Inheritance Tax and Rights Argument

[Big Phil]

Um, okay... dude, if you want to argue in favor of higher taxation on the wealthy, then do so, but what the hell does that have to do with my post?

I don't know; I thought you opposed higher taxation of the wealthy. My mistake, I guess.

I wrote this in my original post

Unjust taxes are those which are designed to "screw over" one particular group, be it the "rich, corporations, oil companies, the poor, etc.," which are levied unfairly (i.e., 90% income taxes on the wealthy strike me as particularly unfair), or which are levied for the sole purpose of raising revenue without any intention of redistributing them. Mind you, I have no opposition to progressive taxation, but the tax rates need to be equitable and not designed to "screw over" the rich, the poor, blacks, whites, Christians, women, or whatever group those in power happen to dislike.

You say that you are comfortable with sales and value-added taxes. I am not; I think they are a bad idea. That is what my post has to do with yours in this case: I state points of disagreement with you, and why I disagree with you on those points.

I could have said the same thing just as well without quoting you, but since I said it in the context of having just read your post, I saw no reason to do so.

That's fine - you're welcome to disagree on income vs. value added/sales taxes. It's not like there's a universally "right" answer, after all.

However, I take issue with your notion of fair and equitable between sales and income taxes. You are defining fair and equitable exclusively in terms of income (i.e., a $2 toll isn't a big deal to someone making $5M/year, but is a big deal to someone making $20K/year); I define it primarily in terms of use, with an eye toward income. In other words, it's hardly fair to tax higher incomes, but not to charge poor people for using public services. Philosophically, your approach isn't all that different from charging a rich guy $500 for a meal at Red Lobster and giving the same meal to the poor person for free. Is that really fair?

I favor a combination of sales, income, VAT, tolls, etc.; I don't like the idea of anyone getting a free pass on paying for things that they use, regardless of the reason.

I am referring to exactly what I said: when the rich think they are being taxed too highly, they try to buy out the media and the elected government to lower their taxes. We have seen this in the US over the past thirty to forty years.

They will attempt to do the same thing in response to Hamstray's tax proposal, as with any other tax proposal they deem unreasonable. The key difference being they'll have a much larger and more rational support base, because Hamstray's tax proposal is bloody stupid and will leave most of the middle class rightly wanting to spit in his eye.

The perception of oppressive taxation led to the American Revolution. Just because the rich were being hit harder than a middle-class blacksmith or merchant mariner doesn't mean that those guys weren't getting screwed as well (or at least, didn't think they were getting screwed).

Except it's not really wealthy individuals and families fucking up this country; it's corporations and politicians sucking corporate dick who are fucking shit up.

Put it this way, who has done more damage to the country in the past decade: Paris Hilton and Brandon Davis (both spoiled, wealthy sacks of shit who have inherited ungodly amounts of wealth), or Bank of America and Halliburton (both publicly held entities)?

Option Three: the Koch brothers.

Publicly held entities are owned by people, and specific people, not the public at large. Most people don't own significant shares of Walmart; the Waltons do, even if they don't own a controlling share. If you look at who owns Walmart stock, you will find most of it belongs to people one hell of a lot richer than the average Walmart customer. The same goes for Bank of America and Halliburton stock.

This class of people who own large amounts of stock and have connections in the economic sphere where corporate decisions are made are the problem, or a big part of it. If they didn't control such a large share of America's wealth, they wouldn't be able to control such a large share of America's political power, because they're using their money to buy power.

Rich people have always had disproportionate power to their numbers - this isn't something new. hamster's position seems to be that rich, lazy kids inheriting mommy and daddy's money are ruining things, but we all know that's absurd. The people fucking things are are far more motivated than rich, lazy bums inheriting their parents wealth so they can cruise drunkenly around Hollywood getting pictures taken of their coochies.

[Simon_Jester]

However, I take issue with your notion of fair and equitable between sales and income taxes. You are defining fair and equitable exclusively in terms of income (i.e., a $2 toll isn't a big deal to someone making $5M/year, but is a big deal to someone making $20K/year); I define it primarily in terms of use, with an eye toward income. In other words, it's hardly fair to tax higher incomes, but not to charge poor people for using public services. Philosophically, your approach isn't all that different from charging a rich guy $500 for a meal at Red Lobster and giving the same meal to the poor person for free. Is that really fair?

When the item in question is specifically created for the purpose of being a public service, I don't think you should necessarily charge a fee. Libraries, for existence, exist largely to provide free access to books; that's the point. Charging a fee would defeat the purpose. Ditto for schools.

Government is not a for-profit organization; it is not required that all the things it does show a profit. Sometimes, government does things specifically because of the multiplier effect, like build roads; it may not make sense to charge for something if that undermines the multiplier effect.

In practice, rich people routinely wind up getting charged more because they can afford it- they voluntarily seek out opportunities to get charged more because they can afford it. And while they will normally get quality for their money, it doesn't scale linearly: food that costs 100$ is unlikely to be ten times more pleasant to eat than food that costs 10$, unless you have very strange tastes... or are influenced by the cost as much as by anything measurable about the quality.

This sort of thing is hardly unheard of in the private sector; many businesses specifically come up with deluxe versions of services to extract more cash out of richer clients.

Rich people have always had disproportionate power to their numbers - this isn't something new. hamster's position seems to be that rich, lazy kids inheriting mommy and daddy's money are ruining things, but we all know that's absurd. The people fucking things are are far more motivated than rich, lazy bums inheriting their parents wealth so they can cruise drunkenly around Hollywood getting pictures taken of their coochies.

Right. Well, Hamster's an idiot.

What I'm saying is that the rich, lazy bums are only part of the phenomenon. Not all heirs and heiresses are unmotivated, and even the ones who are hire members of the executive class that aren't: Paris Hilton doesn't manage her own money, but you can be damn sure someone does.

Basically, the problem remains that concentration of power endangers democracy. This happened to the Roman Republic, for instance; private citizens acquired enough wealth and influence and (in many cases) the loyalty of personal armies that they overwhelmed the state by sheer force- the Republic's affairs became less and less about classes and interest groups and more about Pompey versus Sulla, Caesar versus Pompey, Antony versus Octavian.

On a broader scale, the US suffers from this problem- the triumph of the stockbrokers, which is supported in large part by large personal fortunes managed, if not owned, by those stockbrokers.

[Knife]

Except it's not really wealthy individuals and families fucking up this country; it's corporations and politicians sucking corporate dick who are fucking shit up.

They are the same people. The super wealthy are the ones running the corporations and having politicians sucking their dicks.

Put it this way, who has done more damage to the country in the past decade: Paris Hilton and Brandon Davis (both spoiled, wealthy sacks of shit who have inherited ungodly amounts of wealth), or Bank of America and Halliburton (both publicly held entities)?

I'm more worried about the influence peddling that Pairs' dad does than Paris herself.