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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦's posts Post Back to profile
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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

> Who exactly would get taxed and to what extent? What would be considered "excess wealth"?

Fair question, not clearly answered.

But this is a very early step in a potential legislative process. This question would get hammered out throughout that process, if it gets in.

It's not like we're voting on specific terms here. Merely saying: "yeah that sounds like something we should spend some EU time figuring out properly."

So, that sounds reasonable to me. Plus, Thomas Pikkety is involved. 👀

14 January at 17:57 | Open on mstdn.social
29 comments
Riley S. Faelan

@rysiek I'm inclined to argue that an optimal, self-regulating, taxation level might be determined based on criteria such as a percentile, such as applying wealth tax starting from a level that exceeds, the minimum wealth level of the top 5% of wealthy people in a country for a short-to-medium term, or something like 3 standard deviations above the population's average for a long-term approach.

In an ideal world, the idea should be neutralising the wealth-based social stratification, so I'm entirely okay with a system whereby a zillionaire can reduce their wealth tax by making all the poor people around them a little bit richer and thereby nudging the average upwards.

@rysiek I'm inclined to argue that an optimal, self-regulating, taxation level might be determined based on criteria such as a percentile, such as applying wealth tax starting from a level that exceeds, the minimum wealth level of the top 5% of wealthy people in a country for a short-to-medium term, or something like 3 standard deviations above the population's average for a long-term approach.

14 January at 18:03 | Open on toot.cat
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
Riley S. Faelan

@rysiek You have a point, but at a certain structure of wealth disparity — which, AFAICT, is common in wealthy countries right now —, setting the threshold according to a median rather than average means, a zillionaire will not be rewarded for doing something that doubles, say, the revenues of one percent of the bottom-earners. And if we're stuck with trying to convince the zillionaires implement measures to support the poor people instead of doing it via a functional government, such an incentivi might actually be valuable.

All in all, I do freely admit that picking a good set of rules for taxation is more complicated than just picking something that should work. The simplistic example that I brought was meant more as an illustration of the way to probe rather than as an actual, fully formed, tax policy proposition.

@rysiek You have a point, but at a certain structure of wealth disparity — which, AFAICT, is common in wealthy countries right now —, setting the threshold according to a median rather than average means, a zillionaire will not be rewarded for doing something that doubles, say, the revenues of one percent of the bottom-earners. And if we're stuck with trying to convince the zillionaires implement measures to support the poor people instead of doing it via a functional government, such an incentivi...

15 January at 13:42 | Open on toot.cat
Oblomov

@riley @rysiek
fun fact, I jotted some notes about this, sadly in Italian, about a year ago, when I heard one time too many the expression “extraprofit”
wok.oblomov.eu/appunti/extrapr
(Looks like I'll have to work on an English version!)
This discussion on taxing the rich has much of the similar feeling about those discussions. What we want is a system where you don't need to think of fancy values to define “rich”, you can go simply by statistics on the distribution of wealth, with a fiscal regime >

15 January at 13:59 | Open on sociale.network
Oblomov

@riley @rysiek that “aims” towards a very tight distribution around the median, and is otherwise progressively more aggressive as you move up from it, and it becomes more aggressive faster the more dispersed and skewed the distribution of wealth is.

15 January at 14:01 | Open on sociale.network
Riley S. Faelan

@oblomov If I point Google Translate at it, will I get the jist of it?

@rysiek

15 January at 14:03 | Open on toot.cat
Oblomov

@riley @rysiek I tried the builtin translation feature of Firefox and it seemed … tolerable. Google Translate also seems to match close enough.

15 January at 14:10 | Open on sociale.network
Riley S. Faelan

@oblomov My current hunch is, the primary problem of socioeconomic stratification, the one most important to neutralise and prevent, is development of a sort of 'monetary event horizon', with people on either side of it having near-zero probability of ever finding themselves on the either side. To that end, I'd argue that it's important to review the sort of schemes zillionaires use to poverty-proof themselves, and convert them into something that could poverty-proof everybody. As a part of it, I believe that broader public awareness of zillionaires' schemes of defence against risk of poverty could help neutralise a whole bunch of pro-poverty-enforcement talking points.

@rysiek

@oblomov My current hunch is, the primary problem of socioeconomic stratification, the one most important to neutralise and prevent, is development of a sort of 'monetary event horizon', with people on either side of it having near-zero probability of ever finding themselves on the either side. To that end, I'd argue that it's important to review the sort of schemes zillionaires use to poverty-proof themselves, and convert them into something that could poverty-proof everybody. As a part of it, I...

15 January at 14:10 | Open on toot.cat
504DR

@riley @rysiek

We have that here in America.
It's called charity.

And the wealthy figured out long ago how to get around it.

They create their own charity, which just gives their money to causes that help the ppl and causes they want to help, and it's hardly ever to the ppl who need it most.

Set up with hefty pay to the administrators of the charity, most often times very little money ends up going to the cause itself.

Relying on selfish rich ppl for funding social welfare programs has proven as false and destructive as capitalism has, bc it's a part of capitalism.

Healthy societies don't need charity.
Healthy societies take care of all of their citizens equally.

@riley @rysiek

We have that here in America.
It's called charity.

And the wealthy figured out long ago how to get around it.

They create their own charity, which just gives their money to causes that help the ppl and causes they want to help, and it's hardly ever to the ppl who need it most.

Set up with hefty pay to the administrators of the charity, most often times very little money ends up going to the cause itself.

14 January at 18:29 | Open on climatejustice.social
Riley S. Faelan

@504DR I did not suggest measuring how much the zillionaire "donated", but how much the wealth of the people around them arose. And, obviously, if a zillionaire is motivated to raise the wealth of a bunch of random people, the poorest people are the ones cheapest to enwealthen.

@rysiek

14 January at 19:24 | Open on toot.cat
504DR

@riley @rysiek

Again, from an American perspective - good luck finding an altruistic zillionaire like that.

Maybe it's different across the pond. 🤷

14 January at 19:31 | Open on climatejustice.social
Riley S. Faelan

@504DR The trick is convincing they're helping the poor out of pure, unfettered, egoism.

This has been done before, too. It was the basis of patron-client relations in the Roman Republic for several centuries, for example. And in the Ireland's era of many little kings, a king's essential duty, in return for being allowed to call themselves a king, was feeding and equipping his whole retinue, which, IIRC, was specified as at least fourteen people with nothing better to do than follow their would-be king around.

@rysiek

@504DR The trick is convincing they're helping the poor out of pure, unfettered, egoism.

This has been done before, too. It was the basis of patron-client relations in the Roman Republic for several centuries, for example. And in the Ireland's era of many little kings, a king's essential duty, in return for being allowed to call themselves a king, was feeding and equipping his whole retinue, which, IIRC, was specified as at least fourteen people with nothing better to do than follow their would-be king around.

15 January at 4:56 | Open on toot.cat
Riley S. Faelan

@504DR Specifically — it is not very widely known, but before Rome introduced public bread for the poor, as a part of the reforms geared towards recruiting people who couldn't buy their own weapons and armour into Rome's military, zillionaires handed out bread to the poor on a private basis.

Rome being Rome, and doing a lot of bad things that we later implemented safeguards for, it came with the string attached that the recipients of the bread were bound to vote for the zillionaire who had bought it.

@rysiek

@504DR Specifically — it is not very widely known, but before Rome introduced public bread for the poor, as a part of the reforms geared towards recruiting people who couldn't buy their own weapons and armour into Rome's military, zillionaires handed out bread to the poor on a private basis.

Rome being Rome, and doing a lot of bad things that we later implemented safeguards for, it came with the string attached that the recipients of the bread were bound to vote for the zillionaire who had bought it.

15 January at 13:36 | Open on toot.cat
504DR

@riley @rysiek

I can't put much stock as to what has happened in the past as a basis for dealing with what is happening now.

As a whole, our attitudes and behaviors have changed, to the point that past solitions are most often irrelevant in today's world.

We are in unprecedented times. Never before in human history have we faced our own extinction with the knowledge beforehand that we know we are facing extinction. (There may be a chance a past civilization knew what they were facing in the five great extinctions that has happened before, but it's a slim chance.)

The level of greediness and selfish self-promotion at the expense of all others now seeps into all levels of society, with the exception, ironically, of the poorest classes, who still exhibit an altruistic caring for others, maybe bc of their economic position they still understand we all do better when we work together to help each other.

Again, I'm looking at this from my lived experiences and education as an American, and it could be very different from another society's experiences and education.

I would rather see that society as a whole didn't require or rely on the wealthy to give charity to the lesser classes as a function of society.

I'd rather that governance be based on spreading wealth equally amongst all members.
Uber wealth is a poison. It creates, and maintains different classes of citizens.

Healthy societies don't need charity. Healthy societies take care of all citizens equally.

@riley @rysiek

I can't put much stock as to what has happened in the past as a basis for dealing with what is happening now.

As a whole, our attitudes and behaviors have changed, to the point that past solitions are most often irrelevant in today's world.

We are in unprecedented times. Never before in human history have we faced our own extinction with the knowledge beforehand that we know we are facing extinction. (There may be a chance a past civilization knew what they were facing in the five...

15 January at 15:42 | Open on climatejustice.social
Riley S. Faelan

@504DR If we're likely to see some form of "a zillionaire has to support a bunch of people" mechanism to return, I suspect a corporate-style empire-building would be the likeliest source of the culture. This practice is weaker in the present time than it used to be a couple of decades ago, but it still exists, and could probably be transferred to other fields of life.

The downside, of course, is that accepting such a development would put us on a pretty direct path towards introduction of other elements of neo-feudalism.

@rysiek

@504DR If we're likely to see some form of "a zillionaire has to support a bunch of people" mechanism to return, I suspect a corporate-style empire-building would be the likeliest source of the culture. This practice is weaker in the present time than it used to be a couple of decades ago, but it still exists, and could probably be transferred to other fields of life.

15 January at 15:46 | Open on toot.cat
504DR replied to Riley S. Faelan

@riley @rysiek

That's still building on old models.

For true and real change, the whole present system needs to be torn down and rebuilt.

One present proposal that addresses this is degrowth.
Revamping our monetary system to put ppl at the forefront vs corps.
Collective ownership or nationalized ownership of industry.
UBIs that allow ppl to live adequate lives without slaving at a job their whole lives.
A protection of the environment (the very life sustaining systems that allow us to exist in the first place) that supercedes ppl's desires for unnecessary comforts.

A system of governance that eliminates capitalism and authoritarianism, and goes beyond socialism, communism and all other previous forms of societal make up.

From historical data, the only successful societies (in terms of surviving and thriving without destroying our life sustaining planetary systems) were the small tribal communities.

With 8 billion ppl on the planet ( the core of every problem we now face, imo), that is not an option.

So something completely new must be tried if achieving a true and global egalitarian society is the goal.

@riley @rysiek

That's still building on old models.

For true and real change, the whole present system needs to be torn down and rebuilt.

One present proposal that addresses this is degrowth.
Revamping our monetary system to put ppl at the forefront vs corps.
Collective ownership or nationalized ownership of industry.
UBIs that allow ppl to live adequate lives without slaving at a job their whole lives.
A protection of the environment (the very life sustaining systems that allow us to exist in the...

15 January at 16:35 | Open on climatejustice.social
Riley S. Faelan replied to 504DR

@504DR Hey, I'm a software engineer. I know how much more enjoyable greenfield projects are than endless refactoring.

The problem is, there's very few situations in which you get a genuine greenfield chance at fixing a political problem. Because of politics' tight integration into modern governance & infrastructure, practical politics is necessarily almost entirely done by endless, mostly inadequate, refactors. It's unfortunate, but, at least for the immediately foreseeable future, there's no escape from it.

@rysiek

@504DR Hey, I'm a software engineer. I know how much more enjoyable greenfield projects are than endless refactoring.

The problem is, there's very few situations in which you get a genuine greenfield chance at fixing a political problem. Because of politics' tight integration into modern governance & infrastructure, practical politics is necessarily almost entirely done by endless, mostly inadequate, refactors. It's unfortunate, but, at least for the immediately foreseeable future, there's no escape from it.

15 January at 17:48 | Open on toot.cat
Riley S. Faelan replied to Riley S. Faelan

@504DR UBI itself is, arguably, one of these workarounds. It's, however, also one of the most elegant workarounds against a whole bunch of abusive features of modern capitalism, even despite all the messiness capitalist systems have.

Working towards UBI systems, popularising the general knowledge about how they work, and about how most of the arguments are just misunderstandings of how macroeconomy works, is probably one of the most useful medium-to-long-term social justice themed political efforts that one can do.

We also need short-term efforts, obviously. UBI will take time. But it's a worthy goal.

Preferential voting of some sort is another valuable goal. There's multiple distinct methods; all have significant benefits over FPV kind of systems.

In the specific contexts of electing multi-seat deliberative bodies through district-associated seat systems, such as UK and USA still use, replacing such systems with proportional voting systems would also be a beneficial change. (Preferential voting, such as IRV or ranked choice, and proportional voting are somewhat complementary; preferential voting fixes issues related to single-seat voting systems; proportional voting fixes issues related to dividing a multi-seat voting system badly into multiple single-seat voting systems.)

I don't know your ideas about revamping the monetary system, but I'd be happy to read about them.

@rysiek

@504DR UBI itself is, arguably, one of these workarounds. It's, however, also one of the most elegant workarounds against a whole bunch of abusive features of modern capitalism, even despite all the messiness capitalist systems have.

Working towards UBI systems, popularising the general knowledge about how they work, and about how most of the arguments are just misunderstandings of how macroeconomy works, is probably one of the most useful medium-to-long-term social justice themed political efforts that one can do.

15 January at 17:57 | Open on toot.cat
504DR replied to Riley S. Faelan

@riley @rysiek

For clarification, I write non of that with any expectation of it actually happening or being implemented.

Just drawing board suggestions and musings on possible solutions.

Whatever we do or don't do won't matter in a few decades.

3C will hit us before any changes are made, and then it's all moot.
(See my bio)

15 January at 18:12 | Open on climatejustice.social
DELETED

@rysiek There website has this question in the faq. :)

It depends per country, as an example they state:

"..In Belgium, for example, we propose that anyone with 1.25 million euros in assets in addition to their main home and business assets should qualify as "ultra-rich".

Sounds like a good starter.

tax-the-rich.eu/home#info

14 January at 18:11 | Open on mastodon.social
Alberto Cottica

@rysiek not true, the definition is quite clear. The example for Belgium: you would be taxable if you have, NOT counting your house and any assets committed to your business, over 1.25 million euro.

14 January at 18:32 | Open on mastodon.green
Alberto Cottica

@rysiek that said, your broader point obviously stands. 😊

14 January at 18:51 | Open on mastodon.green
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@alberto_cottica I cannot find this anywhere on the website. What am I missing?

Nevermind, found it, the FAQ.

14 January at 20:31 | Open on mstdn.social
Alberto Cottica

@rysiek yes, the website could be a little more intuitive.

15 January at 9:02 | Open on mastodon.green
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

Update — there *is* a relatively clear answer to this, in the FAQ:
tax-the-rich.eu/home#faq

> The criteria for defining an "ultra-rich" should vary from one EU country to another, due to the economic, fiscal and social differences between member states. In Belgium, for example, we propose that anyone with 1.25 million euros in assets in addition to their main home and business assets should qualify as "ultra-rich".

So there we are!

14 January at 20:36 | Open on mstdn.social
Andreas

@rysiek There's an answer on that website and it's very wish-y-wash-y unfortuantely.

The example is someone in Belgium owning 1.25M€ in addition to a house being considered "ultra-rich".

That's an interesting data point but I suspect that is *way* too low a barrier for many people.
Exceeding 1.25M€ is easily done by inheriting a house that was worth 50.000€ when it was built 60 years ago.

And people who are looking at potentially receiving at such an inheritance are going to go "hmmm, that might hit me too. Better not sign!". And I can totally understand that because in general everybody is always looking out for themselves first.

I do not understand why these initiatives are not putting out a statement such as "we consider people having liquidity of more than 5M€ to be ultra-rich and are interested in taxing these!".
That's a clear statement and the cut-off is far enough removed from the possibly-rich-enough-after-inheriting to not alienate that big part of the population.

Instead we get these non-answers covered in relative terms resulting in a lot of people going "yeah, thank. not signing...".

@rysiek There's an answer on that website and it's very wish-y-wash-y unfortuantely.

The example is someone in Belgium owning 1.25M€ in addition to a house being considered "ultra-rich".

That's an interesting data point but I suspect that is *way* too low a barrier for many people.
Exceeding 1.25M€ is easily done by inheriting a house that was worth 50.000€ when it was built 60 years ago.

16 January at 9:39 | Open on mastodon.bawue.social
viq

@ixs
So you're saying it's a pretty strong incentive to not keep the inherited house, but to somewhat quickly sell it, at not too inflated a price? 🤔
@rysiek

24 February at 13:08 | Open on social.hackerspace.pl
Andreas

@viq @rysiek Unclear. It really depends on the other laws on the books.

Some countries have laws that result in a house being inherited tax-free if one is living there or moving in within 6 months after the inheritance.
That would only incentivise you to move in there but keep it.
Does seems like a sensible rule to me.

Then there are countries where inheritance is expensive but gifting the house to a registered legal entity is free.
So you write the house over to the family trust and done. Taxfree inheritance.

What you are suggesting, being incentivised to sell the place in order to pay the inheritance taxes, that's what poor people do (or are forced to do).
Rich people do not pay inheritance tax. And the excess wealth tax is something along the same lines.

@viq @rysiek Unclear. It really depends on the other laws on the books.

Some countries have laws that result in a house being inherited tax-free if one is living there or moving in within 6 months after the inheritance.
That would only incentivise you to move in there but keep it.
Does seems like a sensible rule to me.

24 February at 13:18 | Open on mastodon.bawue.social
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