Should US wealth be redistributed?

[VJW]

Originally Posted by Bruce Wayne

Plus of course Bill Gates has created thousands of jobs both in the US and around the world thus distributing wealth in a far more effective manner than any government program.

And just look at his property taxes, for instance. Gates pays less, as a percentage, than most other Americans.

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[jmjj215]

Originally Posted by VJW

And just look at his property taxes, for instance. Gates pays less, as a percentage, than most other Americans.

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I don't see the big deal with that. If you make more money, and choose to eat the same amount of food, you'll be paying less as a percentage than people that eat the same amount of food and make less. What's your point?

[VJW]

Jesse,

Quite simply, that his real estate is worth a lot more, as a percentage, than the overwhelming rest of America, yet his property taxes, as a percentage, are a lot less than the overwhelming rest of America.

What part of that basic unfairness do you not grasp ?

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[jmjj215]

How much is his real estate worth?
How much property tax does he pay?

[VJW]

You would have to Google for the news story, but if memory serves, he paid something less than or around $600,000 in property taxes on real estate worth $65 million, which is somewhat less than one percent.

How many Americans, other than with some regional exceptions or state taxation exceptions, pay less than one percent ?

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[jmjj215]

In contrast, an average-sized tract home in Seattle valued at $124,900 carries an annual tax of $1,663

http://www.bbzine.com/archeplus/Qstate13.html

EDIT: I can't find the story you mentioned. It's probably wise of him not to have settled in Texas.

[VJW]

My point exactly.

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[jmjj215]

So how does he manage to get somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 percent less than the "average"?

[VJW]

Good question.

Although your use of “1/4 to 1/2 percent” doesn’t quite capture the level of disproportion. The ‘average-sized’ tract that was mentioned is paying more than 33% MORE ($1.663) than the one percent equivalent ($1,249).

I’ll see if I can locate the story later.

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[jmjj215]

It seems to me the state tax commission's process for assessing property tax is pretty straight forward. I'm not aware of any ways of "gaming" the system to pay less. They assess a value, the % rate is assigned, and you pay it, or they put a lien on your property. I'd be very interested to know the details.

[Bruce Wayne]

VJW, you seem to have ignored my point about the jobs created by Microsoft. How much tax do you think Microsoft has created both in the tax on their profits plus the income tax on all their employees?

[PRICEPLUS]

Sweepsplayer,

My taxes over the years provide redistribution enough. The rent my parents paid was not subsidized very much. As I remember it was comparable to what people were paying in flats in the adjacent area.

I pay into Social Security and Medicare. Heaven knows I pay a lot of money in income tax. I also pay local school and property taxes. Then of course there is the sales tax. Then of course there are the fees, licenses, registrations, and insurances I am required by law to pay for. I work into the middle of June before I start working for myself. How much more redistribution of my money would be appropriate?

I took a job after school as did all nine of my brothers and sisters. My siblings and I went to a parochial school. All chipped in to help. We never took a handout and I remember being hungry at times. I wore hand me downs as a matter of course. When Ronald Reagan cut my college aid(loans) I did what was necessary. I went part time and finished two years later than originally planned. I did not complain or get angry. I just set my nose to the grindstone and worked like a dog.

I worked very hard for what little I have. I never took from others and I never asked others for help.

I do believe in helping others who cannot help themselves and I would give more of my money for that purpose. I vehemently oppose redistributing to others through confiscatory taxation though.

I suppose we all have different views on this issue. I don't wish to seem confrontational. I just want to keep as much of what "I" earned as possible.


VJW,

I never said anone in particular was advocating Socialsm. I was opining that it really is not the best economic engine for creating wealth and keeping it.

Just out of curiousity. Where was wealth redistributed in the early 90's?

[sweeps]

Fair enough. Just to clarify my position though... I'm not advocating more redistribution. I'm simply pointing out that wealth/income redistribution is always occurring, and that a certain amount of ongoing redistribution is a societal necessity.

I think some people envision wealth redistribution as meaning everyone puts all their money in a pot and it's divided evenly between everyone. Redistribution doesn't have to be that extreme.

[jmjj215]

I just set my nose to the grindstone and worked like a dog.

The dying American Way.

[VJW]

Jesse,

Well, according to King County public records, as of the 2005 tax assessment, the total assessed value of Bill Gates 5-acre spread in Medina is $125 million, and the annual property-tax bill was $989,726.

Unbelievably, he is now paying EVEN LESS, as a percentage, than he was in 1998. I wonder how many people in Washington state actually had their property taxes go DOWN over the last seven years ?

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[VJW]

Originally Posted by Bruce Wayne

VJW, you seem to have ignored my point about the jobs created by Microsoft. How much tax do you think Microsoft has created both in the tax on their profits plus the income tax on all their employees?

Haven’t the foggiest, but I imagine if I had over $100 billion in capital, it would be easy as pie to create far more jobs and resulting revenue.

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[VJW]

Originally Posted by PRICEPLUS

VJW,

I never said anone in particular was advocating Socialsm.

Hence my comment, as I had trouble with what the state ownership of industry and/or capital had to do with RE-redistribution of wealth in America.

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[Bruce Wayne]

Originally Posted by VJW

Haven’t the foggiest, but I imagine if I had over $100 billion in capital, it would be easy as pie to create far more jobs and resulting revenue.

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They're 30 years old this year, if you assume an average profit per year of a conservative $500m then they would have contributed many billions in taxes over their lifetime.

More importantly though they employ over 60,000 people throughout the world. If you assume each of these earns $40,000 then they'd pay around $500m in taxes per year as well, not to mention the welfare saved by employing these people and the value they add to society.

Add in all the other companies that rely on Microsoft, servicing their software, selling complimentory products etc. you can probably add several billion extra to that per year.

All of this was created from scratch. I'm no fan of Microsoft but you can't but admire the benfit they have given to society around the world. To suggest that any government could create such value is laughable

[Bruce Wayne]

Getting back on topic a bit. It was reported today that public sector pay in Britain is growing at twice the rate of private sector pay. Public sector workers also receive luxurious pensions based on their final salary and this alone is set to cost the taxpayer £700 billion over the next 10 years. That's 1/10 of the total government expenditure for any for that period, just on pensions!

The British government are trying hard to redistribute wealth by a) taxing people more than double the tax bill from six years ago, and b) employing more and more people in state sector jobs that have the benefit of manipulating un-employment figures and allows them to pay an awful lot of people a lot more than they would be valued at in the private sector.

It seems inevitable that this largesh by the British government will result in the economy here collapsing soon as the wealth creating sector cannot continue funding this indefinately as the high taxes are strangling the life out of our economy.

Let us be a warning to any Americans wishing to follow us down this route of taxing more and more for less and less services.

[VJW]

Hell, I could do it easy.

Just do the math. Less than 40,000 employees in America. One hundred billion dollars, to be conservative. That’s about $2.5 million per employee.

No sweat. I could hand out $100,000 to random people across the country, with the provision that they start a small business, and even if lots of them failed, it would still create FAR MORE jobs and tax revenue than Microsoft.

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