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On November 09 2017 10:30 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 09:53 ChristianS wrote:On November 09 2017 01:19 mozoku wrote:On November 08 2017 23:44 KwarK wrote:On November 08 2017 16:36 mozoku wrote:
Sort of jumping back a page here, but I'm struggling to understand how this tax bill is supposed to be a "tax cuts for the rich"? There's literally no interpretation of this bill where this makes any sense, and the fact that anyone believes it is a testament to how thoroughly the left has brainwashed a large part of it's base--it's Fox News-level nonsense dogma.
Corporate tax cuts are happening everywhere in the world... because the world has realized that it's more efficient to tax people than corporations. When you tax a corporation, the tax is pushed on to consumers, employees, and shareholders in hard-to-measure amounts. When you repeal it, the largest portion does go to shareholders but the US has to lower nominal corporate taxes rates to maintain the real tax rate in the new bill due to loophole closures. Finally, sure, this part of the bill is the most regressive portion (the GOP generally values growth over income equality after all), but that's made up for by the fact that the vast majority of the individual tax cuts are going to the middle class.
Furthermore, the marginal rates on high earners are generally higher now, so the individual tax rates are more progressive in that sense. Sure, many high earners pay less overall but so does just about everyone else as well. It's not really tax reform, it's a tax cut.
Finally, the top 1% of earners pays literally 50% of the total tax bill. Good lord, I understand the "but they can afford to pay more" argument but 50%? If that's not progressive enough for you, you might as well just straight up ask for a free ride through life. If you think your tax bill is too high, maybe you should consider looking where we can trim expenses instead of trying to pay more of your expenses with someone else's money. I'm not sure when our reference point for "not progressive enough" became the status quo instead of absolute reality.
For the record, I'm not even a really a fan of this tax bill (even though I'd likely reluctantly vote for it). I'm a fan of small government in principle, but this bill feels more like Trump populist handouts then growth-minded reform. And before I'm accused of being irrationally scared of government (as is the usual knee-jerk reaction I get when I post), I'll restate for the 100th time that I'd rather have single payer than the current healthcare mess (though I'm somewhat uncomfortable with it in principle) and that I believe corporations may be underregulated in certain industries (though overregulated in others). It's tax cuts for the rich because under it the rich pay less in taxes. Elimination of the AMT and of the estate tax are deliberate policies targeted for the 0.1%. I'm not really sure how you can not understand why it's a tax cut for the rich. The rich are having their taxes cut by it. That's what it does. In what sense could that not ever be a tax cut for the rich? Is this not a picture-perfect example of abusing weasel words? Yeah, it's cutting tax for the rich. It's also cutting taxes for everyone. The implication of an accusation that the bill is "tax cuts for the rich" in the context of attacks from the left is pretty much always "the rich are trying to screw the rest of us and reward their rich buddies", which I demonstrated is clearly not the case for this bill in my post. ChristianS: I only skimmed Kwark's breakdown a while ago, but my recollection is that he ignored the fact that the rearranging of marginal rates and brackets gave most of the tax cuts to the middle class, and focused on the elimination of a bunch of deductions that affect relatively few people. Instead of looking at Kwark's cherry-picked analysis that looks at counts of provisions of who is favored instead of looking at the actual amounts, try looking at an actual analysis. ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/TjeHEGF.jpg)
Source As a percentage of income, the middle class (20k-200k annual income) is by far getting the largest tax cut. Mmkay, so your WSJ chart specifies that it excludes the estate tax in its numbers. It doesn't specify what all it includes – whether it accounts for the deduction changes, or just the new marginal rates. The source is locked behind a paywall, so I can't check whether the article clarifies that at all. A much more significant issue, though, is that little note at the bottom that says "in millions of dollars." That means the numbers you've presented here are total, not per capita. Divide the numbers in each of those cells by the number of people in that group, and you've got how much each one is saving. I don't have those numbers, but I'm quite certain there are way more people in the poorer groups there, meaning each person in those groups is saving a lot less in taxes. Seriously, aren't you a statistician? Or am I misremembering? Even with those issues, the chart you've offered here clearly shows far greater savings for the wealthier brackets. If you make 6 figures, or high 5 figures, that chart says you're gonna save a lot in taxes. I'm honestly not sure how you could think it makes sense to label the range $20,000-200,000 "middle class." That's literally an order of magnitude difference. Then you lump all those people together, and say that because people in the $80,000-$200,000 range are getting a lot of tax cuts everybody in that group should be happy. Notice that most of the red on this chart is in the $10,000-40,000 range? Not to mention this chart completely ignores that a lot of people will see tax increases even in the first few years (since it doesn't deal with any of the particulars around deductions). Guess which income brackets those people are in? Look, most of your arguments here are just run-of-the-mill Republican and libertarian arguments against a progressive tax system. That's fine, I've heard them before and I don't agree with them but I don't think they're stupid either. But you didn't open with "this bill makes the tax system less progressive, but that's good for reasons x y z." You opened with "this bill isn't regressive and anybody who thinks it is is brainwashed." Then you brought in a chart that isn't geared to answering this question, and it doesn't even support your argument. You're wrong, and you're arguing badly, neither of which would be as obnoxious if you didn't decide to be shitty about it at the same time. Even if you were right that a rigorous analysis of the bill shows it's less regressive than people think, the "brainwashed" stuff you're throwing would still be obnoxious. Like others above, I count the "middle class" as the "W-2 class." People with 200k incomes aren't the fat cats that liberals like to rally against, so you're dramatically shifting the goal posts by now including them as "the rich" so you can lambast the other party's legislation. Again, shifting definitions. I was hoping that would stay limited to the word "racism" but apparently it's not going to.
Who said anything about fat cats? If people making $200,000 are getting huge tax breaks while a fair number of people in the $10,000-50,000 range are actually paying more, that change is regressive. Talking about marginal rates with regards to the "fat cats" is stupid, because they almost never pay much in income tax, they mostly pay capital gains and other taxes.
I don't know why you would look at this on a per-capita basis. If I drop the effective tax rate on by 100% on a guy who makes 10k, and drop the effective tax rate by 1% on anyone over 10k, you would consider that regressive apparently. Again, we talk taxes in percentages and if you want to talk in $, your point gets weaker because taxes as a percentage of income are progressive to begin with. That's how I started on the long tangent that was my previous posts today.
Because people pay taxes on a per-capita basis! You're trying to talk about the total money saved in a group without talking about how big that group is. If we were to take $100 billion and divide it evenly among the whole country (except Bill Gates), and then take another $100 billion and give it all to Bill Gates, would that policy not be rather favorable to Bill Gates? Because if you split the country into the groups "not Bill Gates" and "Bill Gates", and look at the total tax cuts given to each, they're equal!
The proper way to evaluate this would be to look at what proportion of the total tax cut goes to the middle class vs the rich. Clearly, in the table, sum of the middle rows is greater than the sum of the bottom rows. Furthermore, we know that at least half of the total tax bill is paid by the 2% (the bottom rows), so by deduction you can infer that a greater percentage of the tax bill is being shifted on the 2% (though most people are getting an overall cut.
If you wanted to do the numbers per capita as a percent of annual income, that'd make perfect sense to me. But if the vast majority of the tax cuts are given to people far above the median income, it seems natural to describe that as "tax cuts mostly for the wealthy." Apparently that makes me "brainwashed."
If you don't like my methodology, there are a lot of studies that confirm that the majority of the individual income cut is going to middle class households. The people claiming it's "regressive" all seem to turn to focusing on random deductions like KwarK (though I think I might be being unfair here because I don't recall KwarK ever specifically claiming this bill was more regressive than the status quo, in his usual weasel word manner), or just state unsupported assertions (i.e. Democratic politicians) to play to their base's confirmation bias.
Look, here's where we might agree. If someone said the bill was "just a bunch of tax cuts for the rich," I would agree that such a summary is grossly oversimplified and inaccurate. There's a lot of stuff in this bill, with a lot of complicated effects. Raising the standard deduction, for instance, clearly benefits only people that would be taking the standard deduction, which will almost never be rich people.
But a lot of the provisions in this bill really are just tax cuts for the rich. Elimination of the estate tax, or the AMT, are good examples of policy changes that basically only benefit the super wealthy. Elimination of deductions for dependents is a huge cost to a lot of pretty poor people that barely affects the rich. I don't know what "brainwashing" you went through to be so determined to dismiss those aspects, but they really are quite important, and raise taxes for poor people by quite a bit. If you want to argue that it's good to shift the tax burden a bit more toward the bottom that's fine, but don't pretend that's not what's happening (and that's without even getting into the issue of what services are being reduced to pay for these cuts – those reductions in government services would almost certainly disproportionately affect the poor).
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People who make under 20k a year, or are considered impoverished based on family rates pay an effective 0% income tax rate. So, talking about the poor here doesn't make much sense - they're always net recipients of tax money, even under proposed flat tax systems, they have an income bar you have to make before you start getting taxed.
For me, I'd rather go after the spending because if you just keep on doing the same things all you're doing when you're "cutting taxes" is raising the inflation tax, which is the most regressive tax in existence, and being the "unseen" to the vast majority of people makes it the most insipid. So, really, you can't effectively cut taxes without cutting spending so the bullshit that goes on, on the Potomac, is just moving chairs around the Titanic. If people thought the tax talk was heated, just imagine a Congress that would actually cut a damn thing lmao.
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On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million.
How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao.
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On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao.
If it's an estate then it's not your money anymore.
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Canada11355 Posts
On November 09 2017 16:55 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao. If it's an estate then it's not your money anymore.
It isn't the government's either. I don't mind our method. No inheritance tax. Instead we treat the estate as though you sold it at fair market value just prior to death (assuming no surviving spouse, etc). So then you pay the regular property transfer tax on the estate. The government gets a little money, but you don't destroy the ability of families to build generational wealth.
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On November 09 2017 17:59 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 16:55 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao. If it's an estate then it's not your money anymore. It isn't the government's either. I don't mind our method. No inheritance tax. Instead we treat the estate as though you sold it at fair market value just prior to death (assuming no surviving spouse, etc). So then you pay the regular property transfer tax on the estate. The government gets a little money, but you don't destroy the ability of families to build generational wealth.
If you want one thing about generation wealth, it’s to level it as much as possible.
First of all, there is no inherent merit in having been born rich. So what you ask for is for this inequality of birth to get worse and worse as generations passes because in a capitalist system, money makes more money.
I am for a very progressive inheritance tax. Next to nothing if you just own a house, to something like half and over if you are a billionaire. I don’t find it so unfair that one “only” start in life with half a billion dollar, having done nothing for it, and I consider the growth of inequalities the one biggest challenge western societies are facing.
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you usually don't inherit stuff the moment you're born though. So I don't really see the point in inheritance being such a great start into your life.
Your parents are rich. You maybe do get a lot of benefits out of that but you're probably not going to get their money until you're in your 50's or older
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On November 09 2017 19:11 Toadesstern wrote:
you usually don't inherit stuff the moment you're born though. So I don't really see the point in inheritance being such a great start into your life.
Your parents are rich. You maybe do get a lot of benefits out of that but you're probably not going to get their money until you're in your 50's or older
With generational wealth sometimes money is willed to people not yet in existence at the time of passing or young grandchildren in general.
There's at least a somewhat legitimate argument around medium sized family owned and operated farms/businesses. But that's like 100's of people, we can sort that out without eliminating the whole thing.
I feel compelled to say again that it only hits after the first $5-10 million which, again, is enough to be in the top 20-10% of incomes for doing absolutely nothing and never losing any principal (so you can pass it on).
Anyone complaining about not getting to keep more money they didn't earn can only be described as severely addicted imo. Those who aren't even going to personally benefit (95%+ of Americans) that want to get rid of it are both delusional and addicted.
Stop being so damn greedy.
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On November 09 2017 17:59 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 16:55 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao. If it's an estate then it's not your money anymore. It isn't the government's either. I don't mind our method. No inheritance tax. Instead we treat the estate as though you sold it at fair market value just prior to death (assuming no surviving spouse, etc). So then you pay the regular property transfer tax on the estate. The government gets a little money, but you don't destroy the ability of families to build generational wealth.
to quote Wikipedia If an asset is left to a spouse or a federally recognized charity, the tax usually does not apply. In addition, a maximum amount, varying year by year, can be given by an individual, before and/or upon their death, without incurring federal gift or estate taxes:[2] $5,340,000 for estates of persons dying in 2014[3] and 2015,[4] $5,450,000 (effectively $10.90 million per married couple) for estates of persons dying in 2016.[5] Because of these exemptions, it is estimated that only the largest 0.2% of estates in the U.S. will pay the tax.[6]
More then 5 million before your taxed. Effecting the top 0.2%.
The Estate tax in no way stops families from building generational wealth.
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On November 09 2017 17:59 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 16:55 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao. If it's an estate then it's not your money anymore. It isn't the government's either. I don't mind our method. No inheritance tax. Instead we treat the estate as though you sold it at fair market value just prior to death (assuming no surviving spouse, etc). So then you pay the regular property transfer tax on the estate. The government gets a little money, but you don't destroy the ability of families to build generational wealth.
The estate tax does not kick in until the estate is worth millions. Its is designed to avoid a repeat of this pesky group called the aristocracy from returning. Because titles were just another way for the state to protect family wealth/power.
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On November 09 2017 19:28 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 19:11 Toadesstern wrote:
you usually don't inherit stuff the moment you're born though. So I don't really see the point in inheritance being such a great start into your life.
Your parents are rich. You maybe do get a lot of benefits out of that but you're probably not going to get their money until you're in your 50's or older With generational wealth sometimes money is willed to people not yet in existence at the time of passing or young grandchildren in general. There's at least a somewhat legitimate argument around medium sized family owned and operated farms/businesses. But that's like 100's of people, we can sort that out without eliminating the whole thing. I feel compelled to say again that it only hits after the first $5-10 million which, again, is enough to be in the top 20-10% of incomes for doing absolutely nothing and never losing any principal (so you can pass it on). Anyone complaining about not getting to keep more money they didn't earn can only be described as severely addicted imo. Those who aren't even going to personally benefit (95%+ of Americans) that want to get rid of it are both delusional and addicted. Stop being so damn greedy.
i get that. I was just pointing out how, even if that can be the case, in my opinion, you inheriting money usually isn't the thing that gets you an easy start into your life as was claimed above.
It's usually your parents being rich (and still alive) when you are born that does that for you.
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On November 09 2017 17:59 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 16:55 WolfintheSheep wrote:On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao. If it's an estate then it's not your money anymore. It isn't the government's either. I don't mind our method. No inheritance tax. Instead we treat the estate as though you sold it at fair market value just prior to death (assuming no surviving spouse, etc). So then you pay the regular property transfer tax on the estate. The government gets a little money, but you don't destroy the ability of families to build generational wealth.
A couple problems with this.
1) How does a tax stop you from accumulating generational wealth? The tax only affects the absolute richest of society, and the tax isn't even 50%. You're still getting money that you never earned in the first place.
2) Your statement assumes that accumulating generational wealth is some kind of inherent good that we should strive for, but why? There are numerous arguments against the ability to accumulate unchecked generational wealth.
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Norway28674 Posts
When the cutoff is at $11 million for a household, clearly you can still accumulate generational wealth. It's not like they take 100% beyond that either. (Tbh, I'd personally be kinda fine with that. :D Or it should probably also depend on how many beneficiaries there are, but I don't see the fairness or benefit from any individual being given more than $5 million for 'being in the same family as someone'. So maybe rather than calculating it based on the value of the estate, have the cutoff be decided by how much each recipient gets. )
I don't see the societal benefit from individuals being billionaires. I get 'they invest and create jobs', but I've never seen any compelling evidence that one individual holding 1 billion creates more, better jobs than 200 individuals holding $5 million does. (Or that there being one company valued at $1 billion is better for the economy than 200 companies worth $5 million). All the bipartisan talk about 'small business being the backbone of american economy' really doesn't seem to match up with policy geared towards benefiting small businesses (which must, naturally, come at the expense of big business). The way I see it, it's impossible to accumulate $1 billion without having massively underpaid workers helping your company thrive, and while I prefer methods like increased worker ownership or limiting CEO pay to X amounts of entry level pay over taxation as a means of redistribution, if you do allow CEOs to make 600 times entry level pay then the redistribution must be done through other means. And if people aren't taxed sufficiently during their lifetimes, then it has to happen at death.
Everybody idealizes the meritocracy. But a meritocracy is incompatible with an aristocracy, the US can't pretend to be the former while enacting policies that benefit the latter.
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On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao.
The roads, schools, police, firefighters, military and an underlying legal protective structure are all handouts. All the benefits of being American are handouts when people aren't paying taxes.
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On November 09 2017 23:17 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao. The roads, schools, police, firefighters, military and an underlying legal protective structure are all handouts. All the benefits of being American are handouts when people aren't paying taxes.
People that fall into those tax brakets and are working are probably getting massively taken advantage of by the market due to shit wages, making a lot of their hours handouts to society.
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On November 09 2017 23:24 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 23:17 Mohdoo wrote:On November 09 2017 16:33 Wegandi wrote:On November 09 2017 12:31 Liquid`Drone wrote:
eliminating estate tax itself is purely a handout to the 1%, no? Or possibly even less than that, when the cutoff was already at $11 million. How is people keeping their own money a hand out? Lmao. The roads, schools, police, firefighters, military and an underlying legal protective structure are all handouts. All the benefits of being American are handouts when people aren't paying taxes. People that fall into those tax brakets and are working are probably getting massively taken advantage of by the market due to shit wages, making a lot of their hours handouts to society.
I completely agree and I am by no means saying anything bad is taking place. I am just pointing out by simply existing in the United States, people have a debt to the US government. I think it is good people under 20k don't pay taxes. They shouldn't be.
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On November 09 2017 23:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:
When the cutoff is at $11 million for a household, clearly you can still accumulate generational wealth. It's not like they take 100% beyond that either. (Tbh, I'd personally be kinda fine with that. :D Or it should probably also depend on how many beneficiaries there are, but I don't see the fairness or benefit from any individual being given more than $5 million for 'being in the same family as someone'. So maybe rather than calculating it based on the value of the estate, have the cutoff be decided by how much each recipient gets. )
I don't see the societal benefit from individuals being billionaires. I get 'they invest and create jobs', but I've never seen any compelling evidence that one individual holding 1 billion creates more, better jobs than 200 individuals holding $5 million does. (Or that there being one company valued at $1 billion is better for the economy than 200 companies worth $5 million). All the bipartisan talk about 'small business being the backbone of american economy' really doesn't seem to match up with policy geared towards benefiting small businesses (which must, naturally, come at the expense of big business). The way I see it, it's impossible to accumulate $1 billion without having massively underpaid workers helping your company thrive, and while I prefer methods like increased worker ownership or limiting CEO pay to X amounts of entry level pay over taxation as a means of redistribution, if you do allow CEOs to make 600 times entry level pay then the redistribution must be done through other means. And if people aren't taxed sufficiently during their life times, then it has to happen at death.
Everybody idealizes the meritocracy. But a meritocracy is incompatible with an aristocracy, the US can't pretend to be the former while enacting policies that benefit the latter.
The wealth you've earned and has been taxed that the government allows you to give to your children and grandchildren ...
Examining how much property individuals attain in terms of net societal benefit as compared to pay cap ... catching up on presumed inadequate taxation over their lives ... allowing CEOs to make X redistribution must be done.
I shudder to think you're probably talking in good faith here. No individuals but only servants of societal benefit, no unjust policies but only the ends justify the means, and so transparently the politics of envy but without attendant shame. I really hate to think this may be what we're headed towards.
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Don't worry, if anything we are headed in the other direction for the last ~30 years.
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Hey, repeal the estate tax. The wealth will get redistributed the old fashion way if things keep going the way they are.
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United States42782 Posts
On November 09 2017 23:35 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2017 23:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:
When the cutoff is at $11 million for a household, clearly you can still accumulate generational wealth. It's not like they take 100% beyond that either. (Tbh, I'd personally be kinda fine with that. :D Or it should probably also depend on how many beneficiaries there are, but I don't see the fairness or benefit from any individual being given more than $5 million for 'being in the same family as someone'. So maybe rather than calculating it based on the value of the estate, have the cutoff be decided by how much each recipient gets. )
I don't see the societal benefit from individuals being billionaires. I get 'they invest and create jobs', but I've never seen any compelling evidence that one individual holding 1 billion creates more, better jobs than 200 individuals holding $5 million does. (Or that there being one company valued at $1 billion is better for the economy than 200 companies worth $5 million). All the bipartisan talk about 'small business being the backbone of american economy' really doesn't seem to match up with policy geared towards benefiting small businesses (which must, naturally, come at the expense of big business). The way I see it, it's impossible to accumulate $1 billion without having massively underpaid workers helping your company thrive, and while I prefer methods like increased worker ownership or limiting CEO pay to X amounts of entry level pay over taxation as a means of redistribution, if you do allow CEOs to make 600 times entry level pay then the redistribution must be done through other means. And if people aren't taxed sufficiently during their life times, then it has to happen at death.
Everybody idealizes the meritocracy. But a meritocracy is incompatible with an aristocracy, the US can't pretend to be the former while enacting policies that benefit the latter. The wealth you've earned and has been taxed that the government allows you to give to your children and grandchildren ... Examining how much property individuals attain in terms of net societal benefit as compared to pay cap ... catching up on presumed inadequate taxation over their lives ... allowing CEOs to make X redistribution must be done. I shudder to think you're probably talking in good faith here. No individuals but only servants of societal benefit, no unjust policies but only the ends justify the means, and so transparently the politics of envy but without attendant shame. I really hate to think this may be what we're headed towards.
It's the social contract that binds us together. If a man lived on an island by himself and all his possessions were crafted by his own hand I wouldn't see any reason to tax him. But within a capitalist society every rich man has become rich through the redistribution of labour from others to them. We allow capitalism to redistribute wealth because it's functionally effective for allocating resources within society but there is nothing natural about, say, land ownership. If a field in Texas is discovered to have oil underneath it it does not rationally follow that all Americans should have to collectively make the owner of the field a billionaire in order to make their commute to work.
You need to recognize that the wealth capitalism awards you is simply the product of an artificial system that was created by men to help decide whether ipods or zunes were better. The fact that an employer is willing to pay you $100,000 for your labour does not mean that the intrinsic value of your labour is $100,000, it's just a bullshit number that the system produced. If you get rid of society none of this labour has any intrinsic value, it's simply a product of a set of rules we created.
You're trying to combine two completely separate concepts, the individual and capitalist society and it doesn't work. You can't have capitalism on an island with one occupant. Taxation is part of the same book of rules that capitalism comes from, and neither makes any sense from an individualist perspective.
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