'It is not up to the rich to decide how much they should pay in taxes'
english.elpais.com
english.elpais.com
> Since the notion of income for the very rich is not very well defined, it should not be expressed as a function of income but of wealth.
> Our proposal is to have a minimum tax equal to 2% of the wealth of billionaires each year.
I think this is pretty reasonable.
To me the more interesting part is a structure for tax-avoidance where he says each country should be able to look at a company's total global tax bill, compute a "deficit" of how much more tax they would have paid if that country's tax rate applied to its global business, and pro-rate based on how much actually occurs in that country ... which presumably then updates their "deficit" calculation.
> There can always be countries that play the role of tax collectors of last resort. If Spain decides that it wants multinationals to pay at least 25%, it can calculate the tax deficit of each multinational that has access to its market, defined as the difference between what they are taxed globally and what they would have to pay if they were subject to a minimum tax of 25% in each country where they operate. Some will pay at least 25% everywhere and will not have an extra tax in Spain, but for those that do not [pay]? Spain could collect a portion of its fiscal deficit. For example, if Apple has a global fiscal deficit of 10 billion and does 10% of its global sales there, Spain could say, “If you want to continue to have access to our market, you must pay 10% of 10 billion, an additional €1 billion in taxes.” The logic is very simple: you have to link market access to minimum taxation.
Am I wrong, or does this mean that if multiple countries took such a policy, calculating taxes then requires a fixed-point process to converge on a value?
https://nptelegraph.com/news/nation-world/government-politic...
But the people under discussion here have all made vast fortunes on the sweat of thousands other people's brows. They should be expected to have some tax burden. And income tax is clearly not working as is.
This is a great point, and I think lends itself to a better solution than taxes. Why give all the excess to the government, who will do who knows what with it? (actually it's pretty clear where the majority of it goes, and I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't spend it the same way as the government).
If someone attained their wealth with the help of others, why can't we enact regulations saying that the wealth must be divided amongst all of them? Sure you can have some differences for those at the top, but it shouldn't be orders of magnitude difference.
Then each of those individuals would be both better off individually as well as spreading that wealth farther across the economy instead of concentrated to a few individuals.
I'm probably too naive in my thinking here though.
If we just say that the extremely well off have some burden, but maybe it's not entirely up to them & maybe people under them should have some day where that money goes: that creates perverse incentives where the rich person might shape who stays employed and who falls inline. Or even if not explicit pressure, maybe the rich person sets up various programs which obviously clearly benefit employees more so than others. It creates endless hard to read quid-pro-quo and other self dealing situations.
Rather than give the mega wealthy control over some societal obligation, it seems like governments can and should be in charge. If you disbelieve in government, I think there's a strong and high obligation to state how and where you think things are going astray, and I think there's a strong obligation to seek reform and improvement. Tearing down the United States & state governments or supplanting them with exterior powers is an act that, to me, seems blankety awful, with little clear advisement for it.
I like the state and don't think we should undermine it and I think should expect the ultra-richer to carry some burden, which they have so far escaped. I don't think we need to revamp the structure of government when we decide rich people should pay some burden too, which for the last ~4 decades they hasnt been the case.
They will only increase in value if a wealth tax is passed.
Heck, if you have the PM if Iceland hiding stuff in Panama, what will happen when they get serious??
You're maybe not wrong that the accountants & tax people could become more valuable at helping wealthy dodge the intended laws & avoiding the clear intent.
But that, to me, doesn't mean the effort should be given up on. The wealthy are at war against having any tax burden, and yes, this game will iterate, the ultra wealthy will continue to try to avoid having any tax burden on them, with whatever ridiculous farce they can cook up.
But that does not, to me, mean giving up. That does not, to me, mean fatalism that they will forever avoid being socially contributive. The premise that they will forever find better people to help them cheat is a dastardly seditious & low nihilism, that excuses us from ever trying, premises around them always forever being able to get the upper hand and contribute nothing.
We should have a premise better than forever losing to the uktrarich when we consider how society ought be structured, how it ought function. We should try to govern & make sensible structures. If the structures aren't working, we should alter our structures to make the ultra wealthy have some tax burden.
I wonder how that would change the payoff calculations for business founders?
If winning means you just get your winnings taken by taxes over the rest of your life, why work to win?
https://80000hours.org/2014/05/how-much-do-y-combinator-foun...
The median return for a founder is essentially $0. Because most startups fail.
The average return for a YC founder is skewed heavily upwards by one or two ultra-successful unicorns.
Plenty of founders are motivated by non-monetary goals (especially status).
But would people still be incentivised to become founders if the amount you get to own after decades of taxes rounds to $0?
Some pundits suggest a cap on wealth "limitarianism".
Incentive structures matter.
It appears to me that a lot of small businesses are run by people investing huge amounts of their time to go from having a few million to a few million more.
A 2% tax above a cliff means that people will stop developing their businesses once they reach the cliff.
Socialism via taxation policy?
Basically it creates a cap on private business size? Maybe reasonable, maybe not.
It is a negative incentive to never try to work more to earn more. Suddenly you lose your serial entrepreneurs. Disincentives matter as much as incentives.
In New Zealand, the party suggesting a wealth tax, was going to levy it if you had more than $1 million equity.
There is no reason they wouldn't reduce the limit from $100M over time. Politicians want power, why would they want to allow anyone to have significant assets?
One fundamental strength of capitalism is that it finds compromises between competing needs - compromises that our politicians can't or won't make.
All Western capitalist nations, including the US, implement a degree of socialism via taxation. So whenever I see this "that's socialism" argument my thought is so what? We already have socialism, that's not an argument. A good argument is on the effect in either direction.
there are also other problems with your statements. You pretty clearly haveno idea how taxes work because you are confusing the dollar earned by the brick layer with a dollar dividend paid to bezos. When the correct equivalent dollaris the profit earned by amazon and the combined tax paid by amazon and bezos on the dividend, since the earned dollar that is equivalent to the dollar the brick layer earned is the one earned by amazon, a dividend is just a distribution of partially taxed earned dollars fr(m the construct we call a corporation.
you also incorrectly think hardness of work has anything to do with earnings, when it is irrelevant. What makes work valuable is scarcity not hardness.