I completely disagree (many rich people think the same way you do, this is not a novel argument, it is as old as taxes themselves), but the point was not on taxes, but on justice.
Meaning that if you pay a tax because - like it or not - you have to pay for it, I should pay it too, if we are in the same situation.
That's what I meant for "social justice", the obligation towards the community to fulfill your duties the same way other members of the community do.
The “community” has very little say in what happens with this money and even if they do, I don’t think it’s always justified because a large group thinks it is.
And finally I think that taxes mostly limit social mobility by putting a cap on what you can do with the money you’ve earned (yourself). I don’t think other people are entitled to such a proportion of my income.
I moved from Europe to a place with significantly lower taxes, I have a lot more to put on the side every month and can take part of it for retiring and part of it to invest in new ideas. Back home I was covering costs + a little consumption and the rest went to the state which realistically didn’t provide for much (social security only helps once you’ve fully landed on the street, universities were pretty mediocre so I studied in the US partially funded by parents and partially through teaching, need private insurance for health care unless you want to wait for ages to get treatment, etc. - so I paid for a lot of things that I couldn’t benefit from). Government functions much better too and filing my taxes took minutes without any external help, so I’m less distracted. And overall I have a way better quality of life and I’m much happier.
The more those who are good at evading taxes get away with it, the more burden the poor and middle class must shoulder.
Also without an army of tax consultants and lawyers it’s easy to not be aware of everything you need or don’t need to pay, and most likely you’ll end up overpaying. At the same time richer people will have opportunities to legally reduce their tax bill that ordinary people don’t have.
Unlike for instance in Germany, I’m not paying for my boss to have a lower tax rate than I do.
Now imagine you don't pay taxes and want to move from New York to San Francisco.
Well man, you know what? You did not pay for this road, so for you it's... let's see... 17,433.25 dollars. Paid in advance, thanks.
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You're from a lower social class, you go to work using public, ehm, sorry, collective transport (it is a private service), because you can't afford to own a car and the gas is so expensive!
And those roads tariffs! they don't care how much you earn, they are the same to everyone, for you as for the richest man in the Country.
Every month you have to pay 400 dollars to the collective transport company, they need to raise the money for building and maintaining the infrastructure and to pay their employees.
You have been thinking about asking for a salary raise, but you've overheard management say "people coming to work with collective transport are often late, thank god there are good workers using cars, those are the ones we should promote"
So you're now thinking about getting into debts to buy a car and gamble or play it safe and accept your salary.
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Would you prefer it?
Would it favour social mobility?
> I moved from Europe to a place with significantly lower taxes, I have a lot more to put on the side every month
No shit Sherlock!!!
You know what else helped me to put a lot more on the side every month?
Accepting job offers that paid more than the one I had!
Incredible, isn't it?
Try being born there in the same conditions your family was when you were born and then you can compare the two situations.
Anyway what was your Country in Europe?
Because if your family could afford to pay your studies in USA, in Europe you could have lived as a king with that kind of money.
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OF COURSE if you only think about yourself, being surrounded by people that pay for you while you enjoy the money you earn it's wunderbar!
Not caring about other people's well being, that also is a big relief.
But it has nothing to do with justice, let alone being part of a larger community, called society, that's simply "Homo homini lupus"
Needless to say, the government never paid either of those things. The days in a year were taken away. Not with a new contract. Not with new negotiations. It was just a new law (not even a voted-on law, just a ministerial note).
He lost about 2 years of pension outright this way, and his pension was never inflation-adjusted (first they delayed the adjustments, then they "skipped some", then they canceled it). That means that after this year, 6 years into his pension, he is now on the minimum possible pension. This is explicitly what the government promised would never happen.
Of course, he never gets to take back the decades of work he put in to not get in this situation. Worse than that, the government has actually invited him to come back because there's a teacher shortage ...
So now he gets exactly the same pension as someone who never worked a day in their life. Which the government is currently promising will never happen.
Please explain to me why I would pay taxes to a state that has even less intention to abide by the deal they're presenting than it did when my dad signed those contracts and worked 40+ years as a teacher? And if I go somewhere else and pay NO taxes at all, ever, to the state, I can come back when I'm 65 and get exactly the same pension.
Social justice, REALITY:
1) we'll lie to you so you work for us
2) we are the government, so we use the law to change the meaning of your contract AFTER you put in the work
3) we'll lie about what we're doing every step of the way
4) and after that ... and people refuse to work for us, they'll "invite" you back to DO MORE WORK ...
5) IF he still had more than the minimum pension, doing this "voluntary" extra work would be the only way he could maintain an above-minimum pension. This is still not fixing the situation.
6) I'm willing to bet step 6 is making the pension drop below the minimum unless he goes back to work. If you calculate what it would take to get enough teachers, it's roughly double what they're paying now. There is no chance in hell the government will do that, so they'll lie and cheat somewhere else, and this seems to me an obvious thing to do (and is "being talked about")
You can keep your social justice, thanks. I'll be somewhere else. Clearly following the rules of social justice pays EXACTLY the same as ... not doing anything at all (plus they don't "invite" you back after 65 to do more work, nor do they cut your pension below minimum ...)
