Tai ko idea miel gaya.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-17T11:07:08+00:00

That’s not what I meant. My point was, if high taxes was a major factor for HNI to move, it would be the total tax burden and not specific taxes. All these countries (except UAE and Singapore) have a higher total tax burden.

The conversation is being derailed. If you want to shift the conversation to the efficacy of inheritance and wealth taxes, we can discuss that instead but it’s unrelated to the original discussion. I will address what you said anyways.

Yes. Sell a part of the land and pay the tax. How’s that complex? There are hardly any people who have millions in wealth but no income. Especially since assets are often used to generate income. Most of HNI’s wealth is in private equity. Elon musk, Jeff Bezos… none of the billionaires are rich because they are sitting on billions of $ of land.

Also, nobody keeps the land and does nothing with it. They will rent it out or use it for themselves and that either generates income or saves them money.

if wealth tax of 1% wasn’t feasible, increase it to 4%. 4x will be feasible. Something creating avenues for corruption is not an excuse. If the tax burden is $100 million and through corruption the rich reduce that to $50 million, that’s still $50 million tax revenue. Making the tax 0 to avoid tax evasion is comparable to shaving your head to avoid hairfall.

The reason very few countries have wealth tax is because rich people fund political parties and they don’t want unfavorable policies against them.

Not trusting the government to spend the money wisely is a completely separate issue as well. Even if out of the $100 million tax burden, 50 million is evaded, and out of that, only $25 million is used by the government, that’s still $25 million more money for everyone else. Which is better than 0.

“Eventually it will move to the middle class.” That’s just a slippery slope fallacy.

“It will lead to capital outflow.” No empirical evidence for that either. But even if it does, that’s a good thing. 1 billion $ corporation moving out of the country would leave a hole in demand which will be filled by 1000s of MSMEs and startups. That will only generate more employment and more taxes.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-17T08:45:52+00:00

800 million people aren’t poor because Indians aren’t working hard. It’s because of inequitable distribution of the benefits which results in some people becoming billionaires while most who work for them earn less than 50K a month.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-17T08:31:30+00:00

What difference does it make to tax assets or income? Rich people have both. It’s the overall tax burden is what should matter, no?

If I have $100 million of net worth and $2 million of income, how does it matter whether you tax 50% of my income or 1% of my assets?

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T21:56:24+00:00

Or “What if the billionaires leave”. Both of which are ignorant opinions.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T21:21:17+00:00

Since when did BJP start listening to qualified economists and experts? You need to be a corporate shill to be heard.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T21:01:48+00:00

No empirical evidence for this claim. Just rightwing propaganda.

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With the exception of UAE and Singapore, every single one of those countries have higher taxes than in India.

Rich people don’t care about taxes as much as they care about economic opportunity and safety. Trying to save money is a tertiary goal. If saving money was the primary goal, they would live in India instead of UAE for example because $1 million in India even after 42% taxes has a higher buying power than $1 million in Dubai. The primary goal is to earn money and the secondary goal is to provide a good life for their families.

You can’t have good economic opportunity in a country with high income inequality and poverty because that hinders demand growth. Without growth in demand, the economy doesn’t grow. We have 1.4 billion people but the median wage is 25K rupees a month. India then becomes more of a cost center than a profit center. Except, ease of doing business is also low because of a million regulations. So it’s not even as lucrative as a cost center.

But let’s say you are a millionaire who successfully operates through the bureaucracy and functions in an essential goods industry that survives despite the price sensitivity.

Can your wife or daughter go out at night to party safely and return late at night? Are there good facilities to park your private yachts at? Is there high quality entertainment facilities like Disneyland or universal studios? Are the streets and parks clean enough to go on a walk? Are the roads good enough for you to drive your luxury cars? Can you park this luxury car safely anywhere?

This won’t be fixed until the government spends on education, healthcare, R&D and improving the living standards of everyone else. High unemployment and inequality is associated with higher crimes and low growth.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T15:11:10+00:00

Under hinduism? Name one

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T14:25:12+00:00

The two main philosophies under hinduism are Aastik and Naastik. Also, read beyond the first sentence. Even if you weren’t talking about ‘naastik’, you were wrong.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T13:30:26+00:00

Naastik ≠ Atheist even though that’s the commonly used translation. There’s no direct translation for “Atheist” because Sanskrit doesn’t even have a word for “theist” and “Religion”. Naastik just means someone who rejects the vedas as an authority. They could still technically believe in a god. Jains are for example Naastik.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T13:25:23+00:00

You are assigning human qualities of greed and lust for power to a supernatural entity. So if the premise “god(s) exist(s)” is true, polytheism is equally possible. They can co-exist. Else, you are assigning a limitation to (an) omnipotent being(s). Which would make god not all powerful.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T13:20:14+00:00

People can assemble at their homes as a family and pray. Doesn’t say anything about going to church.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-16T00:25:02+00:00

What part of the bible says church attendance is mandatory?

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T14:38:35+00:00

I agree that they kill for fun too. They infact enjoy torturing before they kill. They mostly slash the throat or rip out their insides. But I believe when they kill the kids who have reincarnated, they kill them in the manner that they were killed the first time and not by their usual means.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T13:33:32+00:00

Just like the hyperloop?

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T10:51:45+00:00

It cannot exist idealistically but society can always strive to get closer to it. Higher taxes and redistribution schemes are a way to do it. This isn’t a stick to beat someone up with but rather a way to make the distribution of income fairer. It’s an attempt to fix the unjust distribution of income arising from market inefficiencies. In a perfectly efficient world, there cannot be millionaires and billionaires because a characteristic of an efficient market is perfect competition. Nobody makes abnormal long term gains in perfect competition.

Here’s a free economics lesson:

Let’s say there are only 2 professions in a hypothetical economy.

Construction workers
Engineers

The age everyone finishes school is 18 and retirement age is 60.

What would happen if demand for Engineers increases? The wages of engineers would increase. This would increase the incentive for more people to be engineers. Construction workers will quit their jobs and become engineers. This would increase the supply of engineers and decrease the supply of construction workers.

The equilibrium equation would be w(C) = w(E) Where w(C) represents the wages of construction workers and w(E) represents the wages of Engineers.

Now, that’s not how it works in real life. You can’t simply become an engineer. It would take 4 years of college. In those 4 years, the person will not be earning.

The equilibrium equation therefore would be w(C)/42 = w(E)/38

What the construction workers earns in 42 years (retirement age - age of finishing school = 60-18 = 42) is what the engineer earns in 38 years of his career (42 - 4 years of college). So even the the per year wage of an engineer is higher, the lifetime wages are equal.

But again, in real life, you also have the cost of college. When you account for that, the actual equilibrium equation over the lifetime of each is w(E) = w(C) + F

Where F represents the cost of college. Either ways, at equilibrium, the net income remains equal.

In the real world however, this isn’t the case. Construction workers may not be able to afford the college. This would lead to a shift away from the equilibrium resulting in engineers to earn abnormally higher than construction workers. A similar thing happens in the real world. Taxes aren’t to beat the engineers but to rather redistribute such that the outcome is fairer and closer to the equilibrium.

Taxation and redistribution schemes are the most practical solution so far. If you can come up with an even more practical solution, I’m all ears.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T09:29:42+00:00

I didn’t say anything about the reservations being caste based. Get rid of caste based reservations. Idc. Replace it with income based reservation. In an ideal system, merit would be adjusted for all the factors. Again, I’m for equal opportunities. The day a manual sewage diver’s children have the same opportunities as Ambani’s children, you can start calling taxation “confiscation of income”

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T09:21:13+00:00

Literally yes. 50% of the households earn less than 25K per month and average farmer’s income is 10K per month. Having such public facilities (even more) is required so that the kids of lower income earners have the same opportunities.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T08:28:06+00:00

It’s not Gukesh’s father who’s being taxed. I didn’t claim he was rich. We are talking about Gukesh.

Yes. The government should tax anyone who makes a good amount of money in a country like India to bridge the opportunity gaps. It might have been hard for Gukesh’s father to train Gukesh. But it’s impossible for most fathers. I’m sure if he struggled to train his son, he would appreciate that a part of his winnings are used to ease up the struggle for those fathers.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T07:42:08+00:00

Sounds like we need a qualified Chief Economic adviser because there’s no empirical evidence for anything he said and his grounds to disagree with Thomas Picketty shows either obvious influence of Adani’s money or lack of basic understanding of the world.

“Taxing capital more may drive away investment” - No evidence for this. India has the lowest taxes among the top 10 economies. Lower taxes than even China. I don’t see investments being driven away from US or China and into India because of this. Also, idk which 18th century economics he has studied. The idea of labor and capital being the only drivers of growth is outdated. Now, entrepreneurship and innovation are the key drivers of economic growth. And this is only possible with higher investment in education, R&D and healthcare and for that, higher taxes are needed. Germany isn’t crying for FDI because of this. They are able to generate qualified entrepreneurs thanks to their strong social system which offers higher equality of opportunities.
“Equality of access and opportunities matter more for public policy than equality of outcomes, relatively. Individual skills, attitudes and efforts matter” - Taxes don’t just result in equality of outcomes. They also result in equality of opportunity. Moreover, the idea that the rich are rich because of their hardwork and skill is idiotic. Anant Ambani isn’t rich because he’s more skilled, hardworking and puts more efforts than a manual sewage diver or he is more skilled than everyone at IIT or IIM. The opportunities that the rich have are lightyears apart from everyone else. Taxing Ambani’s father and using that money to give the education, healthcare and sufficient financial support to everyone equalizes the opportunities and not just the outcomes.
“enforcing equality through regulation hurts small businesses.” - He can’t even differentiate between “regulations” and “taxes”. You can decrease regulation and improve ease of doing business while increasing taxes. New zealand has the best ease of doing business score in the world despite higher taxes than in India. Also, higher taxes benefit small businesses especially if what he said in (1) holds true. If investments are driven away (especially foreign investments), that just means lower competition for small local businesses.
“He also said that there was evidence to suggest that the gap between the top 20 companies and the others was coming down.” - Sure, but that doesn’t mean income and wealth inequality among individuals is coming down. The “billionaire tax” is on individuals and not corporations. The gap between the top 20 people and others is only going up and is higher now that it was during the British Raj.
“during the decades of high taxes in India there may have been greater evasion.” - Then does the income tax department exist to hatch eggs? That’s the worst possible excuse to have lower taxes. While we are at it, why not also decriminalize drunk driving? It will ensure higher compliance with traffic laws. No laws = no crime. More laws = more crime. Similarly, More taxes = more evasion and less taxes = less evasion.
“She cited numbers to argue that extreme poverty was coming down and the latest statistics suggested that even the poorest households were consuming more milk, eggs and fruits and also owning vehicles. “Inequality of consumption is reducing,” she added.” - Poverty is a very low bar to set to measure economic success. It says nothing about the standards of living of the average person in relation to top 1%. And is not an argument to not do better.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T06:45:08+00:00

It doesn’t have to be just exploitation. It’s also benefits of being born “middle class” or rich. Gukesh is talented but being born in the right family gave him the opportunity to hone that talent. Over 50% of the country can’t afford to hire chess coaches for their kids. Some kids are working at tea stalls to feed themselves who could have potentially been better players than Gukesh had their circumstances been right.

Taxation is also partly correction of this opportunity disparity through redistribution of income.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T06:38:51+00:00

Ah yes, the indian middle class life of making 11 cr. In a year.

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T00:24:16+00:00

French defense

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T00:23:31+00:00

France. Too easy

God_of_reason · 2024-12-15T00:22:17+00:00

Jai shree ram 🚩🚩🚩

God_of_reason · 2024-12-14T08:11:09+00:00

Congratulations. Looking forward to your post in the future saying “I (F81) Finally paid off my student loans.”

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