|
Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
"You should be happy you're getting anything" is a miserable argument.
Inheritance tax is socially interesting because money is worth the way it is spent, and competence at that definitely isn't directly inherited. But providing for children is a major motivation for making money in the first place, and penalizing that is counterproductive and hard to enforce.
What is wrong with just income tax? It is proportional, prioritizes investment over dividend payments, and can be cross-checked with assets, while their ownership enforcement is a service the government provides.
|
On August 28 2015 11:37 dismiss wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2015 11:27 kwizach wrote:On August 28 2015 11:17 dismiss wrote:On August 28 2015 11:11 kwizach wrote:On August 28 2015 11:05 dismiss wrote:On August 28 2015 10:58 kwizach wrote:On August 28 2015 10:53 dismiss wrote:On August 28 2015 10:50 kwizach wrote:On August 28 2015 10:47 dismiss wrote:On August 28 2015 10:45 kwizach wrote:
[quote]
The transfer of money from the parents to the kids has not been taxed yet. The phrase "it has already been taxed" is meaningless. Say the parents buy a candy bar before dying - should there be no VAT because the money they're paying the candy bar with "had already been taxed" when they earned it? Of course not. The parents' income was taxed, and it's not getting taxed a second time. The children inheriting money are not the same people as the dead parents who earned the income that was taxed. The inheritance going to the children is not the same transfer of money as the parents earning the money from their jobs. The income was taxed once, and the inheritance is taxed once.
Let me ask you a different question: how exactly would it be fair for someone who works his ass off to earn money to see his income be taxed at a higher level than a kid who earns his inheritance by doing nothing? I'm not saying at all that inheritances should fully go to the state, but it's perfectly normal and ethical to tax inheritance at the same level (at least) as income. The candy bar would be taxed regardless of whether the parents or children buy it. Buy why should it be taxed extra when the child buys it? You lost me there. How is it taxed extra when the child buys it? Assuming we're talking about the money the parent would have bought it with, it's being taxed extra because the child had to pay inheritance tax. The amount of work that's been put into earning said money is still exactly the same, except the child is going to have less because someone died. I think you misunderstood how I was using that example. Like I said in my edit, the candy bar example was there to show that plenty of transfers of money from the parents to other parties still get taxed even though they're using the money from their income which was taxed. This was to explain that the sentence "it has already been taxed" is meaningless - the fact that the parents' income was taxed is irrelevant to the fact that following transfers of money from them to other parties (a house maid working for them, the store where they buy their groceries, etc.) still get taxed. Inheritance is just another transfer of money from them to other parties - their children -, and there's no reason not to tax it. It'll be the first time that particular transfer of money will have been taxed. On August 28 2015 10:56 cLutZ wrote:On August 28 2015 10:45 kwizach wrote:On August 28 2015 04:59 dismiss wrote:On August 28 2015 04:56 Velr wrote:
Money should be earned not inherited? So you want to punish people with wealthy parents because they have wealthy parents? It's all money that has already been taxed at the appropriate rate, it seems hardly fair to tax it again. The transfer of money from the parents to the kids has not been taxed yet. The phrase "it has already been taxed" is meaningless. Say the parents buy a candy bar before dying - should there be no VAT because the money they're paying the candy bar with "had already been taxed" when they earned it? Of course not. The parents' income was taxed, and it's not getting taxed a second time. The children inheriting money are not the same people as the dead parents who earned the income that was taxed. The inheritance going to the children is not the same transfer of money as the parents earning the money from their jobs. The income was taxed once, and the inheritance is taxed once. Let me ask you a different question: how exactly would it be fair for someone who works his ass off to earn money to see his income be taxed at a higher level than a kid who earns his inheritance by doing nothing? I'm not saying at all that inheritances should fully go to the state, but it's perfectly normal and ethical to tax inheritance at the same level (at least) as income. You are kind of illustrating why there should only be one layer ( consumption is generally thought to be the most efficient) layer of taxation. No, I'm not. At all. The thing is, inheritance doesn't equal an economic interaction, you're merely changing the ownership over some goods out of necessity rather than some kind of action by either party. If you were to purchase anything, invest your money to generate revenue, w/e there's some kind of activity taking place. I fail to see how that's the case here. So essentially the children are being taxed for money existing in their account. Except the money didn't "exist in their account". The money gets transferred to their accounts as inheritance. By definition, that's a transfer of money/wealth, which has not yet been taxed, and which can and should be taxed. Let me ask you the question again: do you think that the income of someone who works his ass off to earn 100,000$ should be taxed more than the 100,000$ that will go to someone who has done zero work to earn them and simply inherited them? It's been transferred by necessity rather than choice. What else should happen with it? Should someone's assets just disappear into thin air once they die? In my opinion this constitutes a tax that's confiscatory in nature, rather than being levied for a reason. The reason for the transfer of money is irrelevant - the point is that this particular transfer of money has not been taxed yet. It's not more "confiscatory" than any other tax - in fact one could argue that having inheritance tax at the same rate as income tax would be less confiscatory, because there was zero work done to earn the inheritance while the worker had to work to earn his income. On August 28 2015 11:17 dismiss wrote:
The $100.000 is still the same money, regardless of whether parent or child owns it. The parents worked their ass of just as much as the random person who earned the same amount, got taxed the same amount, for all intents and purposes that money is the same. Why should the child have less because it has been put into the unfortunate situation where he has to assume possession of it? The parents are dead. They are not getting taxed. The children, who are now earning money in a new transfer that has not been taxed yet, are going to see this new transfer of money get taxed, because there is no reason at all for them to be taxed less on money they're earning by doing zero work than a hard worker on the money he's earning by actually working. It's "unfortunate" to be getting free money, now? The reason for the transfer of money is highly relevant, rofl. That's how a tax code works. You pay different amounts of taxes on different things for x number of reasons. Sometimes you have to pay less, or even get some money back because you do certain things. Here you do nothing, the state comes along and tells you "Fuck you, we're going to take your money." If that's not confiscatory when compared to say an environmental tax being levied on fuel I don't know what is.
That's the point: you're doing nothing to earn that money. Why should you get taxed less for doing absolutely nothing than someone who actually works hard to earn his money? How is it more confiscatory to tax money you have not worked for than to tax money you have worked for?
On August 28 2015 11:37 dismiss wrote:
Why are you unwilling to engage my question regarding the alternative uses of an inheritance? Someone has to take possession of it. The utter lack of an action by the beneficiary is gist of the matter here, I can't repeat that often enough. As opposed to the trigger for the vast majority of other taxes they're being taxed here without being an active participant in any activity.
I'm not sure what your question is supposed to be. The people inheriting will take possession of the inheritance, minus the part that will go to the state. The activity the inheritors are taking part in is the act of inheriting.
What's funny is you don't even seem to realize that your insistence on highlighting the fact that the inheritors are essentially doing nothing only serves to prove my point: why should they be rewarded by the state (through a lower tax rate) for doing nothing, while someone who actually works for his money is not getting any such reward?
On August 28 2015 11:37 dismiss wrote:
E: As I explained the money should be taxed equally, only that the money in case 2. has already been taxed when it was originally earned. If it is taxed again on transfer to the child it would get taxed more. To flip your question, do you think it's fair if 2 people end up with the same amount of money but one has had to pay an extra 20% in taxes?
I already addressed this. It is not the money that is taxed, it is the transfer of money. The transfer of money from the dead parents to the inheritors is only taxed once. Your question is nonsensical.
|
On August 28 2015 11:46 Soap wrote:
"You should be happy you're getting anything" is a miserable argument.
Inheritance tax is socially interesting because money is worth the way it is spent, and competence at that definitely isn't directly inherited. But providing for children is a major motivation for making money in the first place, and penalizing that is counterproductive and hard to enforce.
Except that nobody is saying that all of the inheritance should go to the state, only a certain part of it. The parents will be just as motivated to keep working for their kids because the same logic will apply: the more they earn, the more their kids will receive.
The argument is not "you should be happy you're getting anything" - that's a "miserable" strawman. The argument is that there is no reason to tax at a lower rate a transfer of money which is earned by doing nothing (something that can only be described as a fortunate event in terms of money distribution) than another transfer of money, an income, which is earned by working hard.
|
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
sometimes a tax event is not a simple transfer of wealth. when you have a business that is taxed as an estate for example, it might face liquidation etc. that'd be a rather obvious problem for the system to solve.
|
What did the government do to earn it?
The services provided by government (infrastructure, security and welfare) are associated with earning wealth. Transfers are taxed because the banking system makes it convenient. Now if you wanna tax a particular transfer solely on moral grounds, you're putting government above morality, and that is a problem because they can and often have been quite immoral.
In other words, between their children getting money for nothing and the government getting money for nothing, I expect most people to bet on their children with passion. Good luck collecting that tax.
|
On August 28 2015 13:01 Soap wrote:
What did the government do to earn it?
It provides services and needs to finance them.
On August 28 2015 13:01 Soap wrote:
The services provided by government (infrastructure, security and welfare) are associated with earning wealth. Transfers are taxed because the banking system makes it convenient.
I'm not sure what "are associated with earning wealth" is supposed to mean. Those services are provided whether or not you earn wealth, and are financed through money that is collected in various ways. In any case, an inheritance is a transfer of wealth.
On August 28 2015 13:01 Soap wrote:
Now if you wanna tax a particular transfer solely on moral grounds, you're putting government above morality, and that is a problem because they can and often have been quite immoral.
Again, I'm not sure what your argument is supposed to be here. Who's saying that inheritance should be taxed "solely on moral grounds", or "putting government above morality"? Inheritance should be taxed because it is a transfer of wealth among others, and the point is that there is nothing morally ambiguous about taxing inheritance.
On August 28 2015 13:01 Soap wrote:
In other words, between their children getting money for nothing and the government getting money for nothing, I expect most people to bet on their children with passion. Good luck collecting that tax.
You realize that plenty of countries have inheritance or estate taxes, right? While people sometimes do engage in practices to reduce the amount to be paid, overall the tax is still very much collected by those governments. Also, it's not a choice between the children and the government - only a part of the inheritance is collected as tax.
|
On August 28 2015 10:35 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2015 05:58 Ghostcom wrote:On August 28 2015 05:53 Velr wrote:And how is inheritance tax interacting your income tax? In fact it could even lower it. I'm all in favor of taxing assets instead of income. But this is a bad topic to discuss here, tax codes are too diffrent among countries. 2 people could have nearly the same basic views, but due to the diffrent taxrates and taxes in general they have to pay in their countries they would argue for diffrent stuff  . Because inheritance tax would follow the same argumentation. Why should I work if I can't leave anything for my children? Who said you couldn't leave anything for your children? A percentage of the inheritance goes to the state, and they get the rest. The more you work, the more they'll get.
Please don't quote me out of context. You jumped in at the end of a debate concerning heavily taxation of inheritance in the name of wealth-redistribution and decided to not even quote my full post. To explain, the point was that there is a point where the percentage my kids get is so small that there is no reason for me to actually accumulate any (taxable) wealth which would overall lead to a loss for society. The proposal by Velr was to use inheritance tax to fund the welfare state, however when people stop accumulating wealth to tax at their death, you will end up with a hole in your budget. Thus raising the inheritance tax to lower income tax is a pretty useless idea - especially as inheritance tax is from a philosophical point of view somewhat dubious. Lastly, there is a rather obvious difference between an income and an inheritance - you parallel to the worker is false.
EDIT: Added some words which I forgot to type so the post should not be more coherent. Apologies.
|
Why would it be a loss to society if your parents would have to actually spend their Money? It would be a loss for the children, but for society? How?
And "ridiculously high" is a pretty subjective term and afaik no one was advocating a 80% tax on inheritance or anything like that...
Welfare state was just one of many ideas, as it seems one you so much dislike, that you forgot all the others mentioned..
You could lower other taxes with the generated revenue. You could fund infrastructure, you could fund education/schools, you could fund pension funds. There are plenty of possibilities.
|
WASHINGTON/ATHENS - Many of the top brass of the International Monetary Fund always had concerns about the plans to bail out Greece. That much was clear as far back as May 9, 2010, when the IMF's 24 directors gathered in Washington to sign off on the fund's participation in the first, 110-billion-euro ($125 billion) rescue alongside European institutions.
A Reuters examination of previously unreported IMF board minutes shows that a near majority of directors round the board table that day thought the Greek program would not work.
"We have serious doubts about the approach," said Brazil's then director Paulo Nogueira Batista. He slammed IMF forecasts for Greece as overly optimistic - "Panglossian." Arvind Virmani, the director from India at the time, said the program imposed "a mammoth burden" that Greece's economy "could hardly bear."
But they and others who feared the IMF was walking into a quagmire had little room for maneuver. The fund's powerful Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and a handful of his advisers, feared Greece posed a threat to the wider euro zone financial system. They had already decided to plunge into the crisis. The doubters were given a blunt retort, according to the minutes.
"Let me be clear on a couple of things," said then Deputy Managing Director John Lipsky, who chaired the board meeting. "There is no Plan B. There is Plan A, and a determination to make Plan A succeed. And this is it."
Five years later, after the biggest bailout in the fund's history, Greece failed to make a $1.7 billion payment as required at the end of June – the first advanced economy ever to default on the IMF. Worse, after having received more than 240 billion euros in international aid, Greece's economy is still in tatters. Europe agreed a further bailout of 86 billion euros this month.
Fresh interviews with more than 20 senior officials, as well as an extensive review of IMF board records, illuminate the turmoil and divisions within the fund, then and now. They show Strauss-Kahn and his top advisers set the fund, which by tradition has always been led by a European, on a course known to be flawed, and that non-European shareholders doubted would work.
To drive through the Greek bailout, the fund bent its own rules. It lifted an IMF ban on the fund lending money to countries – like Greece - that were unable to pay their debts. It also allowed European politicians to dictate initial terms in the Greek rescue, ruling out a debt restructuring that could have given Greece a fresh start. And it shaped economic forecasts to fit political ends.
The fallout still weighs on the fund. The IMF now says it will not participate in the latest Greek bailout unless Europe allows debt restructuring on a scale Europe has so far rejected.
Strauss-Kahn, who quit the fund in 2011, would not be interviewed for this article. But supporters of the fund's actions say he and the fund had little choice other than to help in the Greek crisis. The fund went against its previous policy, they say, to prevent the Greek crisis causing wider financial chaos.
"With Europe hanging in the balance ... to say the fund would not be involved ... would not have been acceptable," said Siddharth Tiwari, who was secretary of the IMF executive board in 2010 and is now the head of the fund's strategy, policy and review department.
The Greek bailout did indeed stop "contagion" in financial markets. European banks escaped potentially disastrous losses, and other deeply indebted European countries stuck with their programs of economic reform.
But Greece has paid a heavy price. One senior IMF economist, while agreeing the fund had to intervene, said of the bailout: "Objectively we made Greece worse off ... You're lending to a country that is already unable to pay its debt, and that is not our mandate."
www.reuters.com
There is a lot more it's a very interesting read.
|
On August 28 2015 17:34 Velr wrote:
Why would it be a loss to society if your parents would have to actually spend their Money? It would be a loss for the children, but for society? How?
And "ridiculously high" is a pretty subjective term and afaik no one was advocating a 80% tax on inheritance or anything like that...
Welfare state was just one of many ideas, as it seems one you so much dislike, that you forgot all the others mentioned..
You could lower other taxes with the generated revenue. You could fund infrastructure, you could fund education/schools, you could fund pension funds. There are plenty of possibilities.
It would be a loss to society if "my" parents decided to not accumulate the wealth in the first place, i.e. not work so much as it would decrease the money the state would "make" on "my" parents productivity - not only via less tax (income, inheritance, and sales) but also by less job creation/product produced.
I'm a pretty big proponent of the welfare state (though I'm beginning to feel you and I are using that word very differently) - I'm not sure how you got the notion that I'm not? However, I'm also a big proponent of freedom under responsibility and rewarding hard work. Arguing for an increased wealth redistribution just because you want rich people's money is a pretty bad argument.
|
I highly doubt your parents or anyone would work any less because he loses some of its wealth after he is death.
I don't want rich peoples Money, i want a more (monetary) equal Society and i want well funded Schools/infrastructure.
I'm all for rewarding hard work.. But there is a diffrence between rewarding it and some People making 20+ times as much or owning 100+++++ times as much despite both having worked all their lives. No matter how much you work, you won't work 20 times as hard.
Btw: Inheritance goes totally against "rewarding hard work" its more in line with a monarchistic society structures....
|
Yeah, people care so little about their wealth after their death that they do not at all try to circumvent the inheritance tax by giving gifts to their kids, sign over/sell houses/companies etc to their kids or anything of the sort...
Please explain how you are going to achieve a more monetary equal society by NOT taking the rich peoples money?
People are not making 20 times more than others because they work 20 times harder - they are paid 20 times more because they are creating 20+ times more value than others and are generally hard to replace/irreplaceable. Or are you seriously arguing that we should pay the doctor the same hourly wage as the garbage collector?
Inheritance does not go "totally against" rewarding hard work - it allows people to create a better future for their kids (something every responsible parent would tell you they are interested in).
|
What your describing is just an easy to fix hole.
If you give presents like that away in Switzerland, it will be counted as "early inheritance" and every year some amount is deducted from the total. It will take you several decades for a gift of 500k to not be seen as "early inheritance" (this comes into play when several Parties inherit the wealth of one Person).
We have no inheritance tax at all here so it does not apply 100%, but it seems like an easy fix that would counteract much of these "presents".
Inheritance is in essence Power/Status given by bloodline.
People overcame this once when we killed/abolished our kings. The people will overcome this again as soon as the situation is bad enough. Id rather not have this happen in the first place.
You constantly read what you want and not what I say.
No, People should not all people should earn the same BUT they shouldn't earn 20+++ the amount of someone else no matter how much "wealth" they are creating (at least as Long as they don't have to pay for losses they create too).
A doctor shouldn't earn the same as a garbage collector, but 4-5 times as much seems plenty enough (in Switzerland this would be over 20k €/Month... Many doctors don't make that much even nowadays and doctors are hardly overpayed anyway (some Hospital-Leaders maybe, but an "average" doctor for sure isn't)..
|
On August 28 2015 22:07 Velr wrote:
What your describing is just an easy to fix hole.
If you give presents like that away in Switzerland, it will be counted as "early inheritance" and every year some amount is deducted from the total. It will take you several decades for a gift of 500k to not be seen as "early inheritance" (this comes into play when several Parties inherit the wealth of one Person).
We have no inheritance tax at all here so it does not apply 100%, but it seems like an easy fix that would counteract much of these "presents".
You completely misunderstood my post it would seem - the above quoted part is entirely irrelevant.
What I was describing was a counterargument to your prior post:
On August 28 2015 20:58 Velr wrote:
I highly doubt your parents or anyone would work any less because he loses some of its wealth after he is death.
People obviously people care about what happens to their wealth once they die, and obviously they don't want it to go to the state - if they didn't care they would do all the things I gave as examples that they are doing.
Inheritance is in essence Power/Status given by bloodline.
People overcame this once when we killed/abolished our kings. The people will overcome this again as soon as the situation is bad enough. Id rather not have this happen in the first place.
This does not in any way show that inheritance discourages hard work.
You constantly read what you want and not what I say.
No, People should not all people should earn the same BUT they shouldn't earn 20+++ the amount of someone else no matter how much "wealth" they are creating (at least as Long as they don't have to pay for losses they create too).
A doctor shouldn't earn the same as a garbage collector, but 4-5 times as much seems plenty enough (in Switzerland this would be over 20k €/Month... Many doctors don't make that much even nowadays and doctors are hardly overpayed anyway (some Hospital-Leaders maybe, but an "average" doctor for sure isn't)..
WHY should they not earn 20++++ the amount of someone else no matter how much wealth they are creating? Your only argument so far has been "because I want to use their money". Further, who should decide how much anyone is allowed to make?
|
On August 28 2015 17:05 Ghostcom wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2015 10:35 kwizach wrote:On August 28 2015 05:58 Ghostcom wrote:On August 28 2015 05:53 Velr wrote:And how is inheritance tax interacting your income tax? In fact it could even lower it. I'm all in favor of taxing assets instead of income. But this is a bad topic to discuss here, tax codes are too diffrent among countries. 2 people could have nearly the same basic views, but due to the diffrent taxrates and taxes in general they have to pay in their countries they would argue for diffrent stuff . Because inheritance tax would follow the same argumentation. Why should I work if I can't leave anything for my children? Who said you couldn't leave anything for your children? A percentage of the inheritance goes to the state, and they get the rest. The more you work, the more they'll get. Please don't quote me out of context. You jumped in at the end of a debate concerning heavily taxation of inheritance in the name of wealth-redistribution and decided to not even quote my full post. To explain, the point was that there is a point where the percentage my kids get is so small that there is no reason for me to actually accumulate any (taxable) wealth which would overall lead to a loss for society.
I did not quote you out of context. You raised the question of why you should work if you "can't leave anything for [your] children", and the premise of your question is not rooted in the reality of the type of inheritance tax we're discussing. Nobody is suggesting taking the entire inheritance away, or even having a 100% tax rate beyond a given cutoff level of wealth (with the amount below that level being taxed less). Even with the inheritance tax, therefore, the principle "the wealthier you are, the more your children will inherit" still applies, and if that's your motivation to work you will have no reason to stop.
And by the way, one could make the exact opposite argument, namely that an inheritance tax encourages parents to work more, since that's the only way they'll leave as much as they want to their children.
On August 28 2015 17:05 Ghostcom wrote:
The proposal by Velr was to use inheritance tax to fund the welfare state, however when people stop accumulating wealth to tax at their death, you will end up with a hole in your budget. Thus raising the inheritance tax to lower income tax is a pretty useless idea - especially as inheritance tax is from a philosophical point of view somewhat dubious.
First, people will not stop accumulating wealth. There is zero evidence or reason to support the idea that this might be the case. Second, there's nothing dubious "from a philosophical point of view" about an inheritance tax, like I explained at length.
On August 28 2015 17:05 Ghostcom wrote:
Lastly, there is a rather obvious difference between an income and an inheritance - you parallel to the worker is false.
You're going to have to do a bit better than "your parallel is false" if you want to discredit my argument. In both situations, a given person earns money/wealth that was not previously his/her. In one case, that person works hard for that money and is taxed on his income. There is no reason why in the second case, where the person does zero work to earn that money, his earning of the money should not be taxed. If anything, working hard for your money should lead you to be less taxed than not doing any work for it.
|
United States43607 Posts
Which tax would you rather have than taxing the dead? Government will pay for things one way or another. I'd rather the dead were taxed than pay income tax on my labour or consumption taxes on my spending. Even if that meant one day my estate were taxed. If you object to one tax you must either propose an alternative or a way of cutting spending.
|
On August 29 2015 02:40 KwarK wrote:
Which tax would you rather have than taxing the dead? Government will pay for things one way or another. I'd rather the dead were taxed than pay income tax on my labour or consumption taxes on my spending. Even if that meant one day my estate were taxed. If you object to one tax you must either propose an alternative or a way of cutting spending.
One tax, income or consumption. It is optimal for your tax system to not affect the decisions of people (unless you want it to, I.E. tobacco taxes).
|
On August 29 2015 02:57 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 02:40 KwarK wrote:
Which tax would you rather have than taxing the dead? Government will pay for things one way or another. I'd rather the dead were taxed than pay income tax on my labour or consumption taxes on my spending. Even if that meant one day my estate were taxed. If you object to one tax you must either propose an alternative or a way of cutting spending. One tax, income or consumption. It is optimal for your tax system to not affect the decisions of people (unless you want it to, I.E. tobacco taxes).
The thing is, inheritance is income. Just like a gift. The way to handle that transfer is up in the air, but I wouldn't handle it any different that other forms of income below a threshold. The problem is when people are inheriting vast estates with 20 million in liquid assets alone. I don't think there is any reasonable argument that the government could treat that differently.
|
On August 29 2015 02:57 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2015 02:40 KwarK wrote:
Which tax would you rather have than taxing the dead? Government will pay for things one way or another. I'd rather the dead were taxed than pay income tax on my labour or consumption taxes on my spending. Even if that meant one day my estate were taxed. If you object to one tax you must either propose an alternative or a way of cutting spending. One tax, income or consumption. It is optimal for your tax system to not affect the decisions of people (unless you want it to, I.E. tobacco taxes).
That's an ideological perspective that people might not share. I for one think a single tax is undesirable. On consumption it will invariably hit the poorest and most vulnerable disproportionally hard. Income tax has too many loopholes. Spread taxes out all over the monetary system, imho.
|
On August 29 2015 02:30 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2015 17:05 Ghostcom wrote:On August 28 2015 10:35 kwizach wrote:On August 28 2015 05:58 Ghostcom wrote:On August 28 2015 05:53 Velr wrote:And how is inheritance tax interacting your income tax? In fact it could even lower it. I'm all in favor of taxing assets instead of income. But this is a bad topic to discuss here, tax codes are too diffrent among countries. 2 people could have nearly the same basic views, but due to the diffrent taxrates and taxes in general they have to pay in their countries they would argue for diffrent stuff . Because inheritance tax would follow the same argumentation. Why should I work if I can't leave anything for my children? Who said you couldn't leave anything for your children? A percentage of the inheritance goes to the state, and they get the rest. The more you work, the more they'll get. Please don't quote me out of context. You jumped in at the end of a debate concerning heavily taxation of inheritance in the name of wealth-redistribution and decided to not even quote my full post. To explain, the point was that there is a point where the percentage my kids get is so small that there is no reason for me to actually accumulate any (taxable) wealth which would overall lead to a loss for society. I did not quote you out of context. You raised the question of why you should work if you "can't leave anything for [your] children", and the premise of your question is not rooted in the reality of the type of inheritance tax we're discussing. Nobody is suggesting taking the entire inheritance away, or even having a 100% tax rate beyond a given cutoff level of wealth (with the amount below that level being taxed less). Even with the inheritance tax, therefore, the principle "the wealthier you are, the more your children will inherit" still applies, and if that's your motivation to work you will have no reason to stop. And by the way, one could make the exact opposite argument, namely that an inheritance tax encourages parents to work more, since that's the only way they'll leave as much as they want to their children. Show nested quote +On August 28 2015 17:05 Ghostcom wrote:
The proposal by Velr was to use inheritance tax to fund the welfare state, however when people stop accumulating wealth to tax at their death, you will end up with a hole in your budget. Thus raising the inheritance tax to lower income tax is a pretty useless idea - especially as inheritance tax is from a philosophical point of view somewhat dubious. First, people will not stop accumulating wealth. There is zero evidence or reason to support the idea that this might be the case. Second, there's nothing dubious "from a philosophical point of view" about an inheritance tax, like I explained at length. Show nested quote +On August 28 2015 17:05 Ghostcom wrote:
Lastly, there is a rather obvious difference between an income and an inheritance - you parallel to the worker is false. You're going to have to do a bit better than "your parallel is false" if you want to discredit my argument. In both situations, a given person earns money/wealth that was not previously his/her. In one case, that person works hard for that money and is taxed on his income. There is no reason why in the second case, where the person does zero work to earn that money, his earning of the money should not be taxed. If anything, working hard for your money should lead you to be less taxed than not doing any work for it.
My reasoning was my previous post to the one you initially quoted - had you actually bothered to read, you would have known. You didn't explain at length - you simply stated that inheritance is equal to income and then argued from that point on. As the base premises is wrong, you haven't proven anything. An heir is significantly different to a worker in that one is selling a commodity (his time), whereas the other receives a gift from his dead relatives. It is fine to argue that such a gift should be taxed at the same level as paycheck (I disagree), but to equate the two is flat out plainly wrong.
On August 29 2015 02:40 KwarK wrote:
Which tax would you rather have than taxing the dead? Government will pay for things one way or another. I'd rather the dead were taxed than pay income tax on my labour or consumption taxes on my spending. Even if that meant one day my estate were taxed. If you object to one tax you must either propose an alternative or a way of cutting spending.
Don't try and reverse this dicussion. It started with a wish for an increased wealth redistribution - thus you are the one who should propose reasonable taxation and come up with a bloody good reason why the state is entitled to a bigger piece of the slice other than "because we think we can spend your money better than you".
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
