Regardless of ulterior motives, objectively when even the billionaires are saying the level of inequality is getting out of hand, something wrong is happening...
I’m curious what you mean by “making it harder for the competition or newcomers”. How exactly would they achieve that by lobbying for more effective taxation of the super-rich?
This is an argument against taxing the super rich that I just have never understood. Don't tax the mega-rich, because I will be that one day, and it is a disincentive for me to work hard if I can only be a billionaire instead of a multi-billionaire.
Nah, that's not my argument. My argument is that a tax against billionaires tends to increase the culture around "taxing more" and leaks out to taxing their corporations or subtly changing the structure of the market so that the incumbent corporation can handle it just fine, but newer ones have a difficult time getting to the point where they can compete. I'm never going to be in the mega-rich basket, and frankly, I don't want to be. But a lot of them are very good at subtle PR and lobbying to change things that benefit themselves even while making it look like they are doing something opposite. I don't trust them, especially when they are doing something that looks "against their interests" when they've never seemed to do that before in either their public or personal lives.
Here's a simple example of what I mean. The billionaires pushing this tend to have certain political ideas and tend to be active in politics. If they give just their money, then they have limited political effect. But if they can get _all_ billionaire's taxed and then lobby to use _that_ money to further their political ends (including for things those other billionaires don't agree with), they can amplify the power they have to make their pet social policies. I'm not interested in helping them do that.
And I will pay much more attention to them if they put money behind their words and, say, donate a billion each to the Treasury right now.
Otherwise, I'm going to assume they're publicly saying this and privately continuing to avoid taxation, because this is a cheap way to look virtuous and look like the good guys while in fact being quite confident nothing is going to happen to them.
It says tax us, not tax me. The difference is the core principle of taxation: very few people would voluntarily pay 30% of income or so, but a clear majority supports the requirement for everyone, including themselves, to do so.
Put another way: taxation is one cooperative solution to a prisoners' dilemma.
This advice is basically "be stupid with your money". If other rich people aren't going to pay in as well, you can almost certainly do more good by donating to effective charities.
The government cannot make long-term plans to spend the income received from arbitrary donations like this.
Charities handle it by encouraging people to make regular donations and by conducting campaigns to raise money for specific purposes.
Extra money received by the tax office might help to pay down some existing debt or some other one-off expenditure, but it cannot be used to make ongoing improvements to public services. However, I would not be surprised if they have to keep extra money aside, possibly for years, in case of a claim for a refund (or at least keep a budget line for it, which amounts to the same thing).
I'm somewhat baffled by this simultaneous behavior- if the rich want to be taxed, they have all the wealth to make it happen. Hire lobbyists to close tax loopholes. Hire lawyers to go after the rich who tax-evade or the accountants that support them. Donate heavily to politicians who support taxing the rich. Invest in muckraking journalism. Donate money to economics academia with strings attached that force academia to teach taxing-the-rich doctrine.
What I see here is a small minority of wealthy people who are already invested in the social politics of being a wealthy progressive but are not putting the money where the mouth is. Are there wealthy progressives putting a Koch brothers strategy on their political goals? Why or why not?
Also, they can disengage from tax avoidance schemes and pay full price on taxes.
I’m all for billionaires paying more, but two things: the billions from billionaires don’t add much to taxes (it’d be more principle than anything), two, this is socialistic thinking on the part of the billionaires trying to coerce this on others. They don’t want to do it unless others do it.
I think these billionaires are willing to pay more taxes with the important caveat that all other billionaires also pay more taxes. I understand that reasoning. Maybe Buffet or someone can actually start lobbying in the direction of closing loopholes.
No they can't. Corporations have a responsibility to act in the best interest of the shareholders, which includes not unnecessarily choosing to pay more taxes than you need to. Tax loopholes need to be fixed in law.
> Corporations have a responsibility to act in the best interest of the shareholders
No, they don’t. There are no legal requirements to act in the best interest of shareholders. There are no directives to do so inside corporate charters.
Your phrasing of “act in the best interest of shareholders” is perhaps the silliest and most extreme version of the “maximize shareholder value” myth I’ve heard yet—a myth that first started being pushed by Friedman and his ilk in the 1970s, and has morphed into this common theme nobody even questions. It isn’t true. There is no such responsibility required of a corporation.
Did you read the link you just posted? The duty of care is owed to the corporation by its directors—"a duty to exercise good business judgment and to use ordinary care and prudence in the operation of the business ... in the best interest of the corporation [not the shareholders]...".
You either are missing the distinction here and conflating the corporation and its shareholders into a single entity, or you're inadvertently moving the goal posts. There is no obligation or responsibility for a corporation—or its directors—to operate in the best interest of shareholders. Which is what you originally stated. Corporations—and their directors—have no such legal or chartered responsibility. Again, it sounds like you've perhaps unwittingly transformed the myth of maximizing shareholder value—a fiction created in the 1970s that has zero legal or chartered basis—into this even looser, but far more extreme, version of a corporate responsibility to act in the best interest of shareholders.
Yes, okay, the responsibility is to the corporation as a whole and not the shareholders as individuals. To me that is semantics. What does that have to do with the tax avoidance argument?
It is absolutely not semantics, though. You should correct and update your mental model here. A corporation is not its shareholders.
As you're the one who advanced an argument against disengaging from tax avoidance based on the incorrect assertion that a corporation is obligated to act in the best interest of its shareholders, I'm not sure how to respond to your final question. If you accept that a corporation is not, neither by law nor by charter, obligated to act in the best interest of its shareholders, then what is your argument about paying or avoiding taxes? There is no legal obligation for directors to find every opportunity, creative method, and loophole to avoid paying corporate taxes. The directors of a corporation could absolutely, as the parent commenter suggested, "disengage from tax avoidance schemes". Nothing prohibits them from doing so. So ... what is your argument?
Because they have a responsibility to act in the best interest of the corporation (which is as far as I'm concerned equivalent to the best interest of the shareholders with respect to the corporation...)
It isn't in the best interest of the corporation to unnecessarily give more money to the IRS than what they explicitly require. I don't understand how this distinction between shareholders and corporation comes into play at all.
> Because they have a responsibility to act in the best interest of the corporation
Agreed.
> (which is as far as I'm concerned equivalent to the best interest of the shareholders with respect to the corporation...)
That's both an exceedingly simplistic mental model and quite a difficult-to-prove assumption of equivalent interests. Surely you can think of some very simple counterexamples where the corporate interests and shareholder interests frequently do not align.
Take the vast majority of Apple's history, for example—under Steve Jobs, Apple's purpose was to delight customers first, and leave benefits to other stakeholders, including shareholders, as a byproduct of achieving that purpose. From 1995-2012, Apple paid no dividends to shareholders. Sure, its stock went up, and shareholders who sold stock bought at earlier low per-share prices realized a return. But there's pretty much no question that for 17 years, Apple's interests—as understood and pursued by Jobs—did not align very well with shareholder interests. Jobs certainly never made decisions based on what was in the shareholders' best interests.
Or consider investments into R&D, which frequently are not in the best interests of the average shareholder—who often do not retain their shares over long enough periods of time where R&D investments (which are in the company's best interest) might actually align with shareholder interests (where massive capital expenditures are not, instead, returned as dividends).
Moreover, there are companies whose directors or owners might think their social and environmental responsibilities trump those of shareholders looking to make a buck. They may run a company in a way that feels responsible to them and in the company's best interest, while shareholders may vehemently disagree with those decisions.
In short, shareholders are responsible for looking out for their own interests. The companies they invest in are not, and cannot, focus[ed] on the shareholders' best interest. It really seems like you've somehow conflated a corporation into some kind of entity that is more like a democratically elected representative government whose job it is to represent and realize the interests of the electorate. That's simply the wrong mental model to have about corporations.
Have you spent much time studying the kinds of companies that are out there who make their shareholders' interests their primary motivation and concern? They are almost universally focused on meeting short-term demands and expectations. They often do not ever seem to follow any kind of long-term vision that leads to Big Things™ ... instead, they try to squeeze every last extra bit of dollar value out of the corporation to return it to stakeholders. Bluntly put, few of those companies are loved by their customers. And there are more people than Steve Jobs who believe a corporation's responsibilities ought to be focused on their customers over shareholders.
> It isn't in the best interest of the corporation to unnecessarily give more money to the IRS than what they explicitly require.
Says who? shawnz on HN? You may hold that opinion, but that carries with it quite a lot of assumptions and ideological baggage, which seems to mostly center upon the notion that a corporation's best interest is to capture and retain as many dollars as it can, society be damned. I'll agree that the last few decades of corporate activity in the US increasingly reflects such a perspective to a worrisome degree. But that's just a matter of perspective. There's zero legal obligation to take advantage of the market the government takes great pains and expense to define, protect, and advance and then avoid paying as much tax as you can get away with. Sure, there are all kinds of deductions and loopholes out there to make billions and pay $0 in taxes if you want it. But nobody is making corporations do that. You seem to belie...
This strikes me as a political PR move by the less generous cohort more than anything else. I am familiar with the Pritzker family mentioned in the article and they are, in my opinion, much more committed to dynastic family wealth than to philanthropy. They are probably much more afraid of the Giving Pledge than any small wealth tax.
No one was shocked in Illinois after Pritzker ran for gov and one of the first proposals he and his family put forth was to get rid of the estate tax in Illinois.
As others have said, downstate means "south" Illinois. I'd add that it also means rural, instead of urban (Chicago, in up-state). The term "downstate" can't be universally applied to mean rural though; if we were discussing the same situation in New York, we'd talk about "upstate Donny".
In my experience, the folks who have tens of millions of dollars in farmland are not concerned about the inheritance tax. They're incorporated in some fashion.
In my area, it is legitimately the folks who own 50-60 acres of ground that is worth $3000-5000/acre who are most concerned and vote on that issue.
The letter came together in the last two weeks. Eighteen individuals, spread among 11 families, added their names. All are active in progressive research and political organizations, some of which are pointedly focused on the swelling gap between the richest Americans and everyone else.
That does sound quite like what you're suggesting, doesn't it?
The language is incredibly vague. Being active in research doesn't mean your donations come with political strings that force people you donate to to champion your causes. Being active in a political organization doesn't mean you're directly funding a team of lobbyists to bribe politicians with fancy dinners and golf and scholarships to their children. It doesn't mean they're making millionares online, funded by their billionare money, to be their mouthpieces on national news the way Fox News has become (NYT Op-Ed might be part of this).
"Some of" the 18 individuals means it's unlikely to be a majority (if it was a majority, the NYT would be motivated to use that stronger claim to its benefit).
Overall, IMO the claim is so vague, and so without solid, verifiable facts, that it is effectively a smokescreen of pretending-to-be-an-activist.
It's not even that hard--all they have to do is pay whatever they consider their "fair share" to be voluntarily. They won't, and they aren't asking to be taxed more, they're just looking for cover in an increasingly transparent world where massive wealth is more and more difficult to hide (and how ill-gotten it was achieved). This is why people like the Clintons have foundations they run. They don't suffer the tax consequences nearly as badly and yet they control massive amounts of capital to manipulate, bribe, and otherwise influence politics.
Until they put their money up for long term change, it's all for show. It wouldn't even cost that much. We've seen how much big ISPs give to bum senators, it ends up being a few thousand each year, maybe 10-20k for guys like Mitch. Pennies to a billionaire.
This is misunderstanding how political influence works. It's much harder to convince politicians to raise taxes (a core issue for Republicans) than to change some obscure regulation most people don't even know about.
I would be down for the billionaires to begin to change the republican narrative en masse the way conservative billionaires have done in the past. Outright buy conservative media and then force them to publish increasingly progressive narratives while pretending to be conservative or moderate. Advertise heavily for raising taxes on the rich in red states by buying local newspapers, local politicians.
I chuckled at the donating to academics in economics to push an agenda.
Just goes to show how much of a pseudo-science economics is, which more often than not is co-opted by all kinds of different ideologies to push their agenda (more so macro Econ than micro)
I've worked in higher education for decades now. I have worked with schools ranging in size from less than 1,000 students to over 100,000.
And the one constant is that the college of economics (and business in general, but they don't claim to be a science) will have a definite political slant depending on who the most major donor is. And I feel that I need to clarify - not the faculty. Faculty in every department tend to wear their politics on their sleeves. I mean the classes and content has a definite political slant.
It's disgusting. When people talk about how higher education is nothing but an indoctrination for the youth into whatever liberal value is currently the most hated thing among conservatives, they really hit the nail on the head for the colleges of economics. But they tend to lean hard right, instead of left.
Taxation is really a choice we as a society make, somewhat obscure by the separation of politics from economic discussions.
For a long time, political economy was synonymous with economics. Once a broad political consensus was reached, however, politics was dropped to emphasize the economics based on that consensus.
Seems to me that no matter which political party the poor voted for, their economic agenda was always thwart by corporations need for cheap labor in countries near and far.
I vaguely remembering President Obama giving a rather technical explanation why nothing can be done to bring back the job for a laid off Midwesterner.
As for the Republicans, this new Yorker political cartoon[1] says it all: I am going to eat you. He tells it like it is.
Yes there are. Who you think pays all of these think tanks and so on. These think thanks that are centeral left often have much more money then the libertarian think thanks operate on. George Soros does many of the same thing as the Kochs.
The strategy is not unique to the Kochs by far, even if the intellectual have an absurd obsession with Kochs and see them as 100x more powerful then they actually are while they ignore 100s of other people who fund think tanks and policy initiatives and so on.
>I'm somewhat baffled by this simultaneous behavior- if the rich want to be taxed, they have all the wealth to make it happen. Hire lobbyists to close tax loopholes. Hire lawyers to go after the rich who tax-evade or the accountants that support them.
Not only this but the IRS allows you to over pay if you want to. If you really WANT to pay more in taxes you can! Just cut them a check, why would you rather have someone point a gun to your head before you give them a check?
Primarily, I think, because an individual contribution/overpayment has almost zero effect in the big picture. It's the systemic issue that needs to be addressed.
This is like giving someone a bottle of water, when what they need is a well built.
A compounding factor is that billionaires are by nature, competitive. Giving away half of your net income puts you at a disadvantage against other billionaires who can use that against you. Taking away half of everybody's net income keeps the playing field level.
> Not only this but the IRS allows you to over pay if you want to. If you really WANT to pay more in taxes you can! Just cut them a check, why would you rather have someone point a gun to your head before you give them a check?
I hear this mantra time often - sometimes in relation to charity, sometimes in the context of climate change action ('if it bothers you, why not just cycle to work?'. )
There is a big difference between an individual saying "here have some of my cash" and an individual saying "I think people like me should pay more tax".
First, there's there question of effectiveness: A donation by one individual isn't going to solve society's ills, much better to have a plurality of people making smaller contributions.
Then there's the human feeling as to what is 'fair'. Is it really fair that I solely tackle the burden of solving an ill while others in a similar position to me leach off my good will?'.
For this reasons and others people are more likely to say 'we should all pay more' rather than just saying 'take a pile of my cash''.
But this is. He basicly says.. I think rich people like me should pay more. But I won't because my friends will have more than me and I will lose my status.
>There is a big difference between an individual saying "here have some of my cash" and an individual saying "I think people like me should pay more tax".
Yeah, one relies upon the threat of violence, the other one doesn't. I prefer minimizing the violent threats.
>First, there's there question of effectiveness: A donation by one individual isn't going to solve society's ills, much better to have a plurality of people making smaller contributions.
What specific "ill" are you trying to solve? Eliminate the national debt? Free college for all? Because taxing the wealthiest 1% at 100% isn't going to be enough. And if you can't specifically identify "society's ills" and an dollar amount needed to correct said "ills", then why should anyone be willing to contribute a dime? How about drone strikes in Yemen? Is that "solving society's ills"? I don't get to specify what programs my tax dollars fund, and I find it naive to think that taxes "help people", they certainly aren't helping the people in Yemen.
>Then there's the human feeling as to what is 'fair'. Is it really fair that I solely tackle the burden of solving an ill while others in a similar position to me leach off my good will?'.
Is it really good will at all if someone puts a gun to your head? If you really care and want help someone do you really give a rat's ass what other people are doing? Do you donate blood and then think "Why didn't that asshole over there donate their blood? Why is it on ME to donate blood! That's it!! I've had it, if they aren't going to donate then neither will I!".
>For this reasons and others people are more likely to say 'we should all pay more' rather than just saying 'take a pile of my cash''.
Maybe others will follow suit if they lead by example. Maybe the billionaire's who want to pay more taxes should just cut a check to the IRS and persuade their billionaire friends to do the same, rather than threatening them with violence.
I'm similarly sick of this tedious "threat of violence" trope. Any action decided collectively by the community and enforced is a threat of violence, yes?
Regulations to stop you torturing puppies? "That's bad - it's a threat of violence"
Regulations to stop you littering in national parks? "Threat of violence"
Speed limits, requirements that car manufactures meet minimum safety regulations, laws that stop chemical companies dumping in aquifers? - "threats of violence".
It's a cheap rhetorical trick and it doesn't make a case sound compelling.
It isn't a "cheap rhetorical trick" it is the fucking truth.
>Regulations to stop you torturing puppies? "That's bad - it's a threat of violence"
I am not saying "never use a threat of violence". I am simply saying that if it isn't appropriate for an individual to use the threat of violence, then it isn't appropriate for the government to do so. Would I personally use violence to stop a robbery, sure, would I personally use violence to fund the arts, no.
> I am simply saying that if it isn't appropriate for an individual to use the threat of violence, then it isn't appropriate for the government to do so.
So. Was it, for example, reasonable for governments to regulate production of CFCs to attempt to stop the growth of the ozone holes at the poles? I presume you wouldn't go out and smash the face of a person for selling a fridge. I presume therefore you would be against any kind of environmental regulation.
Are you really going to argue that you beating a fisherman for hauling in too much cod is exactly comparable to the government setting fishing quotas to avoid a species pretty much extinct?
>why would you rather have someone point a gun to your head before you give them a check?
Because it's a Nash equilibrium. Government enforcement can adjust for these, which creates a more optimal outcome for society. Without enforcement, everyone will become a free rider in the long run.
> why would you rather have someone point a gun to your head before you give them a check?
In general, this is to solve a coordination problem.
Imagine in the Prisoners' Dilemma (you would rather defect than cooperate, but you would rather everyone cooperate than everyone defect), you're at an equilibrium where everyone defects. If you cooperate, it just makes yourself worse off. But if you pass a law forcing everyone to cooperate, then everyone is better off.
Overpaying the IRS is a lot like cooperating in the Prisoners' Dilemma – if you're the only one who does it, it hurts you more than it helps the rest of the world (even if you wanted to help the rest of the world, it would be more efficient just to donate it directly to charity, or even start a charity yourself – which is unsurprisingly what most wealthy people actually do in that situation).
If only you donate $10m to the IRS, you might cause $5m of good in the world (50% is an example and not intended as an actual estimate of government efficiency - the math works similarly with any percentage) - you'd rather just donate it to charity. But if you raise taxes by $10m for 1000 wealthy people, the $10m you spend could cause $5000m of good in the world, making it well worth it.
Then there should be no taxes at all and we all will live from the mercy of others.
Maybe people don't like to be take advantage of by egotistic community members, and we also (and seen this in monkeys) we want fairness, if everyone is dodging paying taxes using some loopholes I feel cheated and an idiotic if I do not use the same loopholes.
This argument is so obvious wrong for me that I am inclined to believe is trolling.
> if everyone is dodging paying taxes using some loopholes I feel cheated and an idiotic if I do not use the same loopholes.
Yep, which is why income tax is stupid. You SHOULD use all legal means to pay as little tax a possible.
A VAT tax would be the smart thing to do and would make it impossible for billion dollar corps. and billionaires to evade. That is how you fairly make sure everyone is contributing, not an income tax.
> What I see here is a small minority of wealthy people who are already invested in the social politics of being a wealthy progressive but are not putting the money where the mouth is.
Most of those people spend a lot of money on philanthropy and progressive causes.
It's theater. Make a show of looking like you "care", in order to avoid the wrath of the masses (e.g. populist legislation that leads to wealth redistribution).
"Those who are able to climb up the ladder will find ways to pull it up after them"
The proposal by the billionaire to tax themselves more becomes an efficient and pragmatic tactics when considered as closing up the path for the next batch of wannabe-billionaires.
If you only tax "> $X" then you aren't really stopping anyone from reaching $X.
I guess you can argue that they're WAY above $X and this is a way to prevent people who reach $X from climbing, but let's be honest the system is mostly rigged that way as it is.
The most impact I see would be on people for whom non-liquid assets comprise the majority or entirety of net worth. Take a YC unicorn for example. As soon as a 409a valuation puts the value of a founder's common stock above $50m (in Warren's plan), the company has to start thinking about a liquidity plan in order to support the payment of wealth taxes. Unintended consequences could be further concentration of ownership and upside in VC/PE hands, more pressure to IPO sooner, or decreased appetite for risk among founders once they've hit a certain threshold.
Pressure to IPO sooner would probably be a good thing for most people. Index fund holders got to benefit from the rise of Amazon and Google much more so than the rise of Uber. Public company accountability mechanisms may put a damper on some of the founder
-led vision that private cos are willing to abide, but generally it would be better if the wealth were spread around.
Contrary to popular opinion, money doesn't automatically buy votes. Tax is a popular issue. This isn't like changing some minor regulation nobody has ever heard about. You can't bury the changes being advocated. And all the money in the world won't buy off every Grover Norquist from primarying Republicans who dare to raise taxes, however narrowly constrained.
This PR expands the Overton window around new tax rates at higher tiers, and that's good. It also helps defang the Grover Norquists by undermining their popular support.
The reason the message "All taxes are bad" resonates so well is because there has been a near constant cadence accompanying it that "All government is bad". Many people think there is no inherent value in government because that has been sold to them for the past 50+ years.
It is similar to the message that "Adam Smith's capitalism" = "no regulations" when in fact Adam Smith was not against regulations. Regulations are the structure that markets are built upon. Otherwise, everything is caveat emptor (translation: let the buyer beware) all the time.
It is hard to know where the correct line between total freedom and total government control lies, but I have to assume it is somewhere closer to the middle than either extreme, but the middle never makes the evening news.
> Many people think there is no inherent value in government because that has been sold to them for the past 50+ years.
I think most Americans' experience with government is bad. Especially with taxes--they won't even tell you what you owe them. Often the electronic systems are just broken (Illinois' form a couple years back required a driver's license to submit payment, but the field only accepted 8 digits while IL DL numbers are 12 digits long). I personally don't have a problem with tax or government if there's a sane value proposition.
No. Most Americans have no idea when they are interacting with government.
Safe water, safe food, safe(ish) drugs, roads, less air pollution, the mail, airplanes that fly safely, cars that are safe, fuel efficiency in cars, and thousands of other things are all generally good interactions with government that most people don’t attribute to government.
Yes, going to the DMV sucks. Doing your taxes is annoying. Thats about all most people think about when they say the government is bad.
Because none of those things are done by governments. They're done by companies that provide water, food, medicine, airplanes, cars etc.
Governments mostly just insist that good results happen, and can easily cause problems doing even that. Meanwhile other things run directly by governments do have a long track record of being worse than the private sector equivalents, and taxpayer interactions is clearly an important component of that.
> Because none of those things are done by governments. They're done by companies that provide water, food, medicine, airplanes, cars etc.
Before the US federal government forced companies to act the country's polluted rivers caught fire repeated. The pollution that caused those rivers to catch fire didn't stop because of those companies' own will or because of the market's influence. The government needed to intervene, otherwise the pollution and fires would have continued.
> Governments mostly just insist that good results happen, and can easily cause problems doing even that. Meanwhile other things run directly by governments do have a long track record of being worse than the private sector equivalents, and taxpayer interactions is clearly an important component of that.
This is political dogma and not fact.
Services provided by governments optimize for vastly different outcomes than the private sector. It also seems that many people harshly judge government services while they ignore real problem that occur when those services are privatized.
> Services provided by governments optimize for vastly different outcomes than the private sector. It also seems that many people harshly judge government services while they ignore real problem that occur when those services are privatized.
I'm not the parent but I started this subthread. I didn't bring this topic up to advocate for privatization; I brought it up to note that advocates for more/bigger government might enjoy more political support if they focused on improving government ROI. Lots of countries have competent governments; I'm certainly sympathetic to those who think we should improve the efficiency of our government before we raise taxes.
I came across this sentence today on a page for a public swimming pool. "Recent ADA changes have required the installation of entry steps and a power lift." [0]
It reminded me of this thread.
Most of the value in government is setting standards so that society is more fair to those that have been ignored in the past. It struck me as odd in how they phrased this sentence. Now, I have to admit that the person that wrote the copy for this page has some kind of fetish for sharing building footprint measurements, but not height. So, I don't think copy editing is high on their list of skills.
The federal government was actually designed to be pretty inefficient in order to keep it small and out of people's hair. Government wasn't supposed to be good at making roads. It was supposed to be good at saying how wide those interstate highway lanes should be.
Don't even get me started on federal contract law and the FAR. I think it says somewhere around page 1312 in the FAR that government contracting should be as efficient as possible.
You're right that people only notice the things that don't work well, but I think it's a lot more than going to the DMV and taxes. Road construction that cones-off 2 lanes out of 3 for 40 miles and 6 months while there's about a week of actual construction. Tollway systems that forbid you from knowing what toll you missed or how much you owe until after the "late payment" period. Nepotism and other kinds of government corruption. Extortionist property assessment practices. The broken/unusable/inaccurate state of most government websites. Insane turnaround times for construction permits. Pointless building restrictions. High fees for almost every interaction. Extortionist traffic violation practices. Terrible appeals processes. Abusive, rude bureaucrats. Broken or delapidated infrastructure. These are experiences I've had or observed in the last few years.
I don't have these experiences when I deal with the private sector, and those dealings are also quite a lot cheaper than with the public sector.
This isn't to say that privatization is the answer or the only answer; I've had really good experiences with the governments of other countries and even in the US, value varies across agencies.
> ... I don't have these experiences when I deal with the private sector, and those dealings are also quite a lot cheaper than with the public sector. ...
You are aware that much of what you just described, road construction, government websites, and many forms of traffic enforcement, is handled by private sector contractors?
Who do you suppose hired those contractors? Why does the government have worse luck than the private sector when it comes to hiring competent contractors? Why is there a meme among contractors about how easy it is to overcharge the public sector? I voted for Obama, but his administration owns the disasterous rollout of healthcare.gov.
Closest I can think of is "Si vis pacem, para bellum" ;)
Or the Roosevelt quote.
Anyway, killing traders or customers is a good way to get out of business. (Only if there's enough "suckers" or your product is irreplaceable can you ever consider it. Such as with certain drugs.)
If you had the rule: "If you have money coming in, ten percent of it belongs to the government. No messing. No exceptions. No loopholes. Ten percent for everyone for everything."
Would that increase or decrease the amount of taxes?
The fact that I can't even answer that simple question troubles me.
> The fact that I can't even answer that simple question troubles me
It shouldn't trouble you. Consider "if you have money coming in." What's "money coming in?" You could tax money transfers, but then my sending $10 from BofA to Citi would invoke a tax. Okay, so if the person on both accounts is the same no tax. Fine. What if some sends $10 from a sole account to a joint account? What if it's from a natural person to their single-member LLC? Et cetera, et cetera.
Broadly speaking, federal income taxes take down about 10% of GDP and payroll taxes a further 6% [1].
> The fact that I can't even answer that simple question troubles me.
Well, we don't (AFAIK) know the total amount of non-GDP transfers of wealth that occur. If you limit taxed transactions to just the transactions that show up in GDP, then it's equivalent to asking what the current tax-to-GDP ratio is, which is easy to look up (it's much higher than 10%.)
Yes, and I am advocating that if the wealthiest desire to change the overton window around taxes there's plenty of other ways to do this on top of the op-ed for which I don't personally see evidence of happening (if I'm wrong please let me know). It's not difficult to buy up local newspapers in red states. It may be much more difficult to challenge Fox News, but we already have VC-unicorns for various stupid apps that're advertised far and wide. It should be possible to VC-startup a 'conservative' media, bribe mainstream fox news reporters to break contract to get on the 'conservative' media, and force them to become millionare mouthpieces of progressive billionaires with a major advertising campaign.
The reason why we have such strong anti-tax now can be partially attributed to a highly successful creating of one's own audience through careful information feeding, powered by wealth, through multiple channels. Therefore, I don't see reason why the progressive wealthy cannot do the same manipulative tactics for their own purposes.
At a certain point people have enough money to buy any possession they want. So what is next? Buying fame and reputation. I may be over cynical but I view this as such a purchase.
I put money into tax advantaged accounts and do other things to minimise the tax I spend. That doesn't mean I'm not averse to taxes increasing.
I trying to minimise my supermarket spend, that doesn't mean I would be averse to higher welfare standards, and other things that would push that spend up.
Plus I don't think I should have the right to decide what tax I should voluntarily pay, that's a decision for society to make, so I think its reasonable for a rich person to feel the same.
First because as I said its a decision for society, just as it isn't exclusively my decision to pay more tax, it shouldn't be exclusively Joe Bloggs decision to pay less tax. At the extreme you could make all taxes voluntary, I don't think that would work because too many people wouldn't pay enough,(or indeed anything), then you'd get a second wave watching those not pay anything and stop contributing themselves.
Second, its a bit abstract, there isn't 'a cause', it's taxes, I don't like paying taxes, just like I don't like going to the dentist, but it needs to be done so I do it. The dentist says come back in 6 months, so I come back in 6 months. I trust that people who know about dentistry than I have reached the decision on 6 months for good reasons, and if more data comes to light, I would support them updating those recommendations, but I wouldn't voluntarily visit every 3 months, without that recommendation
But it is your decision and your friends and everyone who feels like the government could use more funds. If you posted what you did on twitter a movement could start.
Taxes directly pay for services seen or unseen. Not seeing garbage in the streets or having running water are examples. What kind of services do you use? Would you like to see more services or pay less taxes?
The cynic in me says they are lobbying for more taxes on the upper middle class while knowing they can pay for accountants and loopholes on whatever taxes are imposed.
If the ultrarich want to be taxed, they are free to make a donation to the treasury any time. But they don't. Really makes you think.
> If the ultrarich want to be taxed, they are free to make a donation to the treasury any time. But they don't. Really makes you think.
It's quite possible for someone to believe that things would be better if they and everyone like themselves were taxed more, but that things would not be better if only a few of them paid more, and so it is quite sensible for them to push for more taxes on their group but not to donate absent such a tax increase.
If you want to spend money, just do it yourself. People directly trying to help with education or whatever they believe the government spends on could so more effectivly then threw the government.
Not to mention that all the companies these guys own lobby against more taxes.
welcome to the 2020 US Presidential election season, where the the NYT and others float every trial balloon at the behest of their favorite candidates.
Of course that is what they will say to your face. What are they going to do? Say "haha, screw all of you!"? Doesn't change the fact that what they are lobbying for is an entirely different thing.
Edit: Does HN deny that people lie for their own benefit? Or do you merely disagree with my tone?
I never understood the logistics of a wealth tax. Wouldn't that require every single person to document all of their wealth to prove that they are not in the top bracket and this don't owe anything? If it doesn't what is to stop somebody who is near the borderline from just refusing to document? Won't there also be tons of loopholes to diversify your holdings to keep yourself just below the cutoff?
It's because it's saying the solution is the ephemeral voluntary charity of some billionaires to the problem of wealth concentration. It's idiotic because: a) they're never going to give away so much money as to make themselves anywhere near not the among the wealthiest humans that have ever lived. b) only the civically minding among them will do it meaning the more amoral you are about wealth the better you do under the 'charity taxes' model. Finally c) that charity is inherently unpredictable and is likely to dry up when it's needed in national coffers the most so it's nothing to build a budget on.
Super difficult situation with many second and third order effects to sort out, one particularly relevant to HN ..
Vested equity that isn't liquid. It is technically an asset with a clear value (based off of a 409a, last round valuation, or from limited trading on private secondary markets). So founders must sell 2% each year to cover their tax bill, except that sale triggers other taxes so likely more in the 4-6% per year...
Does a VC fund have to send a statement through to LPs each year so they pay a tax bill on indirect holdings?
For founders, an 83(b) like election should cover that case, if your funds have never been liquid. But yea, this is tough. If you close all loopholes, it almost starts to look like a VAT on private investments per vehicle, which would disincentivize growth in so many ways.
Being able to use 83(b) valuation would imply tax on book value which is not really an accurate measure of the value and would favor a whole set of structures and increase the amortization / accelerated depreciation / write-down of assets.
Our current tax code, similar to a representative democracy , isn't good, it just may be the least bad of all the options out there.
Enthusiasm for a wealth tax on the country’s thin sliver of multimillionaires and billionaires may be unsurprising — after all, most Americans wouldn’t have to pay it. But now the idea is attracting support from a handful of those who would.
A letter being published online on Monday calls for “a moderate wealth tax on the fortunes of the richest one-tenth of the richest 1 percent of Americans — on us.”
The “us” includes self-made billionaires like the financier George Soros and Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, as well as heirs to dynastic riches like the filmmaker Abigail Disney and Liesel Pritzker Simmons and Ian Simmons, co-founders of the Blue Haven Initiative, an impact investment organization.
“We thought it would be a good idea,” Mr. Simmons explained by phone as he waited out a traffic jam in the Boston area. “Liesel and I decided to reach out to some other folks to see if they thought it was a good idea, too.”
The letter came together in the last two weeks. Eighteen individuals, spread among 11 families, added their names. All are active in progressive research and political organizations, some of which are pointedly focused on the swelling gap between the richest Americans and everyone else.
A recent analysis of a Federal Reserve report found that over the last three decades, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw their net worth grow by $21 trillion, while the wealth of the bottom 50 percent fell by $900 billion.
The letter is addressed to all presidential contenders, and refers specifically to a plan offered by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Her proposal would create a wealth tax for households with $50 million or more in assets — including stocks, bonds, yachts, cars and art. She estimates such a tax would affect 75,000 families, and raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years.
A desire to curb the rising concentration of wealth has long been part of the Democrats’ core message, but a Republican tax bill in 2017 that delivered the biggest benefits to Americans with the highest incomes reinvigorated the debate.
In recent months, Democrats including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have offered up ambitious tax proposals targeted at wealthy taxpayers. At the same time, they have questioned whether vast family fortunes conferring outsize economic and political power are inimical to democratic values.
Surveys undertaken in the wake of those proposals showed that roughly seven out of 10 Americans supported higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
The swirl of attention provided an opportunity to advance the conversation around inequality, social responsibility and taxes, Mr. Hughes said.
“One thing that we collectively want to see is further research and more activism on policy design,” he added. His husband, Sean Eldridge, a founder of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America and a former congressional candidate, also signed the letter.
The letter unequivocally declares that a wealth tax “strengthens American freedom and democracy” and “is patriotic.”
And it points out that economic researchers estimate that the richest 0.1 percent of Americans will pay 3.2 percent of their wealth in taxes this year compared with 7.2 percent paid by the bottom 99 percent. “The next dollar of new tax revenue should come from the most financially fortunate, not from middle-income and lower-income Americans,” the letter declares.
Ms. Simmons said a wealth tax could help deal with problems like the “lack of child care, educational debt, the opioid crisis and the climate crisis.”
She is part of the Pritzker family, the founders of one of the country’s largest private companies, which included the Hyatt hotel chain. Another family member, Regan Pritzker, president of the San Francisco-based Libra Foundation, also signed.
Gee golly, thanks Mr. for letting us tax you like we do everyone else. Now let's earmark those funds for anything BUT the military and we're on our way.
This type of bizarre story can only be about the United States.
What's stopping Billionaires from donating to the US government right now at whichever rate they think is fair? There's an extra field for this on the tax return document. Lead by example, etc.
If you're going to downvote me, please explain why. I'm honestly perplexed.
My guess is that they want to level the playing field for the super-rich. If all are taxed, they feel it's even, if they give up their wealth, it weakens their ability to remain in the club.
On the flip side, they may have a sense of responsibility to contribute more, but no gauge of when the contribution is enough. If the government makes that decision, then they resolve themselves of making the judgement.
I think we should stop making this argument when we debate increasing taxes. It is about systematic change of tax code on wealthy class not at individual level.
Why should they be able to force their will on others? If you think you should pay more then do it, but you shouldn't use the government's gun to force the action of others.
There's nothing stopping them. They could contribute a token amount, say, create the '1% club' or similar (probably needs a better name).
In any case, you have to ask yourself why they're advocating for this stuff in the first place. These billionaires have international wealth. Raising the taxes fom them in the US is just going to drive capital overseas. It would make it harder for US-only business to compete with the international conglomerates if US taxes were raised.
If you want to see improvements domestically, it has little to do with income taxes. You need to raise tariffs and outlaw subsidies to businesses ("I'll give you 50B to build your new stadium in nowhere's-ville"). They'll be forced to invest domestically, pay domestic wages, pay for the infrastructure they need to support their businesses, etc.
Whats so damn funny about this argument is how people so foolishly think that higher taxation of the top 1% equals them getting more money, it does not. Those excess taxes go to big government, the money does not trickle down to you, it goes to them.
2% on everything over 50M and 3% on everything over 1B is laughably little. Preemptive low-end offer really. They make 3-4x that amount back just from passive income over that year. What we really need is a much heavier curve that essentially cuts off at least half after a certain point.
By all accounts, there are many times more people who are not billionaires than billionaires. And in a functioning democratic republic, you would think that the billionaires would be taxed a lot more. But by now, even Joe the Plumber is thinking he will need those low low tax rates himself one day.
One thing that I find strange, is why we always discuss increasing taxes. Why not decreasing spending on ineffective things and try to improve the government.
The U.S. government has more than enough money to keep the peace, provide essential services and support people incapable of helping themselves. Cut some costs and improve efficiencies.
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[ 60.8 ms ] story [ 3843 ms ] threadWanting to be taxed higher and avoiding being taxed are not mutually-exclusive.
Like wearing a helmet: I want laws to be passed to make illegal to not wear it, but since it's not illegal, I sometimes won't wear it.
I want everyone to be taxed fairly and equally, but since it's not like that, I'm going to keep as much money as I can.
Step 2: Send in extra. Whatever they believe the rate should be. The IRS won't complain.
And perhaps give themselves a moat by making it harder for the competition or newcomers.
Great. So much for their altruism.
I just don't get it.
Here's a simple example of what I mean. The billionaires pushing this tend to have certain political ideas and tend to be active in politics. If they give just their money, then they have limited political effect. But if they can get _all_ billionaire's taxed and then lobby to use _that_ money to further their political ends (including for things those other billionaires don't agree with), they can amplify the power they have to make their pet social policies. I'm not interested in helping them do that.
That's sort of how government works. Taxes are not voluntary.
And, in fact, they know how this will play out:
1. Demand that “the rich” pay “their fare share”
2. “The rich” becomes anybody who earns more than basic subsistence income
3. “Their fare share” becomes whatever leaves just enough to get by
4. The actual rich create more loopholes so that only the middle 80% are actually impacted by these new tax hikes.
Otherwise, I'm going to assume they're publicly saying this and privately continuing to avoid taxation, because this is a cheap way to look virtuous and look like the good guys while in fact being quite confident nothing is going to happen to them.
Put another way: taxation is one cooperative solution to a prisoners' dilemma.
Charities handle it by encouraging people to make regular donations and by conducting campaigns to raise money for specific purposes.
Extra money received by the tax office might help to pay down some existing debt or some other one-off expenditure, but it cannot be used to make ongoing improvements to public services. However, I would not be surprised if they have to keep extra money aside, possibly for years, in case of a claim for a refund (or at least keep a budget line for it, which amounts to the same thing).
What I see here is a small minority of wealthy people who are already invested in the social politics of being a wealthy progressive but are not putting the money where the mouth is. Are there wealthy progressives putting a Koch brothers strategy on their political goals? Why or why not?
I’m all for billionaires paying more, but two things: the billions from billionaires don’t add much to taxes (it’d be more principle than anything), two, this is socialistic thinking on the part of the billionaires trying to coerce this on others. They don’t want to do it unless others do it.
Paying more than you're legally required to is simply paying extra.
By their logic, they would not rescue a drowning man unless there was a law requiring them to do so.
One can see the corruption of their logic with a simple example.
No, they don’t. There are no legal requirements to act in the best interest of shareholders. There are no directives to do so inside corporate charters.
Your phrasing of “act in the best interest of shareholders” is perhaps the silliest and most extreme version of the “maximize shareholder value” myth I’ve heard yet—a myth that first started being pushed by Friedman and his ilk in the 1970s, and has morphed into this common theme nobody even questions. It isn’t true. There is no such responsibility required of a corporation.
You either are missing the distinction here and conflating the corporation and its shareholders into a single entity, or you're inadvertently moving the goal posts. There is no obligation or responsibility for a corporation—or its directors—to operate in the best interest of shareholders. Which is what you originally stated. Corporations—and their directors—have no such legal or chartered responsibility. Again, it sounds like you've perhaps unwittingly transformed the myth of maximizing shareholder value—a fiction created in the 1970s that has zero legal or chartered basis—into this even looser, but far more extreme, version of a corporate responsibility to act in the best interest of shareholders.
As you're the one who advanced an argument against disengaging from tax avoidance based on the incorrect assertion that a corporation is obligated to act in the best interest of its shareholders, I'm not sure how to respond to your final question. If you accept that a corporation is not, neither by law nor by charter, obligated to act in the best interest of its shareholders, then what is your argument about paying or avoiding taxes? There is no legal obligation for directors to find every opportunity, creative method, and loophole to avoid paying corporate taxes. The directors of a corporation could absolutely, as the parent commenter suggested, "disengage from tax avoidance schemes". Nothing prohibits them from doing so. So ... what is your argument?
It isn't in the best interest of the corporation to unnecessarily give more money to the IRS than what they explicitly require. I don't understand how this distinction between shareholders and corporation comes into play at all.
Agreed.
> (which is as far as I'm concerned equivalent to the best interest of the shareholders with respect to the corporation...)
That's both an exceedingly simplistic mental model and quite a difficult-to-prove assumption of equivalent interests. Surely you can think of some very simple counterexamples where the corporate interests and shareholder interests frequently do not align.
Take the vast majority of Apple's history, for example—under Steve Jobs, Apple's purpose was to delight customers first, and leave benefits to other stakeholders, including shareholders, as a byproduct of achieving that purpose. From 1995-2012, Apple paid no dividends to shareholders. Sure, its stock went up, and shareholders who sold stock bought at earlier low per-share prices realized a return. But there's pretty much no question that for 17 years, Apple's interests—as understood and pursued by Jobs—did not align very well with shareholder interests. Jobs certainly never made decisions based on what was in the shareholders' best interests.
Or consider investments into R&D, which frequently are not in the best interests of the average shareholder—who often do not retain their shares over long enough periods of time where R&D investments (which are in the company's best interest) might actually align with shareholder interests (where massive capital expenditures are not, instead, returned as dividends).
Moreover, there are companies whose directors or owners might think their social and environmental responsibilities trump those of shareholders looking to make a buck. They may run a company in a way that feels responsible to them and in the company's best interest, while shareholders may vehemently disagree with those decisions.
In short, shareholders are responsible for looking out for their own interests. The companies they invest in are not, and cannot, focus[ed] on the shareholders' best interest. It really seems like you've somehow conflated a corporation into some kind of entity that is more like a democratically elected representative government whose job it is to represent and realize the interests of the electorate. That's simply the wrong mental model to have about corporations.
Have you spent much time studying the kinds of companies that are out there who make their shareholders' interests their primary motivation and concern? They are almost universally focused on meeting short-term demands and expectations. They often do not ever seem to follow any kind of long-term vision that leads to Big Things™ ... instead, they try to squeeze every last extra bit of dollar value out of the corporation to return it to stakeholders. Bluntly put, few of those companies are loved by their customers. And there are more people than Steve Jobs who believe a corporation's responsibilities ought to be focused on their customers over shareholders.
> It isn't in the best interest of the corporation to unnecessarily give more money to the IRS than what they explicitly require.
Says who? shawnz on HN? You may hold that opinion, but that carries with it quite a lot of assumptions and ideological baggage, which seems to mostly center upon the notion that a corporation's best interest is to capture and retain as many dollars as it can, society be damned. I'll agree that the last few decades of corporate activity in the US increasingly reflects such a perspective to a worrisome degree. But that's just a matter of perspective. There's zero legal obligation to take advantage of the market the government takes great pains and expense to define, protect, and advance and then avoid paying as much tax as you can get away with. Sure, there are all kinds of deductions and loopholes out there to make billions and pay $0 in taxes if you want it. But nobody is making corporations do that. You seem to belie...
Yes, Donny, your 120k worth of property is definitely what they're talking about and you 100% need to worry about an estate tax.
In Illinois, rich people live in Chicago ("upstate"), and tend to be more liberal, whereas rural folks downstate are conservative and less wealthy.
In my area, it is legitimately the folks who own 50-60 acres of ground that is worth $3000-5000/acre who are most concerned and vote on that issue.
[1] https://www.illinoispolicy.org/toilet-scam-could-flush-pritz...
The letter came together in the last two weeks. Eighteen individuals, spread among 11 families, added their names. All are active in progressive research and political organizations, some of which are pointedly focused on the swelling gap between the richest Americans and everyone else.
That does sound quite like what you're suggesting, doesn't it?
"Some of" the 18 individuals means it's unlikely to be a majority (if it was a majority, the NYT would be motivated to use that stronger claim to its benefit).
Overall, IMO the claim is so vague, and so without solid, verifiable facts, that it is effectively a smokescreen of pretending-to-be-an-activist.
By your logic, you would not rescue a drowning person unless there was a law requirement to be a good samaritan.
That is the position you advocate.
Just goes to show how much of a pseudo-science economics is, which more often than not is co-opted by all kinds of different ideologies to push their agenda (more so macro Econ than micro)
And the one constant is that the college of economics (and business in general, but they don't claim to be a science) will have a definite political slant depending on who the most major donor is. And I feel that I need to clarify - not the faculty. Faculty in every department tend to wear their politics on their sleeves. I mean the classes and content has a definite political slant.
It's disgusting. When people talk about how higher education is nothing but an indoctrination for the youth into whatever liberal value is currently the most hated thing among conservatives, they really hit the nail on the head for the colleges of economics. But they tend to lean hard right, instead of left.
For a long time, political economy was synonymous with economics. Once a broad political consensus was reached, however, politics was dropped to emphasize the economics based on that consensus.
Seems to me that no matter which political party the poor voted for, their economic agenda was always thwart by corporations need for cheap labor in countries near and far.
I vaguely remembering President Obama giving a rather technical explanation why nothing can be done to bring back the job for a laid off Midwesterner.
As for the Republicans, this new Yorker political cartoon[1] says it all: I am going to eat you. He tells it like it is.
[1] https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a20072
The strategy is not unique to the Kochs by far, even if the intellectual have an absurd obsession with Kochs and see them as 100x more powerful then they actually are while they ignore 100s of other people who fund think tanks and policy initiatives and so on.
Not only this but the IRS allows you to over pay if you want to. If you really WANT to pay more in taxes you can! Just cut them a check, why would you rather have someone point a gun to your head before you give them a check?
This is like giving someone a bottle of water, when what they need is a well built.
A compounding factor is that billionaires are by nature, competitive. Giving away half of your net income puts you at a disadvantage against other billionaires who can use that against you. Taking away half of everybody's net income keeps the playing field level.
I hear this mantra time often - sometimes in relation to charity, sometimes in the context of climate change action ('if it bothers you, why not just cycle to work?'. )
There is a big difference between an individual saying "here have some of my cash" and an individual saying "I think people like me should pay more tax".
First, there's there question of effectiveness: A donation by one individual isn't going to solve society's ills, much better to have a plurality of people making smaller contributions.
Then there's the human feeling as to what is 'fair'. Is it really fair that I solely tackle the burden of solving an ill while others in a similar position to me leach off my good will?'.
For this reasons and others people are more likely to say 'we should all pay more' rather than just saying 'take a pile of my cash''.
If you really want to give more, than do. If you want to make sure you are still in top then stop..
But this is. He basicly says.. I think rich people like me should pay more. But I won't because my friends will have more than me and I will lose my status.
Yeah, one relies upon the threat of violence, the other one doesn't. I prefer minimizing the violent threats.
>First, there's there question of effectiveness: A donation by one individual isn't going to solve society's ills, much better to have a plurality of people making smaller contributions.
What specific "ill" are you trying to solve? Eliminate the national debt? Free college for all? Because taxing the wealthiest 1% at 100% isn't going to be enough. And if you can't specifically identify "society's ills" and an dollar amount needed to correct said "ills", then why should anyone be willing to contribute a dime? How about drone strikes in Yemen? Is that "solving society's ills"? I don't get to specify what programs my tax dollars fund, and I find it naive to think that taxes "help people", they certainly aren't helping the people in Yemen.
>Then there's the human feeling as to what is 'fair'. Is it really fair that I solely tackle the burden of solving an ill while others in a similar position to me leach off my good will?'.
Is it really good will at all if someone puts a gun to your head? If you really care and want help someone do you really give a rat's ass what other people are doing? Do you donate blood and then think "Why didn't that asshole over there donate their blood? Why is it on ME to donate blood! That's it!! I've had it, if they aren't going to donate then neither will I!".
>For this reasons and others people are more likely to say 'we should all pay more' rather than just saying 'take a pile of my cash''.
Maybe others will follow suit if they lead by example. Maybe the billionaire's who want to pay more taxes should just cut a check to the IRS and persuade their billionaire friends to do the same, rather than threatening them with violence.
I'm similarly sick of this tedious "threat of violence" trope. Any action decided collectively by the community and enforced is a threat of violence, yes?
Regulations to stop you torturing puppies? "That's bad - it's a threat of violence"
Regulations to stop you littering in national parks? "Threat of violence"
Speed limits, requirements that car manufactures meet minimum safety regulations, laws that stop chemical companies dumping in aquifers? - "threats of violence".
It's a cheap rhetorical trick and it doesn't make a case sound compelling.
People whit guns come and throw you in jail.
It isn't a "cheap rhetorical trick" it is the fucking truth.
>Regulations to stop you torturing puppies? "That's bad - it's a threat of violence"
I am not saying "never use a threat of violence". I am simply saying that if it isn't appropriate for an individual to use the threat of violence, then it isn't appropriate for the government to do so. Would I personally use violence to stop a robbery, sure, would I personally use violence to fund the arts, no.
So. Was it, for example, reasonable for governments to regulate production of CFCs to attempt to stop the growth of the ozone holes at the poles? I presume you wouldn't go out and smash the face of a person for selling a fridge. I presume therefore you would be against any kind of environmental regulation.
Are you really going to argue that you beating a fisherman for hauling in too much cod is exactly comparable to the government setting fishing quotas to avoid a species pretty much extinct?
Because it's a Nash equilibrium. Government enforcement can adjust for these, which creates a more optimal outcome for society. Without enforcement, everyone will become a free rider in the long run.
In general, this is to solve a coordination problem.
Imagine in the Prisoners' Dilemma (you would rather defect than cooperate, but you would rather everyone cooperate than everyone defect), you're at an equilibrium where everyone defects. If you cooperate, it just makes yourself worse off. But if you pass a law forcing everyone to cooperate, then everyone is better off.
Overpaying the IRS is a lot like cooperating in the Prisoners' Dilemma – if you're the only one who does it, it hurts you more than it helps the rest of the world (even if you wanted to help the rest of the world, it would be more efficient just to donate it directly to charity, or even start a charity yourself – which is unsurprisingly what most wealthy people actually do in that situation).
If only you donate $10m to the IRS, you might cause $5m of good in the world (50% is an example and not intended as an actual estimate of government efficiency - the math works similarly with any percentage) - you'd rather just donate it to charity. But if you raise taxes by $10m for 1000 wealthy people, the $10m you spend could cause $5000m of good in the world, making it well worth it.
Maybe people don't like to be take advantage of by egotistic community members, and we also (and seen this in monkeys) we want fairness, if everyone is dodging paying taxes using some loopholes I feel cheated and an idiotic if I do not use the same loopholes.
This argument is so obvious wrong for me that I am inclined to believe is trolling.
Yep, which is why income tax is stupid. You SHOULD use all legal means to pay as little tax a possible.
A VAT tax would be the smart thing to do and would make it impossible for billion dollar corps. and billionaires to evade. That is how you fairly make sure everyone is contributing, not an income tax.
Most of those people spend a lot of money on philanthropy and progressive causes.
The proposal by the billionaire to tax themselves more becomes an efficient and pragmatic tactics when considered as closing up the path for the next batch of wannabe-billionaires.
I guess you can argue that they're WAY above $X and this is a way to prevent people who reach $X from climbing, but let's be honest the system is mostly rigged that way as it is.
Contrary to popular opinion, money doesn't automatically buy votes. Tax is a popular issue. This isn't like changing some minor regulation nobody has ever heard about. You can't bury the changes being advocated. And all the money in the world won't buy off every Grover Norquist from primarying Republicans who dare to raise taxes, however narrowly constrained.
This PR expands the Overton window around new tax rates at higher tiers, and that's good. It also helps defang the Grover Norquists by undermining their popular support.
It is similar to the message that "Adam Smith's capitalism" = "no regulations" when in fact Adam Smith was not against regulations. Regulations are the structure that markets are built upon. Otherwise, everything is caveat emptor (translation: let the buyer beware) all the time.
It is hard to know where the correct line between total freedom and total government control lies, but I have to assume it is somewhere closer to the middle than either extreme, but the middle never makes the evening news.
I think most Americans' experience with government is bad. Especially with taxes--they won't even tell you what you owe them. Often the electronic systems are just broken (Illinois' form a couple years back required a driver's license to submit payment, but the field only accepted 8 digits while IL DL numbers are 12 digits long). I personally don't have a problem with tax or government if there's a sane value proposition.
Safe water, safe food, safe(ish) drugs, roads, less air pollution, the mail, airplanes that fly safely, cars that are safe, fuel efficiency in cars, and thousands of other things are all generally good interactions with government that most people don’t attribute to government.
Yes, going to the DMV sucks. Doing your taxes is annoying. Thats about all most people think about when they say the government is bad.
Governments mostly just insist that good results happen, and can easily cause problems doing even that. Meanwhile other things run directly by governments do have a long track record of being worse than the private sector equivalents, and taxpayer interactions is clearly an important component of that.
Before the US federal government forced companies to act the country's polluted rivers caught fire repeated. The pollution that caused those rivers to catch fire didn't stop because of those companies' own will or because of the market's influence. The government needed to intervene, otherwise the pollution and fires would have continued.
> Governments mostly just insist that good results happen, and can easily cause problems doing even that. Meanwhile other things run directly by governments do have a long track record of being worse than the private sector equivalents, and taxpayer interactions is clearly an important component of that.
This is political dogma and not fact.
Services provided by governments optimize for vastly different outcomes than the private sector. It also seems that many people harshly judge government services while they ignore real problem that occur when those services are privatized.
I'm not the parent but I started this subthread. I didn't bring this topic up to advocate for privatization; I brought it up to note that advocates for more/bigger government might enjoy more political support if they focused on improving government ROI. Lots of countries have competent governments; I'm certainly sympathetic to those who think we should improve the efficiency of our government before we raise taxes.
Most of the value in government is setting standards so that society is more fair to those that have been ignored in the past. It struck me as odd in how they phrased this sentence. Now, I have to admit that the person that wrote the copy for this page has some kind of fetish for sharing building footprint measurements, but not height. So, I don't think copy editing is high on their list of skills.
The federal government was actually designed to be pretty inefficient in order to keep it small and out of people's hair. Government wasn't supposed to be good at making roads. It was supposed to be good at saying how wide those interstate highway lanes should be.
Don't even get me started on federal contract law and the FAR. I think it says somewhere around page 1312 in the FAR that government contracting should be as efficient as possible.
[0] https://www.bristoltn.org/202/Haynesfield-Aquatic-Center
I don't have these experiences when I deal with the private sector, and those dealings are also quite a lot cheaper than with the public sector.
This isn't to say that privatization is the answer or the only answer; I've had really good experiences with the governments of other countries and even in the US, value varies across agencies.
You are aware that much of what you just described, road construction, government websites, and many forms of traffic enforcement, is handled by private sector contractors?
Does it even reach that level?
Buyer implies contract -> contract law -> rule of law -> government.
And caveat emptor is a legal concept which again reinforces the above.
What's the Latin for 'Trade and hope the other guy doesn't have a bigger weapon'?
Or the Roosevelt quote.
Anyway, killing traders or customers is a good way to get out of business. (Only if there's enough "suckers" or your product is irreplaceable can you ever consider it. Such as with certain drugs.)
Would that increase or decrease the amount of taxes?
The fact that I can't even answer that simple question troubles me.
It shouldn't trouble you. Consider "if you have money coming in." What's "money coming in?" You could tax money transfers, but then my sending $10 from BofA to Citi would invoke a tax. Okay, so if the person on both accounts is the same no tax. Fine. What if some sends $10 from a sole account to a joint account? What if it's from a natural person to their single-member LLC? Et cetera, et cetera.
Broadly speaking, federal income taxes take down about 10% of GDP and payroll taxes a further 6% [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...
Well, we don't (AFAIK) know the total amount of non-GDP transfers of wealth that occur. If you limit taxed transactions to just the transactions that show up in GDP, then it's equivalent to asking what the current tax-to-GDP ratio is, which is easy to look up (it's much higher than 10%.)
The reason why we have such strong anti-tax now can be partially attributed to a highly successful creating of one's own audience through careful information feeding, powered by wealth, through multiple channels. Therefore, I don't see reason why the progressive wealthy cannot do the same manipulative tactics for their own purposes.
I trying to minimise my supermarket spend, that doesn't mean I would be averse to higher welfare standards, and other things that would push that spend up.
Plus I don't think I should have the right to decide what tax I should voluntarily pay, that's a decision for society to make, so I think its reasonable for a rich person to feel the same.
Why do things to minimise your taxes if you don't mind paying more and see it as a benefit to society?
Second, its a bit abstract, there isn't 'a cause', it's taxes, I don't like paying taxes, just like I don't like going to the dentist, but it needs to be done so I do it. The dentist says come back in 6 months, so I come back in 6 months. I trust that people who know about dentistry than I have reached the decision on 6 months for good reasons, and if more data comes to light, I would support them updating those recommendations, but I wouldn't voluntarily visit every 3 months, without that recommendation
Taxes directly pay for services seen or unseen. Not seeing garbage in the streets or having running water are examples. What kind of services do you use? Would you like to see more services or pay less taxes?
If the ultrarich want to be taxed, they are free to make a donation to the treasury any time. But they don't. Really makes you think.
Edit: consider the pirate game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_game
Exactly this. They can talk all they want. Until I see them actually donating money to this:
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/gift/gift.htm
I'll agree with the cynic in you as well.
It's quite possible for someone to believe that things would be better if they and everyone like themselves were taxed more, but that things would not be better if only a few of them paid more, and so it is quite sensible for them to push for more taxes on their group but not to donate absent such a tax increase.
Not to mention that all the companies these guys own lobby against more taxes.
This is PR.
Edit: Does HN deny that people lie for their own benefit? Or do you merely disagree with my tone?
The problem isn't a lack in revenue the problem is that we are spending it on the wrong stuff.
Vested equity that isn't liquid. It is technically an asset with a clear value (based off of a 409a, last round valuation, or from limited trading on private secondary markets). So founders must sell 2% each year to cover their tax bill, except that sale triggers other taxes so likely more in the 4-6% per year...
Does a VC fund have to send a statement through to LPs each year so they pay a tax bill on indirect holdings?
I could go on and on...
Our current tax code, similar to a representative democracy , isn't good, it just may be the least bad of all the options out there.
A letter being published online on Monday calls for “a moderate wealth tax on the fortunes of the richest one-tenth of the richest 1 percent of Americans — on us.”
The “us” includes self-made billionaires like the financier George Soros and Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, as well as heirs to dynastic riches like the filmmaker Abigail Disney and Liesel Pritzker Simmons and Ian Simmons, co-founders of the Blue Haven Initiative, an impact investment organization.
“We thought it would be a good idea,” Mr. Simmons explained by phone as he waited out a traffic jam in the Boston area. “Liesel and I decided to reach out to some other folks to see if they thought it was a good idea, too.”
The letter came together in the last two weeks. Eighteen individuals, spread among 11 families, added their names. All are active in progressive research and political organizations, some of which are pointedly focused on the swelling gap between the richest Americans and everyone else.
A recent analysis of a Federal Reserve report found that over the last three decades, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans saw their net worth grow by $21 trillion, while the wealth of the bottom 50 percent fell by $900 billion.
The letter is addressed to all presidential contenders, and refers specifically to a plan offered by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Her proposal would create a wealth tax for households with $50 million or more in assets — including stocks, bonds, yachts, cars and art. She estimates such a tax would affect 75,000 families, and raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years.
A desire to curb the rising concentration of wealth has long been part of the Democrats’ core message, but a Republican tax bill in 2017 that delivered the biggest benefits to Americans with the highest incomes reinvigorated the debate.
In recent months, Democrats including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont have offered up ambitious tax proposals targeted at wealthy taxpayers. At the same time, they have questioned whether vast family fortunes conferring outsize economic and political power are inimical to democratic values.
Surveys undertaken in the wake of those proposals showed that roughly seven out of 10 Americans supported higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
The swirl of attention provided an opportunity to advance the conversation around inequality, social responsibility and taxes, Mr. Hughes said.
“One thing that we collectively want to see is further research and more activism on policy design,” he added. His husband, Sean Eldridge, a founder of the progressive advocacy group Stand Up America and a former congressional candidate, also signed the letter.
The letter unequivocally declares that a wealth tax “strengthens American freedom and democracy” and “is patriotic.”
And it points out that economic researchers estimate that the richest 0.1 percent of Americans will pay 3.2 percent of their wealth in taxes this year compared with 7.2 percent paid by the bottom 99 percent. “The next dollar of new tax revenue should come from the most financially fortunate, not from middle-income and lower-income Americans,” the letter declares.
Ms. Simmons said a wealth tax could help deal with problems like the “lack of child care, educational debt, the opioid crisis and the climate crisis.”
She is part of the Pritzker family, the founders of one of the country’s largest private companies, which included the Hyatt hotel chain. Another family member, Regan Pritzker, president of the San Francisco-based Libra Foundation, also signed.
Members of the billionaire club have previous...
This type of bizarre story can only be about the United States.
If you're going to downvote me, please explain why. I'm honestly perplexed.
On the flip side, they may have a sense of responsibility to contribute more, but no gauge of when the contribution is enough. If the government makes that decision, then they resolve themselves of making the judgement.
Because let's be honest, it's not like their living standards would be significantly damaged by paying a few more millions to the treasury.
In any case, you have to ask yourself why they're advocating for this stuff in the first place. These billionaires have international wealth. Raising the taxes fom them in the US is just going to drive capital overseas. It would make it harder for US-only business to compete with the international conglomerates if US taxes were raised.
If you want to see improvements domestically, it has little to do with income taxes. You need to raise tariffs and outlaw subsidies to businesses ("I'll give you 50B to build your new stadium in nowhere's-ville"). They'll be forced to invest domestically, pay domestic wages, pay for the infrastructure they need to support their businesses, etc.
Hoarding wealth should be illegal.
By all accounts, there are many times more people who are not billionaires than billionaires. And in a functioning democratic republic, you would think that the billionaires would be taxed a lot more. But by now, even Joe the Plumber is thinking he will need those low low tax rates himself one day.
Look at the people in this very comment section advocating for 70% marginal rates for income above 1.5x the average income.
The U.S. government has more than enough money to keep the peace, provide essential services and support people incapable of helping themselves. Cut some costs and improve efficiencies.