I would have to disagree almost entirely - their ability to pay is why they are being asked to. This much is basic economics, I should have thought. Someone who has no more to give cannot, and there is little point asking.

Most of the wealth == most of the taxes. This is justified in a basic arithmetical sense.

> Most of the wealth == most of the taxes. This is justified in a basic arithmetical sense.

No, most of the income == most of the taxes, and that is the situation we are already in. My point is that it's hard to justify asking for even more money from the group of people who already pay more than half of the taxes.

You're quite right, my apologies, I saw a thing and wrote a response to something you hadn't said.

I suppose I mean to say that this is the thing really - income tax on its own is not working, evidently, given that it is so easily avoided. Surely the idea is that everyone should want to commit as much as they can to the furtherment of their community, nation and species. The very fact that things like this, game-theoretic winner-take-all, tax "avoidance" (because it's legal, therefore morally fine), exist is enough to make me wonder if there is any point at all to my existence, let alone the existence of the poor sods who aren't fortunate to make even as much as I.

But then I strongly suspect I'm a lefty pinko communist and shouldn't be trusted in a proper discussion about actual fiscal policy.

There are many people that don't view the expansion of a government's budget as the 'furtherment of their community'. When you hold the view that governments are full of corruption and incompetence, then the moral thing to do is deprive it of as much income as possible.

I think I could justify it just fine.

> I think I could justify it just fine.

Do it, then. Don't just post worthless snark.

Taxes on the wealthy are at historic lows and wealth inequality at historic highs at a time when we have many important but underfunded programs that would benefit all of us. What's the argument against it? That it isn't "fair"? That rich people will stop trying to earn more money? I don't find that to be credible.

There are several arguments against it:

If you depend on a small number of people for the majority of tax revenue, you will end up with unstable revenue. Look what happened to California's tax revenue during the 2008 recession. It dropped because the small number of rich people who pay more than half of the taxes got hit pretty hard by the recession.

Besides, do we really want to live in a society where only a small group of people has a financial stake in the funding of the government? Voters would probably be a bit more informed if they had some skin in the game. We really don't want to live in a society where the majority of voters will always approve spending increases because they know their taxes won't increase, and the cost of the increase will be borne by the top few percent. That will get us a runaway train of government spending.

Since the top 1% continue to accumulate a vast percent of the wealth, they are the best ones to tax to support the rest. It is unfortunately that things are so unbalanced that the poor don't have much to tax. We could choose to do nothing about it and let the rich keep more of the money. Eventually it will result in more of the poor and average people falling behind. Where will Walmart gets their billions when none of their workers and customers have money to spend? At the worst the whole economy will stagnate or people will revolt. The super rich could afford to take and "us vs them" mentality and bunker down somewhere safe.

Or... We could reduce government spending. That also works from an arithmetical standpoint.

The top three US non discretionary spending categories are Social Security, Medicare, and Defense. I whole heartedly agree it's time to gut US defense spending, considering we spend more than the next 10 countries combined.

Cutting spending would make the us look weak. Simply not increasing it drastically is good too. Over a long period of time inflation will take over and the spending amount as a percentage of gdp will go down.

Fair is in the eye of the beholder. But the only reason the rich pay so much in nominal taxes is because their incomes (which are directly and strongly correlated with their wealth) are so ridiculously high.

Keep in mind that just because Bob is paying a million dollars in taxes and Julia is paying ten dollars in taxes does not mean the system is unfair towards Bob. Especially if Bob should actually be paying three million dollars in taxes, but has used creative accounting practices and tax avoidance schemes to reduce his tax burden.

> Especially if Bob should actually be paying three million dollars in taxes, but has used creative accounting practices and tax avoidance schemes to reduce his tax burden.

If the accounting schemes and tax avoidance schemes are legal according to the tax code, then they are what determine what he should pay.

The amount someone should pay is the amount he or she is legally required to pay. The tax laws are the only standard by which the amount of taxes someone should pay can be determined.

And of course tax law has been the same since the dawn of time, there can be no argument to brook with the idea that it currently does not work.

Morals musn't enter this argument, it would muddy the waters too much.

Agree! Which is why it's time to vote for an increase in taxes on the highest marginal income bands.

And then, the law being the law, those taxes will be paid.

I thought we were talking about fairness, not legality. They are different concepts that are only sometimes related.

If we're just talking about 'fairness' in the non legal sense, why is it that taxes should be income-based anyway?

>Keep in mind that just because Bob is paying a million dollars in taxes and Julia is paying ten dollars in taxes does not mean the system is unfair towards Bob.

Yes it does. The reason Bob pays more has nothing to do with fairness. Bob has money the government can take without his permission and Julia doesn't. That's the long and the short of it.

Hmm, you didn't address his point about corporate loopholes and capital gains, which I thought was the more interesting part of the argument.