[SoftTalker]

I would disagree, I think income taxes and inheritance taxes are morally wrong. Earning money to support oneself and family instead of relying on public largesse should not be taxed. Passing the fruits of a lifetime of work to ones heirs so they can continue do productive work instead of relying on public largesse should not be taxed.

[ceejayoz]

> Earning…

Inheritance is, notably, not earning it.

> continue do productive work

That's a pretty bald assertion. Useless nepo babies abound.

> relying on public largesse

Any chance the existence of a stable, well-educated, high-trust society benefits the children of wealthy people at all?

[steveBK123]

Yes.. spend enough time amongst the inheritocracy and you'll see the wealth is as often as not wasted on them.

There's just too much fun to be had with 0.1% wealth that you didn't have to sacrifice your 20s, 30s (and maybe 40s) to build. Coast at some job with a top 25-50% income and 0.1% inheritance in NYC and live the life.

[SoftTalker]

So if you're spending your inheritance living the high life, that economic activity benefits a lot of other people. Still a net positive in my view.

I get the political power concern, and money = power at a certain point. But I'd rather work on getting money out of politics than putting limits on what people can decide will happen to their assets after they die.

[ElevenLathe]

I'm curious how you envision money ever leaving politics. I hear this phrase often and every time I do it feels more and more nonsensical. Politics is what we call the social aspect of resource management (it's often called "political economy" for this reason). The only way I can see to remove money from politics is to create a society that has no money at all. I assume that isn't what you mean?

[wat10000]

I'm sure it can't be removed entirely, but we could, for example, start imprisoning people who give or accept bribes.

[bdangubic]

We already do that.

- Bob Menendez (Senator)

- Randy Cunningham (Congressman)

- William J. Jefferson (Congressman)

- James Traficant (Congressman)

And a bunch more at more "local" level...

[steveBK123]

Right it seems like one of those libertarian perfect-world talking points that ignores the impossibility of implementation.

There's so many indirect ways of influencing politics given lots of money - alternative media, buying out local news, controlling national news.. making entertainment media of your own ideology. Fund interesting groups around particular topics. Give poor Ivy League grads a job and groom them for higher office.. oh wait.

[steveBK123]

The problem is that theres a lot of stuff in the tax code that allows those at the higher end to also defer taxes indefinitely. So not taxing estates/inheritance, and allowing these deferrals leaves assets untaxed at the high end forever.

For example, step up basis allows inherited assets to have their cost basis re-struck at the value at time of inheritance. So if there is no inheritance tax, the assets transfer to a new owner and a large chunk of value is forever untaxed, even when/if they eventually sell.

Similarly all sorts of interesting stuff that can be done with trusts. Again stuff that's only accessible / worth the hassle to 1%.

In a world with extreme outcomes due to scaling, we might accidentally be re-inventing the hereditary aristocracy if the assets can accumulate outside the tax system.

[ceejayoz]

Sure, and rape helps the therapy industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

[kjshsh123]

Bastiat was opposed to inheritance taxes. He wrote about this in Economic Harmonies. I think he'd call the connection you're trying to make a stretch

[selfhoster1312]

Yes, the famous bourgeois economist Bastiat is certainly a reference in how to provide economic justice on this planet. /s

To be clear, i'm not exactly defending inheritance tax if resources are shared another way. For instance, it would make sense to let people keep a − modest − home across generations. But i'm tired of rich capitalist tech bros saying income taxes are unfair because they've worked so hard, and inheritance taxes are unfair because they've already been taxed.

[themaninthedark]

I think there a a long way to go between inheriting money and rape.

[ycdeebs]

> Useless nepo babies abound.

Useless non-nepo babies abound. Useless rich people abound. Useless poor people abound. And?

[gruez]

>I would disagree, I think income taxes and inheritance taxes are morally wrong.

So what taxes aren't "morally wrong"?

[mikhailfranco]

Consumption taxes and sin taxes.

Consumption tax is sales/VAT tax excluding some necessities and capital goods. Yes, there are some awkward edge cases: in the UK the exclusions were food and children's clothes, which leads to battles over prepared cold food (e.g. sandwich), takeaway and restaurant dining.

Sin taxes are obviously things society might want to discourage, mainly for health reasons, like alcohol and smoking, but also gambling and externalities, like pollution. Some might stretch that to all carbon emissions to moderate climate change.

Don't tax things you want: working / income and investment / capital gains.

Inheritance tax is doubly wrong because the wealth is already taxed, and death is unavoidable (but emigration is possible, which might help in some countries).

[ceejayoz]

Consumption taxes disproportionately impact the less wealthy, who spend most of what they earn on consumption of necessities.

> Don't tax things you want: working / income and investment / capital gains.

What if I don't want hoarding of wealth?

[aianus]

Canada just gives you a fixed amount of cash every year for the sales tax that they estimate that you paid on a regular amount of consumption (HST credit) which solved that problem.

I don't think it's fair that someone who earns $400k and spends $400k is paying roughly the same taxes as someone earning $400k and spending $100k. You should pay more taxes the more luxurious your life is, not the more productive you are.

[nofriend]

Where's the other 300k going? If you aren't spending it, what does it matter if it all gets taxed to nothing? And if you end up spending it, then boom there's your consumption that needs to be taxed.

[ycdeebs]

In a world where you are the supreme ruler, then what you individually want matters. In our actual world, it’s more about what the society in general wants.

[ceejayoz]

> In our actual world, it’s more about what the society in general wants.

God, if only!

In the actual world, it's more about what the powerful want.

Why do you think billionaires spent more fighting Mamdani than they stood to lose in new taxes?

[senordevnyc]

The powerful didn’t want this.

[WalterBright]

> So what taxes aren't "morally wrong"?

Taxes on somebody else.

[SoftTalker]

Property taxes on real property or possibly land value tax (it's a limited resource, at least in places where people want to live, and requires a lot of public infrastructure to support its value there).

Tariffs, various usage taxes and fees.

Need a mechanism to address the regressiveness of some of this but that's an implementation detail.

[sporadicism]

How is dynastic wealth not immoral?

[OkayPhysicist]

Their take on inheritance taxes is insane, but I tend to agree that income taxes are immoral. Corporations get taxed on profits: If OkayPhysicist, Inc. spends $200 to make $300, it would be taxed some fraction of $100. Individuals, on the other hand, get taxed on revenue. It doesn't matter if it costs me $4000 in rent, groceries, transportation, etc., to make $6000, I'm getting taxed on that full $6000.

Capital gains taxes, on the other hand, are completely moral, and should be much, much higher. Capital investment benefits enormously from the State protecting their property "rights" (you don't need to hire a private army to prevent the workers from just deciding to run your factory for their own benefit, that's what the cops are for), and at a minimum the state would be justified in collecting that dividend for itself. Bootlickers and profession bootlickers (i.e., economists) would complain that a high capital gains tax disincentives investment, but as long as the value of investment is positive, that is, outpacing inflation, it makes zero sense to let your money languish in a Scrooge McDuck pile rather than get some value out of it.

[gruez]

>It doesn't matter if it costs me $4000 in rent, groceries, transportation, etc., to make $6000, I'm getting taxed on that full $6000.

So if I spend $5000 on groceries because I'm eating wagyu steak and lobster everyday, is that a fair "expense" too? You might retort that's obviously a luxury and there should be some baseline that's tax free, but then you're just describing the standard deduction.

>but as long as the value of investment is positive, that is, outpacing inflation, it makes zero sense to let your money languish in a Scrooge McDuck pile rather than get some value out of it.

...or they take their money elsewhere instead.

[OkayPhysicist]

Businesses don't pay extra tax because they chose to met their needs at a greater-than-minimum cost. If my boss buys some reagents from Dave for $300 bucks instead of Bill's $200 offer, the company's not paying taxes based on a hypothetical $200 cost basis.

If we want to tax "luxury" expenses, we have excise taxes for that.

[gruez]

>Businesses don't pay extra tax because they chose to met their needs at a greater-than-minimum cost. If my boss buys some reagents from Dave for $300 bucks instead of Bill's $200 offer, the company's not paying taxes based on a hypothetical $200 cost basis.

Right, but consumption for a business is fundamentally different than a person consuming. When you eat lobster (vs eating ground beef), any extra benefit goes down the toilet, so to speak. Whereas for a business, it's presumably to further the enterprise. Maybe getting a purer reagent will make the product better and drive more sales. After all, a business itself can't have any needs or wants. In any case a business can't have wants to get the $300 reagent just because, unlike a person. The employees can get benefits, but there are strict policies set by the IRS on what you can count as a business expense, specifically to prevent you from putting lobsters as a business expense.

Moreover such favorable tax treatment isn't restricted to businesses only. It's available to anyone that conducts business. If you're self employed you can deduct the cost of your F-150 truck, if it's used as part of your job.

[lazide]

First one makes sense, second one I’m quizzical about.

Inheritance taxes tend to only kick in at the 8+ digit range.

If anything, taxing that should encourage descendents to do productive work, eh? Since not taxing it, but taxing other things actually discourages it?

I can’t imagine how it would result in anyone relying on public largesse either unless they are really terrible with money. In which case a few extra zeros is unlikely to help any?

[SoftTalker]

I suppose like with many things it's a question of scale. A little is good, more is better, but at some point it may start to have negative consequences.

[kelseyfrog]

And I think that inheritance, while a natural desire, is morally wrong. It's an example that desires aren't always congruent with morality. People will go to great lengths to justify their conclusion.

[orangecat]

Are gifts morally wrong? If I'm near death is it wrong for to give my assets to my children beforehand, or does it only become immoral if done via a will?

[Terr_]

> Are gifts morally wrong?

If we're going to talk about morality, I think we need to talk about the government as one of the moral actors.

Imagine this scenario, exaggerated to make a point:

1. Alice receives $X. It's from her boss, for laboring in the mines every day. Government man says: "Give me 20% to pay for the shared roads, or you go to jail."

2. Bob receives $X. It's from his parents, for doing nothing other than being born related to them. Government man says: "Gee, I just can't do anything here, I guess I'll have to shake down Alice even harder next time."

Isn't there something off about the morality of Government Man's choices?

[kelseyfrog]

Yes. I get the desire, but gifts of wealth when done at scale contribute to the destruction of society. Quantity is a quality all its own.

[Terr_]

> while a natural desire

Or look at monarchies and titles of nobility. In the past direct inheritance of political assets was common, and acting on that natural desire, the people involve claimed that parents deserved to direct what they (and their ancestors) had accumulated on to the next generation of their own family.

Yet nowadays most countries and people have decided it is immoral, and they also took steps to make common forms of it extremely illegal.

My point is that economic inheritance today is just as much a social-construct as political inheritance was then. It exists because we permit it to exist, don't be fooled by anyone claiming it's an intrinsic law of the universe or a divine mandate by god that must be obeyed.

[SoftTalker]

I think if we're saying inheritance (at least beyond some point) is morally wrong, then we're really just saying that achieving a certain level of wealth is morally wrong. So deal with that directly, rather than putting your hand in someone's wallet after he dies.

[kelseyfrog]

That is dealing with it directly.

If I had diabetes, taking insulin is an acceptable remedy even if there is no cure for diabetes.

[arw0n]

There's a difference in thought here so fundamental that it is hard to argue about details without addressing it first: You believe the individual comes first, what it produces is taxes hy the external construct of the state, which takes from what the individual truly earns.

But the individual would be a subsistence farmer at best without society supporting it, hardly worth taxing. In reality millionaires are only possible with a large state and societal network around them. Wealth is societies gift, and its right to take back.

[selfhoster1312]

I would disagree. How else would you pay for the schools, roads and hospitals so that you and your heirs can "do productive work"? I mean i could imagine alternatives, but none that's compatible with a capitalist system.

[InsideOutSanta]

Not taxing inheritance is morally wrong because it supports generational wealth and inequality.