@infobeautiful

yeah this is why i get sad when i see "tax the rich" posts

the problem is when you have a lot of money, you can hire teams of accountants who spend their days inventing new ways to avoid paying taxes

i'm not saying we shouldn't tax the rich, nor am i saying to give up on trying to get them to contribute what they owe. what i am saying is that it is a harder more difficult problem. it's whack-a-mole. we need some sort of universal approach that catches *all* possible loopholes

@benroyce @infobeautiful

For simplicity, wouldn't a minimum tax based on wealth, with assets assessed at market value, be a start?

There are challenges to this - eg venture capital & startups, art & collectibles, wine collections - which might be difficult to value/audit - but those are, I think, harder to monetize via loans.

(I dream of a minimum tax based on expenditures but suspect it would be too easy to game)

@PaulWermer @infobeautiful

zero argument

mainly because i'd just be talking out of my ass. it is an extremely complicated topic. we think we have something comprehensive, then some accounting genius figures out a way to game it. it's a very hard problem. but vital to tackle

my personal thinking is that this pool of plutocrat billionaires is not large. so it's almost like you have to spearfish them individually. the idea we have to have a comprehensive law isn't practical, i think

@benroyce @PaulWermer What bothers me the most about this idea is that we'd have to report all our assets to the government.

And who pays for all the assessing required? I have no clue how much my stuff is worth and wouldn't want an auditor poking their nose into every nook and cranny of my life on a regular basis.

@solitha @PaulWermer

understood but this is not really the topic. the topic is getting billionaires to pay their fair share. so unless you're a billionaire this isn't on your back

@benroyce I get your point, but a fair taxation system has to be fair across the board, imo.

If there's some sort of threshold, then someone like Warren Buffet might fall under it. He plows his earnings back into his businesses, and lives relatively frugally.

Maybe that would be acceptable? But it's hard to qualify via law.

@PaulWermer

@solitha @PaulWermer

The problem is an inversion of your concept of fairness. We write the code, then those with money find ways to cheat. In such a way, to be "unfair" to the ultrarich is in fact being fair, since they aren't being fair

So what I'm saying is lose the concept of some overarching code. It won't work. Go after the ultrarich uniquely, since their situation is so extraordinary. *That* is fair

There is no concept of "fairness for all" that applies or could apply to the outliers

@benroyce I specified fairness because it would have to withstand court challenge.

Whole lot of ideas that would be morally fair, but not legally so. But then again I suppose this is all a reach anyway, and laws would have to be changed.

@PaulWermer

@solitha @PaulWermer

so you just word the law properly: "when it comes to wealth of {X} amount the state is allowed to take extraordinary actions to maintain a fair and proper contribution"

of course it's new law, but there's no reason the law can't recognize extraordinary circumstances. the law already does so on many topics