Capitalism vs Socialism - Your View?

[King Pitcos]

That depends. Extremely rich people tend to pay a lower rate of tax than you or I because they have accountants to move the money around for a more "tax efficient" result.

Surely all the shady accounting could get around inheritance tax as well, then, and it'd be the honest ones that suffer from inheritance-raping. It's just an attempt at punishing people because their parents had better jobs than ours.

[David]

And that's assuming that the government in power at the time even wants to close tax loopholes. The last Labour government clearly had little interest in closing the non-dom loophole.

I'm guessing that the current ConDem Government will have absolutely no interest in closing any loopholes that may affect their friends.

 

Generally speaking though we're talking about a tiny elite of multimillionaires; the vast majority of "the rich" pay absolutely shedloads of tax.

We may be talking about a tiny elite of multimillionaires, but the amount runs into the billions, which certainly can't be considered tiny.

[Loki]

Fine. Go after them, just don't dress it up as some class struggle between "the rich" and "the poor" as if being poor gives you some divine moral superiority.

[Full Moon]

EDIT. Best not, may upset some darlings.

[jimufctna24]

Whilst I think David is right in most of what he says Loki made a very good point there, the poor are made out to be morally supirior to the rich sometimes just because they have less wealth, the poor/working class do get a very bad deal in this country and others and it does unfairly benefit the rich and its a problem that effects a lot of other countrys as well

 

Ignorance affects both the rich and poor equally in my opinion, and some people who are not wealthy are that for a damm good reason

[Wendell Cooley]

Capitalism all the way. Everything that makes our pointless existence fun is a product of capitalism, from smack to nudey young boys. Try redistributing the wealth of people who offer a product people want and see that product disappear and frowny faces all round. Yeah, people are more equal under socialist regimes: equally miserable.

[JNLister]

Inheritance tax isn't designed to "punish the rich". It's simply one of the fairest ways to raise taxes to fund public services. Money you get through an inheritance isn't money you've worked for or earned through "making great decisions" and once you pay it you still wind up with

[King Pitcos]

Money you get through an inheritance isn't money you've worked for

But it's money that the person that someone has worked for. And been taxed on.

[JNLister]

Yeah, but that's also the case if the parent had spent, saved or invested the money.

 

Point is, somebody who gets taxed on money they've literally done nothing to earn should be considered far less hard done by than someone paying any other form of tax.

[Steveo2007]

Money you get through an inheritance isn't money you've worked for

But it's money that the person that someone has worked for. And been taxed on.

Hate to say it, but I agree with this guy. There's no doubt that a more efficient tax system needs to be created, preventing people from cheating it and finding loop holes, ultimately though these loop holes are legal loop holes and people using them to avoid taxes is just someone taking advantaged of a flawed tax system. Let's face it, if we all had the resources and know how, we'd all do the same thing.

 

Lister is right when he says that money earned through inheritance isn't money that has been worked for. But it's money that has been worked for by somebody and they have every right to say where that money goes when they die.

 

Also, I disagree with the idea of the poor somehow getting a bad deal as, there's more opportunity to be successful today than there's ever been, plenty of very successful businessmen and women have pulled themselves out of poverty to become some of the richest members of society, maybe some people (not all, let me be clear on that) enjoy finding making excuses to try and explain their lack of career or financial success.

[Kenny McBride]

Money you get through an inheritance isn't money you've worked for

But it's money that the person that someone has worked for. And been taxed on.

Hate to say it, but I agree with this guy. There's no doubt that a more efficient tax system needs to be created, preventing people from cheating it and finding loop holes, ultimately though these loop holes are legal loop holes and people using them to avoid taxes is just someone taking advantaged of a flawed tax system. Let's face it, if we all had the resources and know how, we'd all do the same thing.

 

But why should we be able to? If the best and brightest minds are earning a fortune at PWC, why can't the government pay them more to chase down the tax abusers and make them pay? In the long run, it would be more efficient for the government.

 

Lister is right when he says that money earned through inheritance isn't money that has been worked for. But it's money that has been worked for by somebody and they have every right to say where that money goes when they die.

 

Why? They've screwed the country once by taking that money out of circulation while they were alive. What use is it to them now they're dead?

 

Also, on the notion of "double taxation" and other such bollocks - fuck the fuck off. VAT is double taxation. Get over it. The idea that you only pay tax once on any money that's ever earned is absolute bullshit. You pay tax on money that's taxable. There's nothing innately unjust about inheritance tax. You can argue about the margins if you want, but the "double taxation" argument is utter bullshit. Besides, saying "he paid tax when he earned. Why should he pay tax on it now he's dead?" is nonsense anyway. It's not the dead person paying the tax. It's the person who's just been given a big fucking pile of money out of nowhere.

[Steveo2007]

But why should we be able to? If the best and brightest minds are earning a fortune at PWC, why can't the government pay them more to chase down the tax abusers and make them pay? In the long run, it would be more efficient for the government.

 

I'm not saying that we should be able to, in fact I'm totally in favour of sorting out the system so those loop holes don't exist.

 

Why? They've screwed the country once by taking that money out of circulation while they were alive. What use is it to them now they're dead?

It's not about whether it's a use to them or not, and I'm not saying that Inheritance tax should be abolished entirely, it's about the fact that a person should have the choice of who to give their money to and not know that when they die their estate will go to the tax man. When you're talking about Inheritance tax in the high percentages of 50% or more I think this is just insane. Sure, some people do cheat the system, but that doesn't mean all good wealthy families should be penalised for the behaviour of the few.

[Kenny McBride]

With inheritance tax I'm not talking about the people who cheat the system. I'm talking about people being given a grossly unfair head-start in life purely because of who their parents happen to be. If parents want to lavish money on their kids while they're alive then that's their choice. Leaving them vast quantities of unearned cash and/or property is absolutely contrary to the idea that we're a nation that promotes opportunity and self-improvement and all that jazz. It's promoting an aristocracy by another name.

[Steveo2007]

With inheritance tax I'm not talking about the people who cheat the system. I'm talking about people being given a grossly unfair head-start in life purely because of who their parents happen to be. If parents want to lavish money on their kids while they're alive then that's their choice. Leaving them vast quantities of unearned cash and/or property is absolutely contrary to the idea that we're a nation that promotes opportunity and self-improvement and all that jazz. It's promoting an aristocracy by another name.

Well I disagree, I think it's a totally obscene thing to say that a person can't leave their wealth to their children if they want to. Again, that's their choice to make. Why should a person work hard all their lives only to know that the minute they pop their cloggs, their wealth goes to the tax man? I'm not totally against an inheritance tax, but when you move into the debate of saying 50% or even the more ridiculous 100%, that is a totally unjustifiable tax.

 

Even if the estate of a wealthy person is left to their children, these children still have to retain that wealth as it won't simply last forever and you won't find slobby kids sitting on couches all day being fed by servants. Talking about the incentive of rich children earning their own money, let's look at it this way. The children of the rich won't spend their lives living off the state. Rather than thinking of more and more ways to tax the rich so we can expand welfare, why not think of creating incentives to push the third generation family members who have never worked a day in their lives and are being fed by the state into work?

 

It's an easier debate when you're trying to justify taxing the rich or those who have earned their wealth or maintained the wealth of previous generations, it's much more difficult explaining how we're going to stop people leeching off the state.

[JNLister]

The tax isn't on the person dying, it's on the person getting the money.

 

How can you seriously argue that income tax on earnings from work is fair, but a tax on an income from inheritance is "obscene".

 

You can get