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Comment by patmcc | Hacker News Reader

No, you responded to arguments you thought I made, namely:

1) That a wealth tax is good because you should be making more money than the tax.

2) That a wealth tax is right simply because it's affordable.

I didn't make either of those arguments. For 1 - regardless of whether you're making or losing money, any sensible wealth tax is marginal, only on net worth of amounts over $10mil (or whatever). So the very worst a wealth tax will do is keep you at that cap - you don't pay anything on your first $10mil (or whatever).

For 2 - no, I'm saying a wealth tax is affordable, so it's clearly not wrong based on that alone. I'd say a wealth tax is right because it's progressive, not unaffordable, and ultimately not significantly impactful on the people it would impact (rich people).

We need to have taxes of some kind. What do you think is the most "right" kind to have? Why is it more right than a wealth tax?

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Perhaps a flat sales tax? Or something fair? Why is there an attempt to punish the rich here? We need some taxes, but this shouldn’t be a blank check. At what point do you think the government should stop taking taxes? By your logic should we not just give 100% of our pay to the gov and start issuing cars, houses and other needs? Also why is anything good simply because it’s progressive? Is there no other factor?

What exactly is "fair"? There are lots of ways we could tax people, that some or other people would declare to be fair.

Sure, we could tax all sales at 20%, or 45%. That would be fair. Can you see any problems?

We could tax everyone a flat amount - $10k or something. That would be fair. Can you see any problems?

We could tax everyone a flat percentage - 15%, say. That would be fair. Can you see any problems?

We could tax everyone such that we all have the same income - $50k perhaps. That would be fair. Can you see any problems?

The idea that higher taxes "punish" the rich doesn't make sense to me. We have the money! Of course that's where taxes should come from. What, we're going to shake down the people making $12 /hour? They don't have any money.

Here is my thinking: we should decide, as a society, what is essential. Defense, roads, fire departments, schools, etc. And then we figure out the best tax system to pay for that. We should aim for that system to:

1) Gather as much money as we need to pay for the essentials.

2) Cost as little to administer as possible.

3) Discourage harmful societal behaviour and/or encourage beneficial societal behaviour (generally, the more you tax something, the less of that thing you get).

4) Impact people's lives as little as possible. This is where progressive taxation wins - if you tax a poor person, that's money they really, really need. They were going to spend that on essentials. If you tax a rich person, their quality of life isn't meaningfully impacted. If Jeff Bezos has to pay more taxes, that impacts his day-to-day life exactly not at all.

5) Be conceived from behind the 'veil of ignorance', as much as possible. (This is where the 'fairness' argument comes in)

So as a society we are saying it’s ok to tax the wealthy, but we also give people the opportunity to become wealthy and encourage it but then once you make it bad, time for punishment via taxes? What exactly did Bezos do that requires him to pay more taxes? He didn’t “get a small loan”, he earned his and now your saying people who have no desire in life to be anything more than a store clerk deserve some of his money. Can they afford it? Sure. Is it fair, absolutely not.

I think framing it as a punishment is a bit disingenuous. The idea is not to punish rich people, the idea is to change how the tax burden is distributed. I would turn the question around and ask why we as a society are intent on punishing the middle class with the tax burden?

It seems pretty spot on to me. Your rich, this is evil, and now you gotta pay.

Because the middle class is the one asking to increase it with the constant addition of social programs that benefit them and those in lower classes the most? Unless you want to get into some twisted math on how much resources they use by breathing.

> At what point do you think the government should stop taking taxes?

When millionaires stop crying because they have to pay them.

So it is punishment?

That's exactly what I was talking about

Only kids and millionaires cry when you ask them to do their duty

And that's why the government can't stop asking for taxes to rich people

What exactly is their duty? They earned money so they owe it to you as duty? What entitled you to their money? Do you have stuff? Can I come in your house and take things because it’s your duty?

> What entitled you to their money? Do

What entitle you to speak on their behalf?

The story of the rich who cry about their money being taken away by some evil entity, it's just the constant, endless, uberable whining of the wannabe rich people

So boring...

They are not giving them to ME, they are giving them back to society, the same society that made them rich.

There are many billionaires who wants to pay more taxes because it would simply be fairer.

> Can I come in your house and take things because it’s your duty?

You are wrong, again

1) If it was my duty, you couldn't do it, because you cannot collect what's in the government duty to collect.

2) Your duty would be, at best, to report to the authorities. But since you're one of those americans who don't understand what "society" means, you think everything revolves around you and you alone.

Spoiler: it doesn't.

Your duty is to contribute back in proportion of what you earn and own.

What about you simply do it and shut up?

p.s.: you are obsessed with punishment, are you one of those americans who believes that the bible is the law?

somebody already told you that

"framing it as a punishment is a bit disingenuous. The idea is not to punish rich people, the idea is to change how the tax burden is distributed. I would turn the question around and ask why we as a society are intent on punishing the middle class with the tax burden?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24210412

Of course you have no answer to that, because you should admit that if it is wrong to punish rich people with taxes for being rich, it is vastly more wrong to punish people who are not rich for not being rich.

What duty - when tax dollars are spent on regressive policies, teachers unions, handouts and bailouts. Look at infrastructure and schools in the US.

1% of income earners already pay 90% of income tax in the US.

What more do you want? Wealth is not a zero sum game. Billionaires employ millions of people.

Even if you could tax 100% of all billionaire money, you will only fund the entire federal governments spending by a year.

Fix where the money is spent first. It is highly inefficient

Correction they pay equivalent income tax to the bottom 90% (and a third of all once tax)

That's the problem, because their wealth is many times larger than the bottom 90%

The top 1% of the population in US owns 39% of the wealth, top 10% own 76% of the wealth, bottom 50% owns only 1% of it.

If the system was fair, bottom 50% of the population should pay no taxes, because they own too little to live.

BTW you are another of the wannabe rich I guess who drank the billionaires cool aid, the top 1% only pays a marginal amount of the taxes

"Zucman, as detailed in his new book, "The Triumph of Injustice," written with fellow University of California at Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, found that the 400 richest Americans now pay a total tax rate of about 23% — that's lower than the bottom half of U.S. households, who pay a rate of about 24%"

American Scholars and the FED are making these analyses, not some hippie socialist in a kibbutz

It's time you all wake up

> BTW you are another of the wannabe rich I guess who drank the billionaires cool aid, the top 1% only pays a marginal amount of the taxes

This is a horrible excuse. Nobody has ever argued they want things to stay this way because one day they’ll be rich. How the liberals got this idea is a great question. The reason why people care is because this is a slippery slope. One side thinks you can’t pay enough taxes, and the other side wants their money to spend on themselves. It’s not “wannabe rich” so quit running around spouting that off out of ignorance. What we want is fairness and we happen to understand the rich people own the businesses. If you keep reaching into their pocket they will leave. Then what? Businesses and money will magically appear? I think it’s time you wake up, unless this is gonna be a typical liberal tantrum where we won’t hear the end of it until we submit to further taxation.

To be clear, it is wrongful thinking because people cannot usually grasp the vastness of billions and make their idea around their thousands as of it was the same

It isn't

Consider this

If you had a billion today and paid 1% every year in 20 years you would pay 220 millions total

In those same 20 years if you invested in a conservative way, say 4% guaranteed, which is arguably easy if you have a billion, after 20 years you would have gained 1.2 billions

In other words a net positive of one billion

Talking about numbers helps because the ratio is the same if you apply them to 1 thousand dollars

220 dollars spent, 1.2 thousands gained, 1 thousand net positive

The only difference is that making 4% with a thousand dollars is harder than with a million times a thousand dollars

Simply put you have a million 1,000 dollars chances VS Just the one

Or put it another way you could spend 1k every day for a million days, which is approximately 2,740 years, it means you could spend 10k/day for 274 years or 100k/day for 27 years or a million every day for 3 years.

And the compound interest would keep the initial billion grow indefinitely.

It basically means you have infinite money.

And you are worried that taking 1% would be detrimental for billionaires?

> If you keep reaching into their pocket they will leave

Biases are so boring... (you used a mix of confirmation bias and ancoring bias)

We are not even reaching their pockets now, they are paying less than the poor

Wake up, or you end up living worse than rich people's dogs (you probably already are right now in US)

> And you are worried that taking 1% would be detrimental for billionaires?

Yes, because again it’s not fair. I completely ignored the rest of what was above this because I’m not a child and am quite capable of understanding quite advanced math and how large a billion is. So to recap you’re saying it’s ok because they have a lot of money.

I’m actually living quite well in the US, despite coming from a very poor family with both parents getting cancer and having absolutely no money to put me through school. Instead of complaining or finding new inventive ways to take others money I taught myself skills worth a lot of money and now no longer have to worry about it.

As far as your paying less than the poor statement, let’s get some facts to back that up? Actual facts, not liberal news articles.

Also I see we’re taking the “we want more of your money” tantrum route.

I guess some people in US are just blind

Billionaires don't pay 90% on incomes

They leave the money in their companies that, like Apple, evade taxes sheltering their money through international tax heaven

They are worth billions not because they have billions cash on which they paid taxes, but because they own stocks and properties worth billions

So yeah, paying a marginal tax on their wealth is only fair

> Even if you could tax 100% of all billionaire money, you will only fund the entire federal governments spending by a year.

There are 11 million millionaires in USA, if you take the 1% of their wealth over a million you could have an healthcare systems that don't let you die like flies when the next COVID-19 hits

But if you prefer to die, it's ok to me

Just know that your system is broken

> There are 11 million millionaires in USA, if you take the 1% of their wealth

There’s that word again, “take”

If they were willing to give volunterly that wouldn't be necessary

Taxes are always taken, even if you earn 20k/year

I know that the only reason USA are born was to avoid paying taxes, but it's a bit silly to think that a billionaire cannot be asked to contribute back to help those that are in need

A billionaire

It means at least a million times a thousand dollars

1% for them is virtually nothing

Unless billionaires want to send their children to collect trash, ship Amazon packages, drive cabs, keep the house clean, defend the country in the military (funny how rich people almost always skipped it) etc. etc. then they owe to society more than society owes to them

It's that simple

To not understand it one must be mentally challenged

The funniest thing is that you're not a billionaire and would only benefit from a more just society

But you felt for the same mistake that Scott Fitzgerald made many years ago.

"The rich are different from you and me” wrote in his novella, The Rich Boy, with a sense of romantic longing.

Ernest Hemingway is said to have replied “Yes, they have more money.”

Hemingway wrote later on, in a 1936 issue of Esquire magazine, “that was not humorous to Scott. He thought that they were a special glamorous race and when he found out they weren’t, it wrecked him"

Don't be a Fitzgerald, be a Hemingway.

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