[dxs]

For several years now I've been wondering about a couple of things.

One would be to come up with a simple taxation formula for individual income.

(1) No deductions.

(2) Peg the tax rate to a formula, something like tax = 1% per $10,000 of income. (These specific numbers would not work very well.)

This would be simple, absolutely predictable, and would set a maximum income at whatever the culture decided was right.

And/Or: eliminate inheritance.

This could replace a maximum income because no one could pass along a fortune to heirs, and wealth would be automatically recycled on death.

(1) Set up a citizen's commission that selects members at random for a three-year term, 1/3 of members to be replaced each year.

(2) The commission decides what entities are worthwhile. (Charitable, non-profit, humanitarian, research, whatever.)

(3) At death, any remaining funds belonging to a person are disbursed.

(4) Disbursed funds go to eligible entities selected by the deceased, or to the U.S. Treasury as a default.

(5) Wealthy individuals can support their children through college up to age 25 or so, after which the kids are on their own.

(6) Not necessarily any limit on how much wealth a person could accumulate because it would be impossible to develop a hereditary plutocratic class.

[dogma1138]

That sounds like a dystopian nightmare that is incompatible with private ownership of anything.

[imtringued]

Why is that a more dystopian nightmare than rich people owning all the private property and leaving nothing for you?

[dogma1138]

The suggestion above guarantees exactly the opposite of what you want to achieve.

Corporations and other legal entities that are not individuals don’t die so there is no inheritance to steal sorry to tax so they’ll end up owning everything.

Oh and foreign investors since when a Japanese billionaire dies his ownership in US assets is governed by Japanese inheritance law not by US one.

It would be also interesting how you’ll deal with various indigenous people and ancestral lands too ;)

[zx8080]

Maybe because a hope to become rich from the poor supports the "rich owns everything" nightmare?

[jopsen]

> leaving nothing for you?

You assume the world is a zero sum game.

You have what you make. Why would you need anyone to "leave" something for you?

To be fair: I didn't mind my free healthcare, education, and the educational support that allowed me to study without loans, saving or a job.

But you don't have to do a full communist to fund a wealth fare state.

[int_19h]

I don't think the scheme proposed by OP is a good idea, but it's not communist in any meaningful sense. It's not even anti-private-property. It's very specifically against inheritance.

[dogma1138]

Which is very much against private ownership of property or at least individual ownership which is even worse.

It’s just blatantly stupid as it favors ownership under entities other than individuals such as corporations and trusts over individual ownership.

This move from an ownership model to a beneficiary one is already how the wealthiest amongst us avoid paying inheritance tax since if a family trust owns everything and you just get to benefit from those assets there is nothing to tax when a trustee dies.

And ofc corporations don’t die so no inheritance there which means the farmer’s kids are fucked whilst some mega agrocorp is laughing all the way to the bank waiting for Old McDonald to die…

All of these schemes that attempt to make inheritance costlier just make it worse for everyone other the richest of the rich.

People might take an issue with Bezos leaving billions to his survivors but what about farmland that has been in a family for generations? or an ancestral home? Or heck you don’t need to even to get to Amazon levels can someone leave to their kids a chain of 4 dry cleaners in some small city without it being taken away by the taxman?

And if that isn’t enough then it puts the residents of a country that has such a tax policy or any substantial inheritance taxation at a massive disadvantage against foreign investors and owners.

[chrisdbanks]

People would just find ways of giving the money to their children, e.g. cash, or setting up a company and employing them at ridiculous salaries. When you have money there are always ways around things. It's an arms race and unfortunately they rich are winning it.

[silvestrov]

> Peg the tax rate to a formula

Never going to fly as most of the population does not understand math and will think you are cheating them.

Many can't even understand progressive taxation.

[jopsen]

Is equality a goal in its own?

Think of the incentives you setup. People won't be build large long lasting corporate institutions.

Also "disbursing funds", sounds an awful lot like liquidate investments. Is that a good idea?

Worst of all, whatever commissions you create will be corrupted, because so much money is involved. The commissions will make bad decisions, etc.

Centralized decision making faces many of the same problems as plan economics / communism. You simply can't know what is good/bad idea at scale.

Sure, privately owned corporations make bad decisions too -- but it's more distributed. And the government isn't incentivized to cover it up.

Note. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a decent estate tax. Or that the wealthiest shouldn't pay more in taxes... Just that there things worse than private ownership :)

[sidewndr46]

Why not just transfer all wealth and private property to the Treasury today? I only need 1 bullet point for that.