Tax evasion alone looks like a continuous game of cat and mouse. Where governments are always playing catch up as less ethical legislators slip more loopholes and pork into incomprehensively large budget proposals.
If you polled the top brackets I think you'll find that they are more than happy to continue with our current tax system.
A great portion of my taxes goes to military and police. Wouldn’t they just collect the money push come to shove? They certainly have the capability, but possibly not the will.
As income taxes rise there’s a clear pattern of altered compensation like stock grants, expense accounts, etc.
For example, a company can lease an apartment for you to live in. That expense is a write off and isn’t subject to FICA taxes.
Instead of giving you $40,000 in cash which would cost 30% in FICA between you and the company plus personal income tax to you, you can live in a nice $3500/mo apartment you would otherwise be paying for in after tax dollars.
Instead of you paying $800/month+ for a Tesla model X lease with your after tax dollars the company can pay for it, write it off, and again they’re saving 15% on taxes and you’re saving > 40% on that $10,000 and pocketing more of your after tax income.
Very simplified version: we can spend up to $1k/yr on fitness related expenses and get them reimbursement. We submit a reimbursement request, and if it gets approved, I get the money back in my account. The HR page explicitly warns that any reimbursement received will count towards your income tax.
I'm not an accountant or a tax lawyer, but it doesn't look like that's the case according to the IRS's website. Housing is only exempt if it's "Lodging on your business premises"[1]. A tesla would also likely not be exempt for a typical office worker[2]
[1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b#en_US_2021_publink1000...
[2] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b#en_US_2021_publink1000...
I haven't read the whole report, but this was studied in 2005[1] and they had to add a "Family Credit" (basically a UBI) of 500-1000$ per month to balance it out, and recovered approximately 65% of individual and corporate income taxes.
1. https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/taxreformpanel/final-report/...
High sales tax on all “new” products. None on used. A check to everyone each month so that poor don’t suffer from it.
Basically eliminates the IRS, and much of the Tax compliance / avoidance industry. Stops a lot of the tax nonsense that corporations and congress loves.
Tariffs are already used a lot.
Average people in the US need to know an obscene amount just to walk the minefield, while inflation erodes what little earnings they have.
Of course the richest investors can pump money into new ventures started in the lowest regulated markets to realize the highest gains with whatever hoop-jumping to get profits laundered through lowest taxed markets.
* State lotto
* Psychic hotlines
* Supplements/vitamins of dubious value
* Regular stocks with wildly ridiculous P/E ratios
* Various forms of "insurance"
Which is to say, it's never been about protecting people from fraud and it's always been about limiting who's allowed to participate in the capital class activities.
Heavily regulated.
> Psychic hotlines
Have large numbers of people historically lost fortunes to these?
> Supplements/vitamins of dubious value
Fair.
> Regular stocks with wildly ridiculous P/E ratios
Literally the thing you're criticizing.
> Various forms of "insurance"
Heavily regulated.
This is a heady statement. It goes against all the research I've seen about international markets, though I'm open to changing my view.
Happy to read any links you have that has evidence contrary to that though.
Regulatory capture is corruption. In every scenario we need transparency and enforcement of agreed upon rules to maintain a balanced playing field.
We see people investing in dodgy companies, look at Theranos, not because the business idea is sound, but because the investors have powerful backers and can extract outsize return from inferior product.
And then there's bitcoin, which is not a medium of exchange, not a store of value, not a unit of account, but a pure object of speculation and now even Goldman Sachs advise to put the money there. The real world is not improved by clear-eyed people allocating funds to a Ponzi scheme.
People should be able to spend their money as they please. Again, this is a red herring because their is upside to be had in plenty of these investments. Contrary to the article penny stocks are nowhere near 100% fraudulent.
> State lotto
Most gambling is either highly regulated or outright banned. Also, gambling is a financial product, which arguably falls under the category of "investment".
> Supplements/vitamins of dubious value
Because these products are very carefully designed and marketed to avoid the heavy regulation that is applied to medical products
> Regular stocks with wildly ridiculous P/E ratios
These are investments, so this example doesn't really fit into your thesis that the government only regulates investments.
> Various forms of "insurance"
Insurance is a financial product that could also be viewed as an "investment". Further, many types of insurance are highly regulated.
An even better example are the accredited investor laws, which also claim to "protect" people but in reality cut off all but the wealthy from the true upside to investing.
> but in reality cut off all but the wealthy from the true upside to investing
I don't understand the logic here. There isn't a global conspiracy among rich people to stopping others from making money. It doesn't make any difference to Jeff Bezos on whether $1 million gets made by Peter Thiel or a regular person. In fact, Bezos would probably prefer the latter since they're more likely to spend their money on Amazon purchases.
The reason for accredited investor status is because losing money hurts more than winning money benefits unless if you have a lot of money to begin with. One regular person making $1 million doesn't make up for 10 regular people losing $50,000, even though that would be wildly EV positive.
Was getting up 10 times a night. Life was a living hell. Doctors were useless.
So I tried a recommended one. (Aloe Vera pills)
I sleep through the night now.
Now I also have had bad experiences. Elderberry was not fun.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683096/#!po=0....
Stuff is amazing dramatically reduced headaches and muscle aches. Magnesium citrate.
I generally stick to the most expensive ones.
Other variations have not helped, I felt weird on them.
Problem is the same (though to a much lessor degree) for prescriptions.
Plaqunial name brand is drastically more impactful then it’s genetics. So much so, that I have to cut dosage 1/2 to 1/4.
As for the reason these financial products are regulated, they lead in part to the great depression. State has an interest in it because it is in the states interest to maintain a functioning economy.
There are compelling arguments against regulations, particularly in industries that have no business being regulated like aestheticians. Or barbers. There is genuinely no good reason for that. But the suggested vitamins and drugs shouldn’t be regulated, but financial product should be regulated? I’m having a hard time with this one.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683096/#!po=0....
That said, whenever the failure to protect carries a very high cost one would hope those things would get weighted more heavily when protections are considered. Supplements in particular are interesting in that they appear increasingly _designed_ to skirt existing regulations. And as more and more are found doing significant harm the governments of various states have starting paying more attention.