Scots Taffer on 14/12/2009 at 00:52
Quote Posted by SD
Frankly someone is lucky that the state allows them to keep £730,000 of a £1m fortune for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I'm having a hard time reading through these foamy spittle covered posts of yours to understand if you're still talking about a meritocracy here, but if you aren't then this statement is totally ridiculous.
Government should have no involvement whatsoever when a person decides to distribute their earned wealth that they have already paid tax on. It has fuck all to do with them. They've paid their dues and if they spend/distribute their money however they please, the government has had their share.
Yes, tax is a necessary evil and it's clear you abhor those who have wealth in the extremes, but they are not responsible for the failing social systems that place 30% of UK children below the poverty line - that's the government.
edit: On topic, I'd call the police and inform them of the full situation before attempting to take anything anywhere.
oudeis on 14/12/2009 at 01:56
If I found a gun I'd use to shoot some rich motherfuckers just for being rich, then I'd rob some banks and give the money to the poor and oppressed, then I'd pass the gun along to someone else who would continue the crusade once the man put me down. That's what I'd do.
Actually, Stronzio, I did read the article. I think he makes a number of unwarranted and unproven assumptions in the article, for example about where the lost revenue would be recouped and who would pay it. However, I was largely anti-estate/inheritance tax before (despite being largely broke) on the grounds of fairness but he managed to sway me to his way of thinking, so on the whole you managed to advance your cause in a small way today.
SD on 14/12/2009 at 04:43
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
I'm having a hard time reading through these foamy spittle covered posts of yours to understand if you're still talking about a meritocracy here, but if you aren't then this statement is totally ridiculous.
Foamy spittle? Sorry, not here bubba.
If I earnt £1m in a single year through my own hard work, the state would only allow me to keep a little under £600,000 after income tax and National Insurance contributions.
Can you therefore explain why it's "totally ridiculous" for someone to be allowed to keep
less of what they earn from the fruits of their own labours than they receive from the fruits of someone else's labour in inheritance?
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
Government should have no involvement whatsoever when a person decides to distribute their earned wealth that they have already paid tax on.
Why does it matter that they have already paid tax?
Are you against VAT too? Fuel duty? Tobacco duty? Alcohol duty? These are all taxes on money that has already been taxed.
Also, you don't seem to grasp what "earned wealth" is; you seem to think that a house bought for a pittance that balloons in value is earned wealth. Simply put: no it isn't.
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
Yes, tax is a necessary evil and it's clear you abhor those who have wealth in the extremes
Why should I abhor them? Many people with a lot of money work very hard for it.
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
but they are not responsible for the failing social systems that place 30% of UK children below the poverty line - that's the government.
And yet you seem to want to perpetuate a system that entrenches wealth in families from generation to generation, ensuring that the rich remain rich and the poor can go fuck themselves.
Swiss Mercenary on 14/12/2009 at 04:53
Quote Posted by SD
If you buy a house for £350,000 and ten years later it's worth £2,350,000 - not an unrealistic scenario the way the housing market has ballooned in recent years - are you claiming that that £2m differential has been somehow
earnt?
Um. Yeah. It is earnt.
Much like how investing into a company that sees their shares go up 500% over 10 years, increasing your investment from $50,000 to $250,000 is money that was earned by you.
What did you do to earn it? Invest wisely in the latter, make a smart purchase in the former.
We want to encourage wise investments into profitable companies, right?
There's plenty of reasons to argue for death taxes, but this is a pretty shitty one.
Chade on 14/12/2009 at 05:02
Quote Posted by SD
Also, you don't seem to grasp what "earned wealth" is
I'll stick my hand up here and say that I'm not quite sure that I grasp what "earned" wealth is. In the following paragraphs, which people have "earnt" their wealth, and which haven't?
Person A works hard to add value to the home they live in.
Person B invests in some sector of the economy, does no work, and profits.
Person C works very hard to figure out what part of the economy they should invest in, then follows the example of Person B.
Person D works in the same job using the same skills for twenty years. The wages for that job rise twice as fast as the rest of the economy.
Muzman on 14/12/2009 at 05:09
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
Government should have no involvement whatsoever when a person decides to distribute their earned wealth that they have already paid tax on. It has fuck all to do with them. They've paid their dues and if they spend/distribute their money however they please, the government has had their share.
I have no stake in this debate on either side, but the fun part is that the arguments usually come from differeing assessments of what shape the state has now v. what it ought to be based on various principles. I find the historical component is often missing; government and law being a series of convenient kludges piled one on top of another over time into a World of Goo-esque tower.
Taxes on things like inheritance are often measures to get a hold of money that the government couldn't or wouldn't get while the people in question were alive. The law is full of places for rich people to hide their money away from taxes, particularly the very rich (I think it was said that Kerry Packer could have got medicare and his kids been on Austudy his official income tax bracket was so low, once he piled everything into his various concerns). That's the way people like it and no one with any power is likely to change it. So they find other ways to skim it when it moves around.
So yeah, when they draw that circle around the people this applies to it's probably going to hit a number of folks in unfair ways. But perfect fairness was never a reasonable goal (although it probably couldn't hurt if it was more often) and the individual justice of who truly did or did not earn this or that doesn't really enter into it. Its a product of other forces.
Scots Taffer on 14/12/2009 at 05:33
Quote Posted by SD
Why does it matter that they have already paid tax?
Are you against VAT too? Fuel duty? Tobacco duty? Alcohol duty? These are all taxes on money that has already been taxed.
Yeah actually, I am.
And it matters because once I have paid my tax on a monthly basis the government has no fucking say in what I do with it - similarly, if I choose to bank it for my kid's future and then croak, they should receive it as I could have spent it, month in and month out, but I
chose not to.
Goverment is removing the aspect of choice from passing on wealth without it incurring costly penalties, which I totally disagree with.
Quote Posted by SD
Also, you don't seem to grasp what "earned wealth" is; you seem to think that a house bought for a pittance that balloons in value is earned wealth. Simply put: no it isn't.
Oh, so if I make a prudent choice in an investment market of any sort and that pays off - I have not "earned" that?
You're the one who seems to have a spectacularly narrow viewpoint on what earned money is.
As long as I'm down in the coal mines earning money to pay for a house that turns no profitable growth via market conditions or otherwise, not investing it for any sort of return and have no parents that croak and leave me an inheritence, it seems I'm alright by Stronts!
The rest of your post kind of runs together in a socialist rant to be honest.
Pyrian on 14/12/2009 at 06:02
Investment is a funny thing. It doesn't fall neatly into either side of the meritocratic nor the supply-side arguments (I'm ignoring the "worship at the altar of property" argument since it doesn't have a separate basis and is long-since moot anyway - no government has ever failed to take an interest in how an individual allocates their after-tax wealth).
From a meritocratic standpoint, investment income tends to have a strong luck component. Sure, it's great to reward wise investing and punish unwise investing, but historically it seems almost as likely to go the other way.
From a supply-side perspective - and by that I mean literally increasing the economy's ability to produce rather than a historical reference to what I regard as abuses of the term - investment can be extremely valuable because it gets money from people who have it but no good ideas about what to do with it, to people who have great ideas of what to do with it but a deficit of capital. And that's great. But, again, it's just one slice of the investment pie, and frankly it's very hard to identify when that's happening as opposed to a number of other scenarios.
Sadly, the best ways to make money investing seem to involve riding just ahead of waves of public opinion as opposed to making wise decisions which help the overall economy improve. As such... While I certainly wouldn't declare investment income entirely unearned (as I do consider inheritance to be) I'm not inclined to grant it any special status or exemption, either.
SD on 14/12/2009 at 10:44
Quote Posted by Swiss Mercenary
Um. Yeah. It is earnt.
No. People appear to be having trouble with basic economic definitions like "earned income". Let me help:
(
http://www.investorwords.com/1614/earned_income.html) InvestorWords.com: "Compensation from participation in a business, including wages, salary, tips, commissions and bonuses."
(
http://moneycentral.msn.com/taxes/glossary/glossary.asp?TermID=105) MSN Money: "Income that you earn by work or effort, as opposed to unearned income from sources such as investments. Earned income includes wages, tips and your net profit from your business that you materially participate in, but not investment income such as dividends and interest."
(
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/earned-income.html) BusinessDictionary.com: "Income derived from goods sold, services rendered, and work performed. It includes revenue, wages, salary, bonuses, commissions, tips as well as pension and annuities based on income previously earned. Normally, earned income attracts lower tax rates than the unearned income such as dividends and interest."
Quote Posted by Swiss Mercenary
Much like how investing into a company that sees their shares go up 500% over 10 years, increasing your investment from $50,000 to $250,000 is money that was earned by you.
See above.
Quote Posted by Chade
I'll stick my hand up here and say that I'm not quite sure that I grasp what "earned" wealth is. In the following paragraphs, which people have "earnt" their wealth, and which haven't?
Person A works hard to add value to the home they live in.
Person B invests in some sector of the economy, does no work, and profits.
Person C works very hard to figure out what part of the economy they should invest in, then follows the example of Person B.
Person D works in the same job using the same skills for twenty years. The wages for that job rise twice as fast as the rest of the economy.
Person D's income is earned income. A, B and C is unearned income.
Chimpy Chompy on 14/12/2009 at 10:56
Quote Posted by SD
No, in ALL cases. Frankly someone is lucky that the state allows them to keep £730,000 of a £1m fortune for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
This comes across as kinda sinister. Whether they've worked at the coalface for for the wealth or not, it's still their property.
Anyway for all this talk of omg 1 million pound estates, I'm more concerned with middle class homes spilling over into a tax that I don't think was ever meant to be aimed at them.
