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#752 Mar 07 2018 at 9:11 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Yeah, I have read those
Then why are you still arguing against historical fact?


How about instead of just declaring your position "historical fact", you actually elaborate on what these "facts" are, how they are historical, and maybe, just maybe, provide some sort of evidence and data to support them?

I've written at length about the political ideologies in question, how they derived, what they mean, how they relate to each other, how they differ from a US versus European perspective, and even how they have changed over time. I've written all of this to provide the historical context for my argument vis-a-vis the relationship between Fascism and Socialism.

You have responded with... nothing. Just repeated claims that I'm wrong and you're right. Well, that's interesting, but not terribly convincing. Why don't you try explaining, in your own words, why you think that socialism and fascism are not related at all? And try to avoid phrases like "everyone knows", or "it's been proven", or "it's a fact". Try doing something crazy like showing you have the faintest understanding of what Socialism actually *IS* as at least a starting point.
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#753 Mar 07 2018 at 10:59 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
(so fixing something that is broken, or providing a service like wifi, grounds keeping, maintenance, etc are all business expenses and can be deducted, but putting in new floors, or shutters, or whatever is an improvement and cannot).

You can deduct improvements, but they're done through depreciation expense.

I think the three most glaring flaws with federal income tax are:
1. Taxing revenue for individuals versus net income for businesses.
2. Taxing capital gains as super special income that is totally not like normal income.
3. Taxing income generated over 364 days as fundamentally different than income generated over 366 days.
#754 Mar 08 2018 at 12:31 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Is it strictly "small government"? No. But in the complex and imperfect world we live in, it's not nearly as problematic as a ton of other things that I'm far more interested in eliminating first.
Yeah, I get it. It if benefits gbaji, keep it. If if doesn't, get rid of it.

It's a candy dish you can choose not to use.
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#755 Mar 08 2018 at 8:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Why don't you try explaining, in your own words, why you think that socialism and fascism are not related at all? And try to avoid phrases like "everyone knows", or "it's been proven", or "it's a fact".

Now that's rich.

I'm sorry. I meant "that's absolutely rich. This is an objective fact."
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#756 Mar 08 2018 at 8:06 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Why don't you try explaining, in your own words, why you think that socialism and fascism are not related at all? And try to avoid phrases like "everyone knows", or "it's been proven", or "it's a fact".

Now that's rich.

I meant "Everyone knows that's absolutely rich. It's been proven that this is an objective fact."


Fixed that for you.
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#757 Mar 08 2018 at 8:38 AM Rating: Good
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It's cute he's trying to be condescending.
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#758 Mar 15 2018 at 8:20 PM Rating: Decent
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Allegory wrote:
gbaji wrote:
(so fixing something that is broken, or providing a service like wifi, grounds keeping, maintenance, etc are all business expenses and can be deducted, but putting in new floors, or shutters, or whatever is an improvement and cannot).

You can deduct improvements, but they're done through depreciation expense.


Yeah. I was trying to keep it as simple as possible. My overall point is that there are a lot of things you can deduct from taxes, especially when running a business. Since owning a rental property is a business, the same set of deductions for all businesses apply. Owing a property that is your own personal dwelling is *not* a business, and so the usual set of business deductions do not apply. The mortgage interest deduction for personal homes is a special exception designed to level the playing field a bit vis-a-vis owning versus renting.

More directly. The idea that renters somehow do not benefit from a mortgage interest deduction is false. They do. They're just not directly aware of it.

Quote:
I think the three most glaring flaws with federal income tax are:
1. Taxing revenue for individuals versus net income for businesses.
2. Taxing capital gains as super special income that is totally not like normal income.
3. Taxing income generated over 364 days as fundamentally different than income generated over 366 days.


I don't see any of those as flaws.

1. How else would you tax business revenue though? A ton of businesses operate on razor thin margins. Like 5-10% net profit to gross revenue thin. You clearly can't just tax a percentage of the total revenue of the business, or most companies will just plain go out of business. So at some point, you have to make some kind of accounting for operating expenses in your tax calculation.

The basic idea is that money that goes into a person's pocket to spend on whatever he wants, is taxed. When we look at privately owned businesses, this is pretty simple. The revenue left over, after accounting for business expenses, goes into the pocket of the owner, and is thus taxed. Where things get complicated is when we deal with corporations, where the net profits do not go into anyone's pocket at all. All earnings by individuals are in the form of pay from the company (which is itself a business expense from that side, but taxed on the other side, right?), or some kind of share based payout (dividends say). Or share price, but that falls into your second case.

Again, I'm not sure of a better way of doing this. If you can think of one, by all means, post it.

2. I've posted at length in the past why there's a very good reason to tax capital gains at a separate/lower rate than direct income. The most basic one is that you want your tax code to encourage (or at least not discourage) investment over consumption. Rewarding people for putting their money into something and then waiting a period of time before caching in, is a decent way of doing this. It also encourages wealthy people to invest in corporations rather than owning businesses directly. Which has the nice side effect of enabling less wealthy people to be able to invest in those things, and be able to take part in a market that would otherwise be priced out of their reach. So you don't have to start out being rich to get richer. Anyone can invest, and gain at the same relative rate as "the rich". Eliminate capital gains taxes, and that would become far more rare, since there's nearly zero reason for rich people to share ownership in something.

And yeah, it encourages longer term investment instead of just rapid buying and selling of things. It certainly doesn't eliminate the "gambling" aspect of the market, but presumably significantly increases the percentage of wealth that is invested with the intent of actually growing the things invested in rather than just turn over a quick buck. And that's a very good thing from a pro-growth point of view.

3. I'm not sure what your point on this is at all. Kinda have to have some kind of time period we're going to measure to calculate taxes. How would you do this differently? Again, at some point we do have to take some kind of assessment of how much taxes have been paid, over a specific period of time, and calculate whether that amount was correct, and then make a correction based on that. This is what you are actually doing each year when you file a tax return.

Now, if you wanted to eliminate earnings based taxes, you could eliminate the need to do this. If all taxes were transfer taxes of some kind (tariffs, sales, VAT) then you would just collect taxes at time of transfer, based on the value of the transfer, and never need to do any kind of re-assessment. You don't have to file any taxes to determine if you paid too much in sales tax last year, right? Same thinking applies. And there are some who have advocated for eliminating income taxes entirely and just going entirely to those other forms of taxes. That's a pretty significant change though. I certainly wouldn't complain about never having to file income taxes again though. The problem is that usually when folks talk about adding something like a national sales tax, they're wanting to do this in addition to the existing income taxes. Which is not the right direction to go, IMO.

Unless you had something else in mind?
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#759 Mar 15 2018 at 10:11 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
1. How else would you tax business revenue though?

As you said, taxing revenue doesn't make sense, because business with low profit margins are taxed disproportionately higher. That exact same flaw is present with people. If two people have the exact same income, but one lives in a higher cost of living area, then taxing them based on revenue is unequal for the exact same reasons as taxing two businesses with equal revenue but unequal expenses. More commonly, the tax is relatively higher on the poor, as a greater percentage of their income goes to basic expenses of running a businessliving.
gbaji wrote:
2. I've posted at length in the past why there's a very good reason to tax capital gains at a separate/lower rate than direct income.

And you're wrong, because there is no difference between the two.

a) If I invest $1 million to start my business, make a profit of $500,000, compensate myself as an employee for $500,000, and then sell my business for $1 million to someone else, the $500,000 I earned is taxed as wages.

b) If I invest $1 million to start my business, make a profit of $500,000, leave the money in the company, and then sell my business for $1.5 million to someone else, the $500,00 I earned is taxed as capital gains.

I have done the exact same activity, with the exact same effect on the economy, but received a different tax rate based on superficial labeling of my income. The entire reason capital gains exists is because that's how the wealthiest people with the most control over the system make their greatest percentage of income, so they have controlled the laws to give them a special, lower, tax rate. This is the government picking winners and losers, which I thought conservatives were against.
gbaji wrote:
3. I'm not sure what your point on this is at all. Kinda have to have some kind of time period we're going to measure to calculate taxes. How would you do this differently?

This goes back to capital gains, but exists in other elements of the tax system.

If I buy stock on January 1, 2009 and sell it on December 31, 2009, I pay normal income tax rates on it. If I buy stock on January 1, 2009 and sell it on January 1, 2010, I pay a lower rate for it being a long term capital gain. It's an arbitrary and abrupt cutoff. Taxation shouldn't' be a piece-wise function. It should be analytical.

This is the government again picking winners and losers.

Edited, Mar 15th 2018 11:15pm by Allegory
#760 Mar 15 2018 at 11:33 PM Rating: Decent
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Allegory wrote:
gbaji wrote:
1. How else would you tax business revenue though?

As you said, taxing revenue doesn't make sense, because business with low profit margins are taxed disproportionately higher. That exact same flaw is present with people. If two people have the exact same income, but one lives in a higher cost of living area, then taxing them based on revenue is unequal for the exact same reasons as taxing two businesses with equal revenue but unequal expenses. More commonly, the tax is relatively higher on the poor, as a greater percentage of their income goes to basic expenses of running a businessliving.


I'll start out by pointing out that you didn't actually answer the question. How would you do this differently?

I totally get the analogy you are making. A business with higher relative operating expenses is like a person living in a higher cost of living area. It sounds more like you're trying to make an argument that people should be able to deduct cost of living from their taxes just as businesses can deduct business expenses though, rather than the other way around. Which is a whole different argument.

The idea is that we want to encourage spending as an investment and not as a direct benefit to the spender. Business expenses have to be something that is a legitimate expense relating to the business. There's some wiggle room, and certainly some abuse, but you can't just buy yourself a nice home stereo system and deduct it from your taxes. If you did this sort of thing for personal income taxes, what's to prevent someone from spending every dime they earn on "stuff", so as to eliminate their tax burden? At a bare minimum, I'm better off buying myself something than putting that money into an IRA, since the former will not be taxed.

Which seems backwards, right? I get the relative cost of living thing, but when you try to apply this, it just doesn't work. I suppose we could talk just about food and housing and transportation costs (and whatever other "necessities" we might come up with), but there's nothing to stop me from renting in a more expensive neighborhood, or buying a more expensive car, or buying steak instead of chicken, right? I'd be incentivized to waste money under such a system.


Quote:
gbaji wrote:
2. I've posted at length in the past why there's a very good reason to tax capital gains at a separate/lower rate than direct income.

And you're wrong, because there is no difference between the two.

a) If I invest $1 million to start my business, make a profit of $500,000, compensate myself as an employee for $500,000, and then sell my business for $1 million to someone else, the $500,000 I earned is taxed as wages.

b) If I invest $1 million to start my business, make a profit of $500,000, leave the money in the company, and then sell my business for $1.5 million to someone else, the $500,00 I earned is taxed as capital gains.

I have done the exact same activity, with the exact same effect on the economy, but received a different tax rate based on superficial labeling of my income.


It doesn't work that way though. At least not most of the time. What you're ignoring is risk and time. In case one, if I make $500k in profit and pay it to myself, I get $500k. Immediately. Directly into my pocket, as each dollar of profit is earned. Assuming I take zero pay for the period of time in question (or at least, not the $500k we're talking about), then I have to do something with that money. If I just put it into a bank account, then I have to pay that as profit, which is taxed. Then, when I sell the business, I'm taxed *again* on that as a capital gain (total assets are increased by the amount in the account, right?). If I spend it on the business in some way (presumably this is expenses beyond what is actually required to simply operate the business, or it wouldn't be money I could have just paid to me as salary or put into an account and not touched), then this is some form of expansion of the business. And that includes risk. Just as there's no guarantee that the first million I invested would generate a profit in the first place, there's also no guarantee that after investing the entire $500k profit into expanding the business will do so either. It's certainly no guarantee that after having spent that money, a person buying the business from me will pay exactly an additional $500k for the business than if I hadn't.

That's the entire point behind capital gains being taxed lower. You are taking money you already have and choosing to risk it rather than just put it in your pocket. If you put it in your pocket today, you get taxed at the full income tax rate. If you invest it in some way, and then wait at least a full year, then I can sell it for whatever it's worth and pay a smaller rate on the increase in value.

Your argument works perfectly if we assume that every single investment returns a gain, every single time. They don't though. Especially in the example you gave.

The far more common case of capital gains comes in the form of investments in various forms of stock though. And that's not something you can equate to "I could have earned this money as income instead" cases. In that case, there's a strong argument that even our lower capital gains rates aren't low enough. We still see far far too much profit taking and "gambling" in the market versus traditional long term investment. The problem with the short term stuff is that it's not pro-growth. You're not interested in putting money into a company that you think will grow and thrive, allowing market forces to cause money to gravitate towards "good" businesses. You're instead just riding trends in the market. Buying low, and selling high, not really caring what you're buying and selling, or whether those things represent something that is of actual value to others.

I think there's value in rewarding longer term investments. Again, I'm not claiming this is the only or even the best way to do this. But simply saying "it's unfair" without presenting an alternative, isn't terribly useful.

Quote:
The entire reason capital gains exists is because that's how the wealthiest people with the most control over the system make their greatest percentage of income, so they have controlled the laws to give them a special, lower, tax rate. This is the government picking winners and losers, which I thought conservatives were against.


I'd argue that we want "the wealthiest people" to "make their greatest percentage of income" that way. That's the whole point. To get those people to invest in longer term things, requiring that those things actually increase in value rather than just "playing the market". When 10 people walk to a poker table and gamble, the exact same amount of dollars leave the table as entered. While the money may move hands, the total value didn't increase. We want a market which creates growth in the things that "the wealthy" spend their money on, right? That only happens via actual capital gain. That's what a capital gain is. We want to encourage the "invest in growth" mentality more than the "poker table" mentality.

And, as I pointed out earlier, it also encourages those same wealthy people to invest in shared owernship rather than private ownership (via publicly traded corporations). Which means that you and I, and everyone else who is not already rich enough to own their own business, can participate. And, at least in the arena where capital gains are involved, your investment earns exactly the same percentage of gain and will be taxed at exactly the same rate, as the money invested by the wealthy.

That's not about picking winners and losers. It's about allowing more people to play the game. If we taxed capital gains at the same rate as income, it would not benefit you or I at all. It would marginally hurt "the rich", but what we'd see is a return to the 19th century robber baron style of business model, with the rich directly owning all big businesses, and living off the profits, with little or no chance for anyone else to ever get a crumb.

Again. It's not perfect, but it's better than every other method we've tried.


Quote:
gbaji wrote:
3. I'm not sure what your point on this is at all. Kinda have to have some kind of time period we're going to measure to calculate taxes. How would you do this differently?

This goes back to capital gains, but exists in other elements of the tax system.

If I buy stock on January 1, 2009 and sell it on December 31, 2009, I pay normal income tax rates on it. If I buy stock on January 1, 2009 and sell it on January 1, 2010, I pay a lower rate for it being a long term capital gain. It's an arbitrary and abrupt cutoff. Taxation shouldn't' be a piece-wise function. It should be analytical.


Ok. Would any other length of time be less arbitrary? Again. How would you do this differently? I've already explained at length (and I'm sure you believe me when I say I could explain at greater length too!) why there are good reasons to reward long(er) term investments with a lower tax rate. You're free to disagree with those points, but as you say, one follows from the other. Having decided that there's a value to encouraging people to put money into investments and leave it there for a period of time rather than selling at the first moment a profit is realized, then offering a lower tax rate after that period of time is a good way to do this. At that point, the only question is about how long that period should be. One year is certainly arbitrary, but so would any other length of time we might choose.

Quote:
This is the government again picking winners and losers.


You keep saying this, but I don't think you know what it means.

Ok. Joke aside, I don't really understand that you think this means when you keep saying it. Picking winners and losers is when you create some economic effect that directly benefits a set of people or businesses based on a non-market based criteria. Setting broad rules (like capital gains) that applies to everyone is not remotely similar. If you buy some stocks and later sell them, you get the same benefit of capital gains taxes that everyone else gets. I'm not sure why you seem to think there's some magic barrier that makes this only help out "the rich".

The only barrier isn't something the government does, but the basic fact that the wealthier you are, the more you can afford to spend beyond the amount needed for subsistence. And if you're looking purely at this from the angle of "OMG! That lower tax rate totally benefits people more who have more money", then you are only seeing half the picture. They'd have that money anyway. The question is about what they do with it. Isn't it better to encourage that money to be invested in things that grow over time, rather than simply spent directly for the benefit of the individual?

Go back to your earlier example. If there was no tax consideration, I'd have no reason *not* to just pocket the $500k and spend it on myself, right? But because there's a tax benefit to me not even just keeping that money in a bank account in the business (cause that would be taxed as a business profit as I mentioned earlier), but actually expanding it, so as to increase the total value of the company to a prospective buyer, then I'm more likely to do that. And by doing that, I'm more likely, along the way, to employ more people, produce more goods, provide more value to others, and a host of other positive economic effects.

That's why the capital gains tax exists. And yeah, I happen to think it's a very good thing. It's about creating an incentive for "the rich" to use their money in positive ways. And yeah, as with any incentive, that means it's a benefit to them. But what's the alternative? Not doing this? How will that be better?
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#761 Mar 16 2018 at 2:23 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Picking winners and losers is when you create some economic effect that directly benefits a set of people or businesses based on a non-market based criteria.
The scary part is that you don't get what you just did.
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#762 Mar 16 2018 at 7:01 AM Rating: Good
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Allegory wrote:
It should be analytical.
If it were analytical the people that avoid paying taxes because they feel it's "theft" would actually be affected, and they just can't have that.
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#763 Mar 16 2018 at 7:22 AM Rating: Excellent
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To be fair, some people avoid taxes because they decide "Math is hard, let's go shopping!" rather than filing their taxes.
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#764 Mar 16 2018 at 9:19 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Picking winners and losers is when you create some economic effect that directly benefits a set of people or businesses based on a non-market based criteria.
The scary part is that you don't get what you just did.


Grasp the difference between market and non-market based criteria? Oh wait! That's what you are not getting.

Do I actually need to explain to you what the difference is?
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#765 Mar 16 2018 at 11:39 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Picking winners and losers is when you create some economic effect that directly benefits a set of people or businesses based on a non-market based criteria.
The scary part is that you don't get what you just did.


Grasp the difference between market and non-market based criteria? Oh wait! That's what you are not getting.

Do I actually need to explain to you what the difference is?
Wait...I'm supposed to be the blind one here.Smiley: dubious

Oh, wait...you're blindness is selective; carry on.
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#766 Mar 20 2018 at 6:10 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Friar Bijou wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Picking winners and losers is when you create some economic effect that directly benefits a set of people or businesses based on a non-market based criteria.
The scary part is that you don't get what you just did.


Grasp the difference between market and non-market based criteria? Oh wait! That's what you are not getting.

Do I actually need to explain to you what the difference is?
Wait...I'm supposed to be the blind one here.Smiley: dubious

Oh, wait...you're blindness is selective; carry on.


You're the one who selectively ignored the rest of the paragraph after the sentence you quoted:

gbaji wrote:
Ok. Joke aside, I don't really understand that you think this means when you keep saying it. Picking winners and losers is when you create some economic effect that directly benefits a set of people or businesses based on a non-market based criteria. Setting broad rules (like capital gains) that applies to everyone is not remotely similar. If you buy some stocks and later sell them, you get the same benefit of capital gains taxes that everyone else gets. I'm not sure why you seem to think there's some magic barrier that makes this only help out "the rich".


I was quite clear about how what we were talking about (capital gains tax rates) did not fall into the category of "picking winners and losers". You're free to disagree, of course. But if you do, then you might want to maybe actually provide an argument as to why you think capital gains tax rates fall into that category rather than just labeling my own statement as some sort of blindness.

Setting tax rates based on the economic impact of the economic activity you are taxing quite clearly falls into the category of "market based criteria". I literally spent several paragraphs explaining the market reasons why we might want to tax capital gains differently than we tax regular income, including several examples of the economic impact of one versus the other. Again, you're free to disagree with my reasoning about capital gains taxes. Heck, you're even free to disagree with my definition of "picking winners and losers". But then you actually need to bother to do those things, and not just toss some snarky response about how I "don't get what you just did".

Can you do that?
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#767 Mar 20 2018 at 7:05 PM Rating: Excellent
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I ignored the rest of the paragraph because your claim is idiotic.

It'd equivalent to saying "There's a mechanic I know that will work on your Maserati for $10/hr. This is a market-based decision as all the money you save can be spent buying another Maserati, thus helping the economy. This deal isn't just for the rich!!! ANY Maserati owner can take advantage of this."
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#768 Mar 20 2018 at 7:41 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
I ignored the rest of the paragraph because your claim is idiotic.


Um... Ok. You're free to claim that, but it's not actually true. You know, if you'd bothered to read it.

Quote:
It'd equivalent to saying "There's a mechanic I know that will work on your Maserati for $10/hr. This is a market-based decision as all the money you save can be spent buying another Maserati, thus helping the economy. This deal isn't just for the rich!!! ANY Maserati owner can take advantage of this."


Except what I actually said was that the same capital gains rate applies to any investment return, by anyone, regardless of the relative amount they invest. I specifically spoke about how it was not restricted to "the rich". Anyone with a 401k is taking advantage of this capital gains rate. Anyone who chooses to invest in the market can take advantage of this rate. You have $100 to invest? You put your $100 in the same stock that a rich person puts $100M into? The stock doubles in prices over the next year? You the exact same relative return ($200 out versus his $200M), and you both pay the exact same tax rate on the gain.

The rate is not tied to your own personal wealth at all. It's the same rate for everyone.

The idea that you're equating owing any sort of investment as though it's owning a Maserati is absurd. Lots of people have investments of one form or another. Whether it's in a home (somewhere around 65% of all personal dwellings are owned by someone living there), or some form of stock market investment (just over 50% of the population), most people have something that will provide them with a potential capital gain. Thus, most people benefit from this lower rate. Not just folks wealthy enough to own Maseratis.

Your flaw is assuming that such things are only beneficial for "the rich". That's simply not true.
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#769 Mar 20 2018 at 8:37 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Your flaw is assuming that such things are only beneficial for "the rich". That's simply not true.
OK, somehow I've got an extra $100 a month to buy stock. To make the math easy, let's say I invest $1200 in a year and get a return of 5%. I made $60 profit. I claim it as capital gains. I don't have the tax tables in front of me, but just for fun, let's say I get a $5 tax break from said capital gains.

Now let's say Joe Bob invests $60,000 a year because he can. He gets a tax break of $250.

NOW let's say Uncle Moneybags invests $60,000,000 because he can. He gets a tax break of $250,000

In your head, the system is "fair" because it's proportional.

In my case, I can buy a 5lb bag of beans. In his case, he gets a new Maserati.



Totaly fair and exactly the same. The rich gain no more benefit from capital gains than I do.Smiley: rolleyes



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#770 Mar 21 2018 at 7:13 AM Rating: Good
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Friar Bijou wrote:
Totaly fair and exactly the same. The rich gain no more benefit from capital gains than I do.
True. It is fair, it is exactly the same and the rich don't gain anymore than you do proportionally.

Now, if you want to make a case that they should gain less proportionally, that's a different discussion and one that a case could be made for if one wanted to. But then it wouldn't be fair, or exactly the same, nor would you both get the same benefit.
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#771 Mar 21 2018 at 7:04 PM Rating: Excellent
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Oh hey, here's the Republican candidate for Congress in IL-3, Arthur Jones, giving a speech before the Aryan Nations World Congress because we all know Nazis are all socialists.

Screenshot

I mean, it says "Socialist" right in the organization name behind him. Obviously a total socialist liberal Democrat!

Screenshot


Just to be clear, this is the guy who will be on the general election ballot, not some no-name primary candidate who got 50 votes.

Edited, Mar 21st 2018 8:17pm by Jophiel
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#772 Mar 21 2018 at 9:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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I hate Illinois naZis.

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#773 Mar 22 2018 at 1:32 AM Rating: Excellent
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Clearly, he's a planted Democrat.
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#774 Mar 22 2018 at 7:21 AM Rating: Excellent
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I like all those heritage and history only and not symbolizing anything else at all Confederate flags.
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#775 Mar 22 2018 at 8:10 AM Rating: Excellent
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lolgaxe wrote:
I like all those heritage and history only and not symbolizing anything else at all Confederate flags.
Funny that even Nazis think Gbaji's lame flag defenses are full of shit.
Jones wrote:
This flag represents to millions of White Americans, a symbol of White pride and White resistance. It is the flag of a White counter revolution.

Nope, nothing racist about that at all. Just people who really like magnolia blossoms and call all their sodas "Coke".
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#776 Mar 22 2018 at 8:53 PM Rating: Decent
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Friar Bijou wrote:
In your head, the system is "fair" because it's proportional.


Yes. What's strange is that in *your* head, you seem to think it's not. Want to know what else is fair? The guy who earns $15/hour gets more benefit from overtime than the guy who earns $10/hour. OMG! Because... it's proportional. Shocking. And the guy who buys a $100k car, and then sells it 5 years later for 1/3rd the value gets more for his car than the guy who buys a $20k care and also sells it 5 years later for 1/3rd the value. Of course, in that case, we can also argue that he lost more total dollars in value too. Um... But the loss is proportional. Hence... fair.

What would be unfair is to argue that we should apply some kind of bizarre mechanism that provides greater relative returns on investments for those who invest fewer relative dollars. I'm not even sure how we'd work such a system, but it would certainly not be fair at all.

How would you do this differently?

Quote:
In my case, I can buy a 5lb bag of beans. In his case, he gets a new Maserati.


Comparing someone who's investing $1200 versus someone investing $60M is pretty absurd though. He's got 60 freaking million dollars already. It's not like the capital gains tax rate made him rich.

Quote:
Totaly fair and exactly the same. The rich gain no more benefit from capital gains than I do.Smiley: rolleyes


Again. Massive excluded middle here. Where capital gains really has an effect is on the middle class. Someone making between $50k and $100k per year can afford to invest a decent amount of money per year. Nowhere near the amounts the uber rich play around with, but here's the point. For that person, his investments, and the benefits of a lower capital gains tax rate, may very well make a huge difference in terms of his retirement and almost certainly make the difference between dying with nothing left for his heirs versus being able to pass some of that down to the next generation.

The rich guy is rich regardless of the capital gains tax rate. It's not going to affect his standard of living much, or his ability to live comfortably in retirement, or his ability to provide a large estate to his heirs. You could raise capital gains tax rates as high as you want and it'll never make him "poor" as a result. The affect of capital gains rates on the middle class? Much more significant.

In your haste to attack "the rich", you're throwing out a whole lot of other people along the way.
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