Soldato
A flat tax rate for everyone is a terrible idea.
The ongoing Elon Twitter saga: "insert demographic" melts down
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Soldato
I for one look forward to both the lulz from Musk running things and also Twitter being fixed as far as various issues he wants to tackle that have plagued the site for years that the current board appear profoundly indifferent to:
- Open source algorithm and potentially rewrite it to reduce amplifying outrage and echo-chamber formation from funneling people into niches
- No lame shadow-banning/account throttling/hiding things that are trending if they're not congruent with whatever the narrative is that day
- Nuke all the scam bots and bots (see fake Elon comments below every Elon tweet)
- Limited-time edit function w/edit history
- A verification system that isn't completely bizarre and that means everyone can potentially have a blue tick rather then the current status quo where vast numbers of smug, elitist metropolitan nobodies get blue ticks and think that signifies some sort of badge of importance, and actual people of note have their blue tick requests rejected randomly and have to deal with imposter accounts trying to cause trouble
- Open source algorithm and potentially rewrite it to reduce amplifying outrage and echo-chamber formation from funneling people into niches
- No lame shadow-banning/account throttling/hiding things that are trending if they're not congruent with whatever the narrative is that day
- Nuke all the scam bots and bots (see fake Elon comments below every Elon tweet)
- Limited-time edit function w/edit history
- A verification system that isn't completely bizarre and that means everyone can potentially have a blue tick rather then the current status quo where vast numbers of smug, elitist metropolitan nobodies get blue ticks and think that signifies some sort of badge of importance, and actual people of note have their blue tick requests rejected randomly and have to deal with imposter accounts trying to cause trouble
It exacerbates an existing polarising political divide, because you have the rich who want to protect their income vs the poor who mostly just seem to hate the rich all voting against each other as teams on a single issue of the higher tax rate instead of just agreeing on a single tax rate or UBI and focusing on the far more serious issues affecting the country.
I think it's inherently unfair to treat people unequally under the law.
But people wouldn't be treated unequally, the same rules apply to everyone. If a poor person becomes wealthy then they would also pay the higher rate of tax.
A progressive society should absolutely have taxation rates based on people's ability to pay.
A progressive society should absolutely have taxation rates based on people's ability to pay.
It is an incredibly stupid idea.
Caporegime
I doubt he'll be buying Twitter. He doesn't have that kind of liquidity. He'd need to draw unprecedented amounts of debt to fulfil the bid he's offered.
If it was that simple, Twitter would have done it already. Dodgy bots are a constantly moving target.
'Twitter Says That its getting Better at Detecting and Removing Bots, Outlines Common Misinterpretations.'
I guess you know you've won the argument when this is the level of debate...
It is unequal treatment, you're treating different classes of people differently. Like if you taxed people based on sex, you can legally change gender if you want, doesn't make it ok.
Yes we should have a tax system based on peoples ability to pay and a flat tax with a large personal allowance accomplishes that, so does a negative income tax, a far more "progressive" idea than the mess we have which is the politics of envy.
It's not unequal, the same rules apply to everyone, that's the literal definition of equality. Your income is not an immutable characteristic, it changes over time, so different rates will apply to people at different times.
Wealthier people are able to pay greater amounts of tax and should do so. I'm a higher rate tax payer and happy to pay more. This isn't the politics of envy, rather it's the opposite of what you propose, the politics of greed.
Soldato
keep up at the back, he’s already secured the funding.https://www.reuters.com/technology/...cquire-outstanding-shares-twitter-2022-04-21/
And interesting that Morgan Stanley are involved, they already own 8.08% of stock and are happy to loan some money secured against twitter itself.
"Immutable" characteristics is a poor and outdated vision of equality, rooted in identity politics, many protected characteristics such like religion are not immutable, and gender is often not considered such any more (certainly not legally anyway), over time they become more and more mutable, so it's not a good fundamental principle to base equality on.
What matters is holding everyone to the same standard, what you propose holds different people to different standards and is not really progressive, it's a failed model of taxation and it's long overdue that we reform it to something fairer, the top 10% of taxpayers pay something like 50% of this countries income tax and under a flat tax this would still be the same really.
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Caporegime
https://www.reuters.com/technology/...cquire-outstanding-shares-twitter-2022-04-21/
And interesting that Morgan Stanley are involved, they already own 8.08% of stock and are happy to loan some money secured against twitter itself.
He claims he has secured the funding. He also claimed he had secured funding to take Tesla private. That turned out to be a lie, and he had to pay a bunch of fines for it.
So I'll believe this funding claim when the funding emerges.
Even if he does buy Twitter, what exactly will change? Has he given any specifics about what he plans to do with the company? Will it continue to allow pornography, as it does now?
It is so stupid there is nothing more to add. It's like arguing that water isnt wet or the sun isnt hot or the world isn't round.
Some ideas and arguments don't warrant any serious debate.
So stupid that leading economists advocate for it, and other countries have adopted it and moved away from "progressive" income tax systems...
Obviously something serious is going on in your personal life for you to react in such a hostile way, so I'll just leave it there.
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Soldato
Counties that have a flat rate.
List of counties that had a flat rate but recently moved to progressive rate
List of counties that had a flat rate but recently moved to progressive rate
It doesn't seem to be particularly relevant to the overall wealth of someone like Elon, ditto to the person who was pointing out that the US used to have very high levels of income tax yet still experienced strong growth etc.
People often conflate income and wealth when this stuff gets reported on, he was able to become rich because his stake in a company he founded grew, he obviously exited that but that's a capital gains tax issue. High levels of income tax impact employees.
More recent stuff would have impacted income, he didn't found Tesla for example and did have a compensation package there, as CEO, consisting of a modest salary (which he turns down) and lots of share options which were directly linked to him achieving certain milestones for the company - it would impact a bit there if those if income tax rates were higher, he's already paying the vast majority of his income tax on that at the rate of the highest tax bracket.
Still, the bulk of his wealth is literally from the stuff he owns and is actively involved with simply growing in value, this is where people get angsty, they see how much he's worth then somehow conclude he must pay more... That just seems flawed, there isn't anything owed on unrealised gains and whether he wants to dilute his holdings of some company or other ought to be up to him not something you force, if there were massive tax bills due on unrealised gains when, say, someone becomes a billionaire then it's not clear that these companies would have grown to become so successful in the first place, if someone wants to take the risk and keep on growing a company then that's up to them.
IMO Wealth should be taxed when gains have actually been realised or when it is transfered.
People often conflate income and wealth when this stuff gets reported on, he was able to become rich because his stake in a company he founded grew, he obviously exited that but that's a capital gains tax issue. High levels of income tax impact employees.
More recent stuff would have impacted income, he didn't found Tesla for example and did have a compensation package there, as CEO, consisting of a modest salary (which he turns down) and lots of share options which were directly linked to him achieving certain milestones for the company - it would impact a bit there if those if income tax rates were higher, he's already paying the vast majority of his income tax on that at the rate of the highest tax bracket.
Still, the bulk of his wealth is literally from the stuff he owns and is actively involved with simply growing in value, this is where people get angsty, they see how much he's worth then somehow conclude he must pay more... That just seems flawed, there isn't anything owed on unrealised gains and whether he wants to dilute his holdings of some company or other ought to be up to him not something you force, if there were massive tax bills due on unrealised gains when, say, someone becomes a billionaire then it's not clear that these companies would have grown to become so successful in the first place, if someone wants to take the risk and keep on growing a company then that's up to them.
IMO Wealth should be taxed when gains have actually been realised or when it is transfered.
Yes we're all familiar with the wikipedia tables thanks.
There seems to be some economic illiteracy here based on some responses, a flat tax means one tax rate on income in addition to 0%, it does not literally mean everyone paying say 40% of their income or whatever on everything they earn. No one in this discussion has suggested such a system so why people are saying that is a stupid idea idk.
Flat taxes can be implemented in the form of a large personal allowance so people at the bottom are much better off, which is what I suggested the UK moves to, or a negative income tax for example which replaces the benefit system so helps the poorest in society and reduces administrative costs while treating everyone above the tax threshold equally, how anyone can be against a system that literally benefits everyone is beyond my understanding, except for people arguing based on the politics of envy.
It can't replace the whole benefit system so the only saving is a relatively small amount of adminstration costs. I doubt such an amount would be redistributed in such a way with a flat tax that literally everyone would benefit.
A negative income tax guarantees everyone a basic level of income based on personal circumstances like number of children, disabilities etc. that can replace the current benefit system where we have all these useless job centres distributing universal credit that do nothing other than try to save a few quid here and there by sanctioning people, getting rid of the job centres alone would have enormous cost savings.
Well you've introduced a different system of administration as someone has to assess and review the negative income tax based on personal circumstances like number of children, disabilities etc.
Anyway, whatever money is saved you have a system which ensures literally everyone is better off?
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