by evilgenius » Fri 10 Aug 2018, 11:56:46
First of all, the estate tax is not double taxation. If your father paid tax on it that doesn't mean you did. When you win on a game show, you still owe tax on your winnings. Inheriting above the limit that already can be passed on without taxation is like winning on a game show. Yes, they do let you pass on a certain amount, it used to be a million dollars, without paying tax on it. That threshold tells you something about where Stossel is coming from. This is a friendly, as Bill Maher once said, "Keep my stuff," article. If Stossel wants to argue about double taxation, he should argue about tax on dividends. That is double taxation. The only difference being that tax on dividends is embedded into the system. It's accepted by everybody, even the rich. I don't like it, but I'm in the minority.
The question that's going to come up is whether these kinds of things can be paid for with taxes? Do you enter a zero sum game situation where things happen in the economy and you don't gain for the advances because others lose just as much in various places? Taxes are incremental. You don't pay the same rate on your first hundred thousand as all the rest you make, depending upon where the breaks in taxation levels are. The argument against high taxes is, therefore, one of the loss of reward for working harder, and the resultant drag upon the economy that would engender. The rich would not be deprived of their living wage if they were taxed at higher rates marginally. They might lose incentive.
What Stossel seems to really be saying is that he doesn't think his job would exist without those rich people above him who own the enterprise(s) he works for being willing to pay for it. Maybe he has a secret doubt about his value? A lot of people do. But wouldn't those people continue to employ him, even if he wasn't the very best at what he does, because he brings in money above what he costs? What I'm getting at is that being rich isn't really about money, but power. And, there is a lot of power at the apex of almost any large corporation or organization. The bigger it is, usually the more power associated with it. Typically, a lot of rich people effectively dwell upon those apexes. Getting taxed at a higher rate may have an effect upon a powerful person's actions, if it came with a clear message as to what was expected. If not they would pay the money and continue to act as they did before. There might be some kind of implied set of conditions, but when did implied conditions have that much impact upon those kinds of people? The lack of incentive is kind of reined in by the ability to exercise power. In order to get at that power you would have to start talking about state ownership. That is way beyond taxation. It is confiscation of assets for which taxes have already been paid. It's the ownership of those assets that gives the rich their power. That would be an assault upon capitalism. High taxes aren't. That's why the high marginal rates that people in the US used to pay years ago, when everybody says that America was great, didn't have the effect upon the economy that people are all standing around saying they will if imposed today.
Incidentally, if you want to tax the rich and still maintain their vigor, you can get them to. All you need is to expand the playing field from one where mere dollars thrown around is enough to separate them, one from another. This is true because rich people also compete with each other, in addition to exercising power. If they have less money to compete, then they would be forced to compete in other ways. They might have to expose themselves to criticism, which would allow their foes to fall and them to rise. But it would expose their tastes. They might find they are rich, but morally or culturally bankrupt. A rich person in the context of how we are supposed to understand them, would, most likely, look upon that as a challenge to actually improve themselves. Just imagine a world where the way that capitalism is established incentivizes people to become better people because it exposes that part of them to criticism, instead of the idea that if it brings in money, which by its nature can't be sorted for criticism except upon the broader level of how much someone has. Today, when the rich do anything, they can just throw money at it.