Tax discussion thread (U.S. focused)

[Final-Fan]

(1) Offhand, I'd say that harm would be the decrease in quality of living. I haven't given this deep thought, but that seems like a reasonable definition to me if we assume that basic needs are taken care of in any case.

(2) I don't have a formula for this. I'm not an economist. I guess I could make something up, but it would just be me throwing numbers together until it felt good.

(3) I realize that I'm kind of nebulous on this, but I think it would be a big mistake to say "I don't know what the ratio is so we'll just pretend there isn't any". Unless you're saying that you think I'm wrong that there IS any difference.

(4) The reason I don't favor that is that it would be disastrous for people with very little income who are living off their existing wealth, such as seniors. This is why I don't want to tax the wealth itself until the person dies. People with high incomes, on the other hand, are obviously able to compensate for the loss.

Plus I think that tax evasion would become a much bigger problem in a direct wealth-taxing system because the government would obviously have to go out and assess all of everyone's assets. It's bad enough with property taxes, and you can't hide a house or land like you can jewelry.

If it WAS practical, I would probably still favor a progressive wealth tax but not nearly as progressive as the income tax.

(5) I'm not sure what you're asking here. But the first amounts of income after paying for basic necessities improve the quality of life much more than an equal increase (even percentage increase) does for already very high income, unless I am GREATLY mistaken. Do you disagree with that statement?

(6) I agree.

(7) This is not a problem inherent to progressive taxation. I haven't studied that issue but I imagine arguments can be made on both sides. There are many special rates and exemptions, however, that should be removed from the tax code as it stands today. I think we can all agree on that.

(8) I can see the logic of your argument, but I don't think that it's plausible that government would react in the way you suggest. Anyway, wouldn't the government also want to improve the income level of lower classes as well? There are so many more people who make little money that cost-effective programs could cause the overall increase in tax receipts from them to outweigh the benefit of paying special attention to a small group of rich folks.

Anyway, are you really suggesting the government doesn't ALREADY do plenty of things that help the rich get richer?