Advocates promised the new tax would bring in over $1 billion a year in new revenue. And they quickly saw their predictions surpassed: the state Department of Revenue estimates it will generate over $1.5 billion this fiscal year.
Equal proportion is not the same as fair. It’s a matter of scale. Low, middle, and even upper middle class people will actually feel the impact of, say, a 2% increase in taxes. Someone making more than a million dollars a year will not. It’ll be a simple blip on a balance sheet and their quality of life will not be affected in any way.
I think there are two factors that make it make sense to me.
People who make oodles of money, that these taxes actually impact, generally don’t make that money by being any more productive than the rest of us. They won the birth lottery, or found the right way to exploit other people’s labour, or created artificial demand, and so on and so forth. So, they don’t really “deserve” that money. I personally agree with this, but I don’t think it’s a great argument in favour of higher wealth taxes because it’s a pretty subjective take.
The purpose of tax is to allow us to collectively allocate wealth to improve society as a whole. We might not all agree on how that should be allocated - some people think we should spend more on health or the military or education or social welfare - but tax is a tool that we (as a culture) have decided is a good way to make sure that we make progress in some shared direction. It’s not wrong to think that tax is wrong, but I personally believe that if we didn’t have that system, the world would go nowhere because everyone would only spend in their personal interests. Cynical, sure, but it is what it is.
With this in mind I think it makes a bit more sense. Increasing the proportion of tax paid by the 0.1% of people who have the most only marginally affects those people, but the amount of money raised which can be used on common interests has the possibility of doing far more good, for far more people. That money has the potential to be more productive if it wasn’t tied up in bonds, or gold, or Bitcoin, or etc.
Many/most western countries already use progressive tax brackets. Wealth taxes, to me, are just adjusting those to “catch up” with the modern definition of wealthy.
Completely agree that it’d be good to actually know someone megarich. I think that’s one of the biggest problems in modern society, that people don’t have enough opportunities to interact with those outside of their immediate social spheres. I think if the megarich had to interact with normal people (and vice versa) we would all understand each other much better.
I guess I do agree also that no one is entitled to a rich persons money. I guess to go back to fairness though, I find it unfair that there are people going without basic human needs in the same countries as there are people figuratively hoarding piles of gold
As if they generated that income from their own labour and fairly nontheless. Yeah they profited from hard work. All the hard work of people working for them
Personally, I believe a worker is entitled to all they create. I’m not going to deny the initial investment of the company is a risk taken and getting a bussiness on its feet requires active effort. But this opportunity is not amongst the many and most business starters are already quite well off and appeals to investors for growth which requires favorability of yet more well off people. Not to mention more well of bussinesses are less affected by law with breaking the law becoming an investment eventually making anticompetitive practices prevalent.
While I do of course support personal property. Personally, I do not believe private property is justified as I believe it creates a wealth disparity and hierarchial power (Socialist here and relevant to workers being entitled to their labour). When working for a private bussiness. The owners of this bussiness get the surplus labour value of what you produce on the grounds of owning thus private property. I do not believe the existing ownership of this property is a justified income as it is a passive income independent of whether you do work or not.
70 times the amount of skill or 70 times the amount of experience or 70 times the amount of physical exertion. Something.
But that’s not how they are paid. Instead, they are paid a market rate. Just like me. And the market doesn’t care how hard you work.
How would you feel if you and a co-worker both closed deals, only you worked much harder and closed a deal that earned the company twice as much money? Should you both be compensated the same?
Clearly not, but because I am paid an hourly wage I get the same amount of compensation no matter how hard I work.
Should your pay be tied to how much you’re earning the company?
Maybe, or maybe just tied to the value of my labor.
That’s not what happens. Instead I am paid a market rate i.e. they pay me as little as they can without causing me to find a different job. They do this to create profits, because all profit is literally just the revenue that’s left over after expenses. I am one of those expenses, ergo-
Ultimately what are they worth?
The market says they are worth 70 times as much as I am.
A flat tax would likely cause even less taxes to be paid and arguably I wouldn’t consider it a fair. The lowest bracket does carry only 2.3% with the next bracket after that jumping to 7.6% of the tax. There is no argument that the rich doesn’t pay more than the overall person, the argument is that since they make more and they very easily are able to comfortably live with a higher tax bracket that they should be taxed more.
And honestly I agree with that, it’s doing nothing just sitting in a bank account I shouldn’t be helped to better the society that everyone lives including that person. Why should the person making minimum wage be expected to contribute these same percentage as someone who’s making 45- or 70 an hour after incentives, that’s just my viewpoint on it
deleted by creator
what so bold about taxing people fairly to run your state better?
It is almost as if the rich were the real burden on the state…
deleted by creator
Equal proportion is not the same as fair. It’s a matter of scale. Low, middle, and even upper middle class people will actually feel the impact of, say, a 2% increase in taxes. Someone making more than a million dollars a year will not. It’ll be a simple blip on a balance sheet and their quality of life will not be affected in any way.
deleted by creator
I think there are two factors that make it make sense to me.
People who make oodles of money, that these taxes actually impact, generally don’t make that money by being any more productive than the rest of us. They won the birth lottery, or found the right way to exploit other people’s labour, or created artificial demand, and so on and so forth. So, they don’t really “deserve” that money. I personally agree with this, but I don’t think it’s a great argument in favour of higher wealth taxes because it’s a pretty subjective take.
The purpose of tax is to allow us to collectively allocate wealth to improve society as a whole. We might not all agree on how that should be allocated - some people think we should spend more on health or the military or education or social welfare - but tax is a tool that we (as a culture) have decided is a good way to make sure that we make progress in some shared direction. It’s not wrong to think that tax is wrong, but I personally believe that if we didn’t have that system, the world would go nowhere because everyone would only spend in their personal interests. Cynical, sure, but it is what it is.
With this in mind I think it makes a bit more sense. Increasing the proportion of tax paid by the 0.1% of people who have the most only marginally affects those people, but the amount of money raised which can be used on common interests has the possibility of doing far more good, for far more people. That money has the potential to be more productive if it wasn’t tied up in bonds, or gold, or Bitcoin, or etc.
Many/most western countries already use progressive tax brackets. Wealth taxes, to me, are just adjusting those to “catch up” with the modern definition of wealthy.
deleted by creator
Completely agree that it’d be good to actually know someone megarich. I think that’s one of the biggest problems in modern society, that people don’t have enough opportunities to interact with those outside of their immediate social spheres. I think if the megarich had to interact with normal people (and vice versa) we would all understand each other much better.
I guess I do agree also that no one is entitled to a rich persons money. I guess to go back to fairness though, I find it unfair that there are people going without basic human needs in the same countries as there are people figuratively hoarding piles of gold
deleted by creator
As if they generated that income from their own labour and fairly nontheless. Yeah they profited from hard work. All the hard work of people working for them
deleted by creator
Personally, I believe a worker is entitled to all they create. I’m not going to deny the initial investment of the company is a risk taken and getting a bussiness on its feet requires active effort. But this opportunity is not amongst the many and most business starters are already quite well off and appeals to investors for growth which requires favorability of yet more well off people. Not to mention more well of bussinesses are less affected by law with breaking the law becoming an investment eventually making anticompetitive practices prevalent.
While I do of course support personal property. Personally, I do not believe private property is justified as I believe it creates a wealth disparity and hierarchial power (Socialist here and relevant to workers being entitled to their labour). When working for a private bussiness. The owners of this bussiness get the surplus labour value of what you produce on the grounds of owning thus private property. I do not believe the existing ownership of this property is a justified income as it is a passive income independent of whether you do work or not.
deleted by creator
Let us assume average CEO-to-worker pay ratio 70-to-1
The CEO does lots of work managing the company.
Do they work 70 times harder than their workers?
deleted by creator
70 times the amount of skill or 70 times the amount of experience or 70 times the amount of physical exertion. Something.
But that’s not how they are paid. Instead, they are paid a market rate. Just like me. And the market doesn’t care how hard you work.
Clearly not, but because I am paid an hourly wage I get the same amount of compensation no matter how hard I work.
Maybe, or maybe just tied to the value of my labor.
That’s not what happens. Instead I am paid a market rate i.e. they pay me as little as they can without causing me to find a different job. They do this to create profits, because all profit is literally just the revenue that’s left over after expenses. I am one of those expenses, ergo-
The market says they are worth 70 times as much as I am.
They are not.
deleted by creator
A flat tax would likely cause even less taxes to be paid and arguably I wouldn’t consider it a fair. The lowest bracket does carry only 2.3% with the next bracket after that jumping to 7.6% of the tax. There is no argument that the rich doesn’t pay more than the overall person, the argument is that since they make more and they very easily are able to comfortably live with a higher tax bracket that they should be taxed more.
And honestly I agree with that, it’s doing nothing just sitting in a bank account I shouldn’t be helped to better the society that everyone lives including that person. Why should the person making minimum wage be expected to contribute these same percentage as someone who’s making 45- or 70 an hour after incentives, that’s just my viewpoint on it
Moving the goalpost is a bold strategy.