When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

Re:When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer by djrogers on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @11:39AM (#15176267)

Under your proposal, the roughly 50% of Americans with zero net wealth would pay nothing. That’s fine on paper, but it would actually incent people to stay in debt and dis-incent the accumulation of savings.

Look at it this way, I can either buy a bigger house with more debt whenever I have some extra money laying around, or I can save that cash and have the government take some of it every year. You also incent people to spend money on non-material things like travel and entertainment, rather than spending cash on a reasonable car (because leasing the car and blowing the other $20k in Vegas sounds like more fun).

There’s a simple maxim in taxes and economics - do not tax activities you want to encourage, and tax those which you want to curtail.

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Re:When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer by baursak on Tuesday September 05, 2017 @11:49AM (#15176372)

I wouldn't start taxing any wealth below a certain threshold at all. Like $200K or something.

If you buys a bigger house, if equity portion of that house is above a taxable threshold -- say a $1M house, and you have $200K equity, then that equity will be taxed. Very minimally I might add.

> do not tax activities you want to encourage, and tax those which you want to curtail.

That's not working out currently. Unless you want to encourage massive wealth inequality.

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