Wealth Tax >>>MOD WARNING<<<

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by CourtJester, Oct 11, 2013.

  1. CourtJester

    CourtJester Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 1, 2013
    Messages:
    27,769
    Likes Received:
    4,921
    Trophy Points:
    113
    MOD WARNING

    In my opinion the only really fair tax would be a Wealth Tax where the tax is a flat percentage of total wealth. This type of tax would be truly progressive. It would not discourage capitalism since people would still have motivation to increase their overall wealth. It would penalize people who inherit large wealth but do not work to increase it. All the motivations for working and increasing net worth would still be active and rewarded.

    And by the way a true wealth tax should apply only to individuals and corporations should have zero tax rate. Reinverstment of corporate income would be stimulated and corporate income would only be taxed when distributed to shareholders.

    A wealth tax would tax those who have benefited most from our great country and provide relief for those who have benefited less.
     
  2. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You've lost me here! Progressivity refers to marginal rates of income (and therefore flows). A wealth tax refers to a stock. We'd therefore automatically get aspects of regressivity, such as hitting the old aged long term savers more.
     
  3. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    11,345
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    0
    No, that's only the progressivity of income tax. CourtJester is explicitly proposing a wealth tax, so trying to change the subject to the progressivity of income tax is just a dishonest attempt to prevent knowledge of the superior progressivity of wealth taxation over income taxation.

    Progressivity of taxation refers not to marginal rates of income, but to taxation that increases more than in proportion with ability to pay, one of the two most fundamental and widely accepted principes of sound taxation policy (the other is beneficiary pay):

    "A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable base amount increases."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

    See? Nothing about it being restricted to only talking about income tax. And more to the point:

    "Progressive taxes attempt to reduce the tax incidence of people with a lower ability-to-pay, as they shift the incidence increasingly to those with a higher ability-to-pay."

    Progressivity is defined by reference to ability to pay, not income. By definition, wealth confers ability to pay, while income does not.

    Now, it's true that evil liars have tried to redefine the progressivity of taxation so that it refers only to income, just as they have tried to redefine taxes as only being income tax -- like the stupid, dishonest claim that the 47% of US federal income tax filers who have no income tax liability "pay no taxes." The purpose of such lies is to prevent anyone from thinking about the principle of ability to pay, and the minuscule tax burden actually borne by the super-duper uber-rich.
    Which confers ability to pay, the relevant factor. By contrast, income, as it does not confer ability to pay, is a red herring. Those who propose to redefine progressivity of taxation exclusively by reference to income are aware that that is a dishonest red herring and an attempt to obscure the facts in order to prevent understanding of taxation policy.
    No, that claim is automatically false by definition, because wealth confers ability to pay by definition, while income does not. The measure of wealth is wealth, not income.

    Reiver has unfortunately always refused to know the fact that a billion dollars of wealth obtained before last year confers a billion dollars in ability to pay, independently of how much income its owner might have received last year.
    Only to the extent that they have more ability to pay. That is what progressive taxation means.
     
  4. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 31, 2009
    Messages:
    16,728
    Likes Received:
    207
    Trophy Points:
    63

    Wealth is a complicated basis for taxation. Assaying everyone's property each year to determine the level of wealth, would be horribly complicated, expensive, and result in a lot of fraud.

    This country doesn't benefit one citizen more than another. That some of us do more with our equal rights and privileges isn't a justification for additional penalties.

    Government shouldn't be in the business of rewarding taxpayers. Taxation exists to pay our collective bills.​
     
  5. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Nope. It refers to how taxes are evaluated; income is used, for example, in the comparison of direct and indirect taxation.

    You're ranting.

    You show your innocence! Marginal rates provide the means to empirically test progressivity.

    Which makes a mockery of using wealth, given illiquid assets (such as an old person who has just paid off their mortgage) cannot be used. Of course this advertises why, when referring to a 'flow' payment like tax, 'flow' measures are used.

    I stopped here. This isn't a rational comment
     
  6. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    11,345
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Yep.
    Yes, it is sometimes used -- but not correctly or honestly, except in the case of income tax, which is absolutely irrelevant to the proposed taxation of wealth.

    You seem unable to find a willingness to know the fact that the term, "progressive," when applied to taxation, has two entirely different senses: the technical sense of a marginal rate that increases with the taxed base, and the policy sense of a liability that increases with ability to pay. As the present discussion is of a wealth tax, not income tax, progressivity with respect to income does not even exist, as income is not, and does not measure, ability to pay.
    No, I am identifying facts that you would prefer not be identified. When anyone does this, you call it "ranting" or employ other inane epithets because you cannot refute the facts thus identified, and you do not want others to know them.
    And you your lack thereof...
    Only in the case of progressivity in the irrelevant "marginal rate" sense, not the relevant "ability to pay" sense.
    Only to those, such as you, whose only form of argument is mockery. Wealth is indisputably, and by definition, the only measure of ability to pay.
    Of course they can be used, as proved, repeat, PROVED by the fact that they ARE used, very successfully, in property tax systems all over the world, and indisputably have been for millennia. All claims to the contrary are therefore false, absurd, and dishonest.

    Trying to pretend that lack of liquidity disqualifies an item from being used as a tax base is a disingenous way of creating a tax avoidance loophole for the rich: all they have to do is put their money in illiquid assets, and they are free of taxation. They need not even repay any of the welfare subsidy they are being given by owning publicly created asset value such as that of land titles, the one base that by all rational standards of tax policy should be taxed. Such an obvious fact proves that the intention of measuring taxability by liquidity is to remove the burden of taxation from the rich, especially those who own land, and force it onto those whose assets are most liquid, through having been recently earned in cash through productive labor: working people.
    No, your claims are again just objectively incorrect, as usual. A tax is not a flow. It is a liability that attaches to a tax base that almost never represents a flow. A sales tax, for example, is levied on each individual transaction, not flows. An income tax is levied on the sum of income obtained in the previous period, usually the previous year, not on the current flow of income. VAT is levied on augmentations of value as they occur, not on a flow of value like an annuity.

    Your claims are just reliably false.
    One asks oneself, "What kind of person has to pretend that there are no such things as evil liars, no rational way to identify them or talk about them?" The answer is self-evident.
     
  7. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    11,345
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    0

    But much less so than assaying everyone's income for taxation purposes.
    Such claims are false, absurd, and dishonest. Almost everything government does benefits the rich and privileged -- especially landowners, banksters, and IP monopolists -- more than everyone else
    Our rights are even less equal than our privileges, and just payment for what one takes from society through ownership of those exorbitantly UNequal privileges is not an "additional penalty." It is just payment for what is being taken; and the fact that just payment has up to now not been required is not an argument against requiring it. The fact that a shoplifter may have been accustomed to making off with bread from the bakery without paying for it does not alter the fact that he owes the baker for it, and the baker can rightly require payment, or repossess the bread.
    But how much less should it be in the business of rewarding greedy, privileged, NON-taxpayer parasites?
    No. It exists to pay government's bills, and is rightly levied primarily on those who profit most from government spending: landowners.
     
  8. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    As usual, all you have is emotionalism. "They lie", "They're evil" blah blah blah! Tax is a flow. Income is a flow. Using income as the means to evaluate progressivity is just good sense.

    Progessivity has an obvious definition. The only debate is over the compatibility of income measures with utility. Diminishing marginal utility of income, for example, would typically condemn flat taxes as actually regressive.

    There are numerous possible gains from wealth tax. However, regressivity will be generated. You want to penalise old people, just because they have managed to pay their mortgages.

    Property taxes always lead to regessivity problems. See, for example, Britain's "bedroom tax". See also the negative consequences of the poll tax efforts.

    What I said is common sense: An old age pensioner isn't 'rich' because they have paid their mortgage off.

    What a silly comment! Of course it is. The only issue is how that flow (from individual to government) is determined.

    A flow of resources which automatically occurs when you consume a product. I can always be assured that you will make ludicrous claims!

    Just more emotionalism. Try rational comment!
     
  9. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    11,345
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    0
    You cannot erase facts by calling them emotionalism, sorry.
    So, your "argument" consists of claiming that no one ever lies or is evil. Again, it is not difficult to discern what might be gained by such propaganda exercise, and by whom. Such self-evidently self-serving claims are conclusively refuted merely by identifying them.
    A tax is not a flow, and even if it were, which it is not, that would not constitute an argument that only flows should be taxed, nor would it constitute an argument that income is a useful or honest measure of ability to pay, nor would it constitute an argument that stocks are less appropriate tax bases or measures of ability to pay than flows.
    No, it's appallingly bad sense, as well as being dishonest, anti-economic garbage, because income is not a plausible measure of ability to pay, which is the reason for desiring progressivity of taxation.
    No. It has two obvious, and widely used, definitions, only the less relevant, technical one of which is even relevant to income.
    False. You cannot prevent refutation of your claims by claiming there is no debate about them, sorry.
    But not diminishing marginal utility of assets...?
    Already refuted. Your dishonest and brain-dead claims would imply that ANY tax other than income tax is automatically regressive, and your claims are therefore false on their face.
    LOL! And you have the brass to accuse me of emotionalism??? ROTFL!!

    Your claims are just false, stupid, and dishonest. YOU KNOW that the existence of a mortgage is absolutely irrelevant to the benefits one receives from society in virtue of the assets and privileges one owns.
    Nonsense. The property tax is the most progressive tax we have because the rich tend to own a lot of property (real estate ownership is distributed even more unequally than income), the improvement value portion that is partially passed on to poor tenants tends to be smal because they live in old buildings, and the muh larger land value portion can't be passed on to them.
    That is also not an example of regressivity, as it is borne by those who have spare bedrooms in their houses.
    So now a poll tax is a property tax?? I can't say I am surprised to see such brazen falsehoods from you.
    True: they are only rich if they have millions in assets or net worth.
    What an embarrassing absence of argument!
    Nope. A transfer is not a flow, sorry.
    No, that's a ludicrous falsehood. It has nothing to do with consumption. It is a one-time liability that arises at the moment of purchase, and has no continuing existence at all, and is therefore indisputably not a flow. I can always be assured that you will make ludicrous claims!
    This, from the guy who just tried to press-gang pensioners into serving his witches' brew of bad economics? ROTFL!!
     
  10. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Ranting about evil and calling all and sundry liars because they don't follow your belief is emotionalism.

    Evil? I'd never use the concept. You've been watching too many B-movie horror films or had a school boy crush on Demonology 101. I'd refer to rational and irrational. You don't have a rational argument.

    It is, by definition. You've confused yourself by the tax literature's 'ability to pay' comment. That makes a distinction between income and utility, as I've already mentioned with the reference to diminishing returns.

    I haven't said a wealth tax cannot be used. However, it would be idiotic to think that we can replace the tax system with a wealth tax without creating regressivity.

    I'm happy for you to refer me to an article that details your use of 'diminishing marginal utility of assets'. I look forward to your choice!

    For someone that calls everyone liars all the time, you're very prone to basic falsehoods. I haven't said that any non-income tax system must be automatically regressive. However, reliance on wealth taxes will assuredly ensure regressivity. Remember those OAPs that you hate because they own their own houses?

    The existence of a mortgage means lower wealth, by definition. An OAP that owns their house outright supposedly has higher wealth. You'd like to harm these OAPs wouldn't you?

    You've already been educated on this issue, so why play dumb? We know that countries with higher poverty will tend to have higher home ownership (typically as a means to self-insure). We also know that in countries such as the UK, half of the poor are owner occupiers. Reality doesn't play ball when it comes to Georgist rant.

    Some of the poorest members of our society have spare bedrooms (e.g. the case of a mother who only had a spare room because her son died in combat). They have been forced to leave their communities in order to avoid the regressive tax. That you'd ignore such issues shows how you've allowed your ridiculous dogma to cloud your ability to be reasoned.

    The poll tax was certainly a property tax. Your ignorance doesn't interest me. Why did the Tories try to introduce it? Because property rates were due to increase and that itself could have been devastating (with severe increases in tax on the middle and working classes)

    The rest of your one liners weren't worth replying to. You continue to exhibit no sense within your argument. For someone that peddles just one argument that really takes some doing!
     
  11. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    11,345
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    0
    As you know, I have not done any of those things, so your "emotionalism" comment remains unconnected to reality.
    The evil of course always have to find a way not to know the fact that they are evil. Not using the concept at all is one way. Absence of that moral compass is a reliable indicator of sociopathy.
    I'd refer also to honest and dishonest. You don't have an honest argument.
    Yet you have not provided any such definition. My guess is you won't be.
    No, I've declined to be confused by your bloviation. And it's not a comment. It is one of the two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of taxation.
    Another miracle of irrelevance. We are talking about a wealth tax, not income tax. Your refusal to know the fact that income does not measure ability to pay cannot alter that fact.
    A wealth tax would by definition be less regressive than the current tax system, because wealth is ability to pay.
    Why would I refer you to an article to describe an obvious relationship?
    Only two fabrications in one sentence? Come on, you've done better than that.
    Yes, you have, by claiming that progressivity is defined relative to income rather than ability to pay.
    The opposite is the case, as wealth measures ability to pay, while income does not.
    No, but I do remember that your only "argument" consists of makin' $#!+ up about what I have plainly written, which is why your claims about what I have said are never supported by direct, verbatim, in-context quotes to that effect.
    Sure, if you define wealth as net worth rather than assets. At least there are honest, credible and defensible reasons for doing that, unlike defining it as income.
    ?? ROTFL! "Supposedly"? You just stated explicitly that they do. Remember? "The existence of a mortgage means lower wealth, by definition." So the non-existence of a mortgage means higher wealth.
    You'd like to just make stupid $#!+ up about what I have plainly written all day long, wouldn't you?
    You've already refused to be educated on this issue, so you are not playing dumb.
    No, what we actually know is that countries that extend larger welfare subsidies to landowning tend to have both higher poverty and higher homeownership rates, typically as a means to self-defense.
    No, reality doesn't play ball with those who claim ANY of the poor own real estate.
    No, that's false, because the poor don't own real estate, and the poorest are homeless.
    Nope. Never happened. At most, they have decided to cash in the gift of land value their communities have given them rather than repay even a small fraction of it.
    I don't ignore them. I identify the facts about them and refute the absurd propaganda you spew, as above.
    It certainly was not:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Charge
    Your dishonesty does interest me: I find it fascinating how apologists for greed, privilege and injustice manage to cling to and nurse beliefs they know to be false, such as your belief that a billionaire who contrives to manage his affairs so incompetently as to have no income is poor; that to require any tax payment from him at all would therefore be "regressive"; and that not only progressivity but justice and economic reason require the minimum-wage burger flipper to be taxed more than the no-income billionaire.
    No, they introduced it for the same reason they did everything else: because it increased the welfare subsidy to landowners.
    I see no point in going on and on when one line suffices to refute you conclusively.
    You continue to exhibit no argument, just a mish-mash of equivocations, fabrications, ad hominems, prevarications, red herrings, non sequiturs, self-contradictions, sneers, insults and absurdities.
     
  12. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You attempt to avoid rational discourse by just condemning folk as evil, liars or evil liars. I don't find it a palatable tactic.

    I'm struggling to find any of your one liners worth responding to! We know that you adopt this approach when you haven't actually got a coherent argument. I continue to find that strange, given you're so reliant on this one piece of emotionalism. Let's go through it again. Given tax is a flow, income is used as a means to measure ability to pay. Are there problems with that? Indeed! The problem is diminishing marginal utility of income and how a dollar to a poor person is likely to be worth more than a dollar to a rich person. However, that becomes a mere empirical exercise. Can you try and refer to wealth? Of course! However, you'd have (if you're ever going to achieve relevancy) to embed that within the income analysis. For example, given home ownership, its easy to integrate an imputed rent measure.

    So that OAP who has finally paid off their mortgage can afford high tax burdens? Be serious!

    Did you provide this example of reference to 'diminishing marginal utility of assets'?

    We're back to you wanting to punish the elderly. Crikey, if I was going to try emotionalism, I'd call that evil!

    You continue to make things up. The literature linking poverty and home ownership is well known. Indeed, you've been informed of the nature of the debate: from researchers such as Kemeny, Oswald and Burrows. The use of home ownership in self-insurance is well known. We know that owner occupiers will often by poor. And we also know, via Oswald, that home ownership can increase current deprivation levels. You want to make that worse. What a repugnant demand!

    Again, you simply ignore reality. Half of our poor are owned occupiers. That is a matter of fact.

    Again you simply ignore the facts. Rates were indeed being revalued. The consequences (where middle and working classes, purely due to house price movements, would see substantial increases in tax burden) were politically unpalatable. Its a neat example of how your property taxes, in reality, will assuredly attack those relatively low down the income distribution. Reality isn't a friend of Georgism!
     
  13. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    11,345
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    0
    No, I identify the facts of objective physical reality that prove they are evil, liars, or evil liars.
    And we all know why.
    I've proved it isn't.
    But in fact isn't one.
    What you call "relevancy" is merely code for "service to greed and privilege."
    True. Which outright refutes your claim that the homeowner is no more able to pay a tax than a tenant.
    He can afford higher tax burdens than the OAP who hasn't paid off his mortgage, or the OAP who is a tenant, anyway.
    No, we're back to you makin' $#!+ up about what I have plainly written.
    As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!"
    And cretinous.
    And explained why it is cretinous.
    Because to call it what it is -- self-defense -- would come too close to identifying the fact that someone's rights are being violated.
    No, we know that real estate owners cannot be poor.
    If we adopt suitably dishonest redefinitions of the relevant terms.
    No. You want to shift the burden of taxation even more off the billionaires and onto working people. THAT is a repugnant demand.
    Again, you simply ignore reality. Poor people do not own real estate. That is a matter of fact.
    No, I have stated the facts, and you have prevaricated about them.
    The poll tax was to replace rates, and was not based on property value. Therefore, your claim that it was a property tax was a bald fabrication.
    Again, that's just false. The burden of the poll tax on the middle and working classes was far greater.
    Only dog-in-the-manger types who deprive others of land, but do not use it productively themselves. That is intended: the market will encourage those who hold land in unproductive uses to yield it to someone better able to use it for the benefit of all.
    Yet somehow, it has been friendly enough to make the Georgist policy of location subsidy repayment a brilliant success everywhere it has ever been tried.

    Somehow, I don't think it is Georgism that reality isn't a friend of...
     
  14. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Objective analysis into evilness? The scary thing is that you honestly believe that!

    So how is this OAP going to pay? Force them to sell their home, or perhaps you'd like them to cut back in their bills? Less heating?

    How about the large family who notionally have higher wealth because of a large house, but of course have high needs? I mention it because of the difficulty in using equivalence scales with wealth variables.

    You continue to ignore reality! We know that poverty risk increases demand for home ownership. We also know that half of the poor are owner occupiers. That might be inconvenient for Georgist rant of course!

    For someone that calls everyone liars you are arguably the most prone to offering falsehoods. Within capitalism, I will of course promote a progressive system. That undoubtedly will include wealth taxes. However, to argue that you can simply replace income tax with wealth tax isn't a credible argument. These sort of claims were rejected yonks ago (accounting of course for the irrelevance of the single tax claptrap)

    The empirical evidence shows otherwise! Indeed, there is also analysis into the quality of the housing stock and the costs associated with maintaining it. That necessarily concludes that owner occupancy increases deprivation!

    It was introduced because property rates would have generated unpalatable regressive consequences. They thought it was an improvement!

    They're Tories; of course they aren't interested in progressivity. The political motivation, however, was clear: middle England could turn against them because of the rates increases. Even that bunch were able to refer to the negative consequences of the rates increases for the elderly. What's your excuse?

    There is no Georgist policy. Your ridiculousness has reached its peak!
     
  15. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    11,345
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I do indeed. The broad agreement on what constitutes evil across times and cultures shows it is an objective phenomenon. We may not agree on all the details, just as we don't agree on all the details of what constitutes a poor diet, but there is no doubt it exists objectively, just as poor diet exists objectively.
    They have many happy alternatives: use the location more productively, such as by taking in boarders or renting out space to a daycare, renting out garden or parking space, etc.; they could draw on other assets or income flows; or they could just seek accommodation better suited to their needs and means, the same way anyone else does.
    The free market provides an accurate incentive to move resources into more productive hands, so they might decide to respond to that incentive. No one would "force them to sell their home." You know that is a ridiculous and dishonest fabrication.
    Well, if they live in a large house they are no longer using because their children are grown, and it costs too much to heat it, it would be rational for them to decide to seek more modest accommodation that costs less to heat.
    A universal individual exemption solves that problem, just as the universal individual income tax exemption solves the problem of taxing away the income of people who don't have enough income to live on.
    No, you do, such as by claiming, ridiculously, that a billionaire with no income is poor.
    It's self-defense.
    No, we know that claim is false and ridiculous, because poor people do not own real estate.
    The fact that poor people do not own real estate is inconvenient to your agenda of shifting the tax burden even further off the greedy, privileged, parasitic rich and onto working people.
    False, and you know it. I identify several falsehoods from you in every post, such as your recent howler that the poll tax was a property tax. You have never identified a single falsehood from me. Not one. Ever.
    No, you have already stated that you favor a regressive system that taxes the earned incomes of working people with lower ability to pay in order to leave untouched the unearned wealth of the rich who have higher ability to pay.
    But presumably only of a sort that the greedy, privileged, parasitic rich can shift onto working people....?
    Yes, of course it is, and you have not offered an argument against it, merely a statement of your ridiculous refusal to know the relevant facts.
    <yawn> "Rejected" were they? Really? By whom?

    Your ridiculous non-argument is noted.
    No, it does not. Redefining "poor" to include billionaires with no income is not empirical evidence that the poor are rich. Such claims are just ridiculous.
    No, such claims are necessarily ridiculous, absurd, and dishonest. Every scientifically credible analysis shows that length of homeownership is the single best predictor of household social and economic welfare.
    No, unpalatable progressive ones.
    Thank you for agreeing that your claim that the poll tax was a property tax was a ridiculous fabrication on your part.
    Thank you for agreeing that your claim that the motive for introducing the poll tax was that the burden of property taxes on the middle and working classes was becoming excessive was also a ridiculous fabrication.
    No. The political motivation was that the greedy, privileged, parasitic rich who finance them could turn against them.
    LOL! It was the purported negative consequences of the rates increases for the elderly that was the excuse. Open your eyes!
    Self-evidently another ridiculous fabrication from you.
    Yours is still soaring, with no end in sight.
     
  16. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    That you believe that only demonstrates you've allowed your subjectivity to run amok!

    This made me laugh! You want to force OAPs to take in renters? Wowsers! You make the 'bedroom tax' Tories look reasonable!

    There is no such beast as the 'free market'. Its used by people who don't understand economics to peddle ideological nonsense.

    Large house? I made no mention of large houses. I'll sum up the ridiculousness of your argument; you're basically saying 'the poor house owner isn't poor because they live in mansions'. Nope. They tend to live in relatively small abodes. They also struggle to maintain their quality. To suggest that they are rich and should somehow pay higher tax is simply devoid of rational thought!

    This isn't a cunning response! You have a situation where your idea of wealth is directly linked to the equivalence scale (i.e. a larger family will have a larger house, with greater value). This will undoubtedly further intensify poverty (which of course also occurred with rates)

    They have a billion quid, but that doesn't create any income? Wow, they need some financial help!

    Again, its just a fact. Half of the poor are home owners (and poverty risk increases demand for owner occupancy). Sticking cheese in your ears won't change the facts.

    You provide a nice example of a falsehood when bleating you haven't been error driven! The poll tax was introduced because of property revaluation (and the politically damaging consequences for middle England). The amusing aspect is that you're actually adopting similar ideas as the Tories, such as the bedroom tax.

    Openly fibbing now? Tut tut! You must have run out of the script!

    Are you seriously telling me that the single tax idea is still viable? Happy for you to present a credible source that suggests it! Try to make sure its recent and not from the 19th century!

    What you should be referring to is tax evasion and/or dodging. The idea of a zero income billionaire really isn't clever!

    Please present a reference in support of your argument!

    Try not to fib! It won't help your efforts. The poll tax's introduction reflected the regressivity of property taxes that you ignore

    Try not to fib! It won't help your efforts. The poll tax's introduction most certainly reflected reassessing properties (and the impact on middle England and therefore the political battlegound between Tories and Labour)

    There was no content in your post. You might as well just said that you support the Tory bedroom tax.
     
  17. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2012
    Messages:
    24,506
    Likes Received:
    7,247
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Roy L and Reiver, you guys should stop constantly attacking each other, and try to have a reasoned discussion, without so much antagonism. You're going in circles of your own arrogance.
     
  18. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Rather than coming out with argument, you've gone for an attack! Tut tut, you might want to sort that out
     
  19. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2012
    Messages:
    24,506
    Likes Received:
    7,247
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    I'm not disputing either of your claims - I'm merely pointing out that you're constantly bickering, and such a method of discussion is only logical if you've concluded that you're right. If so, why bother.
     
  20. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    That's two posts now without content. At least say something about wealth taxes, just for the crack!
     
  21. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2012
    Messages:
    24,506
    Likes Received:
    7,247
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    If you don't like my advice then don't follow it.
     
  22. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Third post without content! I'll try again: How would you embed a wealth tax within a general tax system?
     
  23. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    11,345
    Likes Received:
    12
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I understand your frustration, SP, but the basic problem arises from the forum rules: members are permitted to lie about what other members have plainly written, but not to identify other members' lies as such. Reiver is one of a substantial number of members who exploit this asymmetry in order to commit incessant strawman fallacies as part of an overall disinformation strategy. You can verify this fact for yourself by a careful reading of our exchanges.

    My personal problem is that I am unable to make myself not understand how certain specific lies in the field of economics enslave billions of innocent human beings, and kill millions of them every year. How much antagonism and attacking do you think are appropriate when fighting an evil that inflicts two Holocausts worth of robbery, oppression, enslavement, starvation, torment, despair and death on long-suffering humanity every year?
     
  24. Steady Pie

    Steady Pie Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2012
    Messages:
    24,506
    Likes Received:
    7,247
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    If you require his acceptance of your ideas you're not going about it very well. If you don't require his acceptance of your ideas then why are you talking to him?
     
  25. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    39,883
    Likes Received:
    2,144
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Georgism is dead (except for a side issue into environmentalism). That's not of much interest though. Why aren't you answering my question?: How would you embed a wealth tax within a general tax system?
     

Share This Page