The only sense in which I can get behind this is a relatively high estate tax above a certain reasonable bound. I have no problem with seeing someone get rich from inheritance, but I have a problem with people getting megarich from inheritance.
So perhaps a lower bound of about 20m and a rapidly rising progressive estate tax with a maximum rate of 75% on inheritances of 100m and up.
Note that I would specifically tax inheritances and not estates–if you are dividing your 1bil among 100 worthy friends, I see no need to crush that out of hand.
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Regarding the primary point of the thread, therefore, I would agree–no income, no income tax. I would also, however, stipulate that liquid assets as well as income should be considered for the purposes of welfare/assistance/etc., so that you are not storing your $80mil in cash in the closet of your section 8 housing while buying groceries with food stamps.
I can’t imagine a cite because I can’t imagine someone would actually cart such a sum away, then both A) not invest it and start paying cap gains and B) not spend it all within a year or two, making it a moot point.
You have to compare that to the equally mathematical certainty that if I don’t buy a ticket, I have a 0% chance of a multimillion windfall, and if I do I have spent $1 for a non-zero chance of same. That pretty rapidly breaks down if you start spending any significant money but from some viewpoints it’s worthwhile to spend a tiny amount.
The tax bite came when the money was doled out. If no more money is being doled out, no more taxes. Seems reasonable enough to me.
Now, when that $80 mil gets invested and the interest used as personal income, that interest will definitely require yearly taxes, and not at capital freaking gains levels.
Cash sitting in storage for years is subject to the hidden tax of inflation since the cash would typically lose 2% to 4% of value per year.
Property taxes, sales taxes, cell phone taxes, taxes included in the utility bills, tanning bed taxes, vehicle fuel taxes, et cetera could apply to future years depending on property ownership, location, and how a cash saturated hermit spends his money.
You know what capital gains taxes are, you know what income taxes, windfall gains are.
In the example you pose, you have paid the income taxes for the year in which you made the income. Next year’s taxes, providing that your money doesn’t accidentally make more money should be zero.
Except that according to the lastest State of the Union message, we should be striving for a more ‘fair’ society. Fair means I get part of your money without doing anything, because you didn’t do anything to get the money. So it is all ‘ours’.
We/they will find another way to take your money. Perhaps a bulk cash fee. Or a cash holding fee where you are penalized for just keeping the money instead of investing it. A failure to re-invest fee.
You aren’t playing the game by putting your money back in the community pile, so we take some anyway.
My imaginary money is on changing the currency until the money you are holding has no value and cannot be redeemed. That is still a sort of taxation or confiscation but it looks a little prettier.
That depends, do you plan to run for President on the Republican ticket or Democratic?
It also depends on whether or not you want to keep people from killing you, raping your family, and taking all your money. That’s what happens when rich people like you refuse to pay taxes and try to be a freeloader on society. I don’t care how much you’ve already paid. It’s your rent to live in a civil society. The government needs money and you’ve got plenty of it. Unless you don’t plan to use the roads or FDA or other stuff like that.
You only have that money because you were lucky, think about how hard life is for all the stupid, I mean unlucky people that dump thousands into the lottery every year and get nothing for it. You owe those people.
So I figure since median income is now about $50k a year, you can have that for the next 40 years totaling $2million. Spreading the tax load out over the 40 years I figure you owe a little less than $2mil per year.
I would say that property taxes serve a useful purpose. If not there would be homes that were permanently uninhabited if the owner were to die without an heir.
You were taxesd in eyar one,. If you never have any more income and you just live off the pile under your mattress then there wouldn’t be any more income tax.
It’s significantly different in that property tax is meant to be a tax tied into a person’s contribution to the delivery of services directly related to the holding of real estate. I realize it’s not a perfect correlation, but it’s there; you’re paying property tax largely to pay for municipal and regional services. f you own a house but pay no property tax, you’re a freeloader; you’re getting service you aren’t paying for.
In the case of Bricker, his cash isn’t incurring any sort of marginal cost on society. It’s taken out of circulation, true… but on the other hand, by removing that money from circulation he’s also increasing the value of everyone else’s money. There’s no real marginal cost to society for Bricker to sit on his pile of money.
Indeed, if he’s determined to not spend a dime of the $80 million and just keep it in his closet, he doesn’t really have any wealth. Money used for nothing is, in effect, nothing; he may as well have just set fire to it. Bricker’s $80 million becomes wealth only if it is put to use - either spent, or invested, or passed on to his children who’re willing to spend or invest it. Sooner or later it WILL get used, and then it will be taxed, and if he is absolutely determined that it will never get used and he destroys it, well, he has no wealth to tax.
I’d disagree with you here, not on material grounds (you’re correct there in the parts of your post I snipped) but on more conceptual ones.
Someone with a freewheeling 80 million has real power, call it potential wealth if you will (and if you do you’re probably a physicist :)), even without spending a cent of it.
Even without spending it, he probably influences the economy around him as people either try to get him to spend it, force him to, or try to steal it from him. When he speaks in public, he’s not just a regular schmoe supporting an idea, he’s a schmoe worth 80 million cash supporting an idea, who might hand some of it out if you support it too. He doesn’t even have to come out and say so, or promise to - that’s just what people are going to angle for. And show him respect for.
Economics is not just raw maths, is what I’m saying.
Where I live, all personal property is taxed, not just real estate. Every year I have to declare the value of all of my personal belongings so that they may be taxed. Protecting my TV is no different than my big pile of money.
I realize that my situation does not apply to most people.
That’s a really good point, since like it or not we exist in a capitalist society, and Bricker now has a damn lot of capital.
Problem with this concept though is that taxes become a way to go after that power. Almost a modern twist on the government keeping people down. With that much money Brickercould easily sway an election or two. Certainly something the incumbents would like to avoid.
Property taxes, by the way, are not related to the current market value of a property directly, but to the value when the last re-evaluation was done, or, for California, from when it was bought or significantly altered. Besides the value in assessing taxes for values provided to property owners, they also make the tax base more stable. Part of California’s problem is that more of its tax income comes from sales and income taxes than other states, thanks to Prop. 13, and so the hit on tax revenue in downturns is relatively greater.
Wealth taxes would be impractical. Consider how difficult it is for banks to value their holdings. If Bricker stuck his money in the market, in stocks that paid no dividend and thus would generate no income until he sold them, how do you propose to value it for tax purposes? What if the market drops 700 points the day after, or before, the valuation? And that is an easy case. What is the money is in Greek debt?
He’d only sway elections if he spends some of the money, not just waves it around. Think of the proverbial bag lady with a million bucks. How much power does she have.If No politician is going to listen to Bricker unless he spends some up front.
Which makes me wonder - what is the sales tax on politicians anyway?