6 ms·

For the vast majority of human civilization, all taxes were based on wealth. Your emperor, pharaoh, czar, or whoever was in charge sent a dude around to take a

by yabones 4mo ago

For the vast majority of human civilization, all taxes were based on wealth. Your emperor, pharaoh, czar, or whoever was in charge sent a dude around to take a bit of everybody's stuff. Not how much income they made but how much stuff they actually had. It's only been the last 120-ish years that the idea that wealth and income were totally different things as far as taxation is concerned emerged. I think almost everybody would be better off if taxes were something like 1% of total assets rather than off the top of your income.

nerdsniper 4mo ago
I think that could generally work domestically, as in, "I don't have anything to give you, I gave/lost it all to Bob...go get it from him". But it would need to be modified with a tax on any wealth leaving the country/jurisdiction, so I can't just make $1B and then send it all to my aunt in $COUNTRY / $STATE / $CITY with low/no wealth taxes and then claim that I don't have any wealth (unless there were sensible reciprocity agreements for tax revenue reapportionment). ----- But I'm not sure if your historical claims are accurate. I believe a lot of taxes were a fraction of the expected yield of land, which is more complicated than just "taxing wealth vs. income". Yes, the taxes would go up if you owned more land, which sounds like a tax on wealth. But the imputed tax base would be based on historical yields (income) because the quality of the soil would vary (which also could be construed as a tax on wealth because higher quality soil meant land might be worth more per acre). It was also based on the weather during that growing season, if yields were down in that area then taxes would be lower that year, which sounds more like an income tax than a wealth tax. You also said "its only been about 120 years since wealth and income were different": The Christian tithe that became de jury under Charlemagne in 779 A.D. was a strict 10% tax on land yield each year (~income tax) but other empires and lords used fixed quotas (~wealth tax), and records exist that these could have brutal effects during years where weather resulted in lower yields. There was the 600-year long sales tax on salt in France, which definitely wasn't a wealth tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabelle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabelle In 1899 the UK instituted a 10% levy on annual incomes over £200, with a graduated rate for incomes between £60 and £200. Income taxes had a hiatus from 1816-1842 but has been permanent since the "Income Tax Act of 1842". The Mit'a (Inca Empire, Pre-1532) taxed individuals "time". Which I think most people would consider kind of an income tax - it's literally paid in labor. Adult men had to spend a certain number of days each year working on state projects - like building roads, farming state lands, or fighting in the army. They didn't have currency. Their economy was based on centralized planning, labor taxation (mit'a), and state redistribution of goods. The Saladin Tithe taxed revenues at 10% in 1188.
arzig 4mo ago
For the vast majority of human history, only the ultra wealthy had any money. And then, just as now, taxing only those people would not yield sufficient resources to fund the state. The problem is, and always will be, what happens to me is I am out of work. No one wants to force people to liquidate assets they might need to work, live, etc in order to pay an asset tax. Then you get to the dividing line of, but what about the ultra wealthy? Well, sure, but then you write an insanely obtuse tax code to try and capture that wealth while leaving everyone else alone and the targets are highly motivated to find loopholes. Progressives intuitively understand that it’s not worth the hassle to try and means test entitlements yet seem to miss the fact that trying to manage a confiscatory bureaucracy would have the same issues.
- shigawire 4mo ago
  >trying to manage a confiscatory bureaucracy would have the same issues It would be a cat and mouse game but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Like how funding the IRS appropriately increases government revenue.
  - arzig 4mo ago
    Yes. And so we have the IRS whose enforcement measures fall disproportionately upon the disadvantaged and which is the only law enforcement agency permitted to open proceedings against citizens without evidence of wrong doing. I would hold this up as the archetypal bad example.
    - pocksuppet 4mo ago
      This is an intentional policy decision by those in charge of IRS funding - not a side effect of anything.
thunky 4mo ago
> I think almost everybody would be better off if taxes were something like 1% of total assets rather than off the top of your income No thanks. Any discussion about tax reform has to start with government spending otherwise it's not serious. Nobody wants to give away a slice of their net worth to pay for bullshit wars and ballrooms.
- tyg13 4mo ago
  > Nobody wants to give away a slice of their net worth to pay for bullshit wars and ballrooms. The vast majority of people in America are already doing this, because their wealth is entirely derived from their income. Your complaint isn't relevant to the discussion of wealth vs income taxes.
  - thunky 4mo ago
    > The vast majority of people in America are already doing this, because their wealth is entirely derived from their income Derived is not the same thing. Not even close. Then why stop at 1%? Why not fork over half of your possessions to the government every year and let them spend it for you, if you trust them so much? And by the way we already have a wealth tax. Its called inflation.
    - AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
      Inflation is only a wealth tax if you invest in cash. If you invest in stocks, real estate, and sometimes other things (gold, bonds, art) then your wealth grows faster than inflation.
      - thunky 4mo ago
        > If you invest in stocks, real estate, and sometimes other things (gold, bonds, art) then your wealth grows faster than inflation Aka put your wealth at risk or watch it disappear. And the larger point is that runaway govt spending makes it disappear faster.
    - 4mo ago
themafia 4mo ago
We have property tax, sales tax and inheritance tax. We also have mountains of loopholes through all of these. If you can afford a tax attourney your outcomes will be far better than those who cannot.
- adabyron 4mo ago
  A lot of the loopholes are really simple. You don't need a sophisticated tax scheme, just enough money to do the simple ones.
  - noitpmeder 4mo ago
    How about we just get rid of all the fucking loopholes
pie_flavor 4mo ago
This sounds completely made up. The medieval taxman has no idea how much gold you have squirreled away, and even finding everyone to tax them was hard enough. Most peasant taxes were based on productive land and observable yields thereof, and the rest were import/export duties. IE income and not wealth, because nobody was stupid enough to implement a negative growth rate until the 21st century (unless they were actively trying to loot holdings for redistribution, e.g. varlık vergisi)
- anon84873628 4mo ago
  Window tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax
tekne 4mo ago
Obligatory land value tax mention

by yabones 4mo ago

nerdsniper 4mo ago

I think that could generally work domestically, as in, "I don't have anything to give you, I gave/lost it all to Bob...go get it from him". But it would need to be modified with a tax on any wealth leaving the country/jurisdiction, so I can't just make $1B and then send it all to my aunt in $COUNTRY / $STATE / $CITY with low/no wealth taxes and then claim that I don't have any wealth (unless there were sensible reciprocity agreements for tax revenue reapportionment). ----- But I'm not sure if your historical claims are accurate. I believe a lot of taxes were a fraction of the expected yield of land, which is more complicated than just "taxing wealth vs. income". Yes, the taxes would go up if you owned more land, which sounds like a tax on wealth. But the imputed tax base would be based on historical yields (income) because the quality of the soil would vary (which also could be construed as a tax on wealth because higher quality soil meant land might be worth more per acre). It was also based on the weather during that growing season, if yields were down in that area then taxes would be lower that year, which sounds more like an income tax than a wealth tax. You also said "its only been about 120 years since wealth and income were different": The Christian tithe that became de jury under Charlemagne in 779 A.D. was a strict 10% tax on land yield each year (~income tax) but other empires and lords used fixed quotas (~wealth tax), and records exist that these could have brutal effects during years where weather resulted in lower yields. There was the 600-year long sales tax on salt in France, which definitely wasn't a wealth tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabelle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabelle In 1899 the UK instituted a 10% levy on annual incomes over £200, with a graduated rate for incomes between £60 and £200. Income taxes had a hiatus from 1816-1842 but has been permanent since the "Income Tax Act of 1842". The Mit'a (Inca Empire, Pre-1532) taxed individuals "time". Which I think most people would consider kind of an income tax - it's literally paid in labor. Adult men had to spend a certain number of days each year working on state projects - like building roads, farming state lands, or fighting in the army. They didn't have currency. Their economy was based on centralized planning, labor taxation (mit'a), and state redistribution of goods. The Saladin Tithe taxed revenues at 10% in 1188.

arzig 4mo ago

For the vast majority of human history, only the ultra wealthy had any money. And then, just as now, taxing only those people would not yield sufficient resources to fund the state. The problem is, and always will be, what happens to me is I am out of work. No one wants to force people to liquidate assets they might need to work, live, etc in order to pay an asset tax. Then you get to the dividing line of, but what about the ultra wealthy? Well, sure, but then you write an insanely obtuse tax code to try and capture that wealth while leaving everyone else alone and the targets are highly motivated to find loopholes. Progressives intuitively understand that it’s not worth the hassle to try and means test entitlements yet seem to miss the fact that trying to manage a confiscatory bureaucracy would have the same issues.

shigawire 4mo ago
>trying to manage a confiscatory bureaucracy would have the same issues It would be a cat and mouse game but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Like how funding the IRS appropriately increases government revenue.
- arzig 4mo ago
  Yes. And so we have the IRS whose enforcement measures fall disproportionately upon the disadvantaged and which is the only law enforcement agency permitted to open proceedings against citizens without evidence of wrong doing. I would hold this up as the archetypal bad example.
  - pocksuppet 4mo ago
    This is an intentional policy decision by those in charge of IRS funding - not a side effect of anything.

thunky 4mo ago

> I think almost everybody would be better off if taxes were something like 1% of total assets rather than off the top of your income No thanks. Any discussion about tax reform has to start with government spending otherwise it's not serious. Nobody wants to give away a slice of their net worth to pay for bullshit wars and ballrooms.

tyg13 4mo ago
> Nobody wants to give away a slice of their net worth to pay for bullshit wars and ballrooms. The vast majority of people in America are already doing this, because their wealth is entirely derived from their income. Your complaint isn't relevant to the discussion of wealth vs income taxes.
- thunky 4mo ago
  > The vast majority of people in America are already doing this, because their wealth is entirely derived from their income Derived is not the same thing. Not even close. Then why stop at 1%? Why not fork over half of your possessions to the government every year and let them spend it for you, if you trust them so much? And by the way we already have a wealth tax. Its called inflation.
  - AnimalMuppet 4mo ago
    Inflation is only a wealth tax if you invest in cash. If you invest in stocks, real estate, and sometimes other things (gold, bonds, art) then your wealth grows faster than inflation.
    - thunky 4mo ago
      > If you invest in stocks, real estate, and sometimes other things (gold, bonds, art) then your wealth grows faster than inflation Aka put your wealth at risk or watch it disappear. And the larger point is that runaway govt spending makes it disappear faster.
  - 4mo ago

themafia 4mo ago

We have property tax, sales tax and inheritance tax. We also have mountains of loopholes through all of these. If you can afford a tax attourney your outcomes will be far better than those who cannot.

adabyron 4mo ago
A lot of the loopholes are really simple. You don't need a sophisticated tax scheme, just enough money to do the simple ones.
- noitpmeder 4mo ago
  How about we just get rid of all the fucking loopholes

pie_flavor 4mo ago

This sounds completely made up. The medieval taxman has no idea how much gold you have squirreled away, and even finding everyone to tax them was hard enough. Most peasant taxes were based on productive land and observable yields thereof, and the rest were import/export duties. IE income and not wealth, because nobody was stupid enough to implement a negative growth rate until the 21st century (unless they were actively trying to loot holdings for redistribution, e.g. varlık vergisi)

anon84873628 4mo ago
Window tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

tekne 4mo ago

Obligatory land value tax mention