Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 skyth wrote:
And sending a check to the treasury doesn't work. It's not something that can be budgeted for so it doesn't really solve any problems. It's a really bad answer and thus meaningless. It doesn't actually do anything.

Also this is interesting.
https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-vs-involuntary-part-time-work-underemployment-2019-1?fbclid=IwAR2EcizIsTspjDx3L9C5AwoIJUcUFzmI2B9FuA9e_S-eF-SUL1Q0VgiRFgg

Actually, it is a good solution to liberal billionaire guilt. Stay away from more tax laws that always end up hurting the middle and lower classes, and give away your money freely to the government. So they can waste it as they please, and have always done. And the Soros' and Gates' of the world can sleep easy at night. And stop virtue signaling the rest of us.

So billionaires can afford to just give the government money, but they can't afford to pay a tiny increase without "hurting the middle class."

I really hope the silliness of that doesn't need to be pointed out cause it's really self-apparent.

 LordofHats wrote:
So billionaires can afford to just give the government money, but they can't afford to pay a tiny increase without "hurting the middle class."

I really hope the silliness of that doesn't need to be pointed out cause it's really self-apparent.

Yeah I read that and raised an eyebrow as well.

Here’s why I do not object to tax.

I’ve done very, very well out of it.

Education? Paid for. Numerous life threatening health conditions and accidents? Paid for. Plus Police, Fire Service, Ambulances etc. Then there’s my State Pension, which with no further upping of the pay date? I’ll be collecting in....erm.....28 years (totally freaked myself out with that revelation).

I get my money’s worth, or have had my money’s worth. Bit of both, really.

And now God Sprog is growing rapidly, and will soon be entering school. Plus she’s got full NHS services at her disposal, as needs might be.

Taxes help provide a stable, responsible society. One where there’s a solid safety net for those that need it.

Do some take the mick? Well. Yes. Of course they do. The second you create any kind of system, financial, social or otherwise, there’s someone looking to exploit it. Welcome to human nature.

But we need to pool resources as a society to have a society. And without said society, where are we?

Ye, claiming that taxing the super rich more hurts us all? No... trickledown economics has been shown time and again to be nonsense.

It used to be that the very rich had a direct connection to everyone else. They worked with the ordinary man day to day, and this lead to many of the great reformers. It lead to things like companies building for their employees (which was sometimes exploitative, but often not) offering education, healthcare and pensions. The industrialist would see the people they employed every day in the street. The wealthy land owner the people who lived on his land. Now, do you think the average wealthy investor has any idea about the companies other than their balance sheet? Do you think most mega rich CEOs have any idea where their factories are, beyond a country, possibly a region? Let alone the conditions their workers live and work in?

 LordofHats wrote:
So billionaires can afford to just give the government money, but they can't afford to pay a tiny increase without "hurting the middle class."

I really hope the silliness of that doesn't need to be pointed out cause it's really self-apparent.

When the government writes tax laws, the 'rich' have resources and lawyers and accountants to avoid them. Death taxes, estate taxes, sales taxes, and 'fees' for licenses, permits, breathing all hurt the middle class and poor. Those are the people hurt by this. Beware when the government promises you that they're going to 'soak the rich' - you pay for it with regressive sales taxes and fees. There will never be enough funds to confiscate to build your socialist utopia. In the meantime, feel free to give your government more money so they can waste it, and bankrupt any future there may be. Grow the economy, grow the tax paying base. Shrink the economy, shrink the tax base. Simple enough for even a moonbat to understand.

And thereby showing you have no actual idea how government or taxes work.

 totalfailure wrote:
When the government writes tax laws, the 'rich' have resources and lawyers and accountants to avoid them.

Indeed.

Death taxes, estate taxes, sales taxes, and 'fees' for licenses, permits, breathing all hurt the middle class and poor.

And here you completely lose me. The threshold to actually be hit by "death taxes" is so high no one who is really middle class gets touched. That myth is mostly based on the habit of the lower end of the wealthy spectrum considering themselves middle class. It has little basis in reality. The middle class is the "idealized" America. Everyone wants to be middle class, even people who definitively are not when you use the tax code to define it. To be fair, middle class is kind of empty terminology. It's an idea more than anything, and political rhetoric loves it because it makes blurring the lines of what is being discussed easier.

No one who talks about raising taxes on the rich is talking about people who aren't in the millionaires' and up range of yearly income. Millionaires and up are definitively not middle class.

Those are the people hurt by this. Beware when the government promises you that they're going to 'soak the rich' - you pay for it with regressive sales taxes and fees.

That doesn't make any sense either. When people generally talk about taxing the rich, they're talking about raising their income taxes or adjusting how we value assets, deductibles, and such. There are merits of debate on all of those, but no one on Earth talks about "soak the rich" by raising sales taxes and fees. Those taxes are mostly state level and mostly paid by the not-rich. If anything we probably want to lower those and switch states more towards income taxes for their revenue, but people have very bizarre reactions to the idea of "taxes" on income that are not the same as our reaction towards sales taxes and fees.

There will never be enough funds to confiscate to build your socialist utopia.

I don't want a utopia. I'll settle for much, much less.

In the meantime, feel free to give your government more money so they can waste it

They do waste it, but that's a whole other barrel of fish, and one we probably can't even begin touching without clearly crossing the politics line. Honestly, we've probably already crossed it, but we've all been civil enough I guess no one has felt any need to shut the thread down.

Grow the economy, grow the tax paying base. Shrink the economy, shrink the tax base.

Good platitudes, but mostly devoid of real meaning.

As I see it, the biggest area to go for is capital gains. They are almost universally taxed lower than income. The assumption, to the point of being almost a philosophical belief, is that capital gains are more worthy than income and that wealth is created from the inspiration and risk of those who control assets rather than the sweat of workers. In the modern age this is totally thrown out by the fact that most assets are owned by distant owners controlling stock, who hedge their risk and have little input. A stock holder in a market is not the same as someone mortgaging their house to start a business, but we treat them the same. We need to tax large capital gains more like income.

I also think we need to be measuring wealth better. We should stop looking at total GDP and average and start looking for a measure that takes in to account distribution. If I have £100million and the rest of my street have £100 I see that as worse for everyone than all of us having £10k.

 totalfailure wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
So billionaires can afford to just give the government money, but they can't afford to pay a tiny increase without "hurting the middle class."

I really hope the silliness of that doesn't need to be pointed out cause it's really self-apparent.

When the government writes tax laws, the 'rich' have resources and lawyers and accountants to avoid them. Death taxes, estate taxes, sales taxes, and 'fees' for licenses, permits, breathing all hurt the middle class and poor. Those are the people hurt by this. Beware when the government promises you that they're going to 'soak the rich' - you pay for it with regressive sales taxes and fees. There will never be enough funds to confiscate to build your socialist utopia. In the meantime, feel free to give your government more money so they can waste it, and bankrupt any future there may be. Grow the economy, grow the tax paying base. Shrink the economy, shrink the tax base. Simple enough for even a moonbat to understand.

The trick being that spending grows the economy, and the super-rich do not spend as much of their money as the middle class does.

If the CEO earns 500 times what his employees does, to equal their relative spending he has to buy 500 TVs, 500 cars, 500 houses, 500 times as much utilities, 500 times as much clothing, 500 times as much food, go out to eat 500 times as often, etc...

But they obviously don't. So the more wealth goes to the rich, the LESS the economy grows.

Each of the seven Walton grandkids individually controls more wealth than the lower 70% of the population of America. That's more money than 250,000,000 people have combined. I promise you not one of them spends 250,000,000 times as much on ANYTHING.

They're also remarkably stingy. They bragged a couple years ago about giving 2 billion to their own charity, which is run by members of the Walton family, so really they gave 2 billion to themselves and considering the combined wealth of the Waltons, 2 billion is not actually that much. They're blown out of the water by most other billionaires in terms of charity, but then most other billionaires weren't raking in billions in tax dollars by underpaying their own employees and getting them to spend their government benefits at Walmart.

 Steve steveson wrote:
As I see it, the biggest area to go for is capital gains. They are almost universally taxed lower than income. The assumption, to the point of being almost a philosophical belief, is that capital gains are more worthy than income and that wealth is created from the inspiration and risk of those who control assets rather than the sweat of workers. In the modern age this is totally thrown out by the fact that most assets are owned by distant owners controlling stock, who hedge their risk and have little input. A stock holder in a market is not the same as someone mortgaging their house to start a business, but we treat them the same. We need to tax large capital gains more like income.

I also think we need to be measuring wealth better. We should stop looking at total GDP and average and start looking for a measure that takes in to account distribution. If I have £100million and the rest of my street have £100 I see that as worse for everyone than all of us having £10k.

Capital gains being taxed less never really connected logically for me; income that you get simply for owning something deserves to pay lower taxes than income from actually working? I have heard the argument that it encourages investing, which again seems silly because it isn't like people are going to see that they are making less money from investing and decide it is wise to instead make no money by not investing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vulcan wrote:

 totalfailure wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
So billionaires can afford to just give the government money, but they can't afford to pay a tiny increase without "hurting the middle class."

I really hope the silliness of that doesn't need to be pointed out cause it's really self-apparent.

When the government writes tax laws, the 'rich' have resources and lawyers and accountants to avoid them. Death taxes, estate taxes, sales taxes, and 'fees' for licenses, permits, breathing all hurt the middle class and poor. Those are the people hurt by this. Beware when the government promises you that they're going to 'soak the rich' - you pay for it with regressive sales taxes and fees. There will never be enough funds to confiscate to build your socialist utopia. In the meantime, feel free to give your government more money so they can waste it, and bankrupt any future there may be. Grow the economy, grow the tax paying base. Shrink the economy, shrink the tax base. Simple enough for even a moonbat to understand.

The trick being that spending grows the economy, and the super-rich do not spend as much of their money as the middle class does.

If the CEO earns 500 times what his employees does, to equal their relative spending he has to buy 500 TVs, 500 cars, 500 houses, 500 times as much utilities, 500 times as much clothing, 500 times as much food, go out to eat 500 times as often, etc...

But they obviously don't. So the more wealth goes to the rich, the LESS the economy grows.

Each of the seven Walton grandkids individually controls more wealth than the lower 70% of the population of America. That's more money than 250,000,000 people have combined. I promise you not one of them spends 250,000,000 times as much on ANYTHING.

By another measure, are they 250,000,000 times more useful to society?

 totalfailure wrote:

 skyth wrote:
And sending a check to the treasury doesn't work. It's not something that can be budgeted for so it doesn't really solve any problems. It's a really bad answer and thus meaningless. It doesn't actually do anything.

Also this is interesting.
https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-vs-involuntary-part-time-work-underemployment-2019-1?fbclid=IwAR2EcizIsTspjDx3L9C5AwoIJUcUFzmI2B9FuA9e_S-eF-SUL1Q0VgiRFgg

Actually, it is a good solution to liberal billionaire guilt. Stay away from more tax laws that always end up hurting the middle and lower classes, and give away your money freely to the government. So they can waste it as they please, and have always done. And the Soros' and Gates' of the world can sleep easy at night. And stop virtue signaling the rest of us.

Exactly.

It just shows that a billionaire saying "please tax me more!" is just them saying a sound bite. If they actually did indeed want to send more money to the government, they already can do so. The fact that they haven't, despite their alleged desire to be taxed more, just shows they really don't want to be taxed more.

Yes, the government can't make a budget around donates like this, but they'll spend the money that does come in as a bonus.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 totalfailure wrote:

 skyth wrote:
And sending a check to the treasury doesn't work. It's not something that can be budgeted for so it doesn't really solve any problems. It's a really bad answer and thus meaningless. It doesn't actually do anything.

Also this is interesting.
https://www.businessinsider.com/unemployment-vs-involuntary-part-time-work-underemployment-2019-1?fbclid=IwAR2EcizIsTspjDx3L9C5AwoIJUcUFzmI2B9FuA9e_S-eF-SUL1Q0VgiRFgg

Actually, it is a good solution to liberal billionaire guilt. Stay away from more tax laws that always end up hurting the middle and lower classes, and give away your money freely to the government. So they can waste it as they please, and have always done. And the Soros' and Gates' of the world can sleep easy at night. And stop virtue signaling the rest of us.

Exactly.

It just shows that a billionaire saying "please tax me more!" is just them saying a sound bite. If they actually did indeed want to send more money to the government, they already can do so. The fact that they haven't, despite their alleged desire to be taxed more, just shows they really don't want to be taxed more.

Yes, the government can't make a budget around donates like this, but they'll spend the money that does come in as a bonus.

Because relying on the good will of people is totally a realistic solution Heck, by that logic we can cut taxes down to nil and just let people donate what they feel is appropriate!

And nobody was suggesting we rely on that entirely.

We are just saying if a person feels like they don’t pay enough taxes, they have a way to assuage that burning guilt.

 Grey Templar wrote:
And nobody was suggesting we rely on that entirely.

We are just saying if a person feels like they don’t pay enough taxes, they have a way to assuage that burning guilt.

Or maybe they feel that way because they see a systemic problem with how taxation is handled for their tax bracket, and framing it as an "emotional" issue is completely disingenuous?

Nah, it's not like it's common trope for one side of the political spectrum to try to paint the other as "emotional" or anything.

 ScarletRose wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
And nobody was suggesting we rely on that entirely.

We are just saying if a person feels like they don’t pay enough taxes, they have a way to assuage that burning guilt.

Or maybe they feel that way because they see a systemic problem with how taxation is handled for their tax bracket, and framing it as an "emotional" issue is completely disingenuous?

Nah, it's not like it's common trope for one side of the political spectrum to try to paint the other as "emotional" or anything.

What I'm saying is, people like Mark Cuban should put their money where there mouth is.

If he, and others like him, want to be taxed more then they should send in whatever additional money they want to be taxed to the Treasury Department. they shouldn't just say "I want to be taxed more!". They should also show their sincerity by sending some extra money in too. Bernie Sanders, and other rich people who want to raise taxes, shouldn't be taking advantage of tax exemptions when they're filing, etc...

Saying "We need to raise taxes!" while simultaneously taking available tax breaks to minimize the taxes they are paying and not using a method which citizens can donate extra money to the government is hypocritical.

why would anyone voluntarily pay more taxes? thats just stupid. anyone who says they want to is just virtue signalling. If I knew how to pay less taxes I definitely would. I'd rather have it in my pocket than the government.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
And nobody was suggesting we rely on that entirely.

We are just saying if a person feels like they don’t pay enough taxes, they have a way to assuage that burning guilt.

Or maybe they feel that way because they see a systemic problem with how taxation is handled for their tax bracket, and framing it as an "emotional" issue is completely disingenuous?

Nah, it's not like it's common trope for one side of the political spectrum to try to paint the other as "emotional" or anything.

What I'm saying is, people like Mark Cuban should put their money where there mouth is.

If he, and others like him, want to be taxed more then they should send in whatever additional money they want to be taxed to the Treasury Department. they shouldn't just say "I want to be taxed more!". They should also show their sincerity by sending some extra money in too. Bernie Sanders, and other rich people who want to raise taxes, shouldn't be taking advantage of tax exemptions when they're filing, etc...

Saying "We need to raise taxes!" while simultaneously taking available tax breaks to minimize the taxes they are paying and not using a method which citizens can donate extra money to the government is hypocritical.

It would only be hypocritical if they were doing anything illegal. As long as they are paying the taxes they should and not using any illegal or questionable behaviours to calculate their tax return then there is nothing hypocritical about saying that the tax system is not equitable. It is about planning and equitability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:
As I see it, the biggest area to go for is capital gains. They are almost universally taxed lower than income. The assumption, to the point of being almost a philosophical belief, is that capital gains are more worthy than income and that wealth is created from the inspiration and risk of those who control assets rather than the sweat of workers. In the modern age this is totally thrown out by the fact that most assets are owned by distant owners controlling stock, who hedge their risk and have little input. A stock holder in a market is not the same as someone mortgaging their house to start a business, but we treat them the same. We need to tax large capital gains more like income.

I also think we need to be measuring wealth better. We should stop looking at total GDP and average and start looking for a measure that takes in to account distribution. If I have £100million and the rest of my street have £100 I see that as worse for everyone than all of us having £10k.

Capital gains being taxed less never really connected logically for me; income that you get simply for owning something deserves to pay lower taxes than income from actually working? I have heard the argument that it encourages investing, which again seems silly because it isn't like people are going to see that they are making less money from investing and decide it is wise to instead make no money by not investing.

Capital gains tax makes total sense where there is a direct connection between investment and the business being invested in.

Lets say you have a baker who has a choice between taking money out of his business as income, or putting that income in to a new oven to bake more bread, employ an extra person and grow the business, and then getting the return from that as capital gains - Total sense.

The issue comes that for most investment this link is totally broken. It's about people putting money in to some investment vehicle, be that stocks, shares, property or some other way to make money make money. Even if they are directly involved the fundamental aim is not to grow the business but to grow the pile of money. This leads to pooling of money with little care for the vehicle used. This is where it is problematic for me. The other place it is problematic is where contractors who do work for another company have set up a company purely to reduce tax.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
why would anyone voluntarily pay more taxes? thats just stupid. anyone who says they want to is just virtue signalling. If I knew how to pay less taxes I definitely would. I'd rather have it in my pocket than the government.

I live in NY, I have great schools in my backyard and despite the weather destroying them good roads. Anyone I know who moved to save on taxes cannot say either. Hardly the only nice aspects either.

We've got issues, but as a citizen of one of the highest taxed counties in the US, it works out pretty nice when people actually pay taxes. If we could get the local multi-millionaires to stop complaining and enjoy the fact they have an educated work force to exploit it'd be down right wonderful.

Again, saying to just write a check to the Treasury shows a fundamental lack of knowledge of how government spending and programs and taxation work. It's a nice sound bite but it's to the point of being deceptive.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
why would anyone voluntarily pay more taxes? thats just stupid. anyone who says they want to is just virtue signalling. If I knew how to pay less taxes I definitely would. I'd rather have it in my pocket than the government.

But it's not in the Government's pocket, is it?

Instead, it's spent. Said spending benefits all. Armed Forces, Police, NHS, Ambulance Crews, Fire Service, Roads, Schools, Civic Amenities. There is barely an aspect in life in which tax money does not play at least some role.

Start skimping on it? Or worse, as consecutive Governments have done, keep adding more and more loopholes (with the advice of those paid by clients to help avoid Tax in the first place, because there's no conflict of interest there at all) and things start going south, pretty quickly.

It is in the interest of the wealthy to have as little poverty as possible. Poverty is the main cause of crime, after all. Poor education goes hand in hand with Poverty. So everytime a millionaire or billionaire dodges their tax? We as a society suffer, just so that person can sit on a slightly huger pile o'cash.

Me? I may be paying the 40% rate soon, if my career plans pan out. And I won't begrudge a single penny. Not because 'I'm alright, Jack', but because as explained earlier, I've done very well off the back of previous generations of Tax Payers.

Cough up, pay your dues, or move somewhere else.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
why would anyone voluntarily pay more taxes? thats just stupid. anyone who says they want to is just virtue signalling. If I knew how to pay less taxes I definitely would. I'd rather have it in my pocket than the government.

But it's not in the Government's pocket, is it?

Instead, it's spent. Said spending benefits all. Armed Forces, Police, NHS, Ambulance Crews, Fire Service, Roads, Schools, Civic Amenities. There is barely an aspect in life in which tax money does not play at least some role.

Start skimping on it? Or worse, as consecutive Governments have done, keep adding more and more loopholes (with the advice of those paid by clients to help avoid Tax in the first place, because there's no conflict of interest there at all) and things start going south, pretty quickly.

It is in the interest of the wealthy to have as little poverty as possible. Poverty is the main cause of crime, after all. Poor education goes hand in hand with Poverty. So everytime a millionaire or billionaire dodges their tax? We as a society suffer, just so that person can sit on a slightly huger pile o'cash.

Me? I may be paying the 40% rate soon, if my career plans pan out. And I won't begrudge a single penny. Not because 'I'm alright, Jack', but because as explained earlier, I've done very well off the back of previous generations of Tax Payers.

Cough up, pay your dues, or move somewhere else.

I agree with you, in principle.. But in reality, Where's the proof? All I hear on the news is how the nhs is dying. I serve in the armed forces, and the squadron I spent 6 years serving on just got disbanded, to save money. Schools are underfunded, as are nurseries, as are the police... So where is the money going?

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_budget_pie_chart

"In 2020, the three biggest government programs are health care (i.e, the NHS), state pensions, and welfare."

Where is the money going?

Strictly speaking, State Pensions. Oh, and Tax Breaks for the wealthiest. Privatised stuff receiving Government Grants, despite all being independently profitable without the Grant/Subsidy (oh hai, great bloke from Eton! Here's scads of public cash, and a license to gouge the public even more!)

The issue is not that the UK is overspending. It's that we've collectively allowed Mass Tax Avoidance (remember, it's only Tax Evasion if you're poor)., so the national income is messed up.

Pensioners massively favour the Tories, so there's no way pensions are going to get looked at while they're in power

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election

So, I saw that China's GDP has slowed a bit recently.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/14/business/china-economy-growth-gdp-trade-war.html

BEIJING — China’s growth fell to its slowest pace in nearly three decades, officials disclosed on Monday, as a resurgence of trade tensions with the United States and lingering financial problems take an increasing toll on one of the world’s most vital economic engines.

 Easy E wrote:
So, I saw that China's GDP has slowed a bit recently.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/14/business/china-economy-growth-gdp-trade-war.html

BEIJING — China’s growth fell to its slowest pace in nearly three decades, officials disclosed on Monday, as a resurgence of trade tensions with the United States and lingering financial problems take an increasing toll on one of the world’s most vital economic engines.

Keep in mind that China's number are staggeringly unreliable (i.e. lies), so if they're forced to admit low growth you know it's a LOT worse!

 John Prins wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
So, I saw that China's GDP has slowed a bit recently.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/14/business/china-economy-growth-gdp-trade-war.html

BEIJING — China’s growth fell to its slowest pace in nearly three decades, officials disclosed on Monday, as a resurgence of trade tensions with the United States and lingering financial problems take an increasing toll on one of the world’s most vital economic engines.

Keep in mind that China's number are staggeringly unreliable (i.e. lies), so if they're forced to admit low growth you know it's a LOT worse!

Yes, that was my thought as well. I wonder if anyone has any outside analysis of the current Chinese economic situation?

I would be interested to hear what someone more learned on the matter than I has to say.