Turns Out Americans Actually Do Want to Tax the Rich

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not trying to become more wealthy.. I'm DC poor but on the higher end of middle class nationwide

I want the money to go to the people that are struggling more than I am

In terms of things that could benefit me, maybe some programs to help my kids in the future, like Pre-K, making college more affordable, etc

+1
HHI 150K, and I’d still be happy to pay more so long as the actual wealthy have to as well. This inequality isn’t right. There is NO reason people should be avoiding medical treatment or eating unhealthy foods or unable to find adequate housing or for public schools to be underfunded so that the Mitch and Elaines of the world can buy another jet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, she wants to tax wealth! Not dumb at all. Easier than taxing income. No complicated tax rules for deductions needed.

Yes people can try to hide their wealth, but this is already illegal so good if we can catch more people doing it

You are so, so naive.
Taxing assets is far more challenging than taxing income.

Please cure me of my ignorance then

WaPo. One day ago.

Consumption taxes such as sales or value-added taxes are easy to administer and raise lots of revenue. Income taxes are trickier but still simple compared with taxing wealth. Most people regularly receive payments that are easy to track and can be valued at .?.?. the sum of the payments. But what is the value of a business with one shareholder? A large piece of timberland that hasn’t been sold for 50 years? An irreplaceable antique or artwork?

Taxing those things means creating a lot of administrative capacity to track and price the assets, with the wealthy and their lawyers fighting every step of the way. That’s one reason wealth taxes, once popular among Western nations, are trending toward extinction; the paltry revenue wasn’t worth the administrative headache. Nor the capital flight and slower rate of capital formation such taxes tend to induce.

Those problems would be particularly acute with Warren’s plan because she has targeted the very wealthy rather than the merely affluent. Doing so mitigates the inevitable wailing about family-owned farms, as well as some of the pressure to lard the tax with those revenue-depleting exemptions. But taxing only the super-rich means taxing people with a lot of unique, hard-to-value assets, and who can confound auditors by shifting their wealth into even more of those assets.

And these are the minor problems with the Warren plan. The big problem is Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, which forbids “direct taxes” on people or property unless they’re “apportioned” — doled out among the states by population.

Instituting an income tax required a constitutional amendment to override that clause, and Warren’s plan might well require another. Warren’s team, and many other progressives, have offered ingenious arguments for the plan’s constitutionality. Probably not clever enough, however, to sway a conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/elizabeth-warrens-wealth-tax-is-no-way-to-run-government--but-a-good-way-to-run-a-campaign/2019/01/29/6faeeeb4-2411-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.f0c3cfa809a8

Of course income tax is easy when you're just talking about regular people who have w2 forms.

It's already hard to fairly tax the income of the super rich when they have their lawyers and their off shore whatever. Just like it will be hard to tax their wealth. But it's morally correct and there's lots to be gained, so we will figure it out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is that for the added revenue from taxing the rich to make a dent, DCUM would have to agree that the rich includes anyone worth $3 million or earning $300k+. Watch the DCUM liberals squawk about that.

But I'd be for it.

Not true at all. A significant amount of money could be raised even if we only tax wealth above $50 million

How much does YOUR family earn? It's easy to say "tax other people," but are YOU willing to kick in more?

Absolutely. HHI 200k

[Anonymous]

I’m always surprised at how we have become the country of “its hard so we don’t do it.”

Single payer is hard so we won’t do it
Taxing rich people is hard so we won’t do it
Making equitable education is hard so we won’t do it
Building up infrastructure is hard so we won’t do it


What is this??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m always surprised at how we have become the country of “its hard so we don’t do it.”

Single payer is hard so we won’t do it
Taxing rich people is hard so we won’t do it
Making equitable education is hard so we won’t do it
Building up infrastructure is hard so we won’t do it


What is this??

Yes and on the other side, handout to uber rich is very easy because all the not-so-uber-rich have bought into trickle down economics (that does not work) for ages.

Wealth gap in this country would be reason for its demise. Politics of this country is in the hand of people who are in the pocket of the wealthy - they have very little motivation to fix the gap, unless we start supporting lone politicians like Warren and hold them accountable to their campaign promise to fix the wealth gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not trying to become more wealthy.. I'm DC poor but on the higher end of middle class nationwide

I want the money to go to the people that are struggling more than I am

In terms of things that could benefit me, maybe some programs to help my kids in the future, like Pre-K, making college more affordable, etc

You can do that right now. But clearly you want gimmes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m always surprised at how we have become the country of “its hard so we don’t do it.”

Single payer is hard so we won’t do it
Taxing rich people is hard so we won’t do it
Making equitable education is hard so we won’t do it
Building up infrastructure is hard so we won’t do it


What is this??

Funny.
I find it hard to believe how so many choose to demonize the wealthy.
Like Howard Schultz, for example. He worked to make his millions.
Keep on, folks. The truly wealthy have options. They can choose to leave.
Much like they did in France.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, she wants to tax wealth! Not dumb at all. Easier than taxing income. No complicated tax rules for deductions needed.

Yes people can try to hide their wealth, but this is already illegal so good if we can catch more people doing it

+1 Inequality is rising sharply in the US. One can tax wealth without the negative productivity effects of taxing income.

When you bring there here, here becomes there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not trying to become more wealthy.. I'm DC poor but on the higher end of middle class nationwide

I want the money to go to the people that are struggling more than I am

In terms of things that could benefit me, maybe some programs to help my kids in the future, like Pre-K, making college more affordable, etc

You can do that right now. But clearly you want gimmes

Your response made no sense. Hope your taxes go way up!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m always surprised at how we have become the country of “its hard so we don’t do it.”

Single payer is hard so we won’t do it
Taxing rich people is hard so we won’t do it
Making equitable education is hard so we won’t do it
Building up infrastructure is hard so we won’t do it


What is this??

Yes and on the other side, handout to uber rich is very easy because all the not-so-uber-rich have bought into trickle down economics (that does not work) for ages.

Wealth gap in this country would be reason for its demise. Politics of this country is in the hand of people who are in the pocket of the wealthy - they have very little motivation to fix the gap, unless we start supporting lone politicians like Warren and hold them accountable to their campaign promise to fix the wealth gap.

I agree 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m always surprised at how we have become the country of “its hard so we don’t do it.”

Single payer is hard so we won’t do it
Taxing rich people is hard so we won’t do it
Making equitable education is hard so we won’t do it
Building up infrastructure is hard so we won’t do it


What is this??

Yes and on the other side, handout to uber rich is very easy because all the not-so-uber-rich have bought into trickle down economics (that does not work) for ages.

Wealth gap in this country would be reason for its demise. Politics of this country is in the hand of people who are in the pocket of the wealthy - they have very little motivation to fix the gap, unless we start supporting lone politicians like Warren and hold them accountable to their campaign promise to fix the wealth gap.

Exactly.

GOP are incompetent snowflakes and got NOTHING done except a tax cut. Next.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, she wants to tax wealth! Not dumb at all. Easier than taxing income. No complicated tax rules for deductions needed.

Yes people can try to hide their wealth, but this is already illegal so good if we can catch more people doing it

+1 Inequality is rising sharply in the US. One can tax wealth without the negative productivity effects of taxing income.

When you bring there here, here becomes there

Like how we became 19th century Italy and Ireland, right?

[Anonymous]

The GOP is incredibly out of touch, as demonstrated by Ross recently:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/wilbur-ross-i-dont-really-quite-understand-why-feds-hurt-by-shutdown-need-food-banks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m always surprised at how we have become the country of “its hard so we don’t do it.”

Single payer is hard so we won’t do it
Taxing rich people is hard so we won’t do it
Making equitable education is hard so we won’t do it
Building up infrastructure is hard so we won’t do it


What is this??

Funny.
I find it hard to believe how so many choose to demonize the wealthy.
Like Howard Schultz, for example. He worked to make his millions.
Keep on, folks. The truly wealthy have options. They can choose to leave.
Much like they did in France.

Have you ever actually been to France? They may have fewer rich people (so sad for them!) but they have time to enjoy their lives. Their proletariat is not a bunch of sniveling rich people boot-lickers like ours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m always surprised at how we have become the country of “its hard so we don’t do it.”

Single payer is hard so we won’t do it
Taxing rich people is hard so we won’t do it
Making equitable education is hard so we won’t do it
Building up infrastructure is hard so we won’t do it


What is this??

Funny.
I find it hard to believe how so many choose to demonize the wealthy.
Like Howard Schultz, for example. He worked to make his millions.
Keep on, folks. The truly wealthy have options. They can choose to leave.
Much like they did in France.

Liberals sure didn't demonize JFK, who didn't even earn his money.

Of course, he would be a Republican by today's standard. He lowered taxes.