Tax the 1%...

The ABA article explained why a wealth tax is not inherently unconstitutional. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your point seemed to be that if it was to be constitutional, apportionment would make it impractical.

Because the Supremes were ignorant of the economics that explains the incidence of taxation.

Yes I did.

IMO there is no way to make a general wealth tax both constitutional and economically practical.

Answered above.

For most assets like stocks and real estate, their ownership and value are matters of public record. Other assets, like personal effects, are more problematic.

It doesn't matter. Pick a time. Income tax suffers the same sort of issue, and it hasn't stopped the government from taxing income, has it?

What happens when people challenge their property tax assessments in court?

Huh? What are you talking about? Taxation has always been held to constitute due process of law, with no compensation needed.

Where do they get the money to pay their property taxes?

If their assets aren't yielding enough income to pay the tax this year, they sell something or borrow against their assets. It's not rocket science.

 

If you got something to say from the article then say it, quote it. Yes the other assets are MORE than problematic, I have a lot on money invested in my guitars, who values them every year for taxation (just pretend for a moment I'm a 1%er). The Constutution Tax and Spend clause restricts government taxation especially direct taxes on the citizens. And we have seen to problem with property taxes going through the roofs in some states, there is no federal property tax, because people do not have the cash to pay those taxes and they lose their property. What if someone owns no real property but is worth $1,000,000 in artworks, collectible cars, books, Ming Dynasty vases etc etc. They would have to sell their property else have it confiscated I guess. Lot's of assets don't generate income, they increase in value. Forcing people to sell their property their wealth every year is NOT what I think the founding fathers had in mind. Again take my guitar collection, every year I have to sell off part to pay the tax on them. We see it in estate settlements where families have to sell off property to pay an inheritance tax and those have been cut because of that.

So you got constitutional issues, you got enforcement and valuation problems, and in fact the fairness of it. I don't see a wealth tax amendment being passed in the near future it ever.

 

No it hasn't, and you know it. Fallacious, absurd and disingenuous ad hominem speculations like spiritgide's filth are not refutations of anything I have said, sorry. Nor are your evasions, red herrings and equivocations, or Longshot's puerile pretenses of ignorance.

It wouldn't change your mind, anyway, because fact and logic have no power to change your mind.

More accurately, they refute the absurd and disingenuous nonsense which is all apologists for privilege and injustice can offer in response.

 

I've noted what the article says, and you haven't taken issue with it.

I agree that taxing personal effects as assets would be problematic, as well as bad economics.

When has legally implemented taxation been held to be unconstitutional as a taking?

Where? Both in average rate and as a fraction of total public revenue, property taxes have been falling for a century. The property tax is problematic for other reasons, almost all of them because it is levied on improvements as well as land.

No, that's not the reason. There is no federal property tax because wealthy landowners refused to pay the land-only property tax levied under the Articles of Confederation, and threatened to start and finance a civil war if the federal government tried to collect it. That's the main reason the Constitution was written to exclude such taxes.

They have been cut because they fall on the rich.

Agreed.

 

I have addressed what you have posted but you keep saying it's in the article. If you have something to say from the article then copy and paste it.

What distinction are you making between personal "effects" and personal "wealth"?

When was a direct tax on the citizen constitutional except for the income tax which had to be specifically be made constitutional with a specific amendment?

Go back to California and proposition what was it 13? New York and other high tax states are seeing. And assessing the value of a piece of real property is FAR easier to do because sales are recorded by the county and assessments can be made. Try that with everything else we own. And even those assessments can end up in court over disagreements and do all the time.

There is none because the Tax and Spend clause does not authorize one, it would not be proportional and they left it for the states. But again a piece of real property is far different from everything else you own.

If was cut because it doesn't bring in a lot of revenue, the cost of enforcing it are high due to dragging out valuations and determining those valuations and filings in court protesting them and judges having to make specific determinations and that it breaks up the American Dream, that we do well, accumulate wealth and leave for our future families to help insure they are not dependent of government for their subsistence.

Making it a moot point and the Dems should be called on it. They use for the emotional return they get from the "YEAH let's stick it to the rich people and make them pay for our stuff" crowd playing on their jealousy and envy.

 

If you don't like being hauled over the coals via examples of your error, look away.

No one is going to adjust their replies in response to your tsk-tsking.

 

I will if you don't keep outing yourself so baldly

 

1) If completely unjust and inequitable models like the one you propose is 'fact and logic', I sure as hell hope not.

2) I don't 'apologise' for anything. I stand behind every self-made person of wealth, firmly and squarely. I respect every person who strives and toils to avoid making themselves a burden on the state, and who does whatever they can to ensure their family escapes poverty. You should to, because every person who does that leaves more resources for those who genuinely need it (the profoundly disabled, the orphan, the momentarily impecunious, the genuine refugee, etc).

 

Then don't reply.

Geez.

Reply off topic
Get call out for being off topic
Respond that I should not read the reply

And demand the world see you as reasonable?
Please.

 

Weez all watching you guy. The constant 'off topic'! has become a meme.

 

And again, off topic.

 

Lampshades!

 

How do you keep an idiot in suspense?

 

Off topic.

 

You have never identified anything unjust or inequitable about it, nor will you ever be doing so.

An apologist is someone who provides rationalizations, as you do for greed, privilege and injustice.

"Self-made"?? Don't make me laugh. Not one of the super-duper uber-rich is self-made, they are all profiteers of privilege, to a one.

Like whipping their slaves to make them work harder? Demanding rack-rent for what your tenants themselves have produced, when their children are starving to death? Stopping people from producing life-saving medicines unless they pay you ten times the production cost just for your permission? That is the greedy, evil parasitism you respect, approve, advocate and admire, and it is despicable beyond the rich resources of the English language to describe.

The landowner never leaves more resources, he only takes from everyone else the resources that would otherwise be available.

 

There is no fairer system than that which rewards effort, and provides the freedom to make that choice. People MUST be free to fail, else there is no justice.

 

False. Effort earns nothing. Only a contribution earns a reward. That is why the landowner never earns his return. If I devote years of effort to learning how to cook but the food I make is still bad, I earn less reward than someone who is naturally talented in the kitchen and makes delicious food with minimal effort.

Which private property in land removes, requiring people to pay landowners for permission to make it.

Then you agree that your claim above -- that effort alone is the criterion for reward -- is bollocks.

 

Outing myself as what? (Prediction: you will now make some $#!+ up that has no relation to anything I have said.)

 

You've agreed that apportionment would make a wealth tax constitutional.

Effects are chattels -- movable physical objects -- while wealth is assets.

A tax on a specific asset, like a property tax, is not a tax on the citizen because it attaches to the asset, not the owner. Such taxes have never been held to be "takings" under the 5th Amendment.

That was not based on increased property taxes, just a phony "protest" movement by professional real estate lobbyist and liar Howard Jarvis.

Property tax rates have been declining almost everywhere.

The other main asset classes -- stocks and debt instruments -- trade in liquid markets and are easily valued.

Because local jurisdictions use complex assessment laws often require false assessments.

Not really. Stocks and debt instruments are readily valued.

Blatant inversion of the facts. Cutting it CAUSES it to bring in less revenue, duh.

That's easily solved: have the heirs name the estate's value, and if the state thinks it's too low, they have to sell it at that price, less the tax.

Nonsense. The estate tax has been cut purely to make sure the rich's assets are not only not "double taxed," but never taxed at all.

 

Stocks and debt instruments are not the only wealth, they are just a proportion of wealth and very quickly capital will move out of stock and debt instruments if there is an annual surcharge to own them. And the value of those stocks and debt instrument change by the minute, what value of them are you going to tax, at what point in time?
My effects are assets.
You are confusing state taxation with federal taxation, federal taxation must meet constitutional authority.
So who does the valuation of all my property, all my assets and no it's not easy as we see in estate courts routinely.

It's not going to get passed as a mere law and were it the challenges in court would defeat it.

 

No, because wealth owners want to obtain returns. Stocks, debt and real estate obtain dividend, interest and rent income respectively. Other assets typically don't throw off income, and are for that reason not attractive. As long as the asset tax is less than the income yield, the wealthy will not sell their income-producing assets for static assets -- gold, collectibles, etc. -- that don't yield any income.

Market close on your birthday would be good enough. With modern IT, you could even take the average over any given period.

Sure, but wealth taxes in other countries have often exempted personal effects. They represent such a small fraction of total wealth, and are so difficult to value or even identify and so easy to hide or move, that they are not worth taxing. They also don't yield income.

We were talking about whether the takings clause, which applies to both the federal and state governments, applies to legally levied taxes.

You can do it yourself, like your income tax. Your estimate is then treated as an offer to sell. If the tax administration thinks you are low-balling the value of a given asset, they can require you to sell them the asset at the value you chose. No criminal penalties, no jail, no seizures: you just have to sell the asset at the price you said was correct.

I agree Warren's plan seems to be unconstitutional on its face (as well as badly designed). As for other possibilities, I'm not going to offer a legal opinion without a specific proposal.

 

Collectables provide a return on the investment. This isn't about the income it is about the value, the item could be depreciating in value and the owner would have to be paying a tax even on that to make it worse. Tell me will they get a tax break for asset depreciation? And those values have to be applied equally across the country how do you do that?

Do you realize the compliant cost to the economy and enforcement cost for the government. And you still haven't explained a practical way to make all those assessments these assets that make up the persons wealth, at what point in time is it taxed, the value of the wealth changes by the minute.

What if that is a one time peak in value and the rest of the year it is 10% less than that peak? Where is this list of the values of my private property going to be inventoried for that purpose and I now have to record and every year do a complete inventory of everything I own and somehow come up with a value? How will the IRS know I have reported everything I own? How will they know the value of each and every item has been reported accurately?

Then what are you left to tax in your wealth tax if you exempted the persons wealth? So I am going to report value of my stocks and bonds on my birthday and pay the tax on those assets that I own on that day? Guess what I do the day before?

Collectables and other properties can make a huge part.

We're talking about your going to have to have an amendment to institute such a tax and it would not be worth the effort and it goes against a founding principle of our country, one reason it requires that amendment.

Ain't gonna happen.

So I get to declare these values? I don't declare my income, it is reported to them. Who reports the value of all my assets to the IRS?

What are you talking about. The government cannot force me to make an offer to sell my property to them.

Your idea is COMPLETELY off the board now and TOTALLY unconstitutional and TOTALLY against our foundation and TOTALLY unamangable.

Why do you think so many of the European countries who tried it quick repealed it?

You miss a BIG problem here. The government does not know everything I own. What you are advocating would require me to take an inventory of everything I own and report that to them. Since when is THAT required of me in this country? What about my right to privacy?

Have you ever read the 4th Amendment?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Good luck with, you'll need it.

 

No. Some do appreciate, but most eventually become worthless and are thrown away. Collectibles prices have mostly crashed since the Internet made the markets for them so much more liquid.

But not worse than taxing people's wages.

Of course: a lower tax.

I'm not sure what you mean by, "equally across the country."

Probably less than for income tax.

So what? Property taxes work just fine even though values change.

So what? What if your income is high this year, low next year? You pay more income tax than if you had two identical years with the same total income.

That's one reason personal effects are often exempted from wealth taxes.

How does it know you've reported all your income?

Likewise income?

I didn't say their wealth, I said their personal effects. Try to keep your eye on the ball instead of getting hysterical.

What? Trade them for a different asset, like a bank balance? Do you think that asset would somehow not be visible?

For a given individual they can, but not for the country.

Well, that's what they said about income tax...

Many people have to declare income that is not reported through their employers.

Stock and real estate ownership is a matter of record, as are most bonds and other debt instruments, as they are notarized. There is plenty of data to value such assets.

Sure it can. In fact, it could make it a condition of protecting the title for you.

That's your opinion.

The rich told them to.

It doesn't have to.

I'm not advocating it, just explaining it.

Your what?? Have you heard of Edward Snowden? It was in all the papers.

Of course. And...?

And you seriously think that is relevant to taxation??

BWAHAHHAAAAA!!

 

Appreication is a return on value, stock and debt instruments can also depreciate. You don't seem to understand the 4th Amendment. I showed you the 4th amendment protects your effects. I pay tax on my income as I earn it, it doesn't have to be assessed and is reported by whomever paid me I don't report it. Government officials would have to inventory and valuated you wealth and effects, that means you have to report everything you own to the government. Ain't gonna happen and if you're not advocating it you could fool me.

 

Capital gains are a potential return but not an income yield.

Yes, but their value is based on their expected future yield of dividends and interest respectively. Collectibles do not have any such income yield.

From unlawful search and seizure, not legally implemented taxation.

But people who do not get all their income as employees or from other sources that withhold income tax DO have to report their income themselves.

No, I already told you that many wealth taxes exempt personal effects.

If it was designed to fail, as some taxes are.

Maybe you just easily fool yourself...