Why not wealth redistribution?

Yes, simply because if unemployment rises beyond a certain percent, it is no longer working as intended.

 

How is unemployment intended to work?



​

 

It isn't. That is the point. If unemployment rises above three percent, then the capital gains distinction should end automatically. It could be about having more funds to pay for unemployment compensation until the wealthiest change their resource allocation pattern.

 

If making it easier for folks to invest in new businesses doesn't produce enough new businesses, make it harder instead?




​

 

Making it easier stifles innovation, if their making record profits from big mac's while the Europeans are developing alternative fuel sources where is America going to end up ?

 

Why not grade redistribution? Lets take A's from kids who work hard and study and give 1 or 2 grades to those that get F's because they don't want to study. So instead of the hard working getting an A, they get a B or C and the guy getting an F can come up with a D or C. Then they both pass. Wouldn't that be fair?

 

You keep missing the point about "folks to invest in new businesses"; if they weren't doing it before, it must be because they didn't have enough market based incentive.

Why do you believe capitalists would ignore the market based metric of higher taxes.

- - - Updated - - -

simply because that is a false analogy. money is fungible.

 

Actually I believe according to the IRS a maximum of $13,000 per year can be given as a gift by one person. Anything over $13,000 is subject to IRS taxation. The $13,000 also does not need to be reported by either party. But if it's over $13,000 it must be reported...

 

That sounds like an argument for discontinuing unemployment insurance. By your theory innovation should go through the roof.



​

 

... that's the only reason?



​

 

What most people dont undserstand, or refuse to accept, is that wealth distribution has ALREADY HAPPENED. Except that distribution went from the poor to the wealthy.

 

You're right. Your annual gift exemption is $14,000 per person, so you could give the $15,000 in three checks ($9,000, $4,000, and $1,000). You'd only owe taxes on the $1,000 and nothing get's reported to the IRS. Note, gift exemptions are not in addition to your lifetime estate tax exemption, they're a part of it.




​

 

No one objects to a person voluntary distributing his own wealth to make purchases. That's called trade. The complaint is when that distributed wealth is then redistributed by government edict and no value is offered in return. Which is not trade.

It amounts to buying a chicken, eating the chicken, and then passing a law requiring the seller to refund what you paid for the chicken.




​

 

There's a difference between passing legislation so that huge companies can't buy other huge companies, they can't send jobs overseas if we need them here, etc. ......and just taking money away from people by force and giving it to other people.

If we passed sensible legislation like the above, the rich wouldn't get so rich and the poor would have some of that money the rich didn't get. If we stop handing out so much welfare and demand that people work unless they're completely unable to move an arm or blink their eyes, we'd bring the poor up.

Trying to make wealth CLOSER to equal is fine. Trying to even things out completely would be ruinous to our culture and is a ridiculous idea.

 

Only excessive forms of socialism require more.

 

The people who do NOT realize that, are essentially missing the truth.

 

We have family that have been slowly and legally siphoning money to us through gifts for years, so the govt doesn't get to STEAL our inheritance when the time comes. I'm sure there are bunch here that see that is HORRIBLE, and that my dead family members should have their money taken and given to the community, instead of their own flesh and blood. Am I right?

 

Making it harder on the employer who is richer, is always better than making it hard for the employee who is poorer.. Power to the net recipients and down with the 50 percent who are net contributors.

 

I couldn't say.




​

 

Do you do that today?

A "gift" is different from an "inheritance" and there are some tax provisions related to gifts.

Here's something I don't understand. I put forward a proposition where 99.9% of Americans would pay zero in inheritance taxes and "conservatives" whine about it. That simply doesn't make any sense to me. The only estates that would ultimately be subjected to an inheritance tax under my proposal would basically be those in the many tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars in total assets. These estates represent the top 1% of the top 1% of households (i.e. one in a thousand) and "conservatives" complain about the proposal. Seriously?

Give me a break because arguing against it is taking a political ideology to the point of absurdity. If you want to stand by an absurd position then you're entitled to do so but it really does discredit any propositions that you might put forward in the future. Try introducing a little reality into your political opinions.

P.S. A $15,000 gift would fall below the $50,000 exemption on income taxation I proposed so there would be no tax on it in any case even if it was claimed as income.

 

I won't search for the link but I recently read that the average person at age 65 has $100,000 in assets including their home. If you've read my federal tax proposal that would change to about $1.5 million for a minimum wage employee (assuming the federal minimum wage is going to increase to $10/hr to account for inflation). A husband and wife both working at minimum wage would have $3 million in assets at age 65.

That's a hell of a lot better than today where a minimum wage worker probably has zero assets at age 65, doesn't own a home, and is probably going to live in poverty off about $15,000 in combined Social Security/welfare benefits plus $15,000 in Medicare benefits creating a $30,000 "redistribution of wealth" under Social Security/Medicare "welfare" program we have today.

The person also has an exemption of $50,000/yr in average household income from taxation. For the majority of Americans that means they purchased their home with tax free dollars under my proposal. The "home" has not been subjected to income taxes when purchased. It also means that every American at retirement will receive the first $50,000 in income from their invesments tax free.

Yes, investments are made with "taxed" dollars but those "dollars" are a "cost of the investment" and are not taxed again. A person only pays taxes on the income from the investment and not the investment itself. Under my proposal the person does actually pay for all of the income from the investment because the "assets" themselves are not touched. The income is from the "Return on Investment" where the "principle" remains untouched and is passed on to the heirs increasing "generational" wealth. Of course that could be modified to based upon a "lifetime annunity" that is a combination of "Return on Investment" and "Principle" but only the "net income" from the principle is taxable and not the "investment" in the account.

I just ran some quick numbers. If a person had the 15.3% on $30,000 in income (the average income of the individual) invested annually then it would equal $4590/yr. At 8% ROI (which represents a low long term ROI for diversified/age-adjusted investments) they would have about $1.9 million in assets and their lifetime investment would have been about $142,000. The "previously taxed" percentage is only 7.5% of any disbursement of the principle from the investment account. The vast majority of the account (92.5%) does not represent "previously taxed" income of the person but instead is untaxed income from the investment.

I think you need to review my tax proposal and how it works a little bit more. Remember one important fact. Not only does my proposal vastly improve the wealth of the American people, starting with the minimum wage worker, but it also fully funds all government expenditures and ultimately results it cutting the size of the federal government (and the costs of supporting it) but about one-third!!! We can also note that in 2013 it would have cut the federal income tax rate from 39.6% to 29% with a balanced budget by taxing all income identically. (Note: because of the $50,000 exemption my tax is progressive so all tax rates below the 39.6% rate that are designed to make the income tax progressive become irrelevant).

 

I don't know that any proposition is perfect but what I seek are the least intrusive actions by government that address a problem established by compelling argument. I don't believe that the US government spending about $1.2 trillion on Social Security/Medicare, about $500 billion on General Welfare, and about $1 trillion per year eventually on "Obamacare" all of which representes "redistribution of weath" (often from the poor to the poor with Social Security/Medicare benefits) is a very bright idea.

Privatization of Social Security that eliminates Medicare with only a small safety net for "retirees" eliminates that wealth redistribution. Employers providing adequate compensation in wages/benefits based upon the "labor" of their employees elminates "Obamacare" plus the "General Welfare" (e.g. SNAP benefits) for working Americans.

It isn't a "perfect" solution but would probably eliminate about 90% of the "wealth redistribution" we currently have and it's all based upon the "labor of the person" in our economy. I haven't been able to come up with a way to address those with physical or mental disabilities or for those that are denied employment based upon invidious discrimination that doesn't involve wealth redistribution but that only represents about 10% of the problem.

 

Providing for the common defense and general welfare requires income redistribution or we would not need to Tax.