Comment Re:The Reason Programmers Turn Commie (Score 1) 795
Your arguments for taxing assets and not taxing earnings is nonsensical. Most assets are already taxed, as has been pointed out on the number of occasions by many respondants when you have posted your asset-tax nonsense before. In addition, much earnings, especially of those who can least afford to have it taxed away, are already exempted or taxed at lower rates, by so-called "progressive income tax" systems.
I'll just add one more item. Taxing assets wouldn't act as a disincentive to aquiring and hoarding wealth, as you have argued before, any more than taxing earnings is a disincentive to employment now. Carried to your intended extreme all it would accomplish is simply to impoverish the very working people you apparently want to shelter from paying any taxes.
You always talk about assets as if only the wealthy have them. Hence, you try to come across as a Robin Hood who wants to rob the rich to pay the poor. I'm not wealthy and work to support myself and my family, yet I have a personal savings account, an asset, would you tax that? I happen to own some computer equipment, an asset, on which I paid sales taxes at purchase, would you tax that? What about my furniture? What about my car? What about the insurance that takes $100 a month out my takehome pay? I don't own a house because I can't afford to come up with a downpayment, although in the long run it would benefit me much more than pouring my earnings down the drain of renting all my life. But my apartment is also an asset, paid for monthly, would you tax that? Or are you arguing that I should live on the street without any assets, maybe on the sidewalk in front of the office building where the company I work for is located?
As a society we decide to do things that individually would be difficult or impossible. Taxing ourselves and pooling our resources is the mechanism. The only system of taxation that makes sense and is viable in the long term is based on the ability to pay those taxes, which in turn is based on the earnings of those who are paying. It is not based on some arbitrarily assigned "value" from which taxes can be assessed.
It's the ability to own private property, enter into personal contracts and reliance on a rule of law to enforce both that separates prosperous societies from impoverished ones where corruption and incompetence condemn the majority of people to lifetimes of poverty and no opportunity to get out it. There are a lot of things that could be done to make a system of taxation more equitable and fair to a larger number of tax payers. But basing it on assets rather that earnings is not one of them.
I'll just add one more item. Taxing assets wouldn't act as a disincentive to aquiring and hoarding wealth, as you have argued before, any more than taxing earnings is a disincentive to employment now. Carried to your intended extreme all it would accomplish is simply to impoverish the very working people you apparently want to shelter from paying any taxes.
You always talk about assets as if only the wealthy have them. Hence, you try to come across as a Robin Hood who wants to rob the rich to pay the poor. I'm not wealthy and work to support myself and my family, yet I have a personal savings account, an asset, would you tax that? I happen to own some computer equipment, an asset, on which I paid sales taxes at purchase, would you tax that? What about my furniture? What about my car? What about the insurance that takes $100 a month out my takehome pay? I don't own a house because I can't afford to come up with a downpayment, although in the long run it would benefit me much more than pouring my earnings down the drain of renting all my life. But my apartment is also an asset, paid for monthly, would you tax that? Or are you arguing that I should live on the street without any assets, maybe on the sidewalk in front of the office building where the company I work for is located?
As a society we decide to do things that individually would be difficult or impossible. Taxing ourselves and pooling our resources is the mechanism. The only system of taxation that makes sense and is viable in the long term is based on the ability to pay those taxes, which in turn is based on the earnings of those who are paying. It is not based on some arbitrarily assigned "value" from which taxes can be assessed.
It's the ability to own private property, enter into personal contracts and reliance on a rule of law to enforce both that separates prosperous societies from impoverished ones where corruption and incompetence condemn the majority of people to lifetimes of poverty and no opportunity to get out it. There are a lot of things that could be done to make a system of taxation more equitable and fair to a larger number of tax payers. But basing it on assets rather that earnings is not one of them.
