The most intriguing parts of the ongoing tax discussion, to me, has been the
opposition to taxes which allow the rich to get richer, or to increase the
wealth gap.
If you define as "evil" any tax system which allows the rich to get richer,
leaving the poor the same (or worse off, or only slightly better off) then
the only kind of tax that will do that is such a maximally progressive tax
that it taxes rich people approaching a rate of 100%
- if you make $10,000/yr the gov't lets you keep it (tax rate 0)
- if you make $20,000/yr the gov't lets you keep half (tax rate 50%)
- if you make $100,000/yr the gov't lets you keep 10K of it (tax rate of
90%)
- if you make $1,000,000/yr the gov't lets you keep 10K of it (tax rate of
99%)
This lets everybody accumulate up to $10,000/yr and the rich cannot get
richer faster than the poor can. Obviously, this is ridiculous, but it's
the only way to keep the rich 'down'. Since I've seen people claiming to
beleive that any system which allows the rich increase the "wealth gap" is
evil, I must believe that this is actually what some people advocate.
Is there anybody on FoRK who thinks that any tax system which allows the
absolute wealth gap to increase is wrong? If so, do you agree or disagree
with my analysis? Do you go so far as to advocate a tax rate approaching
100%?
lisa
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 27 2001 - 23:15:12 PDT