Taxing wealth vs taxing income (free market, real estate, purchase, interest)

[Phil P]

So, considering wealth to be the total assets/savings/investments of an individual and income is the amount of money/assets gained in a year:

What are the pro's/con's of taxing wealth vs income?

How would you tax wealth?

Would a wealth tax shift consumerism away from durable goods to non durable goods?

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by Phil P

What are the pro's/con's of taxing wealth vs income?

It's not an either/or... both need to be done.
And whatever may be the "best" way today...
will need to be changed rather often as the tax attorneys restructure how the wealthy do it.

How would you tax wealth?

Property and personal taxes (as the states do it now).

[oaktonite]

Actually, the burden of the current income tax creates tax-shares that are fairly close to the way wealth-shares are distributed. That kind of makes it a flat-tax on wealth, so taxes on the wealthy do need to be jacked up some more.

[hartford_renter]

Originally Posted by oaktonite

Actually, the burden of the current income tax creates tax-shares that are fairly close to the way wealth-shares are distributed. That kind of makes it a flat-tax on wealth, so taxes on the wealthy do need to be jacked up some more.

No taxes on the wealthy do not need to increase they already pay for everything

What we need is spending cuts, cuts to social security Medicare and welfare

Then we need a 50% tax cut

If anything the poor need to pay something right now they are literally deadbeat takers

[NJBest]

Originally Posted by hartford_renter

No taxes on the wealthy do not need to increase they already pay for everything

What we need is spending cuts, cuts to social security Medicare and welfare

Then we need a 50% tax cut

If anything the poor need to pay something right now they are literally deadbeat takers

You left out military spending. More specifically... military personnel spending (as opposed to R&D).

[icicles]

Why focus on taxing wealth producers? why not eliminate the non-wealth producers and be more efficient. which means eliminate the government to minimal as possible and get rid of all subsidies and welfare.

Whatever you tax more of you get less of. whatever you subsidize, you get more of.

So why would we tax the rich? get less of, and subsidize the poor, get more of?

[kanhawk]

Originally Posted by Phil P

So, considering wealth to be the total assets/savings/investments of an individual and income is the amount of money/assets gained in a year:

What are the pro's/con's of taxing wealth vs income?

How would you tax wealth?

Would a wealth tax shift consumerism away from durable goods to non durable goods?

I think to tax wealth you'd have to start having federal property tax. Now only the states and localities tax homes and real estate, correct? So the mansions and ocean front property may provide revenue to the states but not the feds.
If we are going to have an ever increasing number of people on government assistance like Democrats want such as the 140% increase in food stamp enrollment since 1990, the revenue to pay for it is going to have to come from somewhere beyond income tax.

[Phil P]

Whats personal taxes?

Also, would taxing wealth decrease the incentive to save and increase the incentive to consume?

One of the benifits I've heard of wealth taxes is that they sort of jumpstart big purchases like houses by allowing more income for initial payments with the greater tax coming as the purchase is payed off.

A con I've heard is that a wealth tax may cause the currently wealthy citizens of a country to jump ship to another country which does not tax their wealth.

[countofmc]

Taxing wealth simply will not work. Unless you want to create a huge disincentive to save and also hurt the already horrible retirement savings crisis in this country, you would need to create some kind of exemption so as not to hurt your average Joe saving for retirement. Maybe $1 million. Now once you do that, the people with assets above that (the rich) have the ability to just move capital overseas. So creating a wealth taxing regime that would generate enough revenue to make it worthwhile is probably not going to happen.

I'm a huge proponent of taxing consumption harder. But we are such a consumer society now that everyone will go ape**** if that happens.

[icicles]

Why would you tax wealth?

From a logical stand point, the wealthy of the country , IN A TRUE FREE MARKET, which most people on this forum will probably not understand because we do not have a free market system right now, the wealthy of the country actually are the most generous people in that society. they create products that people want and bring GREATER utility/productivity to the nation than they extract from it.

This is what brings wealth to them. by being more generous, by sacrificing and bringing more utility than one consumes.


So why the hell would anyone in their right mind take from the hardworking, generous class of society, and hand it over to the utility suckers? To those how are selfish and don't bring greater good to society?

What incentive would one have to be generous? or wealthy?

I think we should have a flat tax, get rid of the crap money system who steals from the poor and middle class and gives it to the rich right now through inflation. get rid of money released at interest. If we can get a legit system, get rid of the leaches in government and the bankers, our society will be FAR better off, and the wealth will be better distributed, and more fairly distributed.

The smallest minority is the individual, protect their rights, freedom, and personal property, which includes their time and money.

And to get the record straight, income is NOT profit. that is payment for an exchange of labor/time, which is not a profit in my book and should not be taxed at all.

I suggest a back end sales tax on items and have it be a flat tax.