Davos - Its all about tax avoidance

Rutger Bregman, an historian went to Davos for the first time and he had something rather provocative to say.

Everybody flew in on their private jets and wanted to talk about philanthropy when what everyone should be talking about is tax avoidance. Apparently 70% tax on the very wealthy has worked in the past rather dramatically.


I gotta say, I agree with him to a very large extent.

 

Anyone making less than 10 million a year should have no problems with the wealthy paying more. It's simple - it means the rest will pay less.

 

I don't suppose that it occurred to anyone that folks who are running the chicken industry aren't the ones attending Davos.... Nor would anyone assert that they would be welcome even though they feed a vast swath of poverty in the US who are kept there by the practice of wage deflation caused by government interference in the first place.

Nope, gotta call out those folks, because the panel "believe" in the inhumanity of working when folks in the room were lucky enough to be rich enough to fly there on private jets (fyi, most of those panel members hitched rides on the same jets...) but enough about hypocrisy. Let's generate sufficient churn and realize the chaos folks, like our panelists, so desire.

I think it's just kookie for folks to take the example of the people in our nation who so fully realized the dream and became affluent are actually the problem that keeps folks in their poverty. An astounding piece of progressive marketing that cows folks they purposefully abuse into staying loyal to get more abuse.

 

Nothing like a sneering fallacious analogy to set up a dismissal of the central point. It sure as hell wasn't about impoverishing or disincentivizing anyone.

Frankly if I was making over say $52 mill a year, I'd be delighted to make net 30 cents on every dollar above that.

And if I die with a billion dollar estate, I'm absolutely positive my kids can get by let alone succeed on 500 mill.

 

letting those with less keep more of what they earn - what a concept.

 

Nah.. I don't believe you for a minute. If you were making $52M a year, you'd be like every other neuvo riche person working desperately to ensure that your wealth wasn't artificially eroded by having to give it back to government to redistribute it for you. Why? because your level of affluence is too tied to your own self perceptive model, and that just doesn't jive with the ethos you would find yourself living. But hey, delude yourself. I mean, what's to stop you from just given most, no all mind you, but most voluntarily? Notice it seems to require a legal reason for it to overcome your own personal sense of preservation. I find that amusing though, so thanks.

Second, did you watch your own video? If not, why not? You posted it. Why not defend all of it, not just the dutch guy's comments you liked...

 

First, I can understand why you would presume such motivations to the super financially successful.

Second, because those comments struck me as a highly relevant perspective that I wanted to discuss? just guessin' mind you.

 

The problem with the economy is that the poor do not pay their fair share of taxes. This is true for those who work and don't pay Federal Taxes. All wage earners pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. ( The average person retired today paid about $168,000 into SS but will draw out about $490,000 over their life time. Not a bad deal. )If it wasn't for states charging taxes the poor would do great. As it is now they will pay 20 % of their income on taxes. Illegal immigrants will pay about 8 - 11%. The argument is "see the poor pay taxes also" . Let us look at a couple things like what the poor receive that other tax payers don't receive. Medicaid for the whole family. Food stamps for those who qualify. Rent subsidies for housing for those who qualify. Many states have energy credits against heat and cooling bills for the poor. Free or subsidized education for schooling all the way through college. Free burial for those qualified. Many unmarried or singles receive all these benefits and are living with another person in the household who is working and not contributing anything to household expenses. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-much-poor-actually-pay-taxes-probably-think

 

Your own link disproves this statement.

It also proves the point that the rich should pay more.

Also this point you made:

A person can collect Social Security when they turn 62 (and that's when 34% of people take it). The average SS benefit is $1,294 per month according to the Social Security Administration. That means that even if a person retired early they'd have to live to be 93 to collect $490,000. Two problems with your numbers: The average lifespan in the US is only 78 years meaning on average a person would collect $248,448. The other problem with your numbers is funding. When you retire funding for your SS is from both your own contributions and future contributions. Due to inflation future funding is substantially more than the day you retire, so the system works as long as it is funded properly. (Funding has improved according to SSA's actuarial analysis).

 

Hes right. Its not rocket science; its theft. California is a great example of what we can expect from high taxes. Poverty, homelessness, crumbling roads, and a shrinking middle class.

The real rocket science would be figuring our how to motivate people to produce the same result and take the same risks, for less reward.

 

For average income California is tenth highest in the US.

 

Thats what the limousine liberals tell the homeless around here. We are the poverty capitol of the US. That average may help people feel better when they see the huge gap between the rich and poor.

Just keep in mind that as you are pointing at those who have more than you, there will always be someone pointing at you.

 

Not even close. California's poverty rate of 16.4% makes it only #35 of US states and territories. Florida and Texas are worse.

 

Is a 70 percent tax rate an income tax, targeting hardworking individuals ?? Or a tax on investments, thus targeting the investor class???

 

Income from all sources.

 

I would like to see a war tax with that qualification.

 

What would that be?

 

Gee I can think of millions and millions of reasons to be motivated to accumulate regardless of the proposition that after making a gigantic pile that it gets a little more expensive to make even more.

But I get how rocket surgeons think linearly.

 

It is the maximum bracket tax on extremely high income earners whose income over the lower limit would be taxed at that rate.

It becomes harder and harder to earn more at that level of income, and in reality most of them are no longer working that hard for the money regardless of the buzz of making it. They sure as hell no longer need to work towards lifelong financial security and having nothing but the best. they have the means of wish fulfillment that us ordinary folk day dream over - imagine never having to worry about "affording" the finest things this civilization can produce. I'd be long retired and playing for all its worth which is only one reason I could never be that that rich.

 

A 70% tax on anything is obscene.

Id much rather we stop giving them billions in what are effectively subsidies through cartels, legal monopolies, barriers to market entry for their competition, onerous licensing, counterfeiting in the financial sector, etc.

The problem is not the tax rate. A doctor on 450k is not the issue. Government teaming up with big business is the issue.

 

And a doctor making 450K isn't going to pay 70% tax or anywhere close. You do get how tax bracket works, don't you?

 

Yes, a 70% top marginal rate is obscene. We should be aggressively cutting rates for working professionals and perhaps temporarily increasing them for the corporate financial elite until we can end collusion between them and government which leads to such obscene monopolistic profits.

Engineers, doctors, lawyers, computer scientists; none of these should be paying even half of 70% as their top bracket.

 

I think a 70% tax on the rich will work as long as the middle class sees that money too and it doesn't go into the thousands of useless government programs or paying people to not work.

 

Your denial that the poor receive so many benefits from the tax payers of this country makes your argument false that they pay their fair share. “The top 0.1% of families pay the equivalent of 39.2% ,his is more than the bottom 90% combined, and the bottom 20% have negative tax rates. That is, they get more money back from the government in the form of refundable tax credits than they pay in taxes.” The bottom 44.4 % of Americans will pay no Federal tax this year. Now if you want to talk about SS taxes then the top wage earners do not pay their fair share. Of course all the spineless politicians in this country have no interest in getting honest about payments to the retired people in this country. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/8...l-income-taxes-this-year-heres-why-2018-04-16

The average Social Security benefit was $1,413.37 per month in June 2018. The maximum possible Social Security benefit for someone who retires at full retirement age is $2,788 in 2018. However, a worker would need to earn the maximum taxable amount, currently $128,400 for 2018, over a 35-year career to get this Social Security payment. "Full retirement age is 66 years, six months. This is a two-month increase over those born in 1956." The full retirement age will further increase in two-month increments each year until it hits 67 for everyone born in 1960 or later.https://money.usnews.com/money/reti...20/how-much-you-will-get-from-social-security
https://money.usnews.com/money/reti...rity-retirement-age-increases-to-66-5-in-2019
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...re-and-social-security-what-you-paid-what-yo/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...-american-gets-from-social-security/35436219/

 

He could have probably convinced more people he had a point if he hadn't idiotically characterized and philanthropy as useless BS, particularly since he was responding to Michael Dell. Kinda hard to sell your argument when you call children's hospitals garbage.