[Retric]

Bill Gates pays a much lower tax rate than I do, so I’m subsidizing his economic activities.

Before a Microsoft employee drives on public roads someone needs to have paid to create and maintain those roads. Without government spending creating an environment conducive to wealth creation you don’t end up with billionaire business men you get warlords and poor people.

[quesera]

> I’m subsidizing his economic activities

That is one, not universally-accepted, perspective, I guess.

[iamthirsty]

> Bill Gates pays a much lower tax rate than I do, so I’m subsidizing his economic activities.

Given it's est. he'd have paid $500m+ in income tax in 2023[1], I think your calculation is off — he's subsidizing your economic activity.

Just because the rate is lower, doesn't mean the real $ amount — what actually matters — isn't vastly higher.

—

[1]: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/much-bill-gates-pays-property-1910...

[Retric]

He paid 0$ in income tax on all the money funding his foundation, ~150x more money untaxed than a single unusual large tax bill.

You may agree or disagree with with what his foundation is doing, but your subsidizing it anyway.

[iamthirsty]

> He paid 0$ in income tax on all the money funding his foundation

It's a non-profit foundation that's main function is giving the money away, funding social and educational development in developing countries, and solving huge international human rights issues. One of the biggest in the world, too.

Why do you think people get tax-deductions from donations? Your priority here seems to be more to find any reason to slam someone who is wealthy, rather than actually for the better of society.

[Retric]

The point is we’re subsidizing his economic activities by 10’s of billions of dollars.

Some things you might agree with but money is fungible. I’d rather pay for someone’s healthcare than subsidize his multi million dollar yacht etc.

PS: If you really believe in what the gates foundation is doing you can give them more money to work with here ( https://www.gatesphilanthropypartners.org/) but you can’t give them less.

[quesera]

I don't think you're using a reasonable definition of "subsidize".

By all methods of accounting, Bill Gates contributes more to the public coffers than any other human being under discussion.

Your definition of "subsidize" is predicated on the belief that the state is entitled to a flat percentage of income.

This is arguably preferable (though it is, historically, a very messy argument!), but more importantly it is not true according any existing legal structure.

So you could equally reasonably argue that Bill Gates (or anyone, really) has any number of other responsibilities to the public that you might dream up. He does not.

Exactly zero of your tax pennies went toward the purchase of Bill Gates' yacht. Money is fungible, but that does not mean that all money is in all places at once.

[Retric]

I said subsidy which isn’t the same as taxes, the existing legal structure is happy to subsidize people both in the tax code and with direct handouts. In such cases it’s the tax payers who are covering that burden so talking in terms of subsidies from specific individuals to specific individuals seems perfectly reasonable though obviously the individual burden is low.

As a simple practical matter, 99% of both his earnings and mine are dependent upon past government spending not just roads but even stuff like the judicial system.But asking everyone pay the same amount while it would benefit us both doesn’t work because the total is larger than some people’s income and we really want government services. Further, it’s not just that he received a larger benefit it also cost more to provide him services.

So if we’re stuck subsidizing some people based on a percentage of our earnings, it’s only reasonable to base the subsidy calculation on a percentage of total earnings.

As to pennies argument, if he bought a lunch it’s meaningless to talk about individual subsidies unless someone paid a truly astronomical amount in taxes it’s some meaningless fraction of a cent. But when you’re talking about ultra large purchases and the lifetime subsidies are both a significant portion of his lifetime earnings and a surprisingly large fraction of federal budget, it cross the penny threshold for some people.