No one?
Why are the rich so opposed to paying taxes?
Lots of threads right now involving increasing the top marginal tax rate, and each time a conservative mentions that it will hurt investments. Each time a liberal insists that it won’t, that if a person wants more money they’ll open another store, regardless of the tax rate on their next million. Even if they don’t, someone else will. Someone else tries to explain risk, and the thread deteriorates into another bitch-fest about libertarians.
So instead of talking about progressive taxes, the rich, and investments, we look at it from a different angle. Will people risk their money to play the lottery if we change the potential payout? Not the odds of winning, but the benefits derived. As you said, the odds of picking the right power ball number doesn’t change, but instead of $1million you only end up with $100,000.
To that we had several people, yourself included, asking why would people play?
It seemed intuitively obvious to everyone here that people wouldn’t risk $5 if the tax rate went up on their winnings, even if they’d still win $100,000 instead of $1million.
Within so many of the tax threads it is eventually pointed out that the top marginal tax rate was 91% back in the 50s and everything was great.
How is it that it’s so obvious that people wouldn’t buy a $5 lottery ticket if their payout changes, but yet people are completely oblivious to how million dollar investments might not happen if the potential payout shrinks.
They are similar enough that people instantly realized a $5 bet with 1 in one million odds isn’t as desirable when the government takes a big chunk of your winnings. So what would happen to a $500 stock purchase, or $500,000 real estate venture, with way better odds, if the government takes a bigger chunk out of the gains?
We’ve tried, it turns into the same threads as those linked above. How are people supposed to understand the laffer curve if they don’t realize that people won’t risk money if the payout changes?