More on Amazon: just what did Bezos do that other mail order operations did not, or could not? Why is he successful?
Well one of the biggest loopholes right now is on corporate profits. Where a corporation can perform almost all of their centralized functions in Country A while claiming their official HQ is in Country B for tax purposes.
No way country A should tolerate this, and since the tax take right now is essentially zero, it’s worth at least trying to get something.
Actually they did.
Since the 1980s, the poor and middle class are about even financially after allowing for inflation. Almost all the financial growth has gone to the top.
Furthermore, the richer you were the more you got. The top 10% had modest growth, the top 1% had strong growth, and the top 0.1% had spectacular growth.
I’m posting in this thread because its basis, I think, is the call to raise taxes on the rich.
In articles like this one we find comments like:
Paraphrasing, there’s no point taxing the very rich — little money would be raised.
Poll question. Please consider three tax proposals and guess which one would raise the least tax. Assume (yes, counterfactually) that there would be no extra “sheltering.” Use recent IRS data. To make computation viable assume all income is taxed at the rate for ordinary income. No Peeking at the Spoiler.
Proposal (A)
Leave the tax rate on all income from Zero to $286,000 as it is at present.
Increase the marginal tax from $286,000 to ∞ by 5% above its present rate, e.g. from 37% to 42%.
Proposal (B)
Leave the tax rate on all income from Zero to $12.1 Million as it is at present.
Increase the marginal tax from $12.1 million to ∞ by 25% above its present rate, e.g. from 37% to 62%.
Proposal (C) – combine A and B
Leave the tax rate on all income from Zero to $286,000 as it is at present.
Increase the marginal tax from $286,000 to $12.1 million by 5% above its present rate, e.g. from 37% to 42%.
Increase the marginal tax from $12.1 million to ∞ by 30% above its present rate, e.g. from 37% to 67%.
With the assumptions, Proposal C will obviously raise the most revenue: the sum of the revenue from (A) and (B). Which of (A) and (B) raises more than the other? (If the thresholds look like weird numbers, that’s because of IRS reporting: Exactly 2% of households had more than $286,000; 0.01% had more than $12.1 million.
Yes, I know what marginal income means. In proposal (B), a household which earns $13 million will pay the high rate only on $900,000.
(C) raises an additional $175 billion.
(B) raises an additional $92 billion.
(A) raises an additional $83 billion.
It’s a myth that the income of the super-rich is too small to bother taxing.
The top 2% of households had 22% of total income. Note that this EXCLUDES the trillions of unrealized capital gains held by the super-rich.
Would you trade places with the wealthiest man alive in 1980?
That means you wouldn’t have access to the advances that have occurred in 39 years that even poor people can enjoy.
No smart phones, no Internet, no new technology, no new miracle drugs or medical treatments. Not the vast variety of entertainment. Just stuff that was available in 1980. I think the decision is much harder than you would think. My point is that when you ponder the question, you’re forced to appreciate what we have now and that these wealth transfers are not the injustices you believe them to be. Your middle class life is arguably better than the life of the wealthiest man alive in 1980.
I call this the Marco Polo fallacy argument, according to an old Encyclopedia Britannica documentary/recreation, Marco reported that in the capital of the Chinese Empire silk was so abundant that even the poor people did wear it.
Thing is, the poor people were still poor anyhow. Having something better than in the past only means that the tide has increased for all on only one issue while more realistically the poor still have dozens of issues that affect them. Some baselines have improved a bit for all, but has remained the same or become worse for the poor in other areas.
Ooops. An episode of {aphasia?, typomania?} when I transferred number via brain from worksheet to post.
*The top 1% of households had 22% of total income. *
Capturing created wealth is not the same as taking it. I have already presented data showing that wealth is not zero sum. Nobody can make you read the entire thread or familiarize yourself with the relevant data prior to posting, but choosing to do so may spare yourself further embarrassment.
The top 1% paid 39% of the income taxes. So what’s the nature of all the emphasis.
And what’s the point of pointing out that unrealized capital gains make up most of the wealth of incredibly wealthy people? Are you proposing that we, the people, should tax these unrealized gains? Or are you pointing out that most of this wealth doesn’t exist in the form of gold bullion or attractive money market accounts?
The way it’s normally stated is that a person on median income in the developed world lives better than a king a couple centuries ago.
Going only back to 1980…yeah, the richest person in the world is demonstrably better off than I am in countless ways, and not having access to game of thrones is not sufficient compensation. That’s putting aside the social / status benefit of being the world’s richest man.
Also there was a bit of a sleight of hand there…Steven_Maven was talking about “the poor and middle class” and you decided to drop “the poor” part.
I tend to think that having too much wealth is immoral, but then I read things written by Nathan J Robinson and others like him, and it tends to change my mind.
One hears this argument a lot, and it’s a silly argument. Just for starters, for many multi-millionaires the availability of compliant young blonde starlets is a major attraction. This “benefit” increases when the general prosperity decreases.
Do you think Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Isaac Newton despised their lives and would happily change places with a present-day dishwasher or coal miner?
Reminder to fellow rationalists:
Avoid the term "zero-sum game" where "constant-sum game" is more accurate
Avoid the term "fixed-size pie" where "pie growing predictability based on population and productivity trends" will cause less confusion.
[quote="Ruken, post:228, topic:828614"]
I have already presented data showing that wealth is not zero sum.
[/QUOTE]
I skimmed and missed your data, sorry. Did it show that the "pie" has been increasing? Yes, we know that.
A larger and larger share of the pie has been going to the super-rich. Larry Ellison is worth $40 billion or so. Do you think the total "pie" would be $40 billion less if Ellison had never lived?
[quote="MemoryLeak, post:229, topic:828614"]
The top 1% paid 39% of the income taxes. So what's the nature of all the emphasis.
And what's the point of pointing out that unrealized capital gains make up most of the wealth of incredibly wealthy people? Are you proposing that we, the people, should tax these unrealized gains? Or are you pointing out that most of this wealth doesn't exist in the form of gold bullion or attractive money market accounts?
[/QUOTE]
You are confusing wealth and income/increase.
If I have $100 million and a year later have $110 million, the $10 million might be described as "income" in vulgar diction. The IRS does not consider it to be income and NO, I AM NOT PROPOSING TO TAX IT. I mention it just to demonstrate that ***the stupendously rich are even more stupendously rich*** than those IRS statistics imply. The 0.01% who "earned" more than $12.1 million had that income in the form of "IRS Net Taxable Income." The billions — no, trillions — of undispersed income by the corporations the super-rich own do NOT appear in the IRS individual income statistics.No offense, but you’re conflating wealth and income. The increase or decrease in the value of a corporation is not undispersed income.
A billion dollars in their pockets, they must have HUGE pockets.
Really they don’t have a billion in cash, most of that is invested. Or do you really think Bill Gates or Amancio Ortega, have this huge pile of cash sitting in their living room?
No they are invested in business, that pay wages, etc. Just because you think it’s unfair that someone could spend 200+ million on something doesn’t make them evil or bad. I invest, I expect a return on my investment, sometimes I win sometimes I lose, in general I win, why should I be punished for making a profit? And no I’m not a billionaire which brings me to my question.
How much is too much? At what point do you say, OK we’re taking everything over X? Then what makes you think those people won’t stop working after that?
And you say billionaire what about Apple who has over 200 billion cash on hand should we say, you know 500 million is enough, we’re taking the rest. Apple and every other company would flee. Or maybe you’d get something like this “Wealth tax is forcing 12,000 millionaires PER YEAR out of France” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4932482/Wealth-tax-forces-12-000-millionaires-YEAR-France.html
So all your tax would do the chase those billionaires out of the country, and what country wouldn’t love to have them. “Hi, I have 60 billion dollars that I can invest in your country, but I need to be a citizen first.” You already know what would happen, “Glad to have you, sign here, and let me be the first to welcome you as a new citizen.”
Steven_Maven apparently does not, given the post title “Wealth is a zero-sum game” and the claim that new wealth was taken from me. Federal Reserve series FL152090005.Q shows that 12 trillion of wealth vanished during the last recession and 50 trillion was created since, as of about a year ago. The total amount of wealth in this country doubled in about ten years. We can complain about who is or is not ending up with it, but someone not ending up with something is not the same thing as having it taken from them.
I don’t entertain JAQs in GD. You’re welcome to make your own argument; we look forward to your analysis.
It’s a matter of semantics. You can say it was “never yours to begin with” but the moment before the wealth’s creation it wasn’t anybody’s.
Whose pocket it winds up in isn’t determined by random chance or divine intervention, it’s the result of the dynamics introduced by our economic system. The laws that provide the framework of that system have a tremendous effect on who benefits.
Whether those laws direct monies toward the ownership class or the working class is a decision made by our lawmakers. If they choose to create a framework where this wealth creation tends to wind up with the working class, is that taking from the owner class? If your quote from above is accurate, then no, it isn’t taking, and the push from leftists to make that happen shouldn’t be described as theft, or hatred of the wealthy, since we’re not advocating taking anything from them.
Things that don’t exist don’t belong to anyone. I agree with that.
Yes, it is.
I don’t think you are interpreting the quote at all correctly.
If I create something, I own it. If the government takes it away from me and gives it to someone else, that is taking from. If the government doesn’t take it from me, then there is no taking. Taking, or not taking, isn’t a matter of where it ends up. It is a matter of where it starts out, and if it stays there.
Of course leftists are advocating taking something from those who own - they are advocating taking away what they created.
Regards,
Shodan
The implication here is that wealth is inherently created in the pocket of the ownership class, and whenever that wealth gets to the working class, it’s the result of it being taken from owners.
Wealth is inherently created in the ownership of whoever created it. What establishes the right of governments, or “the working class”, or anybody else, to own it?
Regards,
Shodan
The value of work that is done belongs to the people paying for the work to be done, not the people doing the work? That’s an interesting worldview.