Re: News: Tax Protesters - Hovind in the news again.

AC wrote:
On Mon, 30 Apr 2007 22:18:17 -0400, Kevin Wayne Williams <kww.nihongo@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
AC wrote:
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:17:21 -0400, Kevin Wayne Williams <kww.nihongo@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That is where we have a fundamental disagreement. It isn't fair to tax anyone for more than the amount that providing him with the services he received costs. A certain amount of unfairness in that regard is unavoidable, but I still have a hard time seeing an accounting where Wesley cost the government anywhere near $12M.
What is this "fair" you speak of? would it be fair, for instance to reproportion taxation so that every person paid an equal percentage of
the tax burden?
No. "Fair" (an impossible standard to meet, BTW) would be to charge each person the cost of providing the services he received.

So let's see. We have ten thousand taxpayers. Say 5% live below the poverty
line. The taxation authority decides to build a highway. Your saying that
the 5% who are already barely existing will be paying exactly the same tax
amount as the top 5%? Just how long do you suppose that would work?
Note the phrase "an impossible standard to meet, BTW".

Just what formula do you propose to produce which will be "fair" by
your standards?

My personal favorite is the institution of 100% estate taxation and the elimination of income taxation. Let Bill Gates and Sam Walton (and even Wesley Snipes) accumulate obscene piles of wealth while they are alive, and snatch it all away when they are dead. Put onerous safeguards in place that ensure the money doesn't get squirreled into the kids pockets somehow, even if it involves complete confiscation of all assets during life. The first few times a millionaire winds up homeless and penniless because he tried to evade estate taxation, they'd get the hint that somehow Junior was going to have to earn his own way.

That kinda violates the notion of property, no? In common law, property
is something that you can leave to your heirs.
That is one aspect of it, yes. But estate taxes have been around a long, long, time. Much like "wages are things you earn for work, except for the part the government takes."


Sooner or later, any real tax system becomes unfair. It charges people that can afford to pay in order to provide for people that can't. It's unavoidable. Better to take the money from the dead than from the living. They can't bitch, and their living expenses are low.

So, in your theoretical model, if I give my kids $20,000 to finance the
purchase of a new house, the government will be clawing back my gift
at the time of my death?

Nope. When you gave it to your kids, you would be charged with attempting to evade estate tax, and they would take it right then. Plus a fine, probably, much the way it works with income tax. Your kids would be forced to find their own way through life. It has an inherent leveling effect: the children of poor families wouldn't get things from their parents because there isn't anything to get, and the children of middle-class and wealthy families wouldn't get anything because it would be illegal. It should decrease institutionalized poverty and reduce the disparity in wealth distribution, both of which would seem to be desirable.

KWW

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