The main problem is it can’t be trivially based on income. You have to figure out how to tax things like stock and “I got a low interest loan from the bank”. Things that aren’t a check your employer sends you every two weeks.
Probably taxing unrealized gains would do it? If you own stock that’s worth a shit load of money, you pay something.
I think people also use stock as a collateral to get loans. That should probably not be a thing you can do to avoid taxes.
Also there probably shouldn’t be a marriage tax break. I’m pretty sure that came from some rich asshole who didn’t want to pay taxes, so he said half his income was his stay at home wife’s to lower his burden. There’s a book “the whiteness of wealth” that talks about this, and how it tends to help white people more than anyone else.
See I’ve got an idea for that too, tax loans collateralized on capital assets (save primary home mortgages, primary vehicle car loans, and other loans of that like) either as income always or if they’re given an interest rate below the federal interest rate.
As for marriage tax breaks, I actually disagree, with a caveat, I think what should be done there is to reform the legal concept of a marriage to become the formation of a legal household that provides the legal benefits of a marriage currently but that also fits family models that don’t work with traditional nuclear families. Of course laws banning discrimination should remain so that churches won’t try to use this as an excuse to say they get to decide who’s allowed to be married or not again, but a legal concept that can accommodate something like a three parental figure household would go a long way towards uncomplicating family rights, and also allow cases like cult survivors to band together as next of kin to prevent situations where the legal family tries to kidnap an escapee out of a hospital (saw it in a reddit story)
Marriage puts the issue front and center, she says. Most married Americans receive a tax cut, “but there is a significant minority of Americans, when they get married, they pay higher taxes,” she says. “Well, as it turns out, if you look at Census Bureau data, which actually does provide this information by race, you see white married couples are more likely to contribute income … that leads to them getting a tax cut.”
However, Black married couples are more likely to contribute income to the household in a way that leads to higher taxes, Brown says.
For example, “let’s say someone makes $50,000. As a single person, their taxes are going to be a certain rate,” she says. “But as a married person with a single wage earner, that $50,000 household is going to wind up paying less taxes than that single wage earner had they remained single.”
Census Bureau data shows single wage-earning families are more likely to be white than Black, she says. For example, many of these types of single wage-earning families consist of a working white man — a person who statistically holds a higher paying job than any other identity, she says — and a woman who stays home with the children.
“On the other hand, the couple where both spouses are working full time and contributing roughly equal amounts to household income, they don’t get a tax cut,” she says. “That couple is more likely to be Black than white.
The main problem is it can’t be trivially based on income. You have to figure out how to tax things like stock and “I got a low interest loan from the bank”. Things that aren’t a check your employer sends you every two weeks.
Probably taxing unrealized gains would do it? If you own stock that’s worth a shit load of money, you pay something.
I think people also use stock as a collateral to get loans. That should probably not be a thing you can do to avoid taxes.
Also there probably shouldn’t be a marriage tax break. I’m pretty sure that came from some rich asshole who didn’t want to pay taxes, so he said half his income was his stay at home wife’s to lower his burden. There’s a book “the whiteness of wealth” that talks about this, and how it tends to help white people more than anyone else.
See I’ve got an idea for that too, tax loans collateralized on capital assets (save primary home mortgages, primary vehicle car loans, and other loans of that like) either as income always or if they’re given an interest rate below the federal interest rate.
As for marriage tax breaks, I actually disagree, with a caveat, I think what should be done there is to reform the legal concept of a marriage to become the formation of a legal household that provides the legal benefits of a marriage currently but that also fits family models that don’t work with traditional nuclear families. Of course laws banning discrimination should remain so that churches won’t try to use this as an excuse to say they get to decide who’s allowed to be married or not again, but a legal concept that can accommodate something like a three parental figure household would go a long way towards uncomplicating family rights, and also allow cases like cult survivors to band together as next of kin to prevent situations where the legal family tries to kidnap an escapee out of a hospital (saw it in a reddit story)
I think you can change stuff around the legal definition of marriage and family separately from the tax break part. I’m not an expert, but if you’re interested in this sort of thing I recommend “The Whiteness of Wealth”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/591671/the-whiteness-of-wealth-by-dorothy-a-brown/
From another article about it: https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/05/17/us-taxes-dorothy-brown
So. When you running for president? you’ve got my vote lmao
Well I’m 27 and have never even held appointed office, so…know a campaign agent who’s willing to work on contingency for 8 years at a minimum?