Is there a practical mechanism to tax wealth instead of income?

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
I feel better. Wealth is safe from the liberal masses, it appears.

Well, at least given this scientific survey of 5 or so.
[/QUOTE]

Want to say why the problems I have with the idea aren’t problems? I’m all for increasing the tax on those with big incomes back at least to where it was pre-Bush. Anyone who says that kills initiative obviously didn’t live through the '90s. I was briefly in a high bracket, and I can tell you it didn’t hurt my initiative at all. So I’m all for ways of reducing the income gap we have now - I don’t think taxing wealth is a good way to do it.

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=JohnT]
Haven’t read the other posts, but a variant on income tax (the estate tax) eventually taxes wealth when the wealthy person dies and distributes their assets to people other than their spouse.
[/QUOTE]

Though the tax is paid by the estate, the estate tax can be see as kind of an income tax, since the heirs are getting the money. Income taxes tax money that moves, wealth taxes are for money that is static.

[FRDE]

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
Oh come now. Any income that you earn by investing your after tax income is new income, subject to a new tax.
[/QUOTE]

Actually you are wrong there, unless inflation =< zero

Nominal Interest = Inflation + Real Interest

The closer the Nominal Interest rate is to the rate of Inflation, the more likely that your income tax is actually a wealth tax.

[BobLibDem]

[QUOTE=Shodan]
This is sort of in relation to your point, BobLibDem -I thought this was a tax on total wealth, not income, and thus would include a percent of everything you own, year after year, even if you hadn’t received any income. If I am a millionaire, and the “wealth tax” is 10%, then I pay $100,000 this year, and $90,000 next year, and so forth.

If I am mistaken about this, I am sure you will correct me. I seem to remember you handing me my ass in a related thread some time back.

[/QUOTE]

My mistake, Shodan. I thought you were complaining about taxing income that people would get after investing after-tax income. But we currently get taxed on assets regardless of income anyway. I don’t see my township planning to cut my property taxes after I retire.

I favor the plan where sales tax replaces all property taxes. You work out what sales tax you would pay on bare essentials of living and rebate that, so the working poor pay no taxes at all. Tax all purchases above and beyond the bare essentials, and the more you spend the more you pay. Once you own that Jaguar, you wouldn’t have to pay tax on it.

[msmith537]

[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]

Back to taxing wealth instead of income: I think there is a fundamental unfairness beyond what the “right” amount of taxes is. Say I have $100 million. I borrow ten million and live on it, paying the juice out of the ten I borrowed. I leave the 90 in stocks/whatever that are never liquidated but which secure the loan. I pay no taxes. That, in a nutshell, is what the truly wealthy do. (I’m not talking about the specifics, but rather the basic point: they are rich enough to avoid having to live off their income, and b/c we tax income and not wealth, a fundamental unfairness results.)

[/QUOTE]

Well, as already pointed out, you have already paid taxes income used to buy the $100 million of stock.

You will continue paying taxes on any capital gains or dividends you earn from those stocks.

And finally, I don’t know why anyone would attempt your pla. You don’t have to be wealthy either. Basically quit your job and live off your credit card. You’ll have to pay no taxes because you have no income. You’re basically living off a loan. The problem is you are still required to make payments on that loan. You’re also paying ever increasing amount of interest.

You need to understand the concept of wealth vs income. Wealth is having ownership in income generating assets - stocks, businesses, real estate. Income is the money earned from those assets - dividends and capital gains, revenue, appreciation.

What you describe sounds more like wealth redistribution. It would not be “fair” and would mostly hurt the middle classes - home and small business owners. It would discourage wealth creation and put more of the burden on government to support people.

@JohnT

Having lived in the South my entire life, I was struck the first time I spent extended time in upstate NY, seeing many people who had subdivided their own homes into apartments merely for the purposes of keeping up with the taxes.

You can deduct your property taxes from your Federal income taxes. I can see where people on a fixed income can run into trouble though which is just another reason taxing wealth is a bad idea.

[Shodan]

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
I favor the plan where sales tax replaces all property taxes. You work out what sales tax you would pay on bare essentials of living and rebate that, so the working poor pay no taxes at all. Tax all purchases above and beyond the bare essentials, and the more you spend the more you pay. Once you own that Jaguar, you wouldn’t have to pay tax on it.
[/QUOTE]

I haven’t thought enough about a sales tax to decide if I like it or not. The only objection I can think of off the top of my head is that I am sure there would be somebody rich paying less in total sales tax than some struggling single mom, because the rich guy spent the same on food and clothing, and his house was paid for. No fair!

Would the sales tax be charged on stuff bought overseas?

Regards,
Shodan

[Chief_Pedant]

[QUOTE=msmith537]
Well, as already pointed out, you have already paid taxes income used to buy the $100 million of stock.

You will continue paying taxes on any capital gains or dividends you earn from those stocks.

And finally, I don’t know why anyone would attempt your pla. You don’t have to be wealthy either. Basically quit your job and live off your credit card. You’ll have to pay no taxes because you have no income. You’re basically living off a loan. The problem is you are still required to make payments on that loan. You’re also paying ever increasing amount of interest.

You need to understand the concept of wealth vs income. Wealth is having ownership in income generating assets - stocks, businesses, real estate. Income is the money earned from those assets - dividends and capital gains, revenue, appreciation.

What you describe sounds more like wealth redistribution. It would not be “fair” and would mostly hurt the middle classes - home and small business owners. It would discourage wealth creation and put more of the burden on government to support people.

You can deduct your property taxes from your Federal income taxes. I can see where people on a fixed income can run into trouble though which is just another reason taxing wealth is a bad idea.
[/QUOTE]

(Voyager, I’m trying to agree with you–there are problems taxing wealth; I don’t think it can be done.)

All taxation is “wealth redistribution” I’d say. And FWIW I’m not suggesting we try to tax wealth, for all of the problems mentioned so far, and more. As I said, I don’t think it’s possible. I am suggesting, though, that it is fundamentally unfair not to do so. (BTW, assets are easily structured so they do not generate much net taxable income, as you know.)

As far as pimping the middle class: well; we always get pimped. But right now there is a growing disparity between the superwealthy and the broad middle, and I think the disparity would be better addressed if we could find a way to tax wealth rather than just piddle with income tax.

[Lissa]

An idea (open to criticism-- I’d like to know what the problems would be):

A tax system based on* purchasing* instead of income. Items priced over a certain amount would be subject to the tax while their “pedestrian” versions would not. (As an example, a regular toilet seat purchased at Wal-Mart would be exempt of the “rich tax” while the solid gold one that Britney Spears supposedly bought would be subject to the tax. An ordinary fishing boat would be exempt, but a 200 foot yacht would not.)

Tarrifs would be placed on importing these luxury goods so that people wouldn’t simply buy the goods from Europe instead. (Actually, make the taxed rate a little lower for Made in the USA goods to encourage sales of American products.)

[ralph124c]

You forget one detail: NONE of the wealthy class in the USA would ever allow taxing wealth. take the Kennedy family, for example: it is hugely wealthy-the fortune was established by joe Kennedy Sr.-a bootlegger and predatory businessman. The Kennedy fortune is held in a trust, which is open to public review ONCE a year. this fortune enables the memebers of the clan (now in the 4th generation) to enter politics, act as socail critics, and generally make life miserable for most of us. Would they EVER (voluntarily) relinquish this power? NEVER! It is too much fun-they enjoy being part of the hereditary aristocracy. A tax on wealth would upset their apple cart-and Sen. ted Knnedy, would block any such proposal.

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=Lissa]
An idea (open to criticism-- I’d like to know what the problems would be):

A tax system based on* purchasing* instead of income. Items priced over a certain amount would be subject to the tax while their “pedestrian” versions would not. (As an example, a regular toilet seat purchased at Wal-Mart would be exempt of the “rich tax” while the solid gold one that Britney Spears supposedly bought would be subject to the tax. An ordinary fishing boat would be exempt, but a 200 foot yacht would not.)

[/QUOTE]

Did there used to be luxury taxes, outside of Monopoly, I mean? You need to somehow write the tax code to come up with the money you need, its primary purpose, whatever you think of wealth redistribution, is raising money for the government.
Shodan, if a rich guy wants to live like he’s poor, I don’t mind him not paying much in sales tax. Let’s say that’s not high on my list of concerns.

Chief Pedant, I’m glad we’re in basic agreement. I don’t think your scenario is what rich people do. They’d be levying a wealth tax on themselves, in the form of the interest on these loans. Assuming there are no dividends, they’re just postponing the tax until they finally sell these stocks and pay capital gains on them. That’s assuming they own pure stocks, if they own mutual or index funds the shares are being traded all the time and they’ll owe tax even if they never take any money out.

There are other ways to avoid taxes. Mrs. Kerry has much of her money in municipal bonds. She doesn’t pay tax on it, but gets less interest. She does it to help local governments. (My father does this because he hates taxes - I can assure you it is not that great an investment.)

[Freddy_the_Pig]

As a historical note, when the peacetime income tax was first debated in the United States (roughly from 1890 to 1913), it was advocated as a tax on wealth, not a tax on wages.

In early America, wealth had been held in the form of land, which was reached by state and local property taxes. After the Industrial Revolution, individuals began to accumulate fortunes in the form of stocks and bonds, which weren’t reached by taxation. The income tax, it was believed, would remedy this.

Bonds, after all, paid interest, and stocks paid dividends. (Corporations paid higher and more regular dividends in that era, partly because there was no double taxation to encourage retained earnings.) The first income tax threshold was set at a high enough level ($4,000 in 1913) so that only a very few of the highest wage-earners would be reached; but the wealthy, it was believed, would be on the hook for interest and dividends.

The House Ways and Means Committee, urging an income tax in 1894, reported that “the wealth of this country amounts to more than $65,000,000,000, and the question arises whether it is not just and fair that a portion of this money should be raised by a tax on the earnings of wealth instead of imposing it all, or nearly all, on consumption.” Representative David DeArmond called the income tax “a levy upon the full purse–upon the riches in the strong-box of wealth.”

This view of the income tax quickly became obsolete—affluence pushed wages up, the government pushed tax brackets down, and corporations shifted their emphasis to retained earnings and capital gains. The income tax now falls mostly upon wages, and as such hits not “the wealthy” per se, but those who are in the process of becoming wealthy.

[Shodan]

[QUOTE=Chief Pedant]
All taxation is “wealth redistribution” I’d say.
[/quote]

It is, but I don’t think it should be. That is to say, certainly taxation takes money away from me and passes it to someone else (the military, regulatory agencies, etc..etc.), but -

But right now there is a growing disparity between the superwealthy and the broad middle, and I think the disparity would be better addressed if we could find a way to tax wealth rather than just piddle with income tax.

I deny altogether that this disparity needs to be addressed. The superwealthy are not doing any injury to the “broad middle” by having more money, and the “broad middle” has no legitimate claim to that money. (Please note the specific reference to the “broad middle”.)

The only purpose of taxation, in my view, is to fund the legitimate functions of government - not social engineering or some sort of economic egalitarianism. Bill Gates is not doing me any harm by owning more than I do. So I have no right to use the coercive power of government to remove any of his wealth merely because I want it.

I am trying to separate this idea from the welfare function of government. The welfare function may or may not be legitimate, and can be achieved in various ways. But pretend for the moment that (outliers notwithstanding) pretty much everyone in a society has reasonable access to the means of life. We can argue, if you like, what “reasonable” means here, or if everyone in America has achieved it, but assume for the sake of the argument that we are reasonably close.

My contention is that taxation for the purpose of transferring wealth from the “have-lots” to the “have-enough-but-not-nearly-as-much” is not legitimate. Again please note, I am not talking about people starving in the streets. But wealth disparity, in and of itself, is not a social evil.

In my view, one of the drawbacks of the political development of the US over that last forty years or so is the notion that, if some group has more money than the government thinks they need, then the government can dream up some new way of spending that money, take the money, and then spend it. If the group gets more money, then the government gets to take that and spend it too.

I see it as [ul][li]decide what are the functions of the federal government []decide what amount of revenue is needed to fulfill those functions (which are limited exclusively to the ones enumerated in the Constitution, and nowhere else)[]tax in a way that raises that amount of revenue, with minimal impact on the economy[*]then stop.[/ul]The fact that people have more or less left after the revenue has been raised should have no effect on the process. You fund the necessary functions, and you are done.[/li]
I can see the reasoning behind getting the bulk of the money from those who will miss it least. But I do not accept the reasoning that says we should get more than that.

@ralph124c

A tax on wealth would upset their apple cart-and Sen. ted Knnedy, would block any such proposal.

Actually, he would probably publicly support it, and then hire tax lawyers to find the loopholes.

@Lissa

An idea (open to criticism-- I’d like to know what the problems would be):

A tax system based on purchasing instead of income.

This is the sales tax that BobLibDem suggested, ISTM.

Items priced over a certain amount would be subject to the tax while their “pedestrian” versions would not.

Of course, consider the bureaucracy involved in deciding which items were over-priced, and which were not. Is a $500,000 house pedestrian? In San Francisco? How about a $50,000 solar-powered car? Gourmet foods? $200 sneakers? Organic produce costs more than the regular versions, at least at my grocery store. Pedestrian, or not? Etc.

An ordinary fishing boat would be exempt, but a 200 foot yacht would not.

Interesting that you should choose yachts as an example. That has actually already been tried. The net effect was to clobber the domestic boat industry.

Tarrifs would be placed on importing these luxury goods so that people wouldn’t simply buy the goods from Europe instead. (Actually, make the taxed rate a little lower for Made in the USA goods to encourage sales of American products.)

This is protectionism, which is a whole other thread. I guess I will content myself by saying that free trade is one of the few concepts that is nearly unanimously endorsed by economists.

Regards,
Shodan

[Lissa]

Interesting, Shodan. Thanks for your feedback.

[Dangerosa]

[QUOTE=FRDE]
Actually you are wrong there, unless inflation =< zero

Nominal Interest = Inflation + Real Interest

The closer the Nominal Interest rate is to the rate of Inflation, the more likely that your income tax is actually a wealth tax.
[/QUOTE]

And which is why the long term capital gains tax rate is 15% instead of the 30%+ most people who have long term capital gains pay as their marginal rate. It compensates for the opportunity cost of having your money tied up in capital.

[Voyager]

[QUOTE=Shodan]
It is, but I don’t think it should be. That is to say, certainly taxation takes money away from me and passes it to someone else (the military, regulatory agencies, etc..etc.), but -

Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]

My question is, how could it not be? First, any given tax rate will tend to redistribute income, if only by taking it relatively more from one class than another. You can produce several models of how to maximize equity, but other models will always consider this unfair. Do you tax by equal percentages, or by equal impact?

Second, tax money always goes to someone, or gives benefit to someone. In peactime money spent on defense may benefit those relatively well off people in defense industries (and investors in these) and also relatively less well off people, on the average, who join the military and get well-deserved benefits from doing so.

If you spend the money on police, does is benefit the rich with more to lose more than the poor? If you build roads, maybe that doesn’t help those who rely on public transportation. If you build public transportation, it doesn’t help those in cars.

I think it is better to decide which goals we want to implement.

[BobLibDem]

[QUOTE=Shodan]
I see it as [ul][li]decide what are the functions of the federal government []decide what amount of revenue is needed to fulfill those functions (which are limited exclusively to the ones enumerated in the Constitution, and nowhere else)[]tax in a way that raises that amount of revenue, with minimal impact on the economythen stop.[/ul]The fact that people have more or less left after the revenue has been raised should have no effect on the process. You fund the necessary functions, and you are done.[/li][/QUOTE]

I absolutely, 100% agree with this. The trouble is, too many people want the free lunch and too many say “don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind that tree.” Figure out what we need to do and how to pay for it, forget the rest.

[ElvisL1ves]

decide what are the functions of the federal government

Kinda beggin’ the question there, ain’tcha?

[Shodan]

[QUOTE=Voyager]
My question is, how could it not be? First, any given tax rate will tend to redistribute income, if only by taking it relatively more from one class than another. You can produce several models of how to maximize equity, but other models will always consider this unfair. Do you tax by equal percentages, or by equal impact?

Second, tax money always goes to someone, or gives benefit to someone. In peactime money spent on defense may benefit those relatively well off people in defense industries (and investors in these) and also relatively less well off people, on the average, who join the military and get well-deserved benefits from doing so.

If you spend the money on police, does is benefit the rich with more to lose more than the poor? If you build roads, maybe that doesn’t help those who rely on public transportation. If you build public transportation, it doesn’t help those in cars.

I think it is better to decide which goals we want to implement.
[/QUOTE]
You’re correct, of course. It is more or less unavoidable that taxes redistribute, pretty much by definition, and for all the reasons you list.

But like you say, better to decide on goals first. And what I am saying is that one of the goals ought not to be to reduce wealth disparity, which I deny is a social evil.

If the government needs $X to function, and the richest 1% wind up fifty times better off than the middle class after you have extracted $X, then the government has no business taxing $X + Y where Y > 0 just to reduce that disparity. That ought not to be a goal of the tax code.

IYSWIM.

@BobLibDem

I absolutely, 100% agree with this. The trouble is, too many people want the free lunch and too many say “don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind that tree.” Figure out what we need to do and how to pay for it, forget the rest.

Preach it, brothah. Given the choice between a balanced budget amendment and a rewrite of the tax code, I go for balance without a second’s hesitation.

On the other hand, some of what motivates the desire to increase the role of government is the notion that it will all come out of the backs of the rich. I can’t remember where I read it, but it was some French woman after the Socialists came to power in France -

I voted for them because they were going to stick it to the rich. Then I found out, I’m the rich.

Regards,
Shodan

[Damuri_Ajashi]

The estate tax taxes wealth. We retain the right to tax the capital gains of a U.S. citizen for ten years after they cease to be a U.S. resident. The tax system is a lot more complicated than most people will ever suspect, mostly because about 99% only applies to about 1% of taxpayers (there are entire sections on the taxation of life insurance companies and and stuff like that).

[Polycarp]

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
I absolutely, 100% agree with this. The trouble is, too many people want the free lunch and too many say “don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind that tree.” Figure out what we need to do and how to pay for it, forget the rest.
[/QUOTE]

I hereby christen this effect the NIRSIMBY Syndrome. (The acronym should be obvious.)