(07-02-2020 03:02 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: (07-02-2020 02:24 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: (07-02-2020 02:10 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote: Let's dig into the practicalities.
What makes a wealth tax socialist and a graduated income tax not socialist? If you can explain the distinction clearly, that would be very helpful.
What makes a wealth tax socialist is that it is focused directly on wealth redistribution. What makes a graduated income tax not socialist is I don't know, do you? I think it is a matter of degree. The kind of graduated tax that most of Europe has, where the top rate is something like 1.5 times the minimum rate (1.7 in Sweden), or not graduated at all in many countries, is very different from one where the top rate is 3 or 4 times the lowest rate (3.7 in the USA today). Plus remember that all of Europe has some form of "regressive" consumption tax that levels out the effective tax structure even more.
i would say that *any* graduated income tax is rooted in socialism -- it is a route to redistribute wealth (and obligations) to differing people based exclusively in the concept of the war cry of progressivism -- their 'fair' share.
You cannot escape that the roots of *any* progressive income taxation is in itself a version of socialism --- it is the taking of personal property, and allocated expressly in the notion of the redistribution of that obligation based on 'equity' and 'fairness'.
The levels that the progressive tax rises to is not an indication of whether or not it is socialistic in nature, the singular fact in the disparate allocation absed solely on 'fairness' makes any progressive tax 'socialistic'.
The amount of confiscation only goes to how far down the collectivist (socialistic) path it should be considered as.
Quote:See, i don't see a wealth tax as any more or less socialist than a progressive income tax, an estate tax, or any other sort of tax.
I am sure you dont
Quote:Inherently, all taxes are about redistributing wealth, because they allow the government to collect revenue and spend it on things they deem fit. And those things (for lack of a better word) do not benefit every citizen exactly equally.
And while you match the 'equalness' of the social program, you flip the idea of the concept of socialism on its head. The goal of any collectivist pogrom is the unequal allocation of both the end results of a program, and the unequal assessment of the costs. You (again) overlook one entire side of the issue to mischaracterize the issue.
One question to you should resolve this:
Why should someone earning 200k a year pay any more as a percentage of tax than a person earning 40k a year? Seriously, please answer this one question.
Quote:This also touches on the pornography concept - one person's redistribution could be another person's safety net.
A+ for rhetoric. D- for content. And an F for overlooking the issues that underlie them. And at the same time you merely restate exactly *why* any tax that involves social transfers is socialistic in nature.
The underlying assumption is that 'how dare you label it a redistribution?' I mean, good fing grief, that is *exactly* its purpose, is it not? You want to stay away from that and label that particular redistribution in the most emotive means possible --- how dare they label a SAFETY NET as a redistribution. You hea
Kind of a carny level semantic game you do there, and I am torn between being aghast at it and being impressed by it.
Again:
Why should someone earning 200k a year pay any more as a percentage of tax than a person earning 40k a year? Seriously, please answer this one question.
And trust me, no one blanches at some forms of 'socialistic' behavior. Kind of the underlying theme behind and army and armed forces, etc.
But when you get to the level of the only distinctions on who pays relatively more based on 'fairness' -- which your redistribution/SAFETY NET plea does above, then you are firmly in the colelctivist camp.
Here I will answer the question for you, since you will evade it. You will say that it is only 'fair' that the person making 200k have both more nominally taken, and relatively taken, than the person making 40k.
There is a certain level of justification for the nominal disparity -- hey, we are all in the mix to 22% sounds like a great construct for a society. The issue then becomes, why is inherently 'more fair' (as you socialists will argue) that the person making 200k should pay not just the 22% baseline, but *any* extra on top of that?
That *any* extra is absolutely a more direct and more palpable redistribution than the baseline. And the progressive line is that is rooted in 'fairness' -- which again is the catch all reasoning behind any socialistic venture.