WWTBAM Bored

The wealth tax stuff was lost in the welter and gore of the other thread-so I brought it over here. As I said over there, in all the tax threads here over the years, in which I have posted very little, I have never been able to figure out if Bob#'s knows the difference between wealth and income.

In fact, all the evidence from his posts over time suggest that he doesn't.

As I said over there, it is really a waste of time to discuss Billionaires and "Third Yacht" stuff in the context of an income tax. If you want to go after that money fine, but you need a wealth tax to do it.

I would love to take 90% of Google away from those evil bastards and Facebook away from Zuckerberg, but then I read yesterday in Fortune magazine of the oil billionaire who is spending major bucks over the last 15 years to revitalize downtown Dallas.

I guess we could have taken his money away and had the government do the revitalization, because we all know they could have done a better job of it, but he seems to have done a fairly good job as well.

I guess I could scratch my Google/Facebook itch for now by advocating that they be broken up as monopolies and leave the wealth stuff alone.

Although, since most Billionaires and trust fund babies and so forth seem to be on the left these days it might be fun to hit them with a pretty high wealth tax.

The other bee in my bonnet is that it makes absolutely no sense that dividends and so forth are taxed at a much lower rate than labor.

It is interesting, in a non-nitpicky way, that a few weeks back, AOC advocated a wealth tax for the billionaires in NYC. I would be 100% behind that proposal.

An income tax hurts the aspirational. A wealth tax would accomplish much of what Bob#s has advocated here for over time.

Some European countries have a wealth tax but many have gotten rid of it. It seems that it substitutes for a property tax. I'd have to do a lot of research to see how that's been working for them.

Bob Juch wrote:Some European countries have a wealth tax but many have gotten rid of it. It seems that it substitutes for a property tax. I'd have to do a lot of research to see how that's been working for them.

BobJ, you are completely missing the point. We want to make sure the wealthy are paying their fair share and under an income tax dominated system they obviously tend to skate by as we have been told, time and time again, by those on the left-including the other Bob and AOC and many others.

I doubt the Google boys have much Income that is subject to an Income Tax. You would have to tax their wealth so that they pay their fair share.

The closest thing in America is the estate tax. Republicans call it the "death tax" and have whittled away at it for years. But it's hard to target an estate tax on the super rich. It can hit some small businesses and family farms while billionaires like the Trump family find ways to avoid it.

Spock wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:Some European countries have a wealth tax but many have gotten rid of it. It seems that it substitutes for a property tax. I'd have to do a lot of research to see how that's been working for them.

BobJ, you are completely missing the point. We want to make sure the wealthy are paying their fair share and under an income tax dominated system they obviously tend to skate by as we have been told, time and time again, by those on the left-including the other Bob and AOC and many others.

I doubt the Google boys have much Income that is subject to an Income Tax. You would have to tax their wealth so that they pay their fair share.

I'm not missing the point. I'm saying I don't have an opinion as I haven't done enough research. There was a reason many European countries got rid of the tax; I have to research why.

A wealth tax would have to ensure that offshore assets are taxed; enforcement of that would be problematic.

Bob Juch wrote:

Spock wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:Some European countries have a wealth tax but many have gotten rid of it. It seems that it substitutes for a property tax. I'd have to do a lot of research to see how that's been working for them.

BobJ, you are completely missing the point. We want to make sure the wealthy are paying their fair share and under an income tax dominated system they obviously tend to skate by as we have been told, time and time again, by those on the left-including the other Bob and AOC and many others.

I doubt the Google boys have much Income that is subject to an Income Tax. You would have to tax their wealth so that they pay their fair share.

I'm not missing the point. I'm saying I don't have an opinion as I haven't done enough research. There was a reason many European countries got rid of the tax; I have to research why.

A wealth tax would have to ensure that offshore assets are taxed; enforcement of that would be problematic.

I'm not a fan of a wealth tax because it taxes assets that mostly arise from income that was already taxed, and the transitional provisions (as a matter of fairness, stuff bought with already-taxed money shouldn't be taxed again) are virtually impossible to solve.

But that has nothing to do with whether Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's specific proposal -- a 70% marginal rate on income above $10 million per year -- is good policy. --Bob

Bob78164 wrote:I'm not a fan of a wealth tax because it taxes assets that mostly arise from income that was already taxed, and the transitional provisions (as a matter of fairness, stuff bought with already-taxed money shouldn't be taxed again) are virtually impossible to solve.

But that has nothing to do with whether Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's specific proposal -- a 70% marginal rate on income above $10 million per year -- is good policy. --Bob

I could not agree more and less. You're making me dizzy.

Bob78164 wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:

Spock wrote:
BobJ, you are completely missing the point. We want to make sure the wealthy are paying their fair share and under an income tax dominated system they obviously tend to skate by as we have been told, time and time again, by those on the left-including the other Bob and AOC and many others.

I doubt the Google boys have much Income that is subject to an Income Tax. You would have to tax their wealth so that they pay their fair share.

I'm not missing the point. I'm saying I don't have an opinion as I haven't done enough research. There was a reason many European countries got rid of the tax; I have to research why.

A wealth tax would have to ensure that offshore assets are taxed; enforcement of that would be problematic.

I'm not a fan of a wealth tax because it taxes assets that mostly arise from income that was already taxed, and the transitional provisions (as a matter of fairness, stuff bought with already-taxed money shouldn't be taxed again) are virtually impossible to solve.

But that has nothing to do with whether Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's specific proposal -- a 70% marginal rate on income above $10 million per year -- is good policy. --Bob

She had a different proposal a few weeks ago where she advocated for a wealth tax on the billionaires in NYC, and, no, I can't post a link. I tried quickly to find it but I do not want to dig through the endless clutter resulting from her 60 Minutes Income tax proposal.

I will talk very slowly here. Over the years, you have repeatedly mentioned that you want to tax billionaires and "Third Yacht" type of stuff. How do you tax Billionaires and "Third Yacht" type of wealth with an income tax and not a wealth tax?

Spock wrote:

Bob78164 wrote:

Bob Juch wrote: I'm not missing the point. I'm saying I don't have an opinion as I haven't done enough research. There was a reason many European countries got rid of the tax; I have to research why.

A wealth tax would have to ensure that offshore assets are taxed; enforcement of that would be problematic.

I'm not a fan of a wealth tax because it taxes assets that mostly arise from income that was already taxed, and the transitional provisions (as a matter of fairness, stuff bought with already-taxed money shouldn't be taxed again) are virtually impossible to solve.

But that has nothing to do with whether Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's specific proposal -- a 70% marginal rate on income above $10 million per year -- is good policy. --Bob

She had a different proposal a few weeks ago where she advocated for a wealth tax on the billionaires in NYC, and, no, I can't post a link. I tried quickly to find it but I do not want to dig through the endless clutter resulting from her 60 Minutes Income tax proposal.

I will talk very slowly here. Over the years, you have repeatedly mentioned that you want to tax billionaires and "Third Yacht" type of stuff. How do you tax Billionaires and "Third Yacht" type of wealth with an income tax and not a wealth tax?

I don't. But if they have the disposable income to maintain luxury goods of that type (yachts are expensive to maintain), they'll have plenty of income that an income tax can reach. --Bob