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Tax the rich

13567…11

Comments

  • #62
    mollymosfet
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 221 ✭✭mollymosfet


    Icepick wrote: »
    wealth is not a limited pot so this does not matter as much as you think

    ... I'm pretty sure this line of thinking is what lead to the bubbles...

    Just to make sure - there is no such thing as "wealth creator" or a "Job creator". The economy creates wealths and jobs, not individuals.


  • #63
    Diarmuid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭Diarmuid


    mollymosfet wrote: »
    Capital in the country is not the same as money in the economy. I don't see much reason to trust that piece anyway.

    Why?, it doesn't match your world view?


  • #64
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    mollymosfet wrote: »
    ... I'm pretty sure this line of thinking is what lead to the bubbles...

    Just to make sure - there is no such thing as "wealth creator" or a "Job creator". The economy creates wealths and jobs, not individuals.
    You have yet to explain to us how wealthy people 'hoarding' money is a 'drain' on the economy. And I'm astonished to learn that the economy is not made up of individuals.


  • #65
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,471 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    It's true that consumer spending doesn't increase in a linear fashion with income, so higher earners have a lower Marginal Propensity to Consume.

    A lot of their income is saved, not consumed, so does not directly help domestic demand.

    Of course, standard economics says that savings are lent out by banks and invested by borrowers, so that's how your savings are spent.

    However, in Irl today, that's not really happening.


  • #66
    Geuze
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,471 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    Here's a proposal.

    Families with children tend to spend more of their income.

    People >65 with strong pensions don't, their last 100 is saved.

    If we could transfer that last 100 of income from the pensioner to the family, consumer spending would rise, the economy would grow.

    OK, savings would fall, but we have plenty of savings at the moment, and investment has fallen hugely, so no need for all those savings.

    How do we do it? One option:

    Abolish the >65 age tax credit
    Abolish the >65 tax exemptions
    Maybe have a general increase in income tax

    BUT, give a income tax credit per child.

    Result should be to put a little more purchasing power into the hands of those most likely to spend it.


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  • #67
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    Geuze wrote: »

    Of course, standard economics says that savings are lent out by banks and invested by borrowers, so that's how your savings are spent.
    You may have a point, but if those savings that are not being loaned out were not sitting in the banks, the banks would collapse, and then we would be in for a very interesting time.

    A point you seem to be missing is that most discretionary consumption in this country is on imported goods - so of whatever is spent in the domestic economy, most of it would be going to pay workers in China and Germany rather than in Ireland.


  • #68
    Tipp Man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,025 ✭✭✭Tipp Man


    Geuze wrote: »
    It's true that consumer spending doesn't increase in a linear fashion with income, so higher earners have a lower Marginal Propensity to Consume.

    A lot of their income is saved, not consumed, so does not directly help domestic demand.

    Of course, standard economics says that savings are lent out by banks and invested by borrowers, so that's how your savings are spent.

    However, in Irl today, that's not really happening.

    Surely wealthy people invest the majority of their money rather than saving it in banks especially considering how low interest rates have been - the returns would be small

    Either way this money generally makes its way into other businesses either through direct investment or bank lending - unless its stashed underneath the floor boards of course


  • #69
    Hailee Lively Squad
    Posts: 81,310 CMod ✭✭✭✭ Hailee Lively Squad


    I'm surprised to see responses along the lines of "so what if they leave what difference will it make they don't earn THAT much"
    If it would make no difference why would you bother taxing them more in the first place, if they don't earn that much?
    If you want to tax them more because you think an increase will make any real difference to tax income, then surely it follows the loss of all their tax income would affect you

    Their expenditure can & has been shown to affect everyone else, remember this?:
    http://watchingamerica.com/News/94396/u-s-luxury-tax-%E2%80%94-a-total-failure/
    However, in August 1993, two years after its introduction, the U.S. Congress decided to end the “luxury tax” because the tax revenues were disappointing and the livelihoods of common folks who made a living by selling “luxury items” were negatively impacted.
    More importantly, problems slowly emerge from the shortfall of luxury tax collection, and the the yacht industry took an unexpectedly hard hit. Within a year, sales plunged 70 percent, and many firms had to lay off workers and even declare bankruptcy. Large numbers of workers lost their jobs. In Florida, 13,000 yacht workers were unemployed, and related industries were also affected. The impact was significant.


    Good article showing that he's not the only one:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/france-income-tax_n_1757139.html


  • #70
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    Tipp Man wrote: »
    Surely wealthy people invest the majority of their money rather than saving it in banks especially considering how low interest rates have been - the returns would be small

    Either way this money generally makes its way into other businesses either through direct investment or bank lending - unless its stashed underneath the floor boards of course
    Yes, this is the point that Mollymosfet seems to not understand - savings (yours, mine, middle income people's, poor people's, rich people's) goes into a pool of capital that is loaned out to (or buys bonds from) businesses that create jobs and wealth. Unless, as you suggest, people have all their savings in banknotes or gold that they bury in a hole in the ground.

    I had to laugh at the idea that people don't create wealth, that the economy does - much like Einstein didn't propose the theory of relativity, science did. :rolleyes:


  • #71
    spikey95
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14 ✭spikey95


    It's staggering how the rich wants more and more. As if they don't have enough already! I don't want to tarnish everyone with the same brush but it seems that they are more likely to cut corners and save their precious millions than an average Joe.


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  • #72
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    spikey95 wrote: »
    It's staggering how the rich wants more and more. As if they don't have enough already! I don't want to tarnish everyone with the same brush but it seems that they are more likely to cut corners and save their precious millions than an average Joe.
    Perhaps it is by not wasting money that they became wealthy in the first place? Is there a lesson to be learned there?


  • #73
    spikey95
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14 ✭spikey95


    Monty Burnz wrote: »
    Perhaps it is by not wasting money that they became wealthy in the first place? Is there a lesson to be learned there?

    I see it more as them trying to find loopholes to avoid paying taxes and saving their on a Swiss account.


  • #74
    mollymosfet
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 221 ✭✭mollymosfet


    Diarmuid wrote: »
    Why?, it doesn't match your world view?

    No, because there's no guarantee that said capital is actually being invested in anything, or anything useful. Capital is one sense just money that's sitting there until it's used. Money that's actually moving around is far more useful.


  • #75
    mollymosfet
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 221 ✭✭mollymosfet


    Monty Burnz wrote: »
    Yes, this is the point that Mollymosfet seems to not understand - savings (yours, mine, middle income people's, poor people's, rich people's) goes into a pool of capital that is loaned out to (or buys bonds from) businesses that create jobs and wealth. Unless, as you suggest, people have all their savings in banknotes or gold that they bury in a hole in the ground.

    I had to laugh at the idea that people don't create wealth, that the economy does - much like Einstein didn't propose the theory of relativity, science did. :rolleyes:

    But they don't. Again, how do you explain the fact that taxes on the rich, in the US for example, are at an all time low, yet this has not lead to more jobs than were present in the 70s when there was a very high tax rate?

    It's bollocks.

    http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-12-12/news/30500948_1_entrepreneurs-and-investors-capital-gains-and-income-jobs


  • #76
    mollymosfet
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 221 ✭✭mollymosfet


    Tipp Man wrote: »
    Surely wealthy people invest the majority of their money rather than saving it in banks especially considering how low interest rates have been - the returns would be small

    Either way this money generally makes its way into other businesses either through direct investment or bank lending - unless its stashed underneath the floor boards of course

    Again, if this was true, the US would have no problem with unemployment currently, and countries that tax the rich higher such as in mainland europe would be struggling more than us. But they're not. There's only so far other factors can compensate for that too.

    I just don't understand how the economic right viciously reject the world around them yet still act like they're the more mature, down to earth ones. It's very frustrating.


  • #77
    Count Dooku
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,419 ✭✭✭Count Dooku


    mollymosfet wrote: »
    Again, if this was true, the US would have no problem with unemployment currently, and countries that tax the rich higher such as in mainland europe would be struggling more than us. But they're not.
    mostly because they didn't use so much incomes from unsustainable sources, like property bubble, for their spending


  • #78
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    mollymosfet wrote: »
    No, because there's no guarantee that said capital is actually being invested in anything, or anything useful. Capital is one sense just money that's sitting there until it's used. Money that's actually moving around is far more useful.
    Nonsense. Sorry. You don't seem to understand the difference between consumption and investment. One creates wealth, the other does not.


  • #79
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    mollymosfet wrote: »
    But they don't. Again, how do you explain the fact that taxes on the rich, in the US for example, are at an all time low, yet this has not lead to more jobs than were present in the 70s when there was a very high tax rate?

    It's bollocks.
    So Sergiy Brin and Larry Page didn't create billions of euros of wealth by creating Google?

    And I don't know what point you are making re. low taxes in the US? It doesn't speak to anything I've said here.


  • #80
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    bluewolf wrote: »
    I'm surprised to see responses along the lines of "so what if they leave what difference will it make they don't earn THAT much"
    If it would make no difference why would you bother taxing them more in the first place, if they don't earn that much?
    If you want to tax them more because you think an increase will make any real difference to tax income, then surely it follows the loss of all their tax income would affect you

    Their expenditure can & has been shown to affect everyone else, remember this?:
    http://watchingamerica.com/News/94396/u-s-luxury-tax-%E2%80%94-a-total-failure/



    Good article showing that he's not the only one:
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/france-income-tax_n_1757139.html
    The idea behind that is essentially trickle-down economics, which is largely considered to be false:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

    As I mentioned in one of my previous posts early on in the thread: You have to show that the income streams and jobs themselves disappear; it doesn't matter if high earners disappear, if someone else takes their job and thus income (which is still taxed at the higher rate).


  • #81
    Chazz Michael Michaels
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭Chazz Michael Michaels


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    these are pretty heavily invested job positions, taking significant time to move up the ladder (and usually easily replaceable), so there aren't exactly going to be similarly paying jobs waiting for them as soon as they move to another country.

    Talk about baseless assumptions...


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  • #82
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Chazz Michael Michaels wrote: »
    Talk about baseless assumptions...
    So I take it you disagree with me then? Are you going to provide a counterargument, or just stick with the one-liner?


  • #83
    Chazz Michael Michaels
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭Chazz Michael Michaels


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    So I take it you disagree with me then? Are you going to provide a counterargument, or just stick with the one-liner?

    Jesus, that was quick.

    Anyway, your point seemed made up, to be honest. Executives move around all the time, just pick up the FT and have a read.


  • #84
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Chazz Michael Michaels wrote: »
    Jesus, that was quick.

    Anyway, your point seemed made up, to be honest. Executives move around all the time, just pick up the FT and have a read.
    You've picked that point out of the wider context of my post really; a large percentage of managerial/executive positions can't just up and move out of the country over a short period of time, to similar jobs with the same income elsewhere.


  • #85
    Diarmuid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭Diarmuid


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    it doesn't matter if high earners disappear, if someone else takes their job and thus income (which is still taxed at the higher rate).

    Like when Denis O Brien / JP McManus / John Magnier / Tony O Reilly / Michael Smurfit / Dermot Desmond moved abroad, someone else replaced them and their income in Ireland. Oh wait, that didn't happen


  • #86
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    Diarmuid wrote: »
    Like when Denis O Brien / JP McManus / John Magnier / Tony O Reilly / Michael Smurfit / Dermot Desmond moved abroad, someone else replaced them and their income in Ireland. Oh wait, that didn't happen
    We still have Mick Wallace.


  • #87
    Tipp Man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,025 ✭✭✭Tipp Man


    Diarmuid wrote: »
    Like when Denis O Brien / JP McManus / John Magnier / Tony O Reilly / Michael Smurfit / Dermot Desmond moved abroad, someone else replaced them and their income in Ireland. Oh wait, that didn't happen

    And whoever does replace them quickly realises they are being a mug for paying high taxes and joins those listed above on tropical islands and alpine highlands


  • #88
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    Diarmuid wrote: »
    Like when Denis O Brien / JP McManus / John Magnier / Tony O Reilly / Michael Smurfit / Dermot Desmond moved abroad, someone else replaced them and their income in Ireland. Oh wait, that didn't happen
    What about them? Again focusing on a narrow aspect of my argument, that was not applied to all high earners yet does apply a significant portion.

    If you propose that higher taxes on the rich makes the economy worse off (the context my argument was made in), the burden of proof is on you to show that; my arguments give examples of specific instances where high taxes will not have a negative impact, I don't apply them to all high earners like you try to make out here.

    If you disagree with me, you have to show the loss caused by such a tax, will be greater than the gain.


  • #89
    Monty Burnz
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,455 ✭✭✭✭Monty Burnz


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    What about them? Again focusing on a narrow aspect of my argument, that was not applied to all high earners yet does apply a significant portion.

    If you propose that higher taxes on the rich makes the economy worse off (the context my argument was made in), the burden of proof is on you to show that; my arguments give examples of specific instances where high taxes will not have a negative impact, I don't apply them to all high earners like you try to make out here.

    If you disagree with me, you have to show the loss caused by such a tax, will be greater than the gain.
    I actually did a quick search on Google scholar and found 4 papers (at which point I stopped looking for more) that demonstrated the negative effects of increasing marginal tax rates in terms of total tax income, but I didn't think anyone would be interested and closed all the tabs.

    The research is out there - just search for 'marginal tax rate effects' in Google Scholar and Bob's your uncle.

    There are two main negative effects - you drive high earners out of the economy (a particular danger for us as people can work in so many other countries) and high earners just don't bother to work so much as they value leisure time more over heavily taxed extra income.


  • #90
    KyussBishop
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,797 ✭✭✭KyussBishop


    You'll need to cite them, as you don't even elaborate on what the 'negative effects' are and why they are b ad; and again, even if some high earners leave you don't show that the jobs leave too.

    Even if they aren't replaced in some jobs (or if they work less), that money stays within the company and is spent on other resources instead; so again is not a net loss.

    Also, even if there are some negative effects, it has to be shown that they are greater than the increased tax intake; none of this has been shown thus far.


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  • #91
    Count Dooku
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,419 ✭✭✭Count Dooku


    KyussBishop wrote: »
    You'll need to cite them, as you don't even elaborate on what the 'negative effects' are and why they are b ad; and again, even if some high earners leave you don't show that the jobs leave too.

    Even if they aren't replaced in some jobs (or if they work less), that money stays within the company and is spent on other resources instead; so again is not a net loss.

    Also, even if there are some negative effects, it has to be shown that they are greater than the increased tax intake; none of this has been shown thus far.
    Most of high earners are working or in MNCs or in state owned companies (banks, ESB etc). While Irish companies won't be able easily transfer high pay jobs abroad, multinational s won't such problems. Could you remind us what high taxes achieved 30 years go?


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