Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe
For example, a trust fund baby who gets 500K a year for winning the birth lottery, pays about half the tax that a doctor who works at a hospital and makes 500K a year in salary does.
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It's not a lottery. It's not luck. Those born into wealth receive it as a result of the work and planning of their ancestors. That doctor who is making 500K/yr, if he has a family, is probably investing in various schemes and trusts that will, hopefully, secure his children. Perhaps the recipients born into this invested wealth should pay the same tax rate as those who receive a payroll check. But they shouldn't have that wealth confiscated or neutralized as some more radical "egalitarians" would like in order to "level the playing field." And it is probably not economically prudent to raise the tax rate on investments. That is, if we believe those investments are part of the working capital to start and fund business. And as for investment for bettering the lives of one's children--that is one of the greatest motivations for working beyond the subsistance level. Removing that desire to satisfy the conflicting desire to level outcomes would, in my opinion, create a stagnant, collapsing economy of a class of "workers" and entitlement owners who live for the moment and save and care for nothing more.
I would think that lowering rates for everyone rather than raising rates on some, and restricting government spending to "pay for it," would infuse the economy with motivation and growth.