Wealth Tax >>>MOD WARNING<<<

The countries using wealth taxation find it quite fair and rational. It is also more fair and rational than income tax can ever be.

Hidden wealth is one reason a wealth tax is not optimal, but it's less of an issue than hidden income under any sort of income tax.

No, of course not. And that is a problem with wealth taxation. But the problem of taxing ALL of the putative tax base is even worse under income tax. To tax all income would require, essentially, elimination of both physical currency and privacy.

Yep.

True. The question is, why should such hidden wealth be taxed? How does it represent a cost to society? Yes, it represents ability to pay, and thus should ideally be taxed; but unlike land, stocks, or debt instruments, personal effects do not represent a benefit that the owner is getting from society.

The propaganda support for the current system is massive. See Reiver's output.

False. Almost all our money is issued by private banksters in the form of debt.

Modern monetary systems do not issue money primarily by printing it but by private banksters lending it into existence. It is therefore not the government that causes inflation by capturing seigniorage on issuance of fiat money, but private banks that cause inflation by issuing money in the form of debt (demand deposits) in order to charge interest on it. Their greed for interest is theoretically kept in check by central banks like the Fed, but in fact the system is inherently unstable, as we found out (again) in 2008. Understanding of this fact is necessary to any understanding of the system, but less than one person in 1000 is aware of it.

 

Odious spew.

Like me, the Nobel committee is more intelligent than you, and also more knowledgeable about economics.

No, you just spewed stupid, dishonest garbage.

Beneath response.

Again you show your lack thereof!

That is an absurd, anti-economic conspiracy theory.

Again with the guilt!

Again, that is nothing but puerile and anti-economic conspiracy-theory speculation.

I've never advocated a single tax. Your claim that I do nothing else was a bald fabrication, as proved by your inability to provide a direct, verbatim, in-context quote to support it.

They are at least more relevant -- as well as more intelligent, informed and honest -- than you.

 

It would probably be much cheaper to administer than income tax or sales tax. Assets that are difficult to identify or value, like personal effects, would almost certainly be untaxed.

True, the rich would never permit it.

Google "tax incidence" and start reading. While corporations (i.e., their owners) do pass on some part of most taxes to consumers, suppliers and employees, so do individuals. The notion that corporations are somehow uniquely able to pass on all of their tax liabilities to others but people are not is nothing but absurd, uninformed, anti-economic bull$#!+.

 

Correct. Wealth is a measure of your 'stake' in the country and is the only equitable basis for taxation. Income doesn't mean anything because most people with large incomes turn that income into other forms of wealth as quickly as possible to avoid taxation.

 

Why do you believe it isn't?

 

Currently, the US government is spending about $3.8 trillion...this number alone is a lot of cash to extract from the private sector. If we consider maybe 150 million potential taxpayers, each of them are basically responsible for $25,333 per year in cash to operate the federal government. IMO this is a staggering average number.

So, one option to fund the government is simply require all 150 million taxpayers to each submit a check each year for $25,333. Obviously this is impossible since 75 million of those taxpayers have 'gross' income of $35,000 per year or less. Median household gross income is something like $52,000 so none of these household incomes can fund the government. We can probably guess another 40 million taxpayers earning more than the median income of $35,000 also cannot fund the government. So if we talk solely of taxpayers funding government, we're basically down to about 35 million American taxpayers funding the bulk of government expenses (shy whatever the deficit du jour is). These 35 million on average are on the hook for about $108,571 of cash per year. You can derive your own meaning from this but IMO the numbers are simply staggering!

Where else does it make sense to extract tax revenues? We can take more from business but this seems counter-intuitive when millions of Americans are unemployed, millions more underemployed, and the collective we rag on business to create more jobs.

So is it more important for industry to create jobs or more important for them to pay taxes?

Is it more important for individuals to consume or to pay taxes?

Then the government has various use/excise taxes like on gasoline and other services plus capital gains taxes which generates little income.

I could say that government provides services for people therefore people should pay all the federal taxes. But is it possible to create a progressive tax system in which the 150 million taxpayers foot the entire federal bill? Not if 35 million are asked to pay 90% of the taxes.

Lastly, if you look at Obama's federal budget through 2022, every single year the cost of government increases from $3.8 trillion today to around $5.5 trillion in 2022...so whatever tax issues we have today will be 'greatly' exacerbated during the next few years. IMO it is not possible to fully fund government without severely impacting the private economy. IMO we will have deficit spending every year through 2022 therefore we are not only doing nothing about the debt...but the debt is increasing. Obama also forecasts significant increases to GDP which I also do not believe will happen, therefore, deficits and debt will be rampant with government costs continuing to climb.

I don't know where all of this leads but I'm pretty sure the path we are on is not sustainable and I don't see the impetus which will allow us to change our course...

 

yet, even our elected representatives are unwilling to end our exorbitantly expensive, War on Drugs.

 

Odd punctuation.

Yet even our elected representatives are unwilling to end our ,exorbitantly expensive, war on Drugs.

Is what you should have written. If you learn punctuation you might make more sense.

 

no. i meant it the way i wrote it.

 

Are you kidding me??

No, there should be no commas. The verb is followed directly by a determiner, adverb, adjective and noun. If you think you can cite an English grammar rule that requires commas in that sentence, I'll explain why you are wrong.

LOL! As they say in Japan, "It's mirror time!" A space before a comma?? Really???

- - - Updated - - -

Because it is levied once, on a transaction, not repeatedly on an asset.

 

Seems to me that land value owned is the real measure of one's stake in the country, and therefore the most equitable basis for taxation. See the Land Value Tax thread for proof:

http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=329394

Right. And more to the point, income taxation directly flouts the two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of sound taxation policy: ability to pay and beneficiary pay. Land value taxation gets them both right.

 

The fairest tax system would be one in which only consumption was taxed, and even that would not be completely fair as long as government provides the means for a large and growing number of our society to consume.
While a wealth tax might be found acceptable by the wealthiest members of our society, it would have great detrimental effect on those in the middle class who try to be most responsible for their own lives. For example, look at the property tax, which is a wealth tax. A house which was bought in 1950 for $13,500 or the equivalent of about 388.8 oz of gold at the then market price of $34.72/oz. A few years ago it was sold for $500,000 or the equivalent of about 408.3 oz of gold at the then market price of $1,224.53/oz. As property taxes are reassessed periodically, the original purchaser had long before had to sell the property as the property taxes exceeded the ability to pay, and the second ownerfaced the same situation when selling a few years ago, no longer being able to afford the property (unrealized wealth) tax required to retain his property. In each case when the property was sold, the sales prices was quite close to the same weight of gold relative to the market price of gold at the time of sale, which had increased greatly relative to the value of the Federal reserve notes used to complete the sale.

 

Neither a wealth tax or an income tax discourages people from persueing wealth.
Measuring wealth is probably no more difficult than measuring income.
Progressitivity arguments are irrelevant in a discussion of a wealth tax.
The issue of our governments debt is irrelevant to any discussion on types of taxation.

 

It is levied on a change of ownership as an additional wealth tax.

 

You're very harsh on yourself! Don't you see the hypocrisy in using a fellow known for links with right wing authoritarianism to support your "they're evil" emotionalism?

You didn't answer the question. Does this mean you also support his vertical Phillips Curve analysis? You think having a right winger in (semi-)support of your position is a positive. You've cheered the fellows knowledge, somehow suggesting that "just cos he's an award-winning economist" it strengthens your hand. The fellow's big contribution was based on hot air: a nonsense debate with neo-Keynesianism. However, given your blind celebration of the right winger, you surely must also support the validity of the vertical Phillips Curve?

So Georgism is a load of tosh then?

 

'War on drugs' is another 100% political BS sound-bite which won't solve a single problem in the USA. You prefer to allow hard drugs like heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, crack cocaine, LSD, Ecstasy, Opium, marijuana, PCP, mushrooms, and whatever else exists to legally flow through our society? Give me a fricken break!

 

My propaganda and rhetoric may be a sound bite, but, it also functions as my bumper sticker philosophy whenever it is easy and convenient.

From one perspective, any form of Prohibition could be considered a form of sloth in government since it precludes an FDA label on any drug on any market in the US; the social Power to regulate forms of Commerce is clearly delegated to our federal Congress.

Why do you believe multibillion dollar pharmaceuticals would have any more problems investing in multimillion dollar labs, to manufacture better products at lower prices, in conformance to a political-economic paradigm, that supply side economics should be supplying us with better governance at lower cost.

 

It'd be like any other tax, except far more easily evaded. If personal items are excluded, liquid assets would be strewn out from here to kingdom come. Maybe you're right, but I'm highly skeptical, I'd imagine point-of-sale C2B transactions are much more easily monitored.

Neither would a lot of other folks it it also meant losing whatever deduction is most dear to them, particularly the home interest mortgage deduction.

A consumer's ability to defer those costs onto other is far more limited than a business, they aren't uniquely able to do so, just far more successful at it, of course depending how competitive of a market said business is in.

 

Because I do not want heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, crack cocaine, LSD, Ecstasy, Opium, marijuana, PCP, mushrooms, and whatever else exists to legally flow through our society?

 

You just disqualified yourself from any serious discussion of drug policy.

- - - Updated - - -

And you eagerly remove others' rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness in order to force your personal preference on them. Check.

 

So it's not a wealth tax. A tax on a change of ownership is a transaction tax, like a stamp tax, sales tax, or income tax. It is not a wealth tax. I don't know if there is any simpler way to explain that to you.

 

Utter garbage.

Blatant fabrication.

Yes, I did.

Phillips Curve analysis, like most mainstream neoclassical economics, strains mightily to miss the point.

No, I know that having Nobel laureates INCLUDING right wingers in support of my position shows it is rock-solid, and cannot be dismissed except by braying economic ignorami.

Beneath contempt.

Validity? No, of course not. It's not even about a real economic relationship.

It certainly has some problems, just as Newtonian mechanics has some problems. But like Newtonian mechanics, it was a useful stepping stone to greater understanding.

Conspicuously unlike everything you have ever said on the subject.

 

Nonsense. Most asset value is very hard to hide.

Fine. Why tax them? They aren't taking anything from society. And the assets that DO take something from society typically can't be hidden and still remain useful. Debt instruments? Without government enforcement, they are worthless. Real estate? Good luck hiding that. Stocks? They are traded on a public exchange and their ownership registered.

No, as proved by the rampant evasion of all consumption taxes that stray above low single-digit percentages.

Of course: they are too ignorant to understand why the home mortgage interest deduction just makes them poorer by increasing residential land prices.

False. It has nothing to do with whether one is a consumer, business, or worker. The incidence of all taxes is determined by the relevant elasticities of supply and demand, and by nothing else. Google "tax incidence" and start reading. It's time.

Oh, so maybe you do have some inkling after all? Cool.

 

Marijuana is a hard drug, Ecstasy? Frickin hilarious! And yes legalise the lot of them. Get organized crime out of supply.

 

In other words, you fully support privateering and a rise in black markets instead of open markets in our economy; have you already invested in any specific sector?

- - - Updated - - -

isn't it based on wealth?