2024 ELECTION THREAD
The next presidential race will be here soon! Please see current Bovada odds. Thoughts?
There are various ways to tax the very wealthy, going after unrealized capital gains treating them as income is probably the worst possible one, even if you intend to tax them a lot.
The less distorting way to tax wealth is the dutch way, which is fairly complicated but actually pretty decent (in a macro economic sense of avoiding second order effects).
What do they do on the Netherlands?
They treat all wealth as if it generated a standard return on capital every year (based on real returns in the real world) and tax that, no matter what the actual returns were.
This 1) doesn't distort allocation (risk taking is still rewarded proportionally to risk)
2) doesn't punish wealth when returns don't exist (which a fixed wealth tax does)
So if in year X returns were 5% for low risk investments, and you owned a billion at the beginning of the year, you are taxed on an implicit income of 50m.
If you hoarded without deploying the wealth in the real economy in any way, you still pay taxes on the 50m.
If your returns were normal, you are paying taxes on your actual returns.
If your wealth doubled because it was mostly into a company you own which did great, you are taxed as everyone else with the same wealth, and aren't punished for your success in an unduly way.
How is that different from a fixed percentage applied to wealth (aka as basic wealth tax)? 1) the above regime is INSTEAD of capital gains, while wealth taxes are always proposed as additional to capital gains 2) with a wealth tax of (say) 1%, you are taxing wealth too little when things go very well, and way too much when things go bad, which is the opposite of what you want to do with fiscal revenue in general (you want it to be cyclical)
There are various ways to tax the very wealthy, going after unrealized capital gains treating them as income is probably the worst possible one, even if you intend to tax them a lot.
The less distorting way to tax wealth is the dutch way, which is fairly complicated but actually pretty decent (in a macro economic sense of avoiding second order effects).
What do they do on the Netherlands?
They treat all wealth as if it generated a standard return on capital every year (based on real returns in the
That sounds reasonable to me.
for the US federal government in particular though there can be constitutional problems applying the dutch model, but they apply to simple wealth taxes as well, and to taxation of unrealized capital gains too.
but afaik states could implement any of those 3 approaches if they wished to.
which is why it's important to remind people that democratic led states could tax rich people as much as they wanted but choose not to, which makes it really weird to campaign for federal taxation of rich people, when you decline to tax them more when you already have the power to do so.
democratic led states do usually tax rich people more (California and NY come to mind), but if the total taxation was thought to be not enough yet, it would be simple to just increase it more.
yet they want to tax rich people living in other states which is puzzling
loozen still chomping on the orange chode
thought you were "none of the above"... and now what? they found one that's worse?
I am none of the above If I was an American I would be sitting this election out . If Kamala was telling the truth about her new platform I would consider voting for her
People that rely on tip money aren't hiding the money under their mattress or depositing it in Swiss Bank accounts. The money pretty much goes right back into circulation where it is taxed multiple times, before ending up with someone like Bezos where it just sits and isn't taxed.
What percent of the average rich person's wealth do you think is hidden under a mattress or in a swiss bank account? You act like this is a serious problem.
Given how middle class and lower people dont save money, and everything they spend their money on is taxed anyways, I never really followed the logic the problem is poor and middle class people dont spend enough on taxes.
Why do you think spending money in economy is great, but whatever people do with their money outside of spending it is bad? You seem to suggest people that have a lower spend rate is somehow bad in general. You do realize that the economy needs people that keep money in their bank account (so banks can make loans), invest in other people's companies, give out loans, start their own companies and hire people, correct?
I doubt taxing unrealized gains is the solution to the problem, but I think the general problem that people who hoard tremendous amount of wealth and dont pay taxes is a bigger problem than people who live paycheck to paycheck get part of their income tax free.
You do realize that people that hoard money are keeping some in their checking account (which the bank loans out), buying CDs (which the bank loans out), buying treasuries (which the govt spends/loans out), buying corporate bonds (which companies use to hire people/build factories/etc) and muni bonds (which helps communities build schools and bridges). These people do pay taxes (for the most part) on gains/interest.
It should go without saying, but it needs to be said: if someone decides to hoard money that they earned that is their business - not yours or the gov'ts.
I suspect the real solution to the problem is for govt to spend less, but that is just me.
This is by far the best solution.
The wealthy own corporations outright and they own/control corporations via the stock market
I'm sorry, but I think this is a well known fact. What was the purpose of stating this?
Wage theft is the largest amount of theft in the country. It is more than larceny and more than civil forfeiture (police stealing)
So it is accurate to say that the rich are the largest thieves in the country.
Do you still think they are responsible for bettering our lives ? Bettering peoples lives doesn’t make you rich so I’m not sure why you would think that.
What is wage theft?
Go through the list of the 100 richest people in the world and tell me where their wealth came from and how that wealth creation didn't improve the lives of millions of people.
Trickle up is a subsequent concept that doesn't necessarily apply, but every person who used Amazon did so because it was better than the alternatives he had so Amazon literally improved human lives with billions of interactions people found preferable (and so quite literally an improvement).
This is already being one of the best thing to ever happen to society (ie bezos is one of the most valuable human beings for others in the history of America, one of the people that helped American lives the most) even if there is no ulterior trickle up of anything.
Keep in mind everytime you do something you are declaring by your actions that literally every other option is worse for your goals, so the existence of the option you choose is quite literally an improvement of your life provided to you by someone else.
Trickle up is a subsequent concept that doesn't necessarily apply, but every person who used Amazon did so because it was better than the alternatives he had so Amazon literally improved human lives with billions of interactions people found preferable (and so quite literally an improvement).
This is already being one of the best thing to ever happen to society (ie bezos is one of the most valuable human beings for others in the history of America, one of the people that helped American lives the
But, by baba's logic, he should never be taxed a penny while everyone that has ever worked for amazon should be taxed to the hilt.
There are various ways to tax the very wealthy, going after unrealized capital gains treating them as income is probably the worst possible one, even if you intend to tax them a lot.
The less distorting way to tax wealth is the dutch way, which is fairly complicated but actually pretty decent (in a macro economic sense of avoiding second order effects).
What do they do on the Netherlands?
They treat all wealth as if it generated a standard return on capital every year (based on real returns in the
I tried looking up the tax and it says it was repealed?
I’m also worried about this being constitutional. I’m also worried about the currently proposed tax being constitutional as well.
I tried looking up the tax and it says it was repealed?
I’m also worried about this being constitutional. I’m also worried about the currently proposed tax being constitutional as well.
Which tax was repealed? The dutch one? No
For the federal American government yes there are huge constitutional doubts (independently from what you think about them)
Which tax was repealed? The dutch one? No
For the federal American government yes there are huge constitutional doubts (independently from what you think about them)
There must be multiple ones.
First link is about property taxes for real estate so a very different topic (we were talking financial wealth).
Second link is a proper judicial check on which rate to apply to the implied income we are discussing. Ofc the government can't overstep and claim you can easily make 8% say, if you actually only could do 4%. That link is about that.
First link is about property taxes for real estate so a very different topic (we were talking financial wealth).
Second link is a proper judicial check on which rate to apply to the implied income we are discussing. Ofc the government can't overstep and claim you can easily make 8% say, if you actually only could do 4%. That link is about that.
Gotchya I think I found it.
https://taxsavers.nl/dutch-tax-system/as....
I just can’t help but feel like this will generate a tiny amount of revenue and is just about the appearance of equality. But it does also apply to the middle class so probably does bring in most of the revenue from them and not the elite as Harris’s proposed tax would.
I tried looking up the tax and it says it was repealed?
I’m also worried about this being constitutional. I’m also worried about the currently proposed tax being constitutional as well.
I haven't looked into how these gains would be taxed or codified, but I think you're referring to this?
Gotchya I think I found it.
https://taxsavers.nl/dutch-tax-system/as....
I just can’t help but feel like this will generate a tiny amount of revenue and is just about the appearance of equality. But it does also apply to the middle class so probably does bring in most of the revenue from them and not the elite as Harris’s proposed tax would.
Why tiny? It's very significant.
You can put exemption thresholds as high or low as you want, middle class can be caught within it or not, that's a totally different topic.
You can exempt the first 100k or 1million or whatever of implied income.
I think the dutch exempt the first 15 or 20k (not sure)
Why tiny? It's very significant.
You can put exemption thresholds as high or low as you want, middle class can be caught within it or not, that's a totally different topic.
You can exempt the first 100k or 1million or whatever of implied income
I’m trying to find info on where Netherlands gets the bulk of its government revenue from and can’t find it. But in the US, Individual Income and Medicare/SS taxes make up 85% of all government revenue. I’m wondering what percentage this wealth tax accounts for in the Netherlands.
I haven't looked into how these gains would be taxed or codified, but I think you're referring to this?
Taxation of unrealized capital gain (for the federal government) is still unclear, see Moore (2024) where SCOTUS decided to answer narrowly and not broadly.
Macomber (1920) still holds but unclear in it's scope
Wealth tax is probably unconstitutional because of the apportionment clause (unknown as, afaik, there are no SCOTUS decisions on the topic)
I’m trying to find info on where Netherlands gets the bulk of its government revenue from and can’t find it. But in the US, Individual Income and Medicare/SS taxes make up 85% of all government revenue. I’m wondering what percentage this wealth tax accounts for in the Netherlands.
The USA is the best for many reasons including having so much detail in it's data we can only dream about it in the EU
This is the best breakdown of dutch fiscal revenues I was able to find without speaking dutch
