as one example. His father, who's also the head of his foundation, is on record as saying he is in favor of and 99% tax rate. So Bill Gates really doesn't care.

But on the topic of just your ordinary super rich person I think you're right. One or two percentage points won't make a difference to them. It certainly won't motivate them to leave the country. But what this author seems to be suggesting is that taxing the super rich can solve all of society's ills. In order to do that you need to tax them far more than just a couple percentage points. And everyone will have their threshold. The super rich can afford to fly back and forth all they want so eventually they're just going to move their official residence elsewhere and fly back to the United States when they need to.

(To give just one example Arnold Schwarzenegger literally commuted by plane during his second term as governor of California. He would fly, via private plane, to Sacramento in the morning and then fly back to Los Angeles in the evening)

The super rich can afford to fly back and forth all they want so eventually they're just going to move their official residence elsewhere and fly back to the United States when they need to.

It's a bit trickier than that: to avoid U.S. income tax you have to permanently renounce U.S. citizenship, not only move your residence. Though it's probably true that you could then still fly back to the U.S. for trips of up to 90 days, since I would guess that the rich person's new citizenship would likely be in a country that's part of the U.S. visa-waiver program.

Exactly. I described this exact process on Quora a few days ago [1]. Note, that doesn't mean that I believe that the current distribution of wealth is good, but that simply taxing the super-rich a lot is not going to work (as a mechanism) [2]. Small tax increases on the rich may be tolerated in the US (since rates are lower than, say, in France or Britain), but there is a threshold, after which there needs to be other sources of tax revenue.

But it's very strange because many Americans (not just the super rich) seem to care about the tax rates of the rich [3], I explain because of their own branch of economics or cultural reasons.

[1] http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-reasonable-justifications-... [2] http://www.quora.com/Should-wealth-be-more-evenly-distribute... [3] http://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-Americans-care-whether-the-...

Meh. While I agree that a revolution is possible, as long as the average American is fat, stupid, and glued to his television set the rich have nothing to fear.

"Warning: Mubarak, Gaddafi, Ali, Assad, even the Saudis also lived in the Super-Rich Delusion. Have for a long time. Were vulnerable. Ripe for a revolution."

Unable. To form. Complete sentences.

I don't get this type of mentality: 'tax the super rich because they don't care' it seems like cheap populist manipulation

It's part of the "solve everything by making it someone else's fault" mentality - politicians, and others who seek power through capitalization of others' pain, are masters of it.

Bah. The owners of the USA are way too competent to let themselves be taxed. Manufacture of consent is their top expertise.

Witness the fact that what is always under discussion is taxing of income, not property (of any kind, physical, financial or intelectual).

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