How much taxation is enough to be fair and equitable?
This question is very much on the minds of a good number of economists, who have seen that today's distribution in the US is wholly unfair. With many commenting upon
the impact of such unfairness in promoting the nation's bent for gun-related violence.
It is not the
purpose of any National Market-economy to make rich-people. If it were, we'd read it in our Constitution. We have seen the idiocy of Communism that imposed a common hourly rate amongst groups of workers, but mostly all in the same gamut of incomes. It doesn't work because of two essential elements of a market-economy.
The first is
human intelligence for which people more adept than others should have remunerations of a higher order than others. The only question is "how much higher". And before anyone responds "Let the market decide!", let's first realize that when the market decides without proper guidelines, then the distribution becomes highly unfair all by itself.
And there is no better example of that societal defect than the USofA!
It is far, far better that we adopt a nominal system of taxation throughout the range but up to a limit beyond which the taxable amount becomes wholly confiscatory. Let's say the maximum should be 10 megabucks a year. Which is more than enough for anyone to live comfortably.
It also means that financial transactions that are made at sums in the hundreds of millions of dollars are dead-in-the-water if they generate incomes above the fixed-line amount. And, my reasoning is! "That's just too bad. But
there is no good reason either that any individual should earn tremendous amounts of money just because of financial manipulations.
And let's top-it-off with a close to 100% Inheritance Tax, above 1 megabuck. Whyzzat?
Because it should not be the sole-purpose in life that anyone should accumulate such sums of money, which are totally unnecessary to live very well.
I suggest therefore that :
*We get this country back to where it was before JFK foolishly brought down upper-income taxation rates from 90 to 70%. See the history of US tax-rates
here. Reckless Ronnie took the rates down to below 30% during his tenure.
*And, we institute a much higher level of taxation as well as a confiscatory Inheritance Tax that will reduce the amounts left for no-good-reason to kin.
Thus forcing Wealth to be given away to whatever purpose/religion that is a benefactor's desire. Either that or be forcibly taken away by the IRS according to new taxation laws.
*
Can't be done in a market-economy as ruthlessly orientated to max-out on Income? Well, one will never know if we don't try ...
I suggest we do the above to obtain a more sociable market-economy that allows
economic-justice for all of its members and not just a horribly lucky few.
And along the way, we'll banish poverty with a Minimum Wage irrespective of whether one works or not ...
Doing away with ridiculously high-incomes and large-scale poverty will do wonders to improve the American way-of-life by
avoiding the causes of gun-related deaths ...
