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- Hacker News
- In the USA "all men are created equal". Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money. Companies/institutions should not be allowed to spend money on politics, and a flat tax would solve this.by hsnewman
- > Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money
The capitalist's manifesto
by Catloafdev - > Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money.
Fine, I’ll bite: Why?
by apothegm - I think I heard that the Carthaginians used to auction off political positions, and the proceeds were effectively the taxes which ran society. While on the surface it sounds like a ridiculous concept, maybe it'd be better if we just cut out all the middlemen. At least policy could be directly connected to the paymasters.by gaiagraphia
- 41 of the 56 men who signed the document containing that statement were slave owners.by nickdurfe
- Love it.
In fact, we should have expanded it to be a "millionaire tax" where everyone who has a home worth more than $1M needs to pay a one time $50k+ tax to the highly efficient state government. I'm sure they can easily figure out how to sell a small fraction of their home to cover it.
If there is one thing that history has proven, I think it's how valuable dry taxation is for everyone in the long term.
by schacon - No billionaire owns a single physical house that is their entire worth and that is also their sole form of shelter.
Now if you are proposing a tax on all secondary homes worth $1M or more... I'm listening.
by _DeadFred_ - I mean, people already do pay property taxes on homes? So this isn’t a very good retort.by object-a
- This is an idiotic take.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is basically a billion dollars. At this scale, it’s the same comparison between a billion dollars and a homeless person.
- I hope all billionaires will depart for that island in Florida to bunk with Bozos and Kushner. That poor island will probably sink under the weight of so much ego.by dh2022
- I mean, let's do it. But it seems more straightforward to tax wealth as capital gains when it's used as collateral for liquid assets (low interest loans, lines of credit, buying twitter).by andrewjf
- All of the wealth has been taxed before, often multiple times. Adding another layer sure seems like overkill.by xhkkffbf
- Um no.
"The income tax base captures 60 % of economic income of the top 1 % of wealth-holders."
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...
by _DeadFred_ - Be honest. It has been taxed once at 1/3 the rate that wages are taxed. Capital gains gets taxed at 10% (which is how rich people get their money). Poor people pay about 30% of their income in tax.
Our tax system disproportionately favors the wealthy. I know. I’ve been poor, I’ve worked minimum wage. Now I make much more money and the I’ve watched the tax system favor me more the more I make.
by tim-tday - Well, no, it hasn't. Much of the wealth is in the form of unrealized capital gains. It won't be taxed until it becomes a realized capital gain, that is, until the underlying asset is sold.by AnimalMuppet
- The wealth has barely been taxed at all. Wealth comes from holding assets not from labor, and asset ownership is barely taxed:
1. stocks and commercial real estate are allowed to appreciate without taxation (unlike personal residences outside Cali),
2. multinationals wrote for themselves obscure tax rules so they end up paying almost no tax,
3. interest expense for companies and ultra high net worth individuals is subtracted from taxable income (for personal mortgages the interest expense deduction is capped)
4. Rich people organize their assets so estate taxes do not tax their estates when they die and thus their wealth goes to their children.
As you can see wealth is barely taxed.
by dh2022 - A "one-time" tax to fund recurring health care and educational expenses is an obvious lie.by Bostonian
- Azim Premji donates every dollar he makes over 1 billion for the last 20 years.
Mckenzie Scott is working through donating her share. Same for Melinda Gates, Dustin Moskovitz & Cari Tuna.
Warren Buffet plans to donate the larger part to charity.
Let's keep building the good examples so the alternative (power consolidation across generations) is unthinkable for future generations.
by telesilla - What do you mean "let's" like we're the billionaires? The ultra wealthy have had over a century (in only this country!) to read The Gospel of Wealth. They're not going to do it. And it's fine to admit that.by halJordan
- HN just had a post about the craigslist founder donating over half billion dollars to charity. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588216by canucker2016
- Good examples are great. But it doesn't solve the problem. The only way to fix this busted economy where inequality is increasing and few, wealthy individuals are gaining insane amounts of political power through spending is systemic change in the structure of our tax base.
- Even if it fails, California has taken a multi billion dollar tax hit from all of the wealth flight as a result of this. Not to mention that those people may take jobs with them, straight to Florida or Texas or other friendlier states.
These taxes are an abject disaster everywhere they're tried. France tried it and it was extremely bad for them.
The cash raised from the tax is dwarfed by the wealth flight, every time.
Napkin math for just the people who have left already over 5 years show $50 billion in lost tax revenue. Probably far more in indirect losses (jobs, consumption, etc).
by 0xy - If you think a few billionaires moving to other states would take the Silicon Valley with them and it would be easy then let's see it play out.by onemoresoop
- 'Trickle down economics will start working any day now, do you really want to miss out on our billionaire trickle?'
Leaving California means stepping away from the highest concentration of billion-dollar outcome creation in the U.S. Over the past ~40 years, California has produced on the order of ~120–200 billionaire-producing startups, versus ~15–35 in Texas and ~10–25 in Florida, depending on how you define origin.
Using standard venture-style risk and reward thinking, the data favors staying. The distribution of extreme upside outcomes remains heavily concentrated in California. Now if your a done/finished investor/creator or you have to be cost conscious it makes sense to leave the dream state and move to the retirement home states that cater to the has been class versus the creator class. No shame in having to be cost conscious or being ready to give up and fade into the retirement home of states lifestyle.
by _DeadFred_ - You need to install capital controls first.by vrganj
- I actually think billionaire flight is a good thing. Billionaires do not contribute to their community. Sure some tax accountant and some security people will lose their jobs, but this not matter for regular folk.
If nothing else, billionaires flight is a positive thing.
I am hoping all the billionaires leave my Washington state as a result of the millionaire tax - it may become a normal state like Oregon.
by dh2022 - Florida has never had an income tax. With few exceptions, most of its wealthy are retirees or heirs, who don't have much income anyway.
Texas does not have an income tax. Despite its century of oil wealth, it has fewer billionaires than CA or NY.
These states don't have income taxes because they're unpleasant places to live at the best of times and nobody would choose to live their if they had to pay income taxes.
by gamblor956 - If you won't do anything about the wealth, the top 1%, or top 0.1% will own more and more, until they own everything. Literally. There is no other outcome possible
- You need to remember that the proponents of this kind of thing WANT rich assholes to leave. They consider that an environmental social improvement.by kridsdale1