Super-rich people don't pay taxes. nytimes.com/2018/10/13/bus…
We don't need higher taxes on the super-rich. We need *taxes* on the super-rich. nytimes.com/2018/10/13/bus…
Senator James Couzens: "Give me control of the Internal Revenue Bureau and I will run the whole darned country... He can arrange things so that heavy campaign contributions will be paid out of the public treasury merely by returning it to contributors in the form of tax refunds."
"The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all." Gilbert K. Chesterton
The real taxes paid by the super-rich come in the form of payments to lawyers, bankers, nonprofits, universities and politicians. Basically they don't pay taxes to public institutions, they pay protection money to elite butlers with law degrees in return for market power.
Another problem with how the super-rich don't pay taxes is that it distorts the flow of capital into inefficient areas with tax advantages. We are destroying our markets and our commercial institutions with bad policy. It's exceptionally hard to start a business now for a reason.
If you are super-rich and can avoid taxes you'll put your capital into shell companies. If you have to pay taxes you might as well back new businesses or invest in real commercial activity. There's a reason productivity growth and startup formation has collapsed!
One of the reasons commercial rents are higher than it should be is because the money being pumped into tax shelters is driving up property prices. New York real estate is super expensive but there are really high vacancy rates. This doesn't make commercial sense!
In other words, the super-rich are rentiers who have taken the power to tax from the government. They drive out of business all competition and tax us with rents and monopoly power. It's a transfer of the sovereign power to tax from public institutions to an aristocracy.
