EPTPerhaps the super-rich aren't part of society because they are discriminated against.
lol
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Paljas
Germany6926 Posts
lol User was warned for this post | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23221 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This discussion is incredibly shallow. Property rights are at the core of the economy yet they aren't even mentioned. Sure, you can essentially take them away after a person dies by taxing their inheritors some ludicrous amount, but you'll quickly find that this gives an incentive to take money to countries more respectful of this human right. Because, yes, people care about other people and are willing to work for their benefit. And I don't even understand when people draw a distinction between inheriting a house and inheriting money, it's exactly the same thing in the eyes of inheritance laws. And the reason for this is that you can very easily convert all of your money into real estate upon death and vice versa. (There are finer points to this, for example regarding caregivers, dependents, etc, but that doesn't seem to be the level this debate is at). Perhaps the super-rich aren't part of society because they are discriminated against. The richest man in Estonia (sold Skype to Microsoft) is a t-shirt wearing programmer who I see around all the time, generally working with other talented people on various projects. Do you really want to push him away by telling him that his wealth effectively expels him from society? If you treat him or his kids differently because of money, not only are you judging people based on their wealth (poor shaming/rich shaming aren't that different), you're creating the problem you claim to want to fight against. Edit: This sounds like I'm for abolishing inheritance taxes. No, the above is a response to the near-militant bashing of rich people above. I don't think radical changes are needed in either direction. I presume this is a culture thing. We have endless barriers designed by the wealthy to keep them separate from the rest of us. As for the house thing it's about delineating the difference between someone leaving their kids their cars and house and leaving them $5M+ cash The presumption in the example is that the house and car are worth less than $5M not that their physical state changes the equation just the perception. Most people don't even own their homes (as in only pay taxes for the land) so even passing down something like a house is referring to a minority of Americans. EDIT: None of this is new or an American phenomena btw. | ||
KwarK
United States42656 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This discussion is incredibly shallow. Property rights are at the core of the economy yet they aren't even mentioned. Sure, you can essentially take them away after a person dies by taxing their inheritors some ludicrous amount, but you'll quickly find that this gives an incentive to take money to countries more respectful of this human right. Because, yes, people care about other people and are willing to work for their benefit. And I don't even understand when people draw a distinction between inheriting a house and inheriting money, it's exactly the same thing in the eyes of inheritance laws. And the reason for this is that you can very easily convert all of your money into real estate upon death and vice versa. (There are finer points to this, for example regarding caregivers, dependents, etc, but that doesn't seem to be the level this debate is at). Perhaps the super-rich aren't part of society because they are discriminated against. The richest man in Estonia (sold Skype to Microsoft) is a t-shirt wearing programmer who I see around all the time, generally working with other talented people on various projects. Do you really want to push him away by telling him that his wealth effectively expels him from society? If you treat him or his kids differently because of money, not only are you judging people based on their wealth (poor shaming/rich shaming aren't that different), you're creating the problem you claim to want to fight against. Edit: This sounds like I'm for abolishing inheritance taxes. No, the above is a response to the near-militant bashing of rich people above. I don't think radical changes are needed in either direction. There have already been radical changes. In 2001 inheritance taxes hit estates over $675,000. Now they exempt the first $5,450,000 and the rate above that has been lowered. The Republican candidate is running on a tax plan that includes cutting them. We're not the ones making radical changes, we're the ones saying the world has gone crazy when you have a politician explaining that taxing the sixth million a child inherits will literally end the American Dream. If you want to argue the taxation is theft, go ahead, you can make some dank memes about it. But the argument that taxing the dead is somehow a special tax that violates human rights unlike taxing labour is absurd. Put inheritance taxes back where they were before Bush and I'll stop bitching. But if you want to argue that no radical changes are needed, please be aware that radical changes just happened under the last administration and are being accelerated into the crazy. Where they are now isn't some kind of special balance that everyone has always agreed upon. Where they are now is extremely low and that's still not enough for Trump. Doing nothing is a defence of the radical change that just happened at the expense of the working population. Hell, it's like Germany arguing in 1917 that there should be no new radical changes to the borders of Germany if a peace can be negotiated but instead just be left as Germany, Poland, the Ukraine, the Netherlands and most of Belgium. To suggest that things might go back to how they were in 1914 would be a very radical idea. | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:00 SolaR- wrote: Failure is the path to success. Trump has the boldness to persue multiple buisness endeavours. Some fail, some make him a fortune. Its the nature of buisness and to succeed in buisness is to take risks. If you look at any successful business they have a multitude of failures. However the worst failure a buisness can make is to not take any risks thus making them stagnet. while taking risks is important, as is diversification; it's very clear that many people are far more successful overall than trump. It's also not bold to pursue multiple endeavours when you have that much money, that's more like normal. At any rate, your statements don't really counter my point; so I'm not sure why I'm responding. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:24 Ghanburighan wrote: Perhaps the super-rich aren't part of society because they are discriminated against. The richest man in Estonia (sold Skype to Microsoft) is a t-shirt wearing programmer who I see around all the time, generally working with other talented people on various projects. Do you really want to push him away by telling him that his wealth effectively expels him from society? From the posts so far it has been pretty clear that the main target aren't hipster innovators who ride their bikes through the office. The Estonian position is also somewhat peculiar because the country does not have the old inheritance scheme going on that other countries are suffering from because the ex-USSR countries pretty much had a reboot after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Estonian equivalent of what people have been talking about have probably had their heads chopped off half a century ago already. | ||
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Deleted User 137586
7859 Posts
Let me explain this in relate-able terms. Near where I spend my summers, there's a small village that was basically destroyed by collective farming and urbanisation. Most people there are old, few work, many have seasonal jobs and top up by farming (these people generally don't own land but there are areas that no-one cares about that are shared). Obviously, this is not a wealthy area. The only industry is owned by a family that slowly but surely built up a low-tech forestry company. They started off making pellets, worked from order to order, and grew in size. Even by Estonian standards, they aren't doing great as they fluctuate between near-bankruptcy and moderate success depending on the economic situation, weather, situation on the Russian border, etc. But in that village, they are the "super-rich" as in they have a house they built themselves, and they employ many of the other people there. Most people are envious of them. Not because they had some unfair advantage, no, just because they happen to have been lucky enough (and way more sober) than anyone else there to actually build up a living for themselves. I know their children well. I was a bit older, but we grew up together. And I saw how the other kids were really mean to them. I wondered why, but the reason became obvious. Their parents were taking out their frustration on the kids. Even the teachers set them apart in class and pretty much refused to help them because of their animosity towards them. Nothing you can report anywhere, no-one would admit to anything, just a constant steady barrage of mistreatment of the kids. At the end, the teachers wanted to explain their poor results by claiming they had a learning disability. This magically disappeared when they were sent to a school elsewhere... The kids, obviously, were innocent of everything. Even if being wealthier is a crime, they had none at the time (and probably won't have, as it's a one-man business). But other people set them apart because of wealth and treated them differently. I see a lot of the same kind of envy in this thread, where people somehow dehumanise those better off than themselves monetarily, and forget that they ought to use language like they would for everyone else. Those kids were very much part of society, but I can't blame the rich from pulling their kids out of these kinds of schools. I'd like to repeat that this doesn't justify getting rid of proportional taxation. But it shows we shouldn't allow the kind of rhetoric that some people in this thread were pushing. | ||
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farvacola
United States18826 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:24 Ghanburighan wrote: This discussion is incredibly shallow. Property rights are at the core of the economy yet they aren't even mentioned. Sure, you can essentially take them away after a person dies by taxing their inheritors some ludicrous amount, but you'll quickly find that this gives an incentive to take money to countries more respectful of this human right. Because, yes, people care about other people and are willing to work for their benefit. And I don't even understand when people draw a distinction between inheriting a house and inheriting money, it's exactly the same thing in the eyes of inheritance laws. And the reason for this is that you can very easily convert all of your money into real estate upon death and vice versa. (There are finer points to this, for example regarding caregivers, dependents, etc, but that doesn't seem to be the level this debate is at). Perhaps the super-rich aren't part of society because they are discriminated against. The richest man in Estonia (sold Skype to Microsoft) is a t-shirt wearing programmer who I see around all the time, generally working with other talented people on various projects. Do you really want to push him away by telling him that his wealth effectively expels him from society? If you treat him or his kids differently because of money, not only are you judging people based on their wealth (poor shaming/rich shaming aren't that different), you're creating the problem you claim to want to fight against. Look, it's clear that you don't like the "level" or "quality" of the discussion in this thread, but you so routinely complain about it that it's high time you either made a website feedback thread or stopped crying like a whiny baby. Yes, we crass Americans like to have relatively cursory discussions of hot button issues; get over it or follow forum guidelines in lodging your near daily complaints in the appropriate place. As for the merit of the argument that followed the cry of shallowness, do you think that mentioning "property rights" in the abstract somehow elevates the quality of your post? Are we supposed to preface any support of taxes generally with a lofty defense of governmental infringement of property rights? If so, your post is just as shallow in its reference to the obvious issues presented by the threat of tax-incentivized capital flight without any sort of acknowledgement directed towards the very real fact that the only reason "property rights" exists in the abstract sense is because there exists frameworks through which said "property rights" are recognized and protected. These frameworks are also known as "the government" and "society." If you truly want to get into the theoretical boundaries of society and government, then by all means, let's have that discussion; in the meantime, pretending that your enlightened Estonian perspective is somehow more substantial purely because you casually reference baby's first legal terms is silly. As for the rest of your post, you probably should have a better understanding of US property law before you start asserting things like the misplaced notion that real estate and cash wealth are treated the same in the eyes of inheritance law; this is simply untrue, particularly relative to state inheritance laws, which are incredibly variable depending on the political culture of the state. Furthermore, the notion that one can "easily" convert cash into real estate without appreciable loss or risk is absolute nonsense, especially in light of the changes to the real estate market post 2008 crisis. The notion that rich people are discriminated against in the US, particularly from the perspective of a non-US citizen, is laughably obtuse and doesn't deserve a substantive reply. We aren't a former communist bloc country.... Edited for language  | ||
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Deleted User 137586
7859 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:40 Nyxisto wrote: From the posts so far it has been pretty clear that the main target aren't hipster innovators who ride their bikes through the office. The Estonian position is also somewhat peculiar because the country does not have the old inheritance scheme going on that other countries are suffering from because the ex-USSR countries pretty much had a reboot after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Estonian equivalent of what people have been talking about have probably had their heads chopped off half a century ago already. This is very much correct. For a developing country the threat was the rise of oligarchs which is a worse problem (see Ukraine) but our political system seems to have somewhat mitigated this development. Most places in the region weren't as lucky. But I agree, we pretty much don't have third-generation wealthy people. To the person asking for pre-Bush inheritance levels, I don't think that's a radical change and is perfectly up to civilized debate. Just not for wealthy-bashing. | ||
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KwarK
United States42656 Posts
Trump is now arguing to end inheritance taxes completely. I'm not arguing that the rich should be hanged but please recognize that saying "no radical changes" right now is saying "please accept the extremely radical changes we already made as the new normal". | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
The impression I get is that your (valid and correct for that specific family) emotional response is coloring your perception of other cases too heavily. Also of course; it's confusing in discussion like this; especially when people arne't quoted, as people are responding to the unreasonable outliers, while not responding to the reasonable pluralities on each side. So it gets unclear which arguments one is going against. | ||
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Deleted User 137586
7859 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:48 KwarK wrote: Ghanburighan that's a lovely story about rural Estonia but it misses the point that inheritance taxes are currently one of the fronts in an ongoing class war in the United States. They never used to be, the rules set in 1916 for inheritance taxes stood until 2001. But in 2001 Bush set about dismantling the estate taxes, lowering the rate from 55% to 40% and increasing the threshold from upper middle class to only 1%ers. This was a huge defeat for the average American whose income taxes were expected to make up the difference while it was a great benefit for those with multimillion inheritances. Trump is now arguing to end inheritance taxes completely. I'm not arguing that the rich should be hanged but please recognize that saying "no radical changes" right now is saying "please accept the extremely radical changes we already made as the new normal". Ok, my response to you probably wasn't visible above. I think going back to pre-Bush inheritance taxes is a valid and viable policy option. and I think Trump's policy is ludicrous and have said so before in this thread. It's just that there are good reasons why the rhetoric used for it is toxic and alienating and we should not be framing these serious issues in such terms. They have unfortunate consequences, such as the outcome on those kids I mentioned. Let's keep it to the policy, people. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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Kipsate
Netherlands45349 Posts
Policy =/ rhetoric. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:53 Ghanburighan wrote: Ok, my response to you probably wasn't visible above. I think going back to pre-Bush inheritance taxes is a valid and viable policy option. and I think Trump's policy is ludicrous and have said so before in this thread. It's just that there are good reasons why the rhetoric used for it is toxic and alienating and we should not be framing these serious issues in such terms. They have unfortunate consequences, such as the outcome on those kids I mentioned. Let's keep it to the policy, people. You have to understand where the wealthy bashing is coming from. It is not from a place of hate for wealth, but the entitled arguments that are made on its behalf. A prime example of this is the when the San Francisco transportation system’s twitter account talked about the need to increase taxes to replace it. The system has reached the end of its life span and is massively over capacity. But the very wealthy citizens of San Francisco complained, saying the city should have planned better or raised money other ways. One guy said that he didn’t use the system and flew in one a week, staying in a second apartment, so why should he pay. Or Trump saying he should have to pay anything. The entitled of “I got mine, so fuck you, I’m not paying for services my family will likely never need.” Sanders taps into that, which is problematic because it does paint the wealthy with one brush. That is not fair, but neither were the Bush tax cuts. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23221 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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farvacola
United States18826 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain17983 Posts
On April 02 2016 05:20 KwarK wrote: It's a zero sum game. The government needs money for shit and they can take it from one, the other or a combination. Trump's running on a campaign promise to end taxes on unearned income. Where do you think the shortfall is going to come from? And do you think hard working citizens and their families are going to come out ahead or do you think ending the tax on inheritances over $5.5m (you get the first five and a half mil tax free) might favour the super rich at the expense of the common man? If you're against inheritance taxes you are for increased income taxes unless you can come up with a third option. And don't just say "lower government spending" because even with that you still have a choice about where to pass on those savings, inheritance taxes or income taxes. Pick me! I know the answer! ABOLISH government spending! | ||
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Falling
Canada11349 Posts
What is it now? 45% on estates over 2,000,000? But before it was 55%? I dunno, it seems high, but I don't what is comparable as we don't really have 1:1 inheritance tax. If it goes to the surviving spouse or common law partner, there is no tax, but otherwise it is considered as though all capital property was sold at fair market value and the capital gains are taxed, but I don't know the rates. At least, I certainly hope no one is arguing that the state takes absolutely all the inheritance. I would be firmly against that. | ||
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