Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Kerrigan: Rich have been left alone for too long
Options
Comments
-
No it's not assuming only high earners are corrupt, you're creating a straw man there; I explicitly said in my previous post it's about limiting harm to a greater number of innocent people by setting the starting band high.All of that assummes that only high earners are corrupt and that the majority of them are(No point punishing the majority if only a minority are the problem). Its possible to be corrupt even if you are a relatively poor person. "ethically-questionable practices" can happen at all levels from a person living on the dole to billionaires. High tax's can potentially encourage this by increasing the return on avoiding tax.
I assume you have evidence that suggests only high earners are corrupt and that taxation is an effective tool in combating this.
I stated also that it's not fully about outright corruption either; you don't appear to have fully taken in my previous post, or are deliberately ignoring parts of it, as I made this very clear.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »No it's not assuming only high earners are corrupt, you're creating a straw man there; I explicitly said in my previous post it's about limiting harm to a greater number of innocent people by setting the starting band high.
I stated also that it's not fully about outright corruption either; you don't appear to have fully taken in my previous post, or are deliberately ignoring parts of it, as I made this very clear.
I appreciate you say its not about corruption/unethical behaviour but I honestly don't see where you make another argument. From my perspective the argument you are putting forward is that higher taxes on rich people would essentially protect the majority from a minority of corrupt rich people.
For that to effective the majority of rich people/target group must be engaged or benefit from corrupt/unethical behaviour. Feel free to correct me.0 -
It's less outright corruption, more unethical behaviour that can't be directly legislated against; stuff that you want to disincentivize like the previous mentioned dynamic between corporate execs and stockholders.I appreciate you say its not about corruption/unethical behaviour but I honestly don't see where you make another argument. From my perspective the argument you are putting forward is that higher taxes on rich people would essentially protect the majority from a minority of corrupt rich people.
For that to effective the majority of rich people/target group must be engaged or benefit from corrupt/unethical behaviour. Feel free to correct me.
Lets say you set the tax band as high as €3 million, and you know that a significant percentage of people earning that and above have done so ethically; it would then become a matter of setting the tax at a balance, enough to dissuade earnings past a certain point which in turn dissuades the unethical practices, while also trying to mitigate harm to ethical earners and potential economic harm overall.
It is a blunt tool, but when you couple the various justifications regarding unethical earnings, with the separate justification that earnings past a point are not proportional with what the person adds to society, then a high tax at that point becomes justifiable.
This does not require the majority of people in this group to be engaging in unethical practices.
This all would have to be balanced against any economic harm it may cause, tweaking the tax so it provides more return than loss.
Note also that I'm talking about high-income earners here, not 'rich' people who already have a lot of money to invest.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »It's less outright corruption, more unethical behaviour that can't be directly legislated against; stuff that you want to disincentivize like the previous mentioned dynamic between corporate execs and stockholders.
Lets say you set the tax band as high as €3 million, and you know that a significant percentage of people earning that and above have done so ethically; it would then become a matter of setting the tax at a balance, enough to dissuade earnings past a certain point which in turn dissuades the unethical practices, while also trying to mitigate harm to ethical earners and potential economic harm overall.
It is a blunt tool, but when you couple the various justifications regarding unethical earnings, with the separate justification that earnings past a point are not proportional with what the person adds to society, then a high tax at that point becomes justifiable.
This does not require the majority of people in this group to be engaging in unethical practices.
This all would have to be balanced against any economic harm it may cause, tweaking the tax so it provides more return than loss.
Note also that I'm talking about high-income earners here, not 'rich' people who already have a lot of money to invest.
The problem with this idea is that it would be a waste of Dail time which could be better spent on doing other things. Anyone who earns anything near 3 million will have no problem relocating abroad. The risks to the general public from what would ultimately be destructive reward polices would still exist. The same rewards could be availed of within another jurisdiction and any bad decisions that are directly attributable to these polices would still happen. The public would still be at risk and will have lost the taxes associated with that job.
Also what a person adds to society is entirely subjective. A person earning 3 million plus I can imagine would have no problem justifying this wage in terms of their overall contribution to society. Whether anyone else agree is a separate issue.0 -
It's rather ironic how obsessed socialists are with wealth, other people's wealth that is. Their only ''solution'' is to take money from people who don't vote them.0
-
Advertisement
-
Saying it's a waste of Dail time thus shouldn't be done is a specious argument really; a person earning €3 million would individually find it easier to move abroad, yes, but that does not guarantee keeping their income connections in Ireland intact, and it's that which is important, not the individual.The problem with this idea is that it would be a waste of Dail time which could be better spent on doing other things. Anyone who earns anything near 3 million will have no problem relocating abroad. The risks to the general public from what would ultimately be destructive reward polices would still exist. The same rewards could be availed of within another jurisdiction and any bad decisions that are directly attributable to these polices would still happen. The public would still be at risk and will have lost the taxes associated with that job.
Also what a person adds to society is entirely subjective. A person earning 3 million plus I can imagine would have no problem justifying this wage in terms of their overall contribution to society. Whether anyone else agree is a separate issue.
What exact contribution can a person provide to society, which makes income beyond €3 million proportionate, out of interest? We are talking about a wage that is at least 60 times that of the average wage; one year of that wage would set a person up for life.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »What exact contribution can a person provide to society, which makes income beyond €3 million proportionate, out of interest? We are talking about a wage that is at least 60 times that of the average wage; one year of that wage would set a person up for life.
Well footballers in UK earn that. The people who pay them are the fans either through gates, tv or merchandise. The fans feel they are worth the 3 million. You may disagree.0 -
They get the majority of their funding through TV licensing if I recall correctly, which going on decades has been a long manipulated business of bidding for rights to broadcast, and such broadcasts being locked to expensive and exclusive subscriptions; it's a very lucrative business, and fans have literally no say at all in the setting the wages of the footballers.Well footballers in UK earn that. The people who pay them are the fans either through gates, tv or merchandise. The fans feel they are worth the 3 million. You may disagree.
Typically, when you're getting a TV channel subscription it's more a binary "sports"/"no-sports" decision for an entire package of channels (and you can guarantee all pubs, which pay the more expensive license afaik, get the sports subscription); even if you opt for "no-sports", some of the profits earned from your subscription are still going to go to paying for the sports broadcasting rights as well, whether you watch it or not (probably even if less than half of the subscribers watch the sports, since it's so lucrative).
At that stage, it then becomes a "subscription tv" or "no subscription tv" decision; so really, a complete illusion of choice at every level, people have literally no say at all on footballer wages, and are indirectly contributing to them if they have a subscription with any network that buys up broadcasting rights.0 -
Moderators, Category Moderators, Politics Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 81,309 CMod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 79125
Supermensch wrote: »tl;dr: The only argument for higher tax is that the government needs money, which is a perfectly valid reason. There is nothing intrinsically wrong or heinous about being rich.
What the government needs is to stop wasting money and then demanding more of it ad infinitum so that it never has to reform itself.
What the govt needs is a lot of things, but forcibly taking more and more money from people just to cover up its own uselessness is not one of them0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »Saying it's a waste of Dail time thus shouldn't be done is a specious argument really; a person earning €3 million would individually find it easier to move abroad, yes, but that does not guarantee keeping their income connections in Ireland intact, and it's that which is important, not the individual.
For managers of companies its perfectly possible to manage any company from abroad in the age of the internet. The Dail has enough to be getting on with than wasting time that could be devoted to far bigger problems. If you feel this idea would be an effective use of Dail time far enough.KyussBishop wrote: »What exact contribution can a person provide to society, which makes income beyond €3 million proportionate, out of interest? We are talking about a wage that is at least 60 times that of the average wage; one year of that wage would set a person up for life.
As I said its subjective everyone has there own views. OMD gives a good example. For some people the wages soccer earn are grotesque, others on the other hand believe the earn every penny of it if the player helps the team win. Its up to society as a whole to make the decision. In the case of soccer players obviously a large number believe they are worth it given the support some teams get.0 -
Advertisement
-
In the case of footballers and anything in general consumers have a large impact on the wages of those involved. If everybody stopped buying Apple products tomorrow the company would go bust. If people don't want to watch football any more broadcasters will quickly change to showing people what they want to watch.0
-
Government should constantly be getting reformed to be more efficient, sure, but even after sorting out the inefficiencies, taxation has to still come in and be progressively balanced.What the government needs is to stop wasting money and then demanding more of it ad infinitum so that it never has to reform itself.
What the govt needs is a lot of things, but forcibly taking more and more money from people just to cover up its own uselessness is not one of them
Directors fees are taxed in the country of origin, so any directors fees from a company within Ireland are taxed here, even if the person is resident elsewhere.For managers of companies its perfectly possible to manage any company from abroad in the age of the internet. The Dail has enough to be getting on with than wasting time that could be devoted to far bigger problems. If you feel this idea would be an effective use of Dail time far enough.
http://www.revenue.ie/en/practitioner/law/tax-treaties.html
Football players wages are in no way determined by society as a whole, they are determined by the corporate configuration of their industry, and the related industries which share funding/business with them, which (as I outlined in my previous post) the public at large has pretty much no control over in determining wages.As I said its subjective everyone has there own views. OMD gives a good example. For some people the wages soccer earn are grotesque, others on the other hand believe the earn every penny of it if the player helps the team win. Its up to society as a whole to make the decision. In the case of soccer players obviously a large number believe they are worth it given the support some teams get.
The whole idea that "how much is too much?" is subjective, does not invalidate the idea of capping or taxing the crap out of income past a certain point, as my previous arguments in favour of it are not based on this question and explicitly acknowledge the effects it may have on genuinely earned income, but wants to counterbalance them against disincentivizing other negative/damaging effects (as well as simply having a more progressive tax system).0 -
As I explained in my reply to OMD, the primary choice you have is "subscription TV" or "no subscription TV", as you don't have that fine a level of control.In the case of footballers and anything in general consumers have a large impact on the wages of those involved. If everybody stopped buying Apple products tomorrow the company would go bust. If people don't want to watch football any more broadcasters will quickly change to showing people what they want to watch.
Also, pubs especially have to pay a premium well beyond household costs for such subscriptions (making them a big profit point), which means when you go to a pub that shows sports (i.e. "when you go to a pub"), you are indirectly funding it still.
You have no choice (on wages). No choice you make individually will have an effect. Public apathy on the subject does not equal endorsement. This is a pretty good example of an 'illusion of choice' in a market.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »Directors fees are taxed in the country of origin, so any directors fees from a company within Ireland are taxed here, even if the person is resident elsewhere.
http://www.revenue.ie/en/practitioner/law/tax-treaties.html
What tax treaty are you referring to. The text in that link deals with corporation tax not personal tax.KyussBishop wrote: »Football players wages are in no way determined by society as a whole, they are determined by the corporate configuration of their industry, and the related industries which share funding/business with them, which (as I outlined in my previous post) the public at large has pretty much no control over in determining wages.
What determines the corporate structure of football is ultimately the consumer. It is a form of entertainment. There are countless alternatives on offer. TV revenue is only one element there are other such as sponsorship and match attendances that are just as important. Look at the ticket prices into top Premier League match's which still attract large attendances. If people lose interest the amount of money drops. Consumers don't influence individual wages by and large but ultimately they determine the size of the pot from which the wages must be paid.KyussBishop wrote: »The whole idea that "how much is too much?" is subjective, does not invalidate the idea of capping or taxing the crap out of income past a certain point, as my previous arguments in favour of it are not based on this question and explicitly acknowledge the effects it may have on genuinely earned income, but wants to counterbalance them against disincentivizing other negative/damaging effects (as well as simply having a more progressive tax system).
Being subjective does invalidate your point as the view you have put forward is that is essentially unethical for a person to earn more than €X. If they are doing this then they must be involved or benefit from unethical behaviour. That figure is subjective and opinion is entirely subjective as seen from the issue with footballers. If have any empirical evidence that suggests a different view you are more than welcome to put it forward.
This is how I view your argument in another context at the other end of the scale. I can argue its unethical for a person in the local Spar to earn more than the cost of the electricity for a vending machine. They are depriving me of income that could spend on other things that a machine can't do. I can buy a bottle of water of both and the cost to supply that service is cheaper with the vending machine and hence I am being ripped off/the person is earning far too much which could be considered unethical.
If you have any empirical evidence that would support your claims it would help because at this stage we are beginning to argue in circles.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »As I explained in my reply to OMD, the primary choice you have is "subscription TV" or "no subscription TV", as you don't have that fine a level of control.
Also, pubs especially have to pay a premium well beyond household costs for such subscriptions (making them a big profit point), which means when you go to a pub that shows sports (i.e. "when you go to a pub"), you are indirectly funding it still.
You have no choice (on wages). No choice you make individually will have an effect. Public apathy on the subject does not equal endorsement. This is a pretty good example of an 'illusion of choice' in a market.
Look in the case of a footballer the FIFA world cup has audience figure that can numbered in billions. If they didn't watch it and nobody is forced to attend or watch any game the players would get there large wages. They get paid so much as they are at the top level of a sport in which commands such massive interest and participation levels.0 -
In the case of footballers and anything in general consumers have a large impact on the wages of those involved. If everybody stopped buying Apple products tomorrow the company would go bust. If people don't want to watch football any more broadcasters will quickly change to showing people what they want to watch.
/Goes on tangent
Football does not make for such straightforward comparisons with other industries. For one thing, football clubs in England have a special exemption from certain employment laws: footballers can't hand in their notice, they are bound by the length of the contracts they sign.
The amount of money funnelled into players' wages in England can be, in large part, traced back to changes in the structure of the industry which occurred during the late 80's and early 90's, when the Premier League was founded, granting top-flight club football commercial independence from the English FA.
And it's clearly a dysfunctional industry, with fifteen of the Premier League's twenty clubs recording losses in the 2010/11 season, including an almost £200m loss for soon-to-be champions Manchester City (which happens to be bankrolled by some very wealthy people, who are probably, like Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, seeking prestige rather than profits from football.)
/Gets off tangent0 -
What the government needs is to stop wasting money and then demanding more of it ad infinitum so that it never has to reform itself.
What the govt needs is a lot of things, but forcibly taking more and more money from people just to cover up its own uselessness is not one of them
I agree with you there, I do believe that the government should, and arguably needs to do more to improve the efficiency and equality at which it allocates public funding. The only point I was trying to make above is that there is no justification for higher income tax for high earners, or indeed income tax in general, other than that it is a method for the government of procuring funds. Whether this method is 'fair' or justifiable is another debate, but what I am arguing here is that there is no sound ethical justification to tax someone who earns a high wage highly. It is very attractive to fall into the Robin Hood, "Take from the rich, give to the poor" ideal, but this maxim is ethically flawed, and the point of my argument was to dispel the notion that such ideals make for sound basis for high income tax on high incomes.0 -
Most of the treaties there in general, cover directors fees as well.PeadarCo wrote:What tax treaty are you referring to. The text in that link deals with corporation tax not personal tax.
Here is an article outlining the profits involved:PeadarCo wrote:What determines the corporate structure of football is ultimately the consumer. It is a form of entertainment. There are countless alternatives on offer. TV revenue is only one element there are other such as sponsorship and match attendances that are just as important. Look at the ticket prices into top Premier League match's which still attract large attendances. If people lose interest the amount of money drops. Consumers don't influence individual wages by and large but ultimately they determine the size of the pot from which the wages must be paid.
http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2012/06/17/this-bubble-ain%E2%80%99t-bursting-yet-all-the-details-you%E2%80%99d-ever-want-to-know-about-the-premier-league%E2%80%99s-new-tv-deals-170601/
The TV rights are worth £3 billion (and that is in pounds) through 2013-16, i.e. £1 billion a year, with a significant portion of that funding coming from subscriptions from public places (pubs/clubs etc.).
The consumer has no choice over the costs for TV subscriptions in local places (pubs etc.), no choice in the cost of their TV package subscriptions, and no choice in the cost of stadium tickets either.
Customers don't influence anything basically, because the TV subscribers, the football associations selling the TV rights, and the clubs themselves are all the gatekeepers who get to decide all the prices
Any corporation (and especially an entire industry like football) can push as far as they like in any silly direction regarding ethics, salaries, bonuses, whatever, so long as it does not tip the balance of public apathy outside of their favour.
For an industry like football, which has rooted itself into a significant (albeit somewhat vapid) cultural position over time, and who are able to monopolize access (TV rights for one) to this part of 'culture', they can push pretty damn far and (if they want, if it benefits them) piss a lot of people off before they are going to lose support, just because it's so ingrained.
To make any difference with this industry, individual choice isn't going to do a single thing, you'd need an entire movement to fight public apathy on the issue (which of course is a tall order, as it's pretty insignificant compared to many other things).
Again worth repeating: Don't mistake public apathy for endorsement; just because momentum has not built up around an issue, to create an entire movement to change it, doesn't mean it is supported.
That is a large part of what makes the idea of consumer 'choice' an illusion/fallacy in certain warped markets; overcoming the inertia of public apathy can be a significant challenge.
No, I have explicitly not done this, you are deliberately ignoring pretty much all of my supporting arguments, and positing a straw man argument that I did not make.PeadarCo wrote:
Being subjective does invalidate your point as the view you have put forward is that is essentially unethical for a person to earn more than €X. If they are doing this then they must be involved or benefit from unethical behaviour.KyussBishop wrote:The whole idea that "how much is too much?" is subjective, does not invalidate the idea of capping or taxing the crap out of income past a certain point, as my previous arguments in favour of it are not based on this question and explicitly acknowledge the effects it may have on genuinely earned income, but wants to counterbalance them against disincentivizing other negative/damaging effects (as well as simply having a more progressive tax system).
Only by ignoring everything I said in my previous post can you come to the conclusion that I am labeling all people earning past 'x' as unethical; I have explicitly said that is not the case.
Just by reading the the bit you quoted, it can be seen straight away how I am counterbalancing the costs associated with unethical earnings, against the cost of impacting genuinely earned income.
If you want to avoid going around in circles, it would help by portraying my arguments honestly, as this is the second time you've warped my argument in exactly the same way.0 -
Why not though? Subsidies and tax breaks, and indeed higher taxes on specific items, all get used to tweak incentives/disincentives in various industries; what is so unique about income tax?Supermensch wrote: »The only point I was trying to make above is that there is no justification for higher income tax for high earners, or indeed income tax in general, other than that it is a method for the government of procuring funds.
Another potential policy I have read elsewhere for instance, which is a lot more explicit/well-defined than arguments I've put for taxing high-income before, is the idea of capping executive payments in a corporation to 40-60x (maybe even go to 100x if you like) that of the lowest salary earned within a corporation.
That idea tackles the problem of excessive executive salaries, whilst simultaneously incentivizing giving all workers of a corporation benefits from the profits, by raising the wage floor.
That is surely a lot less objectionable than my other generalized arguments in favour of high taxes? (specifically as a CEO can pay himself whatever he likes, so long as he pulls the bottom wages up with, after a point)
What about tackling growing income inequality, and all of the societal/political ills that creates? That is justification in itself really, as it's well documented that disproportionate political power is in line with disproportionate income (for one, among much else).Supermensch wrote: »Whether this method is 'fair' or justifiable is another debate, but what I am arguing here is that there is no sound ethical justification to tax someone who earns a high wage highly.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »Most of the treaties there in general, cover directors fees as well.
Could you point me towards one specific tax treaty as an example. I don't want to have to read 60+ tax treatiesKyussBishop wrote: »Here is an article outlining the profits involved:
http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2012/06/17/this-bubble-ain%E2%80%99t-bursting-yet-all-the-details-you%E2%80%99d-ever-want-to-know-about-the-premier-league%E2%80%99s-new-tv-deals-170601/
The TV rights are worth £3 billion (and that is in pounds) through 2013-16, i.e. £1 billion a year, with a significant portion of that funding coming from subscriptions from public places (pubs/clubs etc.).
The consumer has no choice over the costs for TV subscriptions in local places (pubs etc.), no choice in the cost of their TV package subscriptions, and no choice in the cost of stadium tickets either.
Customers don't influence anything basically, because the TV subscribers, the football associations selling the TV rights, and the clubs themselves are all the gatekeepers who get to decide all the prices
Any corporation (and especially an entire industry like football) can push as far as they like in any silly direction regarding ethics, salaries, bonuses, whatever, so long as it does not tip the balance of public apathy outside of their favour.
For an industry like football, which has rooted itself into a significant (albeit somewhat vapid) cultural position over time, and who are able to monopolize access (TV rights for one) to this part of 'culture', they can push pretty damn far and (if they want, if it benefits them) piss a lot of people off before they are going to lose support, just because it's so ingrained.
To make any difference with this industry, individual choice isn't going to do a single thing, you'd need an entire movement to fight public apathy on the issue (which of course is a tall order, as it's pretty insignificant compared to many other things).
Again worth repeating: Don't mistake public apathy for endorsement; just because momentum has not built up around an issue, to create an entire movement to change it, doesn't mean it is supported.
That is a large part of what makes the idea of consumer 'choice' an illusion/fallacy in certain warped markets; overcoming the inertia of public apathy can be a significant challenge.
http://swissramble.blogspot.ie/2011/12/manchester-city-masterplan.html
My point was that TV revenue is only one element. Take Man City media revenues contribute less than half their income. I agree with Kinski that some clubs are arguably commercially unsustainable but I also make the point that clubs such as Bayern Munich can still pay large wages and be profitable year after year.The author notes in the paragraph above the 2 graph the German club have been profitable for 19years.
Also in this subsequent link a table which has a graph showing the contribution of TV revenue to clubs. For most its less than half. Also in Bayerns situation wages are only about half of their overall turnover.
http://swissramble.blogspot.ie/search/label/Bayern%20Munich
The point what you don't seem to get is that people are not forced to watch the sport. There are plenty of other things to watch.KyussBishop wrote: »No, I have explicitly not done this, you are deliberately ignoring pretty much all of my supporting arguments, and positing a straw man argument that I did not make.
Only by ignoring everything I said in my previous post can you come to the conclusion that I am labeling all people earning past 'x' as unethical; I have explicitly said that is not the case.
Just by reading the the bit you quoted, it can be seen straight away how I am counterbalancing the costs associated with unethical earnings, against the cost of impacting genuinely earned income.
If you want to avoid going around in circles, it would help by portraying my arguments honestly, as this is the second time you've warped my argument in exactly the same way.
Could I ask you to restate your arguments using empirical evidence to support your arguments. At this stage I see your argument as being that's its immoral to earn more than €X. You believe anyone earning more than €X is benefiting from unethical behaviour and hence should be taxed according. Any downsides to this are outweighed by the benefit to the general public. I could be wrong and am open to correction.
I obviously disagree with that and with no empirical evidence to support your position we end up going round in circles.0 -
Advertisement
-
For managers of companies its perfectly possible to manage any company from abroad in the age of the internet. The Dail has enough to be getting on with than wasting time that could be devoted to far bigger problems. If you feel this idea would be an effective use of Dail time far enough.
I though the Dail had already done enough to incentivise high income people to live abroad, i.e. live in NI and work in the South, by exempting them from the high rate of (7%) USC in the same way as the 'vulnerable' medical card holder is exempt in the South. I always loved this when commuting on the M1 and watched executive NI reg'd cars fly by thinking my taxes are subsidising his taxes ... that warm feeling again!! Now can someone tell me why a non-resident working in this country should be treated more favourably that a resident for tax purposes. Absolutely no difficulty with NI people working in the South but I think they should be treated the same as southeren taxpayers, especially as high income southerners are taxed so highly. Maybe we should all, or at least high income people, locate just over the border (for tax purposes) and enjoy the savings!!0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »Why not though? Subsidies and tax breaks, and indeed higher taxes on specific items, all get used to tweak incentives/disincentives in various industries; what is so unique about income tax?
There are definitely valid ethical reasons to incentivised or disincentivised certain areas through the use of tax. Smoking is one. While we are willing to grant people the liberty to smoke, we rather they didn't, and taxing is the easiest way of discouraging the practice. But to imply that there is an ethical motive for income tax, you have to examine exactly what it is you are trying to discourage or disincentivise.
What you're arguing is that income tax discourages a disparity of wealth in society. The question that has to be asked is whether this is really an efficient way of dealing with this inequality. If you were to say that income tax should be higher so that the government has more money to set up schemes which help those who are not wealthy, for example Back to Education, then I would agree that this could be a feasible method of reducing the wage gap. However, this would not be an ethical reason for raising income tax, this would be a procuring-more-funds reason. On the other hand, I do not agree that raising income tax as a means in itself of reducing a wealth disparity is an ethically justified measure, because what this line of thinking essentially comes down to is that nobody should be allowed to accrue wealth, and that this wealth, even if it gained through honest means, should be taken and given to those who are not of wealth, simply because they are not of wealth.Another potential policy I have read elsewhere for instance, which is a lot more explicit/well-defined than arguments I've put for taxing high-income before, is the idea of capping executive payments in a corporation to 40-60x (maybe even go to 100x if you like) that of the lowest salary earned within a corporation.
That idea tackles the problem of excessive executive salaries, whilst simultaneously incentivizing giving all workers of a corporation benefits from the profits, by raising the wage floor.
That is surely a lot less objectionable than my other generalized arguments in favour of high taxes? (specifically as a CEO can pay himself whatever he likes, so long as he pulls the bottom wages up with, after a point)
The question here is what does the CEO or shareholders of a company owe to the workers, beyond the wage and benefits which the workers agreed upon of their own volition? Provided that the CEO is earning this wage in such a way that is of no detriment to society (evading taxes and such), then why should a CEO earn less or raise the wages of workers purely because a gap exists between the two? As I said before, by all means, you can make the case that money should be raised from incomes to fund schemes which work to improve the lives of those who are not wealthy, but to regulate wages for the sole reason of stopping people from becoming rich makes no sense. As I said in my original post, being rich in itself is not intrinsically immoral or of detriment to society.What about tackling growing income inequality, and all of the societal/political ills that creates? That is justification in itself really, as it's well documented that disproportionate political power is in line with disproportionate income (for one, among much else).
There are more efficient manners of reducing political corruption than by instating higher income tax (tighter laws on corporate and political corruption, harsher sentences for offenders, etc.) which are of less detriment to entrepreneurship. If those with wealth have more political power, it makes more sense to learn why exactly that is, considering we live in a supposedly democratic society, and to confront that reason directly, rather than assuming that wealth and power are inexplicably linked.0 -
Try the first link.PeadarCo wrote:Could you point me towards one specific tax treaty as an example. I don't want to have to read 60+ tax treaties
The chart on the first link shows tickets are about one tenth of the profits; completely dwarfed in comparison to media profits and sponsorships (which are the commercial profits), which is mainly advertising (thus tying back into TV as a profit source) that consumers have no control over whatsoever.PeadarCo wrote:http://swissramble.blogspot.ie/2011/...asterplan.html
My point was that TV revenue is only one element. Take Man City media revenues contribute less than half their income. I agree with Kinski that some clubs are arguably commercially unsustainable but I also make the point that clubs such as Bayern Munich can still pay large wages and be profitable year after year.The author notes in the paragraph above the 2 graph the German club have been profitable for 19years.
Also in this subsequent link a table which has a graph showing the contribution of TV revenue to clubs. For most its less than half. Also in Bayerns situation wages are only about half of their overall turnover.
http://swissramble.blogspot.ie/searc...ayern%20Munich
In the other link, the ticket profits could meet 25% at a stretch.
It actually substantially backs up my point, as these figures show between 75-90% of the profit generated is completely beyond consumers control.
You don't seem to get, from my previous posts, that people pay for it indirectly anyway, whether they watch it or not.PeaderCo wrote:The point what you don't seem to get is that people are not forced to watch the sport. There are plenty of other things to watch.
Do you have a TV subscription? You probably pay for it. Do you have a subscription for any TV sports? Your TV provider was nice enough to bundle that into a package of a dozen or so channels, without giving you any option to pick or choose; you pay for it.
Do you go to the pub occasionally; a hotel, a club? Do they show big sporting events? You pay for it (indirectly).
Do you buy products from any of the companies that sponsor these matches? You pay for it (again, indirectly).
Again, like I described in my previous post, you cannot overcome the inertia caused by public apathy; there is literally nothing you can do, and the football teams and supporting industries can treat their customers as crap as they like, can splash out on massively oversized incomes as much as they want, and they won't see any consequences so long as they don't tip the balance of public apathy, by pissing off enough people to make them care and do something.
And again, public apathy is not an endorsement of their practices or massively overinflated wages.
My argument was really simple: The high-income tax would be used to disincentivize many of the previously mentioned societally undesirable behaviours (plus other added reasons), whilst counterbalancing that against the impact it would have on genuinely earned income.PeaderCo wrote:Could I ask you to restate your arguments using empirical evidence to support your arguments. At this stage I see your argument as being that's its immoral to earn more than €X. You believe anyone earning more than €X is benefiting from unethical behaviour and hence should be taxed according. Any downsides to this are outweighed by the benefit to the general public. I could be wrong and am open to correction.
I obviously disagree with that and with no empirical evidence to support your position we end up going round in circles.
It would balance the harm caused to genuine earners, against the need to discincentivize.
There is no empirical evidence needed to back this, as you appear to be requesting empirical evidence upon the straw man.0 -
Not quite, I have no problem with people becoming wealthy so long as they earn it (i.e. so long as what they provide society is proportional to the earnings), and it's very hard to make a case that earnings 60x beyond the average are proportional; that is just one argument as well, among many.Supermensch wrote:What you're arguing is that income tax discourages a disparity of wealth in society. The question that has to be asked is whether this is really an efficient way of dealing with this inequality. If you were to say that income tax should be higher so that the government has more money to set up schemes which help those who are not wealthy, for example Back to Education, then I would agree that this could be a feasible method of reducing the wage gap. However, this would not be an ethical reason for raising income tax, this would be a procuring-more-funds reason. On the other hand, I do not agree that raising income tax as a means in itself of reducing a wealth disparity is an ethically justified measure, because what this line of thinking essentially comes down to is that nobody should be allowed to accrue wealth, and that this wealth, even if it gained through honest means, should be taken and given to those who are not of wealth, simply because they are not of wealth.
It is also demonstrable that the more wealth someone earns, the more disproportionate political power they hold, and there are also many societally undesireable practices that can be easily dissuaded/ameliorated by taxing earnings past a high enough point.
The intent would not be to take money from the high-earners (which is not synonymous with wealthy) and give to the poor, as the likely effect would be capped salaries with money staying within companies instead.
I would argue actually, that taxation is the most effective way of capping off future wealth disparity; what else can you think of, that can so immediately put a limit on excessive wealth creation?
Distribution of money in an economy is a zero sum game in the end; there is a definite, hard-to-define point, at which concentration of wealth becomes damaging to society, so you can't say 'proportionality' of income is subjective, therefore any income is always justified, because there is every justifiation on clamping down on excessive earnings to ameliorate the negative societal effects.
Money held is a debt from society to that person, so there's every right for society to have that person justify the proportionality of such an income (and to enact laws to restrict it if deemed a net benefit to society).
Being rich is not immoral itself on an individual basis, but when income inequality becomes excessive it creates definite societal damage and hazards to society; capping the CEO salary as a multiple like I mention is a policy aimed at ameliorating the damage that can be caused by income inequality.Supermensch wrote:The question here is what does the CEO or shareholders of a company owe to the workers, beyond the wage and benefits which the workers agreed upon of their own volition? Provided that the CEO is earning this wage in such a way that is of no detriment to society (evading taxes and such), then why should a CEO earn less or raise the wages of workers purely because a gap exists between the two? As I said before, by all means, you can make the case that money should be raised from incomes to fund schemes which work to improve the lives of those who are not wealthy, but to regulate wages for the sole reason of stopping people from becoming rich makes no sense. As I said in my original post, being rich in itself is not intrinsically immoral or of detriment to society.
As I've said in my previous posts, it's not about outright corruption, and no you cannot regulate every possible borderline-legal/unethical practice that can net disproportionate income, because for every one you regulate there will be another; there is no way that is even remotely as efficient as using tax.Supermensch wrote:There are more efficient manners of reducing political corruption than by instating higher income tax (tighter laws on corporate and political corruption, harsher sentences for offenders, etc.) which are of less detriment to entrepreneurship.
Right now, there is so much political influence generated through wealth and earnings, that it is impossible to hold people to account, or get proper enforcement of regulations etc. (just look at the finance industry) because there is disproportionate control over politics; trying to close every potential ethical loophole, past present and future, is an endless war of attrition which is not going to stop excessive political influence from redeveloping; again, there is no more efficient way than tax.
It's simple really, politics is inherently (and will always be) corrupt to a point, because people want to make money. Politicians are the gatekeepers to the pesky laws and regulations keeping the floodgates closed for corporations, and if a politician gains enough influence to repeal/adjust a few laws, add a loophole or two, he can make a crapload of money by co-operating with corporate interests, probably going through the revolving door to work in the industry he was previously in charge of regulating (or vice versa).Supermensch wrote:If those with wealth have more political power, it makes more sense to learn why exactly that is, considering we live in a supposedly democratic society, and to confront that reason directly, rather than assuming that wealth and power are inexplicably linked.
There are numerous legal (and many illegal) ways of accepting hidden payments (or future payments), that would put a politician in a position of conflict of interest, and that's going to stay true for a very long time still.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »The chart on the first link shows tickets are about one tenth of the profits; completely dwarfed in comparison to media profits and sponsorships (which are the commercial profits), which is mainly advertising (thus tying back into TV as a profit source) that consumers have no control over whatsoever.
In the other link, the ticket profits could meet 25% at a stretch.
It actually substantially backs up my point, as these figures show between 75-90% of the profit generated is completely beyond consumers control.
You don't seem to get, from my previous posts, that people pay for it indirectly anyway, whether they watch it or not.
Do you have a TV subscription? You probably pay for it. Do you have a subscription for any TV sports? Your TV provider was nice enough to bundle that into a package of a dozen or so channels, without giving you any option to pick or choose; you pay for it.
Do you go to the pub occasionally; a hotel, a club? Do they show big sporting events? You pay for it (indirectly).
Do you buy products from any of the companies that sponsor these matches? You pay for it (again, indirectly).
Again, like I described in my previous post, you cannot overcome the inertia caused by public apathy; there is literally nothing you can do, and the football teams and supporting industries can treat their customers as crap as they like, can splash out on massively oversized incomes as much as they want, and they won't see any consequences so long as they don't tip the balance of public apathy, by pissing off enough people to make them care and do something.
And again, public apathy is not an endorsement of their practices or massively overinflated wages.
Your argument is predicated on the basis the people are forced to watch the sport. How can TV companies force millions to watch premier league matchs. How can they force them to not switch channel to something they are interested in. Very few channels provide only sport. There is more than one channel and more than one programme on at a time. Why would not they not spend the money on things people want to watch. Larger audiences means advertising space is worth more which is a key part of a broadcasters revenue. If nobody is watching ad space is worth €O.
Commercial also includes elements such as shirt sales etc. TV does help do what you also note from the links that it is not directly correlated to TV income. This indicates if a clubs wants to increase it it must have a separate help although I agree a larger audience helps but my would people sponsor something that reflects negatively overall on their brand.
Which us back to the original point are people who earn more than €3 million worth it. Given that some teams are able to pay wages of this amount sustainablely its less than €60,000 a week. This for top top teams is a relatively low wage so obviously some people do believe they are worth it.You are free to disagree.KyussBishop wrote: »My argument was really simple: The high-income tax would be used to disincentivize many of the previously mentioned societally undesirable behaviours (plus other added reasons), whilst counterbalancing that against the impact it would have on genuinely earned income.
It would balance the harm caused to genuine earners, against the need to discincentivize.
There is no empirical evidence needed to back this, as you appear to be requesting empirical evidence upon the straw man.
You have a theory that's all. You have no evidence to support your position. Raising and lowering tax's and the various costs and benefits associated are not theoretical. This has been done for hundreds of years. There is plenty of evidence available for you to use to support your position should you choose. If as it appears as your unwillingness to produce it suggests that there is no evidence to support your position it indicates that your theory however sound you think it is does not work in the real world. Which means this theory is unsound and needs to be revisited as it obviously ignores certain real world factors that need to be invesitagated.
Economics is a social science and like any science were possible theories are tested against the real world. If you don't do this you can't validate your theory in any way.0 -
-
No they are not, the fact of the matter is your money goes towards funding it whether you watch it or not; that is the argument I've been making.PeadarCo wrote:Your argument is predicated on the basis the people are forced to watch the sport.
It completely does not matter whether you are interest in or watch sport, because there are several indirect ways you end up funding it.
In short, the funding that goes into it is heavily disconnected (though still correlated) with who actually watches or is interested in it.
The meat of the commercial expenditure is on sponsorship, which is rooted in advertising, which heavily ties into TV and media in general; none of which the consumer has any control over.PeadarCo wrote:Commercial also includes elements such as shirt sales etc. TV does help do what you also note from the links that it is not directly correlated to TV income. This indicates if a clubs wants to increase it it must have a separate help although I agree a larger audience helps but my would people sponsor something that reflects negatively overall on their brand.
Also, you haven't addressed the point about overcoming the extremely significant inertia of apathy (and the massive leeway that gives any industry overall), or how such significant apathy does not mean excessively high wages are endorsed.
Yes the people who are making craploads of money from the entire industry think it's worth it, because it's in their interest in as it boosts their profits and personally nets them a crapload of cash.PeadarCo wrote:Which us back to the original point are people who earn more than €3 million worth it. Given that some teams are able to pay wages of this amount sustainablely its less than €60,000 a week. This for top top teams is a relatively low wage so obviously some people do believe they are worth it.You are free to disagree.
This does not mean the end-consumer thinks it is worth it, they just don't have a say in the entire affair; your argument basically boils down to "they can pay such high wages, so because they can then their wage is automatically proportional".
Even within the industry, a majority support capping the pay:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/4898392.stmDespite the high salary figures, 64% of Premiership footballers who responded said they were in favour of a salary cap, which would mean that no more than 75% of a club's income should be spent on its wage bill.
Eh? Where did I theorize? I outlined a policy, I wasn't making up some fanciful theory. You seem to be evaluating my argument based on the straw man you presented, once again, which is consciously dishonest.PeaderCo wrote:You have a theory that's all. You have no evidence to support your position. Raising and lowering tax's and the various costs and benefits associated are not theoretical. This has been done for hundreds of years. There is plenty of evidence available for you to use to support your position should you choose. If as it appears as your unwillingness to produce it suggests that there is no evidence to support your position it indicates that your theory however sound you think it is does not work in the real world. Which means this theory is unsound and needs to be revisited as it obviously ignores certain real world factors that need to be invesitagated.
Economics is a social science and like any science were possible theories are tested against the real world. If you don't do this you can't validate your theory in any way.
What exact part of what I said do you contest by the way? You don't seem to have directly argued against anything other than your straw man presentation, and now you're spinning another straw man by saying I'm 'theorizing'.
In general here, you seem to babble on about 'theorizing', 'real world factors' demanding 'empirical evidence' to back up....to back up what exactly? What specific statement or claim are you asking me to back with empirical evidence there? (the straw man argument you presented perhaps? which I don't have to find evidence for because it isn't a position I argued in the first place?)
You go on about that and other nondescript/irrelevant points, which all seem to completely avoid addressing any of the actual arguments I have made, and in general avoid saying anything coherent at all, just still trying to bash down the same straw man I brushed aside a page or two ago.
Anyway, while the football aspect of the discussion was slightly interesting, the circular nature of the rest of the discussion pretty heavily limits where it can go or what may potentially be learned still, so I'm going to leave it at that.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »Eh? Where did I theorize? I outlined a policy, I wasn't making up some fanciful theory. You seem to be evaluating my argument based on the straw man you presented, once again, which is consciously dishonest.
What exact part of what I said do you contest by the way? You don't seem to have directly argued against anything other than your straw man presentation, and now you're spinning another straw man by saying I'm 'theorizing'.
In general here, you seem to babble on about 'theorizing', 'real world factors' demanding 'empirical evidence' to back up....to back up what exactly? What specific statement or claim are you asking me to back with empirical evidence there? (the straw man argument you presented perhaps? which I don't have to find evidence for because it isn't a position I argued in the first place?)
You go on about that and other nondescript/irrelevant points, which all seem to completely avoid addressing any of the actual arguments I have made, and in general avoid saying anything coherent at all, just still trying to bash down the same straw man I brushed aside a page or two ago.
Anyway, while the football aspect of the discussion was slightly interesting, the circular nature of the rest of the discussion pretty heavily limits where it can go or what may potentially be learned still, so I'm going to leave it at that.
If you are not theorising then you will have no problem providing hard evidence that your policy will work or has the potential to work based when implemented.
What I want you to show me that in the past when high taxes were levelled on high earners that it reduced the incidence of corruption/unethical behaviour and any the various benefits and costs associated. If you can show using hard data that this will produce a net benefit to society I will have no problem supporting your position. Tax's of various sorts are not exactly new so you shouldn't have any problem obtaining this information should evidence exist for it.
You can't simply argue using logic when real world data exists that can either prove or disprove this logic. Its very hard to proper debate when someone doesn't produce evidence and works on the basis this is true because I say so. You need to back it with data. We're not dealing with theoretical physics as already mentioned taxes are very real.0 -
KyussBishop wrote: »Not quite, I have no problem with people becoming wealthy so long as they earn it (i.e. so long as what they provide society is proportional to the earnings), and it's very hard to make a case that earnings 60x beyond the average are proportional; that is just one argument as well, among many.
Your opinion on whether wages 60x the average are proportional or not is irrelevant, unless you are a shareholder or in some way own a stake in such a company. As long as this company operates in a manner which is legitimate and complies with regulations, your or my opinions on how inflated wages are is moot.It is also demonstrable that the more wealth someone earns, the more disproportionate political power they hold, and there are also many societally undesireable practices that can be easily dissuaded/ameliorated by taxing earnings past a high enough point.
As I said before, this problem, which I don't deny exists, would be better dealt with through better regulations on corruption, or some reform of the political system.The intent would not be to take money from the high-earners (which is not synonymous with wealthy) and give to the poor, as the likely effect would be capped salaries with money staying within companies instead.
Whether this is the effect of such a policy or not, the question is why do private companies have to established a fixed wage ratio between employees? To put it bluntly, it's their money, why can't they do what they want with it? This is more of an argument on how Libertarian you believe society should be, however, and is not so relevant here in this thread.I would argue actually, that taxation is the most effective way of capping off future wealth disparity; what else can you think of, that can so immediately put a limit on excessive wealth creation?
Distribution of money in an economy is a zero sum game in the end; there is a definite, hard-to-define point, at which concentration of wealth becomes damaging to society, so you can't say 'proportionality' of income is subjective, therefore any income is always justified, because there is every justifiation on clamping down on excessive earnings to ameliorate the negative societal effects.
You're going to need to delineate to me exactly what is wrong with legitimately accumulated wealth, bearing in mind that I have addressed the argument that wealth garners disproportionate political power.Money held is a debt from society to that person, so there's every right for society to have that person justify the proportionality of such an income (and to enact laws to restrict it if deemed a net benefit to society).
Could you elaborate on this point?As I've said in my previous posts, it's not about outright corruption, and no you cannot regulate every possible borderline-legal/unethical practice that can net disproportionate income, because for every one you regulate there will be another; there is no way that is even remotely as efficient as using tax.
Right now, there is so much political influence generated through wealth and earnings, that it is impossible to hold people to account, or get proper enforcement of regulations etc. (just look at the finance industry) because there is disproportionate control over politics; trying to close every potential ethical loophole, past present and future, is an endless war of attrition which is not going to stop excessive political influence from redeveloping; again, there is no more efficient way than tax.
Fundementally, what you are doing by using high income tax to discourage corruption is punishing the earning of money. It is not even a matter of the means not justifying the ends, but rather the means being of a distinct motive to the end result. While you have made the case that wealth begets political power, a point I don't dispute, by increasing income taxs as a method of dealing with this problem, you are not dealing with the unfair distribution of power in society, rather you are dealing with the 'problem' of wealth, and unless gaining wealth can in itself be demonstrated as being a henious act, this measure remains ethically dubious.0 -
Advertisement
-
So according to Gene if you are paying marginal tax rate, you're rich
And he points to the US as a example of how to do it
Earn more than €36,000? Welcome to your future tax rate if Gene has his way. I, and my job, will be on a plane to some nice sunny country if that happens.
I don't think Gene Kerrigan is someone to be taken seriously when it comes to taxation, his views generally come in somewhere to the left of the ULA.
"Tax the Rich" has always been the mantra of Gene and his ilk, but without defining who exactly the "rich" are. Unfortunately for taxpayers they quickly find out when these people get into power that the "rich" in their eyes is about half the working population.0
Advertisement