Topic: To liberals, if everything were paid for would you still demand taxes? (Read 1403 times)

I wouldn't consider Elwar a loon. Not even close.

Let me translate:

You asked:
Who the hell actually likes paying taxes?

He replied:
Schrankwand.

Try posting something coherent, please.  Or actually don't.  I'm just putting you on ignore with the rest of the loons.

Give them a magical hypothetical where everything is already paid for, and unless people are insane, they would be happy not to pay taxes.  Who the hell actually likes paying taxes?  Nobody.  Not even people like Warren Buffett who think their taxes should be higher in the world where we actually live.

Because people think that taxes are a no brainer. That it harms nobody. If you are making $100 million and you take away $40 million, nobody is harmed. So why try to come up with alternatives when the current scenario nobody is affected? That is the mentality.

Go onto a liberal website, such as huffingtonpost, and suggest a world without taxes. It is not a concept that is even imaginable. Pretty ironic since these people like to think of themselves as "enlightened". They only see the side of what the government gives you. The concept of government taking is like a blind spot that they cannot fathom, it has been done that way for almost a century so there is no other option.


There are too many arguments about what the government should provide. That is what most political arguments involve. I could care less about that. They can give out lolipops to everyone as far as I care. That is like discussing the most moral way to dispose of a body after you have killed someone, without even considering whether or not the act of killing was bad or not.

Psst.... Hey, over here. There is, right now, with no new technology, a way to provide all those services without paying taxes. Wanna hear about it?

Why would there be any need for taxes in such a situation?  If possible, we should engineer a situation like that without waiting for an imaginary zillionaire to do it.  It may be possible technology fixes our basic needs situations some time within our lifetimes, leaving humanity free to pursue greater goals.

It's more likely we'll fuck it up somehow, though.

So if there is no real punishment, if there is a way for things to be paid for, then I should be able to not pay taxes right?

If it is no big deal for me to pay taxes, then it should be no big deal for me to not pay taxes.

It is pretty easy around here. Since it made a ton of stupid problems, they changed it to a simple Capital earnings tax.

Whenever you cash out the assets you are holding, you owe 25% capital earnings tax. No matter how much it was, what kind of investment it was. A simple, flat tax. Your bank or broker, if you are working with these, will automatically deduct the tax from the increases in worth that you bought the assets for. After a minimum holding time of one year, a whole lot of assets become tax free.

The IRS has an insane reach anyway. Taxing people while they live in other countries sounds idiotic to me.

^^^
When you get into the "over 100 million in earnings" territory, you need to stop thinking in terms of piles of cash sitting in a bank vault, and start thinking in real assets, like stocks, debts, contracts, property, and actual businesses. Things you can't just write a check to the IRS against. Paying taxes on those things can be really disruptive.

No.

Because there is no real punishment, other than something you might feel. I guess you are not earning in the levels of 100 million a year, right?

People that do, might pay 40% in taxes and "loose" 40 million a year. That sounds horrible. If there weren't the other 60 million.

You can live off a far smaller amount than that, you can have almost everything you want from that money (Except Bill Gates yacht, I know, I know...).

There is no punishment. I would argue the tax is proportionally way too high, because the person supports the country with a lot more than the average Joe.

But if you earn more, and I mean, FAR MORE, you also have far more money.

Taxing 35% income tax (which is normal in Europe) out of someone earning 3000€ a month hits that person harder than it hits someone taxed 50% on 100 million. Of course the loss is absolutely greater. The 50% are humongous and ridiculous.
But for living his life, someone earning the 50 mill wouldn't loose life quality. Tax someone 40-50% on 50000 a year and he will feel raped. With 50 million, you could still choose how many houses to buy THIS year, live comfortably, fund three companies, live with blackjack whores and still come out a winner.

 
So, even if the amounts are insane, you are not really punishing the people that are pretty much rich. The people that GET hit the most in most progressive tax systems are the middle class. People in progressive systems with 2-3k€ are not hit much, the people where it really HURTS usually earn between 70k and 200k Euros a year. This is where the taxes really, really hurt, because what is left is great for living on it, but still, you are working for almost double the amount compared to what you pay.




But the question is, what do you GET for these taxes? So let us say you STILL have to pay for basically everything. University education, school education, public transport doubles its price... I am not arguing governments are spending wisely, but from our experiences we know that private corporations don't necessarily do things better.

I am not much for the military here, rather I am thinking about the actual services that could be funded with such money. Research for the betterment of society. That kind of research that led to us talking on this forum here (Funded by governments all over the world at the CERN, adapted from protocols that were tax funded, developed by DARPA.)

Services like bombing countries that've never done anything to America. Or putting people in cages for simply possessing a plant (ie marijuana). Or protecting the 'intellectual property' racket that benefits the mega-rich. Oh yeah, those wonderful services we could never live without !

This seems like a silly hypothetical. This guy's accumulate wealth could cause crazy inflation if released into the global economy, right?

But why would a government need to collect taxes if it has the money to otherwise provide services? I consider myself a free-market liberal, but even bleeding heart lefties don't think that the purpose of taxes is to rob money from rich people and corporations. It's to provide services!

Depends on where their economic preferences lie.

So where social liberals qualify?

Here in 'Murika, "liberal" means "commie" and "conservative" means "fascist." Both are just different ways of saying "authoritarian," though.

What the heck does a Liberal even mean ? Must be just another way of saying fascist/commie/authoritarian. Pick your flavor. Hey where are all those great anti-war phonies who protested Bush non-stop. Now that the bombs have a 'D' next to their name, it's kosher to mass murder brown ppl worldwide. It's amazing how people children buy into this left/right cartoon.

As much as anything US liberals say. 

So, you would rather have taxes instead of free money because Republicans are bad.

Makes sense.

Republican administrations generally create greater deficits and grow the federal government, while Democratic administrations generally prosecute unjust wars and suffer from scandals of corruption.

It's and irony, isn't it?

As a Liberal I would say yes. History has shown us repeatedly that whenever a Republican/Conservative Government is in power that they create huge deficits. Us Liberals would need the extra cash in order to clean up the fiscal messes created by the conservative reactionary drones.

Actually, the consensus I gathered was that a world where the government limited it's spending was inconceivable.

Hmm, so the consensus seems to be that since people cannot fathom a world without taxes, even with the guarantee that things will be paid without taxes is inconceivable.

The basic question is, if things can be paid for without taxes...would you be ok with it?

That is always the response when I mention not paying taxes "what about the roads and firemen and health care?". It would seem that people want taxes so things could be paid for...but I suspect that most people like taxes more as a punishment for being rich or making too much money.

I believe that the incentive to punish those with more is larger than the incentive to have things paid for.

When I grew up I wanted to be an outlaw, just like in all those movies, fighting the man. Somehow it was always some dude with a faded Che T's looking for brighter tomorrow telling me how evil The Man is.

Now I realized they all were liars with the envy of replacing and becoming The Man. Now with full views of the world they are all defending corruption because the "other Man did it", defending war because "the other Man did it". And now they will fight to feed their Man with taxes because they need'll to keep all the other Men at bay. So of course they will NEVER stop loving taxes.

I will have respect to anyone even to the most evil racists, as long as he believes in his own delusional sad views of the world until his death. But there is one type of people I can't stand: hypocrites.

Sorry if I hijacked the thread.

Exactly.  They would see all that money and make all kinds of promises.  All of these promises would require many salaries to be paid.  These salaries for the most part would not have an end date.  The money would run out in 10 years, if it even lasted that long.  The promises, and the cost of those promises would remain.  

There's no money solution to these problems, at least not in the long term.  The problem lies in people's conception of what the government is.

The government simply does not follow normal rules of accounting and contract law.  If it did, it would not resemble the government we all know and love. 

Half of the gold would cover only 1 year (us budget)

Even if you take the total wealth of USA - 90 trillions. It won't be enough for 30 years. US's budget is like around 4 trillions.

I hope some of them will get idea of nice new roads, high speed intercontinental railways and maybe even crazier junk like launch loops...

Do you know what would happen?  Government spending would go through the roof!

The only thing limiting at the moment is that slight guilt when taxes go up too much to be acceptable - the moment that weight is off the bean counters shoulders - they is going to party!


They would tell everyone that the money was going to last for 30 years, but I bet it will all be gone within 5!

The budget will be met for 30 years?

I'd propose something different then.

I would argue that we should lower taxes enourmously, while making sure that the money supply there lasts a LOT longer, using largely its interest.

But since we cannot collect taxes, I would argue something else: We should collect investment money, that cannot be used by the government, until the money runs out.

So, we cut all taxes. Then, we collect a small part of everyone's money and put it in a fund, for 30 years. And secretly hope that this fund will take over the moment this guy's money runs out.

Not in spesific USA, but in general:
I would be. If same or similar service level was provided.

Though taxes would be back if that fortune wasn't invested... But I'm ok with that too.

Taxes aren't needed if there is some other way for government or community to provide they services.

Still, it would be rather destructive if some cases weren't considered to be outside this like retirement funds. But that really depends on system used in country...

It depends, if his conditions included something like making government debt illegal and going back to a standard of money that couldn't be easily hyper-inflated then I'd be all for it, even if a scenario like that doesn't really exist now problem is, if you gave someone like the US government a free ride they'd take it and abuse the shit out of it like they've been doing with peoples money for almost a century now.

Edit: Oh wait, I was sleepy and I didn't notice you said Liberals LOL silly neo-conservative.

Let us say, for example, that some ultra super rich guy has spent his whole life accumulating half of the gold of the world secretly. He has died and put in his will that he wants the money from his gold to go toward paying for the US government spending. We are talking trillions upon trillions. The only stipulation is that no taxes may be collected while spending his money.

The budget will be met for the next 30 years, there is always the option of falling back to taxing if the money runs out.

Would you be ok with nobody paying taxes for those 30 years? Even rich people and corporations.