Tax Discrimination Part II

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by Roy L, Jul 3, 2012.

  1. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    Just as any tax but a poll tax will vary greatly based on the individual's choices relative to the tax base. To claim that only a consumption tax is based on the same criteria for all is absurd.
    The wealthy don't care, as they get enormous income given to them as a welfare subsidy giveaway.
    "Turning $100 into $200 is work. Turning $100 million into $200 milion is inevitable." -- Canadian billionaire Samuel Bronfman
    But they can spend it in other countries, untaxed, and get it through ownership of assets in the USA, untaxed. Thus paying no tax at all, anywhere, ever. Which is the actual intended result of the despicable "Fair"Tax nonsense.
     
  2. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    No, it was very astute, penetrating and informed, which is why you have to evade it, and contrive some way of lying about the facts in order to rationalize your preference for the unjust and destructive income tax over the just and beneficial system of recovering publicly created value for public purposes and benefit.
    No, it is not. You are just lying again, as usual. A flow is a transfer of a given amount of purchasing power (usually money) per unit of time, such as income per year. A tax payment, by contrast, is a one-time transfer OF a stock, FROM a stock, TO a stock. Consider a sales tax payment, for example: the sales tax simply takes an amount from the consumer's stock, once, and transfers it to the government's stock, once. The fact that income tax withholding payments are made at regular intervals and usually for similar amounts is irrelevant, as the method of payment begs the question. It could just as easily be (and often is) paid in a lump sum at the end of the year. An estate tax payment is made once only, and so is indisputably not a flow but a transfer of a stock. You are just objectively and indisputably wrong.
    Nope. That's just another bald falsehood from you. The diminishing marginal utility of income is itself wholly dependent on diminishing marginal utility of wealth: a billionaire's utility will remain effectively unchanged whether his income is $10, $10K, or $10M; but someone who owns no wealth will continue to have high marginal utility of income well above the mean income, until their wealth reaches a level more typical for people with similar incomes. You are again proved objectively wrong.
    Oh, your claims are obvious, all right: obviously wrong.
     
  3. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    You can add as much emotional clap-trap as you want. A tax takes away money from an individual and therefore, quite obviously, it is rational to refer to diminishing marginal utility of income (and nonsensical to refer instead, for example, to diminishing marginal utility of wealth)

    Nonsense. Taxes are a flow from worker/employer/consumer to government. Bleedin obvious really

    Nonsense. You do get yourself in an awful pickle. Diminishing marginal utility of income is merely dependent on the nature of the utility function. Diminishing marginal utility of wealth is typically much more mundane, such as the desperately exciting debate over risk aversion
     
  4. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    You can tell stupid lies all you want.
    No, it is self-evidently and indisputably the other way around, as I already proved to you: a billionaire's marginal utility of income is the same whether that income is $10, $10K, or $10M. This indisputable fact just flat-out refutes all the stupid lies you have told, and all the stupid lies you will ever tell.
    Indisputable fact.
    It is obvious that is a flat-out lie from you. Taxes are NOT a flow. A tax payment is an amount of money -- a stock -- transferred FROM a stock and TO a stock, not an amount of money per unit of time (a flow). I already proved that to you by the examples of sales tax and estate tax.
    It is indisputable fact. You do get into a pickle when you have to concoct ever-more-absurd lies to rescue the already-proved-absurd lies you have previously told.
    Flat-out lie, as already proved, which is why big lump-sum lottery winners almost always stop working even if they have no income in subsequent years. You just have to tell absurd lies in a foredoomed attempt to rescue your previously told absurd lies.
    Ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
     
  5. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    No thanks, I'll just stick to stating the obvious: you use emotionalism, together with your childish 'you lie' rant, to hide from your inability to contruct comment that has any economic merit.

    This is just an ignorant reply. You can refer to how wealthy individuals may have zero official income. You cannot, however, use that to suggest that the marginal utility of income is constant. The best you have is the use of permanent income and how current income may confuse, for example, the impact on income smoothing. That measure will continue, however, to illustrate the integrity of the diminishing marginal utility of income conclusion.

    Its a flow, without question. It flows from payer to government. Your ranting has simply forced you to make ridiculous statement.

    Lottery wins would only be useful in terms of reference to further characteristics of the utility function: i.e. Once we consider payoffs and probabilities we can refer to how risk loving and risk aversion can both occur (with the difference dependent on the probability of the event and the magnitude of the event). Useflu stuff, but still incapable of allowing you to make a pertinent point: a dollar taken from someone poorer is worth more to her because of diminishing marginal utility of income.

    It was a means to show you where diminishing margunal utility of wealth can be applied. I appreciate, as you're not interested in validity, it won't interest you
     
  6. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    No, I've refuted and humiliated you for your elementary blunder; and sorry, but it's a bit obvious why you have to cry and stamp your tiny foot whenever I identify your lies: you want to be able to lie and not have your lies identified.
    No, it proves you are a textbook example of Kalecki's famous quote, "economics is the science of confusing stocks with flows."
    Yes I can, and I have. The billionaire experiences no increase in utility with rising income, because it makes no difference to his lifestyle: he is already spending all he wants to spend. You are just objectively wrong.
    "Permanent income" is nothing but an anti-concept designed to prevent fools from using the valid concept of wealth.
    No, all it can do is help liars distract the attention of fools from wealth.
    It is indisputably not a flow, as already proved. It is indisputably a transfer OF a stock FROM a stock TO a stock. Whether that transfer is effected on one occasion, as with a sales tax or estate tax, or regularly on many occasions, such as income withholding tax, cannot alter the fact that it is an AMOUNT of wealth, not an amount per unit of time.
    Blatant equivocation fallacy. It is TRANSFERRED from payer to government at a given time. I have already proved to you that the entire effect of a tax is to reduce the taxpayer's stock and increase the government's. Flows have nothing to do with it.
    I have demolished and humiliated you, so you have to make such absurd claims in order to save face.
    Nope. That's a blatant falsehood. Consider two people with NO income: a poor widow and a billionaire who only owns assets that generate no income (his mansion and grounds, his paintings, his cars, etc.). They both pay sales tax, but by definition, their marginal utility of income is undefined and therefore irrelevant. The dollar the poor widow pays in sales tax is BY DEFINITION NOT worth more to her because of diminishing utility of income, but diminishing utility of wealth.

    You are conclusively destroyed.
    <yawn> Demolished above.
     
  7. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    No, you've simply followed your script (essentially based on making silly claims and then repeatedly stamping your foot). Everything I've said has been quite correct. The tax is a flow; diminishing marginal utility of wealth is typically used within analysis of risk aversion; you've confused income and wealth because of the cultist attitude adopted where sound economic comment is swamped by childish namecalling.

    Your one liner routine though shows you're running out of puff
     
  8. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    No, I have conclusively refuted, demolished and humiliated you for your false, absurd and dishonest claims; you know it; and you have no answers, so you have to sneer, evade, dismiss, change the subject, blah, blah, blah, as usual.
    Already conclusively proved false.
    It is indisputably not a flow. The only taxes that are even levied on the basis of time are property taxes and income taxes, but in both cases the liability is not a flow.
    I'm not interested in the typical ways you are in error.
    No, I've simply proved that you are erroneously focusing on the irrelevant one of the two in order to divert attention from the crucial one. That works with people who don't know how to think, but it won't work with me.
     
  9. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    The only thing you've managed to do is entertain me. Your stance is vacuous (and of course predictable, given it is necessarily crippled by the cultism adopted). That you can't see a tax as a flow (given it is obviously a flow from the tax payer to the government) demonstrates just how far you'll go in the nonsense stakes. Good ole Friedman was of course able to embed tax and benefit flows within his negative income tax stuff. Of course we don't have to be income specific (although it does help us integrete analysis into comment into poverty and, more generally, how labour supply issues can engineer poverty and unemployment traps). In contrast, you've got your knickers in a twist over other characteristics of the utility function. That diminishing marginal utility of wealth, for example, is focused on the likes of risk aversion is a matter of fact. You'd ofcourse know that if you were familiar with the relevant literature.

    A flow without question. Look at how government budget accounts operate; advertises the bleedin obvious.

    They're all flows. The only issue is the subsequent effect on stocks. Going back to Friedman, for exanple, we'd have to consider how the tax and benefit regime impact on the likes of human capital investment (and, at the extreme, how wealth effects are related to inequalities of opportunity).

    There's no thought in your approach. Its based on stubbornly ignoring economic validity, using that routine of yours to unleash the same ole guff. You made a big error by confusing yourself with diminshing marginal utility of wealth, only really advertising that you're not aware of the nature of the utility function.
     
  10. Roy L

    Roy L Banned

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    <yawn> Why does income have any utility at all?

    The only possible answer refutes you conclusively.
    A tax can only be a flow when it is administered so as to obtain an amount of revenue per unit of time, such as an annual property tax (oopsy for you on that one!) or income tax that is levied based on income per year. Most taxes do not fall into that category, such as excise taxes, sales taxes, estate taxes, etc.
    No, I'm simply willing to know the fact that income only has utility at all to the extent that it increases wealth.
    It "is focused on the likes of risk aversion" by those who don't want it focused on more pertinent issues, like taxation.
    Garbage. Government accounts have to be divided into years as a matter of convenience, but that doesn't mean government's spending to buy, say, a new ship for the navy is a flow. It is a one-time transfer of a stock.
    Already refuted.
    LOL! And the resulting effect on utility. Thanks for agreeing that you are competely wrong.
    Dishonest blather beneath comment.
     
  11. Reiver

    Reiver Well-Known Member

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    Golly, a particularly vacuous question. You only had 2 weetabix today? Now we know why you go all concerned about utility. It necessarily laughs at your position, given everything I've said about risk aversion has been quite correct. No worries though. You go on a rant about it!

    All taxes are a flow. Suggesting a sales tax isn't a flow did make me laugh though. Well done

    An ignorant reply. The reference to risk aversion is just a reference to the utility function. An understanding of tax effects would then be described through that utility function. In contrast, you've simply made an error that you cannot (obviously) embed within any pertinent economic analysis.

    Tax flows go to pay for the ship. You seem to be making very silly comments to make me look good. Its not appreciated!

    A tedious attempt. That utility functions consider wealth is obvious. An obvious feature of course that you ignored (preferring instead to make inane comment over diminishing marginal utility of wealth when, whilst inappropriate, it was compatible to the cultism)

    It was 100% correct. Indeed, let's have it again: There's no thought in your approach. Its based on stubbornly ignoring economic validity, using that routine of yours to unleash the same ole guff. You made a big error by confusing yourself with diminishing marginal utility of wealth, only really advertising that you're not aware of the nature of the utility function.
     

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