Capitalism Doesn’t Work

[naut]

[...] tax inheritance [...]

Inheritance tax shouldn't exist, the effect it intends is perfectly manageable by income tax as covered under capital gains. I.e., my father dies and leaves me 400,000 Woolongs, thus putting me into a tax bracket of 40% for every ₩1 above ₩60,000. The inheritance is still effectively taxed this way, no?


I feel we are in a sense approaching, or maybe already in, that stage of a Monopoly game where 1 player holds all the property and the remaining few sweat their way around with 3 mortgaged properties and $42 in the pocket. All the while only picking up their $200, praying for a break on that next roll, hoping to avoid another big bill. And what happens if they keep playing after they've sold off the last of their land? And been placed in jail? The one with all the property wins of course! But, what does he do now? Everyone who could keep passing him wealth is in jail and he has no way of increasing his wealth. No one to sell his wares to. I suppose he changes the rules. Makes it so the other players have just enough to make it round with enough for beer and only the occasional scrape with the law.

Nah... what am I blabbering about, just a fairy tale, made-up, not happening, Māyā.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Inheritance tax shouldn't exist, the effect it intends is perfectly manageable by income tax as covered under capital gains. I.e., my father dies and leaves me 400,000 Woolongs, thus putting me into a tax bracket of 40% for every ₩1 above ₩60,000. The inheritance is still effectively taxed this way, no?


I feel we are in a sense approaching, or maybe already in, that stage of a Monopoly game where 1 player holds all the property and the remaining few sweat their way around with 3 mortgaged properties and $42 in the pocket. All the while only picking up their $200, praying for a break on that next roll, hoping to avoid another big bill. And what happens if they keep playing after they've sold off the last of their land? And been placed in jail? The one with all the property wins of course! But, what does he do now? Everyone who could keep passing him wealth is in jail and he has no way of increasing his wealth. No one to sell his wares to. I suppose he changes the rules. Makes it so the other players have just enough to make it round with enough for beer and only the occasional scrape with the law.

Nah... what am I blabbering about, just a fairy tale, made-up, not happening, Māyā.

I mislike income taxes and loathe the progressive income tax. The PIT is always bandied about as a panacea for the redistribution of wealth but it usually serves to impede the progress of those in the working and middle class.

You're framing things better in that you aren't exempting capital gains (though taxing capital gains equally will have a chilling effect on investment), cutting out some of the shenanigans, but the issue is not income but wealth.

If you believe that wealth is the core of the problem, then tax it -- efforts to tax wealth indirectly via income will always result in dodging and loophole efforts while putting an obstacle in the path of the middle and working classes bettering themselves. Loopholes, dodging, (and criminal avoidance) will occur in whatever system is imposed, so make it direct to what you seek to curtail and don't catch other people in the backlash.

[Beskar]

I don't see how progressive taxation harms the Working and Middle classes, as the thresholds are far higher than what they earn.

For example, in the UK, up to £10k is not taxed. A minimum wage job working 37.5 hours a week is £13k, National average is £26k, professionals such as a Doctor earn £37k-70k, Consultants earn £75k-101k. Teachers earn between £21k-65k (depending on area and experience). The Prime Minister earns £142k.

So here are some figures of wages of professionals (middle class) and the working class.

Progressive taxation starts at £150k.

In short: It doesn't affect the working and middle class at all. It only affects rich people.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I don't see how progressive taxation harms the Working and Middle classes, as the thresholds are far higher than what they earn.

For example, in the UK, up to £10k is not taxed. A minimum wage job working 37.5 hours a week is £13k, National average is £26k, professionals such as a Doctor earn £37k-70k, Consultants earn £75k-101k. Teachers earn between £21k-65k (depending on area and experience). The Prime Minister earns £142k.

So here are some figures of wages of professionals (middle class) and the working class.

Progressive taxation starts at £150k.

In short: It doesn't affect the working and middle class at all. It only affects rich people.

Your first income band is taxed at 20% rate; your first "progressive" band starts at 31,866 and is taxed at 40%, and the highest band (150k plus) is 45% only a 1/8th increase above the rate of those at 31.9k; moreover, this is over and above a Value added tax levied on all consumers and an inheritance tax on anything above 325k. While the latter does seem to be aimed at wealth, the 32-150 band rates do not seem to conform to your "only the rich" mantra -- aren't the folks in that 32-150 band the small business owners, new start ups, etc.? In short, the very people you would want to encourage more of so as to employ more and grow the economy? So why should they be taxed higher than that Nat'l average worker? Taxation always has a chilling effect on what is taxed.

[Beskar]

aren't the folks in that 32-150 band the small business owners, new start ups, etc.?

No they are not. Start-ups are running at a loss and many people are in negative income, it is when they have produced a viable business, they start taking a wage and income from it.

Then they start employing other staff to help them then they gradually start to increase their own incomes. When they start earning over the 30k mark, it is that their businesses are earning sufficiently enough to pay it.

I have seen enough start-up stories, Dragon's Dens, Business renovations, experiences via family and the like the know about this. As for Family experience, my Uncle and Aunty started their own business with just the two of them in Manchester and now they are head of an operation which has outposts covering three different areas in the UK. Their main gripe is corporation tax, but that is a whole different story.

So why should they be taxed higher than that Nat'l average worker?

Because they earn more? They are still receiving a higher income and the taxation is only applied to money earned over the bracket. Would you say you would turn down a pay-rise which increases your money in real value even though you may pay more in tax? The whole argument is very silly to suggest you would want to receive less money.

150k used to be the 50% tax bracket, I forgot that it was decreased under the Tories.

[Ironside]

You're framing things better in that you aren't exempting capital gains (though taxing capital gains equally will have a chilling effect on investment), cutting out some of the shenanigans, but the issue is not income but wealth.

Is that's the excuse for the blatant regressive tax system for any rich person with half a brain? Aka "let's run with 15% tax rate on capital gains and wonder why every rich man in Amercia pays less taxes than the average American".

I'll counter with that capital gains are the largest wealth accumulation system and that to have any profits from wealth, you'll need to invest anyway.

[HopAlongBunny]

Mayhap the pursuit of profit in the age of oligarchic supply and "too big to fail" is cheapening life.

For example: is Big Pharma out to kill us?:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...d-suicide.html

[HopAlongBunny]

http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

[ICantSpellDawg]

As always, Capitalism only "doesn't work" relative to the problem that it is meant to solve. If the goal was to harvest workers for decreasing amounts of pay and to re-institute indentured servitude, further entrenching oligarchy, voila.

The American worker is like a Turkey. The American Capitalist is like a farmer.
Every day, when the Farmer comes in to feed the Turkey, the Turkey is further cemented into the belief that farming exists to support Turkeys and feed them so that they can grow. They realize on the day before Thanksgiving that their ideas couldn't have been further from the truth.

I have always viewed financial crisis as the culling time of capitalism. Not an unexpected occurrence that is anomalous to the system, but the culmination of greed and crushing boot-on-neck that the system is built for. A bank robber could notice that nobody would put their money in a bank if they robbed it daily, which would also be a tremendous workload and personal peril for the robber. Better for the robber to encourage stability for a long time to consolidate all of the efforts of people so that, maybe just once per year they could come in for the harvest.

People are the chaff; that their byproducts exist at all is the reason, like the proliferation of cows, that our masters allow us to exist all all. The day that robots can produce at a level that adequately serves the obermench, is the day that they will begin to purge us off of this earth.

So, yea - Capitalism works just fine.

[Montmorency]

People are the chaff; that their byproducts exist at all is the reason, like the proliferation of cows, that our masters allow us to exist all all. The day that robots can produce at a level that adequately serves the obermench, is the day that they will begin to purge us off of this earth.

How melodramatic.

But there's no reason to suspect this level of conspiracy, or even the capacity to fulfill it were it to exist.

[Tellos Athenaios]

http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

B-ark, right?